2 Samuel 23

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Okay, okay, I have pressed the red button, so I guess that's a good thing. Good morning.

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All right, so we're in 2 Samuel chapter 23 today, and, you know,

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Mike's out in the water somewhere, I think, if I'm not mistaken. Is that where he went? Do you know for sure,

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Mike? I think, but anyway, we're glad you're here. Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer.

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Jack, would you lead us in a prayer this morning? Father God, we come to you in the name of Jesus to give you praise for our

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Savior who comes to take our sins. We thank you, Father, that we are free to come into your house and study your word and worship you.

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We ask you to watch over our future, ask you to watch over us and bless us and open our hearts and open our minds.

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We pray in the name of Jesus, amen. All right, well, Mike and I decided he asked if I would just go on and continue where he was at, so I am gonna continue, and we're in chapter 23 today.

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I kinda got it, hopefully you can read that. Most of my kids sometimes said, you just need to quit writing up there, Mr. Jordan, because, you know, you don't know what you're doing.

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So anyway, but we see David the inspired singer in verses one through seven. We see he has privileges of leadership.

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We see he has responsibilities of leadership. And then we see David the gifted leader in verses eight through 38.

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Now, I have done Mike a good favor in the sense that I have left all

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David's mighty men, all those names, I'll let him pronounce them next week for you, okay?

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So anyway, just thought I'd let you know that, Mike, but anyway, all right. So let's look at chapter 23, verses one through seven to start with, and if we get further than that, we will.

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He asked, he hoped that I would get through at least verse seven. He doesn't know me very well, but anyway.

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All right, so now these are the words of David. Thus says David, the son of Jesse. Thus says the man raised up on high, the anointed of the

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God of Jacob and the sweet psalmist of Israel. The spirit of the Lord spoke by me and his word was on my tongue.

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The God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spoke to me. He who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God, and he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds like the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining rain.

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Although my house is not so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.

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For this is all my salvation and all my desire. Will he not make it increase?

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But the sons of rebellion shall all be as thorns thrust away because they cannot be taken with hands.

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But the man who touches them must be armed with iron and the shaft of a spear and they shall be utterly burned with fire in their place.

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Actually, we see three different portraits. Yes, I think everything's on the go. I pressed the red button.

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Any requests? All right. I'm sorry, Mike just wants to make sure he's recording. Oh, already I've done something right today.

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My wife's gonna be proud. All right, so anyway. Let's look first of all at this portrait of David as David as the inspired singer.

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And notice we see that in verses one through seven. We see it's the last words of David.

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Now, if we go over to 1 Kings chapter one, which is just a couple of pages over, we're not going there, but we do know he discusses something with Bathsheba and Nathan, right?

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The kingdom's getting ready. Adonijah has overthrown the kingdom. And Nathan and Bathsheba both know

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David is very ill. In fact, he even has someone that's keeping him warm. He has someone tending to his every need.

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Yes, he is on his dying bed, so to speak. But yet he has enough strength he can muster up to speak to Nathan and speak to Bathsheba and say this is how history must run out for Israel.

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Solomon is the king, make sure that takes place. And of course they do make sure that takes place.

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So what are these last words of David? Well, pretty well the last words of any spiritual advisement or anything spiritually that he has to say.

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One thing I have noticed, and this is just me over my years, I have really taken notice of people and what they say as they're dying in their last days.

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And many of the things they said. And I wrote down a few of those, and one of them was

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C .H. Spurgeon, who happens to be, my wife told me we're not supposed to worship idols, so I took his portrait down out of my study.

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So anyway, but I've always had respect for him. Somebody handed me one of his sermons one day, and I said, if I could preach like that, boy, that'd be great.

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And so I'm still working on it after 52 years of ministry, so I'm still not that great. But anyway, here's what he said.

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After 40 years of unexampled ministry, he entered into rest. Two of the three days before the end, he said to his secretary, my work is done.

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Man, I just stopped right there. My work is done. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

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Is that not what Jesus said? Well done. And then it was the last words that really caught me.

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He says, now I just wait for him to come. That's a moving, you know, kind of moving to me.

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Matthew Henry, who by the way was the first commentaries I was ever given, didn't understand any of it, but I read it anyway, still didn't understand any of it after reading it.

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And he said this, you have been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men. Well, here is mine.

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That a life spent in the service of God and communion with him is the most comfortable.

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It's the most pleasant life that anyone can live in this world. I have found that true.

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I've been blessed to find that true. I can remember when

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I graduated from college and I was getting ready to go and I'd actually already had a church and now the church wanted to call me because I guess they thought

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I was smarter. And so anyway, so they called me and I can remember as we graduated and everybody's asking what you're gonna do and I said, well,

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I'm gonna go take my church full time. And they said, why? I said, because that's what

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I'm supposed to do. They said, how do you know that? I said, well, God told me so.

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Oh, so you speak to God? No, he speaks to me. That's all

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I need. Does God hear me? No, certainly hears me.

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You know, thank goodness he does. Especially those times I just, I don't have one of them real long, laid out prayers.

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God's the only prayer of God. And then he seems to come along and go through that. Now let's look at this last words of David.

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Notice he says that he uttered this or that he made this statement.

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Thus says David, thus says the man of Israel, the sweet son, the spirit, notice in verse two, the spirit of the

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Lord spoke by me. Now someone asked, is the

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Bible inspired? Well, it must have been to David because he said the Lord spoke to me to write these words. And what is inspiration?

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Let's go over to second Peter a minute. You probably, I am sure most of y 'all sitting in here today are well aware of this passage.

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I believe it's second Peter. Mike, I may have messed up here. I might've mowed down first Peter where it talks about the

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Holy Spirit moved men as they were. It is second

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Peter, okay, 121. Thank you, I thought it was. I'm glad I wrote down the second one.

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That's Roman numerals for you. Let me get over there.

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For prophecy never came by the will of man. Thank goodness. But holy men of God spoke as what?

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They were moved by the Holy Spirit. David said, the Spirit of the

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Lord spoke by me. So David's last words have a lot of meaning.

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They're inspired, not that his psalms aren't. Guess what he left? He left 150 psalms. Now were every one of them by David?

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No, but at least 80 something of them were, give or take, everybody argues over that.

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He wrote a lot of them. Let's put it that way. It was 150, so he wrote at least half of them. And he was called also the sweet psalmist of Israel anyway.

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So we see them. Now, you hear a lot. You hear a lot about, and this is something, now this is maybe a pet peeve with me, maybe it's not with you, but there are people today, somebody talks about this new translation that's out now.

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It's totally, it's very popular right now. Everybody likes it. In fact, a couple of teachers at the school, we get in arguments over it all the time.

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We don't get in arguments, they're just wrong. And so, but anyway, he said that he was inspired by God to rearrange and make people understand the

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Scriptures well. Well, let's see. Mike, you're sitting there with the King James. I was teed on that, raised on that.

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I have a new King James now, which it took me a little while to get away from, the old

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King James, but I still read it quite a bit. But I tell you, I didn't have any problem understanding.

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Yeah, I had a little bit of, as far as reading, I had a little bit of problem comprehending.

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This is the Word of God. He just don't throw things in your mind, in a natural mind.

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You've got to be in a spiritual state to understand a spiritual book. Okay, oh,

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I'm starting to preach, ain't I? Okay, all right, so it's a, and so anyway, forgive me if I do, everybody.

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But anyhow, what we see is, notice men may be moved with passion. And oh, it's a passion translation.

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That's what it's called, thanks. All right, it's a passion translation. God moves through inspiration through his spirit.

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Now, some people say, well, Shakespeare was inspired. That's some pretty bad inspirings.

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He's got a lot of heartbreak. He's got a lot of inaccuracies. Not this book, not this book.

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So notice also, when David said, I spoke, when David said, this was my word in his tongue, this word said is used elsewhere all throughout the prophets for one phrase.

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One word, one phrase. Thus saith the Lord. Now, you may ask, well, what do we need today?

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When I do my, when I try to do my chapels, I try to do something beneficial to them.

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And of course, most of the time, we end up in a couple of classes discussing what

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I stirred up. I like to do that, you know, it's just, you know. But they get to talking, they get to thinking about things.

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Let me tell you, they bring up things about inspiration. Well, what, you know, anybody, what about an inspired artist?

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Well, he may be inspired from the human sense of the word, but I can assure you, most likely, that the

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Holy Spirit of God is not moving him to do that. There may be a natural ability.

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That's already there, and what have you. So we see in the last hour, but I'll tell you one person's dying words, or last words, that really impressed me greatly.

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And, you know, this was a passage that was always, you know, a hospital bed does strange things to you.

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Like, you're looking up. Like, you're realizing, hey, you know,

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I'm really fortunate to get through this thing. God has greatly blessed me. And sometimes these words come to my mind as they did

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Apostle Paul. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.

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Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. You know, you rest better.

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You rest better in that. You rest knowing that God, that you've kept the course, and now there's laid up for you a crown of righteousness.

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Now, the privileges of leadership are also mentioned in verses one through two. And we see the spirit of the

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Lord, of course. Notice it says that, thus says David in verse one, the son of Jesse, thus says the man raised up on high.

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Now, what happens when we raise someone? We're developing them, aren't we? We raise our kids, we're developing, we're bringing them along.

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As their age matures, we develop them, into that maturity, right? Or the maturity where they're supposed to be.

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Well, this was the same thing that happened in David. Now, would you not think

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David was a very unlikely candidate to become a king? He was a shepherd. Hey, he was a good shepherd,

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I can tell you that. Anybody that would take on a bear and a lion by himself, I got a high respect for that type of individual.

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And I can remember, speaking about respect, I've always liked baseball, and I'm going a long way back,

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Steven. But Mickey Mantle, I liked Mickey Mantle. Every kid on the block wanted to be

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Mickey Mantle. Nobody wanted to be anybody else. They wanted to be Mickey Mantle. And I can remember there was a

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Chicago pitcher named Early Wynn. I don't know, I tell you, when I got ready to name my kids,

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Early was not one of them in the list. But Early, and he was a good pitcher.

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And he says, you know, I don't know why you people give so much respect to Mickey Mantle.

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And they were coming into Chicago to play. Mickey Mantle had just previously hit a 536 -foot home run that went into Queens, left

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Yankee Stadium and went into the area of Queens and there. And so he come in Chicago, and it was in the paper.

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Wynn says, no respect for Mickey Mantle. First pitch that Wynn throws to him, he knocks it 482 feet.

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And the only thing Mantle does is before he starts running the bases, he looks at Early Wynn and he says this.

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You got respect now? Respect is earned, isn't it?

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It just isn't dumped out. And so we see then that David spends, he may not have had the respect.

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In fact, remember, they had to go get him. Well, Jesse, do you have anybody else?

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Yeah. And here was Jesse's remark. And you can read it in the Hebrew.

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It's just as crude. He says, but he keeps sheep. He keeps sheep.

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You can't be interested in him. And Samuel said, I like the way Samuel did this.

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He said, look, go get him because nobody's eating until he comes. And David came and of course he was in the way.

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And then what else happened to him? Of course, he had to work under Saul, right? He had to flee from Saul.

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Here's a guy who's called to be king. And yet he's fleeing another king and not sure if he's ever gonna be crowned king.

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But he held the course, didn't he? He held the course. Okay, so he says that he spent 30 years training

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David. First, sheep in the pastures with Saul in the army camp. And finally, his own fighting men in the

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Judea wilderness. Now, it is absolutely a biblical fact.

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Great leaders are trained in solitude many times. Moses was on the backside of the desert, was he not?

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Samuel was raised in the temple. All the great leaders of Israel, there was a quiet time.

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There was a solitude time. There was a time God was developing them, was maturing them, was making them into the individuals that they were supposed to be.

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Any great leader's been trained in private before they go to work in public. Talents are best nurtured in solitude.

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Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world. David had both of them. Solitude and deflection.

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Someone who cannot feel your pain and cannot understand what it's like to live the way you have to live is probably gonna be a poor leader.

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So we see then that David begins developing. Now, a couple of things

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I wanna bring out in the practical terms here, and that's what we're gonna try to do all morning is just do the practicality of things.

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In God's work, first of all, you do not step up. Now, in some employments and some jobs, there's a certain step you take and then you step up to the next step.

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Now, it may be that you take a test or something like that. I've got a very good friend of mine in the police department.

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He just passed the sergeant's test and he's just running around like crazy and everything else.

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And then he finally understood that, oh my gosh, I got more responsibility. I gotta really work for my money now.

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I said, aw. But anyway, but he developed himself. He had to work the beat, right?

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He had to work the lower levels to get to the higher levels. And so we see that in God's work, you do not step up.

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Notice what David says, you're raised up. You don't step up, you raise up.

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Do you deserve it? You know, a lot of people step up and don't deserve it. A lot of people step up and they don't deserve it.

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They're not ready for it. They're not prepared for it. And so we see, notice you're raised up.

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And I can tell you another thing. Notice he says that the Lord spoke to him and he talked also about the anointed

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God of Jacob. And I can tell you another thing. You won't be raised up unless you're anointed.

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God raised up the anointed. He anointed David with the oil, remember? And he gave

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David the oil. God's men are not made, they're raised.

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Now that don't mean they can't better their gifts, right? That don't mean they can't better themselves.

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But basically what it is, it boils down to this. God's men are not made, they're raised and they are developed.

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Dr. D. Martin Lloyd -Jones had the blessing and privilege and he was in his last days of ministry and already another minute,

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James of Grumrey Voice had been thinking about taking over. But I remember he said this, it's a tragic thing when a young man succeeds before he's ready for it.

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I can remember my first church. They were all blessed, those people. Most of them have passed now.

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I did a few of their funerals, but most of them have passed. But I am a young kid.

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I am so, now I have no earthly idea about really pastoring people.

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I was learning the Bible, I was developing in the Bible, but I was still what you might call a long stone throws away from where I should be in it.

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By the way, I still am. So anyway, but they would put up with some of my crazy stuff and sometimes

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I'd say, well, why don't we, yeah, okay, we'll try that. And I remember one deacon one time told me this,

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Mike. He says, well, let him go ahead and do it. He's gonna find out that ain't gonna work either. But I developed,

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I developed. And that was my first church.

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And by the way, your first church is always the hardest to leave if you have to leave. If you feel moving on somewhere else or you just think it's time or whatever.

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And I can remember just how they put up with me and helped me mature in the ministry.

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This is what a good leader does. This is what a inspired leader does.

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This is a privilege of leadership in developing other people in the Lord. It's a privilege to be able to do that.

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And also it's good to be educated by men, but it's even more important to be trained by the

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Lord. And there's a difference in education and training sometimes. Now, some of y 'all are probably going to love this to have the mechanical abilities and stuff like that.

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But I can remember when I was going to college for some reason or another, I had to make some money or I wasn't gonna eat.

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And so this guy that had an electrical company says, well, come on and work with me.

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I'll teach you this and I'll teach you that. I said, oh, okay, that sounds pretty good. And I'll give you this much an hour.

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That sounds even better. Who cares if I learn anything as long as he pays me. So I went and we got went to the first job.

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It was house. And he says, he handed me this and he handed me this wire.

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I thought it was rope, but he handed me this wire. And he says, I want you to run that wire to that box there for the light switch.

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I go, okay, run to the light switch wire.

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Okay, one, where do I start with the wire? How do

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I get it to the light switch? He didn't tell me that. He didn't say, you need to start over here. You need to do this.

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Now, many times we don't train people and it's no mistake of his, he had a job to do.

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I understand that. He wanted somebody to help, but he didn't necessarily have the time to share.

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I understand that now. I'm not, I was never bitter or anything like that toward him. And then, but after a while,

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I was still holding the rope and looking around, he comes up to me. He says, you got to get that thing ran. I go, sure.

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Then he comes back about two minutes later. Bless his heart. He looks at me and he says, this really lifted me up.

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He says, you don't have any idea what you're doing, do you? I go, mm -mm. I said, I sure don't.

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He said, okay, run it. Then he starts, okay, what you need to do, you're running from one space to another space to the main thing.

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I said, oh, I can do that here, here, and here. I got it, man. You know, now it was one wrinkled mess on the way there, okay, but it was there.

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So we must be trained by the Lord. Our Lord was 30, think about our Lord. He was 30 years in preparing for three years service.

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30 years for three years service. Oswald Chambers said the modern stamp today is three hours of preparation for 30 years of service.

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Now, we hear a lot about weakness in churches, pastors. One of the things is we think a couple years in seminary, a couple years with this, a couple years with that.

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This person's ready, put them in, and off we go. It doesn't really work that way, does it?

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Okay, now think of also the trials that David had to endure in order to give us the

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Psalms that he wrote. Now, David made it clear that he was writing the word of God, not just religious poetry.

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Now, this is where we get into a day in an Old Testament survey. We're gonna touch on this a little bit,

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Mike will, and I will too. We're gonna touch on this a little bit in the sense that we like to break down the

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Bible and the Old Testament and stuff into historical, poetical, prophetical, all this other stuff.

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Well, let me tell you, it's the word of God. Forget it, okay? Well, it's in poetic form.

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Okay, I can live with that. I mean, I read Longworth and I read others, and I read

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John Doane poems and stuff. I can live with that, but I'll tell you, what they're saying and what

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God is saying is different, so to me, it's inspired words, it's not poetry. Now, it may be in the form of that, but so much to speak for that.

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There is modernism and liberalism that mocks the scriptures today. Now, notice a couple of other things we see here.

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Notice in verse three, his word was on my tongue in the end of verse two, but the

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God of Israel said, "'The rock of Israel spoke to me, "'he who rules over men must be just.

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"'The spirit of the Lord also spoke to me, "'and also, he who rules over men must be just.'"

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I want us to look. Here, first of all, notice the Trinitarian concept that's already in the Old Testament.

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David says the Father, that's the God of Israel. Then he says the Son, that's the rock of Israel.

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And then he says the Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit, which is all co -equal with God.

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One God, all co -equal. We all agree with that. Now, in verses three through seven, we see some of the responsibilities of leadership.

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Now, David was, notice that the God of Israel said unto me, "'The rock of Israel spoke to me, "'he who rules over men must be just, "'ruling in the fear of God.'"

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England's greatest queen and England's greatest time that she lived was under Queen Victoria.

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And she was a God -fearing, loving people, individual.

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And she ruled that way. Notice she ruled just over men. And she was successful and had a successful kingdom that reached in.

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But in fact, it was one time said of England that the sun never set on her empire. Also, Queen Victoria had much respect for the preachers.

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Keep in mind, during her reign, there was Spurgeon, Parker, I mean, there was all kinds of great preachers and things like that.

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But I remember relating one day that she wanted to go to the Metropolitan Tabernacle where Spurgeon was at and finally hear him.

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She had had him as a guest or as whatever the queen does when she entertains people or something like that, have a visit with them or something.

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But she had never been to his church. And she said she would really like to go and also speak with the people and things like that.

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The people were kind of against it and what have you, her advisors. So they went to Spurgeon and said, look,

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Queen Victoria wants to come and be part of the service. And he said,

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I admire the lady. She knows that I have her, she has my utmost respect as queen and what have you.

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And I hope this is not gonna be taken in the wrong way, but she's gonna have to get in line like everybody else. Because people stood in line to get into the

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Tabernacle. Naturally, eventually his deacons kind of, bless their hearts, deacons kind of said, you know,

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Mr. Spurgeon, you might wanna reevaluate what you're thinking on that situation. And so what he did was, he said, fine, she can sit behind us.

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Sitting behind the preacher in England times was very humble place to be.

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Normally you were just looking out to make sure everything was all right. So we see then, here's a man who, a queen who ruled in the just of God and the fear of God, and we see a pastor who also ruled in the fear of God.

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So we see then, David was to rule over God's people, the sheep of his pasture. Psalm 100 verse three, we are the sheep of his pasture.

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And I'm sure glad I am. It's sure a good place to go and graze under God's care, isn't it?

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Great place to go. David was anointed to serve the people of God. How was he anointed to serve the people of God?

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First of all, he was anointed to serve their civil interest, their civil interest.

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They, he would hear, just as Solomon would hear, now they didn't hear every case, but he would hear cases and he would look at it and look at it according to the word of God and according to Moses' law.

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He had priests, he had scribes, he had prophets, right? He had people advising him what

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God had said. So he was to take care of their civil interest.

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I take, I wish we had godly people taking care of my civil interest. Amen? Yes, I do,

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I wish that godly men were that way. But anyway, then we see that he's also to protect them.

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So what was he? He was their captain, wasn't he? He was the captain of Israel. He was what we would call commander in chief.

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And he guided the people and he protected them. But then he was also to minister justice and serve them religiously.

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And he says, here's how I did it. I'm the sweet psalmist of Israel. Those are kind of wonderful words, and the sweet psalmist of Israel.

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Now, none of us like anything sour, do we? I don't like sour lemonade,

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I don't like sour tea, I don't like sour anything. I don't even like those sour things the kids blow up in their mouth.

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I want something sweet. In fact, I've desired sweets so long, my doctor told me if you don't stop, you're reaching already that level you don't need to be at, and he says,

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I would appreciate it if you'd quit eating sweets. And I said, I sure will, Doc, don't you worry about me.

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Now, you know, all right. So anyway, notice then, a couple of things he said.

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Notice to rule men, you must be able to do so in character and in integrity, just, righteous, a submissive attitude toward the

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Lord, the fear of God. Now, if the fear of God is in you, you're gonna act differently.

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When it comes decision time, whether I should do this or whether I should not do this, if you're in the fear of God, you're gonna know what you should not do.

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You're going to know that, and if you don't, as I've been well -advised during my lifetime, if you're not sure it's

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God speaking, then just wait. Take it easy. Either he's gonna answer it, you're gonna figure, and finally figure it out that it wasn't supposed to be that way.

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Anyhow, now, everything was good until they told me that word, wait. I'm not real good at that.

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I have a little patience, but if it has to go into the area called waiting, I have no patience.

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All right, so we see then that David said, I have patience. David said, I can administer in character and in integrity.

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I'm just, and I'm righteousness. Without righteousness and the fear of God, guess what a leader becomes?

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Adolf Hitler, a dictator, Saddam Hussein. The Chinese government.

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When you don't rule in the just ruling of God, you're gonna end up driving people like cattle instead of leading them like sheep.

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And everywhere in the Bible, God talks about that we're sheep. And once I studied up a little bit on sheep, sometimes

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I don't like being referred to that way, because they're not the brightest animals in the world.

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Without a shepherd, they are. Without a shepherd, they're guided. They're taken to where they need to be.

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Now, David was a ruler who served and a servant who ruled, and guess what? He had the welfare of the people on his heart.

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Did he mess up? Now, you and I have read enough Bible and know enough Bible to know he messed up.

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And he messed up more than just Bathsheba now. That just wasn't, we always get, well, man, that was, let me tell you, he hadn't messed up long before then.

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He was killing his own people in Ziklack. He was going out and coming back to the king of the

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Philistines. Man, made a good rally in there today. Man, I got some of those people out of your way. But yet when it came time to do something that was very strongly on his heart, remember?

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He wanted to build the temple. God said, you can't do it.

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Even though, remember Nathan? Nathan, he'd come in and they said, oh man, just go ahead and do everything in your heart, man.

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You're great, you're all right, see you later. Have a nice day. And God spoke to Nathan that night and says, no.

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He says, go back to David and tell him, I'll let him prepare for it, I'll let him do this, but he will not build the temple.

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Lord, why? He's a man of blood. And he was, long before Uriah the

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Hittite. Long before that time. Also, in 24, as Mike will probably cover, he numbered the people.

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Also, there was just numerous things along the line that David did. Now some things happened to David.

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Now, also David uses a beautiful metaphor here. Look in verse four.

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He who rules in the fear of God shall be what? He shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, like the tender grass springing out of the earth, by clear shining after rain.

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Notice what a metaphor is. Rain and sunshine. Rain and sunshine. Now, what does rain and sunshine do?

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If you've got a garden, you know what it does. If you've got anything that grows, you know what rain and what that means together.

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Rain and sunshine, they produce useful fruit. Now, Jesus referred to it a little differently.

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He called it the vine and the branches. He called it the vines here, the branches are here.

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He says, you abide in me, you're getting the rain. You trust in me, you're getting the sunshine.

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So we see then metaphors are used throughout the Bible, and this is a very good one. With God's help, leaders, and what does this mean?

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It means that a good ruler, a good ruler, will create a creative atmosphere that co -laborers will be able to grow with him and produce fruit.

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I can remember each church I've been in, I've tried to do one thing, and I've had five over the years, stayed a good lengthy time at one.

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But every time I would go, one of the first things, and it would take me a year or two, I would look out and I would observe and I would watch those who had spiritual abilities and find out if they actually had an ability or a gift.

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If I found out it was a gift, I tried to develop them. We would meet together.

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We would meet maybe over some coffee. Something I never thought

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I would do is, I remember when I was younger, I'd go into a local shop or something, where the guys hung out and everybody else, and I'd see all these older men sitting around drinking coffee, and I'd hear their stories during the week because I'd be sitting out here behind them, and that fish got from three inches to nine and a half feet long.

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I listened to all that and I said, you know, I'll never do that. Well, every

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Saturday morning, I'd get together with a bunch of old men. We'd have coffee. We'd sit around grumping and complaining and everything else, you know.

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Well, how's your knee today? Still crackling, still rice crispy, snap, crackle, pop. You know, and this type of thing.

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But I remember talking to them and developing them, and two of them I was able to leave the church to when

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I left. Now, that's what leadership does. Did I have any great gift of that?

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No, but I did see some things in people, and when I would talk to them and try to get them up.

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David also realizes, also though, that his house was not so with God.

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Look at verse five, then we'll have to wrap up with this one. Notice David realizes, now this is something that we all must come to grips with.

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Notice David realizes that he had fallen short of this ideal. He had written these great inspired words.

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He finishes them by the clearing shining after rain, and in verse five he says, although my house is not so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.

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This is all my salvation, all my desire. Will he not make it increase?

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So we see then that David falls short of the idea, but then he rejoices in the covenant.

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He realizes as a human house, he has failed, but as a divine house with a promise given by God, a sure covenant, he said, you know,

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I may have failed, but God did not, and God will not fail.

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I can't say a whole lot on this and that and the other, but I can tell you one thing. Anytime God's needed, he's always come around for me.

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He's never failed me. Nah, he's not necessarily done what I'd like for him to do, but he's done it at the same time.

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So we see then, just think about this for a minute. You may fail, but there's a sure covenant on that cross that day.

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When he said it is finished, he secured it, he made it right. There are a lot of people that say, well,

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I just don't believe I can believe in eternal security. I said, well, I can believe it because the

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Bible teaches it, and most of the time I get this real philosophical answer, oh, oh, and I truly do believe that.

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I believe if you've made the confession of faith and a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you've done it through, you believe in his blood and the finished work on his cross, and you believe it's resurrected,

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Romans 10 tells me I'm saved. Romans chapter 10 tells me very clearly

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I'm saved. So we see then, but he says also, what shall happen though to those who don't follow this line?

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Notice he says the sons of rebellion should be as thorns thrust away, the wheat and chaff in other words, because they cannot be taken with hands, but the man who touches them must be armed with iron, and naturally they shall be utterly burned with fire in their place.

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So the Old Testament here has given us two things, one on salvation, and one for those who do not have the salvation.

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Is it still real today? Amen, it's still real today, as it can be.

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Well, Mike, would you dismiss this? Oh, did you have something you wanted to say? I was gonna say, you read ahead, but what we have in 2

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Corinthians today, the saver of one unto life and the saver of another unto death.

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Oh, I'm looking forward to hearing that, sir. I'm excited to see how God's brought that to our attention here, and we'll see it over there in the, it's almost like you're reading the same

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Bible. Yes, sir. The same God. Yes, sir. Let's pray. All right. Holy Father, we love you, we thank you that you love us, that you are faithful, you are just, you are holy, although we are, for the most part, in none of these things, and yet, through Christ, we are, and we thank you for that.

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Thank you for our brother as he has preached, teached, brought forth your word, and we pray,

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Lord, that it would find its place in our hearts, that we would be strengthened in our faith, and that we would love you more, which in Christ's name we pray.