Podcasts about because david

Who is David?1 Samuel 16:11–13Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.” 12 And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.1 Samuel 17:34–37; 45–47But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!”Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand.”Foundational Scripture for the SeriesHebrews 12:1 (ESV)Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.[IF David…] sat down at the campfire, I think he would say something like this:“The battles you win in private prepare you for the battles you'll win in public.”David speaks to everyone who has ever felt overlooked, underestimated, or hidden in preparation while waiting on God's timing. Our big idea today is this: Private faithfulness prepares you for public victory. Some of you are in a season where it feels like nobody sees your obedience, nobody notices your growth, nobody understands your process, and nobody realizes what God is doing in you.But David's life reminds us that what you defeat in private matters.Let's walk through David's story.POINT 1: DAVID WAS FAITHFUL BEFORE HE WAS VISIBLE1 Samuel 16:11–13Then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?' And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.' … Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him…David is not even brought into the room at first. His stronger-looking brothers are there; The more obvious choices; The ones who fit people's expectations.And David is out in the field… just being faithful.Before the crown, there was the field.Before the giant, there was the sheep.Before public recognition, there was hidden obedience.Never forget that God sees what people overlook.This is important because our culture often trains us to value visibility over faithfulness.We think if people do not see it, it does not count.If it is not public, it is not powerful.If it is not noticed, it is not important.But the kingdom of God does not work like that… In God's economy, hidden faithfulness still matters.God often prepares people in hidden places. Some of you need to hear this today:Just because your season is hidden does not mean your season is wasted.If you are serving where nobody notices, keep serving.If you are praying where nobody sees, keep praying.If you are growing in private, keep growing.If you are faithful in the field, keep being faithful.Because God does not need a spotlight to do deep work in a life… God was developing David.Luke 16:10 — “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.”Psalm 78:70–72 says God chose David from tending sheep and brought him to shepherd His people.Big Truth: Your hidden season is God's preparation season.POINT 2: THE BATTLES NOBODY SEES SHAPE THE VICTORIES EVERYBODY NOTICESWhen David steps up to face Goliath, he does not begin by talking about strategy. He begins by talking about private battles.1 Samuel 17:34–37Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear… I went after him… The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.David is standing in front of a giant, but his confidence is based on history… And that history was built in private.Nobody was there when he fought the lion.Nobody was there when he fought the bear.Nobody was writing songs about him yet.Nobody was posting about him.Nobody was validating him publicly.But those battles mattered… [BECAUSE...] What you overcome in private builds confidence in God. Some of the most important battles in your life are the private ones:The battle against compromise; against lust.The battle against pride; against fear.The battle against bitterness; against laziness.The battle against discouragement; The battle to stay faithful in prayer.The battle to keep your thought life clean; The battle to keep your character intact.[BECAUSE...] if you ignore private battles, public pressure will expose what private compromise has been building.But if you let God help you defeat things in private, you are developing spiritual strength that will matter later.David did not suddenly become courageous on the battlefield.He had already learned to trust God in unseen places.[SOME OF US WANT…] Goliath-level breakthrough without lion-and-bear-level faithfulness.God often uses small, private victories to build us for larger public ones.Song of Solomon 2:15 speaks of the little foxes that spoil the vines.1 Corinthians 10:13 reminds us that God provides a way of escape in temptation.Big Truth: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF YOUR PRIVATE BATTLES.POINT 3: CONFIDENCE IN GOD IS BUILT, NOT BORROWED1 Samuel 17:45–47Then David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with a sword and with a spear… but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts…'David is not repeating a slogan he barely believes.He is not imitating somebody else's confidence.He is not borrowing spiritual language to sound impressive.David's confidence is built on what he knows of God personally.Confidence in God is built, not borrowed… Personal history with God produces real confidence. [THAT IS WHY IT IS SO KEY THAT…] David refused Saul's armor.Because borrowed strength does not work in battles that require personal faith.There are some battles where other people's testimonies can encourage you, but they cannot replace your own history with God.Your pastor's faith can inspire you.Your parents' faith can influence you.Your spouse's faith can encourage you.Our church's faith can strengthen you.But there comes a point when you must know God for yourself!Because David knew what God had done before, he had confidence for what God could do now.That is how real faith grows… by walking with God over time until your trust is rooted in personal experience of His faithfulness.Psalm 27:1 — “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”2 Timothy 1:12 — “I know whom I have believed…”Big Truth: REAL CONFIDENCE GROWS OUT OF REAL HISTORY WITH GOD.WAYS TO LIVE DAVID'S LIFE LESSON1. BE FAITHFUL IN HIDDEN PLACESDo not wait for a bigger moment to become serious about obedience… Because hidden faithfulness still matters to God. 2. TAKE PRIVATE BATTLES SERIOUSLYDon't tell yourself, “It's just a small issue.”Don't normalize the things God wants to deliver you from.Don't ignore battles in your heart because they are not yet public.Take private battles seriously… Because what you tolerate in secret can weaken you in public.[AND…] what you defeat in secret can strengthen you for public assignment.3. BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE THROUGH PERSONAL HISTORY WITH GODDo not try to live off borrowed oil.Get in the Word; Pray consistently; Obey in small things; Worship in private… and remember what God has already done.Build your confidence through personal history with God. 4. DON'T HATE SEASONS OF PREPARATIONThe hidden season is not flashy, but it is fruitful.The preparation season may not be visible, but it is valuable.Don't hate seasons of preparation… Because what feels slow may actually be strategic.CLOSINGDavid's life reminds us that the things we do in private matter more than we often realize.[BECAUSE DAVID WOULD TELL YOU…] “It was out in the field is where God taught me to trust Him.”[DAVID WOULD TELL YOU…] “The lion and the bear were not distractions; they were preparation.”[DAVID WOULD TELL YOU…] “The hidden place was not punishment; it was strategic training.”[DAVID WOULD TELL YOU…] “What I defeated in private mattered when the giant showed up in public.”And that is the word of the Lord today: The battles you win in private prepares you for the battles you'll win in public… because what you defeat in private matters.Response / Prayer MomentMaybe today your prayer sounds like this:“Lord, help me stay faithful in hidden places.”“Lord, give me victory in private battles.”“Lord, build my confidence through personal history with You.”“Lord, help me value preparation more than visibility.”

Motion Church | Warrior Poet Society, Week 2: "Lessons on the Lamb" Season two of the David series backtracks a bit this week — picking up not after the Bathsheba scandal, but earlier, when Saul is still king and wants David dead. "Not the kind of situation you want to find yourself in." Jealous and paranoid over David's growing popularity (there was literally a chorus about him: "Saul has slain his thousands, David his tens of thousands"), Saul starts hurling actual spears at him. So David goes "on the lamb" — on the run — which gives this message its title: Lessons on the Lamb. First lesson: strength doesn't always look like what we think it looks like. Even though David once stood fearlessly before Goliath, here he is running from a "washed up warrior." Why? Because David understood it wasn't his timing or his fight to pick. "There are battles in your life... that only God can fight." Sometimes the strongest thing a person can do isn't retaliate — it's walk away. "If I respond, it is not peace. It is debris, it is chaos, it is destruction, and I may feel right or think that it's right, but it doesn't make it right." Discernment — sometimes in the form of a spouse saying "babe" — matters. "Strength doesn't always look like you think that strength looks. It's a different kind of strength." Second lesson, and maybe the coolest full-circle moment in David's life: old swords, new battles. After defeating Goliath, David took the giant's own sword as a trophy. Years later, fleeing from Saul and desperate for a weapon, David arrives at the tabernacle in Nob, and the priest Ahimelech tells him there's only one sword available — Goliath's, wrapped in cloth, practically forgotten. David's response: "There is none like it. Give it to me." The lesson lands personally: "The battles from your past are the weapons for your future." Nothing you've gone through was wasted. "God does not waste anything in our lives." And the weapon isn't just for you — "it helps other people too." The final lesson is what gets called a "looney lesson." Fleeing into enemy territory — the city of Gath, ruled by King Achish — David realizes he's been recognized and is in real danger. So he does something wild: he pretends to be insane, scratching on the gate and drooling into his beard, until Achish dismisses him as a madman not worth the trouble. "Sometimes doing the right thing will make you look like a mad person." When you're doing what God has called you to do, "it's not always going to make sense to other people." And that's fine — "our purpose is more than to impress people. We are here to honor the sacrifice of Jesus' life on the cross." After all, the message of the cross itself looked like foolishness to the world — "the one who knew no sin became sin on my behalf... it's foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." Three lessons from a man on the run: a different kind of strength, old swords for new battles, and sometimes a little bit of "crazy" is exactly what faithfulness looks like.

Daily Dose of Hope June 1, 2026   Scripture: 1 Kings 1   Prayer:  Holy and Almighty God, We come to you today in humility but also with expectancy.  As we start a new reading plan, we need to hear a word from you.  We need to sense your presence and be reminded of how you walk alongside us.  We want to learn and grow.  Challenge us, Lord.  In these next few moments of silence, help us settle our mind and gather our scattered thoughts, focusing on you and you alone...In Your Name, Amen.   Welcome to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope Daily Bible reading plan.  For the summer, we are digging into 1 and 2 Kings.  This should be a really interesting and even challenging reading plan and I'm looking forward to journeying through it with all of you.    Let's start by talking a little bit about these two books.  There isn't conclusive evidence as to who actually wrote 1and 2 Kings.  Tradition credits Jeremiah as the author but there is little indication that is true.  What we do know is that the book was written before the Jews went into exile by someone very familiar with Deuteronomy, as well as other historical texts related to the monarchy.  Thus, it could have been any of the prophets. Regardless, 1 Kings covers roughly 120 years of ancient Israel's history.  2 Kings covers about 250-300 years.   I Kings follows the book of 2 Samuel, which covers the turbulent, 40-year reign of King David.  2 Samuel goes into detail about David's military and political victories and his rise to power as a "man after God's own heart."  David loved the Lord.  But the author of 2 Samuel also doesn't hide King David's moral failures (think about what happened with Bathsheba), and the devastating family drama and violence that follows.  It almost leads to the collapse of the kingdom.  If it's been awhile since you've read it, it's definitely an interesting read and it will help with this study.  2 Samuel reads almost like a soap opera at times.    And that leads us to the book of 1 Kings. This book is going to bring us from a thriving, united Israel under King Solomon to a divided nation which just cannot get along.  Solomon builds the first temple, asks for wisdom from God, but then gets caught up in womanizing and idolatry.  His downfall isn't pretty and leads to the split of the nation of Israel.  By the end of 1 Kings, we will be introduced to Elijah.    Let's move to chapter 1.  King David is now very old and sick.  David's history of poor/permissive parenting is continuing to cause problems.  Because David is weak and vulnerable, one of his sons, Abdonijah, decides to take control of the throne.  Abdonijah doesn't ask for his father's permission or his blessing.  Rather, he manipulates the situation to ensure that he gets to be king. His arrogance is a bit appalling but seems in line with David's other sons.  Abdonijah recruits powerful people to support him.    This whole scene creates a serious issue. David had promised Bathsheba that their son, Solomon, would be king.  The way things were going, it wouldn't be long before Abdonijah had Solomon killed to ensure that he would have no rivals for the throne.  Both Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet step in to inform King David.  They have to move quickly.  David summons equally powerful men to support Solomon.  Then, they place Solomon on David's own mule as a sign that he is the next king.  Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint Solomon as king and he is placed on David's throne.    Keep in mind that the previous kings were not chosen this way.  With both Saul and David, the prophet Samuel communicated God's choice for king.  With Solomon, things are different.  This is to signal the beginning of the Davidic dynasty, which will eventually culminate with Jesus Christ.  God has kept his promise to David.   Blessings, Pastor Vicki  

David lived his life faithfully serving God, perfecting his skills and protecting what God gave him to care for. Because David had been faithful in facing the battles with the bears and the lions to protect his sheep, he was prepared to face the battle against Goliath, knowing that God is the one who has always given Him the strength to win.

Group Guide Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. TranscriptAll right, so I said earlier, my name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We're gonna be in second Samuel chapter 12 today and want to announce just a little bit of a change in one of the ways we're doing things. So if you look in and around you, there are hardback black ASV Bibles. So we're making a little bit of a shift here. So those are going to be what we use for the primary reading of the text that we're walking through. So we've had in the past, we've had text on the screen, we'll still have some of that. But we wanted to move a little bit more towards what we kind of used to do, which is to really read out of a physical Bible. So we've actually made the investment. We bought some nicer kind of hardback Bibles to use in during worship. So if you go to page 300, that's where it will be. We would invite you A couple things. We invite you to, if you have a Bible that you regularly use to actually bring that on Sundays that we use the esv. If you have a different version, that's fine. We're blessed in the English language to have so many wonderful translations. People who get in just knife wars over translations, it just drives me nuts sometimes some are not great. The majority are quite good. Then it's very possible that you have a very good one. So if you have one, bring it and bring that regularly. Write in the margins of the Bible, take notes during the sermons, like really engage there. If you don't ever have one, if you don't actually. Let me say this, if you don't have a Bible at home, a physical copy, please take that one. That is our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible that you can read at home. But if you didn't forget to bring your Bible on a Sunday, pick one of those up, engage with it. The text, the main part of the text will not be on the screen. Or we would like to discourage being on our phones. That is something that we're actually making a shift towards. I'm not going to like stare at you in the middle of the sermon and just start pointing. Not going to do that. But one of the things we've realized is, is that when we are on our phones and we read the Bible from the phone, sometimes we get distracted. I felt this all of a sudden, a text message comes through, an email comes through, and we want to try to minimize that distraction as much as possible. So you Know, again, I'm not going to be angry from the pulpit if you're on your phone, but we would like to discourage that as much as possible and actually be in the text. So going forward, we'll kind of make this announcement a few different times, but that's the shift we're going to make. And the hope will be, is as we're reading a physical Bible, it's going to come to life in some new and better ways. It's a little more active than kind of passively looking up at the screen. So we're going to be in Second Samuel, verses 1 through 13, which is on page 300 in those Bibles. And we'll get to that text in a moment.There are times where. Where I am, where I've sinned, and I'm being confronted in my sin. Now, most of the time that happens with my wife, because I don't know if you know this. If you're married, the person you sin against the most is. Is your spouse. Vice versa. You know why? Because you're living in close proximity with your spouse and she's a sinner and you're a sinner, and this is what happens. So you should expect sin to happen in marriage, which should result in conflict resolution, all the things that we do and we encourage. But what happens sometimes is that when my wife confronts me in my sin, there's such a clear crossroads. Like, there's just two paths. And the first path is Christ exalting, humble consideration of her words, of myself and my own sin. And then, like, time to really reflect and think and consider. That's path one. Then there's the second path, which is I'm not going down without a fight. I'm going to argue my way through this. First off, I reject the premise of your argument. Second, do we need to get to your stuff? Like, I mean, all the terrible ways, And I'll be honest, this way is pretty appealing and it's pretty easy at first. The other way is quite difficult at first to actually do the work of humility and to consider your own sin and be open to confrontation and to like. Like, that's hard on the front end. Way easier in the back end over here. Way easy in the front end because I got to do what my flesh desires, which is not consider my own faults, not consider my own sin. I get to do what I like to do, which is talk. So let's go for it. But the back end is way worse. And there are just times where I see the crossroads in front of Me. And it's like, oof. The desires of the flesh and the spirit at work in ways where, you know, sometimes by God's grace, I choose what is good, and sometimes I choose what is evil, and it results in good. But I think I'm going to guess I'm not alone in this, that many of us feel that, that with spouses and friends and co workers and family members and et cetera, you feel that you're at the crossroads when someone does the work of confronting you. And that's where we see David today. David is about to be confronted in his sin, and we're going to see what comes out of that and how we should think about that as Christians.So let me pray for us, and then we'll walk through this together. Lord, we thank you that you are patient with us in our sin and that you have incredible hope held out to us. God, I pray that that would be clearly seen in a way that changes the very way that we operate and live our lives. This morning we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.Okay, so summary summarizing. Last week, Chet walked us through what is the lowest point of David's reign. The David who's supposed to be on the battlefield leading his people as their king. He's back home. And then temptation comes. He's out. And then he sees Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, and he inquires of who this is. And then he takes her. And then, attempting to deal with the consequences of his sin, deceives, lies, plots, and then ultimately sends Uriah to the front lines to be killed by the Ammonites, which he is. So David, committing adultery, deception, murder, comes out looking like the good guy. I'll take Bathsheba, she'll be my wife. And he thinks that he's moving forward and his tracks are covered. But God sees everything. The eyes of the Lord see everything. And he sends Nathan, one of his prophets, to confront David in his sin.> And the LORD sent Nathan to David.> He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a city, the one rich and the other poor.> The rich man had very many flocks and herds,> but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought.> And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.> Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him,> but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. (2 Samuel 12:1–6 ESV)So Nathan is a prophet. And this is what God does to his kings. We saw this with Samuel and Saul. We're seeing it here with Nathan and David. You keep reading. You're seeing this with Elijah and Ahab. This is what God does. He sends his prophets to correct the people and especially the kings, in their sin. So Lord sent to Nathan to David, and what he's about to tell David is a parable. But David doesn't know it's a parable. David hears this as an actual thing that has Happened.Okay, let's consider the details of this parable. This is the classic evil rich man versus lowly poor man story. This rich man has an abundance. He has more lambs than he can count. He has flocks upon flocks upon flocks, herds upon herds upon herds. He has an abundance. But then there's the poor man. The poor man doesn't have any. And eventually he gets enough money just to have one little ewe lamb, and that's it. Seemingly all he can ever afford. And then you get into the relationship of that this poor man has with his lamb, and it's like the family pet. I mean, you consider the details, that he raises this lamb, that this lamb grew up with his children. We have a family dog. Her name is Piper, and she is the same age as my middle child, my son. And there are pictures. I can go through a photo show, just the puppy and my son growing up together. That's our family dog, and we love our dog. And that's what this is. This is the family lamb. They love this lamb. This lamb comes to the table and they feed her morsels from the table. Yes, you can have some of this. That lamb drinks out of his own cup, which is kind of gross, just being honest. But some of you let your dog lick your face. So same. They just have this. You can see him just give him some of the cup and then scooping up the lamb and just running it just in circles. Montage. Just, just absolutely. Just this brushing the wool. His sweet little ewe lamb says he treated her like a daughter. You. So once you're attached to the lamb narrative, it shifts back to the rich man. And the rich man has a guest coming to town, and he wants to prepare lamb chops for his guest. You could see him scanning the fields and thinking Thoughtlessly about which one he's going to have one of his people, one of his servants grab. And who. Who. Who's going to. And then he sees the poor man's lamb and the. And he says, oh, no, I'll have that one. And it feels like a. Like a. Like a movie, as you like. You just imagine him sending his goons to, like, just go in and just forcibly take the lamb. And the children are crying, and the man can't do anything because he's the lowly poor man. This is the rich man in town. He has all the power with the sheriff and has all the power with. And he's got all the money. He can't do anything. Or maybe he comes in the middle of the night and his goons come in and sweep and take the lamb. And then all of a sudden, the next day, they're looking, calling for her, wondering where she is. And then all of a sudden, they hear that she's been slaughtered and cooked and served at the table of the rich man. And when you hear the details of the story, you want Liam Neeson, with his particular set of skills, to team up with John Wick and just absolutely destroy this man. And if you feel that kind of angry at the story, I want you to imagine how David felt. Because David was a shepherd. He. He knows what it's like to love the flock, to take care of these lamps. And he is furious again, he doesn't know it's a story. He's furious at this.> Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die,> and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” (2 Samuel 12:5 ESV)David is furious. And as a man of great passion, he responds to Nathan. He invokes the name of the Lord, and he says, this man deserves to die for what he has done. We are going to make this right. He's going to pay back fourfold what he did. Because this man was cruel. He had no pity. He was a savage. He was brutal. He was an evil man of wealth and power. He deserves judgment. And what's wild is that David can't see it. He can't see it. He so clearly can see this man's sin, but he can't see his own sin. And if you're honest, we've been there. You've been there, where it's so easy to see the sin of others. It's so easy to Point out all the ways that they have failed. So blind to our own reality, the plank so lodged in the eyes we can't see. That's David. He just can't see it. And Nathan just has him exactly where he wants him.> Nathan said to David, “You are the man. Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.> And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.> Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.> Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.> Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.> For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.'” (2 Samuel 12:7–10 ESV)And now the deeds are coming into the light. Because God sees it all. Every thought, every action, and this life for the next will be exposed. And he exposes it for all to see. He saw when temptation came upon him. When he saw Bathsheba, he saw him take her. He saw him scramble to cover up the Pregnancy. He saw him murder him with the sword of the Ammonites, which pause for a moment. Those of us who sometimes have seared consciences and are like, well, I didn't really do the thing. They did the thing. I didn't really participate. They participated. But you were actively in the background doing things. It's a lesson in morality that if you're the first domino, you're responsible, that you might not brought the sword down, but you are culpable. You, you murdered. He says all of that. He sees it, it's exposed. Then God pronounces judgment, verse 10. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. And ye shall lie with your wives in the sight of this Son, for you did it secretly. But I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Son. So the judgment is that strife is about to come upon David's house. It will not be the same, but strife will come upon his house because he despised God, despised his commands. And notice it didn't say he took Bathsheba. You took the wife of Uriah. The sting here of the rich man taking the poor man's lamb because of what you did and the evil that you brought upon this man and the evil you've done against me. Now evil will come out of your own house. And the very things that you have done in the secret and the dark will be done before the sun, out in the open, which we are going to see come to fruition in just a few chapters as this house is torn to pieces. And this is the tragedy that awaits David and the judgment that is given to him.And now is a pivotal moment for David because Nathan just called him out publicly. All of the nation is going to hear about this. And then all of God's people for the next 3,000 years are going to hear about this. What is he going to do? He is the king. And kings in history typically don't respond well to public shaming. They don't respond well to being dressed down in the Bible. Kings typically don't respond well to being called out by prophets. So what is he going to do? Is he going to put them in jail like Jeremiah was put in jail? Is he going to threaten his life like Elijah was threatened? What is he going to do to the prophet who has openly just dressed him down for all to see.> David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”> And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13 ESV)And we're going to stop there, and we're going to pick up next week in the second half of that verse and finish off the chapter. At the crossroads of confrontation, David repents. He repents. He acknowledges who this sin was primarily against. I have sinned against the Lord, the God who took me, who chose me, who made me king, who blessed me with blessings I could never earn. I've sinned against him. And then in the same breath, Nathan delivers the message from the Lord. The Lord has put away your sin, and you shall not die. David is given forgiveness, which is massive, y', all, because if you understand the Old Testament law, what David did actually merits death. And the Jewish law, that's the death penalty for what he's done. But he's given forgiveness, and his repentance is genuine. You might could read this and go, okay, does he really. He does. And what we read earlier in Psalm 51 for our liturgy this morning is the. Is the window into his soul, because he wrote Psalm 51, David did, in the midst of. In the aftermath of this sin, really fleshing out repentance in his soul.So what I want to do is I want to go to Psalm 51, which that is on page 554 in that black Bible, and I want us to look at Psalm 51 and to consider really, the elements of repentance. We're not going to get into all of it because we don't have the space to look at every single verse. But I want to just. I want to look at this to consider some of the elements of repentance that are happening here in Psalm 51, on page 544, starting in verse one, David says,> Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. (Psalm 51:1 ESV)You see, there's a. There's a neediness in his repentance. He's in a humble state. He says, have mercy on me. Have mercy. Now, why would he need to have mercy? Because he sinned against a holy and perfect and righteous God who brings wrath towards sin. Have mercy on me according to your steadfast love. He says, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Remove them. There's this deep desire for repentance, and he's not sorry for what awaits him in the discipline of the Lord. He's sorry because he sinned against God. That's important for us because Spurgeon was quoted as saying this once, that if I hate sin because of the punishment for sin, I've not repented of sin. I merely regret that God is just. So if we. If we just hate sin because we don't like the punishment, which is the wages of sin is death, which is hell. If that's why we hate sin, then it's like we're not understanding whom we've sinned against. Actually, we're just more concerned with the judgment of God. And if he's just or not. David is like, I've sinned against you, God. You. You see the. You see this. This beginning, this restoration in his heart of just understanding this relationship that he's had with God that he's gone wayward from. Have mercy.And then he says in verse two,> Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! (Psalm 51:2 ESV)Like he just feels the stain of sin on him every now and then. I get to take my kids, we go camping and go camping for a few days, and at the end of it all, we haven't showered, haven't. I've got sweat and bug spray and sunscreen and dirt and grime and marshmallow residue and, like, the works. It just. And I'm like. And when we get in the car to go home, it's just like, I'm really, really looking forward to getting in the shower because I just want to. I just am so ready to just get rid of all of the filth. And David just. He's. He sees it. He finally has eyes to see, and he sees all of the sin and everything that was involved and the plot and the murder and the. And the lust of the heart. He sees all of it, and he's just like, God just washed me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleansed me from my sin. I don't want to be stained like this anymore. God, would you wash me? Would you cleanse me?Verse 3 says,> For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. (Psalm 51:3 ESV)He has this knowledge now. Like, I know my transgressions are before me, and I know you see it. And I've done what's evil in your sight, which if you just think about it for a moment, you just see, this is. This is the human heart on display before God, because very Logically, God is actually not the only person he sinned against. Right, Uriah. He sinned against him grievously. Had him murdered. All the lying and deception. So there's sin that affects the community and all around, but he sees whom he's primarily sinned against and it's the Lord better. Sin first and foremost is against the Lord. He just. He sees it so clearly. I've sinned against you. I've done what's evil in your sight.Go skip down to verse seven.> Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (Psalm 51:7 ESV)It's like he just. Would you purge me with the hyssop branch? Would you cleanse me so I can be clean? I want to be righteous before you again, God. Go down to verse nine.> Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. (Psalm 51:9 ESV)Just God, I want a clean record. I don't want the iniquities to be counted against me. Hide your face, Lord, from my sins. I don't want it counted against me.In verse 10, he says,> Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10 ESV)So he understands so clearly that his heart has been wayward. And he understands this is really helpful, y'. All. He understands it's not just the actions, it's the inner heart. It's the human. It's the inner being. And he says, I need to be made new. I need you'd to create a new heart within me. I need you to renew the right spirit within me. I need. I need to love you and delight in you and follow you again. I just. I lost my way and I just. I need you to cleanse my inner self so that I can be right with you again.In verse 11, he says,> Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. (Psalm 51:11 ESV)Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. The reality is that there are folks who will harden their heart towards their sin and will pursue it and will pursue it and will pursue it. And their heart becomes cold and callous and. And distant. And yes, God hides his lovely face from his people. Sometimes you can't read the rest of the Psalms and not see that. That's why the old Hin says, when darkness see, when darkness hides his lovely face, I rest on his amazing grace. There are times where God hides his unique presence from us. And that's not a place you want to. He says, I don't want to Be away from your presence. I want to remember. I want to restore to me God the joy of your salvation and walking with you. I want to feel your presence and your redemption yet again. God, don't abandon me.And then you skip down to verse 17, says> The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:17 ESV)What's so helpful there is that David understands that it's more than just going to the tent of meeting and offering sacrifices, which he would have absolutely done in accordance with the law. It's more than that. Because what God ultimately desires is not the outward action. It's the inward, broken, contrite heart. He wants contrition in our hearts. A broken, sorrowful, remorseful heart that sees I've sinned against you, God, to feel sorrow over sin. And through tears and anguish, with remorse for his adultery and his murder and his deception, he feels all of that against the Lord.Now take a step back from Psalm 51 and you observe his repentance. Summarize some of the elements of what we see. He's desperate. He gives pleas for mercy. He desires to be cleansed. He gives an acknowledgment of who he's primarily sinned against. He has a desire for his presence. He has a plea for his sins to not be counted against him. He has a longing for joy and his salvation again. And he has a confessed reality of contrition and sorrow over his sin. That's what repentance looks like. Which begs the question, does our repentance look like that? Does our repentance and the way that we consider sin mirror this? Because this is what repentance is.Years ago, many of you know this. I was, for years I was bivocational, doing real estate and pastoring. And then I went full time years ago. And every now and then I'm doing some real estate here or there. But years ago I was doing. I was doing a deal and I was. It was me directly with a seller on a property and we were in negotiations and this property needed a lot of work and it got to the end of it all and then went through some inspections and when the H VAC unit, the air conditioning unit came back, I was like, yeah, I don't. I don't know. Like, I just. And there's a lot of trust between this person. This person loved God and I love God. And we're just trying to figure this out. But I just, at the very end of it all, just, I don't know, I think. I think I have to drop the price by 2000 because this. This unit, I think it's about to go. And then she did. And then the years that followed. A couple things came to reality. First, that that H VAC unit actually was a tank. That thing was. It just kept going. Just needed a little maintenance. But I got four solid more years out of that thing. But in evaluating my own heart, and I just realized I was like. That was done from a place of greed and a place of fear. It was done from a place of taking advantage of someone else. And I just. When that finally sunk in, I just. I felt this. I felt like just, lord, what have I done? And rejecting your ways and rejecting your desire and loving money over people. And I just. I felt the overwhelming weight of sin. And I just. I can't. I can't move forward like this. This. This can't be. And I just. I talked to my wife, and we kept thinking and praying through. I talked to the pastors. I kept thinking and praying through it, and I just finally came to the conclusion I just can't stand. I'm not gonna stand before the Lord and this sin. So I. In repentance, I finally. I reached out. I just said, hey, listen, I wrote a letter. I just said, I. I think. I think. I think I did wrong in this. I think you're owed $2,000. I want you to take this check and I want you to cash it. Please, please, please do not send this back. And thankfully, God in his providence in allowing me to be in sin for a period of time, this person actually needed that exact amount at the exact time. But I just. I felt this. That happens, y'. All. We have these. These moments where we're tempted and we're lured and enticed, and the sin grows within us, and we choose wickedness. And this is needed. This. Psalm 51. This contrite, broken heart, this desire to be. Desire to. To be obedient to what God desires for us is so desperately needed in us. And David feels that. He feels a sorrow over his sin, a longing and a hope for God. He. He feels this, and then he's given forgiveness, and his sin is not counted against him. And he spared the judgment of death. And next week we'll see consequences for sin. Because even though sometimes we don't face eternal consequences for sin, there are eternal punishment for sin, there are earthly consequences, and we'll get to that. But for the moment, this week, I wanted to pause and to consider that David's sin is not held against him. He spared the judgment of death.And here's the deal. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we are like David, more so. We are like David, more so because we, knowing the gospel, choose to deliberately, intentionally, flagrantly, grievously, sometimes joyfully sin against God, reject his ways in favor of wickedness, in favor of selfishness and self centeredness. And we choose to do this over and over and over again as we break his commands. And what I want us to hear so clearly this morning is that sin is costly, that sin costs. For the wages of sin is death. And God looks at us just as he looked at David. And he looked at David and he said, the Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die. And the reason that's true for us is because the Lord has put away our sin, because Jesus Christ died. Because we get to look to Jesus Christ who dies in the place of sinners, using some of the same language put away in Hebrews 9:26.> For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26 ESV)In the back part of that verse it says, but as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, that if he belonged to Jesus Christ, your sin was put away because of his sacrifice on the cross. Because somebody has to pay the penalty for sin, because we don't sin against a holy and perfect God and reject his ways without a cost. And Jesus Christ lovingly went and paid that penalty for us. And in paying that penalty, he has better things held out for us.> He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24 ESV)That Jesus Christ takes our sins, he bore them on the tree, the cross, that we might hear this, die to sin and live to righteousness. There are those of us who belong to Jesus Christ who have trusted in the finished work that he did on the cross, that his atonement has covered our sin. He does that so that we might die to sin, not, not living it. That we might see sin be put to death in our lives. I mean, goodness, y', all, we should take the call to repentance seriously, like David did. You should understand the cost of sin. It's the blood of God. You should understand the precious gift that was given for us because of our sin. We should take sin seriously.The puritan Thomas Watson once said that Christ is never loved until sin is loathed. You cannot love Christ if we do not hate sin. Those go hand in hand. There's no way that you can love a God who loved you so much that he gave up his only Son to be crucified for our rebellion against Him. And then us just wink and nod at sin as if it's the. Not a big deal. No, the only logical conclusion to a love that great is a hatred that is that great, too. And that hatred is towards our sin. We must hate sin. We must feel the reality of sin and deal with it seriously, which means considering it, grieving the offense, repenting of it, and running towards Christ.Listen, if we can stare at our sin and have the general posture of our hearts, well, good thing I'm forgiven. Good thing God's a God of grace, right? It's like, whoa, are we. If we can be flippant about what our sin cost and just treat grace like it's a cheap gift, then maybe we've misunderstood grace entirely. And maybe we need to be reoriented with the reality of sin. Listen, we don't have to beat ourselves up after we've repented. I'm not wallowing in the sin of greed from years ago. I find joy in Jesus Christ because what he has done. But we don't skip the work to get there. And some of us skip the work, myself included. We don't do the work of repentance. And we need to. We should be. Listen, we should be terrified at the possibility that we could sin repeatedly in a way that our heart could grow cold and our love could be dim to where we don't sense the presence of God. That's a terrifying place to be.To summarize, Thomas Watson in another place, he says we either must drown our sin in the tears of repentance or our sin will be drowned in the judgment of hell. And that should weigh upon us, and we get to face that reality right here as we have the opportunity to come to the table, invite Christy up to take the Lord's Supper and to play for us in a moment.> “When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'” (1 Corinthians 11:24 ESV)> “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'” (1 Corinthians 11:25 ESV)On the night that Jesus Christ was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. And he said, this is my body that was broken for you. And that's the. That's the physical reminder that Jesus gave up his body. And then Jesus took the cup, which is the cup of the new covenant. He said, this is my blood that was shed for you. And it's the reminder of the blood that flowed down from Jesus Christ that covers our sins. And as we consider that until Jesus Christ returns, one of the ways we do this in taking seriously the Lord's Supper, is we consider our sin in repentance. So we're going to sit in silence for a few moments. And if you belong to Jesus Christ, I want you to ask God to reveal, just as he sent Nathan the prophet to reveal his sin, may you ask God to send the Spirit upon our hearts to awaken within us the reality of our own sin. And I want you to sit in that for a moment. And once you've considered the ways in which you've sinned, I'm going to pray, I'm going to invite you to the table, and I want you to come being reminded of the seriousness of sin. I want you to take the Lord's Supper and return. And then I want you to worship him. Enjoy.Now, attached to some of this, maybe. Maybe you've got some work left to do when you leave here. And maybe you need to make a phone call and maybe you need to have a conversation and maybe a group this week, you need to finally walk in the light. Which brothers and sisters, be reminded, undoubtedly, with the size of this room, there, there's some. There are folks in here who are just hiding their sin, who aren't being honest and open, who aren't actually being real about the reality of sin in their life. And I want to make this clear to you. That's a terrible place to be. Don't hide your sin. There's freedom that's found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Believe that God doesn't want you to walk in darkness. He wants you to walk in light and in power and in victory. And you will not have victory over sin and if it remains in darkness. So part of what needs to happen coming out of this, this week is in your group, is you need to confess your sin. You need to confess it to God first and then one another. But don't choose the path of darkness time and time again. Don't presume upon the kindness of God that's meant to lead us to repentance. But as Christians, we need to come to the table after we've prayed, and we need to walk this out in repentance. If you. For some of you, some of you have never done this. You've never seriously considered your sin. You've never seriously considered the Savior. And the table is not for you, but Jesus Christ is. You have a God that loves you so deeply that he, though he absolutely could, he could have brought judgment down upon you for repeatedly rejecting his will and his desire for you. But he loved you so much that he sent Jesus Christ to die for you, to capture you, to set you apart into eternity. And there's so much joy that's found in that, but it doesn't happen unless you believe. So right now, as we sit in silence, you need to pray and you need to plead for God to blot out your sin, maybe look at Psalm 51 and see Jesus in it and just pray it and ask God to have mercy on you as a sinner and to believe and trust in him. And then come talk to me. Come talk to a person who brought you. But don't come to the table. Come to Jesus Christ. We're going to sit in silence for a few moments, and then I'll close in prayer and invite you to the table.So bow your heads with me, Sam. Heavenly father, We are so thankful for the blood of Jesus Christ. May the wonderful reality of your work compel us to faith. May it move us to beautiful repentance. As we consider your death, your body, and your blood. For those of us that need to do a thing, need to have a conversation, that need to put sin to death, need to throw out something from their house, need to confess their sin. And group this week, they need to walk in freedom. May you help them do it. May you help us do it. And as we come to the table and return to our seats, may we stand and may we sing joyfully that our sins are not counted against us. Amen.

Cats That Kept Him Going: How David Maeda's Cats Shaped His Story. Your host, Julie Marty-Pearson sits down with David Maeda to trace that arc from his first cat, Mr Max, to a home shaped by bonded pairs, big personalities, and the kind of attachment that turns ordinary days into a shared routine you never want to lose.David  adopted Max in college and discovered what “cat people” mean when they talk about connection. From hilarious moments like a drooling purr to the ache of coming home after a pet dies, we stay with the full emotional range of cat ownership. David also shares how cat math happens: adopting two cats together after a loss, bringing home a three-legged rescue, and learning that even bonded cats can leave someone feeling left out.Because David's memoir includes a chapter dedicated to his cats, the conversation goes deeper into memory, storytelling, and why writing about animals can be both healing and heartbreaking. We also talk openly about depression, anxiety, and high-stress years in public service, including his work as Minnesota's director of elections, and how caring for cats can keep you grounded when your mind is pulling you under. Along the way, we touch on Feline Rescue in St Paul, volunteering, cat shelters overwhelmed by animals who lose their person, and why every pet guardian should have a plan for who would step in.To learn more about David, visit his Website or buy his book This is Not Who We Are Support the showSupport the Podcast by Buying Us a Treat via Buy Me a CoffeeShop our Affiliate Partners:

Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. TranscriptGood morning. Through snow and ice and disconnected H VAC units, we have finally gathered together, and we are getting ready to finally start Second Samuel. So if you're with us in the fall, we finished up First Samuel. We. We took a break with the Remember series and Give series, and now we get to start Second Samuel. We kind of jump into the middle of the story. First and Second Samuel actually were written as one book together. If you remember this when we first started, it's written as one book together because of how scrolls worked back in the day, they had to divide it in two separate scrolls. So it's one story. And we're jumping in the middle of a story at the beginning of 2 Samuel chapter 1. And we jump in the middle of a sad moment. And what we're going to see today is a lament that David has wrote for the people of God. And there are times where it's good to be sad. And when tragedy hits, when loss hits, there's something in us that aches for a response. I remember in 2001 when 911 happened, that as a nation, we were just collectively at a loss of words, and there was just a deep sadness for what many of us witnessed on TV and all the horror and the pain that came with that. And in November, two months after. I remember at the cmas, which is the Country Music Awards, Alan Jackson, he performed a song that he had written just a few weeks before. It's called Where Were youe In the World? Stop Turning. And the whole song is. It's a lament. It's country music, but it's a lament that captures how everyone felt in that moment as we witnessed all the pain and suffering at 9 11. And I just remember watching that with my parents and just being. Just felt it. You felt it in the room. And, you know, people outside of country music that don't even like country music, which is quite a few people, they actually, some of them very much appreciated the moment because what he was doing was capturing what we just felt. And that's what lament does. It captures this. This suffering, this. This loss, this pain that we feel. And it's good for. For us to sit in that. And poetic songs and poetic laments capture that. And that's what we get to see today as we jump into the middle of a story where we finish up in Second Samuel. We see the death of Saul and Jonathan and the defeat of Israel. We're going to walk through how David finds out about this. Then we're going to see how he laments and then as Christians, we're going to be able to sit in this and understand the importance of. Of what it means to be a people who lament. Well, so I'm going to pray for us, and then we'll walk through this together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. It is precious, it is a gift, and it communicates wonderful, eternal truths that mold and shape us and conform us into your image in new and better ways. And I pray that you would do that to us this morning as we read and study and sit under the authority of your precious word. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.Okay, so if you weren't here for First Samuel, let me just give a quick summary. If you were here and it's been months, let me just help us remember. In 1st Samuel, God calls the final judge and the period of the judges and prophet Samuel. Because first and Second Samuel in the Old Testament is the beginning of the age of the kings. So the people are longing for a king. They want a ruler. They had God as their ruler. They had God as their king. And God used judges to reign them in at times. But this moment, they want a king. They go to Samuel. Samuel listens to the Lord, gives them their first king, which is Saul. And at first it goes well. Saul fits the bill. He looks like a king. He's tall, he's handsome. He leads the people, and they beat, they defeat the Ammonites. They do all kinds of things like this. And it's wonderful. And then as you keep reading, you see that his heart actually isn't fully for the Lord, that he has moments of deep faithlessness. And in his faithlessness, God rejects him as king. He anoints David, who is the next king of Israel. If you're familiar with anything in first and Second Samuel, you're probably familiar with the story of David and Goliath. That is when David steps onto the national scene after he's anointed by Samuel and he becomes a hero. He defeats Goliath, and then Saul appreciates David for, like, 10 minutes. It seems it's not very long. He, like, invites him to marry his daughter. He marries into the family. Things are good for a moment. And then quickly, I think Saul realizes, oh, David is the next king, and he becomes a threat. And the whole rest of 1st Samuel is Saul trying to kill David over and over and over again until finally we get to chapter 31 of 1st Samuel, when finally God brings judgment upon Saul and his house, and they're defeated by the Philistines.In 1st Samuel 31 it says,> Then the battle went hard against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he was badly wounded by the archers.> Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and mistreat me." But his armor-bearer would not, for he was very afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it.> And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword and died with him.> So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men, on the same day together.So that is the end of Saul and 1st Samuel, or 2 Samuel chapter 1 picks up right where that leaves off a few days later. Verse 1.> After the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag.> And on the third day behold, a man came from Saul's camp with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage.So while Saul was fighting the Philistines, David was facing off with a band of Amalekites who had kidnapped him and his men's families. So he goes, he defeats them, and this is them kind of resting after the battle. And then all of a sudden, verse two, it says, and on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul's camp with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage. So clothes torn and dirt on your head. That was an immediate sign to David and his men that something bad has happened. That's a sign of lament. You're in your garments, you put dirt on your head. Something major has happened. Which David said to him, verse three, where do you come from? And he said to him, I have escaped from the camp of Israel. And David said to him, how did it go? Tell me. And he answered, the people fled from the battle. And also many of the people have fallen and are dead. And Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead. So this is the first that David hears of this, that Saul, Jonathan, his friend, they're gone.Now, put yourself back in when we finish this up in the fall, and remember all that David went through to get to this moment and understand the complexities of how he must have been feeling. Saul tried to kill him over and over and over and over again, hurling spears, chasing him in the wilderness, chasing him in and out of towns, and finally it's over. And David had opportunities. He had opportunities to kill him himself. He had two opportunities with his hand in his life, and he spared him because he would not raise his hand against the Lord's anointed. He said, God will bring judgment on Saul. I will not. And it's finally happened. So that's in the background. And then also, Jonathan was one of his closest friends. Jonathan was a dear friend to him. If you remember when we walked the story of David and Jonathan, we got to see Jonathan, who was the next in line to be the king. Saul's son was. He was beloved by the people. He was a mighty warrior. And when David steps on the scene, he yields. It's very clear that he trusts that God has anointed him to be the next king. And that doesn't happen in the Old Testament, that doesn't happen in history. People don't give up their right to the throne like that. But he's a faith filled man and he trusts the anointing that David has. And you see, even when they talk, he longs to be serving in David's court one day. And he also. We saw how much Jonathan honored his father. He called him out at times for how he was pursuing David, but he honored him and stood by him in this battle. And his friend Jonathan is dead. So there is a lot happening in the soul of David as he receives this.And then in verse five, it says,> And the young man who told him said, "I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear, and behold, the chariots and the horsemen were closing in on him.> And when he looked behind him, he saw me and called to me. And I answered, 'Here I am.'> And he said to me, 'Who are you?' And I answered him, 'I am an Amalekite.'> Then he said to me, 'Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers.'> So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen.> And I took the crown that was on his head and the bracelet that was on his arm and brought them here to my lord."Okay, if you're reading first into second Samuel, just chapter 31, straight into this right here. That's quite jarring because those aren't the same stories. That is two different tellings of what happened. And I just want to show you the differences in this. I've got a chart up here. And first Samuel, chapter 31, the narrator tells us that archers surrounded Saul and badly wounded him. But when the Amalekite retells, he says, no chariots and horsemen were close upon him. And in 1st Samuel 31, the narrator tells us that Saul turns to his armor bearer and asks to kill him because he doesn't want to be mistreated. But Amalekite says no. He called out to me. He said, I'm. He said, ask me to kill him. In 1st Samuel 31, we see that the armor bearer refuses. So Saul kills himself, but the Amalekite says, no, I killed him. The only part where. Where it is similar and you can line them up in compatibility is when it says in 1st Samuel 31 that the Philistines recovered just the armor. And then we get in the Amalekite retelling that the crown and the armlet he had so that you can line up, but everything else is different. So when we come upon situations like this in the Bible where there's. There's two differences there, that's an opportunity to lean in and to ask why? Why are these accounts different? And if you are undiscerning and you hop on the Internet and you get into the deep pages of Reddit or Google or wherever you go, you might find the lazy approach that's like, aha. Contradictions. See, your Bible is not trustworthy. And that's an opportunity to just sit in it longer, to ask deeper questions, to be more thoughtful and discerning. And once you do that, it's very clear what's happening. The Amalekite is lying. He's a liar. He's an opportunistic liar. He stumbles upon the battle. He sees Saul. Everyone knows that if Saul's dead, David is the next king. This is an opportunity for him to be rewarded in his mind. Grabs the crown, he grabs the armlet, he makes up a story, he leaves. And then he comes and he tells David the story. So he tells him this. Now David begins to really lament.Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him.> Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and likewise all the men who were with him.> And they mourned and wept and fasted until the evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the LORD, and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.For Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword, which is just a picture. When, when the leader mourns and laments, everyone does. They follow suit. They tear their clothes, they weep, they fast. Which just as a thing to think about, that's one of the reasons for fasting. Like we're in the south and when someone dies, we eat. Which I think can be fun, but also have a category for fasting is good for the people of God to actually to. To fast and to pray and depend upon the Lord. And that's what they do until evening.And David said to the young man who told him, where do you come from? And he answered, I am the son of a sojourner and Amalekite.> And David said to the young man who told him, "Where are you from?" And he answered, "I am the son of a sojourner, an Amalekite."David said to him, how is it you who. How is it you who were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? So this is about the moment the Amalekite begins to realize that he has made a massive mistake. Because David had multiple opportunities to do just this. David could have ended Saul's reign, could have taken the throne, could have seized power. But he feared the Lord and he trusted the Lord. And he was not going to do and raise his hand against the Lord's anointing. He was going to trust the Lord when the Lord decided to bring judgment. So how in the world could this Amalekite, this person who belonged to a people who were enemies of God, think that he could raise his hand against the Lord's anointed and this would somehow be rewarded? This is not the case. And he realizes he has made a mistake, that condemnation is coming.Then David called out, called one of the young men and said, go execute him. And he struck him down so that he died. And David said to him, your blood be on your head for you, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, I have killed the Lord's anointed.> And David said to him, "How is it you were not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD's anointed?"> Then David called one of the young men and said, "Go near and execute him." So the young man struck him down, and he died.> And David said to him, "Your blood is on your head; your own mouth has testified against you, saying, 'I have killed the LORD's anointed.'"So the Amalekite, his reward for opportunistic lying is execution. And that's is another example from the scriptures of the dangers of lying. You can do a whole sermon on that right there. But that's actually not the main point of this story. And we're going to move on to what is the main point, which is this moment of loss for David and the people. And David is going to enter into a lament that he has written. We get the setup for that in verse 17 when it says,> And David took up his lament over Saul and his son Jonathan, and he ordered that The Song of the Bow be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is written in the Book of Jashar.So what we're about to read is a lamentation, a poetic sadness that the people of God are meant to read for centuries to come. And we also see that it's recorded in the book of Joshar, which. That is a Jewish history book that's referenced a few times in the Old Testament. It's lost to history. We don't have any more copies of it, but it was written in the Book of Joshar for the people, and it was recorded here in these scriptures for the people to remember and to lament together. So we're going to read this lament. But as we read this, I want us, as we catch this poetic capturing of the sadness of the people of God and David, we should remember the complexities of how David is feeling in this, of everything that's happened to him and everything that even Saul and his relationship and how complicated that was, that Saul was his enemy, that Saul wanted him dead, but Saul was also his father in law. Saul was also his king. Saul was also his commander. And now he's gone and so is his friend Jonathan. So there's a lot happening here. And we'll read this lament together. He said.> Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!> Tell it not in Gath; proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.> O mountains of Gilboa, may you have neither dew nor rain, nor fields of offerings; for there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.> From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.> Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided; they were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions.> O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you with crimson in luxury, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.> How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan lies slain on your high places.> I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women.> How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished!If you have a title for this lament, it's how the mighty have Fallen, which I got curious and I was wondering, and as best I can tell, that is where we get the sarcastic play on Lament, oh, how the mighty have Fallen. So this is. It comes back to this. It's how the mighty have fallen. One of the things he laments in the loss of Saul and Jonathan and this army is that the daughters of the Philistines rejoice. And this is. This is a picture of the people in Gath and Ashkelon. These are cities in Philistia. They're all celebrating. So not only have they lost their leader, but also their enemies are rejoicing and they're sad.You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor fields of offerings. For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul not anointed. With oil. Mount Gilboa is where this battle happened. It's where Saul died. And David curses it. He curses it. He wishes this place to be as desolate and devoid of the life that was taken there. Cursed be Mount Gilboa. Says, from the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back. And the sword of Saul returned not empty. Which, every now and then the ESV translations get a little clunky. I think it's helpful if you reverse this. The bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty from the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty. What that is saying is that they once were mighty warriors. They. They once fought for Israel, they slayed their enemies, and now they're gone and they're lamenting the loss of their mighty warriors. So Saul and Jonathan, beloved, beloved and lovely in life and death. They were not divided. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions. And we've seen this, we talked about this, that they, that. And through everything that was going on with Saul and David, Saul or Jonathan, honored both his friend and also his father. And they fought together, and they were mighty in battle. You read that in First Samuel. Together they were mighty warriors who defeated their enemies. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.You, daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. Remember how when he reigned, how prosperous we were. How, how the daughters of Israel had scarlet and gold. He says, oh, how, he said, how, how the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle. And this refrain leads into David reflecting on his friendship with Jonathan. Jonathan lies slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant have you been to me. Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. So we catch this final glimpse of David's great love for his friend. And he describes this brotherly love that he had with Jonathan as surpassing the love of women, which we talked about this in the David and Jonathan sermon in First Samuel. If you weren't here, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to it. But just a moment to sit in that idea. It is good to have deep friendships like this. And more specifically, it is good for men to have deep friendships with other men. And a time where it is regularly written about that, that male. That male loneliness is a crisis. It's talked about as an epidemic, that men, especially young men, suicide rates are through the roof, substance abuse is through the roof. Drug overdoses has been through the roof. Sports gambling is an absolute disaster right now for young men. And on and on and on. It's just, it's regularly observed there's something wrong and that they're. There's a need for men to have deep friendships. And we aren't culturally set up well to do this. The men aren't culturally set up well to do this. In fact, it's very apparent that culturally we don't understand a depth of friendship like this. Because people read this and they, they, they jump to, oh, something, something sexual in nature must have been going on between those two. I mean, that is, that is, that is what some people will argue that this is evidence that something was happening between those two men. And it's like we've so misunderstood and are so underprepared to understand how important is to have deep relationships with other men that you can walk side by side and that you can see as brothers. So we, we need to, to grow in this. And especially if you're, if you're married. Let me just say this very clearly. If you're married and your wife is your only friend, nowhere in the Scriptures do I see that as wise. You should absolutely have friendship with your wife. Also, you should have depth of relationship with other men. She should not be your sole confidant. We have care nights where we separate the men and women. And one of the reasons we do that is so that men can grow in friendship and brotherhood and accountability and depth. And that matters. So you can go back, listen to that sermon. More was said there, but I'll move on. And he is just lamenting the loss of this great friend that he had. Verse 27. He ends, how the mighty have fallen and the weapons of war perished. So he ends that refrain, the reminder of what they lost in Jonathan, what they lost. And when you think about what David's doing on behalf of the people of God and personally, and thinking about this, it's very peculiar because you have to recognize that ultimately for David, this is a good thing for him. He's not going to have to look over his shoulder. He's not going to have to be on the run. He's not going to have the threat of death hanging over him over and over and over again. Saul for years has made his life miserable. And you can see this very clearly not just in First Samuel, but when you read the Psalms, particularly the Psalms that David wrote while he was on the run from Saul. You see this in Psalm 57. 4. It says, My soul is in the midst of lions. I lie down amid fiery beasts, the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp, sharp swords. I mean, you see the distress as. As Saul and his men, and all the lies and all the. All the slandering, all the. The threats. In Psalm142.3, another Psalm he wrote on the run from Saul, it says, when my spirit faints within me, you know my way in the path where I walk, they have hidden a trap for me under the threat of being captured continuously. Psalm 54, another Psalm that he wrote while on the wrong from Saul, he says, for strangers have risen against me. Ruthless men seek my life. They do not set God, God before themselves. They seek Saul and his ambition, but they don't consider the Lord. And you see the turmoil that David was in for years. So it's reasonable to assume this moment that he hears of Saul's death, that he's relieved. But that's found nowhere in this lament, not for a moment as you celebrate this, even though ultimately this is for David's good and he knows now I'm able to step into the throne that God has prepared for me, he still appropriately laments. He laments the loss of this nation's leader. He laments the loss of his king, he laments the loss of his friend. And he does this for himself and the people of God to remember. And I think David's response is exemplary. I think it's a very helpful example for us to have this category of lament, even though good things may await us, because I think as Christians, we are just in America. I think we're weaker here. And I see this in a few different ways. I see this in the way that some Christians approach funerals. And I'm not here to attack you. If you've said this or if you believe this, I do want to correct you. I've heard Christians say, well, this brother or sister died, and we're not having a funeral, we're having a party. We're having a celebration because we know where they are, and where they are is far better. So there will be no tears. We will celebrate. And I just go, where do you get that from the Scriptures? Where do we get that idea that we smile in the face of death? Where do you get the idea that we should just be happy? We know that good things just. David knew that good things awaited him. But in the moment of death, the appropriate response is lament. I see people when they lose a job, some Christians come alongside them and they're quick to just want to point out things and they'll say things like, yeah, you know, but it's an opportunity for you to trust the Lord. And it seems like you're really upset about losing this job. You might want to check your heart. It's possible that you have some idolatry for this job. It's possible that you have some control idolatry, that you're trying to control everything. And this is an exposure. God is working in this trial to teach you you should be joy filled. And it's like, whoa, he just lost his job. She just lost her job. There's a moment that it's appropriate to be sad. And certainly we can work through the other things later and count it joy for sufferings. But must we jump straight into the good things that might away? This happens with health trials, various members of our church going through all types of health trials and battles. And I appreciate some of the optimistic culture that surrounds all of that. You hear people say, you know, God's got this and, and, and we're, you know, just. And I appreciate aspects of that that rally in a way that's appropriate and good. But there also, there's a moment and there are days that it's just okay to be sad. It's just okay to lament the reality of suffering. And we should hold these together because human emotion is far more complex than this. We as Christians should be the best at this, y', all to have moments where we are just sad for the reality of death and loss and suffering, while also having our hope secured and tethered to the reality of the future promises that await God's people. We should be able to hold both intention together. And no one exemplifies this better than Jesus Christ.When you get to the Gospel of John in chapter 11 with the recounting of the story of the death of Lazarus and his resurrection, when you read that in verse 11, it says, after saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. And that's important because Jesus absorbs the reality that his friend is dead, that Lazarus is dead, while also saying, I'm going to raise him. Jesus knows exactly what he's about to do. He's about to raise Lazarus from the dead because that resurrection is going to point forward to later, not far actually down the road where Jesus Christ will be resurrected, which again points to the future resurrection. So he's doing something bigger here. He knows what he's about to do. He knows the good things that are about to happen. And yet when he meets his friends Mary And Martha, verse 32, it says now, when Mary came to see to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews would come with her, also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, lord, come and see. Verse 35. Jesus wept. And I think that's important because I think if some American Christians would have written this story, they would have said, Jesus comes on the scene and he sees them weeping and he says, dry your tears because I'm about to do something big, I'm about to do something good. I'm going to do something glorious. But he doesn't. He sees his friends who are broken and in tears, and he's deeply moved in his spirit and he weeps. It doesn't say he cried a few tears, it says he weeps. What a wonderful example we have in our Savior. And seeing the need to lament, knowing that good things may await. But the reality is, is that death stings. Yes. Oh, death, where's your sting? That's future looking. But the sting is now. And there are moments where that recognizing that and living in that reality is beautiful and good for our souls. We should be a people who do this well. We should be a people who both hold the reality of death in front of us and cry. And also hold the reality of the future resurrection and new heavens and new earth, where there is no more death, where there is no more sting, where there is no more tears. And hold those both together. I mean, that's when Paul is writing to the Thessalonians. In 1st Thessalonians 4, he says, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who do not have hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. And I think some people just jump to the we have hope. We have hope. And it's like. But it presupposes what he just told them. He says, may not grieve as others who do not have hope. But he doesn't say, don't grieve. He says, no, we're going to grieve, but we're going to do it as those who have hope. Those who are grounded in the hope of the future resurrection. And that's what we're called to do. That when someone dies, the appropriate response is, if they're a Christian, is not, let's have a party. It's like, no, no, Death is awful. Now, we had a funeral here three weeks ago for one of our members, Ms. Valerie. And she was 93 years old. And y', all, she suffered greatly in the last few years of her life. And I could hold the thought in my head that says, I'm so thankful for where she is now. But when I sat with her family, I said, y' all should feel this death stings and it's okay to be sad. And we could hold both of those thoughts together. That when you experience loss, when you lose something, that you can be sad while also having your faith anchored in the reality that one day there will be no more losing, there will only be gain. That we as Christians can have sufferings. And know what James 1 says, when it says, count it all joy. My brothers know what Romans 5 says, that suffering produces character, care produces endurance. Like we can have all these together while also being faith filled and sad and also putting our hope in what is to come and growing and maturing along the way that we should be able to hold these both together. Because we as Christians live between the already and the not yet. We live between the reality of present suffering and the future promises that await. And we should be a people who lament well personally, but also we should help others lament, brothers and sisters. Do not rob others of the opportunity to both grieve and be sad and let God meet them in their grief. Because I think sometimes because we're uncomfortable, because we don't like the silence, or because we lack the theological depth to understand how we should respond. And we'll just offer shallow truisms or Christian niceties. We need to grow in helping other brothers and sisters who are lamenting suffer well and lament well so that God can meet them in their grief and grow their faith in wonderful ways.I was on the Internet the other day and I saw one of my friends from college post this, one of the most moving things I've ever read on grief. And him and his wife had struggled with infertility for years. They six months ago had twin boys and were excited and did the gender reveal and all the things. And we're all very excited. And at 22 weeks, everything fell apart. They had emergency delivery and their boys lived for only a day. And then this past week, after six months of reflecting, he wrote this. And I Want to ask permission for me to read this because I found it to be very moving, very helpful. How God can meet us in our grief and our lament. And here's what he wrote. He said, grief is about allowing loss to enlarge my heart and increase my capacity to hold both joy and sorrow. Grief is teaching me that my boys live on in me and will always be a part of me. Grief is instructing me to cry out to God and complaint and lament long enough to hear him whisper, I know what it's like to lose a son. Grief is increasing my longing for heaven and the renewal of all things. Grief is daring me to believe that despite our loss, God is still writing a good story. Grief is consistently inviting me to choose life in the face of death. I'm a different person than I was six months ago. But as a friend who knows what it's like to lose a child, has told me I want my child back, but I don't want the old me back. I think I'm just starting to believe him. So it is through grief that I echo the words of Nicholas Wolterstaff in his book of Lament of a Son. I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dried eyed I could not see. I read that and I just was like, you don't arrive at that conclusion without having your faith so deeply anchored. The reality that one day he will make all things new, but he's sufficient to meet us in the moment of lament that comes through faith filled lament. You don't see God like this without him meeting us in our grief like this, knowing that God in our suffering gives us eyes to see, even if those eyes are stained with tears. You don't embrace this without faith filled lament. You don't refuse it. You lean into it. And that is something that we need to grow in as Christians. We need to grow in learning to lament well. We need to grow and having this trusting the Lord in the middle of the suffering and the loss.And one of the ways we get to do that is through taking the Lord's Supper and through singing, which we're going to do in a moment. We're going to take the Lord's Supper and we're going to sing a song of lament. As we come to the table as Christians, we're reminded of what Jesus instituted for us on the night that he was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it. He said, this is my body that was broken for you. And he took the cup of the new covenant. He said, this is my blood that was shed for you, that as often as you eat and drink this, you proclaim my death until I return. Jesus instructs his church to practice this practice, to remember that he secured salvation for us on the cross while also pointing forward to one day when the final feast happens. And that we as Christians live in the middle between both. So we don't come to the table all the time with just joy filled hearts. Sometimes we come with heavy hearts, and that's good. If you're a Christian, you get to consider your sin, you get to consider our sufferings, and we also get to consider our Savior who meets us in our sufferings. And in a moment you'll come to the table and I invite you to. If you're not a Christian, we don't want you to come to the table. We want you to come to our Savior. That walking through this life will be filled with suffering, it will be filled with trials, it will be filled with death. And I hope that reality is impressed upon your heart to see that there is someone who can meet you in that and can point you to the hope that we have that is secure. So don't come to the table, come to Jesus Christ in faith. But the band's going to come up now. They're going to take the Lord's Supper, and then we're going to sing a song of lament that is meant to help us learn how to grieve well, how to lament well. And we will sing this out together.

On today's episode, Pastor Cameron looks at David's past victories before facing Goliath. Because David had defeated the lion and the bear when no one else was watching, he had faith that he could defeat Goliath when the freedom of his nation depended on it! 

Sometimes, we spend so much of our energy believing that God will give us a breakthrough in our time of need, that we miss the fact that he's already provided us with everything we need to get through those tough times.   So Easy to Miss Sometimes we can be looking forward to something ... something that God will do; some defining moment in life, without realising what He has already done for us in the past. Let me give you an example: you are going through a tough time, perhaps some difficulty at work or in bringing up our children or in our marriages – we all go through those times. In fact it seems that there is never a time in life when there isn't some pressure or difficulty in some part of our lives. And so we start praying feverishly for God to deliver us from those tough times. We start believing Him for a miracle and a breakthrough. Now that's good; it's a good thing to do but so many people do that at the expense of realising that the changes God has already made in us – deep within our hearts. Those changes are meant to help us to travel through those difficult times. Those changes are meant to make us a blessing to others in those dark times. Those changes are meant to make His light; His glory to shine through us out into a lost and hurting world. There is a saying "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." It's absolutely right that we should pray about difficult situations but not at the expense of knowing and trusting in what God has already done; in what we already have in our hands. This is the third programme in a series that I have called "Defining Moments". It is so often the case that minor and even major miracles come through the smallest and seemingly, most insignificant event in our lives. It's a great thing about God – He gets involved in the smallest things in our lives. But sometimes ... sometimes He's not so much about wanting to do something fresh and new to deliver us out of a situation; sometimes He is calling us to rely on something that He has already done to get us through that situation. Today we are going to look at a man who is pretty well known – King David of Israel. He is on the Biblical "A" list if you like and he is probably the greatest King that Israel ever had. Now, David had quite a few defining moments in his life; he had trials, he had victories, he had failures, he had repentance – turning back to God after making a mistake. He was anointed as the King of Israel by God's prophet, Samuel when he was just a lad. He slew Goliath; he fled from Saul in the wilderness, running for his life, on and on. He won so many battles; he was so successful! David had so many defining moments that we could look at in his life but it was something ... something that God did way back before all of those things, that I think was the defining moment in David's life – the thing that carried him through all those trials; the very reason that God was able to use David so mightily in the history of Israel. Here's how it happened. Israel didn't have a King – their system of government was a theocracy – that meant that God was their King. He would send leaders like Moses and Joshua to lead them and then finally, when they made it out of Egypt through the exodus for forty years, into the Promised Land, He had a series of Judges to judge over Israel – that's all they needed – to judge whether the people had met God's law or not. So these Judges presided over Israel. When they needed specific revelation or guidance or instruction from God, God used men called prophets, to speak His specific will into the life of Israel. But eventually, people decided they wanted a King like all the other nations, so God gave them Saul. Saul was the first King of Israel and he was okay for a while, but pretty soon he turned out to be an abject failure. So God removed His anointing from Saul; that divine appointment and empowerment and God said, "No more, that's enough. Saul is no longer My anointed King, even though Saul continued on in the position of King." That's how it went – if you have got a Bible, grab it, open it at First Samuel chapter 13, verse 13: Samuel the prophet said to Saul, "You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom will not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after His own heart and the Lord has appointed him to be ruler over His people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. And therein lies, I think, the defining moment for David, even before David's name is mentioned – the moment when God took the ordinary and turned him into the extraordinary. Later on we discover that this new King is to be David; the shepherd boy, that not even his father thought enough of to bring him before Samuel, the prophet, with his other brothers, to be anointed as King. This was just an ordinary, everyday little shepherd boy. He was created in his mother's womb to be a man after God's own heart; equipped in his very DNA to be a man that God had planned for him to be. And in those lonely times, pasturing his sheep out there on his own, fighting bears and lions and protecting the flock; those seemingly ordinary shepherd things, all along God was growing and developing that heart in David; the shepherd who would be King. Most of us will know the terrible times that David went through – times when Saul was hunting him down to kill him and yet David refused even to raise his hand against Saul. We are going to share in one particular time to see how this heart worked out in his life. Saul is in a cave; Saul is out there hunting David to kill him – why? Because he realises that people are starting to follow David and he is desperately wanting to cling onto power, so he decides to kill David. So David, in this cave, has an opportunity to kill Saul but instead of killing him in the dark, he sneaks up and cuts part of Saul's robe off in the dark. And then calls out to Saul and says, See, this proves that I had the opportunity to kill you and I didn't harm you. I am never going to harm you. I will not raise my hand against God's anointed. Let's pick it up in First Samuel chapter 24, beginning at verse 12 – and so David says to Saul, look: May the Lord judge between you and me. May the Lord avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you. As the ancient proverb says, 'Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness,' but my hand shall not be against you," says David to King Saul. "Against whom shall the King of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A single flea? May the Lord therefore be judge and give sentence between you and me. May He see to it and plead my cause and vindicate me against you." When David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, "Is this your voice, my son, David?" Saul lifted up his voice and wept. He said to David, "You are more righteous than I for you have repaid me with good whereas I have repaid you evil. Today you have explained how you have dealt well with me and that you did not kill me when the Lord put me into your hands. For who has ever found an enemy and sent the enemy safely away? So may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me. Now I know that you shall surely be King and that the Kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. So swear to me therefore, by the Lord, that you will not cut off my descendants after me and that you will not wipe out my name from my father's house." So David swore this to Saul and then Saul went home but David and his men went up to a stronghold. We are going to have a look how that promise worked its way out in David's life next.   A Promise Fulfilled Pretty amazing stuff for how David reacted to Saul and what an amazing promise that David makes to Saul, to bless his descendants when he becomes King and even more amazing, when Saul and his sons die, David mourns their death. I mean Saul hunted him down and tried to kill him. I don't know, my hunch is, I would have been celebrating Saul's death – "Finally now I'm safe, finally now I'm King" – but not David. You can read it in Second Samuel chapter 1, verse 12: He mourned and wept and fasted for Saul and his son Jonathan when they died. Right now we are going to look at how ordinary people become extraordinary. How the heart that God put into David shines forth the love and the glory of God in the most beautiful way as he fulfils his promise to Saul. And he does it in the life of a young man called Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son. So Saul had a son called Jonathan, Jonathan before he died, had a son called Mephibosheth. Now most people have never heard of Mephibosheth - he is definitely not on the Biblical 'A' list. This is one of those stories we don't hear that much. It's not about some great victory of King David; it's not about some spectacular battle or anything like that. Let's have a look at it – we pick it up in Second Samuel chapter 9, beginning at verse 1: David asked, "Is there anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan's sake?" Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba and he was summoned to David and the King said to him, "Are you Ziba?" and he answered, "Yes, at your service!" So the King said, "Is there anyone remaining in the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?" And Ziba said to the King, "There remains a son of Jonathan. He is crippled in his feet." The King said to him, "Where is he?" And Ziba said to the King, "He is in the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar." Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, son of Saul came to David and fell on his face and did obeisance. David said, "Mephibosheth!" He answered, "I am your servant." David said to him, "Do not be afraid, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan; I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul and you yourself shall eat at my table always." He did obeisance and said, "What is your servant that you should look upon a dead dog like me?" Then the King summoned Saul's servant Ziba, and said to him, "All that belonged to Saul and to all his house, I have given to your master's grandson. You and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, so that your master's grandson may have food to eat; but your master's grandson Mephibosheth shall always eat at my table." Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. Then Ziba said to the King, "According to all that my lord the King commands his servant, your servant shall do." So Mephibosheth ate at David's table, like one of the King's sons. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he always ate at the King's table. Now he was lame in both his feet. See, so often there was a bloody transition of power from one King to another. You know, the new King would kill, not only the old King but all the descendants of the old King to make sure that there would be no challenge to the throne from the old King's bloodline. Mephibosheth was Saul's grandson – he was crippled in his feet, living in obscurity in Lo-debar, hoping not to be noticed. And I use that term "crippled" which is politically incorrect these days – I use that word deliberately because there was no political correctness in those days. If you were disabled, you were at the bottom of the heap – almost an outcast. And yet here for the sake of David's covenant with Saul and his friendship with Jonathan, David elevates Mephibosheth to the King's table and restores all the possessions of King Saul, his grandfather, to Mephibosheth, this young man. What an absolutely extraordinary act of grace! For Mephibosheth it was like ... like winning the lottery – it was unbelievable. In fact, it's the accumulation of a pattern in the life of David. Saul twice tries to kill David and twice David has the opportunity to strike Saul down; to take the throne; to guarantee his safety. After all, hadn't David already been anointed by the prophet Samuel as King? "Come on, David, just do it, get on with it. End this pain and misery and risk – believe in a breakthrough from God. Take things into your own hands." That's what David's followers were urging him to do but David's response in First Samuel chapter 24, verse 6, is this: He said to his men, "The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's anointed, to raise my hand against him; for he is the Lord's anointed." Twice, at his own risk, refuses to kill Saul and then when David learns of Saul's death, he goes into mourning and now ... now to cap all this off, he pours his favour and his grace and his mercy and his possessions on the descendant; the grandson of the man who hunted him like an animal. Do you see how David refused to take things into his own hands, to end his suffering, to ensure his own safety? And as utterly extraordinary as his behaviour was, it was like it was the most naturally, ordinary, obvious thing for him to do. Do you see that? Why? Because David ... David was a man after God's own heart. David didn't spend his time looking for a breakthrough; he lived through the trials with the heart of God in him. That's why he blessed Mephibosheth – that's why he was the perfect shepherd King for Israel – a man after God's own heart.   Where it All Began So what are we to learn from this story? Is today's message as simple as "Well, be like David?" Um, no, I don't think so – I don't know about you but I'm no David. I think there is a much deeper; much more wonderful story for you and for me to discover here. It's not just about ourselves; not just about David – it's about God. So what was this defining moment in David's story; when did it happen? Well, it's before David was anointed King, it's before David had his battles and his trials and his victories and ... and all that stuff. When was David's defining moment; when did he receive a heart that was the same as God's? Right back at the beginning – actually David knew that. He wrote a Psalm; he wrote Psalm 139. Let's just listen to what he wrote here – Psalm 139 beginning at verse 13. This is David writing this. He is saying to God: For it was You who formed my inward parts; it was You who knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works O God, that I know very well. My frame, it wasn't hidden from You when I was being made in secret, intricately woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In Your book were written all the days that were formed for me when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them. I try and count them but they are more than the sand; I come to the end – and I am still with You. That's a Psalm of David! David realised what was going on here. He looks back and he realises that God handcrafted him in his mother's womb. That heart of God that was in him was part of his very DNA blueprint. But not only that – all those days as a shepherd - protecting his flock – were part of God's plan. Listen how David talks about those days, when as a young man, he convinces Saul to let him go up against Goliath in that famous battle. First Samuel chapter 17, beginning at verse 33: Saul said to David, "You are not able to go up against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy and he has been a warrior from his youth." But David said to Saul, "Your servant used to keep sheep for his father and whenever a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went straight after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth. And if it turned against me I would catch it by the jaw and strike it down and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them to me, since he has defied the armies of the living God." See, David seemed to know that not only was the heart of God handcrafted in him but those very mundane days of being a shepherd boy and protecting a flock of sheep and going after the lost lamb – those seemingly mundane, everyday things in his life thus far, had prepared him for this battle against the giant Goliath. David knew that the way that God had made him, had prepared him to be the shepherd of Israel. Do you see what God is saying to you and me today? Do you have any idea what God has done in handcrafting your DNA and mine, in putting His heart into you and to me? Do you have any idea how carefully He has prepared us through every moment of every day for a time just as this? Through all the boring and mundane and everyday things that we have travelled through – who we are and what we have been through are such a perfect fit, because they are part of God's plan to prepare us to be who He has called us to be – to do what He has called us to do. "But Berni", I hear you say, "You don't understand how mundane my life has been. You have no idea what a hash I have made of things. Maybe David is a man after God's own heart, but me? No!" You and I were never meant to be David; you were always meant to be you – I was always meant to be me. Wake up! Stop comparing! When we look at our lives they are so mundane! You know, ninety nine point nine percent of life is mundane but the miracle in it is that every moment is part of God's plan. Every hair on our heads is known to God! What defines us is not the mundane – what defines us is God's plan – for every strand of our DNA and for every moment of every day that we live and breathe on this earth. When we are going through tough times, should we pray – should we ask God for a breakthrough? Absolutely, we should! But so often God's plan is for us to live through those things, with what He has already put in us. The defining moment happened a long time ago. Jesus spent forty days and nights in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil and starving. He didn't spend five days, not ten, not twenty, not thirty or thirty five or thirty nine – God's plan was for Him to spend forty days. And we don't know how long our wilderness tour is going to last but this thing we do know, God ... God has prepared us for times such as this. God is preparing us right now for the future He has planned. There is such wonder in who He has made us to be. He has given us everything we need through Christ, to live out today with His joy in our hearts, for His glory. Who knows, maybe today or tomorrow or the next day, maybe He will bring a Mephibosheth into our lives for us to lavish His grace and His kindness and His mercy and His love upon that person. Who knows what God has got planned? Who knows how long the trials are going to last? Sometimes God just wants us to rest on what He has already done and just live day by day by day through the things that He is calling us to travel through.

Now that Judge David S. Tatel has retired from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he feels freer to warn us all: the Supreme Court is threatening America's democracy by inventing spurious legal doctrines and grabbing more power for itself. There are also lighter moments in this revealing interview, as David pulls the curtain aside and tells us how the judges on this powerful court really do their work. Spoiler alert #1: It used to involve a red children's sand pail. Spoiler alert #2: Because David is blind, he used to hire "readers" who rattled off every word of laws, books and briefs out loud to him, at such mind-boggling speeds that most people couldn't understand them. 

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with David Adler, co-general coordinator of the Progressive International, who is currently on the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian convoy currently on its way to Gaza. They discuss the remarkable cross-section of people who have joined the flotilla and what they hope to achieve by it while also looking at different ways Israel works to discredit and undermine this effort. Because David joined the podcast from the boat in the Mediterranean and lost access to the internet while he and Peter were speaking, this conversation happens in two parts. You'll hear the transition about halfway through the podcast.  David Adler is a political economist and the Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, founded in May 2020 to unite, organize, and mobilize progressive forces around the world. His research and writing have been featured in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, among others. You can read more about him at https://davidrkadler.info/.  Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and an MSNBC Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

Welcome to Day 2612 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom Day 2612 – Wisdom Nuggets – Psalm 59:11-17 – Daily Wisdom Wisdom-Trek Podcast Script - Day 2612 Welcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! I am Guthrie Chamberlain, and we are on Day 2612 of our Trek. The Purpose of Wisdom-Trek is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. In today's Wisdom Nugget, I'll be your guide along the paths of wisdom and truth as we journey together through God's Word, exploring its timeless insights for everyday life. It's always a privilege to have you join me, and today, we're continuing our exploration through Psalm 59, focusing specifically on verses 11 through 17. Psalm 59 is deeply personal—a powerful prayer penned by David when he faced terrifying danger from King Saul, who had sent men to assassinate him at his own home. David, hiding in fear, yet filled with confidence in God, offers profound lessons about dealing with opposition, injustice, and fear. Today, we explore how David's prayer turns from urgency and fear toward deep trust, faith, and praise. Let's begin by reading Psalm 59:11-17 from the New Living Translation: 11 Don't kill them, for my people soon forget such lessons; stagger them with your power, and bring them to their knees, O Lord our shield. 12 Because of the sinful things they say, because of the evil that is on their lips, let them be captured by their pride, their curses, and their lies. 13 Destroy them in your anger! Wipe them out completely! Then the whole world will know that God reigns in Israel. 14 My enemies come out at night, snarling like vicious dogs as they prowl the streets. 15 They scavenge for food but go to sleep unsatisfied. 16 But as for me, I will sing about your power. Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress. 17 O my Strength, to you I sing praises, for you, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love. God's Justice as a Teaching Moment (Verse 11) David begins this section with an unusual prayer request: “Don't kill them, for my people soon forget such lessons; stagger them with your power, and bring them to their knees, O Lord our shield.” Here, David expresses a deep insight rooted in his concern for God's people. He asks God not to immediately eliminate his enemies. Instead, David prays God would visibly demonstrate His power—humbling these proud enemies rather than instantly destroying them. Why this unusual request? Because David understood human nature profoundly. He knew immediate victory—quick removal of trouble—often led people to forget God's intervention. David desires a deeper lesson: a visible display of God's strength to remind everyone that God alone is protector and shield of Israel. In the ancient Israelite worldview, visible displays of God's power were essential. They reinforced the people's memory, reminding them to remain faithful to Yahweh. When God showed His mighty hand—like in Egypt during the Exodus or at the walls of Jericho—Israel remembered and trusted. David desires that same enduring lesson. Illustration: Consider a child who...

The second verse in the 23rd Psalm is a peculiar one for those of us not accustomed to the undeveloped lands of the Bible. When you read of green pastures and quiet waters you most likely think of Goshen County, WY which produces more beef cattle than any other Wyoming county in our state. When I read Psalm 23, I think of the New Jersey Highlands consisting of lots of green and lots of water. But the green pastures that David had in mind was a dry and rocky set of rolling hills with tough grass sparsely scattered throughout. The grass was so sparsely scattered, that if one of the sheep wandered off, he would most likely starve to death if any of the predators in the region didnt find him first, and depending on the season, water was even more difficult to find. Because sheep are the most helpless of animals; they are not just dependent on the shepherd but are in absolute need of a shepherd for survival. Sometime ago there was a story out of Istanbul that reported the death of four sheep. Their shepherds reportedly neglected their flock by leaving the sheep to roam free so that they could eat breakfast. The sheep followed their leader right off a cliff; one by one, four hundred of them fell nearly 50 feet to their deaths. The loss of sheep was estimated to be $74,000. In the ancient world, shepherding was the least respected of occupations and required the full attention of the shepherd all the time. If a family had sheep, the youngest son was expected to serve as a shepherd. Because David was the youngest of eight sons, his job was to shepherd the sheep for his father Jesse. When David wrote this psalm, he wrote from his own experience, and like all other shepherds, David lived with the sheep. To appreciate this Psalm, we need to understand why it is structured the way that it is. There are five images that include the critical role of the shepherd as he leads, guides, and provides for his sheep; each Sunday, we will consider one of the five images we are given. So that you know where we are going, I will list them for you here: Image #1: The Abundant Life (vv. 2-3a) Image #2: The Secure Life (v. 3b) Image #3: The Hard Life (v. 4) Image #4: The Victorious Life (v. 5) Image #5: The Everlasting Life (v. 6) Today we will consider the first image, which is where the Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm is ultimately leading His sheep, and that is the abundant life. What is the Way to the Abundant Life? For a sheep to lie down four things need to happen: They need to be free of fear, friction, flies, and hunger. Phillip Keller spent eight years as a shepherd before he became a pastor, in his book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, he wrote of what it takes to get sheep to lie down: It is almost impossible for sheep to be made to lie down unless four requirements are met. Owing to their timidity they refuse to lie down unless they are free of all fear. Because of the social behavior within a flock sheep will not lie down unless they are free from friction with others of their kind. If tormented by flies or parasites, sheep will not lie down. Only when free of these pests can they relax. Lastly, sheep will not lie down as long as they feel in need of finding food. They must be free from hunger.[1] It is only the shepherd who can provide the kind of trust, peace, deliverance, and pasture that the sheep need. Yet, of the five images in this Psalm, David begins with the one about rest. The first thing that we receive from Yahweh as our Shepherd, is rest. How does He provide us with rest? According to the NASB2020, He lets me lie down in green pastures... He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul... The Hebrew word for lets is the Hebrew word rbṣ and most translations translate this word as make. If you are using the NIV, the ESV, or an older version of the NASB, Psalm 23:2 reads something like this: He makes me lie down in green pastures... So which is it? Does Jesus, as our good Shepherd make us lie down or does He, let us lie down in green pastures? The Hebrew word for lets is both causative and imperfect so literally it can be translated, He causes me to lie down in green pastures... So, why does all matter? Our Shepherd removes from His sheep every agitation and threat that would keep us from the kind of rest we were made for and the rest that we need. However, the presence of Jesus in our lives not only causes us to lie down, but He also takes us to quiet waters; in Hebrew, quiet waters is literally waters of rest. Where the quiet waters are, so there is life for all that surrounds those waters, and where there are green pastures and still waters in the dry and rocky climate of a cursed world, there is renewal. What kind of renewal you ask? The kind that restores the soul of the sheep. The Hebrew word used for restores means to turn back or return. The place that the Psalmist is describing is the place where those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6) will be filled and refreshed by resting in the Shepherd of the 23rdPsalm. It is Jesus who said, Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28). It is the Lord of the 23rd Psalm who said: I am the bread of life; the one who comes to Me will not be hungry, and the one who believes in Me will never be thirsty (John 6:35). The Good Shepherd said, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). According to Psalm 23, the Christian life begins with rest, and the kind of rest we receive is the abundant life that can only come through Jesus. But what is the abundant life? Is it prosperity in the worlds eyes? Is it the pain free life? What is the abundant life that Jesus came so that we, as His sheep, would have? What Kind of Abundant Life Does the Shepherd Provide? The abundant life is a life rooted in Jesus. The abundant life comes out of the abiding life. So, what is the abiding life you ask? Jesus told us what the abiding life is in John 6:54-56, The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him (John 6:5456). The Greek word for remain is menō. If you are using the ESV or an older version of the NASB, you will see the word abide instead of remain. To remain or abide is to rest in Jesus and to rest in Him is to take up residence in the life of Christ. How does one do that? You do it by taking into your mind, heart, and soul all that Jesus is and all that he taught and commanded us to do. The same Greek word is used in John 15:5, I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. So what does it mean to have the abundant life? Does the abundant life mean that you have a pain free life? If the abundant life means that the Shepherds will for you is to be comfortable with little to no suffering in this life, then what do you do with our Shepherds words to his sheep: In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world (John 16:33b)? The New Living Translation is closer to Jesus point: Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. If the green pastures and quite waters do not include the kind of agitation and trouble that suffering brings, then what do you do with Jesus warning to his disciples: You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, other relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all people because of My name. And yet not a hair of your head will perish (Luke 21:1618). If the green pastures and quiet waters that the Jesus leads his people to does not include suffering and even death, then what do you say to the fathers, the mothers, the children, and the friends of the 70 Christians who were taken from their village at 4am on the morning on February 13th of this year by a rebel group with ties to the Islamic State? They were taken by force to a Protestant church where they were slaughtered with machetes and hammers; those 70 Christians were our brothers and sisters in the faith. They heard the call of Jesus and followed Him (see John 10:14-16), yet when their bodies were discovered, each of them was also beheaded. Where are the green pastures and quiet waters of those 70 beheaded Christians from the Congo if the 23rd Psalm is also for them? Those 70 beheaded brothers and sisters are now included among the martyred saints described in Revelation 6:9-11, When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who live on the earth? And a white robe was given to each of them; and they were told that they were to rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters who were to be killed even as they had been, was completed also. (Rev. 6:911) Those 70 Christians among the masses in heaven who are asking the question: How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who live on the earth? Notice the answer they received: rest for a little while longer, until the number of your fellow servants and their brothers and sisters who are to be killed even as you have been killed, is complete (v. 11). There will be more who will be massacred, butchered, and slaughtered in the name of the Good Shepherd, but that is not the end of their story! In March another 47 Christians from the Congo were martyred for following Jesus, and to date 287 Christians have been killed for their faith since Christmas of 2024. So, where was their green pasture? Where were the quiet waters for those followers of the Good Shepherd? We are given an answer in Revelation 7:9-17. We are told that right now all 287 of those who died for their faith in the Congo sing, and they are joined with other brothers and sisters who followed the Good Shepherd to their deaths, from every nation and all the tribes, peoples, and languages. Today, they shout triumphantly: Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb (Rev. 7:9ff.). But that is not all that we are told, for what they have is infinitely more precious than the comfort and safety we all hope to have in this life. I want to show you something from Revelation 7:13-17 that will help make sense of what is promised to us in the 23rd Psalm: Then one of the elders responded, saying to me, These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from? 14I said to him, My lord, you know. And he said to me, These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. 16They will no longer hunger nor thirst, nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any scorching heat; 17for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Do you see the answer for where the green pastures and quiet waters are for those who suffer, especially for those who suffer for their faith in the Good Shepherd? God currently shelters the scores of martyred Christians with His presence according to Revelation 7:15, but do you see what verses 16-17 say and how familiar it sounds to Psalm 23? Lets look at these verses again: They will no longer hunger nor thirst, nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any scorching heat; 17for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. The reason why these Christians, and every other Christian in heaven no longer hungers or thirsts is because they are in the presence of the Lamb who is their shepherd. The sun no longer beats down on them with its scorching heat because they have been delivered from the wilderness of a cursed world! The Lamb is the spring of water of life, and it is because of the triumph of the Lamb that every tear will be wiped from their eyes. Conclusion Listen, the 70 who were beheaded, those who suffer in this life, and every other Christian who belongs to the Good Shepherd had the green pastures and quiet waters during their life on earth because they had Jesus, and they found that their hunger and thirst for righteousness was satisfied in Him. Although the 70 Christians from the Congo lost their lives, they did not lose what belonged to them, for they have what is promised to every Christian in the 23rd Psalm because they have the Lamb who is their Shepherd. Psalm 23 is not some cute passage for coffee mugs, t-shirts, and memorial cards! It is so much more. If Jesus is your shepherd, you have all that you need in Him. If you have Jesus, then you have the green pastures and quiet waters promised to all whose Lord is their shepherd. My question for you dear friend, is this: Who is the Lamb of God to you? If Jesus is your shepherd, then in what ways are you abiding in Him? How can you expect to experience the kinds of green pastures and quiet waters promised in Psalm 23 if you are not going to Jesus to satisfy the kind of hunger and thirst that only He can satisfy? [1] James Montgomery Boice, Psalms 141: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 209.

The second verse in the 23rd Psalm is a peculiar one for those of us not accustomed to the undeveloped lands of the Bible. When you read of green pastures and quiet waters you most likely think of Goshen County, WY which produces more beef cattle than any other Wyoming county in our state. When I read Psalm 23, I think of the New Jersey Highlands consisting of lots of green and lots of water. But the green pastures that David had in mind was a dry and rocky set of rolling hills with tough grass sparsely scattered throughout. The grass was so sparsely scattered, that if one of the sheep wandered off, he would most likely starve to death if any of the predators in the region didnt find him first, and depending on the season, water was even more difficult to find. Because sheep are the most helpless of animals; they are not just dependent on the shepherd but are in absolute need of a shepherd for survival. Sometime ago there was a story out of Istanbul that reported the death of four sheep. Their shepherds reportedly neglected their flock by leaving the sheep to roam free so that they could eat breakfast. The sheep followed their leader right off a cliff; one by one, four hundred of them fell nearly 50 feet to their deaths. The loss of sheep was estimated to be $74,000. In the ancient world, shepherding was the least respected of occupations and required the full attention of the shepherd all the time. If a family had sheep, the youngest son was expected to serve as a shepherd. Because David was the youngest of eight sons, his job was to shepherd the sheep for his father Jesse. When David wrote this psalm, he wrote from his own experience, and like all other shepherds, David lived with the sheep. To appreciate this Psalm, we need to understand why it is structured the way that it is. There are five images that include the critical role of the shepherd as he leads, guides, and provides for his sheep; each Sunday, we will consider one of the five images we are given. So that you know where we are going, I will list them for you here: Image #1: The Abundant Life (vv. 2-3a) Image #2: The Secure Life (v. 3b) Image #3: The Hard Life (v. 4) Image #4: The Victorious Life (v. 5) Image #5: The Everlasting Life (v. 6) Today we will consider the first image, which is where the Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm is ultimately leading His sheep, and that is the abundant life. What is the Way to the Abundant Life? For a sheep to lie down four things need to happen: They need to be free of fear, friction, flies, and hunger. Phillip Keller spent eight years as a shepherd before he became a pastor, in his book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, he wrote of what it takes to get sheep to lie down: It is almost impossible for sheep to be made to lie down unless four requirements are met. Owing to their timidity they refuse to lie down unless they are free of all fear. Because of the social behavior within a flock sheep will not lie down unless they are free from friction with others of their kind. If tormented by flies or parasites, sheep will not lie down. Only when free of these pests can they relax. Lastly, sheep will not lie down as long as they feel in need of finding food. They must be free from hunger.[1] It is only the shepherd who can provide the kind of trust, peace, deliverance, and pasture that the sheep need. Yet, of the five images in this Psalm, David begins with the one about rest. The first thing that we receive from Yahweh as our Shepherd, is rest. How does He provide us with rest? According to the NASB2020, He lets me lie down in green pastures... He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul... The Hebrew word for lets is the Hebrew word rbṣ and most translations translate this word as make. If you are using the NIV, the ESV, or an older version of the NASB, Psalm 23:2 reads something like this: He makes me lie down in green pastures... So which is it? Does Jesus, as our good Shepherd make us lie down or does He, let us lie down in green pastures? The Hebrew word for lets is both causative and imperfect so literally it can be translated, He causes me to lie down in green pastures... So, why does all matter? Our Shepherd removes from His sheep every agitation and threat that would keep us from the kind of rest we were made for and the rest that we need. However, the presence of Jesus in our lives not only causes us to lie down, but He also takes us to quiet waters; in Hebrew, quiet waters is literally waters of rest. Where the quiet waters are, so there is life for all that surrounds those waters, and where there are green pastures and still waters in the dry and rocky climate of a cursed world, there is renewal. What kind of renewal you ask? The kind that restores the soul of the sheep. The Hebrew word used for restores means to turn back or return. The place that the Psalmist is describing is the place where those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6) will be filled and refreshed by resting in the Shepherd of the 23rdPsalm. It is Jesus who said, Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28). It is the Lord of the 23rd Psalm who said: I am the bread of life; the one who comes to Me will not be hungry, and the one who believes in Me will never be thirsty (John 6:35). The Good Shepherd said, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). According to Psalm 23, the Christian life begins with rest, and the kind of rest we receive is the abundant life that can only come through Jesus. But what is the abundant life? Is it prosperity in the worlds eyes? Is it the pain free life? What is the abundant life that Jesus came so that we, as His sheep, would have? What Kind of Abundant Life Does the Shepherd Provide? The abundant life is a life rooted in Jesus. The abundant life comes out of the abiding life. So, what is the abiding life you ask? Jesus told us what the abiding life is in John 6:54-56, The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him (John 6:5456). The Greek word for remain is menō. If you are using the ESV or an older version of the NASB, you will see the word abide instead of remain. To remain or abide is to rest in Jesus and to rest in Him is to take up residence in the life of Christ. How does one do that? You do it by taking into your mind, heart, and soul all that Jesus is and all that he taught and commanded us to do. The same Greek word is used in John 15:5, I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. So what does it mean to have the abundant life? Does the abundant life mean that you have a pain free life? If the abundant life means that the Shepherds will for you is to be comfortable with little to no suffering in this life, then what do you do with our Shepherds words to his sheep: In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world (John 16:33b)? The New Living Translation is closer to Jesus point: Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. If the green pastures and quite waters do not include the kind of agitation and trouble that suffering brings, then what do you do with Jesus warning to his disciples: You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, other relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all people because of My name. And yet not a hair of your head will perish (Luke 21:1618). If the green pastures and quiet waters that the Jesus leads his people to does not include suffering and even death, then what do you say to the fathers, the mothers, the children, and the friends of the 70 Christians who were taken from their village at 4am on the morning on February 13th of this year by a rebel group with ties to the Islamic State? They were taken by force to a Protestant church where they were slaughtered with machetes and hammers; those 70 Christians were our brothers and sisters in the faith. They heard the call of Jesus and followed Him (see John 10:14-16), yet when their bodies were discovered, each of them was also beheaded. Where are the green pastures and quiet waters of those 70 beheaded Christians from the Congo if the 23rd Psalm is also for them? Those 70 beheaded brothers and sisters are now included among the martyred saints described in Revelation 6:9-11, When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who live on the earth? And a white robe was given to each of them; and they were told that they were to rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters who were to be killed even as they had been, was completed also. (Rev. 6:911) Those 70 Christians among the masses in heaven who are asking the question: How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who live on the earth? Notice the answer they received: rest for a little while longer, until the number of your fellow servants and their brothers and sisters who are to be killed even as you have been killed, is complete (v. 11). There will be more who will be massacred, butchered, and slaughtered in the name of the Good Shepherd, but that is not the end of their story! In March another 47 Christians from the Congo were martyred for following Jesus, and to date 287 Christians have been killed for their faith since Christmas of 2024. So, where was their green pasture? Where were the quiet waters for those followers of the Good Shepherd? We are given an answer in Revelation 7:9-17. We are told that right now all 287 of those who died for their faith in the Congo sing, and they are joined with other brothers and sisters who followed the Good Shepherd to their deaths, from every nation and all the tribes, peoples, and languages. Today, they shout triumphantly: Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb (Rev. 7:9ff.). But that is not all that we are told, for what they have is infinitely more precious than the comfort and safety we all hope to have in this life. I want to show you something from Revelation 7:13-17 that will help make sense of what is promised to us in the 23rd Psalm: Then one of the elders responded, saying to me, These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from? 14I said to him, My lord, you know. And he said to me, These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. 16They will no longer hunger nor thirst, nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any scorching heat; 17for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Do you see the answer for where the green pastures and quiet waters are for those who suffer, especially for those who suffer for their faith in the Good Shepherd? God currently shelters the scores of martyred Christians with His presence according to Revelation 7:15, but do you see what verses 16-17 say and how familiar it sounds to Psalm 23? Lets look at these verses again: They will no longer hunger nor thirst, nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any scorching heat; 17for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. The reason why these Christians, and every other Christian in heaven no longer hungers or thirsts is because they are in the presence of the Lamb who is their shepherd. The sun no longer beats down on them with its scorching heat because they have been delivered from the wilderness of a cursed world! The Lamb is the spring of water of life, and it is because of the triumph of the Lamb that every tear will be wiped from their eyes. Conclusion Listen, the 70 who were beheaded, those who suffer in this life, and every other Christian who belongs to the Good Shepherd had the green pastures and quiet waters during their life on earth because they had Jesus, and they found that their hunger and thirst for righteousness was satisfied in Him. Although the 70 Christians from the Congo lost their lives, they did not lose what belonged to them, for they have what is promised to every Christian in the 23rd Psalm because they have the Lamb who is their Shepherd. Psalm 23 is not some cute passage for coffee mugs, t-shirts, and memorial cards! It is so much more. If Jesus is your shepherd, you have all that you need in Him. If you have Jesus, then you have the green pastures and quiet waters promised to all whose Lord is their shepherd. My question for you dear friend, is this: Who is the Lamb of God to you? If Jesus is your shepherd, then in what ways are you abiding in Him? How can you expect to experience the kinds of green pastures and quiet waters promised in Psalm 23 if you are not going to Jesus to satisfy the kind of hunger and thirst that only He can satisfy? [1] James Montgomery Boice, Psalms 141: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 209.

A double episode weekend special! Because David knows what our Bills must do. And some sad news about David's favorite hobby…

BECAUSE DAVID had been a man of war, the task of building the Temple in Jerusalem fell to his son, Solomon. This week, we read the accounts of the Temple's construction, and how Hiram, king of Tyre, provided the timber and craftsmen for the work. We also note that account in 1 Kings records that Solomon built the Temple “for the Name of Yahweh.” We briefly discuss the meaning of “the Name,” which does not refer to God's reputation, but an embodied person—an important part of the Godhead in ancient Israel. For more, we recommend Dr. Michael Heiser's article at the Faithlife Study Bible, “The Name Theology in the Old Testament”: www.bit.ly/name-ot Follow us! • X: @gilberthouse_tv | @sharonkgilbert | @derekgilbert• Telegram: t.me/gilberthouse | t.me/sharonsroom | t.me/viewfromthebunker• YouTube: @GilbertHouse | @UnravelingRevelation• Facebook.com/GilbertHouseFellowship JOIN US IN ISRAEL! Our 2025 Israel tour features special guests Timothy Alberino, Dr. Judd Burton, and Doug Van Dorn! We will tour the Holy Land March 25–April 3, 2025, with an optional three-day extension in Jordan. For more information, log on to www.gilberthouse.org/travel. PLEASE NOTE: Due to security concerns, our Solidarity Mission to Israel planned for November 6–13, 2024 has been canceled. Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! Our 1,200 square pole barn now has HVAC, a new floor, windows, ceiling fans, upgraded electric service, and insulation. We're now producing programs out there. Thank you for your support! If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate. Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech! The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/. Video on demand of our best teachings! Stream presentations and teachings based on our research at our new video on demand site! Check out our online store! www.GilbertHouse.org/store is a virtual book table with books and DVDs related to our weekly Bible study. Take advantage of our monthly specials! Gilbert House T-shirts and mugs! New to our store is a line of GHTV and Redwing Saga merch! Check it out at GilbertHouse.org/store! Think better, feel better! Our partners at Simply Clean Foods offer freeze-dried, 100% GMO-free food and delicious, vacuum-packed fair trade coffee from Honduras. Find out more at GilbertHouse.org/store. Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the right-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org.

BECAUSE DAVID had been a man of war, the task of building the Temple in Jerusalem fell to his son, Solomon. This week, we read the accounts of the Temple's construction, and how Hiram, king of Tyre, provided the timber and craftsmen for the work. We also note that account in 1 Kings records that Solomon built the Temple “for the Name of Yahweh.” We briefly discuss the meaning of “the Name,” which does not refer to God's reputation, but an embodied person—an important part of the Godhead in ancient Israel. For more, we recommend Dr. Michael Heiser's article at the Faithlife Study Bible, “The Name Theology in the Old Testament”: www.bit.ly/name-ot

Daily Dose of Hope August 4, 2024 Day 1 of Week 19   Scripture:  I Samuel 26-27; I Chronicles 8; Acts 18   Welcome back, everyone.  We are now on Week 19 of our daily Bible reading plan.  We have come a long way!  Good job to all of you.      Today, we start with I Samuel 26.  Once again, we see David spare the life of Saul.  Saul has reneged on his previous peace with David (not surprising) and has taken 3,000 troops to pursue David in the wilderness of Ziph.  David hears about this plan and tracks Saul.  When Saul and his troops are asleep, he sneaks down to the camp and takes Saul's water jug and spear, which were right next to his head.  David could have easily killed Saul with his own spear but he doesn't.  Why?  Because David is obedient.  As much pain and heartache as Saul has caused David, he refuses to lower himself to Saul's level.  He refuses to take revenge.  God told David not to kill Saul so he won't kill Saul.   I'm sure it took a huge amount of restraint for David to allow God to take care of things in his timing.  What is it about us as human beings that we feel the need to take revenge?  When someone has hurt us, when a wrong has been done, we want to hurt or get back at the person who did it.  We want to make them hurt as much as we do.  David must have had that temptation with Saul but he didn't give in to it.  I've known people who held on to anger and the desire for revenge for years and years.  It ended up becoming like a poison in their system, slowing killing their spirit and any joy in their lives.   Examine your own life. Do you have intense anger toward another person?  Do you have the desire for revenge or maybe simply the desire for someone else “to get what they deserve”?  What would it be like for you to give that to God today, to totally release it and allow God to take care of the situation in his own way and timing?  I can't help but wonder how your life might change.  I keep thinking about Paul's words in Romans 12:17-21, Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.  On the contrary, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”  Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.   David has gotten tired of this cat and mouse game with Saul.  Thus, David takes his family and his large army to live in the land of the Philistines.  By this point, David has made a name for himself; he is essentially a famous outlaw and Achish, the king of Gath, allows him to stay there (remember that my enemy's enemy is my friend so Achish saw David as an ally).  That being said, this was no small thing for the king to do.  David and his 600-man army, many with families, would have taken over a small Philistine town.  You can imagine the townspeople might not have been too happy.  Knowing this, David asks Achish to give them a town, a space of their own, to live in and not be too disruptive in the Philistine territory.  David pretends his request is an act of humility (“Why should I live in the royal city with you?”) but David clearly knew what he was doing.   Interestingly, the king gives David the town of Ziklag.  This was an area that was part of Judah, part of the territory that God had given the Israelites, but they had never gotten around to conquering it.  David and his men promptly conquered it and made a home there.  David's time in exile was certainly not a waste, as he actually used it to continue Israel's conquest of Canaan.  From that point on, the land belonged to Judah.   After reflecting on David's time in Philistine territory, I began to think about times in my own life that felt a bit like an exile.  I'm sure you have those seasons of life as well.  Maybe it's a health issue, a stagnant job, caregiving responsibilities, or something else that keeps you from doing what you really want to do, that keeps you from feel like you are moving forward in your life.  But those times in exile are not wasted.  In fact, God doesn't waste anything! These are times that God can use to teach us and help prepare us for what's to come.  If you are like me, you may get a bit impatient during these times.  Instead, think of them as seasons of healing, growth, and preparation.   Okay, we are going to kind of breeze through I Chronicles 8.  It is the genealogy of Saul the Benjaminite.  I think we have done a pretty good job covering the importance of these genealogies.  No need to belabor it.  Read through the names and simply reflect on how these were men who really lived, had families, jobs, and lives.  And this chapter documents that.   Our New Testament passage is Acts 18.  Here, we read more about Paul's missionary journey.  He heads to Corinth, where he almost throws in the towel when it came to preaching to the Jews.  But God encourages him and we continue to see his pattern of heading to the synagogue first, debating with the Jews, and then bringing the message to the Gentiles.  While I'm sure it was frustrating for Paul, he did see a lot of fruit.  Jews and Gentiles alike from all walks of life are beginning to believe the Good News.    Priscilla and Aquilla appear on the scene and they are a huge support to Paul, as Apollos will be as well.  What I admire so much about Paul is how he traveled around frequently, built networks of believers (which become churches), and he seems almost fearless.  He doesn't get too attached to any place, although he stays some places longer than others.  And yet, he builds deep relationships.  There had to be a lot of hard good-byes.  He was totally and completely sold out for Jesus and he was willing to make any sacrifice to advance God's Kingdom.  How many of us can say that?  Wow.   Blessings, Pastor Vicki        

Passage: 2 Samuel 7, Matthew 1:1-17  Date: July 14, 2024  Overview: Through all of these portraits, David was a King. Not THE King, but a king. But David prepares us for THE King. David was not expected, David was persecuted, and David was exalted even when his leader tried to kill him repeatedly. And even with his egregious failures, David is one of only a handful of Kings in Israel's history who doesn't lose the Lord's favor.  Why? Because David stayed faithful to God. And because David was a faithful, not perfect, king, God promised a king would sit on the throne of David forever and ever.

Now that Judge David S. Tatel has retired from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, he feels freer to warn us all: the Supreme Court is threatening America's democracy by inventing spurious legal doctrines and grabbing more power for itself. There are also lighter moments in this revealing interview, as David pulls the curtain aside and tells us how the judges on this powerful court really do their work. Spoiler alert #1: It used to involve a red children's sand pail. Spoiler alert #2: Because David is blind, he used to hire "readers" who rattled off every word of laws, books and briefs out loud to him, at such mind-boggling speeds that most people couldn't understand them. 

In the Bible, David comes from a big family. Even though David was a small person, God used him to do big things from a young age. Why? Because David had a heart for God. So, in today’s message, Pastor JD tells you that if you have a heart for the Lord, He can use you for big things; all you have to do is let Him.

In the Bible, David comes from a big family. Even though David was a small person, God used him to do big things from a young age. Why? Because David had a heart for God. So, in today’s message, Pastor JD tells you that if you have a heart for the Lord, He can use you for big things; all you have to do is let Him.

This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you, the God of love, the living and loving God, sent your son Jesus Christ to live the life that we were supposed to live, he did it in our stead, and to die the death that we deserve to die for our law breaking. Jesus, we thank you that through your resurrection on that third day, on that first Sunday, the first resurrection day, you triumph over Satan's sin and death. The greatest enemies, our greatest enemies were placed as a foothold under your feet. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are the life and the resurrection. You promise that whoever believes in you, though he die, will pass into eternal life. We thank you for the promise of the resurrection, that in the resurrection we will rise with glorified bodies, transformed bodies. We pray, Lord, that you continue to establish us by the power of the Holy Spirit in your will in obedience of faith.We thank you for the Holy Scriptures, Lord, and as we meditate on how Christ read the Scriptures, how he revered the Scriptures, how he submitted to them, I pray that you make us some people who love the holy Word of God and make us some people that long to be truly devout, sincere in our faith, knowing that your opinion of us is the one that matters most. Lord, make us the people that hate hypocrisy, hate hypocrisy within ourselves, that distance between what we show to the world and what we are inside and make us the people of integrity, integrated within loving you with all of our heart, with all of our strength, with all of our mind and strength. Lord bless our time, the Holy Word. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.We're continuing our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark called the Gospel of Mark and the Secret of God's Kingdom, Kingdom Come. The title of sermon today is Love God and Hate Lies. You've seen the yard sign, "Hate has no home here." Well, then God has no home there because God hates, and that sign hates God. God hates because God is love. Because he is love, there are things that he hates. In Proverbs 6:16-19 it says, "There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are in abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers."Our God is a God of perfect holiness; therefore, he must hate evil to remain in perfect holiness. And our God is a God of infinite love; therefore, he must hate that which destroys the object of his love lest he isn't loving. To love is to hate. To love God is to hate Satan. To love good is to hate evil. Proverbs 8:13 says, "The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance in the way of evil and perverted speech I hate." Or Romans 12:9, "Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good." So to love truth, we must hate lies.Psalm 119:163 says, "I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law." To love God's word is to hate any perversion of it, any adulteration of it, and to love the Gospel is to hate any false gospel. Galatians 1:8-9, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." Strong words.A false gospel dishonors the person and the work of Christ, and Christ is the supreme object of God's love, the supreme display of his infinite goodness, and the one who accomplishes God's ultimate purpose to display his glory. In false gospels, they lead people away from Christ and the gospel by which they may be saved and enjoy forgiveness of sin, new life, and eternal happiness with God. God's love for people leads him to a place where he does hate that which leads them astray, which destroys them. And that's sin. God hates sin. In addition to its ugliness and opposition to the beauty of his holiness, sin ruins people. Therefore, loving God who loves people, he hates that which ruins them. True love hates that which hurts the object of God's love. To love sincerity is to hate hypocrisy. That's what we see in our text today, that Jesus hates hypocrisy. To conform to the image of Jesus Christ is to love what he loves and hate what he hates. Jesus loves God's Word; therefore, we are to love God's Word. Jesus loves the bride, the church; therefore, we are to love the church as Jesus did.Today we're in Mark 12:35-44. Would you look at the text with me? "And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, 'How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?' David himself and the Holy Spirit declared, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand until I your enemies under your feet. David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?"' And the great throng heard him gladly. And in his teaching he said, 'Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.'And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins which make a penny. He called his disciples to him and said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.'" This is the reading of God's holy and errant and fallible authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Three points to frame up our time. First, love the Scriptures like Jesus; second, hate hypocrisy like Jesus; and third, love sacrificial devotion like Jesus. First, love the Scriptures like Jesus. Having vanquished his opponents in a series of verbal duels against the synagogue, the Sanhedrin, the scribes of the Sanhedrin, we see this in Chapter 11, Chapter 12, he silenced the crowd. He silenced the religious establishment, the religious leaders. We know that through entering Jerusalem to the adulation of the crowds who cried out "Hosanna!" Then by entering the temple courtyard and driving out the merchants and the money changers, Jesus is throwing down the gauntlet. "Sanhedrin religious leaders, what are you going to do with the one who claims that he is the son of David, with the one who claims that the Messiah is here?"Through his actions, Jesus is messing with the support and the cash flow of the Sanhedrin. So they confront him publicly, and privately they plot to kill him. Jesus overturns their tables, and now he turns the tables against them. After a day of them questioning him, now he questions them with the question of the day. And the question is, "Is Jesus Lord? If Jesus is Lord, Sanhedrin, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to submit to Christ as Lord?" This is Verse 35, "As Jesus taught in the temple, he said, 'How can the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of God?'" In the Greek where it says, "He taught in the temple," it says, "He answered," meaning, he's answering their silence. He has silenced them. They should have then humbled themselves and said, "Lord, we humble ourselves underneath your authority and the teaching of Scripture," But that's not what they do. So he now answers their proud silence by asking them a question.Jesus had already entered Jerusalem in triumph. He has been hailed as the vanguard of David's restored dominion. This is the Messiah. He's here. The people have accepted him. Now Jesus is asking, "How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?" He used the word Christ, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word for messiah, the one who is anointed to be king. Jesus had accepted the Messianic praises. He is the son of David. But by asking this question and by starting this conversation, what Jesus is getting at is, is the messiah only the son of David? Because if the messiah is only the son of David, then the messiah is only king of Israel. That's what they thought. That's what Israel thought that the messiah is going to be. Because David was the greatest king Israel ever had, the messiah is David's son; therefore, the messiah is going to be a king just like David, a king of only Israel.This is where they wrongly assumed that God was the God of only Israel, that God was the God of only their people, only their nation. So Jesus here is expanding the definition of the messiah by asking, "How can the messiah be only David's son?" What the people could not see is that while Jesus came as Israel's Messiah, he didn't come to save Israel from Rome. He didn't come to save them from the occupying forces. He didn't come to restore Israel to their former glory. He came to save them. He came to save them from their sins, but not just them, also people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Their expectations were not too high for the Messiah. They were too low. The scribes of Jesus' day interpreted the messianic prophecies to mean that Israel's messiah would be a biological descendant of David and a great king to return Israel to its greatness.This makes all the more surprising what happens next. Jesus goes on the offensive, not against pagans, but against Jewish scribes who teach that the messiah is simply the son of David. So Jesus in Verse 36 says, "David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."'" Here King Jesus quotes Psalm 1:10, which was authored by David, but Jesus doesn't say, "David himself declared." He says, "David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared." Here Jesus is revealing how he viewed Scripture, how he viewed the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, as we call it, that the Holy Spirit is the one that penned the Scriptures through David, through the authors.Here we see the Holy Trinity. The Spirit is writing through King David, and then it says the Lord, that first Lord in the Hebrew is Yahweh, that's God the Father, and the second Lord is Adonai, which is Lord, which is Jesus Christ. So God the Father says to God the Son, "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." We have the Holy Trinity right there in that text.But how does this inform your understanding of Holy Scripture? Do you view Holy Scripture as Jesus did that it was written by the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. 2 Peter 1:16 says, "For we do not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the Majestic Glory, 'This is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased,' we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns in the morning, star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."I find J.C. Ryle's comments here extremely relevant. He says the following, "Let us learn in the first place from these verses how much there is about Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures. Our Lord desires to expose the ignorance of the Jewish teachers about the true nature of the Messiah." He does it by referring to a passage in the Book of Psalms and showing that the scribes did not rightly understand it. In so doing, he shows us that one subject about which David was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write was Christ. We know from our Lord's own words in another place that the Old Testament Scriptures testify of Christ, John 5:39, "They were intended to teach men about Christ by types and figures and prophecy until he himself should appear on Earth."We should always keep this in mind in reading the Old Testament, but never so much as in reading the Psalms. Christ is undoubtedly to be found in every part of the law in the prophets, but nowhere is he so much to be found as in the Book of Psalms. His experience and sufferings as first coming into the world, his future glory and his final triumph as second coming are the chief subjects of many a passage in that wonderful part of God's word. It is a true saying that we should look for Christ quite as much as David in reading the Psalms.Let us beware of undervaluing or despising the Old Testament. In its place and proportion, the Old Testament is just as valuable as the New. There are probably many rich passages in that part of the Bible which have never yet been fully explored. There are deep things about Jesus in it, which many walk over like hidden gold mines and know not the treasures beneath their feet. Let us reverence all the Bible. All is given by inspiration and all is profitable. One part throws light upon another, and no part can ever be neglected without loss and damage to our souls. A boastful contempt for the Old Testament Scriptures has often proved the first step towards infidelity.So as Jesus quotes Psalm 110, one thing to note is that the New Testament quotes Psalm 110 more than any other text from the Old Testament. 33 times it quotes Psalm 110. I'll read the whole passage of Psalm 110:1, "The Lord says to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.' The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.' The Lord is at your right hand; he shall shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he shall shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way; and therefore he will lift up his head." So the same Lord that is referred to in Verse 1 is also referred to in Verse 4. There we read, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."So we see here that not only is the Lord on the throne, not only is the Lord the King, but he's also the priest. He's not a priest according to the order of Levi. He's a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. So whoever this Messiah is, yes, he's the son of David, but he's so much greater. His dignity is so much more profound because he is eternal. He's an eternal priest, an eternal king. "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." The messiah was thought to be a biological ancestor of David. Yet, David here is saying, "No, the Messiah is greater than I am, much more exalted than I am." Possesses a far greater dignity than David's own. In fact, David calls the Messiah, "My Lord," and Jesus' question is here, "How is the son of David called Lord by David?"That's the question of Verse 37. "David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son? And the great throng heard him gladly." The logic seems to be that no father calls a child or calls a son Lord. Therefore, if David calls the Messiah Lord, is it appropriate to call the Messiah just the son of David? How can the Messiah fulfill these prophecies about an eternal Messiah if he is simply David's son? This is what Jesus here is questioning. He's not denying his physical descent from King David. No. Jesus is from the tribe of Judah. He is the Lion of Judah.What he's saying is, "I need to expand your definition of the messiah." He's not just the son of David. He's not just the messiah for Israel. He's also the Son of God. That's why David calls his son Lord. By asking this provocative question, Jesus is letting the people know he's the Lord. He's the Lord that David referred to. Yes, he's the son of David. He's also the Son of God. If he is David's Lord, then his messianic mission cannot be limited simply to restoring the nation of Israel to its former greatness.Jesus' kingdom is not of this world; therefore, his kingdom is for the whole world. Jesus isn't just king of the Jews. He's not just king of Israel. He's not just king of Christians. He is king over everything. The question is, are we going to submit to him here and now and say, "Lord Jesus, I'm yours. I want to serve you. I love you. What would you have me do?" or do we wait until all of the enemies of Jesus Christ will be placed under his feet, including those who reject the gospel in this life?The irony is that David's Lord and descendant is standing in the very same temple which was designed to point Israel to Jesus Christ, and they don't recognize him. Although the people were amazed at his words, they definitely didn't fully understand what Jesus is saying. If they had, in a few days they would not have cried out, "Crucify him!" They heard him greatly. They received him gladly. Romans 1:3-4 makes this clear that Jesus is both the son of David and the Son of God. "...concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of in by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord."In the next passage, Jesus will impugn the characters of the scribes in the Sanhedrin, accusing them bluntly of oppressing and of their hypocrisy. Meaning, they mouth the words, "Yes, Lord. Yes, you're Yahweh. Yes, you're Adonai," but deep inside they had no love for the Lord, and therefore, they were hypocrites. Jesus shows us how much he hates hypocrisy. In point two: hate hypocrisy like Jesus. Psalm 97:10, "O you who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the lives of his saints; he delivers them from the hand of the wicked." One of the greatest forms of evil is hypocrisy because hypocrisy is evil masquerading as good. It's lies masquerading as truth. It's wolves in sheep clothing. How odious is the sin of hypocrisy in the sight of Jesus, so he says in Verse 38, "Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts."This is the irony of ironies that those who claim to love God the most, who claim to love the law of God the most, who view themselves as the guardian and defenders of the faith didn't know God. They didn't want the blessings of God as much as they wanted the trappings that came with religious service. They claimed to be zealots for God, but they devoted themselves entirely to presenting themselves as righteous, presenting themselves as holy. These men may strive to please God in some sense, but they love the perks of holiness. They love walking around in their flowing robes, receiving the greetings of the people, taking the seats of honor, talking as if they know the Lord when they don't.Then Jesus exposes that they're actually using this front, this façade, this posturing as a means to evil gain. When Jesus says, "Beware of the scribes," he's not just saying, "Okay, beware of those religious people out there." He's saying, "Beware of the same hypocrisy in their heart, beware of that same hypocrisy in your own." Hypocrisy is so dangerous because it's lies that people begin to believe themselves. It's self-delusion. If you think you're right with God, if you think you're righteous, if you think you're a good person, you start to begin believing that, and you want to be around people who think you're righteous. This is exactly what these people were doing. In an honor-conscious, Greco-Roman society, these distinctions about the robes and the seats and the positions of honor and the greetings, there were important signs of status. What Jesus is saying that that's what was most important to them than the delight of God the Father.Then Mark 12:40, "... who devour widows' houses and for pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation." They were devourers of the good of the poor saying they did so on the grounds of justice, but in reality they were destroying those on the fringes. Here Jesus rips off the scribes' mask of respectability to reveal the brutal, even demonic reality underneath. We see this in the words, "They love to be at feasts," where there was civilized dining, and then when no one's looking, they're devouring the houses of the widows. The same word for devour was used only one other time in Mark, in Mark 4:4 where Satan comes like the bird to eat the Word of God, the seed of the Word of God. These very pillars of society, men distinguished as such by dress and universal acclaim, they're revealed to be demonic abusers of the helpless, and then they use prayer as a means of veiling their assaults.To add insult to injury, in the book of Deuteronomy, the Levites were included along with the widows, the orphan, and the resident aliens as people who require societal support. So the Levites, they didn't own land, and because they didn't have land ownership, they relied on the people and the gifts of the people for their sustenance. But instead of relating to the widow and the orphan and the resident alien, they betrayed a sacred trust. They violated it and defrauded them. This is particularly heinous in the eyes of the Lord because God loves the widow, and he loves the orphan, and he loves the resident alien.The widow's house was often the sum total of her inheritance. That's all she had. What these scribes did was they would go to the widow and they'd say, "Well, have you paid your tithes to the temple? Oh, we see you have not." Then through their legalese, they would take the house away from the widow, and they would say, "We're giving it to the Lord." How does the Lord view this? He said they're going to receive great condemnation. They're going to receive God's justice. If you do not repent of your sin, justice will come down upon you for this law-breaking, for this heinous crime. The Old Testament often threatens with judgment those who oppress widows, orphans, and other helpless persons.The Lord hates defrauding. He hates robbing. If you've ever been robbed, if you've ever been defrauded, you know that feeling of violation. I was actually surprised by this. A neighbor ran up to me a little while back. He said, "Have you seen my daughter's bicycle?" They had parked it in the back of the condominium association, and then someone came and just took the bicycle. This is a very established, even-keeled gentleman. I will never forget the look of disgust as if he was violated. It's just a bicycle. Well, people defraud all the time, that we live in an evil world. The Lord sees and the Lord will bring justice. We as believers, we are to be thankful to the Lord for that, that the Lord hates evil and he will judge it. The question we got to ask, is there evil in my life, in my heart that the Lord hates, that the Lord wants to condemn? If so, I need to repent.That's how you battle hypocrisy. You battle hypocrisy by saying, "Lord, yes, I present myself as a follower of Christ, but when I get on my knees, I know my sin, I know my evil and you know it as well. Lord, forgive me. Lord give me grace and help me put this evil to death." These were people that used evil as... They used the excuse that good will come or we'll take the houses. We're going to build up the temple. Saint Paul writes in Romans 3:8, "Why not do evil that good may come? As some people slanderously charged us with saying, 'Their condemnation is just.'"Isaiah 10 makes this practice of the scribes as they oppress the widows clear. Isaiah 10:1, "Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil and that they may make the fatherless their prey! What will you do on the day of punishment in the ruin that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help and where will you leave your wealth? Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. For all this, his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still."The oppressors are said to defraud their victims with evil writs or iniquitous decrees or documents, documents that would come from a scribe. They would seize the property because they said, "Look, according to our documents, you haven't paid the tithes, so we're taking it." Jesus Christ, he hates this hypocrisy, he hates this injustice, he hates this evil, and above all else, he hates the fact that these people presented themselves as righteous and they're using their pseudo-righteousness as a cover for evil.The Lord reserved his strongest language, his strongest and heaviest denunciations against hypocrisy. Yes, it's bad enough to be led away and captive to open sin and to serve diverse lusts and pleasures, but it's even worse to pretend like you're having a living faith, but in reality, you serve the world. So we as believers, we have to be aware, "Beware," Jesus says, "of falling into this abominable sin, beware of ever putting on a cloak of hypocrisy." Let us be real, honest, thorough, and sincere in our following of Christ. We can trick people for a little while, but we will never trick God. God is not mocked. He's the discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart and his all-seeing eye pierces through the varnish, the tinsel which cover the unsound heart.Having predicted judgment of the scribes who devour widows' houses, Jesus now turns his gaze to an impoverished widow. He's sitting there watching as she gives, and he commends her for her generosity. The two passages are meant to be taken together. They're an illustration of the age-old motif of the two ways. There's two ways. You can either pretend to be a follower of the Lord but deep down inside it's just corruption and sin, or the path is offered to be like this widow where she is serving the Lord. No one sees, she thinks. It's all hidden, and her poverty is matched by her generosity. So we are to be careful to, yes, believe the right things but also live our lives in a way that our lives adorn the doctrine of Christ.This brings us to the third point: love sacrificial devotion like Jesus, Verse 41, "He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums." It says he sat down, and the sitting could be significant, especially after Jesus just claimed to be the Lord sitting at the right hand of Yahweh, and he sits opposite the treasury. Most exegesis say this treasury is part of the Woman's Court that had 13 brass receptacles shaped like trumpets. You would come up to the brass receptacle that's shaped like a trumpet, and you'll put your coins in. There was no paper currency at the time. So when people threw the coins in, the more coins, the bigger the coins, the heavier the coins, the more noise they made.When this poor widow brings her money, there's not much noise. Verse 42, "A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny." This is the least valuable of the Roman coins, the smallest coin in circulation. She's giving all she has, but it's not much. Jesus is there. He's watching and he's sitting. Verse 43, "He called his disciples to him and said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.'" All those contributing, Jesus is using that phrase collectively, that this one widow gave more, according to Jesus, than everyone else combined.Why? Because of Verse 44, "They all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." All she had to live on, that phrase is even her whole living. The word bios is used. It literally means life. She's given all she has. She's given her life, everything she had for her life. The crucial thing we learned is not the quantity that gives, but the scarcity from which one gives, what's subsequently left over. It's more commendable to give out of poverty than out of abundance, according to the Lord.I do want to point out that the Lord notices. The most sacrifices that we make for the Lord, no one sees, but the Lord does see, and the Lord does notice, and the Lord does keep track. The depth of the widow's sacrifice is emphasized by the repetition at the end. "She gives everything she has." When the rich young ruler came to Jesus Christ and said, "How can I obtain eternal life? How can I inherit eternal life?" Jesus says, "Go sell all that you have, all that you have." Here she gives all that she has.One thing to point out is, on the one hand, Jesus excoriates the Sanhedrin and the temple and the institution in this corruption. On the other hand, he points to this precious soul within the institution that doesn't know about all of the corruption. She's giving out of her love for the Lord. We see this example all throughout the Scriptures. In the Book of Luke, we see Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, all who go to the temple to pray as expressions of their piety. But then also in the Book of Acts, we see Stephen get up and preach a sermon in which he excoriates the temple and predicts its destruction by God.So it is possible to recognize the corruption of an institution, the venality of its officers, at the same time to admire the piety of the simple souls who devote themselves to an innocent faith. Jesus' point is that what sinful men and women regard as piety like the scribes did, well, Jesus doesn't really care about that. The scribes had their robes and they had their seats and they had their greetings. They thought they gave a lot to the Lord. But the Lord is saying he cares more about the precious state of the heart of this woman. When the kingdom of God comes in power, God reverses everything sinful. Yet, religious people think about what God expects.This week I celebrated my birthday. Someone asked me, "What'd you do?" I said, "I did my favorite thing. I did nothing." That's my favorite thing. I went for a walk. Then we had Raising Cane's with my girls in the evening. It was a very nice. Raising Cane's shout out with the secret sauce. Then my daughters gave me a little gifts, little note cards. My youngest daughter gives me this card that she drew. It's beautiful. "Dad, you're the best dad ever," thank you, thank you, and a big picture, beautiful, we're holding hands.Then I open it up. There's a dollar bill inside. I was like, "No way!" I was like, "A dollar bill?" I'm looking at it, I was like, "It's a dollar bill. Baby, do you know inflation? Come on. It's not worth anything. You can't buy a thing." Maybe that's why she gave it to me. "Dad, I know inflation." No, she's in the first grade. She doesn't know about that. It's all she had. This is like her greatest treasure. "I'm six. What can I get my dad? I'm going to make him a card, and I'm going to give him my net worth. Here you go, a dollar." I'm never going to spend that dollar. I've got it on my mantle. I'm never going to spend it. It's so precious to me.That's what the Lord is saying. God looks at the heart. God notices not how much, but from how much. God does not look at the size of the gift but the dimensions of the sacrifice behind it. God looks at the heart of the giver. The depth of the widow's sacrifice is emphasized by the repetition at the end. "She gives everything she has, even her whole living all of her life." The widow is a fitting conclusion to the Lord's public ministry and is called to discipleship. Jesus said, "This is what it means to follow me. You take up your cross, deny yourself daily, and follow me." Here she is, a true disciple because she's lost her life for his sake, as Jesus says all true disciples will do.He, like her, will also give everything he has for the temple, but not the second temple, but the third temple. With his sacrifice on the cross, he's redeeming for himself a new people. Through those people, he creates a temple of the Spirit of God and a sanctuary not made by hands. This combination of self-sacrifice and eschatological construction will confound human ways of knowing. Jesus raises this contrast not to encourage us to give all that we have away, but rather to make the point that true piety, true faithfulness, true following of the Lord will often go unnoticed. True devotion will often go unnoticed because it's unassuming, because it's private.True piety is not a matter of mere external conformity to the law. Rather, true piety results from that faith to trust God to provide no matter what because he is a good God. But as Jesus insists, true righteousness isn't a matter of just outward demonstration. It's all about the heart. Then ultimately, we don't... Even with this widow, even this widow needed a righteousness that is not her own. She needed someone to die for her sins, to ransom her from the condemnation that we deserve. That's exactly what Jesus will do on the cross.So who is the Lord? Well, he is David's son, and he is also David's Lord. In other words, our Lord Jesus Christ here is saying that he is the Lord that demands that we love him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. In the previous text, the scribe says, "What's the greatest commandment?" and Jesus says, "Here O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind." In our text, Jesus says, "I'm the Lord. Yahweh says to me, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.'"So what Jesus here is saying is that he is the ultimate object of worship. The fact that Jesus of Nazareth was and is Almighty God is the single fact that unlocks the secret of your existence and the secret of the existence of every human being. It is the single reason why we as Christians have every right, not just right, every duty, obligation, we have every right and duty to say that every human being must become a Christian, every human being must become a follower of Christ. It's for this reason that Jesus, the first century man, has no rivals. He has no successors. His life is unique and it is final.If you make the crucial discovery that Jesus is God, you can't avoid the conclusion that all of the other religions are not true. That Islam, which regards Jesus just as a prophet, but not even the ultimate prophet, that Islam and, for that matter, Judaism or Buddhism or any other human religion or philosophy is wrong at the very key point. They may be right about many things, but they're wrong about the most essential point. It is the fact that Jesus Christ is God that makes the Christian faith true and all the other religions and philosophies false at the bottom.In this text, we have two mysteries for the price of one. We have the plurality of the persons within the unity of the Godhead. We have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we have the union of the Godhead and the manhood in the person of Jesus. He is the son of David; therefore, he is fully man. He is the Son of God; therefore, he is God himself. But mysterious as all this may be, the logic is clear and the logic is irresistible. If Jesus is God and died for the sins of the elect and obviously that and only that is the way of salvation, Jesus is the only way that we can be reconciled with God.For someone who has embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the fact that he is both God and man makes him unquestionably deserving of our absolute and unquestioning loyalty. There's only two ways. Either you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind in this age, either you love Jesus Christ; or you are his enemy and you will be placed under his feet for all eternity. If you're not sure, today we urge you, we plead with you, turn to Jesus Christ in your heart of hearts in prayer and say, "Lord Jesus, forgive me for my sins. You are Lord. I am not. I have sinned. And Lord Jesus, forgive me. Give me grace and make me a person that is fully devoted to you no matter the sacrifice."1 Corinthians 12:3, "Therefore, I want you to understand that no one's speaking in the spirit of God ever says 'Jesus is accursed!' and no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit." Then the concluding words of 1 Corinthians 16:22, "If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen."Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this text and we thank you that you are a God who loves us; therefore, you hate sin. On the cross, Lord, we see both your love for us in that you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for our sin. We also see your hatred of sin as you pour out your wrath on your Son as he bore our sins, the penalty for our sins. Lord Jesus, we pray that you continue to make us the people that love you, love your word, love the truth, and hate lies. Make us the people who long to be sincere in our walk with you. Make us the people who hate hypocrisy, beginning with the hypocrisy that's so close to our hearts. The Holy Spirit, continue to build us up as your church, the church of Jesus Christ. Continue to draw the elect and continue to use us powerfully as a witness here in the city. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you, the God of love, the living and loving God, sent your son Jesus Christ to live the life that we were supposed to live, he did it in our stead, and to die the death that we deserve to die for our law breaking. Jesus, we thank you that through your resurrection on that third day, on that first Sunday, the first resurrection day, you triumph over Satan's sin and death. The greatest enemies, our greatest enemies were placed as a foothold under your feet. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are the life and the resurrection. You promise that whoever believes in you, though he die, will pass into eternal life. We thank you for the promise of the resurrection, that in the resurrection we will rise with glorified bodies, transformed bodies. We pray, Lord, that you continue to establish us by the power of the Holy Spirit in your will in obedience of faith.We thank you for the Holy Scriptures, Lord, and as we meditate on how Christ read the Scriptures, how he revered the Scriptures, how he submitted to them, I pray that you make us some people who love the holy Word of God and make us some people that long to be truly devout, sincere in our faith, knowing that your opinion of us is the one that matters most. Lord, make us the people that hate hypocrisy, hate hypocrisy within ourselves, that distance between what we show to the world and what we are inside and make us the people of integrity, integrated within loving you with all of our heart, with all of our strength, with all of our mind and strength. Lord bless our time, the Holy Word. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.We're continuing our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark called the Gospel of Mark and the Secret of God's Kingdom, Kingdom Come. The title of sermon today is Love God and Hate Lies. You've seen the yard sign, "Hate has no home here." Well, then God has no home there because God hates, and that sign hates God. God hates because God is love. Because he is love, there are things that he hates. In Proverbs 6:16-19 it says, "There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are in abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers."Our God is a God of perfect holiness; therefore, he must hate evil to remain in perfect holiness. And our God is a God of infinite love; therefore, he must hate that which destroys the object of his love lest he isn't loving. To love is to hate. To love God is to hate Satan. To love good is to hate evil. Proverbs 8:13 says, "The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance in the way of evil and perverted speech I hate." Or Romans 12:9, "Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good." So to love truth, we must hate lies.Psalm 119:163 says, "I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law." To love God's word is to hate any perversion of it, any adulteration of it, and to love the Gospel is to hate any false gospel. Galatians 1:8-9, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." Strong words.A false gospel dishonors the person and the work of Christ, and Christ is the supreme object of God's love, the supreme display of his infinite goodness, and the one who accomplishes God's ultimate purpose to display his glory. In false gospels, they lead people away from Christ and the gospel by which they may be saved and enjoy forgiveness of sin, new life, and eternal happiness with God. God's love for people leads him to a place where he does hate that which leads them astray, which destroys them. And that's sin. God hates sin. In addition to its ugliness and opposition to the beauty of his holiness, sin ruins people. Therefore, loving God who loves people, he hates that which ruins them. True love hates that which hurts the object of God's love. To love sincerity is to hate hypocrisy. That's what we see in our text today, that Jesus hates hypocrisy. To conform to the image of Jesus Christ is to love what he loves and hate what he hates. Jesus loves God's Word; therefore, we are to love God's Word. Jesus loves the bride, the church; therefore, we are to love the church as Jesus did.Today we're in Mark 12:35-44. Would you look at the text with me? "And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, 'How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?' David himself and the Holy Spirit declared, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand until I your enemies under your feet. David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?"' And the great throng heard him gladly. And in his teaching he said, 'Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.'And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins which make a penny. He called his disciples to him and said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.'" This is the reading of God's holy and errant and fallible authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Three points to frame up our time. First, love the Scriptures like Jesus; second, hate hypocrisy like Jesus; and third, love sacrificial devotion like Jesus. First, love the Scriptures like Jesus. Having vanquished his opponents in a series of verbal duels against the synagogue, the Sanhedrin, the scribes of the Sanhedrin, we see this in Chapter 11, Chapter 12, he silenced the crowd. He silenced the religious establishment, the religious leaders. We know that through entering Jerusalem to the adulation of the crowds who cried out "Hosanna!" Then by entering the temple courtyard and driving out the merchants and the money changers, Jesus is throwing down the gauntlet. "Sanhedrin religious leaders, what are you going to do with the one who claims that he is the son of David, with the one who claims that the Messiah is here?"Through his actions, Jesus is messing with the support and the cash flow of the Sanhedrin. So they confront him publicly, and privately they plot to kill him. Jesus overturns their tables, and now he turns the tables against them. After a day of them questioning him, now he questions them with the question of the day. And the question is, "Is Jesus Lord? If Jesus is Lord, Sanhedrin, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to submit to Christ as Lord?" This is Verse 35, "As Jesus taught in the temple, he said, 'How can the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of God?'" In the Greek where it says, "He taught in the temple," it says, "He answered," meaning, he's answering their silence. He has silenced them. They should have then humbled themselves and said, "Lord, we humble ourselves underneath your authority and the teaching of Scripture," But that's not what they do. So he now answers their proud silence by asking them a question.Jesus had already entered Jerusalem in triumph. He has been hailed as the vanguard of David's restored dominion. This is the Messiah. He's here. The people have accepted him. Now Jesus is asking, "How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?" He used the word Christ, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word for messiah, the one who is anointed to be king. Jesus had accepted the Messianic praises. He is the son of David. But by asking this question and by starting this conversation, what Jesus is getting at is, is the messiah only the son of David? Because if the messiah is only the son of David, then the messiah is only king of Israel. That's what they thought. That's what Israel thought that the messiah is going to be. Because David was the greatest king Israel ever had, the messiah is David's son; therefore, the messiah is going to be a king just like David, a king of only Israel.This is where they wrongly assumed that God was the God of only Israel, that God was the God of only their people, only their nation. So Jesus here is expanding the definition of the messiah by asking, "How can the messiah be only David's son?" What the people could not see is that while Jesus came as Israel's Messiah, he didn't come to save Israel from Rome. He didn't come to save them from the occupying forces. He didn't come to restore Israel to their former glory. He came to save them. He came to save them from their sins, but not just them, also people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Their expectations were not too high for the Messiah. They were too low. The scribes of Jesus' day interpreted the messianic prophecies to mean that Israel's messiah would be a biological descendant of David and a great king to return Israel to its greatness.This makes all the more surprising what happens next. Jesus goes on the offensive, not against pagans, but against Jewish scribes who teach that the messiah is simply the son of David. So Jesus in Verse 36 says, "David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."'" Here King Jesus quotes Psalm 1:10, which was authored by David, but Jesus doesn't say, "David himself declared." He says, "David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared." Here Jesus is revealing how he viewed Scripture, how he viewed the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, as we call it, that the Holy Spirit is the one that penned the Scriptures through David, through the authors.Here we see the Holy Trinity. The Spirit is writing through King David, and then it says the Lord, that first Lord in the Hebrew is Yahweh, that's God the Father, and the second Lord is Adonai, which is Lord, which is Jesus Christ. So God the Father says to God the Son, "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." We have the Holy Trinity right there in that text.But how does this inform your understanding of Holy Scripture? Do you view Holy Scripture as Jesus did that it was written by the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. 2 Peter 1:16 says, "For we do not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the Majestic Glory, 'This is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased,' we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns in the morning, star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."I find J.C. Ryle's comments here extremely relevant. He says the following, "Let us learn in the first place from these verses how much there is about Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures. Our Lord desires to expose the ignorance of the Jewish teachers about the true nature of the Messiah." He does it by referring to a passage in the Book of Psalms and showing that the scribes did not rightly understand it. In so doing, he shows us that one subject about which David was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write was Christ. We know from our Lord's own words in another place that the Old Testament Scriptures testify of Christ, John 5:39, "They were intended to teach men about Christ by types and figures and prophecy until he himself should appear on Earth."We should always keep this in mind in reading the Old Testament, but never so much as in reading the Psalms. Christ is undoubtedly to be found in every part of the law in the prophets, but nowhere is he so much to be found as in the Book of Psalms. His experience and sufferings as first coming into the world, his future glory and his final triumph as second coming are the chief subjects of many a passage in that wonderful part of God's word. It is a true saying that we should look for Christ quite as much as David in reading the Psalms.Let us beware of undervaluing or despising the Old Testament. In its place and proportion, the Old Testament is just as valuable as the New. There are probably many rich passages in that part of the Bible which have never yet been fully explored. There are deep things about Jesus in it, which many walk over like hidden gold mines and know not the treasures beneath their feet. Let us reverence all the Bible. All is given by inspiration and all is profitable. One part throws light upon another, and no part can ever be neglected without loss and damage to our souls. A boastful contempt for the Old Testament Scriptures has often proved the first step towards infidelity.So as Jesus quotes Psalm 110, one thing to note is that the New Testament quotes Psalm 110 more than any other text from the Old Testament. 33 times it quotes Psalm 110. I'll read the whole passage of Psalm 110:1, "The Lord says to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.' The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.' The Lord is at your right hand; he shall shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he shall shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way; and therefore he will lift up his head." So the same Lord that is referred to in Verse 1 is also referred to in Verse 4. There we read, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."So we see here that not only is the Lord on the throne, not only is the Lord the King, but he's also the priest. He's not a priest according to the order of Levi. He's a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. So whoever this Messiah is, yes, he's the son of David, but he's so much greater. His dignity is so much more profound because he is eternal. He's an eternal priest, an eternal king. "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." The messiah was thought to be a biological ancestor of David. Yet, David here is saying, "No, the Messiah is greater than I am, much more exalted than I am." Possesses a far greater dignity than David's own. In fact, David calls the Messiah, "My Lord," and Jesus' question is here, "How is the son of David called Lord by David?"That's the question of Verse 37. "David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son? And the great throng heard him gladly." The logic seems to be that no father calls a child or calls a son Lord. Therefore, if David calls the Messiah Lord, is it appropriate to call the Messiah just the son of David? How can the Messiah fulfill these prophecies about an eternal Messiah if he is simply David's son? This is what Jesus here is questioning. He's not denying his physical descent from King David. No. Jesus is from the tribe of Judah. He is the Lion of Judah.What he's saying is, "I need to expand your definition of the messiah." He's not just the son of David. He's not just the messiah for Israel. He's also the Son of God. That's why David calls his son Lord. By asking this provocative question, Jesus is letting the people know he's the Lord. He's the Lord that David referred to. Yes, he's the son of David. He's also the Son of God. If he is David's Lord, then his messianic mission cannot be limited simply to restoring the nation of Israel to its former greatness.Jesus' kingdom is not of this world; therefore, his kingdom is for the whole world. Jesus isn't just king of the Jews. He's not just king of Israel. He's not just king of Christians. He is king over everything. The question is, are we going to submit to him here and now and say, "Lord Jesus, I'm yours. I want to serve you. I love you. What would you have me do?" or do we wait until all of the enemies of Jesus Christ will be placed under his feet, including those who reject the gospel in this life?The irony is that David's Lord and descendant is standing in the very same temple which was designed to point Israel to Jesus Christ, and they don't recognize him. Although the people were amazed at his words, they definitely didn't fully understand what Jesus is saying. If they had, in a few days they would not have cried out, "Crucify him!" They heard him greatly. They received him gladly. Romans 1:3-4 makes this clear that Jesus is both the son of David and the Son of God. "...concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of in by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord."In the next passage, Jesus will impugn the characters of the scribes in the Sanhedrin, accusing them bluntly of oppressing and of their hypocrisy. Meaning, they mouth the words, "Yes, Lord. Yes, you're Yahweh. Yes, you're Adonai," but deep inside they had no love for the Lord, and therefore, they were hypocrites. Jesus shows us how much he hates hypocrisy. In point two: hate hypocrisy like Jesus. Psalm 97:10, "O you who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the lives of his saints; he delivers them from the hand of the wicked." One of the greatest forms of evil is hypocrisy because hypocrisy is evil masquerading as good. It's lies masquerading as truth. It's wolves in sheep clothing. How odious is the sin of hypocrisy in the sight of Jesus, so he says in Verse 38, "Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts."This is the irony of ironies that those who claim to love God the most, who claim to love the law of God the most, who view themselves as the guardian and defenders of the faith didn't know God. They didn't want the blessings of God as much as they wanted the trappings that came with religious service. They claimed to be zealots for God, but they devoted themselves entirely to presenting themselves as righteous, presenting themselves as holy. These men may strive to please God in some sense, but they love the perks of holiness. They love walking around in their flowing robes, receiving the greetings of the people, taking the seats of honor, talking as if they know the Lord when they don't.Then Jesus exposes that they're actually using this front, this façade, this posturing as a means to evil gain. When Jesus says, "Beware of the scribes," he's not just saying, "Okay, beware of those religious people out there." He's saying, "Beware of the same hypocrisy in their heart, beware of that same hypocrisy in your own." Hypocrisy is so dangerous because it's lies that people begin to believe themselves. It's self-delusion. If you think you're right with God, if you think you're righteous, if you think you're a good person, you start to begin believing that, and you want to be around people who think you're righteous. This is exactly what these people were doing. In an honor-conscious, Greco-Roman society, these distinctions about the robes and the seats and the positions of honor and the greetings, there were important signs of status. What Jesus is saying that that's what was most important to them than the delight of God the Father.Then Mark 12:40, "... who devour widows' houses and for pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation." They were devourers of the good of the poor saying they did so on the grounds of justice, but in reality they were destroying those on the fringes. Here Jesus rips off the scribes' mask of respectability to reveal the brutal, even demonic reality underneath. We see this in the words, "They love to be at feasts," where there was civilized dining, and then when no one's looking, they're devouring the houses of the widows. The same word for devour was used only one other time in Mark, in Mark 4:4 where Satan comes like the bird to eat the Word of God, the seed of the Word of God. These very pillars of society, men distinguished as such by dress and universal acclaim, they're revealed to be demonic abusers of the helpless, and then they use prayer as a means of veiling their assaults.To add insult to injury, in the book of Deuteronomy, the Levites were included along with the widows, the orphan, and the resident aliens as people who require societal support. So the Levites, they didn't own land, and because they didn't have land ownership, they relied on the people and the gifts of the people for their sustenance. But instead of relating to the widow and the orphan and the resident alien, they betrayed a sacred trust. They violated it and defrauded them. This is particularly heinous in the eyes of the Lord because God loves the widow, and he loves the orphan, and he loves the resident alien.The widow's house was often the sum total of her inheritance. That's all she had. What these scribes did was they would go to the widow and they'd say, "Well, have you paid your tithes to the temple? Oh, we see you have not." Then through their legalese, they would take the house away from the widow, and they would say, "We're giving it to the Lord." How does the Lord view this? He said they're going to receive great condemnation. They're going to receive God's justice. If you do not repent of your sin, justice will come down upon you for this law-breaking, for this heinous crime. The Old Testament often threatens with judgment those who oppress widows, orphans, and other helpless persons.The Lord hates defrauding. He hates robbing. If you've ever been robbed, if you've ever been defrauded, you know that feeling of violation. I was actually surprised by this. A neighbor ran up to me a little while back. He said, "Have you seen my daughter's bicycle?" They had parked it in the back of the condominium association, and then someone came and just took the bicycle. This is a very established, even-keeled gentleman. I will never forget the look of disgust as if he was violated. It's just a bicycle. Well, people defraud all the time, that we live in an evil world. The Lord sees and the Lord will bring justice. We as believers, we are to be thankful to the Lord for that, that the Lord hates evil and he will judge it. The question we got to ask, is there evil in my life, in my heart that the Lord hates, that the Lord wants to condemn? If so, I need to repent.That's how you battle hypocrisy. You battle hypocrisy by saying, "Lord, yes, I present myself as a follower of Christ, but when I get on my knees, I know my sin, I know my evil and you know it as well. Lord, forgive me. Lord give me grace and help me put this evil to death." These were people that used evil as... They used the excuse that good will come or we'll take the houses. We're going to build up the temple. Saint Paul writes in Romans 3:8, "Why not do evil that good may come? As some people slanderously charged us with saying, 'Their condemnation is just.'"Isaiah 10 makes this practice of the scribes as they oppress the widows clear. Isaiah 10:1, "Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil and that they may make the fatherless their prey! What will you do on the day of punishment in the ruin that will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help and where will you leave your wealth? Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. For all this, his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still."The oppressors are said to defraud their victims with evil writs or iniquitous decrees or documents, documents that would come from a scribe. They would seize the property because they said, "Look, according to our documents, you haven't paid the tithes, so we're taking it." Jesus Christ, he hates this hypocrisy, he hates this injustice, he hates this evil, and above all else, he hates the fact that these people presented themselves as righteous and they're using their pseudo-righteousness as a cover for evil.The Lord reserved his strongest language, his strongest and heaviest denunciations against hypocrisy. Yes, it's bad enough to be led away and captive to open sin and to serve diverse lusts and pleasures, but it's even worse to pretend like you're having a living faith, but in reality, you serve the world. So we as believers, we have to be aware, "Beware," Jesus says, "of falling into this abominable sin, beware of ever putting on a cloak of hypocrisy." Let us be real, honest, thorough, and sincere in our following of Christ. We can trick people for a little while, but we will never trick God. God is not mocked. He's the discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart and his all-seeing eye pierces through the varnish, the tinsel which cover the unsound heart.Having predicted judgment of the scribes who devour widows' houses, Jesus now turns his gaze to an impoverished widow. He's sitting there watching as she gives, and he commends her for her generosity. The two passages are meant to be taken together. They're an illustration of the age-old motif of the two ways. There's two ways. You can either pretend to be a follower of the Lord but deep down inside it's just corruption and sin, or the path is offered to be like this widow where she is serving the Lord. No one sees, she thinks. It's all hidden, and her poverty is matched by her generosity. So we are to be careful to, yes, believe the right things but also live our lives in a way that our lives adorn the doctrine of Christ.This brings us to the third point: love sacrificial devotion like Jesus, Verse 41, "He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums." It says he sat down, and the sitting could be significant, especially after Jesus just claimed to be the Lord sitting at the right hand of Yahweh, and he sits opposite the treasury. Most exegesis say this treasury is part of the Woman's Court that had 13 brass receptacles shaped like trumpets. You would come up to the brass receptacle that's shaped like a trumpet, and you'll put your coins in. There was no paper currency at the time. So when people threw the coins in, the more coins, the bigger the coins, the heavier the coins, the more noise they made.When this poor widow brings her money, there's not much noise. Verse 42, "A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny." This is the least valuable of the Roman coins, the smallest coin in circulation. She's giving all she has, but it's not much. Jesus is there. He's watching and he's sitting. Verse 43, "He called his disciples to him and said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.'" All those contributing, Jesus is using that phrase collectively, that this one widow gave more, according to Jesus, than everyone else combined.Why? Because of Verse 44, "They all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." All she had to live on, that phrase is even her whole living. The word bios is used. It literally means life. She's given all she has. She's given her life, everything she had for her life. The crucial thing we learned is not the quantity that gives, but the scarcity from which one gives, what's subsequently left over. It's more commendable to give out of poverty than out of abundance, according to the Lord.I do want to point out that the Lord notices. The most sacrifices that we make for the Lord, no one sees, but the Lord does see, and the Lord does notice, and the Lord does keep track. The depth of the widow's sacrifice is emphasized by the repetition at the end. "She gives everything she has." When the rich young ruler came to Jesus Christ and said, "How can I obtain eternal life? How can I inherit eternal life?" Jesus says, "Go sell all that you have, all that you have." Here she gives all that she has.One thing to point out is, on the one hand, Jesus excoriates the Sanhedrin and the temple and the institution in this corruption. On the other hand, he points to this precious soul within the institution that doesn't know about all of the corruption. She's giving out of her love for the Lord. We see this example all throughout the Scriptures. In the Book of Luke, we see Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, all who go to the temple to pray as expressions of their piety. But then also in the Book of Acts, we see Stephen get up and preach a sermon in which he excoriates the temple and predicts its destruction by God.So it is possible to recognize the corruption of an institution, the venality of its officers, at the same time to admire the piety of the simple souls who devote themselves to an innocent faith. Jesus' point is that what sinful men and women regard as piety like the scribes did, well, Jesus doesn't really care about that. The scribes had their robes and they had their seats and they had their greetings. They thought they gave a lot to the Lord. But the Lord is saying he cares more about the precious state of the heart of this woman. When the kingdom of God comes in power, God reverses everything sinful. Yet, religious people think about what God expects.This week I celebrated my birthday. Someone asked me, "What'd you do?" I said, "I did my favorite thing. I did nothing." That's my favorite thing. I went for a walk. Then we had Raising Cane's with my girls in the evening. It was a very nice. Raising Cane's shout out with the secret sauce. Then my daughters gave me a little gifts, little note cards. My youngest daughter gives me this card that she drew. It's beautiful. "Dad, you're the best dad ever," thank you, thank you, and a big picture, beautiful, we're holding hands.Then I open it up. There's a dollar bill inside. I was like, "No way!" I was like, "A dollar bill?" I'm looking at it, I was like, "It's a dollar bill. Baby, do you know inflation? Come on. It's not worth anything. You can't buy a thing." Maybe that's why she gave it to me. "Dad, I know inflation." No, she's in the first grade. She doesn't know about that. It's all she had. This is like her greatest treasure. "I'm six. What can I get my dad? I'm going to make him a card, and I'm going to give him my net worth. Here you go, a dollar." I'm never going to spend that dollar. I've got it on my mantle. I'm never going to spend it. It's so precious to me.That's what the Lord is saying. God looks at the heart. God notices not how much, but from how much. God does not look at the size of the gift but the dimensions of the sacrifice behind it. God looks at the heart of the giver. The depth of the widow's sacrifice is emphasized by the repetition at the end. "She gives everything she has, even her whole living all of her life." The widow is a fitting conclusion to the Lord's public ministry and is called to discipleship. Jesus said, "This is what it means to follow me. You take up your cross, deny yourself daily, and follow me." Here she is, a true disciple because she's lost her life for his sake, as Jesus says all true disciples will do.He, like her, will also give everything he has for the temple, but not the second temple, but the third temple. With his sacrifice on the cross, he's redeeming for himself a new people. Through those people, he creates a temple of the Spirit of God and a sanctuary not made by hands. This combination of self-sacrifice and eschatological construction will confound human ways of knowing. Jesus raises this contrast not to encourage us to give all that we have away, but rather to make the point that true piety, true faithfulness, true following of the Lord will often go unnoticed. True devotion will often go unnoticed because it's unassuming, because it's private.True piety is not a matter of mere external conformity to the law. Rather, true piety results from that faith to trust God to provide no matter what because he is a good God. But as Jesus insists, true righteousness isn't a matter of just outward demonstration. It's all about the heart. Then ultimately, we don't... Even with this widow, even this widow needed a righteousness that is not her own. She needed someone to die for her sins, to ransom her from the condemnation that we deserve. That's exactly what Jesus will do on the cross.So who is the Lord? Well, he is David's son, and he is also David's Lord. In other words, our Lord Jesus Christ here is saying that he is the Lord that demands that we love him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. In the previous text, the scribe says, "What's the greatest commandment?" and Jesus says, "Here O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind." In our text, Jesus says, "I'm the Lord. Yahweh says to me, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.'"So what Jesus here is saying is that he is the ultimate object of worship. The fact that Jesus of Nazareth was and is Almighty God is the single fact that unlocks the secret of your existence and the secret of the existence of every human being. It is the single reason why we as Christians have every right, not just right, every duty, obligation, we have every right and duty to say that every human being must become a Christian, every human being must become a follower of Christ. It's for this reason that Jesus, the first century man, has no rivals. He has no successors. His life is unique and it is final.If you make the crucial discovery that Jesus is God, you can't avoid the conclusion that all of the other religions are not true. That Islam, which regards Jesus just as a prophet, but not even the ultimate prophet, that Islam and, for that matter, Judaism or Buddhism or any other human religion or philosophy is wrong at the very key point. They may be right about many things, but they're wrong about the most essential point. It is the fact that Jesus Christ is God that makes the Christian faith true and all the other religions and philosophies false at the bottom.In this text, we have two mysteries for the price of one. We have the plurality of the persons within the unity of the Godhead. We have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we have the union of the Godhead and the manhood in the person of Jesus. He is the son of David; therefore, he is fully man. He is the Son of God; therefore, he is God himself. But mysterious as all this may be, the logic is clear and the logic is irresistible. If Jesus is God and died for the sins of the elect and obviously that and only that is the way of salvation, Jesus is the only way that we can be reconciled with God.For someone who has embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the fact that he is both God and man makes him unquestionably deserving of our absolute and unquestioning loyalty. There's only two ways. Either you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind in this age, either you love Jesus Christ; or you are his enemy and you will be placed under his feet for all eternity. If you're not sure, today we urge you, we plead with you, turn to Jesus Christ in your heart of hearts in prayer and say, "Lord Jesus, forgive me for my sins. You are Lord. I am not. I have sinned. And Lord Jesus, forgive me. Give me grace and make me a person that is fully devoted to you no matter the sacrifice."1 Corinthians 12:3, "Therefore, I want you to understand that no one's speaking in the spirit of God ever says 'Jesus is accursed!' and no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit." Then the concluding words of 1 Corinthians 16:22, "If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen."Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this text and we thank you that you are a God who loves us; therefore, you hate sin. On the cross, Lord, we see both your love for us in that you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for our sin. We also see your hatred of sin as you pour out your wrath on your Son as he bore our sins, the penalty for our sins. Lord Jesus, we pray that you continue to make us the people that love you, love your word, love the truth, and hate lies. Make us the people who long to be sincere in our walk with you. Make us the people who hate hypocrisy, beginning with the hypocrisy that's so close to our hearts. The Holy Spirit, continue to build us up as your church, the church of Jesus Christ. Continue to draw the elect and continue to use us powerfully as a witness here in the city. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

 Greetings, Leaders. Recall the person who spoke encouraging words to you at the right time in your life.   Their words spoke life to you. Now, you and I can build up and encourage ourselves and others with our words. Words Matter!   Use your words wisely. "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit." Proverbs 18:21 What we say to ourselves and others produces effects. Words are powerful! Begin to monitor your words. Are they affirming or negative? Are they uplifting or critical? Are they expressing faith and unbelief? Are you expressing gratitude or complaining? This insight made me effective in my life and career. Once I understood the power of my words, I began to grow as a person and a leader. I became aware of my ability to give life to a person or situation through understanding. I became sensitive to how our words can also kill or destroy a person, situation, or opportunity. We need God's wisdom in what to speak for, building up instead of pulling down. Let's begin a 15-day challenge. Could you think twice before we speak? "There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword. But the tongue of the wise brings healing. Truthful lips will be established forever. But a lying tongue is only for a moment." Proverbs 12: 18-19 Again, recall the person who encouraged and taught you the truth and pray that God makes you that kind of person and leader. King David is called "a man after God's heart." He prays "God, create a pure heart in me.    Give me a new spirit that is faithful to you." Psalm 51:10 NIRV Why? Because David knew that the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart.  How can we begin developing the mindset of "My words matter! in life and career?" Begin now. Follow King David's example.  Ask God to create a clean heart and renew your right spirit. Seek to practice and use your words wisely in every situation. "May my spoken words and unspoken thoughts be pleasing even to you, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer." Psalm 19:14 TLB Knock - Keep practicing believing that with God, you can transform your speech and impact everything you do for something beautiful. You will then see the truth about the power of the tongue and eat the fruit your words fitly spoken will provide. You will know the truth, freeing you to enjoy and talk about abundant life to all you serve. "The right word at the right time    is like a custom-made piece of jewelry,And a wise friend's timely reprimand    is like a gold ring slipped on your finger." Proverbs 25:11 The MSG Victory!   

Because David loves listener questions so much, we wanted to end the year with a few more! For starters, Amy says she has never been in a hurry to pay off debt, never paid extra on her mortgage, uses a HELOC, doesn't pay cash for cars, and doesn't see a problem with it. Using debt has allowed her to use money for other things, including saving for retirement. Is that okay?   Here are the questions we discuss in this episode: Mailbag: I'm not in a hurry to pay off debt, is that bad? Mailbag: Due to a medical diagnosis, should I start Social Security right away?   For additional resources or to contact David, visit us online at http://coveryourassetskc.com or call 913-317-1414.

Yasmeena was born in Afghanistan and moved to the UK when she was nine. At 19, she met her now husband, David. Because David was Jewish, he was threatened by her family with death threats and vile statements like " Too bad Hitler didn't finish you all off". When she informed the Met police, they told her it is a family matter. Yasmeena is now a model and an activist who uses her body as a canvas to tell provocative and empowering stories. Through her work, she challenges traditional and religious values and societies' expectations of women. She encourages everyone to defy conventions and follow their own path.

As David begins his reign, he writes a song of personal grief. David grieves the loss of Saul and Jonathan. He remembers past days of faithfulness as the king and the nation walked in faithfulness to God and knew His blessing. He also grieves what has been lost in disobedience and sin. Saul started off so well but sin ate his latter years. Sin and disobedience took away his opportunity to reign. Sin took his son to death. Sin took the army into defeat and sin ultimately cost him his life. Sin always costs us more than we want to pay. Sin matters. And this lesson must be taught to the nation. That’s why David will make it a national song of lament. A song to be taught to their children. Why? Because David knew as the old saying goes, “Those who do not learn history are destined to repeat it.”

As David begins his reign, he writes a song of personal grief. David grieves the loss of Saul and Jonathan. He remembers past days of faithfulness as the king and the nation walked in faithfulness to God and knew His blessing. He also grieves what has been lost in disobedience and sin. Saul started off so well but sin ate his latter years. Sin and disobedience took away his opportunity to reign. Sin took his son to death. Sin took the army into defeat and sin ultimately cost him his life. Sin always costs us more than we want to pay. Sin matters. And this lesson must be taught to the nation. That’s why David will make it a national song of lament. A song to be taught to their children. Why? Because David knew as the old saying goes, “Those who do not learn history are destined to repeat it.”

As David begins his reign, he writes a song of personal grief. David grieves the loss of Saul and Jonathan. He remembers past days of faithfulness as the king and the nation walked in faithfulness to God and knew His blessing. He also grieves what has been lost in disobedience and sin. Saul started off so well but sin ate his latter years. Sin and disobedience took away his opportunity to reign. Sin took his son to death. Sin took the army into defeat and sin ultimately cost him his life. Sin always costs us more than we want to pay. Sin matters. And this lesson must be taught to the nation. That’s why David will make it a national song of lament. A song to be taught to their children. Why? Because David knew as the old saying goes, “Those who do not learn history are destined to repeat it.”

2 Samuel 12: 1-7a // Brent NelsenWhat is God going to do about David's evil? That's what Second Samuel 12 is about. David is the king of Israel. He's a very powerful man. And God is telling Nathan to go confront him about his sin. We need Nathans in our society and we need Nathans in our lives who can confront us when we need confronting. David has a choice, as we all do when we're confronted with our sin. He can make excuses like Saul did when he was confronted by Samuel. Or David can come clean. I have sinned against the LORD. I wonder if it was a relief for David to say those words. But that doesn't mean there won't be consequences. Because David's sin still has huge ramifications on his family. And this makes sense. Forgiveness doesn't necessarily undo the damage. And the amount of damage that is done is often proportional to the amount of influence someone has. A parent's sin can destroy a family. A pastor's sin can destroy a church. A CEO's sin can take down the company. And a king's sin can have ramifications for the entire kingdom.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/49098934 Prayer Requests: https://ccefc.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/2509/responses/new23.07.16

When we love God and desire to live for Him, we constantly need the wisdom, guidance, and peace of God that is only available to us through prayer. Because David loved God with his whole heart, he prayed to God about the difficult decisions he faced. Whatever decisions we face, large or small, should be approached with prayer to the God we love and trust.

When we love God and desire to live for Him, we constantly need the wisdom, guidance, and peace of God that is only available to us through prayer. Because David loved God with his whole heart, he prayed to God about the difficult decisions he faced. Whatever decisions we face, large or small, should be approached with prayer to the God we love and trust.

Imagine a website where you could find out how much mortgage you can afford with just ONE CLICK. Sounds magical, right? Well, unfortunately, it is too good to be true. There's no website that can tell you - honestly - how much home you can afford with just one easy step. David explains why you should be on your guard with these kinds of institutions and helps you understand the mortgage process better so you can protect yourself. Here are some power takeaways from today's conversation: Episode Highlights: [02:39] The History of the One-day Mortgage A year or so ago, someone invented something called “the one-day mortgage” and claimed that it would be “revolutionary” for first-time home buyers. Buyers could get approved for a mortgage from one click on their mobile device from a digital lender called Better.com. Sounds great, right? But then some sketchy stuff surfaced about this one-day mortgage process. First, not many people who actually applied were then qualified, even at the exorbitant interest rates they were offering at the time. Then, they were purchased by another company who hired 900 employees to help move the company towards a dazzling success… right before they fired every single one of them. So, do we believe them when they say they have the key to first-time home-buying success? Um, NO. [09:07] Surprise, Surprise: It Wasn't About You Their whole business model was centered around getting easy money. That's why mortgages for first-time home buyers aren't even what they specialize in - it's refinancing because that's where the money is. Why is all this important? Because David wants to open the doors about what really goes on in these institutions so you know how to be better prepared. They want you to buy into their craziness because they want your MONEY. Not because they care about you. And you, How-to-Buy-a-Homie, are not even their first priority. You're their last-ditch effort to save their bottom line. So whether it's Better.com, RocketMortgage, or any other digital lender, BE WARY. [17:49] How Does a Mortgage Work? First of all, “one-day mortgage” is a lie right off the bat. Why? Here's the deal: you need someone who is going to really help you through the entire process because mortgages do not happen overnight. You can find out how much you're approved for on these digital lending sites, they will certainly tell you how much you can afford… right in that very moment. Instead, unicorn lenders are unicorns because they are helping you simultaneously understand your situation, understand it well enough to improve it, and support you the whole way. Trust David - it makes a difference. Resources Mentioned Inside the Human Cost of Better.com's Brutal Layoffs Better.com Lays Off Real Estate Team and Shutters Business Unit

Imagine a website where you could find out how much mortgage you can afford with just ONE CLICK. Sounds magical, right? Well, unfortunately, it is too good to be true. There's no website that can tell you - honestly - how much home you can afford with just one easy step. David explains why you should be on your guard with these kinds of institutions and helps you understand the mortgage process better so you can protect yourself. Here are some power takeaways from today's conversation: The history of the “one-day mortgage” What happened to Better.com Why you shouldn't trust these agencies at face value How a mortgage works Episode Highlights: [02:39] The History of the One-day Mortgage A year or so ago, someone invented something called “the one-day mortgage” and claimed that it would be “revolutionary” for first-time home buyers. Buyers could get approved for a mortgage from one click on their mobile device from a digital lender called Better.com. Sounds great, right? But then some sketchy stuff surfaced about this one-day mortgage process. First, not many people who actually applied were then qualified, even at the exorbitant interest rates they were offering at the time. Then, they were purchased by another company who hired 900 employees to help move the company towards a dazzling success… right before they fired every single one of them. So, do we believe them when they say they have the key to first-time home-buying success? Um, NO. [09:07] Surprise, Surprise: It Wasn't About You Their whole business model was centered around getting easy money. That's why mortgages for first-time home buyers aren't even what they specialize in - it's refinancing because that's where the money is. Why is all this important? Because David wants to open the doors about what really goes on in these institutions so you know how to be better prepared. They want you to buy into their craziness because they want your MONEY. Not because they care about you. And you, How-to-Buy-a-Homie, are not even their first priority. You're their last-ditch effort to save their bottom line. So whether it's Better.com, RocketMortgage, or any other digital lender, BE WARY. [17:49] How Does a Mortgage Work? First of all, “one-day mortgage” is a lie right off the bat. Why? Here's the deal: you need someone who is going to really help you through the entire process because mortgages do not happen overnight. You can find out how much you're approved for on these digital lending sites, they will certainly tell you how much you can afford… right in that very moment. Instead, unicorn lenders are unicorns because they are helping you simultaneously understand your situation, understand it well enough to improve it, and support you the whole way. Trust David - it makes a difference.  Resources Mentioned Inside the Human Cost of Better.com's Brutal Layoffs Better.com Lays Off Real Estate Team and Shutters Business Unit

The title of Psalm 63 tells us that David wrote this psalm and that he was in the wilderness of Judah. As you read through this psalm you will notice the progressive experiences David had as he sought for the Lord's guidance and help at a difficult time in his life. You first find David seeking and desiring God in verses 1-2! He acknowledges his relationship to God. He proclaims, “O God, You are my God”.  To be able to say "my God" by faith transformed David's wilderness experience into a worship experience. There in the desert, he was hungry and thirsty, but his deepest desires were spiritual, not physical. With his whole being, body and soul, he yearned for God's satisfying presence (v. 5; 42:1-2). “Early will I seek You”. When is the time to seek the Lord? David and other Scripture teach us to seek Him early. This could mean several things. We should seek Him early in a “knocked down” experience. Don't run to everyone and everything else, and when nothing else works finally turn to the Lord. Go to Him first! Seek the Lord early in life. Solomon instructs us in Ecclesiastes 12:1, “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, Before the difficult days come, And the years draw near when you say, "I have no pleasure in them".   We should seek the Lord early in the day. Jesus set us an example for doing this. “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35). Before the day begins, we should seek the Lord. We should seek the Lord early in the week by going to worship with His people in church on Sunday. In verse 2, David tells us that he “looked for the Lord in the sanctuary”. When David was in Jerusalem you would find him worshiping God at the sanctuary (v. 2; see Psalms 27:4; 84:1-2). He had erected the tent on Mt. Zion and returned the ark to its rightful place, and he had found great delight in going there and contemplating God (Psalms 36:8-9; 46:4). Because he didn't belong to the tribe of Levi, David couldn't enter the sanctuary proper, but from his study of the Books of Moses, he knew the design and the assigned rituals, and he understood their deeper meaning. It is our regular worship that prepares us for the crisis experiences of life. Just as we have physical senses that are satisfied by God's creation, so we have spiritual senses (Heb. 5:14) that can be satisfied only by Christ. He is the bread of life (John 6), and He gives us the water of life by His Spirit (John 4:1-14; 7:37-39; Rev. 22:17). Those who hunger and thirst for spiritual food and drink shall be filled (Matt. 5:6). David could say with Jesus, "I have food to eat of which you do not know" (John 4:32). How did David acquire this wonderful spiritual appetite? What life does to us depends on what life finds in us, and David had in him a deep love for the Lord and a desire to please Him. Because David had seen God's power and glory in His house, he was able to see it in the wilderness as well! We should also seek the Lord with our whole heart! Jeremiah 29:13 tells us: “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”  We should seek the Lord in the same way we would seek to find hidden treasure. Proverbs 2:1-5 teaches us: “My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God.” And finally, remember the promise of Psalm 9:10: “And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; For You, LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.”  May we have the desire every day to seek the Lord early in His Word, in prayer, in worship, and in every situation in life! God bless!

Psalm 51 is King David's public psalm and confession of repentance! Today, 1,500 years after his reign as king over the nation of Israel, King David is still known as one of the most famous kings in history. Scripture tells us that David was a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:21-22). But that does not mean that David was perfect and never did anything wrong. Matter of fact, 1 Kings 15:5 points this out years later, when speaking of a future blessing on one of his descendants: “Because David did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” David committed two of the most horrendous, terrible, and awful sins that could be committed. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband Uriah killed. Uriah was one of his mighty men, lived next door to the palace of David, and most likely was one of his best friends. The title of Psalm 51 also tells us that God sent Nathan the prophet to confront him of his sin. This happened after about a year of David trying to cover up his sin from everyone. But God knew and it must have been one of the most miserable years of David's life. 2 Samuel 12:1-15 gives us the detailed story of Nathan's message to David. “Then the LORD sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him: "There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him." So David's anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity." Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. … So David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme….Then Nathan departed to his house.” It is amazing that David was so angry at the rich man who took the poor man's lamb when he was guilty of the same thing.  This reminds me of Romans 2:1 “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?” So often what we are most critical of in someone else is what we are guilty of in our own life!   “You are the man!”  You can't hide your sin from God! God had warned Israel in Number 32:23, “Be sure your sin will find you out”. May the Lord help us to look into our own hearts today! God bless!

INTRODUCTION: This is an impromptu bonus episode to announce that I have made public Ethan's sext messages which I discovered in the early morning hours of Christmas Day 2022. You may find them at: https://www.sexdrugsandjesus.com/ethans-sext-messages-revealed/   INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Ethan's Sext Messages Revealed!!!·      Survivors of Narcissistic Abuse & Codependency Support Groups (Virtual) - https://www.meetup.com/pittsburgh-narcissism-survivor-meetup-group/·      COSA – 12 Step Recovery For Victims Of Compulsive Sexual Behavior - https://cosa-recovery.org·      A Recommended Reading To Help Heal From Narcissism - https://amzn.to/41sg6FO  CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o  https://overviewbible.como  https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible ·      Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o  https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ ·      Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino  https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com  ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org ·      What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannonTRANSCRIPT:ETHAN'S SEXTS REVEALED!!! De'Vannon: [00:00:00] Of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. This is the warning that the Lord gives to people who go about finding ways to please themselves at the expense of other people. My name is Devana and I'm the host of the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast, and I'm here with a brief bonus episode for you today, and I've been working on this book that I'm gonna be releasing, talking about the experience that I went through with my ex-boyfriend and him ended up being a covert narcissist and all that that put me through.And at first I was thinking about putting all of. The sex messages that he sent to the people he was running around behind my back with, which I discovered in the early morning of Christmas, just this past year in 2022, I wasn't gonna put all those text messages in the book, but then we were like, we'll just put [00:01:00] like a few of 'em.So what I decided to do instead was take at least the majority of these text messages and put. In the blog section of my website and do like a little writeup and everything like that, because I really, really want to be transparent as I always am. I don't have anything to hide. I've done what I've done.I've said what I've said. I've did what I did, and it wasn't always cute and it wasn't always right, but I've always, always told the truth. This is why David, you know, from the Old Testament in the Bible, and he appears in the New Testament too. It is called a God. It's called a man after God's own heart, even though he murdered Uriah in order to get back.Chiba, you know, God still considers David a man after his own heart, that he's also set to reign in the millennial kingdom. And so we have not seen the last of, of of, of, of David.[00:02:00]And why is that? Because David always told the truth. You know when I think it was Nathan, the Prof and went in there to read him for filth for what he had done to Uriah. He hadn't really told anybody, but there are no secrets. There are no secrets. Everything always comes out to the light, as the Lord says in his word of what's done in darkness Show come out to the light until David didn't even try to lie to Nathan, the private.He told him the. And the Lord said, you don't even have to repent. I've already forgiven you. Now the Lord levied heavy consequences on David. You know, and you can go and read about that story because it's, it's really, really quite insightful as everything in the Bible is to me.And so those, so you can go over to my website, sex Drugs and jesus.com and read through it. And so some might look at. That, you know, this blog post and be like, oh, you know, she's just being a petty queen or whatever. No. [00:03:00] I've found any, anything that I can do to shine light on people who have damaged people with their sex addictions, with their narcissism, it helps me heal.And I cannot tell you, since all this has started to come to light and come out, how many people, how many people. I have come across who have been victims of narcissistic people. It's really ridiculous, you know, just, just how prolific this is in society today,but just like here in Proverbs, this is Proverbs 20, chapter 20, verse 17. You know, I recommend people to read a proverb a day. There's 31 proverbs. And so you usually have about 30, 31 days in the month you can read the RB that corresponds with the day of the month. And that's a good guide to get you going.So you get some wisdom between your ears, you know? But it's talking about basically you having fun, [00:04:00] enjoying yourself today, but you're gonna regret it tomorrow. It makes no sense. If what you're doing today is gonna cause you pain tomorrow because you don't possess the sense, the wit or the willingness, the, the, the flat out capability to think about the consequences of what you're about to do.So y'all, let's not be shortsighted because God is not mocked. He is not mocked whatsoever, a man. So that also will you reap. Then I went down to verse 20 in Proverbs. And it says, who so curses his father, his mother, his lamp shall be put out into obscure darkness. Things about my ex, I started to find out towards the end of our relationship, just got like worse and worse and worse.I, I, I've only seen one other person in my life devolve, you know, into wickedness like my ex did, and just into pure evil. And that was the man back when I was in high school who was running around trying to give me and so many other people aids. He ended up [00:05:00] dying, you know, in his early twenties because he just would not shift his negative perspective.You know, it was, you know, I was already invested into Ethan when I, when I saw how he talked, talks to his mother, you know, calling her stupid, you know, very, very bad names and demeaning. And like I've said before, we even talk shit to the dogs too, you know. But in the Bible it says that if you honor your mother and father, it comes with a long life and it comes with promise.The Lord would bless you forgiving a damn about your appearance. And I know some of y'all got really shitty parents. It's completely different, but that still doesn't give you the right to, to, to, to be evil towards them. So you really, really need to watch that cuz the Lord is watching how we treat our parents.Get away from 'em if they're abusive and you have to, but be mindful how you treat them. It's like in the Bible when he tells us that the Arc Angels, St. Michael our. Was arguing [00:06:00] with Lucifer over the body of Moses that he would not say anything against the devil. Why? Because the devil is still God's creation.You know, you, you gotta be careful how you speak about people and things like that because your words create your universe. And so I just. You know, and, and the day that I heard him speak so poorly to his mother, I was just like shocked. And I was like, you know, oh my god, you know who, who really is this?But I was another one of those things I pushed outta my mind, I compromised on it and I should not have. It is true what they say as at least from my experience with this, try to find you a man who gets along with his mother and treats her well. You know, cuz I'm gonna tell you that this ex that I had didn't treat his mother well and that he didn't treat me well either.When I was, I have, me and my ex were back in his hometown visiting with his family and I took his [00:07:00] mother out to a whole spa day and we went up, he got her her dead and everything like that. And you know, we come back home. My ex and no other person in that house even bothered to mention anything about this woman's new look.She was looking fabulous, snatched for the gods, and. You know my ex and everyone in there just br just acted like she just looked the same as when she left. So rude, so damn disrespectful yet. So Ethan, and then I went down to verse 22 where it says, say not I will re confidence evil, but wait on the Lord and he shall save you.Now look y'all. I know when people hurt us, we want to go out there and get even. We wanna fuck them up, okay? If not end them. I think about Angela Bassett lying from American Horror Story season three when she was [00:08:00] playing Marie Lavo, the Voodoo Queen down in New Orleans, and she was talking to one of her enemies in there and she was saying, I could think of so many ways that I can dispose of you.Look, and we also don't wanna listen to Madea either. Look, I know y'all love your Tyler Perry, but, but don't, don't do, do not listen to Madea telling you that God take too long and your enemies need to get got right then talking about your, your Smith and Wesson is your peace of steel and peace be still and loja still Do not go out there and catch no case.You know, trying to get even with these xs and these people who done, done you wrong because they're, you're still giving them power over you and honey. I've been locked up. 1, 2, 3, shit. Yeah. Something like three, four at times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been locked up three times. Honey, orange is not the new black.It is not cute. See a sea of orange every damn day when you wake up. Do [00:09:00] not go and catch no case, no felonies, you know, no misdemeanors or what the hell ever trying to express yourself. You know? We'll just call it like that. Look, I wanted to, I thought about this shit. You know, slashing his tires, throwing bricks through the windows of his house, burning the house down.You know, thank God it's not a crime to imagine shed. No, I'm not gonna do it. You know, I'm not going to do it because you know, it says in the Bible that we have to wait. The Lord said, the Lord said vengeance belongs to him, referring to himself. He said, avenge as mine, says the Lord. And he says, you have to wait.And so, And so what can you do? You get on your knees, okay? And you pray. You know, don't, don't, don't, don't listen to Jasmine Sullivan tell you to go bust the windows out that motherfucker's car do they deserve it? Hell, today. Yeah, but they're gonna have to get what's [00:10:00] coming to them. When the time is right.And remember, people who go out there and hurt people, and I can attest to this too, from that guy when I was in high school running around trying to hurt people. You know, he was not a happy person. He was fine as hell, sex as fuck, you know, fucking his way through town. And he was probably the most miserable person I'd ever had ever met next to my own dad, who was also a hellish ass fuck boy.But you know, they. Lord Jesus, so and so. So look, they're not happy anyway. I don't care how they look, how they carry themselves. These are some miserable, bitter little roots running around here in this earth. That's happy, healthy, whole people go out and spread happiness. It's as simple as that. If you're doing things to hurt people, you are a broken, bitter bitch.If you're not doing things to hurt people, then you're not a broken, bitter bitch that doesn't get any more simple than that. And so,[00:11:00]I just got out of, of, of mental hospital and I'm gonna have to do a whole nother show on that. Cause look, the Lord let things line up, because I needed time. I needed time to, to sit still without my phone, without this beautiful MacBook. I'm recording this on right now without the mic, without dealing with all my business, with down under apparel, without writing anything.Well, I, I wrote when I was in there, but you know, I was in there. I, I, I was, I was in the hospital eight days. I just got out today. Okay. You know, today is April 15th as I'm recording and about to release this. When I was in there, I had to, I, I went down on my knees and, and prayed like Evangelist Nelson, you know, my mentor, you know, who, you know, who I speak about, who I've written about, you know how you, how she used to tell me, [00:12:00] tell tell me to pray.Like she, she used to say, when you really, really, really, really, really need God to move them little popcorn prayers ain't going to cut it. She, she would tell me, you got to get down there on your, on your knee, on your knees and pray, and you gotta stay there. You gotta marinade before the Lord. And in, and in and in the choir that was provided me away from all the, all, all the, all the people who need me and depend on me, whom I love, and I love to be there for them.I, I got quiet and I got down there and prayed, and I began to get breakthroughs in my early morning dreams, which I'll talk about later. I began to vent. Out the poison that Ethan had put inside of me before I knew that it was there, you know, the negative thinking, the negative energy, all of that by being in a relationship with him, had gotten into me and the Lord began to extract this from me.Kinda like a, like a black tar being pulled up out of me is the best [00:13:00] way that I can describe it. Okay.Prayer changes things. Yeah, but you gotta be, you gotta mean it and you gotta get intense with it. When you really, really, really, really want God to move and you must believe, and your faith cannot be wavering though, if you have shaky faith, get down there and pray with. Pray with what faith you have, then God will move for you because I've asked him too.Do so on your behalf. Then look, if you are in a wheelchair or something like that, God understands you. Pray where you can, how you. You know, just be sincere in the prayer, faith shall move God. And that is what the Bible says. So I wanted to tell people about a website that I was introduced to called COSA Recovery, that C os a-recovery.org.COSA is a 12 step recovery [00:14:00] program for those whose lives have been affected by compulsive sexual behavior. I was shocked as shit when I discovered this. People have given themselves over the sexual compulsion so damn bad and hurt so many fucking people that we now have a step and probably this thing has been existed, bro.I don't know how fucking long. I'm thankful to have it that we have fucking 12 step programs because we've been hurt by people who cannot go out and fuck without fucking over the people who actually love them. This is regard damn ridiculous. You know what the fuck is going on with our society?Exactly what the Lord said would do. He said in the last days, men would become lovers of themselves. People cannot get enough of consuming the shit that they want, even if it hurts other people. I also want to tell you about this, this book right here. This book right [00:15:00] here. Is a book by an individual by the name of Raquel Lerner, and it's called, the Object of My Affection is in my reflection, coping with a narcissist.My Hypnotherapist, which you, which you met in a previous episode. Elaine Perilous. He's been a hypnotherapist for I think over like 20 something years she said. This shit right here is the best damn book. Now these are my, my, my words and not hers is the best damn book she has ever read or come across about narcissism and helping people to overcome that shit so that we can move on and be beautiful, bright, bold and brave like our Lord intended us to.After I read this, I just got this in the mail of the day, but I told you just got out the hospital. After I read this, I'm gonna do a show on it. You know, this whole narcissism thing and D dealing with sex addiction and all of that is gonna be an ongoing thing because it's [00:16:00] an ongoing, it is gonna be an ongoing thing that I talk about poor an indetermined amount of time, because that's what's going on with me right now, and it is so prevalent, and the more I dig into it, the more shocked I am of what I'm finding.So getting back on these sex, yes, you will find them in the sex drugs and jesus.com in the blog section. And feel free to reach out to me, email me, or whatever the hell hit me up on social media, TikTok, whatever. We're on all the things. And tell me what you think. Let me know if you went through something like that.You know, let me know if this transparency is helping you. I've heard from, I've heard from some of you and I already know that it is And mind you, when you're reading, when you're reading through this, Ethan's text message is gonna be on the right. His fuck, boys. Well, shit, he's the fuck boy too. The, the other, the other individual man, look, I can't even imagine.Be mad at the person, you know, the people he cheated with because he probably didn't even tell them that I exist. You know, [00:17:00] the other person's shit is gonna be on the left. The main one. Keep in mind that this is 43 text messages that Ethan sent to this person in 30. Say that again. 43 text messages in 30 minutes.Not he wa he wasn't speaking. Ethan doesn't do talk text his, his little, his, his damn fingers will move across that damn iPhone like grease, lightning bitch. These are 43 type text messages in 30 minutes and I found this bullshit out I made Ethan's, oh Jesus. Mm. Nah, fuck it. I made Ethan's little bitch ass re replicate this because this was so like unbelievable to me.In the course of our almost five year relationship, I never got a sexual initiation from Ethan like this. I had to initiate all the sex because he was too busy [00:18:00] crying about having fears of being rejected and everything like that, which never got resolved because he never really was trying to let it go.It really pissed me the fuck off to look, look, look in his cell phone after the spirit led me to, and my woman's intuition kicked in on, on fucking Christmas morning to find that not only did he, does Ethan possess the capacity to go out and cheat while he has covid and possibly kill the person and come home and eat a bowl of cereal and play video games and fucking go to sleep and not, and not faze him, and then look at me every day for, for, for four months and not say a damn thing.But he had the balls to initiate this. He groomed these people, he reached out to them, talked to them over a matter of weeks, and then went over and did a deed all the while holding my hand through the process and not saying anything. I'm like, you, I'm like that. That bastard can do all of this, but [00:19:00] can't even ask me for a piece of.When you'd have been with me for five years, I even tried to level with him during the course of the relationship. I was like, do we need to go? Do you need to text me in order to get the ball rolling for something sexual since verbal, verbal is not gonna happen? You know, he was like, no, and I see all this.So yeah, I made that little bitch replicate this. It took him hours. You know, to, to send me, I, I, I told him, send me 43 text messages, at least 43 text messages in 30 minutes like you did to the person you cheated on me with. He could barely do it. Now look, this is 43 text messages in 30 minutes, not counting what the other fuck boy responded to him.So, so even when that this shit hard, heavy was ready to go, okay. Okay. He, he lit it up and went over there and handled business. [00:20:00] Okay. While he was over there. I'm still texting him. I'm thinking he's at home about to die of Covid. Cause I had just went and dropped him off. Covid medicine, my covid medicine that I didn't take for myself.I gave it to him. Then a few hours later he's up and, you know, making it happen. You know, I'm texting him and everything. Wondering why his phone, why, why the messages aren't going through his iMessages like they usually do, because he had his phone off. I didn't even know Ethan had possessed the capacity to turn his phone off for the whole five years of our relationship.I begged him to get off his fucking phone to pay me some damn attention and to talk to me. You know, I wasn't trying to con. I wasn't trying to control him or take anything from him. I was trying to get to know him. I can't do that if he's on his cell phone half the damn time. Well, the majority of the fucking time, you know, always wherever we're at, he was always on his phone, you know, I was so insulted and at the time, you know, heartbroken and, and just felt all kinds of ways to see [00:21:00] that.Wait a minute. I ask your ass to turn your phone, just not to turn it off, but to just silence it or put it down so that we can communicate. You won't do it, but you can turn your phone off to go cheat and give the the person you fucking, that I don't know about your undivided attention. This is why I wanted to physically hurt him.You know, I am not a violent person. I don't fight. I would not reduce. And demean myself to such basic bitch levels. Okay To come to blows with some ho in the street by God damnit, I wanted to lay all my coth in class aside and take my hands and rip that little motherfucker to shreds. I really fucking did, but the Lord said, wait, and that's what I'm going to do.There are other ways, you know, to get eat to, to. That, that, that God can [00:22:00] get even with people. You don't have to, to reduce yourself to their level. Staying angry at narcissists and, and people who hurt you still gives them power over you, baby. You have got to let them go. Forgive them for you, not for them.Commend them into the hands of the Lord.When I was homeless on the street,I learned how fast karma comes back around. I guess it has to come back fast out there because people can get dead kind of quick, you know, out there in the game and hustlers and when you on the street and stuff like that. Any little dirt I did to somebody came back to my ass quick. Okay. I spoke about some of the karma that came back to me and the other episode 99, which I just released earlier today, y'all.I'm sorry that it was. But you know, like I said, I was locked up in the mental, you know, in the mental house. So I'm getting to it while I can, but I do [00:23:00] apologize for that so and so you know, and, and you know, any, any, any, Any kind of dirt I did always came back to me. I've lived it. Y'all have too, but you have to wait. This happened. I was, you know, just, just, just, just this past week when I was in the mental hospital and look, y'all, God is in there speaking to me, this man who seemed to have some type of dementia, sometimes people who come off cross as crazy and, and stutter, sometimes God will step into that stutter.And he'll speak to you through them. So don't write off people who look like they're crazy or just whatever, you know, you know. He walked up to me and he was just like, God is gonna send, wait a minute, how did he say it? He said, good people are coming your way. You know, I was setting down coloring or whatever the fuck I was doing, and it was, it would appear.To, to, to to [00:24:00] other people to just be an arbitrary comment some old, crazy man is making. But I have spiritual understanding and I keep an ear open to what the spirit may speak to me in any kind of way. When he said that, I look, I looked up at him and I was like, you know what, God just spoke through you.And I accept that because I need good people. Because, you know, God knows, you know, everything that I've gone through, you know, in within this year wore me out and almost took me. You know, I was in that ambulance, you know, thinking my life was slipping away, and I'm gonna talk about this in a different episode, and I was praying.Evangelist Nelson came to me in a dream the night before I ended up having to call the ambulance to go to the hospital for, for what was going on. And I didn't know she had come to get me and carried me away from here. What, because some, you know, those old people do that, you know, when you get ready to die, your elders from, from what I've been told, from what I've seen and experienced, [00:25:00] you know, the elders, you know, they, they, they, your, your, your, your relatives come back to get you.So I didn't know what was going on and so, but as you can see, I'm still here. While I was locked up in the mental hospital, this one, this one fool decided to become my. You know, talking shit and doing all of this, and I just, you know, you can't get in fights and nothing like that in there. They'll keep you longer.So I just went in my room. This is how God uses our enemies to grow us. You see wicked people or the tools of the Lord. That's how the Bible describes them. The Lord uses wicked people to grow his saints and to grow his children. And that's what Ethan was, that's what this fool in this mental hospital was.I didn't argue with him. I went. I went in there and prayed and I just said, Lord, you get him. You get his ass. Okay? Get real with God. Talk to him if you gotta cuss. Cuss God's not [00:26:00] offended by your words. Just tell the truth. Humans get offended about every little thing. Fuck him. Can't do nothing with that bullshit and that fucking foolishness that people be perpetrating on.I'm gonna tell you like. I looked up and next thing I know, they was wheeling him out on a stretcher. I didn't touch this man. I didn't do anything to him. He was already, there was something going on in his health, I don't know. But the Lord took that, took that disturbance away from me because I didn't need that.Okay? And then his little crew that had gotten latched onto his negativity and was throwing shade my way, got disbanded, and now all of a sudden, they want to be friends with me again. Which I did not allow. You know, I forgave them and stuff like that, but my friendship is golden and I pour out my soul and my very existence for people you know, you know, on a daily basis.But especially those who are, who are close to me or within my reach, I will not be disrespected, you know, or are hurt [00:27:00] by you and you think you just gonna come back and everything gonna be all right. The ma'am, it's not gonna go that. Okay. It's, it is, it is absolutely not going to go that way. And so I'm saying all this to say, I'm saying all this to say, let God arise and let your enemies be scattered and let your head be lifted up above your enemies.When you have problems with enemies, get to the Book of Psalms. God used David's enemies to groom him to become, you know, a king of Israel. Do not let these people cause you to sink down. But any rate, take y'all's asses over to sex, drugs and jesus.com and check out this blog opposed, and get these receipts, real life receipts.Honey, you don't always get receipts like this tossed your way. Or you can go through and see the actual dirt baby. Go through and get your fucking life and then message me and let me know what you [00:28:00] think about. I love you all so much and I will talk to you on the next episode.

2 Samuel 16: Transformando la maldición en bendición.2 Samuel 16:5-14:(Por favor leer en su biblia)---------------------------En este episodio vemos uno de los momentos más tenebrosos en la vida de David. David había pasado muchos momentos duros, difíciles y peligrosos cuando huía de Saúl, y ahora lo vemos viviendo algo similar pero como rey huyendo de su propio hijo que se sublevó contra él para destronarlo y destruirlo.Como rey y como padre fue un momento muy confuso y doloroso. David huyó porque temía que Absalón exterminara a sus propios hermanos para afirmar su reino y a las familias de los servidores de David. David caminó toda la noche por el desierto y ahí aparece un familiar de Saúl insultándolo y culpándolo por la muerte de Saúl, a pesar de que David no causó su muerte ni la muerte de sus hijos, David recibió la maldición y voluntariamente evitó que uno de sus soldados matara a Simei, de la tribu de Benjamín. David nos da una lección de humildad y de completa confianza en Dios en medio de la desesperación, el dolor, la confusión y la vergüenza. David asumió que Dios está permitiendo que este hombre lo maldiga; y si Dios lo hace, David solo debía responder con mansedumbre y con paciencia, recibiendo la afrenta, la ofensa, la injusticia. ¿Por qué? Porque David sabía que Dios es un Dios justo, que se compadece del que sufre y que hace justicia al que sufre injusticias. Así es cómo debemos aprender de David que se refugió en la misericordia de Dios. Prefirió esperar a Dios que tomar acción con sus propias manos. Pudiendo callar al ofensor de un solo golpe, prefirió aguantar esta ofensa e injusticia porque él sabía que Dios se iba a manifestar para darle consolación, fortaleza y restituir su honor. Yo sé que es difícil callar y quedarse quieto en esos momentos. Uno quiere defenderse y contraatacar a la persona que habla mal de uno, que quiere la destrucción de nuestro hogar. La verdad es que muchos se dejan llevar por su propia opinión o por envidia, o simplemente se dejan usar por satanás y comienzan a opinar lo mal que estamos, que no merecemos el favor de Dios, que sienten que tienen el derecho de lastimarnos. Sea cual sea la razón que los impulsa a decir o hacer lo que no deben, a actuar con malicia y sevicia, podemos confiar plenamente que tenemos un Dios Todopoderoso que nos cubre, nos protege, que se levanta a actuar a nuestro favor defendiéndonos de toda situación adversa. Así como David, tengamos la certeza que Dios está escuchando las palabras del malvado y está viendo las acciones del maligno contra nosotros, y también está viendo nuestra actitud sumisa al Señor, trayendo ante Su presencia nuestra causa y pidiendo su intervención. Recordemos el consejo del apóstol Pedro, cuando hace referencia del Salmo 34 en 1 Pedro 3:8-13: "Finalmente, sean todos de un mismo sentir: compasivos, amándose fraternalmente, misericordiosos y humildes. No devuelvan mal por mal ni maldición por maldición sino, por el contrario, bendigan; pues para esto han sido llamados, para que hereden bendición. Porque: ´El que quiere amar la vida y ver días buenos refrene su lengua del mal, y sus labios no hablen engaño. Apártese del mal y haga el bien. Busque la paz y sígala. Porque los ojos del Señor están sobre los justos, y sus oídos están atentos a sus oraciones. Pero el rostro del Señor está contra aquellos que hacen el mal. ́ ¿Quién es aquel que les podrá hacer daño si son apasionados por el bien?"Así que, con cualquier maldición en contra nuestra, respondamos con una bendición, y pongamos ante el Juez del universo la causa. Verás como Dios torna la maldición en bendición.Eduardo Rodríguez.2 Samuel 16: Turning the curse into a blessing.2 Samuel 16:5-14:Now when King David came to Bahurim, there was a man from the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei the son of Gera, coming from there. He came out, cursing continuously as he came. And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David. And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. Also Shimei said thus when he cursed: “Come out! Come out! You bloodthirsty man, you rogue! The Lord has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned; and the Lord has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son. So now you are caught in your own evil, because you are a bloodthirsty man!” Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? Please, let me go over and take off his head!” But the king said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? So let him curse, because the Lord has said to him, ‘Curse David.' Who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?' ” And David said to Abishai and all his servants, “See how my son who came from my own body seeks my life. How much more now may this Benjamite? Let him alone, and let him curse; for so the Lord has ordered him. It may be that the Lord will look on my affliction, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing this day.” And as David and his men went along the road, Shimei went along the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went, threw stones at him and kicked up dust. Now the king and all the people who were with him became weary; so they refreshed themselves there.---------------------------In this episode we see one of the darkest moments in David's life. David had gone through many hard, difficult and dangerous moments when he fled from Saul, and now we see him living through something similar but as a king fleeing from his own son who rose up against him to dethrone and destroy him.As a king and as a father it was a very confusing and painful time.David fled because he feared that Absalom would exterminate his own brothers to establish his kingdom and the families of David's servants. David walked all night through the desert and there appears a relative of Saul insulting him and blaming him because of Saul's death, even though David did not cause his death or the death of his sons, David received the curse and voluntarily prevented one of his soldiers from killing Shimei of the tribe of Benjamin.David teaches us a lesson in humility and complete trust in God in the midst of despair, pain, confusion and shame. David assumed that God is allowing this man to curse him; and if God does it, David only had to respond with meekness and patience, receiving the affront, the offense, the injustice. Why? Because David knew that God is a just God, who has compassion for those who suffer and who does justice to those who suffer injustice.This is how we should learn from David that he took refuge in God's mercy. He preferred to wait for God than take action with his own hands. Being able to silence the offender with a single blow, he preferred to put up with this offense and injustice because he knew that God was going to manifest Himself to give him consolation, strength and restore his honor.I know that it is difficult to be quiet and remain still in those moments. You want to defend yourself and counterattack the person who speaks ill of you, who wants the destruction of your home. The truth is that many allow themselves to be carried away by their own opinion or out of envy, or they simply allow themselves to be used by satan and begin to think how bad we are, that we do not deserve God's favor, that they feel they have the right to hurt us. Whatever the reason that drives them to say or do what they should not, to act with malice and cruelty, we can fully trust that we have an Almighty God who covers us, protects us, who rises up to act in our favor, defending us from all adverse situations. Like David, let us be sure that God is listening to the words of the wicked and is seeing the actions of the evil one against us, and is also seeing our submissive attitude to the Lord, bringing our cause before His presence and asking for His intervention.Let us remember the advice of the Apostle Peter, when he refers to Psalm 34 in 1 Peter 3:8-13: "Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. For “He who would love life And see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, And his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good; Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers; But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good?"So, with any curse against us, let us respond with a blessing, and bring the cause before the Judge of the universe. You will see how God turns the curse into a blessing.Eduardo Rodríguez.#2Samuel16 #LibroDeSamuel #2samuel #KingdomChurch #iglesiaelreino #ipuh#HogaresDePacto #HogaresDePactoPodcast #PastorCarlos #CarlosRodriguez #EduardoRodriguezR

A Devotional on 1 Kings 15:3-5 3 And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father. 4 Nevertheless for David's sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem: 5 Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. Amazing Grace - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKmNtL__7qw

Psalm 18 is a great song and Psalm of praise and victory! In verses 1-3, David begins this Psalm with an expression of his devotion and love for Jehovah. After expressing his devotion, David described his distress (vv. 4-6). Then in verses 7-19, David described how God delivered him from his distress! In verses 20-27, David wants us to know that God rewards and blesses us when we live a life of integrity and obedience. God is always at work to accomplish His purposes! Even when we can't see Him, He is behind the scenes providentially and divinely directing people, events and circumstances. What was God accomplishing during those difficult years of Saul's reign? For one thing, He was punishing the people of Israel for running ahead of Him and making Saul king. “Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No, but we will have a king over us that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles” (1 Samuel 8:19-20). Years later Hosea the prophet spoke about this in Hosea 13:10-11: “I will be your King; Where is any other, That he may save you in all your cities? And your judges to whom you said, 'Give me a king and princes'? I gave you a king in My anger, And took him away in My wrath.” God will hold both a nation and a people accountable for rejecting Him and His authority over us. It cost Israel 40 years with having the wrong king. Another thing that the LORD was doing in His longsuffering over the course of many years, was giving Saul opportunities to repent. But it appears that Saul only grew more proud, bitter, jealous, and vindictive. Over the years, Saul's heart great harder and harder and finally he had no access to the Lord and had to go to witch for advice. How sad for someone who started out so humble and with so much potential. At the same time though, the LORD was equipping David for his years of service as God's anointed and chosen king. God never appears to be in a hurry to accomplish His purposes and He takes time to prepare His servants. Remember God took thirteen years preparing Joseph to save both Israel and Egypt from the devastating effects of a famine. God took forty years to prepare Moses to be a great leader and lead Israel out of Egypt. God took forty years to prepare Joshua to lead Israel to victory in the Promise Land. The lessons David learned about himself and God during those years of exile helped to make him the man that he was. The images that we see in Psalm 18:28-45, reveal how God is developing a great warrior, a compassionate leader, and a godly man. God is preparing you and me in the same way to obey Him, submit to His authority and accomplish His divine purposes. The image of the lamp (v. 28) speaks of God's grace in keeping David alive during those dangerous years (Job 18:5-6; Prov. 13:9). It also speaks of the perpetuity of his family and dynasty (Psalm 132:17; 2 Sam. 21:17; 1 Kings 11:36, 15:4; 2 Kings 8:19; 2 Chron. 21:7), culminating in the coming of Jesus Christ to earth (Luke 1:26-33). Because David trusted God (v. 30), God enabled him to run, leap, fight, and defeat the enemy (vv. 29, 32-34, 37-45). He could run through a troop, scale a wall, or leap like a deer up the mountains (see Hab. 3:19). What is the Lord doing in your life today? Are you willing to repent of your disobedience and your self-will, and humbly submit to God's plan and purpose for your life? May the Lord help us to do so! Don't forget this great promise in Jeremiah 29:11-13, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” God bless!

Keith Stump is the executive director of a nonprofit organization, Able Inc., that serves mostly persons with learning and development disabilities. Keith really began his career of service as an intern in Cambodia where he saw first-hand the challenges faced by disenfranchised persons who happen to have disabilities.   Eventually, Keith arrived at Able Inc. where he is helping the agency take clients out of more limited work environments and working to help them learn jobs around communities in Central California. The positive philosophy around disabilities shown by Mr. Stump is all the more remarkable since he does not have a disability but certainly has learned that all of us, no matter our differences, have gifts worth our time to enhance and bring into the world. Through Keith's involvement, Able Inc., as it went through a recent rebranding process, found and now uses accessiBe to help make its website more inclusive.   Keith has a number of stories he shares to help us all discover how Able Inc. is working to help make our world a better place for all of us. I am certain you will enjoy your time listening to Keith Stump's interview. I would appreciate you giving this episode a 5 rating after you listen to it. Thanks in advance.   About the Guest: Keith Stump has been volunteering and working in the nonprofit sector for the last twenty years. He received his MA in Intercultural Studies from Columbia International University where he did a deep dive into cross-cultural studies, world religions, and non-profit management and leadership. He is the Executive Director of Able Inc., which is an organization that offers life skills, job training and ultimately employment opportunities to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Able Inc. has recently rebranded and is preparing to move into a newly renovated building in Visalia, CA. Before Able, Keith worked in Fresno on behalf of homeless individuals and families as the Chief Development Officer for the Fresno Mission. Before settling in California, Keith also worked with Bethany Global where he managed fundraising for family preservation programs in Haiti and Ethiopia among other countries. While living in Michigan, Keith worked with Samaritas where he advocated on behalf of global families, refugees, and local foster youth by creating a program for the recruitment of foster and adoptive parents that was eventually implemented statewide. Keith's career has always been focused on advocacy and building awareness around the organizations he has been fortunate enough to represent and serve. Keith and his family moved to the Central Valley four years ago, and so far, they love being so close to so much of California's natural beauty.   Social Media Links for Keith: Keith Stump - Executive Director - Able Industries | LinkedIn www.ableinc.org https://www.facebook.com/ableincvisalia/ https://www.instagram.com/ableinc_/     About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes* Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Glad you're with us wherever you happen to be today. We get to interview Keith Stump Keith is a person I met through a colleague at accessibe our nonprofit manager, Sheldon Lewis, Sheldon, who we also interviewed here on unstoppable mindset. Keith has been involved in the disabilities world for over 20 years, and specifically, mostly involved in developmental disabilities and so on. And we'll get to all that, because I'm anxious to hear what he's doing and how he got there, and, and all the things that he's accomplished. And I'm sure that it will be inspiring to all of us. But Keith, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Keith Stump  02:01 Thank you very happy to be here.   Michael Hingson  02:03 So tell us a little bit about you kind of how you got started and all the early stuff? Sure. Well,   Keith Stump  02:10 again, thank you for asking, and thank you for the opportunity. So I knew right out of college, quite honestly that I wanted to be involved in the nonprofit world, initially, that started on the global front. My background, really, up until fairly recently has been working in countries all over the world on behalf of refugees, immigrants, and many families, families that had children or caregivers, parents that had developmental disabilities. And so it has been very exciting to see that also translate here now that I'm working in the US. Again, I've always just had a passion for serving people and happy to continue doing that. So here   Michael Hingson  02:53 you are now in in the Central Valley in California. And that'll be an interesting story to hear how you how you got there. But how did you start out in terms of dealing with the global world and how you got involved in serving at that level? And then how did that translate into coming kind of more into a little bit more localized environment? Sure.   Keith Stump  03:15 So it all started with an internship in Cambodia. And I will say that I at that point really did not want to go to Asia, I had nothing against Asia, of course, but I thought that I would be working in a number of other countries continents, and I had the opportunity to go, I just decided, let's do this, let's see where it goes and what I can learn and, and that really opened my eyes, I will say first and foremost to the needs that were needs that were greater than just those that I was seeing here in the US. And certainly there are needs here as well. But when I started to see and at that time were in Cambodia, a lot of it had to do with human trafficking, there was a lot of trafficking happening with young girls, even young boys. And I noticed as I began to learn more and more that often people were children were put into trafficking situations because obviously their families could not support them or could not support the family unit as a whole. And so they felt they had no choice but to put somebody put a child into trafficking, which was truly tragic. The thing that I learned through that is that are really developed a passion through that for serving families. I learned that if we can serve the family unit as a whole, we'll be able to keep children out of these really tragic situations if we can provide them a means to support themselves and certainly children to be educated. We're, you know, we're basically on the way to fighting against human trafficking. And also what happened with that is I noticed that a lot of the families that were most desperate, were families that had children with disabilities, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities, and that really started I guess I should say my work In terms of focusing specifically on Family Preservation and working with families that had children with special needs,   Michael Hingson  05:08 so So who did you do this internship with? How did that come about? Oh,   Keith Stump  05:13 that was during my undergrad. And that was with Bethany global, which was out of Minneapolis. So I, I did the internship, I was in Cambodia for about a year I went with a couple other students, which was mostly a lot of fun once in a while, I had some drama, but it was a good time. And the great thing about it is I also met my wife during this internship, we lived in the same apartment complex. And so I worked with her aunt, at a local orphanage again, at that time, it was on behalf of some trafficking victims. And so one night, her aunt invited me over for dinner, and we got to know each other, and 15 years later, we're still married, we've been together for 17 years. So the global experience for lack of a better word has not only become something that I'm personally very invested, or I should say, professionally, very invested in. But personally, we get to go back to Cambodia a lot and visit her family. And it's been it's been good, I have a real passion for serving people around the world. And again, I'm very grateful that I've been able to do that locally here as well.   Michael Hingson  06:18 It's interesting that you say that a lot of the families that seem to be the most desperate are families that have persons with disabilities in them was that desperation also, in part because of trafficking or what   Keith Stump  06:34 it was because they they didn't, you know, often they didn't know what to do with those children. I know that sounds really awful. But that's that's the reality. And, you know, Cambodia was just sort of the tip of the iceberg as I as I finished school and really stepped into global work. Here in the US initially, after the internship, I worked on behalf of refugees and undocumented immigrants, but that took me all over as well. And then eventually, I moved into working with a family preservation program, spent a lot of time in Haiti and Ethiopia specifically as well as Cambodia, of course. And at that point, I really focus specifically on again, families that had children with special needs, and they just didn't have the resources, there were still a lot of taboos around folks that had disabilities. Specifically in Ethiopia, I'll be honest with you, a lot of it had to a lot of the taboos rose around a person's religious beliefs, they felt that if not everyone, certainly, but many people feel that if there is a disability in the family, especially with a child, the parents probably did something wrong. And so fighting against those stigmas, again, in any country can always be a challenge. And what happens with that, then is if the family feels that they did something wrong, they are unfortunately, sometimes very quick to push that child into a very desperate situation, right. So if the child can be traffic, they may do that. Simply again, to earn a little bit of extra money, which is, of course, truly tragic. I always remind folks that it's easy to beat these parents up. But then when you see what they're dealing with, and often, many of them are in extreme poverty and have seven or eight other kids. As tragic as it is, you can start to see how how that really desperate road has taken.   Michael Hingson  08:24 And unfortunately, the child with the disability is the Well, I was gonna say the loser, but everyone loses in that kind of situation, because we don't realize the gifts that maybe that child with a disability really brings to the world or could bring to the world if given the opportunity. Absolutely, yes. And so then we have that challenge. And it happens worldwide. It happens all over and it and happens in this country, sometimes in a more subtle way. But it happens in this country as well that kids with disabilities, kids who are different are just not treated the same. They're not given the same opportunities. And there's a lot of disservice that somehow we need to address as well. Yes, yeah, absolutely. So you came back from that, and then what? Well, so keep   Keith Stump  09:19 in mind that was that was over a period of oh, about 15 years. And so we eventually landed here in the Central Valley, where I am now in Visalia, California. My wife also has family here. And so I have young children and we decided it's time to settle down. We were both traveling a lot specifically me. And I have had the opportunity now to be with Able Inc. Able is an organization that works specifically here in Tulare County and Visalia on behalf of individuals who have developmental disabilities specifically, and so we teach life skills, independent living money management, and then we also do job training and job plays. smell. And so it has been really amazing to be able to do this close to home as much as I love global work, I was certainly at a place in my life where my kids needed to see me more, I wanted to see them more. And being able to do essentially the same work. Like you said, some of the challenges are different. But it's, the challenges are still very real. There's plenty of taboos here to deal with as well. But being able to do it locally, and in my own community, my wife and I recently just bought a house, and we're really plugged in here. And looking to get more plugged in. That has been exciting because I've actually never had that opportunity. As much as I worked globally or on behalf of a state or, you know, nationally, on some level, I was always, I was always in a different place, right. So I would go in, I would see the same people for a couple of weeks, and then I would have to fly out. And now that I get to do this in my community and spend time with amazing individuals on a daily basis. It's been it's been a lot of fun. It's been very exciting as well,   Michael Hingson  10:56 how long is able been around as an organization.   Keith Stump  11:00 Able has been around since 62. And so we are getting ready this year, in fact, to celebrate our 66   Michael Hingson  11:07 years. And what is able stand for?   Keith Stump  11:10 Well, quite honestly, Able stands for for. And I'm gonna explain it this way because we recently rebranded and one of the coolest things with the rebrand is we use the word we used to be able industries incorporated. Now we just go by Able. And during the rebrand process, we ended up coming up with a new logo and all of that, but the word Able really came to the forefront. And our during that process, our designer came up with Able period, they put a period at the word eight after the word Able. And that was something that our board really grasp onto was this idea we are able period we are able there's finality there enough said we are able to be part of the community just like everybody else, and in many cases contribute sometimes more than everybody else. So it simply means Able, it simply means that we are about being in a community and we are here to be recognized. And we are able just like everybody else. So it's not an acronym it is able. Yeah, yeah, that's which is literally which Yeah, which is as good as it gets, right? Yes, yes.   Michael Hingson  12:13 So what exactly does Able do?   Keith Stump  12:16 There's essentially three programs that we have right now. And we essentially offer these programs to folks wherever they may be. So the first step in our program is again, life skills, independent living skills, money management, how to cook, that's more of a classroom setting. So that would be our first step. The second step is actual job training. And I know that many organizations like Able , sort of our industry as a whole has a reputation for sheltered workshops. Able does not have a sheltered workshop, when I say job training, we're not, we don't have people in a shop that are assembling pieces for production and kind of doing the same thing all day, we're actually out in the community. So we are very integrated. We have big contracts with our city parks with Best Buy a huge distribution center, we do a lot with craft, we've got a lot of local businesses and nonprofits that we partner with. And they, they give us opportunity to do on the site, job training, paid training. And then once a individual is ready once they've gone through that program. And our goal is to help them learn a job for about two years. And it's as you know, it's not just about learning the job, some individuals learn that job very quickly, I mean, much quicker than certainly I could if I was in their shoes, but there's some additional social skills that really need to be learned soft skills sometimes are the biggest challenge. So once someone completes the job training, they are eventually placed in a actual job. So community or I'm sorry, competitive, integrated employment, we do have a lot of acronyms. CCIE is where essentially somebody finishes the program, they're placed in a full time job. And we continue to provide case match case management, we provide additional insight, sometimes we have found and I'm sure you know this, but our community loves hiring our people. But there's some there's sometimes a little bit scared to do it. And that's okay. There's sometimes a little bit worried about how to manage somebody that may have a bad day that doesn't have all the soft skills. We've worked to train them in that but we all we all have off days. And so the case manager really is a mediator between the individual that is with us and the employer. And so we have very long standing relationships with employers in our community a and w is a great example. There's a gentleman here that owns four different franchises, and he has employed our folks for over 15 years now. One of one of our staff actually our one of our folks actually stayed with him for 10 years. And so everybody loved her everybody, you know would show up at a NW and they actually they absolutely love what we do because as you know, folks, in many cases that have have what we call developmental disabilities are some of the nicest people you're ever going to meet. And so once once they're plugged into a job, they're also very committed to it. So retention is good as well. So we have a lot to give back to our community. And that has been key as well as, as a nonprofit being able to say, we're not just asking, it's very easy to always want to be on the receiving end of things. But to say, actually, we have something to give back. And by the way, if you are a business who wants to employ our folks, you're going to, you're going to learn far more from them than then you will teach. And I feel that way personally, as well.   Michael Hingson  15:35 And the people who get hired, gets the same wages as everyone else, they get a competitive wage and so on. Of course, yes. Yeah. And I asked that because you mentioned sheltered workshops. And I don't know whether everyone in our listening audience is familiar with what sheltered workshops were in our and so on, can you maybe describe that a little bit?   Keith Stump  15:58 Yeah, and enable did have a sheltered workshop, pretty much every organization or in this industry, I think at one point they were they were very common, especially back in the 60s, when Able started, there was unfortunately, a lot of taboo and around stigma around people that had developmental disabilities. And there was this idea that these folks are not going to find jobs in the real world, for lack of a better word, they're going to struggle to be integrated. And so let's create a safe space for them where they can can work and often be paid Yes, less than minimum wage, they're paid by piece rate, or that's traditionally what happened, where they can work and be paid based on what they're producing. But unfortunately, many of those places ended up being It wasn't intentional. In many cases, I really think that people started out with the right intentions, it was a very different time. And again, Abel, Abel had a sheltered workshop as well. And I respect what had happened there. I had seen it. Part of what I did recently was what our team did recently was to move on. beyond that. So I think intentions were right, I certainly feel that way with APR. But unfortunately, in some cases, there was abuse. And you had folks that were, you know, essentially doing the same thing every day. And they were being paid less than minimum wage, they were being paid based on what they're being paid piece rate, which basically means they were being paid based on their productivity or what the organization or the state deemed productivity. The the crazy thing about that is, in recently, Trevor and Trevor Noah actually did a story on this when sheltered workshops were really brought to light in the last year, and the laws have changed. But none of us are 100%. productive, right? It's not, it's not reasonable to expect that every single day we go to work, we're going to be able to give 100% some days, we may get 5060, some days 120. But it really was a very, it was very unfair to the individuals who worked in those in those sheltered workshops, because as you can imagine, they're being held to a standard that really not everyone else is and it's not fair to look at a human being just based on what we consider productivity. And so I am very glad that the industry as a whole has moved beyond that. And although there's some challenges with that, I am, I have, you know, certainly enable has as well readily embrace those challenges. So it's it's fairly recent, it's fairly recent. And, again, it's exciting to see folks move beyond that, because I'll be transparent. I feel personally, I'm newer to ABL, but I feel personally that it should have happened quite a while ago, and that the industry as a whole should have should have moved beyond that a long time ago, and maybe it maybe it shouldn't have been, again, different time different place. I'm not going to comment on how it worked in the past. But certainly, it's one of those deals now that we know better, we can do better,   Michael Hingson  18:55 right? Well, the, of course, part of the issue was sheltered workshops. And I'm familiar with them as well from the blindness standpoint, because sometimes departments of rehabilitation and other forces would shunt blind people into sheltered workshops and other people with other so called disabilities, because the feeling was that we could not be productive. And the whole point of the workshop is that it began with the Javis Wagner eau de Act back in 1938, when the whole concept of workers rights and employment and work weeks, and so on, and minimum wage, and so on, were all created. And the idea was that the workshop was supposed to be a training place where people who might not have the same opportunities as others, and I think it was intended to be something with the with with the right attitude and the right intentions, but the intent was that the workshops would be a place where people could go to get trained, and then they would go out into the, to the workplace. But unfortunately, a number of the workshop people decided to take it further and there was also a minimum wage. As I recall, if you were put into a workshop, initially, you would get three quarters of the wage that others would get in competitive employment. And the whole idea was, it was a training facility. Yeah, but then workshop, people evolved it to lower the minimum wage to the point where eventually it got to be that there was no minimum. And, and people were being paid blind people, for example, 22 cents an hour to make brooms. And as you pointed out, there was the whole issue of the productivity, the peace, productivity rate, and they had some very bad standards for how they determined how competitive a person could be. So it was a very unfortunate thing. And it is something where most of the country is recognizing the value that Able did, of getting away from the workshop and going out into the regular community, because people can be competitively employed.   Keith Stump  21:11 And it's great for the community. I mean, again, I will tell you that I'm just gonna say it. But this idea and this stigma that was there in the past that we have to keep people safe, that we almost have to keep them locked away from the general population is truly tragic, because now that we're and we have been out and about for 20 years now. But now that we also have the site of our employment training, where we're out in the community and integrated, it is super exciting to see and to be part of something where folks could say, Hey, I recognize you from when you were in the parks, or you were at BestBuy or what have you, and, and again, our community really loves people and loves the people that we serve. So it truly would be tragic to keep them in a warehouse all day. I don't know how else to say that not only for their own sake, but because they have so much to give back.   Michael Hingson  22:00 Well, and I think in general, you will well, people would find that these people are brighter than you think. And they know absolutely. They know when they're being shunted away. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was on the board of the Fort Worth Lighthouse for the Blind for nine years and just rotated off earlier this year. But the lighthouse for a while, had a sheltered shop. And not while I was on the board that had long gone away, I think back in 2004, was when the workshop was eliminated, because they discovered, rightly so that, in reality, people can work competitively. It's all about setting the stage. It's all about proper training. And I know of other agencies and so on that have gone the same way. Because the reality is, everyone has gifts, and what we need to do is to match the gifts to the job.   Keith Stump  23:00 Yes, absolutely. Now there are many, there are many things that I see our our folks do. And this is true for staff. This is true for trainees, I mean, we hire our trainees as well. And there are things that they're much better at than I am. So we learn together. Everybody has different skills. Now your job at Able is I'm the executive director. And so it's slowly being at the top, isn't it? It can be Yeah, it can be we have a phenomenal management team. But we are going through a lot of changes in organization, not only as our industry changing, which for me is exciting, because I'm not necessarily you know, the domestic industry is very different than the global I don't I have to be careful with that word industry. But the service that we provide is very different here than what I was able to do globally. So there's it's very exciting to have more resources. On the flip side, there's far more red tape. So so that has been that has been interesting. It's been a learning experience. But it's been very good. And again, our management team is very good. Very, very grateful for each of them. And we're in the process of moving as well. We rebranded a year ago. So Able is looking quite different. And our programs have changed a lot. And we have to move we have a new building, just in the last year. So   Michael Hingson  24:21 well tell us about the move. That's a that's an interesting thing. i You had mentioned it before. So why Why move what's what's happening?   Keith Stump  24:29 Yeah, so a couple things. So first of all, we want all of our campuses to be together. We have two campuses right now, our life skills program is on one campus, and then our other programs are here at the campus where I am. And so we want everybody to be together. We really want again, the whole program as a whole to be integrated as well. The other thing is that Able, the building that we're currently in did have a sheltered workshop. So obviously we don't need that anymore. And And then the third thing is with COVID. Like everybody else we found that we can do far more remotely. And actually, most of our jobs, obviously, the job. And I will say all of the jobs, actually all of our job training programs and the jobs that we actually provide to folks that we help place them into, unless we hire them personally, they're all off site. They're all remote, right? Because we're actually out in the community. So we don't need the space that we once did. The largest part of what we do is our Community Employment Services, crew, and they're hardly here, which is a good thing, because that means they're out working in the community. So so we didn't need the space. We we downsized to some extent, but because we, we are now consolidating both campuses into one, we're still in a good size building. It's about 37,000 square feet. But we didn't need the space that we did, we learned that we can be more efficient by being out there. And now moving forward, we can all we can all be together, we're still in the community, we only moved about a mile and a half north. And it's been exciting. We're renovating a brand new building. So good times.   Michael Hingson  26:05 So the the whole idea of being out in the community, of course, does a lot to educate people. Do you have some stories of just some great successes that you've had and how people who aren't normally associated with disabilities suddenly discovered that maybe things aren't as bad as they think?   Keith Stump  26:28 Yeah, I think so in terms of the community, and just building awareness. It happens almost every day, I will say that we are very lucky, very lucky. We recently hired a coordinator of public public relations and fundraising. His name is James and he and I are out in the community on a regular basis. And I will tell you that first and foremost, there's still a lot of stigma, stigma not around our folks, but around ABL and whether or not we are Are we one of those organizations that had a sheltered workshop. Just recently, actually, somebody said to both of us on the same day, two different individuals, oh, Able, you guys are the ones that lock people in the warehouses, and they can work and make money all day like, well, we're not locking anybody anywhere. We never did. But yes, there was that in the past. And so probably the biggest thing that I get to do again, on a daily basis alongside James is build awareness and tell stories about what's actually happening today. And then we get to take folks out in the community and introduce them to our, our people. And so I think practically a great example of that is we recently partnered with our local minor league baseball team in Visalia rawhide. And they have six interns, or they did during the season, the season ended a couple days ago, but they had six interns, that were part of Able, and for the most part, it went phenomenally well, they are looking to bring them on for future events, and then certainly hire them. And so that has that has been something really exciting to see is, is not just to partner with sort of our usuals, we really, really value those individuals that we've worked with those partners that we've had for years, but to be able to go out to community and to be part of what rawhides is doing not just as interns, not just as staff, because again, rawhides will hire our folks. But to also go out there and we had a we had a night that was just for ABL it was called free to be me night, we set up our booths, and we give things away every single Friday night home game. And so that's a practical example of not only a business embracing our people and interning them hiring them, but then also saying we love what Abel does, let's bring you went to the larger community and talk about what you're doing on a weekly basis. And there's two interns specifically that that work there they're six total, but two of them are really a delight. They're all awesome. So I want to I want to be careful about that. But these are the two the brothers and sister. They are a lot of fun. And I tell you, you see them walk around the park and do their job. And it's just exciting. It's also fun. I'm at the booth off, and we haven't able booth setup. They're kind of its standard now. And it's awesome. It's great having them come by and talk to folks and obviously our individuals, the people that have been through our program or or are in our program. They're the best representatives of of what we do. There are challenges, obviously, is to be expected, right? I think of the relationship we have with Best Buy a huge distribution center here. We've worked with them for years. And there are times that, you know, there's things that we need to we need to work out we need to improve, we need to help folks understand what it means to work a second or third shift. But these are all practical skills that we get to teach one individual Her name is Marley. She's been with our program for a very long time. And she's been at Best Buy I believe for over 10 years now and she is somebody who takes her job extremely seriously but is one of the most fun people you're ever going to meet. So there's certainly success stories and there's certainly stories of challenge The parks right now have been very difficult, because Visalia really has a challenge right now with transient folks. And so what does it mean for us to clean our local parks, when we also have an issue with, you know, engaging with folks that may be homeless or what have you. And unfortunately, that's not always safe. So that's something that we've really had to embrace is able and say, should we still be doing this, we've worked very closely with the city parks with the city of Visalia to, to make sure that people are safe. And it is a balancing act, because we want individuals to be out there in the real world, we want them to be seen. Our parks crews are probably easily the most recognizable because all of our trucks are branded, and people see them out there every day. And so again, we have really focused on just putting our people out there like everybody else, not of course, in an exploitive way, but saying, These are jobs that we can fulfill. And again, I'm very excited about the fact that we've been able to do that. I mean, honestly, our Community Employment Services crew is is really rising above and beyond, it's very exciting to see them build relationships, and not just with businesses, but local nonprofits. So we, we partner with Happy Trails, which is a organization here locally that does therapeutic riding, horse horseback riding, they've given so much to us over the years, we've given a lot to them, we essentially have the same clients. The source LGBT resource center is another organization that we work very closely with. There's a lot of crossover with the people they serve and the people we serve. And so building awareness around our people in the Partnerships has been really exciting. It's been very exciting to see Visalia or Tulare County as a whole really embrace us.   Michael Hingson  31:47 So what job does Marly do at BestBuy? She does a   Keith Stump  31:51 number of different jobs. But right now she is basically, she's still she drives a tug, I believe. And she's collecting cardboard and various various items like that and recycling them. But they rotate. Sometimes they're stalking sometimes they're driving the tug, sometimes they're cleaning. Sometimes I know in the past, we've had people on the line as well. So Best Buy is it's a distribution center. So there actually is an amazing place. Actually, that's where you go and you see these huge TVs and iPads. And so this is this is like Santa's workshop.   Michael Hingson  32:27 Yeah. boxes and boxes and boxes of all of that stuff, too. Yes, yes. And so that's the center. That's a distribution center then sends things to the local stores.   Keith Stump  32:37 Yeah, they cover the entire west coast. Yeah, they've been a great partner.   Michael Hingson  32:41 And so the the folks that work at the rawhides, what do they do?   Keith Stump  32:46 So they basically help. They help with some maintenance, they help with facilities, they help with cleanup, they also help with sales and that sort of thing as well. They've been out on the field they've they've helped to they don't maintain the landscape or anything like that. It's a pretty specialized deal, as I'm sure you know, but they've certainly been been out there helping with events, pre and post event type deals. So a lot of it is facilities.   Michael Hingson  33:13 Yeah. And do you think that they require, once they're on the job and trained, do you think they require a lot more supervision and a lot more work to maintain than the average worker? No, no,   Keith Stump  33:27 not at all. Unless, unless somebody again, and we all have a bad day. But if somebody, there's additional challenges, right? I mean, it's no secret if somebody has autism or something like that. And we certainly serve a number of clients that do and they wouldn't mind me saying this. Sometimes you just, there's some additional soft skills there that you need some additional help. The employer needs to understand that, you know, it's okay, take a break, step back. And then and then get back to it. But no, they definitely don't need additional help, in my opinion. I mean, I will say, and again, I love Able, we have an amazing crew. But like any organization, there's there's drama, and there's things you have to deal with on a daily basis. And I very strongly believe that it is consistent whether someone has a disability or not.   Michael Hingson  34:13 And that's the reason I asked the question, because the reality is once training takes place, and training may be a little different for some people as opposed to others, whether it's disabilities, we've been trying to train politicians for years, and that doesn't seem to be working. So there's another branch that you should start to recover politicians but but the reality is that that training is different for different people. And the best training processes are the ones that can accommodate whatever anyone needs. But the fact is that once a skill is learned, once a job is learned, people can go do it. And so we need to get rid of this whole fear of what disabilities are viewed as being thing in the world by most people as opposed to what they really are. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's up. And it's so unfortunate that we have such a hard time making that happen. And I was gonna ask you, but I think I think you've kind of explained it. The the differences between here and in doing this in other countries. From an attitudinal standpoint, do you think that it's much different here overall? Or do we still really face the same fears? And are we making much more progress here than elsewhere?   Keith Stump  35:36 That is a really good question. I think, I think there is less stigma, but it is almost more subtle here. You've already kind of said that almost in a passive aggressive way. Where it's, oh, yeah, we love we love those people. But no, no, they can't do that, can they? Right. Whereas in the other places I've worked, it might be more direct, somebody might actually not be passive aggressive, they may not be so subtle, however. And that's that is worse. I mean, I'm just going to be transparent. I have found that those stigmas, people will outright come and say you, you can't work here, because you have this disability, you won't, you won't find anybody here in the US say that, mostly for legal reasons. Although they certainly will let you know. And I'm talking locally, I'm sure this doesn't happen. But I have never run into that here where someone will outright say you can't be here because of these reasons. But they will will very subtly let you know, this is the reason that we can't accept folks. And so there's pros and cons to that sometimes it's easier dealing with folks that are just they're not gonna be passive aggressive, they're not subtle, they'll just tell you what you think. And that means that you can have that open dialogue, you can have a conversation, you can educate them. And I do think that globally, what I have found is that folks are much more open to being educated, they're open to the conversations. Whereas here, you can have the conversation. And you know how this goes, everybody kind of nods their heads, and you didn't get through? Yeah, you didn't get through and the person acts nice, they act, you know, they're very, they're passive aggressive, and, Oh, we love those people. You're not We love those people. But those people, again, we can't help you right now. Whereas globally, I have found that again, this the stigma may be worse the things they say out of their mouth, eight, maybe even worse, but there's sometimes more openness to, to backup. And when you when you challenge those individuals, they say, oh, geez, you're right, I was wrong. Whereas sometimes it's harder here to get people to admit they're wrong. There's a little bit more pride around that. So you know, there's, there's some things are easier, for sure. And there are more resources here. But some things are more challenging, because I think there's more pride. I don't know how else to say that. I think people are a little bit more. They don't want to admit that they have they have they they hold the stereotype or that they have these ideas. Whereas sometimes it's it's easier to get folks to admit that they're wrong in other places,   Michael Hingson  38:04 and there's also the profit aspect of it where people say, well, it's just going to impact our profits. And we're so tied into that, that we miss so many things. So you said something earlier that I thought was absolutely irrelevant, which is that when a lot of persons with disabilities get hired in various places, the odds are we're going to be on we usually are a lot more loyal. And we're going to stay there. Because we even though it may not be articulated as such, we know how hard it was to get that job in the first place.   Keith Stump  38:41 Yeah, yeah, that's true. Absolutely. I think there's also I don't know if at least with our, the individuals we serve, the loyalty is not just about how hard it was to get the job. You're absolutely right about that. But there's also a real love for that place for their community. I think, from what I have seen, and again, I'm just speaking from personal experience. Now. There's, I think sometimes folks that have disabilities develop developmental disabilities, in my case, maybe they value community more, maybe they want to feel plugged in more than some of the other individuals we serve. I know it is very easy, especially in our culture to have a I'm a I'm a solo guy, right? It's you want to be independent, you want to do your own thing. And, and obviously, sometimes that can be to the detriment of folks of myself of us. And so I do find that the folks we serve, really they want to be plugged in more they want that community and that does play into how long they choose to stay at a space a place if if the job is going well. There's really no no reason for them to leave. They're not interested in that.   Michael Hingson  39:49 That all gets back to the proper training the proper fit and understanding and some potential employees may not be able to RTK like that or understand it. But you know whether you have a disability or not, that could still be the case. And so we all can use assistance and help from others. And there's a lot of value in community. And I think we miss it way too often, oh, I can do that. I don't need any help. And, and sometimes we don't need help. And the other side of that is that people need to recognize that they shouldn't just assume that we need help those people don't need help. It's always or should be okay to ask, but don't assume. Yes, yeah. Good point. And we we encounter that a lot. Well, what is the whole world of working in the nonprofit sector and so on, done for you personally, it's obviously had to have a lot of personal effect on you, and family, and so on.   Keith Stump  40:50 Yeah, it's taught me a lot. It's allowed me to learn so much about people that I, I love them, far more than I think, over the process of time. It really puts me in a space where I love people, I really care about people. And the more that I learn about people, whether it's the folks that I serve now or globally, whether it's, you know, internationally, local, doesn't matter, people are people. That's the number one thing that I've learned is, there's really not that much of a difference between somebody in Ethiopia versus here in California, there's not much of a difference between somebody that has a disability for somebody that apparently doesn't, although I will say I, you know, I'm actually I'm very transparent parent, to be honest with you about some of my own struggles, mental health, as I like many of us, you know, I feel that that is a certainly as a disability just as much as physical or developmental and so we all have something to struggle with, I certainly have my struggles. I know that our clients do our staff to the people I've worked with around the world doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, we're all human, we all have our struggles. And I love what you often say about folks that I'm going to butcher the language you use, but folks that can see in there, they're basically limited by sight, right? Correct me on how you you word that. But I've listened to quite a number of your podcast and presentations. And I love that because it is very true. We each we each have something to deal with. We each have pros and cons, and we're all human, there really is no difference on many levels. And so I guess what I've learned through the Global work and through all the nonprofit work is that I get to see that every single day, there really should not be any such thing as stigma, because or we should all just admit we all have our own stigmas. We all have our own taboos, right. And so yeah, it's given me a real love of people want to continue to serve, it can be exhausting. I mean, it can be, as you know, I mean, mentally, you really do have to create space so that when needed, you have your personal time, and then you're at work. And that can be tough. When you're dealing with people, it can be tough with any job, but it can be I do personally take all of this very seriously, I know that we're dealing with people's lives. And in many cases, with the global work, I actually have been in settings where it was life or death. If you don't mind, I'm gonna share a quick story of this and how, how it impacts my work today. So when I was in Ethiopia, I worked with a family preservation program. And there was a child there in America, who had pretty severe autism and his mother, he was with a single mother. And that was really, she was really the only real relationship in his life, we worked hard to try to create other relationships and other spaces for him. But his mother tragically passed away, we did not know she didn't let us know that she had HIV. And she passed away. And all of a sudden, we were left with a child who had pretty severe developmental disabilities and really did not have any other relationships. And although we were able to, in many cases, help families provide and support their children with disabilities, it was still a real challenge in Ethiopia to move a child with disabilities into a foster or adoptive home. That is that is a real challenge. And so we were tragically not able to find a home for Bereket. And he went into an orphanage it was it was we hope to temporary, but he refused to eat. He did not have any other relationships in his life besides us. Obviously, he lost his mother completely unexpectedly. And he passed away within 30 days. And that was still to this day. So you know, still one of the toughest situations I've ever had was to have somebody die essentially on my watch. We weren't able to provide him with with the needs that he he really had to have met. And so that continues to impact me when I think about the resources we have here when I think about how important it is to build awareness and move past stigma to move past these taboos, because in his case, it is very tragic. But he was not able to get the help because we weren't able to find somebody to care for him because those stigmas existed. And like I said, there's things that are better globally. And there's things that are more challenging globally. And that was something that I have to say, if it would have been here in the US, we would have had the resources, I think, to certainly keep him alive and find him a temporary solution. And so when I'm here locally, or I'm not working in those life and death situations anymore, I have to constantly remind my staff sometimes that when we have a really tough day, it's not life and death, we are dealing with people's life. That's true. But because we have resources, and because we have a community that really supports us, I know that we would not have a Berikut situation here in Visalia. Now, that may happen in other places in the US, but we do have a very supportive community. And so that is, again, obviously something that has had a huge impact. And that happened. Several times several cases, it's very difficult finding help for folks. And so   Keith Stump  46:18 that really gave me continues to give me a passion to advocate for folks. And also, I think it's so important that here locally here in the US, we don't take for granted the resources that we have, we don't take for granted the progress that we have made. Right. And although like I said, there's things that are sometimes easier in other countries, there's also there's also challenges. And here we have the ability, we have resources, and we can help. Fortunately, we live in a community, we live in a state at least that is supportive, and there's a long ways to go. But being reminded of that, you know, to me, I feel very lucky that I am in a place that I know that would not happen again. Other things may happen, people may fall through the cracks, or maybe, maybe we can't find somebody a job, but I am grateful that we can at least temporarily keep them safe and provide for their life needs. And, of course, COVID COVID made that scary, because as I'm sure you know, we did lose people. And, you know, it's kind of put back into that place. Again, I got out of the global work for about five years and went Oh, wow, you know, I'm here at Able, and we lost, we lost five people initially, that that did get COVID and passed away. And so it's always, you know, it's just there's a real sense of brevity, I guess. And life is so short. And it's a privilege to be able to help people in a little time that we have   Michael Hingson  47:40 to you sometimes have challenges dealing with the families of persons with disabilities in terms of getting them to let go and let people grow and expand a little bit.   Keith Stump  47:52 Yeah, and this is true. I mean, certainly here locally in Tulare, but it's true globally as well. Yeah, it's I want to be careful how much I say about that, because our families and caregivers are really phenomenal human beings. But yes, it is a probably one of our greatest challenges. And certainly I'm not going to talk specifics around that. But no, there are. There's there is an idea. And some of this is generational. Some of it is just maybe how an individual grew up in the community. But again, I often hear folks refer to our clients as kids. Let's see what we can do for those kids. You know, many of them are, are older than me or have retired, they're in their 60s 70s. And even if they're in their 20s, they're not kids, they're adults. And so that is an issue. And often the people that refer to them that way are their parents or caregivers. And there is, as you already know, and as you've alluded to there, there is a challenge sometimes to help those individuals understand that if we're truly going to be integrated. We need people to be out in the community and that actually the community is safe again, that's not something that people sometimes have the luxury of in other countries it can go either way and this story I just shared with bear cat it wasn't a safe community. And part that's why actually his mom felt she couldn't reveal that she had HIV and get help in the first place. But here in Tulare County, we do live in a safe community and helping folks understand that it is okay to be out there and actually it's it's it's better for everybody not just the person that has the disability but maybe even more so for our community as a whole. Well, there   Michael Hingson  49:29 there are a lot of challenges and unfortunately families oftentimes shelter their loved ones. We I've seen it a lot with blind with blind people or in people who are losing their eyesight and the rest of the family doesn't really want to deal with it. They they just don't recognize that it isn't the end of the world. As I like to say people talk about the road Less Traveled you know all having a any kind of a disability and you're right, I've referred to people with eyesight is light dependent, which is really the whole issue that you rely on light in order to function. But all of us traveled down different lanes in the same road or on the same road. And there's nothing wrong with that. And we, we really do need to recognize that it's not the end of the world, just because someone acquires a difference that they didn't have, we need to train them, we need to make sure they get the training, and that the people around them get the appropriate training, a lot of times attitudinally, but we need to get that training in order to be able to allow people to grow and continue to thrive and be in the world. Absolutely. And it makes sense to, you know, to do that. So it is a it is a challenge. And it's something that we all have to deal with. Yes. So I can't resist Of course, how did you come to discover accessibe   Keith Stump  50:59 I came to. So we were basically looking for we with the rebrand, we did redid our website, and I wanted to find something that would make it of course, accessible, but not just accessible, but the most accessible possible. And so when I just started doing some searching, and excessively popped up, and that's how I personally found it, and then obviously, through through connecting from there, and it's been I will tell you, it's been really awesome, because not only have our clients in our community benefited from just being able to go to our website, but also I've been able to share excessively with within our coalition's with with our other nonprofit and business partners, and they've started to plug into that as well. And so I have to be honest, every time I show off accessibe, people, they want to give APR credit. So I keep reminding them like oh, this is a free service we've received. But it's so cool that folks, you know, our community at least just feels like it's, you know, mind blowing, and it kind of is on one side, I feel like that's a little bit sad, because I think these resources should have been the norm much longer than that. But I'm happy at least locally to be able to kind of lead the charge on that. And, again, it's it's been very, very good for us and very fun to show off.   Michael Hingson  52:24 Well. The interesting thing about SSP and technologies in general, when when people talk about and I hear it, well you have to use this sensor to to tell light, I don't have to do that. Or you have to have these special tools to make websites accessible. And I don't. The problem is that the reality is, as we talked about a minute ago, yeah, you do have to use tools, and you have to have the light bulb in order to get light at night or we all have different tools that we use, we just don't think about it. And the biggest problem I think, for us, from a technological standpoint, us who happened to have so called disabilities, let's say blind people. But others as well, is that although the technology got developed a lot quicker for people with eyesight, or for people who walk or for people who don't have Dilip Velop, mental disabilities, the reality is we're evolving the technology that allows us to have a lot of the same access that everyone else has. And if attitudes had been different, perhaps that technology would have been developed right alongside of, of the technologies that were developed for so called persons without disabilities. But that's not the way it worked out. It doesn't make us less, it does, in part, create an indictment on the people who weren't inclusive right from the outset. Absolutely. And so that's something that we of course, have to deal with.   Keith Stump  54:00 Yeah, very, but I agree. But so far, it's been very exciting for us. And it was, it was perfect timing because of the new website and the rebrand. So it's been good. I'm very grateful. Thank you.   Michael Hingson  54:14 Well, and, you know, it's an exciting time from a standpoint of technology and everything else, because inroads are being made. I think the biggest challenges that anyone with a disability faces are still attitudes, the technologies are becoming more and more available, and other things are becoming more available, but it still boils down to ultimately attitude that has to be addressed in order to make sure that we all truly get the same opportunities. Yeah, yeah, very much agree. And you're making a big difference in that just by virtue of what you're doing, which is really pretty cool. And it's exciting to see the various things that You know that ABL is doing and that you're doing personally? What what kinds of things are coming up for you and Able, what, what's the future gonna hold?   Keith Stump  55:09 Well, we are near end of year. So of course, for any nonprofit, we are really pushing for our typical, you know, our giving campaigns or donations with the move, we're doing a VIP sort of invite only open house December 2, and then once we finally finish everything, then we'll do a big open house in the spring so that the move really is a really big deal. So trying to get past that. It's both exciting and certainly daunting. But that's what's coming up in the next six months in terms of our programs, we've actually worked with our local regional center to really four reformat almost all of our programs at this point so that they are more person centered so that we can spend more time with our clients one on one, getting the funding for around that has been a challenge. I mean, that's probably been the better part of eight months trying to finalize what our new programs are going to look like. And we are we're very excited, I think with the passing of SB 639, which is the minimum wage law, we very much embrace that. And as you've already asked folks that are placed in employment, of course, get that we're looking to move all of our training we do. So our training programs, which are temporarily temporary, temporary, sorry, our are still almost like an internship. So we're looking to offer minimum wage and those programs as well. So there's a lot of changes that are coming for, certainly for any nonprofit, I mean, it's always a balancing act, my desire and our desire is to provide the best service possible. And then also looking at how you do that when you don't have a lot of money. And thankfully, the state recently passed some bills that have helped with that. But it's a challenge. I mean, I'm not it never really ends, because there's so many people that need to be served. And there's only amount of limited resources again, we're lucky, we're lucky that we live in a state that has resources, I've certainly worked without them. But it's challenging. So but it's exciting. It's there's so much change right now that I personally love change. And I sort of I accept chaos, I like it. And part of that is maybe I'll to global travel and all that. And that can be very challenging, obviously for some staff, some enjoy it. But being able to lean into that and say changes exciting. Let's let's go there, I'm also kind of unlucky and lucky. And I gave Able credit. Because when I was hired, you know, my background is in nonprofit work in the nonprofit world as a whole. So I have a lot of experience in development and leadership. But working here domestically, on behalf of individuals that have developmental disabilities, there's a new for me. So there's advantages to that, because I get to go into these places. I have a lot of coalition meetings and such where it's like, well, we can't do that. That's the way it's, you know, it's always been done this way. And I'm like, why? I don't know the difference. This seems much better to me, let's do that. So I have that advantage where I've not really stuck on a certain way of doing things, which, in the midst of a time that has really been full of change. That's obviously a positive on the flip side. You know, I certainly have a lot to learn about program and policy because even though I'm good at dealing with people, those the red tape side of things did not exist, to the extent that it does here when I was working globally. So it's an exciting time. For me, for me personally, it's very exciting. I hope my staff can say the same, because so much has changed. But most of them have been very good about embracing it. And and I think we all recognize that good things are to come. But there's certainly some challenges ahead as well.   Michael Hingson  58:46 Yeah, but we can cope. And we can help. We all have broad shoulders. You mentioned the regional centers, my wife was the chair of the board of the Orange County Regional Center for a while. So we're very familiar with, with that program and the whole case management process that they bring in the fact that through them, a lot of funding is available. And you're right, California is a state that has so many resources and is willing to, for the most part share them which is really pretty cool. Absolutely. Well, I want to thank you for being here. You've been here for a whole hour and it's been a lot of fun. And I I've learned a lot and always get inspired when I get to hear stories sometimes even when the sad ones are, are told they're still stories that help teach us and so I hope that that everyone listening is has enjoyed it and we certainly appreciate you taking the time to be here because you've obviously got lots to do but we really appreciate you coming and being a part of this today.   Keith Stump  59:46 Yeah, no, thank you so much. I love it. I'm always glad to do these sorts of things. And I if you don't mind, I'm gonna tell you one more story I love Sure. And this is this is a this is a light one. So we love stories. So one of the reasons I love work In here at Able, and I will say with the folks that we work with is that when I literally the first week that I started, obviously, folks were a little bit shy, right? I'm a new executive director, and I very much have an open door policy. And I kept trying to remind folks of that, but it took, you know, a good six months for them to take me seriously. But the very first week, a gentleman that works for us by the name of David, who had gone through our programs, and he's been here for a long time, he literally walks into my office when everybody else has been shy. And again, this is somebody that has been through our program. And you know, certainly we've, we've served and we've now hired, he walks in, he doesn't he doesn't tell me his name. He doesn't ask me what my name is. I'm not even sure he knows who I am. And he just walks in, he says, Hey, hav

Pt. 7: Psalms 23Dwelling on the Goodness and Mercy of GodSermon by Rev. Paul Lawler“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”Psalm 23:6 (ESV)  David's life is not a life absent of problems and pain.  He had lost a child to death earlier in his life and faced some deep brokenness and dysfunction in his family. Godly people navigate painful things.  Knowing Jesus does not protect us from the effects of the fall. Now the nation David has led is in disarray, and his own son, Absalom, is seeking to kill his own father. David could have been bitter, broken, and defeated  -- but David is not broken and defeated.  The question for us is why? Because David does not have a shallow faith. A shallow faith will set you up for misunderstanding and disappointment.    To partner & serve with CC Nursery/ Preschool to root children in strong, intentional, and Biblical homes, visit christchurchmemphis.org/kids or contact Laura Spegal at lauras@christchurchmemphis.org for more information.

Key Takeaways   Doing something stretching and challenging with your child can bring a closeness and bond that can only grow for years to come. Repetition and patience in fatherhood shows intention and presence. The window of time we get with our children is slowly closing. Be mindful of the trade-offs. The Four Smart Choices: Confront reality Grow capacity Fuel curiosity Create change   dadAWESOME   We're on a mission to add LIFE to the dad life. We're passionate about helping dads live fully alive as they lead their kids to God's awesomeness.  | YouTube |  Instagram | Facebook   Mark Miller   For the last 20 years, Mark has focused much of his time on serving leaders, helping them grow themselves, their teams, and their organizations. In addition to his role at Chick-fil-A, he's also had the privilege to teach and lead in not-for-profit organizations domestically and globally. Although the context is different in every organization, the problems have common roots and so do the solutions. Along the way, Mark has been fortunate to author (and co-author) a few books – nine and counting. Today, more than a million books are in print in 25+ languages. His approach to writing has always been to find what is true in principle and figure out how to make it applicable to the real world.   Conversation Notes (Full Transcript of the Conversation Here)   9:48 - Mark describing his son's, David, diagnosis, Cerebral Palsy and Autism and how he supports his wife with the challenges that can bring on, "I'm always trying to figure out how can I serve her as she serves him... My advice, again, is a lot of prayer for sure... I'm trying to take care of her on the journey as much as I'm trying to take care of David." 14:42 - "I've prayed a lot more and I've served a lot more... I'm a better human being, a better husband, a better follower of Jesus... I'm better all the way around because of David... I get to live with a glimpse of unconditional love. Because David, he's never, this side of heaven, going to tell us he loves us. But that's okay. You know we love him." 17:29 - Mark on his adventures with his other son, Justin. "We decided years and years ago that we wanted to try to do something every year that would stretch us and challenge us. And he has come up with some of the ideas. I've come up with some of the ideas... We've climbed mountains and became certified scuba divers... run a marathon... We just we want to keep growing. We want to keep stretching. We want to do hard things together and grow through the experience." 23:29 - "You've got a pretty small window when you really think about it with your kids... There's plenty of time in my case to sell chicken, later. There's plenty of time to write books, later. But that window is going to close... I hope to be and God willing, will be close to Justin and David forever. But even those opportunities are limited, and that makes them more precious to me... We've got to be real careful about the trade offs we make." 26:40 - "It's our ability to make choices. That's our superpower... They're completely paralleled with fatherhood. The choices that leaders make to get out of the quicksand, a busyness and distraction and complexity and competing priorities and success and fear and fatigue and aimlessness... What you have to do to get out are the same things... you have to do to be a good father." 27:30 - "Choices give us agency, choices give us opportunity and choices give us responsibility." 29:06 - "We can forfeit that agency and assume a victim mindset. Our locus of control shifts from internal to external. It's not my fault. It's not my responsibility. It's not a result of my choices. And the stuff that keeps us in quicksand is almost always a result of our choices." 34:41 - "Peter Drucker, the late management and leadership guru... said he had never met a leader that couldn't eliminate 25% of the things on their calendar and no one would notice."   Conversation Links   Mark's Website Mark's Books: Smart Leadership, Win Every Day, Chess Not Checkers, Leaders Made Here, Talent Magnet, Win the Heart, The Secret, Great Leaders Grow and The Heart of Leadership.  Mark's son, Justin, organization: Untold Mark's free assessment on Smart Leadership: text besmart to 66866 Fathers for the Fatherless Biking Schedule    Links from dadAWESOME   https://dadawesome.org/life/ Make a Donation to dadAWESOME Join the dadAWESOME Prayer Team https://dadawesome.org/tour/

Psalm 40 is a song about those pits of life. Because David waited intensely on the Lord to rescue him and learned how to wait on the Lord to get him out of the pits of his life. So it is a psalm about what to do when you are in the pit of problems, situations and circumstances.

No sin goes unpunished in the eyes of God. And no matter how hard you run or how hard you try, sin will always attempt to trip you up. Today Pastor Bill will be reading through the book of 2nd Samuel, where you'll get to see David count all of the people in Israel, and see how displeased God is with him for doing this. Because David was numbering the people to see how successful he was as a king, and was not giving God the credit. You trip when you assume your successes are not God's successes.

No sin goes unpunished in the eyes of God. And no matter how hard you run or how hard you try, sin will always attempt to trip you up. Today Pastor Bill will be reading through the book of 2nd Samuel, where you'll get to see David count all of the people in Israel, and see how displeased God is with him for doing this. Because David was numbering the people to see how successful he was as a king, and was not giving God the credit. You trip when you assume your successes are not God's successes.

David Noseworthy, Vice President of Corporate Development at Friendly Home Services Group, has worked on both Bay Street and Wall Street but now his focus has turned back to the trades with a very specific goal in mind: unlocking latent potential in employees. Why, you ask? Because David and the Friendly Group believe by unlocking the latent potential of each employee, you unlock the potential of the entire company. Or as David puts it, you're “doing well by doing good.” Join us as we discuss: The importance of unlocking latent potential in employees How mentorship can be mutually beneficial Qualities service shops should have if they aspire to be acquired by a private equity group Advice for companies looking to scale and grow their companies on their own The future of private equity   More information about David and today's topics: LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnoseworthy/  Company Website: https://friendlygroup.com/   To hear more tales from the trades, subscribe to Toolbox for the Trades on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you get podcasts. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Toolbox for the Trades in your favorite podcast player.

Do you want to be used by God? Because David submitted to God as his King, God empowered him to lead well as Israel's king. What God wants from you is not perfection but a heart that seeks his will and his power to walk in it.

Blessing Real Love In the first reading (not included in the audio), Saul has resentment toward David. In the Mass' audience, a couple celebrates a milestone anniversary. The anniversary and the reading are connected. David, as we heard the day prior, slew the giant. Yet David, found his life in greater risk by the people he helped than from the warrior and army he faced. It is a sobering lesson for us! Sometimes there is danger in a place where we should be the safest. What actually is the danger? Saul cannot actually rejoice in the goodness of his servant. The king was not left out of the celebration. However, Saul cannot rejoice in the victory of David. He cannot rejoice in the victory of one who saved him. Why? Because David receives more praise than Saul . . . and therefore, Saul cannot rejoice. Again, Saul cannot rejoice in the fact that others are celebrating him . . . the king. He cannot rejoice, because another is celebrated more. His heart grows cold. He is selfish and jealous. Real love permits one to rejoice in the goodness that one has, and the goodness we have together. However, Real love bathes in happiness because of the goodness the other has in their life. Saul's heart is too small and harden to be capable of this truth. He settles into a temptation to perform a sin . . . to consider murder. Hear more about what real love is in holding a family together. Listen to this Meditation and celebrate a blessing.