0:00 And so meet me in second Samuel chapter 23. Second Samuel chapter 23 is our text tonight that we will explore. And there are many reasons why this chapter is exciting, because if you just flip one page over, you'll notice that we are near the end. I was telling somebody last Wednesday that, I feel sad in a way, and I always feel this way when we come near an end of a Bible study in a specific book, because I I and you have been so familiar with a person or a subject or a theme or these texts, and it seems like, we're saying goodbye to a friend. Although it's always there, the text is always there, our engagement with it will cease for a little bit as we transition to the next part of our study on these Friday nights.
0:47 Are you at second Samuel 23? Good. Let's read the first few verses together. Now these are the last words of David, the oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me.
1:14 His word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me, when one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like the rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. For does not my house stand so with God? For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.
1:46 For will he not cause to prosper all my help and my desire? But worthless men are like thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with the hand. But the man who touches them arms himself with iron and the shaft of a spear, and they are utterly consumed with fire. Precious Lord, help us to understand this segment of sacred scripture. Empower us by the Holy Spirit to be faithful to this text, and not just faithful in our interpretation of it, but in our application of it.
2:23 And so, Lord, guide us by your grace as we are here because we hunger for righteousness. We bless your name, Lord, and we ask that you would bless our time as a family, your children. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Look at the first line with me again in verse 23.
2:43 Now these are the last words of David. That's what makes this session extra special because the Holy Spirit has preserved for us some of the final statements that this wonderful man of God has ever uttered. Now it would be wrong to understand this statement as David's final words in general before his death because we know that there are still a few chapters, even going into the next book, where David says much more than what we see here. More accurately, we have to understand these final words as David's final words in the form of a song, in the form of a hymn, a song. This is David giving, in a sense, his final penmanship of worship and thanksgiving to God, at least publicly.
3:31 And more than that, we see in the second line that this is the oracle of David. And we know that all scripture is breathed out by God, but this is explicitly telling us that what is being said is a word from God. This is coming from God's heart, God's mind through David. It's prophetic in nature. It contains that kind of authority, and it's not just a journal entry.
3:54 It's meant for the people to hear, receive, and consider for themselves. There's instruction here. There's insight here. There's application here, not just an observation of a man's devotion to the Lord. And so this is an oracle.
4:09 These are the last words. So essentially, what makes this study so wonderful is that we are looking at the final Psalm that David has ever written. And you would think that would be in the book of Psalms. No. It's in the book of second Samuel.
4:19 God has placed it here. Now though this is not the final words that David has said on his deathbed, we have every reason to believe that this is possibly written and and given near the end of his life. Understanding that chronologically will help you frame your application of what we're about to read. So knowing that this is near the end of his life helps us see what these truths have to say concerning him, concerning God, concerning life. And so place it there in your mind as you look at these different expressions and statements and and truths that they are a reflection upon David's own life.
5:01 This is David looking back. Yes. In some sense, he's also looking forward, but this is David at the latter end of his existence, at the latter end of his pilgrimage, rehearsing what the Lord has done, who the Lord is. And when you see that, you realize how significant all these things are. Look what David says about himself.
5:21 The oracle of David, what's the first thing that David says in ident in identifying who he is? The son of Jesse. What do you make of that? Come on, students. What do you make of that?
5:32 What is David reflecting upon? I'm the son of Jesse. He's he was many things, but why the son of Jesse to begin with? Because he wants to make clear his humble beginnings. Saul often utilized that identity, the son of Jesse, in a way to humiliate David.
5:54 Right? The son of Jesse, an unimpressive, insignificant lineage, and yet David had no problem applying that identity to himself. You know why? Because what in one man's mouth was an insult for him was an instrument. It was an instrument of humility.
6:11 When David says here that he was the son of Jesse, what he is doing is magnifying the grace of God over his life. And remember, this is in the context of of praise. This is in the context of worship, And if you want one way, one way to calibrate your heart into thanksgiving, reflect on where you were and who you were when God found you. That will help a lot. No matter what your origins were, I know that's, for you, you might think that's easier for some than others because you grew up in the blessing of the safety of a sanctified home.
6:44 Right? So you don't have much to look back on. And yet I say, no. You have much to thank God for. Do I have to explain why?
6:52 You know why. For the preservation from all the problems that you could have made for yourself. For the privilege of being acquainted with the ways of God from an early age. From understanding that God and his goodness to the faithfulness of your parents has preserved your strength in your youth to serve God at the peak of your life. And so yes, even when you realize that you were someone that maybe not had this drastic dark past, you still experienced God's favor and mercy.
7:21 And David here does just that. I am a son of Jesse. Who am I for me to be where I am today? Who am I for God to lead me in the way he has led me? That's why he says right after, the oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high.
7:39 Do you believe David thought he raised himself on high? You've studied his life long enough to realize that David was very, very aware that it was God who exalted him over and over again. If you want to know a deeper praise, if you wanna know a deeper devotion, if you wanna know a greater excitement and motivation to love and worship God from your heart, be like David in this. Yield to the Lord throughout your life. Yield to the Lord throughout your life.
8:13 Commit your cause to the Lord, your causes to the Lord over and over, and allow your life in a sense, if I may use this verbiage without theological rocks being thrown at me, open your life up. Give room to God, so to speak, to move and and create testimonies. That's what David did. He trusted his enemies to the Lord. He trusted his exaltation to the throne to the Lord.
8:39 He trusted all his problems, great and small, to the Lord. He gave it all to the Lord. In some parts, he didn't. He got himself in trouble. But when he did, he saw the Lord raise him up.
8:48 And when he was able to look back at life, he can say, oh, he raised me. He raised me. He raised me. He did this. He did that.
8:55 He did this. God wants that for you and me as well. But what it requires is humility. What it requires is dependency upon the Lord. What I love about this this chapter is how David kinda concludes his introduction.
9:12 You're gonna give me that. Yeah? Yes. That's okay. I thought so.
9:15 Thank you. Look at this wonderful title at the end of verse one. The sweet psalmist of Israel. We're talking about worship. Right?
9:24 Look at this. The sweet psalmist of Israel. We know David to be a psalmist. We We know that a majority of the psalms were penned by him, authored by him. But what makes this even more significant is when we see that David identifies himself as such near the end of his life.
9:41 I'm still the sweet psalmist of Israel. You know what I take from that? David was a worshiper until the end. David was a worshiper until the end. And we we studied in chapter 22, right, that lengthier song.
9:56 How it's also found in Psalm 18, and many believe that Psalm 18 was David's writing of that same Psalm in his younger years. And in second Samuel 22 when he revisits that same Psalm, he added some adjustments, but it's technically almost word for word. And what do we make from that? He was able to sing the same song in his youth until he was in adulthood. He was he had the same fervency, joy, love for the Lord as he did when he first was introduced to the grace of God.
10:24 And that's possible for you and I to be to to be a worshiper until your final breath. The last words of David was worship. Unfortunately, that's not the case for many. Right? Where they end up is far from where they began.
10:41 And, unfortunately, for some, the more time advances, the more their devotion decreases. And their heart becomes more distant to that fervency and that zeal and that passion that they once knew, but that was not David. And you can hear this and be discouraged. You can hear this and think to yourself, well, it's been it's been honestly, I haven't even got to the end of my life. I'm I'm at the peak of my life.
11:04 I'm in my thirties or twenties. Maybe you're older, and you think, since I've been saved, it has been a decline. It's been weeks. It's been months. It's been years, and I can honestly confess that I've lost that sweetness in my devotion to the Lord.
11:20 It's it's become dull and, for some, even sour. If that is you, understand that the Bible not only commends men and women who've held on to the faith throughout their journey, God even praises those who might have not started or done well a lot of the time, but finished well. Give me a character in the Bible who's done that. I'm thinking left side of your Bible. Give me a character who might have not started well but finished very well.
11:51 Okay. That's on the right side of the Bible, but Paul is one. Sure. Old Testament. Samson.
11:58 Samson. I don't know if oh, yeah. Samson. Yeah. You can say that.
12:01 He finished well. He was in the hall of faith. I'm sorry. I was thinking of somebody else when you said Samson. Yeah.
12:06 Samson's right. Yeah. Rahab. Sure. I'm thinking about one who occupies a lot of the book of Genesis.
12:16 Jacob. Jacob. Jacob. Jacob. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
12:23 The that's an interesting title that God gives himself. Abraham was an idolater when God found him, right, and made him into a man of faith, made him to the father of faith. Then you have Isaac. Isaac grew up in a household of faith. Isaac had, out of all three, the less turbulent in his his faith.
12:39 Right? And then you have Jacob. Jacob grew up grew up in a household of faith, but he didn't start well. And a lot of the times in his younger years, he didn't continue well. And then when it came to his adulthood in the latter portion, he became something very special, especially near the end.
12:57 And God places Jacob at a specific moment and places him in that hall of faith. And I want you to see this verse in Hebrews eleven twenty one. This is in context of worship. This is in context of finishing well. Look at what the Holy Spirit says about Jacob with all the great feats of faith, all the great testimonies, all the great demonstrations of trust.
13:18 You have this mention of a man, and I believe it's to inspire people who might have stumbled a lot. Hebrews eleven twenty one. Here's what the Bible says. By faith, Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. Wow.
13:44 Two things the Holy Spirit associates with Jacob in his dying days. One, he blessed others. Two, he worshiped God. Is that how Jacob was in the beginning of his life? Is that how we were introduced to Jacob?
13:59 Did he bless others, or did he scheme others? He tricked others. He was a manipulator. He deceived. Did he worship God?
14:08 Well, if you equate worship with trust, no. And he he learned from his mother, unfortunately. God gave his mother a promise about the two nations in his womb, and when it came to Isaac blessing his sons, his wife didn't trust in the Lord, and so she brings in Jacob to trick the near complete blinded father and took matters into their own hands, and Jacob had no problem doing that. That's not that's not worship. That's not trusting in the Lord.
14:36 And yet when it comes to his dying days, well over a 100, the Holy Spirit tells us he blessed each of his sons, and he worshiped God. And not just any kind of worship. He was he was, what, bowing on the head of his staff. That tells me he was old. He was weak.
14:59 He was frail. You can say he was physically falling apart, but this man's heart was on fire. He worshiped God, but that staff signifies more than just an indication of his age. If this staff was used in light of how we understand Jacob's life, there was a very, very monumental moment in Jacob's life when he wrestled with God. What did God do in that wrestling match?
15:27 He broke his hip. And when you read that account very carefully, after that all night fight, we are told that Jacob limped back to his tent. He limped, and and I believe he had a limp for the rest of his life. I wonder if he had a staff because he limped most of his life. He was a handicap.
15:45 He needed some assistance. If that is true, then that staff means something else. It means that Jacob died with an awareness of his dependence on God. God, in that moment, broke his self will. He actually altered his life altogether.
16:06 I mean, if you break your hip, you know, and there's no indication that it was ever healed. And though God pressed his finger on Jacob in such a way, though God, in a sense, made him a different person in a way that we would think was a hindrance, in a way we think that this is this is not the way you would want to live the rest of your life, and yet Jacob can still worship God. God, you broke me. You smashed something of me, but not to destroy me, to heal me. And Jacob, in light of that, that suffering, that episode that altered his future could still worship God.
16:42 That's how this man ended. And God took that of him and made it a memorial for all saints to see that it's not how you start, it's how you finish. And though you've started and maybe you have continued in a very horrible way, it can all change, and God is more than willing to recognize it. Okay, let's keep reading here. What do we see in verse two of chapter 23?
17:08 The spirit of the Lord speaks by me. His word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me. Now if you want Old Testament evidence for the divine personhood of the Holy Trinity or rather the Holy Spirit, you got it right there.
17:23 You got it right there. Look at what it says. The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me. Does it say its word was on my tongue? No.
17:32 It says his word. His word is on my tongue. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force. He's not some power. He's a person.
17:43 His word is on my tongue. And in common Hebrew parallelism, what do you have in the line of verse two? The spirit of the Lord speaks by me. And then what do you have in the verse three? The God of Israel has spoken.
17:55 That was common. Right? That was common in their in their psalms, in their writings, in their poetry. You would repeat the same thought in the next line to emphasize it or to clarify the preceding one. And so what you have here is the Spirit of the Lord is linked to the God of Israel.
18:12 He is the God of Israel. That's important. You're gonna engage with people who don't believe in the trinity. You're gonna engage with people who are gonna say, Yeah, this trinity thing is New Testament, and some will say it's not biblical at all. And so what are you gonna do?
18:27 Yeah. You can go to the trin you can go to the New Testament to prove the trinity, but you can go to better than that. You can go to the Old Testament and prove the trinity. Let's that's bible study. Why not?
18:34 Give me some other text in the Old Testament that would prove or point to the trinity. Any ideas? Destruction of Sodom and gore Gomorrah. Right? The Lord sent fire from heaven.
18:47 Right? From the Lord. Yes. Genesis 19. Any other text?
18:55 Genesis one twenty six. Let us, right, make man in our image. Any other text? It's good. Let's refresh our memory here.
19:10 Any indication in the Old Testament that points to the plurality of the personhood of God? Okay. Yes. In Isaiah, there's so many indications in Isaiah of there being more than one persons in our God. Yes.
19:37 Maybe a couple more. Psalm one ten? Psalm one ten. Yes. The Lord said to my Lord.
19:43 Right. Jesus quoted that text. Any other ones? Yeah. So you see the spirit there.
19:52 Right? At creation. Absolutely. One more. Yes.
20:03 Very good. Psalm 45. Well, I wanna add another one to your collection of truths. It's found in in Isaiah 63, and I want you to see it with your own eyes. This will not only highlight and underscore the divine personhood of the Holy Spirit, it will also show you the trinity, believe it or not.
20:23 And so go there to Isaiah and go to 63 where the prophet recounts the wilderness journey of the nations saved from slavery. And notice here let's begin in verse seven. Are you there? This is gonna be a little bit more theological, but that's important still. I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
20:58 Who are we speaking about here? Let's just make that clear. Who's the object of these descriptions? Yahweh, capital l o r d. We're speaking about the covenantal name of God, Yahweh.
21:12 Now we're told about his goodness. We're told about his compassion. We're told about his abundance of steadfast love, and now the prophet will define why it is he was good, why it is he was compassionate. Verse eight. Pay attention.
21:25 For he said, surely, they are my people, children who will not deal falsely, and he became their what? Their savior. That's number one. Who became their savior? What we heard in verse seven.
21:40 Yahweh became their savior. Right? So Yahweh is the savior of the nation of Israel. Now look what he's what we hear see here in verse nine. In all their affliction, he was afflicted.
21:53 And who? The angel of his presence saved them. Well, this is a different character now. The angel of whose presence? Yahweh's presence.
22:05 Right? The angel of his presence saved them. Well, we just read that Yahweh was their savior. Now we're told another person, the angel of his presence. Now get the cartoon version of an angel out of your mind, right, your mind's eye.
22:19 Angels were not creatures with long and strong, wide wings. In fact, the word angel simply means messenger in the Hebrew and in the Greek. So what we have here is the messenger of his presence, the messenger of his presence. This is a different person than the savior that we saw in verse seven. This is the messenger of his presence, and that word presence even means in Hebrew, his face, the messenger of Yahweh's face, so to speak.
22:50 So we have the savior, who is Yahweh in verse eight. We have the angel of his presence who also saved the nation of Israel in verse nine. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them. Wow. He even redeemed them.
23:04 He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. Well, we have two now. Where's the third? Well, here he is, verse 10. But they rebelled and grieved who?
23:16 His Holy Spirit. Do you grieve a force? Is an impersonal power feel anything? If I kick that piano, which I won't, will it express woe and sorrow and pain? No.
23:35 It's an object. If you do that to me, it's a different story. Right? But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So you have the savior in verse eight.
23:46 You have the angel of his presence in verse nine, and now you have his Holy Spirit. Therefore, he, we're still speaking about the Holy Spirit, turned to be their enemy and himself fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old, of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is he who put them in the put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit?
24:11 Here's the point that I'm trying to get across. You have the savior who is Yahweh in verse eight. You have the angel of his presence in verse nine. You have the Holy Spirit in verse 10, and each of these persons played a role in the redemption of the nation of Israel from Egypt. And you see equally these persons' work in creation.
24:28 You can make a case for it in salvation. You have a case for it in your sanctification, in your resurrection. They're all there. Not one, not two, not six, not seven. Three.
24:39 Three. This is good. You're you might bump into a Jew where they do not regard the New Testament. Can you prove the trinity from the old? You'll bump into a Muslim, and they'll say that this is pagan.
24:54 You worship you worship three different gods. Can you show them though you may not be able to elaborately and eloquently explain what the tree is, can you at least say, we're not getting this out of thin air. We're showing you in our scriptures that there are three persons, though our god is one in essence. And can you show them that they are coequal? Can you show them that they are coexisting, that they are in harmony with one another in everything?
25:20 Heard a Muslim say the other day to another person on the street saying if if the father wants the sky to be blue and Jesus wants the sky to be red and the Holy Spirit wants the sky to be green, how do they it just this is just bad argumentation. And what was worse is the the believer, I guess, didn't even know how to argue against it. It's so easy when you understand how unbreakable their unity is, how they do everything in concert with one another. And so I just wanna give you a little taste of how if you just if you look and you read and you study, you will find gems, gems of things that you would think is only New Testament. No.
25:58 No. No. No. No. It's been testified of before.
26:01 Let's go back. Right? So we see here that he says, the spirit of the Lord speaks by me. His word is on my tongue. Oh, what are you doing here, David?
26:10 You know what he's doing is confirming what Peter said, that the prophets of old did not speak out of their own will, but they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. They spoke from God, carried along by the Holy Spirit. And what you see here is a hint that, though we may not be able to explain the experience, the prophets of old, these vessels of truth, the ones who translated divine revelation, in some way realized that some of the writings under certain moments were from God. David was fully aware of that. David was fully aware of that.
26:48 And not only did Peter say that they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, that's in two Peter, but in one Peter one ten, they went beyond that. Once those utterances were given, they were so interested that they began to explore the meaning of their very own prophecies. That's fascinating to me. They were instruments of these truths, and and whenever those prophecies especially dealt with the grace that was to come through the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories, Oh, their hearts were moving. They intensely investigated, oh, when and when and who?
27:23 What's this all about? Every time I read first Peter one ten, I get convicted. Every single time. You know why? Because what you realize is these these men, they had only pieces, and they were told of these mysteries.
27:37 Right? It wasn't it was clear, but not completely, obviously. And so they tried to put this all together out of a great desire to know what this new covenant would entail, who would enjoy it, when it would happen. And here you and I are in 2023. We have all that God needs to say to us.
27:56 We have all the pieces. We have all the tools, and yet how moved are we to know the greater depths of the gospel? So there they are in the old covenant looking forward to something that hasn't been compiled yet, that hasn't been materialized or manifested, and here we are with everything. And we have the invitation from God to go to the old and find Christ, to find the gospel, to find the cross, to find what you just saw in Isaiah 63, the Godhead there spelled out plain and clear, and there isn't much motivation. Right?
28:35 We're overfed, oversaturated, and instead of taking advantage of it, we tend to walk away from the opportunity. Notice what Elsie says. Actually, notice carefully this. Check this out. Look at verse two of second Samuel 23.
28:52 Read your Bible closely. The spirit of the Lord speaks, what are those two words, by me. Now look at verse three. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said, by me, to me.
29:13 The Lord speaks by me, but he doesn't just speak by me, he speaks to me. There's a difference. And here lies practical instruction, especially for those who have the gift of preaching and teaching, anybody who disciples even, anybody who dispenses and explains truth on any capacity, right, in any capacity, understand that there is something beautiful here about a principle concerning how the Word of God should work in and through us. There are many people who are completely satisfied with seeing the Word of God work through them in somebody else's life with no desire or ambition to see those same truths applied to them. It's a very popular way of ministry.
30:01 It's a very popular way of engaging with the Word of God, where you come to the word of God, and what you see in the word of God bounces off of you and totally and almost every time seeks to stick to somebody else that you might impress or win a debate with or seek convicted, changed, comforted. Again, there are some people who are not motivated to come to the word of God at all. I mean, even paying them will not get them to open this Bible up consistently. You have others who are motivated, but with this purpose, as I just explained, to find some clever insights, to put things together, to seem crafty and intelligent and insightful, and, that's that's how they let the word of God work through them. Hear what I have to say, whether you wanna hear it or not.
30:52 God has something higher. As good as it is to have equipment, as good as it is to have data, divine data, to know how to engage with the Jew, Muslim, atheist, sure. That's all great. God wants the word of his mouth and his mind to work in you. He wants to speak to you.
31:11 He wants to speak to me. And if we don't allow the word of God, if we don't approach the word of God with that kind of an attitude, we're in danger in many ways. We're in danger of hypocrisy. We're in danger of self righteousness. We're in danger of being talking heads with no power.
31:30 If it doesn't speak to me and change me and challenge me, I shouldn't expect it to do the same in you if I'm gonna be a vessel of truth. Right? And I I think there is an order that God has given us in a very subtle verse that maybe you haven't noticed. I've mentioned this before, but it's good to remind ourselves. It's concerning Ezra in Ezra seven ten, and look at the order of Ezra's relationship with the word of God in Ezra seven ten.
32:02 It says here, for Ezra set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. What's the order? He set his heart to study it. He set his heart to study, and this is what most people do. He set his heart to study so he can teach it.
32:28 No. It doesn't say that. There's something in the middle. He set his heart to study it to first do it. To first do it.
32:35 What does this say about me? What does this expose and reveal about me? What does this convict challenge in me before I seek it to do something in somebody else? That's what made him such a man of God. That's what made him a man with authority because he prioritized the application of God's word, And this is the this is the priority, me then others.
32:57 Me then others. The spirit of the Lord spoke by me. Yes. That's true. But he also spoke to me.
33:04 And when you come to the word like that, you will you will know life changing transformation, and it will actually translate in the way others receive from you. You can tell, can you not? I can tell. I'm sure you can. You talk to people, and when you talk about the Bible, you know when the Bible's touched their hearts, and you know when it's only touched their head.
33:27 It's it's all about, again, just knowing something to prove something. But you you don't sense in the texture of their voice that there's there's worship. There's something personal there. There's something that's moved your soul when you came to that text. It's just, you know, I saw this and I shared it, and this is what it did, and I I I used that when I was talking.
33:48 And and it's just like, okay. It's nice. I never saw that verse before. Maybe I skipped over it when I read through Isaiah or whatever the text may be, but there it didn't do something to that person. You could just tell.
34:02 I don't know. Maybe it's just me. I don't know. You could just tell. Right?
34:06 And the way that all changes is when you come to the word and you say, what is it, lord, that you're saying to me through this? And you will know true blessing from the word of God, and others will be truly blessed. Well, what does what does David have to say about what the Lord said by him and to him? It has to do with leadership. And this is what he says in the second part of verse three.
34:26 When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God. That's what the Holy Spirit reveals to him at the end of his life, in reflection of his life. He was a leader for a lot of his life, different levels, but he was a leader. And what the the Spirit of God brings to his attention is how one can rule effectively, and it's through and in the fear of God. Justice, true justice, true integrity, true compassion, transparency can only come an issue from a heart that has the fear of God occupying that same heart.
35:03 This is what comes to David's mind, and it's as though he's giving instruction to those who would read and hear this as he is about to leave this world and hand off his position to his successor and future successors who would also come to this. If you wanna be an effective leader, you need to know how to fear him. I love the doctrine of the fear of God, and one of the reasons why I absolutely adore that doctrine is because of all the blessings and promises that are the outcome of it being applied appropriately. When you really understand the fear of God, you will really know spiritual riches in this life. And not only will the person who lives in the fear of God be rewarded, those who are in contact with that person will also be enriched in many ways, and that's what he does poetically.
35:48 He poetically explains that in verse four. Look at this. He dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. I mean, visualize that. A sunny day, no clouds, the sun rising up in the morning with its light, and rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.
36:13 That is what you are like to other people when you live in the fear of God. This is what he's saying here. When you walk in the fear of God, you're a pleasant person. You're delightful. You're energizing spiritually.
36:31 There's life giving force there. There's inspiration. There's joy. Right? That's that when you know somebody who really walks in that kind of fear of him, that awe of who he is, And if you're truly a person who's sensitive to the spirit, then you're attracted to that such like a sunny day.
36:50 You wanna be around that person. You wanna live your life. You wanna do business with that person. You wanna marry that kind of a person. And how choose it that the opposite is in effect for those who don't fear God?
37:05 I don't know how I would describe the opposite of what we just read here in verse four, but I can tell you people who don't fear God, they're not pleasant. They incite trouble. They're agitating in the community. They're unpredictable in their behavior. You question their integrity.
37:23 You don't know if they're the same person that you see on Sunday morning on Wednesday night, or oh, we have Wednesday night. Thursday morning. And so the secret to success, not just in leadership, but to be a blessing to those around you, like the sun, like the rain, is to fear the Lord. Let me show you just one example of the extent of the fear of God living in your life and what it will do. This is actually one of my favorite consequences of fearing God.
37:52 Guess what book it's in? Leviticus. Leviticus. Who reads Leviticus anymore? We do.
38:00 Leviticus nineteen fourteen. It's it's a it's an insight by inference. Right? This is what the Lord says. This is his holiness code to his people.
38:12 This is what he says in this particular instruction. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the Lord. Now how would we, on a surface level reading, interpret that verse? Well, if you fear God, you won't be cruel to people who are disabled or handicapped.
38:34 That's what we would most of us probably would take out of that. If a person's a person's blind, you won't play tricks on him. You won't tease him. If a person's deaf, likewise, you won't do the same. So this is God's code to treating those who are unfortunate, who are limited with the same kindness and grace that he does.
38:53 But think deeper. Think deeper. If somebody is before me, we're in a room by ourselves and he's blind and he has all this stuff around me, and I take his wallet, does he see that I took his wallet? No. He's blind.
39:05 If there's somebody who's deaf there, right, just me and that person, and I do something else. I won't give another example, but do something else. Say something. Will he hear it? Answer is obviously no.
39:18 What What I believe the Lord is speaking here on a deeper level is that the fear of God will invoke a sense of integrity in private. When no one sees you, when no one hears you, that is the real you. Yeah? It's true. When no one sees you and no one hears you, that is the real you.
39:48 And what the fear of God does is it's it's a it inspires a devotion to God despite the fact that there are those who might not see or see or hear you. Why? Because the fear of God reminds you God sees you, and God hears you. I love the story of Joseph when he resisted that temptation with that wicked woman. Here she is, and the scene was just right.
40:13 There's nobody else. She was a woman of power. They could have gotten away with it, and this is Joseph pre Mount Sinai before the law. This is Joseph before the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is Joseph far from his church in Canaan, far from his family, far from Jacob and his brothers, far from any kind of sanctified surrounding.
40:39 And he can say, how can I do this great evil against who? My dad, my pastor, my elder, my deacon? No. God. That's what the fear of God does.
40:47 It goes with you on that business trip when your wife doesn't. It helps you resist the temptation of punching in different numbers when you when you do your taxes. Why? Because you fear him. You wanna honor him.
41:03 You stand in awe of him, not just before the great congregation, but even before the blind and before the deaf. I've said it a thousand times. Let me say it a thousand and one times. The fear of God is your greatest accountability partner. The fear of God is your greatest accountability partner.
41:21 It will go where no man can go. It will be where no man can see. It will touch you where no man can hear you. That's what we were doing in Canada. We're talking about the fear of God.
41:32 So I gotta mention something that I didn't mention there. K? Can I show you another blessing of the fear of God in leadership or in on anybody of anybody's life, not just leadership? This is one that you may not have considered. Do you realize that the fear of God actually prevents you from being legalistic?
41:49 Have you ever thought about that? I didn't I didn't pull that out of nowhere. Let me show it to you. Ecclesiastes chapter seven. Ecclesiastes chapter seven.
41:56 Look at here at verse 16. Leadership in churches, leadership in homes, leadership in marriages, leadership in employment. This is good this is good stuff. Look what the fear of God can do in a man. Ecclesiastes seven sixteen.
42:17 Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand.
42:37 For the one who does what? For the one who fears God shall come out from both of them. Now we we usually understand the fear of God as the escape from spiritual suicide, from a hedonistic, pleasure seeking way of life in which you destroy yourself even prematurely. That's what he's talking about in the second part. That's what we we have that one dimensional view of the fear of God.
43:02 You sin, and you're lawless, and you're loose because you don't fear God. Hey. That's true. But look at the other extreme that you can also evade. Do not be overly righteous.
43:14 Do not be too wise. There's a lot of confusion in understanding that that statement. He's not talking about true righteousness. Clearly, if you pin that with the rest of scripture, you understand that the Bible is not trying to hint at you, hey. You can be moderately holy.
43:30 Right? You can cuss a little bit. You can you can watch a little bit of that. Like, Don't and listen. There are people who use that verse to to just to justify that kind of behavior.
43:40 You don't wanna be too too much, brother. You don't wanna go overboard. Really, be holy as I am holy. So God's the standard of my holiness. This is not what what Solomon is talking about.
43:54 There is another kind of righteousness that destroys. It's a form of righteousness. It's a superficial spirituality. It's one that takes your personal convictions, your man made laws and rules, and elevates them and even eclipsing what God has made clear and what God demands of you and me. And you know what the Bible says?
44:17 The fear of God keeps you from going there. What's the association? Well, when you fear God, you fear his word. When you fear God and stand in awe of him, you also stand in reverence of his word. And part of that reverence will make you realize, I do not want to take away from that word.
44:40 I don't wanna make light of his commands, nor do I want to add to them, nor do I want to unnecessarily demand more where God has not made something essential or clear. Who would have ever thought that the fear of God will actually keep you and I for league from legalism? That's scripture. I just want no wonder the scripture says in Isaiah thirty three six that the fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure. You open up that treasure box, and it's much deeper than you can imagine.
45:12 It protects me from this. It produces this. It creates this. Yes. Everything from ruling justly to you being a person who walks in true spirituality, escaping destructive lawlessness and destructive legalism.
45:30 And he says here, you're gonna be that kind of a person when you fear God. And then he says something quite interesting here in verse five. Come back to second Samuel 23 verse five. For does not my house stand so with God? Who has the New King James and the King James version?
45:52 Does it read like that? Although my house be not so with God. Yeah. Although my house be not so with God. And so when you have the ESV and the NASB, which come from a different family of manuscripts, they gave the same point but in a more rhetorical question way, whereas the King James and the New King James from a different source of of family manuscripts explicitly state that, unfortunately, David did not see the fruition of the blessings that he describes in verse four in his own household.
46:27 Right? So he's painfully and honestly saying, look. I just told you that when you rule justly, it's because you will fear God or you fear God, and it will dawn and it will be shining and it will create and sprout life, but that wasn't the case with my own house. And that's true. You see, David, there was an episode of his life where he didn't fear the Lord, and there was repercussions, generationally speaking.
46:53 But no matter what translation you have, the the main point is still being made. The essence of what he is saying is this. So in the ESV, for does not my house stand so with God, then he says, for he has made with me an everlasting covenant. What he's explaining is the success of my house, the security of my home, my lineage, my seed does not depend upon the failures of me as a father, the rebellion of my children. It all comes down to this.
47:20 God made a promise to me. God made a promise to me and my future, my house. And although there were there were car wrecks, spiritually speaking, leading up to this point, It's not dependent upon the performance. It's dependent upon a promise. For he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure, for he will not cause to prosper all my help and all my desire.
47:52 Zoom out again. What's the context of this text? It's a psalm. It's a hymn. It's worship.
48:00 Based on that, what's another stimulant that you can you can retrieve in terms of your worship and mine? Is it to look at your performance? The promises. Look at the promises of God. Look at the promises of God in this life.
48:20 Look at the promises of God in the next life. Look at the promises of God in forgiving your actions in the past. Look at the promise of God that encourage your strength and your hope for tomorrow. Look at the promises of God that protect your status for eternity. Look at those promises, and you'll have another reason to sing.
48:43 You look at your performance, you'll have more reason to groan and moan than anything else. And you should consider your performance. You should consider where you're at with the Lord. You should work out your salvation with what? Fear and trembling.
48:57 It doesn't say work for your salvation. There's a big difference there. Work out your salvation, not work for your salvation. I don't even know how that's even used as a proof text that you can lose your salvation. Work it out, not work for.
49:12 And here's David in the same breath saying, yeah. My house was not in the best condition, and I didn't rule in the fear of God at some point, and that was enough for there to be havoc and chaos. But, oh, there was an everlasting promise that he made to me. And that's what the Holy Spirit brings to mind. That's what the Holy Spirit brings to him so that he can pen it, and it's an instruction for you and I.
49:36 You got to keep the promises of God at the forefront of your meditation and your exercise and your spiritual service. It's not about the performance. It's about his promises. And when I do good, I praise him, and when I fail him, I come to him, and I remind myself of his everlasting covenant. And then he describes here in verse six seven those who are outside of his covenant, their faith, their future.
50:06 But worthless men are all like thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with the hand. But the man who touches them arms himself with iron and the shaft of the spear, and they are utterly consumed with fire. The song ends. David is saying these things as his last words. And then, interestingly enough, the text transitions not to another song, but to a catalog of other men.
50:38 This gallery, if you will, of other faithful men known as the 30 mighty men of David. And we read here in verse eight, these are the names of the mighty men whom David had, whom David had. And then the rest of the chapter is about them, and that's why I don't wanna I don't wanna even necessarily begin here without pausing. But I will make this link. What's so fascinating as we've been studying David's life is that we've seen his ups and downs.
51:06 We've seen him develop. We've seen him fail, stall, excel. And as we come to the reflection of his life, the Holy Spirit connects his life to the life of other men. David wasn't who David was without David's mighty men in some way, whom David had. These mighty, glorious, rugged warriors.
51:35 And one of the things that we'll touch on in in greater detail is that these mighty men were not mighty when they first were introduced to David, were they? Do you remember when they found David in that cave, the Cave Of Aduhelm? And it says that they were in distress, they were bitter in soul, and they were in debt. That's how these same guys started. And David saw these ragtag guys, and they said, we know you're the king.
52:03 We wanna follow you. And in David's mind I mean, at least if I was in David's position, I'd say, these are the guys I have to work with. But there is no such commentary from David. He takes them in, And throughout the years, they watched him. They slept with him.
52:24 They fought with him. They've heard him pray. They've seen God come through. They've seen his enemies vanquished. And these same guys became mighty men.
52:37 Mighty men. It's the same if you give your life to Christ. He will not reject you if you come broken and wounded, And that and you have some believers who can't help but look at a person's past or look at a person's personality or look at their lack of social skills and look at their report card and think, you can get in, but I don't think God can do much with you. I mean, you would never say that. Right?
53:05 But we feel that. We're very reluctant to believe that this clay, this lump of dirt, God can make it to something mighty and glorious. We'll get to that more, but the point I wanna make is this. David could not be David without his mighty man. You cannot know the full extent of your sanctification without the saints.
53:25 You can't. And if you want another reason to sing, though this isn't directly and explicitly said, though we can find different scriptural precedent for it, find some Christians in life who also fear God, who see Jesus for who he really is, who's willing to do anything to serve Jesus is what you're gonna discover here. These mighty men didn't just kill giants. They grabbed a glass of water when their king said, oh, that I would have that water from the Well of Bethlehem. You find those kind of believers in life like what we did today, and you will know a strength to your song, realizing what God can do in others, realizing that there are other brothers and sisters who love the Jesus you love, and you will be motivated to worship him until the end.
54:11 May God keep us until the end. May God keep us fighting together until the end. May God continue to mold us and make us into mighty warriors for his glory. Amen? Amen.
54:23 Let's pray, saints. Father in heaven, words cannot describe the gratitude we have in being able to study your word together. Time does not permit to excavate all that you have to say in these verses. Thank you for the church. Thank you for this church.
54:50 Thank you for the churches that are represented here. Thank you for the believers that love your word. Lord, would you help us fear you? Would you help us look to your word, not just so that we can be equipped for the Spirit to speak by us but to us? Lord, we believe you've spoken to us, and we ask, oh god, that what's been spoken to us like Ezra would be applied before it is even taught to others.
55:22 Lord, another bible study will come to an end. Another book in your sacred library is coming to a conclusion. Time flies, lord. We cannot believe that two years in one study has already come to this point. Help us, lord.
55:49 Help us finish well. Help us be worshipers. Help us be sweet psalmist even in our last moments. Help us be like Jacob no matter what our performance has been up to this point to finish by blessing others and worshiping you upon the staff of dependency on you. Help us live until the end with that kind of staff in our hand, not leaning on our own wisdom or strength or resources, but upon your faithfulness in all things.
56:26 We worship you now. We worship you now because we have sensed your voice, the person of the Holy Spirit in our midst. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Why don't we stand and worship the Lord together?
