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 and end.
Have a Bible study in a specific book.
Because I, I and you have been so familiar with a person or
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, are you
at 2nd? Same?
You're 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.
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.
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.
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.
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. And more than that, we see in
the second line that this is the Oracle of David.
And we know that all scriptures 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.
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. These are the last words.
So essentially what makes the 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.
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.
This is David looking back. Yes, in some sense he's also
looking for. 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, the Oracle, David, What's the first thing that
David says in in identifying who he is, The son of Jesse.
What do you make of that? Come on, students, What do you
make of that? 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 saw often
utilized that identity, the son of Jesse, in a way to humiliate
David, 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. 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, 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? 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 experience God's favor and mercy.
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? Forgot 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. 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 want to know a
deeper devotion, if you want to know 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.
Commit your cause to 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 He trusted his enemies to the
Lord. He trusted his exaltation to the
throne, to the Lord. 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.
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.
He did this. God wants that for you and me as
well. But what requires is humility.
What it requires is dependency upon the Lord.
What I love about this. This chapter is how David kind
of concludes his introduction. You're going to give me that?
Yeah, that's OK. I thought so.
Thank you. Look at this wonderful title at
the end of verse one, The sweet psalmist of Israel.
We're talking about worship, right?
Look at this, the sweet psalmist of Israel.
We know David to be a Psalmist. 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.
I'm still the sweet psalmist of Israel.
You know what I take from that? David was a worshipper until the
end. David was a worshipper until the
end. And we we studied in chapter 22,
right? That lengthier song, 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 into his 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. And that's possible for you and
I to be to to be a worshipper 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.
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, I'm at the peak of my
life. I'm in my 30s or 20s.
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.
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. OK.
That's on the right side of the Bible.
But Paul is 1. Sure.
Old Testament. Samson.
I don't know if. Sam.
Yeah. Samson.
Yeah. You can say that.
He finished while he was in the Hall of Faith.
I'm sorry. I was thinking of somebody else
when you said Samson. Yeah.
Samson's right. Yeah.
Rehab. Sure.
I'm thinking about one who occupies a lot of the book of
Genesis, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob. That's an interesting title that
God gives himself. Abraham was an idolature 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 a out of all three. The less turbulent in is his
faith, right? And then you have Jacob.
Jacob 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.
And God places Jacob at a specific moment and places him
in that hall of faith. I want you to see this verse in
Hebrews 11/21. This isn't context of worship.
This isn't 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. You have this mention of a man,
and I believe it's to inspire people who might have stumbled a
lot. Hebrews 11/21.
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, 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?
Is that how we were introduced to Jake?
Did he bless others or did he scheme others?
He tricked others. He was a manipulator.
He deceived. Did he worship God?
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.
And yet when it comes to his dying days, well over 100 the
Holy Spirit tells us he blessed each of his sons and he
worshipped 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.
He was frail. You can say he was physically
falling apart, but this man's heart was on fire.
He worshipped 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? He broke his hip.
And when you read that account very carefully, after that all
night fight, we were told that Jacob limped back to his tent.
He limped 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.
He needed some assistance. If that is true, then that's
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.
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.
That's how this man ended. And God took that of him and
made it a memorial for All Saints to see.
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.
OK, let's keep breathing here. What do we see?
In verse two of chapter 23, 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.
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, 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.
His word is on my tongue and in common Hebrew.
Parallelism. What do you have in the line of
verse 2? The Spirit of Lord speaks by me.
And then what do you have in the verse?
3? The God of Israel has spoken.
That was common, right? That was common in their in in
their Psalms and their writings and their poetry.
You would repeat the same thought in the next line to
emphasize it or to clarify the preceding. 1 And So what you
have here is the Spirit of the Lord is linked to the God of
Israel. He is the God of Israel.
That's important. You're going to engage with
people who don't believe in the treaty.
You're going to. You're going to engage with
people who are going to say, yeah, this Trinity thing is, is
New Testament. And some will say it's not
biblical at all. And So what are you going to do?
Yeah, you can go to the. You can go to the New Testament
to prove the treaty, but you can go to better than that.
You go to the Old Testament and prove the Trinity.
Let's, that's Bible study. Why not give me some other text
in the Old Testament that would prove or point to the Trinity?
Any ideas? Destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah? Right.
The Lord sent fire from heaven, right from the Lord.
Yes. Genesis 19.
Any other text? Genesis 126 led us, right?
Make man in our image. Any other text?
It's good. Let's refresh our memory here.
Any indication in the Old Testament that points to the
plurality of the personhood of God?
OK, yes. And Isaiah.
There's so many indications in Isaiah of there being more than
one persons in our God. Yes, maybe a couple more.
Psalm 110. Yes, the Lord said to my Lord.
Right. Jesus quoted that text.
Any other ones? Yeah.
So you see the Spirit there, right at creation?
Absolutely. One more.
Yes, very good. Psalm 45.
Well, I want to 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
under score the divine personhood of the Holy Spirit,
it will also show you the Trinity, believe it or not.
And so go there to Isaiah and go to 63, where the prophet
recounts the wilderness journey of the nation saved from
slavery. And notice here let's begin in
verse seven. Are you there?
It's going to 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.
Who are we speaking about here? Let's just make that clear.
Who's the object of these descriptions?
Yahweh, capital Lord. We're speaking about the
covenantal name of God, Yahweh. 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 8.
Pay attention 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 of verse 7.
Yahweh became their savior, right?
So Yahweh is the savior of the nation of Israel.
Now look what we hear. See your verse 9.
In all their affliction, he was afflicted.
And who the Angel of his presence saved them.
This is a different character now, the Angel of whose presence
Yahweh's presence. 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. 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 7.
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.
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 9. In his love and in his pity he
redeemed them. Wow, he even redeemed them.
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? 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, 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.
You have the Angel of His presence in verse 9, 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? Put him in the put, in the midst
of them His Holy Spirit? 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.
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 2, not 6, not 733. This is good.
You're get. 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.
You worship. You worship three different
gods. Can you show them?
Though you may not be able to elaborately and eloquently
explain what the trainee 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're coequal? Can you show them that they're
coexisting? They are in harmony with one
another and everything. Heard a Muslim say the other day
to another person on the streets 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 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's so easy when you understand how unbreakable their unity is,
how they do everything in concert with one another.
And so I just want to give you a little taste of how if you just,
if you look and you read and you study, you'll find gems, gems of
things that you would think is only New Testament.
No, no, no, no. It's been testified of before.
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? 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 all 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.
And not only did Peter say that they were carried along by the
Holy Spirit, that's in Second Peter, but in First Peter 110,
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 when and when and who.
What's this all about? Every time I read First Peter
one time 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, 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.
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 has 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? We're over fed, over saturated,
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.
Read your Bible closely. The spirit of the Lord speaks.
What are those two words by me? Now look at verse 3.
The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said by
me to me. 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 apply to
them. It's a very popular way of
ministry. 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
change 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 want to hear it or not.
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, shore, that's all
great. God wants the word of his mouth
and his mind to work in you. He wants to speak to you.
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. 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 going to 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 on Ezra 710.
And look at the order of Ezra's relationship with the word of
God and Ezra 710. 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 said his heart to study it.
He said his heart to study. And this is what most people do.
He said his heart to study so he can teach it.
No, it doesn't say that There's something in the middle, he
said. It's hard to study it, to first
do it, to first do it. What does it say about me?
What is this exposed and revealed about me?
What is 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 applicant. This is the priority.
Me than others, me than others. The Spirit of the Lord spoke by
me. Yes, that's true, but he also
spoke to me. 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 touch their hearts and you know when it's
only touched their head, it's it's all about, again, just
knowing something to prove something.
But 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 used that when I was
talking and and it just like, OK, it's nice.
I never saw that verse before. Maybe I skipped over when I read
through Isaiah or whatever the text may be, but there it didn't
do something to that person. You can just tell.
I don't know. Maybe it's just me.
I don't know. You could just tell, right?
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 is? 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. When one rules justly over men
ruling in the fear of God, that's what the Holy Spirit
reveals them at the end of his life and 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.
And 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 want to 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.
You poetically explains that in verse four.
Look at this. He dawns on them like the
morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloud this
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.
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.
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 all 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.
You want to be around that person.
You want to live your life. You want to do business with
that person. You want to marry that kind of a
person. And how true is it that the
opposite is an effect for those who don't fear God?
I don't know how I would describe the opposite of what we
just read here in verse 4. 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. You don't know if they're the
same person that you see on Sunday morning, on Wednesday
night, or 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. It's the fear of 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. Guess what book is in Leviticus?
Leviticus. Who reads Leviticus anymore?
We do Leviticus 1914. It's it's a it's an inside by
inference, right? This is what the Lord says.
This is His Holiness code to his people.
This is what he says. In this particular instruction
you shall not curse the death 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. 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 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. But think deeper.
Think deeper. If somebody's before me, we're
in the 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.
If there's somebody'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?
Answers. Obviously.
No, 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. And what the fear of God does is
it's it's it inspires A devotion to God, despite the fact that
there are those who might not 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. There's nobody else.
She was a woman of power that could have gotten away with it.
And this is Joseph Premount 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.
Yeah, you 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.
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 want to honor him.
You stand in awe of him, not just before the great
congregation, but even before the blind and before the death.
I've said it 1000 times. Let me say it 1001 times.
The fear of God is your greatest accountability partner.
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.
So I got to mention something that I didn't mention there.
OK. Can I show you another blessing
of the fear of God in leadership or 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?
Have you ever thought about that?
I didn't. I didn't pull that out of the
way. Let me show it to you.
Ecclesiastes Chapter 7. Ecclesiastes, chapter seven.
Look at here in 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 716.
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 for the
one who does what or 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. 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.
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, 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 to justify that kind
of behavior. You don't want to be too too
much, brother. You don't want to 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. 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? 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 in standing 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.
I don't want to 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 legal from legalism, the Scripture I just
want. No wonder the scripture says in
Isaiah 33 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. 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. And he says here you're going to
be that kind of a person when you fear God.
And then he says something quite interesting here in verse 5.
Come back to second saying that 23 verse 5 for Does not my house
stand? So with God, who has the new
King James and the King James Version, Does it read like that?
Yeah, although my house be not so with God.
And so when you have the ESV and the NASV, which come from a
different family of manuscripts, they gave the same point but in
a more rhetorical question way. Whereas the King James, the new
King James from a different source 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. 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 in a sprout life.
But that wasn't the case with my own house.
And that's true. You see, David, there is an
episode of his life where he didn't fear the Lord and there
was repercussions, generationally speaking.
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 ESP 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. 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 the promise.
Free has made it with me in everlasting covenant, ordered in
all things insecure, for he will not cause to prosper.
All my help and all my desire zoom out again.
What's the context of this text? It's a Psalm.
It's a hymn. It's worship.
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?
Look at the promises of God. Look at the promises of God in
this life. Look at the promises of God in
the next life. Look at the promises of God and
forgiving your actions in the past.
Look at the promises 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. 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.
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. 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. 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 6-7. Those who are outside of His
covenant, their faith, their future, 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 in 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, interesting enough, the text transitions not to
another song, but to a catalog of other men.
This is gallery, if you will, of other faithful men known as the
30 mighty men of David. And we read here in verse 8,
these are the names of the mighty man whom David had, whom
David had. And then the rest of the chapter
is about them. And that's why I don't want it.
I don't want to even necessarily begin here without pausing.
But I won't make this link. What's so fascinating as we've
been studying David's life is that we've seen his ups and
downs. 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.
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 Adalim, And it says that they
were in distress, they were bitter and 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.
We want to follow you. And in David's mind, I mean, at
least if I was in David's Pozanci, 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, 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.
Mighty men. It's the same If you give your
life to Christ, he will not reject 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. You would never say that, right?
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 want to make is this.
David could not be David. Without his mighty man, you
cannot know the full extent of your sanctification.
Without the Saints, you can't. And if you want another reason
to sing so this isn't directly and explicitly said that we can
find different scriptural precedent for it.
Find some Christians in life who also fear God, who see Jesus for
who really is, who's willing to do anything to serve Jesus is
what you're going to 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. May God keep us until the end.
May God keep us fighting together to the end.
May God continue to mold us and make us into mighty warriors for
His glory. Amen.
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. 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.
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.
Help us finish well. Help us be worshippers.
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 worshipping
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. We worship you now.
We worship you now because we've 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?