Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
I think I mentioned that we're in Second Samuel chapter #8 T.
I'm glad to be back in our series this evening.
I want to pick up right where we left off a few weeks ago as we
were looking at David and we were looking at Absalom and we
were looking at the death of Absalom, and we're really
getting into the Scriptures right after Absalom has died,
but David doesn't know it yet. Do you remember that David gave
an instruction as he had his men go out in three different groups
and he had them go out into Ephraim Wood for that battle
that was there, and he gave one very specific instruction and
that was this, don't touch Absalom.
Now remember there was a problem with that, a great problem that
David had some blind spots when it came to his family, that
David had a blind spot when it came to his son.
Absalom deserved to die. Absalom was a usurper of the man
of God there, David, but he was a usurper of that which God had
put into his own life and that which he was trying to do it.
There was no reason why he should have been put to death.
There was a multitude of reasons why he should have been put to
death. But yet David said don't do it.
Of course Joab decides he's going to do his own thing.
Joab, you know, kind of enjoyed that, didn't he, doing his own
thing. And so Joab sees an opportunity,
takes that opportunity. And now Absalom is dead.
Remember, hung by his hair there in the tree that which was his
glory. We saw the last time we were in
our text that the Bible tells us that sowing and reaping is real.
Do you remember that? That the principle of sowing and
reaping is real. That it's not just something for
the Old Testament. It's not just something for the
New Testament, but it's as true today as it wasn't the Garden of
Eden. Amen.
That sowing and reaping is real. But here we see that now the
absolute is dead. Joab knows it.
There's someone who doesn't know it, and that's David.
And Dave's going to be upset when he finds out that job is
dead because that goes absolutely against what he had
commanded here just hours before.
But in the midst of that, we're going to see that there's going
to be two messengers that are supposed to bring this message
to David. 1 is very fast, 1 is very slow.
One likes to speak and the other doesn't like to speak.
And from this, we're going to look at tonight the very issue
of a messenger with no message. Now, if you're going to be a
messenger, you probably ought to have a message.
Kind of goes with the title, doesn't it?
It goes with the job description that a messenger ought to be
able to have a message. Can you imagine me coming up
here tonight in the pulpit and looking at you all and saying,
open your Bibles and then after that say, well, I really don't
have anything to say. Now, some of you might rejoice.
I don't know. You might think you'd get out
early. I don't know that could be the
case. But the fact of the matter is,
if I walk up to this pulpit as the messenger, if you will, you
expect me to have a message. You expect that I have been in
the word of God. You expect that I rightly divide
the word of truth. This is the expectation that you
ought to have of your pastor about of any man that gets
behind the pulp. But he's not just get up here
and talk like he's on talk radio or get up here and go through
his rants and ravings of the things that bother him in life.
But rather what he's going to do is preach the Word of God
straight and true for what it is, leaving his own opinions and
his own thoughts out of the mix. Why?
Because it's all about having a message when you're a messenger,
but there's a guy who's supposed to be a messenger who chokes up
when it's time to give the message.
And we're going to look at him tonight and draw some parallels
to ourselves as well. Now find it interesting that
Brother Sandy preached on what he did this morning, because
preaching this morning about the word of God, preaching this
morning about the need for those to be saved, preaching this
morning and brought bringing parallels to Acts chapter 2 and
that which is going to be taking place here in just a few weeks
in Foxborough. Certainly it's important for us
to get involved when there's these types of opportunities.
But I would say even more so than that, ever before the World
Cup takes place, there's people that need to get saved in this
area today. That's right, yeah, but if
people need to get saved in this area tomorrow, and what are we
going to do with the message that God has entrusted to us
when it comes to the message of life?
Would you stand please, for the reading of God's Word?
Second Samuel chapter #18 We're going to be in verse #19 Don't
worry about sick. I just have some allergies.
There's I like Scotland, but my sinuses didn't.
All right, Second Samuel 18. I thought that was funny.
All right, verse #19 it was funny in a different time zone
maybe. All right, verse #19 in four
hours you'll laugh at that. OK, then said to him, As the son
of Zadok, let me now run and bear the king tidings.
Now what tidings? Absalom is dead.
How that the Lord hath the venture of his enemies.
And Joab said unto him, Thou shalt not bear tidings this day
without shall bear tidings another day.
This day thou shalt bear no tidings, because the King's son
is dead. Then said Joab to Kushai, Go
tell the king what thou has seen.
And Kushai bowed himself unto Joab.
And Ram then said to him, as the son of Zadok, yet again to Joab.
But howsoever let me, I pray thee also run after Kushai.
And Joab said, Wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing thou
hast no tidings ready? You, you don't have a message.
The message just went out. And howsoever he said, let me
run. And he said unto him, run then
him as ran by the way of the plane, and overran Kushai.
We'll pick that up here again and see the remainder of the
text in just a moment. Why don't you be seated and
let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for this
evening. We thank you that you have given
us the opportunity to be your messengers.
We have a message, but let us be the messengers who give the
message and not just the messengers who hold on to it.
And not give the words that needed to be given.
Lord help us to draw some parallels from this text to our
own life. Help this not just to be a story
from the word of God that goes in one ear and out the other.
But let's remember this is a real factual account of an event
that took place that has relevance for us today.
May we find that relevance and apply it to our own life this
evening. And we do ask it in Jesus name,
Amen. As a reminder, this is the
capstone of all that has taken place over the last few
chapters. In fact, we could go all the way
back to when it said that David looked upon Bathsheba.
You remember that took place and all of a sudden David's
household began to unravel. And it seems like this is in
many ways the culmination. It's not that this ends the
sword being in David's house because the sword will plague
David's house throughout the rest of his life.
But yet it seems like in many ways this is a culmination
leading up to the the rebellion of and the battle of man against
man, Israelite against Israelite fighting against one another,
one for the House of David and the other for his renegade son
Absalom. It's all done.
It's been put off to the side. David, his forces won.
Why? Because they were on the side of
the Lord. He is the anointed king.
He is the one who is supposed to be crown king and crown
sovereign. Absalom was nothing but a
pretender. He was nothing but a paper
tiger. He was certainly big in his own
mind, but his own mind was where he was best because in real life
he wasn't the man that he was supposed to be in the Lord's
eyes. But now the time has come.
Absalom is dead and David has to find out the news and Joab has
to, to send somebody to come and to be able to give that news.
And so as we see this, this evening, first of all, I see
that there's a burdened messenger.
There's this man named Ahim as. And there it is in verse #22 If
we go back there, it says, actually, you go back up to
verse #19 and it says and then said, Ahim as the son of Zadok,
let me know. Run and bear the tie, the King's
tidings. How that the Lord hath avenged
him of of his enemies? Now I will say I read several
commentaries about this verse. And there are those who would
condemn him As for seemingly having some zeal or excitement
for wanting to go and run and tell David about what's taken
place. And of course, when it talks
about the avenging of the King's enemies, it's talking about
those who align themselves with Absalom, but it's also talking
about Absalom. And the next verse makes that
clear. Joab makes the connection when
he says that thou shalt not bear tidings this day, thou shalt not
bear tidings another day. Or rather, thou shalt bear
tidings another day, but this day thou shalt not bear.
Note, try again. This day thou shalt bear no
tidings because the King's son is dead.
Joab, it's a finer point on what a Himaz is trying to say.
No, you are not going to be the one to go and tell David that
his son is dead. And again, there's some
commentators who really get upset that a Himaz would
actually want to go and tell David because of what David had
said before. But I would have to argue on a
Himaz's aside and in his defense that Absalom had abhorred the
nation of Israel, that Absalom had abhorred his father, and
most importantly, that Absalom had abhorred God himself.
And there is a him as who at least has a little bit of
gumption within him, that has a little bit of fire within him to
be able to say, no, this man has fought against Israel.
This man has fought against his own brethren.
This man has fought against his own father.
And most important, this man is fighting against the very will
of God. No, no, somebody needs to be
able to give the news to David. And so I don't look at this as a
bad thing. We ought to have more people who
are burdened about their Christian beliefs.
You have more people who are burdened about that which they
believe. I'll be honest with you, there's
a lot of lackadaisical Christians that are out there
today. And maybe we'd have to put
ourselves into that category as well, that we get a little bit
lackadaisical, that there ought to be a little bit of fire in
the pulpit, that there ought to be a little bit of fire when it
comes to our devotional life. There ought to be a little bit
of fire when it comes to the way that we handle our day-to-day
business as believers. I'll be honest with you, there's
a lot more of those who believe the wrong things who are sincere
than Christians who believe the right thing.
I'll say that again. There's a lot more people who
believe the wrong thing but are yet sincere about it than those
who believe the right thing. And they're not sincere about it
as we ought to be, as we were going through immigration at
Heathrow Airport. And I'll tell you, I was so jet
lagged because we were going from Boston to Heathrow.
We're supposed to sleep during the night.
And there was turbulence almost the whole time.
And I got to London and it was 7 in the morning and it was just,
I'm, I'm sleepwalking through, but I know I got to wake up
because I'm about to go through customs.
They're going to start to asking you questions, all these
different things. And I get through, I hand them
my passport. And again, some of you may have
traveled a lot internationally. Me, not so much.
I know I'm an international speaker, but I just haven't
travelled that much. I wasn't at that point yet.
It's still a week away. But I, I was going through and
they said, you know, can we speak to you for a minute Now
that's not what you want to hear a customs agent to be able to
tell you. And I said, do you happen to
have a knife in your, in your bag?
And immediately I thought a knife.
And then the first thing I thought, to be honest with you
was what did AJ put in our bag? You know what, what did he put?
Because we've gone through before with empty water bottles
and didn't know that he didn't want an empty water bottle.
And he filled his up. And then we got through TSA and
they're like, why is that water bottle filled?
And AJ thought, well, I want a water.
So he said no, no, he but he but he clarifies, you know, maybe
like a butter knife or something like that.
What ended up being a comb that had an edge to it at the end
that it looked, I guess through the X-ray machine a little bit
funny. But as it was that we went over
to the X-ray technician and the X-ray technician that was there
was a Muslim woman in her Muslim head guard.
And she starts going through our bag and she has her gloves on.
And she says right there in the bag shows are these Bibles.
And if you're like me, probably for your thinking, you thought
this may not be so good. And I said, yes, ma'am, these
are about, this is my wife's Bible and my Bible.
And she says, do you mind if I take these gloves off?
She says, I believe that these are holy books and I don't want
to touch them with these gloved hands.
And I said, oh, I'm so I'm not getting arrested.
I didn't say that part. I thought, oh, I was shocked at
the reverence that she had for the Word of God and I was able
to talk to her a little bit about her testimony right there.
Obviously had to be pretty careful in that situation, but
explained to her that I was a pastor.
My wife then came over that time we were talking to her a little
bit just about the Lord and about what we believe as best as
we could in that very short period of time.
But you know what I walked away from in that moment thinking
she's more serious about the Word of God as a Muslim than a
lot of Christians are. That really troubled me.
It really made me ask myself about my own commitment.
No, no, we can't be upset when there's someone who has a little
bit of fire. No, we can't get upset when
there's someone who has a little bit of zeal, particularly about
the things that are right. No, we're not talking about zeal
for things that are wrong. Listen, you can be wrong and
zealous and you're just zealously wrong.
You want to be zealous and right.
But here's a him has who had the right message and had some zeal.
No, I'm not going to condemn him here, at least not in this
moment for the fact that he says no.
David needs to know what took place.
David needs to find out. He was a burdened messenger.
And you and I, we need to be burdened messengers as well.
Why? He and him has had a message of
death. A man has died and David needs
to know. But you and I have a message,
not of death, but of life, that you and I have been entrusted
with the very message of life. What is that?
Well, that there was one of the line of David who died, that's
Jesus Christ. But that he rose again and lives
today and will live forever more, and that if you believe in
that same Jesus, you will have life everlasting.
That's the message that has been entrusted to us.
And there ought to be a burden. There'll be a fire that'll be a
little bit of get up and go within us to be able to tell
other people the message of the good news of Jesus Christ.
That was John the Baptist as Malachi chapter 3 verse one in
the prophecy of John's birth said behold, I will send my
messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord
whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple.
Even the messenger of the covenant whom he delight in.
Behold, he shall come saith the Lord of hosts.
John was the one who laid the axe at the root of the tree.
The Bible says, meaning this. He always got to the very heart
of the matter. You didn't walk away from here
in John the Baptist, say, I wonder what he meant, The
message of life. Herod understood what he meant.
We said you ought not take that woman.
He paid for it with his head, but he did what was right
because it was the message. But that message that was
committed to John and the disciples had been also
committed to us, said Corinthians 5 verse 20.
Now that we were ambassadors for Christ, as though God did
beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled
to God. Walking through the streets, you
know what I saw? Consulate, consulate, consulate.
What is that? Places where ambassadors are,
places where someone is working on behalf of another.
This one's working on behalf of the French government.
This one is working on behalf of the German government.
Just going down the street and seeing an American flag right
there in the middle of Edinborough, I was thinking, I
just wanted to, I want that eagle to go, you know, right
down, right in that moment. I thought that would have been
great. You know what?
They were ambassadors. They are working on behalf of
those who had sent him. You and I are working on behalf
of he who has sent us, and that is Jesus Christ.
We are ambassadors for Christ. I'm ambassadors for ourself, not
ambassadors for our own thought processes and designs, but
ambassadors for him. Acts chapter one, verse 8.
We saw this morning, but you shall receive power after that.
The Holy Ghost has come upon you.
He shall be witnesses but unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all
Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
Romans 9 verses one through three.
I say the truth in Christ, I lie not my conscience also bearing
me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart. For I, I wish myself were cursed
from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
Paul said this. If I could trade my salvation in
so that all of Israel could be saved and I could spend an
eternity in hell, I'd do it. Now I'd say if anyone ever said
that to you, they're probably blowing smoke.
But when it's in the Word of God, inspired by the Holy
Spirit, Paul meant it. Now it doesn't work that way,
does it? But Paul said this, I may not be
able to give my eternal life for Israel, but I can give my life
for them and making sure I do everything I can to give them
the message. No, here's a him as he, he's a
very burdened messenger. It says he was a son of Zadok,
who is a dog. He was one of the priests.
Who do you work for? David.
He watched David, he watched his father work for David.
Now Zadok the priest worked for the Lord before he worked for
David, but he was faithful to David.
He says this, I've seen this man, I've seen the Lord, I've
seen how faithful my father has been both to David and the Lord,
and I got to have a message sent to him.
So there is this burden messenger that is there, but we
also see that there's also that before, actually, before we get
to that, it's not just that that burden messenger is about to
give the message. What does Joab say?
Son, I like your spirit if I could distill it into something.
It's not like your spirit. But today's not your day.
It looks this man named Kushai, he says this Kushai go run.
And he says, I'll go. Isn't that what he says there in
verse #21 It says. And Kushai bowed himself unto
Joab and ran. He goes on his way, but but
there's him, as he can't give it up, he sinks his teeth in.
He says to it says the son of Zadok yet again to Joab.
But howsoever let me, I pray thee also run after Kushai.
And Joab said Wherefore what thou run my son, seeing thou has
no tidings ready, now you say, well of course he has news, we
know what the news is. But basically Joab saying this,
it's not your news to give today.
I just gave it to Kushai. What are you going to say?
Why would you go? I've already given the news to
another man, but he's so agitated, his spirit, he says
this, just let me go. And Joab, I kind of wonder if
Joab just like, man, get out of here, I can't deal with you
anymore. He's like, hey, hey boy, you
want to run, run, go for it. You know, it's kind of like, you
know, the parent just wants to let the kid out in the backyard.
Just like, look, hey, just leave me alone.
You want to go run in the backyard, Go run into a tree for
a while. That's fine.
Go do it. Just, you know, don't cry to me,
man, just go. And Joab just says hey, run.
And him has ran by the way of the plane and overran Kushai.
It says in verse #23 that he ran and he ran so fast that he
overran Kushai. Now Kushai had the news.
Now Emma has had the news as well.
But Kushai was the appointed messenger and he was doing the
best that he could. But for some reason that him has
had a little more pep in his step.
That doesn't mean that he was right and Kushai was wrong.
It just happens to be that some people are faster than other
people. And the man who had the news was
a little bit slower. The man who was the one who says
let me go, Coach put me in, coach put me in, coach put me
in. Finally, he had all that energy
in him, and man, Red Bull gave him wings or something.
I don't know what it was, but he was on his way.
And so you have this burdened messenger, and again, that
burden should be ours as well. I think of First Corinthians
Chapter 9, verse 16. For though I preach the gospel,
I mentioned this just a few weeks ago, I have nothing to
glory up for. Necessity is laid upon me.
Yeah, woe is sent to me if I preach not the gospel.
You say, pastor, it's a good thing that you preach the word
of God. Well, Amen.
And I praise the Lord for whatever good you find in me.
But I will say this, I'm not good because I preach the
gospel. I'm just doing what I'm supposed
to be doing. That is just what God has called
me to do. That's special about me because
I'm standing behind this pulpit. It's just what God's calling is
in my life. And I know you believe that
about me, but I'll say this, I believe that about you as well,
that God has called you to be able to give the gospel to the
people around you. And it's not that we're doing
anything special. It's not that we're doing.
No, no, I know the fact that it's, it's special.
It's important in God's eyes that we give the gospel.
What I'm saying is this, we're not going above the Call of
Duty. It is the Call of Duty.
Sure, it's special anytime the gospel is given when the word of
God is presented. Sure, it's special anytime
someone gets saved. The angels in heaven rejoice
when one soul comes to Christ. But it is not that we are going
above and beyond the Call of Duty to give the gospel.
We're just doing what God has called us to do.
Well, I'm a super Christian. I'm going out on visitation.
We're a Christian. No, not be unkind about it.
I'm just saying this is what God's called us to do.
I'm a super Christian. I give out tracts.
We're a Christian. No, not diminishing it one bit.
No, no, don't understand, don't misunderstand what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is this. It's just what God has called us
to do and that which God has called us to do, God will equip
us to do. Well Pastor, I, I could never do
that. One of my favorite verses comes
at the end of First Thessalonians when it says this
faithful is he that calleth us, who also will do it mean this
God will equip those 3 calls. If God's called us to give the
gospel, you know what he's going to do?
He's a help you give the gospel. How awful would it be for God to
call you to do something and say well, you're on your own now.
Some almighty God. Well he is an almighty God.
Almighty belongs to him. And if He calls us to be able to
do a certain task as He has for us to be able to give the gospel
in the Great Commission that He's going to equip us for that
task, does it look differently for all of us?
It does. Some can seemingly give the
gospel with ease. They can find their way into a
conversation and turn to the Lord almost at every turn.
Others have more difficulty. Some enjoy talking.
Some don't enjoy talking. Well, no matter what your
personality trait is, God will help you in your own way to be
able to give the gospel and not just give the gospel, but to
live the gospel. But I'll tell you, I've reached
a lot more people just by the faithful witness, by living the
way that I should than just by handing people tracks.
No, I'm not against handing people tracks.
God uses that as just that planting and watering that we
should. You should be hanging out more
tracks. But you'll find that more people
will come to you about Christ as you faithfully live Christ and
as you faithfully talk about how Christ has been a blessing in
your life. And you'll find that people will
come to you because they'll want to learn more about how you have
the peace that they wish that they had.
It's a burden messenger. There's only one problem about
this burden messenger. He was also a bashful messenger.
We didn't finish the story. We only gave you the first half.
And I want to look at first number 24.
And on it says. And David sat between the two
gates and the watchman went up to the roof, over the gate under
the wall, lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, a man running
alone. And so David, of course, needs
to find a way to be able to get the news.
You remember, he was told to stay behind.
They said, listen, we know that Absalom wants you and that you
have to stay behind because he doesn't care about us.
He'll mow through all of us to be able to get to you.
So David, you stay behind. You sucker us, meaning you bring
us reinforcements if necessary. But in general, you stay behind.
So David's staying behind. There's no Twitter, there's no
Facebook, there's no Telegram Telegraph, there's no nothing.
And so he, all he's doing is sitting there and waiting with a
few men and waiting for a messenger to come.
And so he sees cresting over a hill, a messenger, a man running
alone. Well, we would know that that
would be a hemaz. Why?
Because he overtook Kushai. Kushai was the appointed
messenger, but a hemaz overtook him.
So what he's going to be seeing here is a hemaz.
And verse #25 says the watchman cried and told the king, And the
king said If he be alone there is tidings in his mouth.
And he came apace and drew near. The watchman saw another man
running. And the watchman called into the
Porter, and said, Behold, another man running alone.
And the king said he also bringeth tidings.
The watchman said methinketh the running of the foremost, the one
in the front is the running of him as the son of Zadok.
And the king said he is a good man and cometh with good
tidings. Now, my heart goes out to David
here because you could tell he's just reaching for any type of
good news. Just because you're a good man
doesn't mean you come with good news.
And he says, hey, him as I like that guy, he's got good news.
Well, David, just because he's a good man doesn't mean he's got
good news. In fact, I would say to you that
the good man will give you the news.
It's the truth, not just the news that you want to hear.
You know, that often comes to my mind in preaching because I want
everyone to love me. Because why?
Everybody wants everyone to love them.
You know, I don't come into this church.
I don't drive up to 800 Washington St. and say, boy, you
know, by the time I'm done today, I hope everybody hates
me. It's never come into my mind.
It never has. I hope that when I walk in,
everybody loves me. I hope when I walk out after
preaching, my gut's out that everyone still loves me.
But do you know what? I found that it really doesn't
come down to being a good man and preaching the good word in
the sense that it makes everybody happy that I hope you
find that I'm a good man. And sometimes that it may not be
a good word that you hear, but it's his word.
That's what it comes down to. And listen, if that makes me
your enemy, then we'll have to be enemies.
I'm not looking to be anyone's enemy and I sure don't want to
be someone's enemy because I present the word of God and an
I'll found way. But I will say this, I got to
preach it straight and true. Well, he's a good man.
He's going to say things I want to hear.
Well, I may not be saying things you want to hear.
In fact, I may say the opposite you want to hear.
But if it comes down to the Word of God, then you got to believe
it because the word of God said it, not because I said it.
And so here's Dave. He says he's a good man.
He's got good tidings. And the answer is, well, David,
that's all the way it works. But we understand in our heart
that the David again had that blind spot to his family.
He's hoping against hope that there's something good here.
And Ahemaz verse 28 called, remember, he's overtaken
Khushi's in the rear. Ahemaz is now in the front.
Ahemaz is the one who has the that had the news that that we
wanted to go. Khushi is the one who was just
ordered to go a little bit slower.
And Ahemaz called and said, verse #28 under the king, all is
well. And he fell down to the earth
upon the face before the king and said blessed be the Lord thy
God, which has delivered up the men that lifted up their hand
against my Lord the king and the king said, is the young man
Absalom safe now again, David's blind spot here is real him has
just told him your men have won the victory and seven give glory
to God and we're and we're going to find this out the next time
that David was more caring for Absalom than he was for his own
people. That was problematic.
But instead of saying praise God, the victory was won in his
name. What's the first thing he says
as my son, He says, is the young man Absalom safe and him as
answered. When Joab sent the King's
servant, and me thy servant, I saw a great tumult, but I knew
not what it was. Now stop right there for a
moment. He said.
Pastor, am I tracking this story right because of him?
As was the one who said he wanted to go and tell David the
news. He's the one that overtook who
shot. And now David looks him in the
eyes and he says, is this what happened?
And he goes, you know what? Who could say?
I have no idea. Now, again, looking at some
commentaries, I saw some that would defend him as say, well,
maybe he didn't know what happened.
But I don't have to be a Bible scholar to know back at the
beginning of our text that when him as he wanted to go, Joab
said someone else is going to say that the King's son is dead.
I mean, you saw that just a few moments ago, just as I did.
So Ahemez knew with 100% certainty that Absalom was dead.
But David looks him in the eyes. He says that Absalom dead.
He goes, well, who could know? And he walks up.
Now, why would he not tell the truth here?
I think there's probably a couple of reasons why 1, he
could have been afraid for his own safety.
Now, why was that? Well, there have been times that
men had come to David and said so, and so is dead.
And David's answer was and you're dead too.
Hey, Saul is dead. Oh, well, you had a hand in
that. You're dead too.
Ishbosheth is dead. You think I was going to be
happy about that? You're dead too.
Now. Is this the same situation as
that? Not even close.
He's just the messenger. I believe that in both those
other cases there were men who acted unrighteously and David
was acting righteously in that which he did.
But maybe in his mind he had a flashback about those other men
who had brought some news to David about kings or pretenders
of kings that had been slain, and he thought maybe his head
would be on a platter next. It could be because he was
afraid of the recipients reaction in general.
He didn't want to see David upset.
Like in that moment he's looking Dave in the eyes.
He's thinking, this wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to
be. Maybe he thought he was going to
be the big man, the big dog who's going to come to David and
give the news. And now he's looking David in
the eyes, and he realizes this isn't some exercise, this is
real, and that now he's had to look this man in the eye and
tell him the truth about what happened.
And he locks up. He doesn't know what to do.
Well, what does David say about this verse #30?
And the king said unto him, turn aside and stand here.
And he turned side and stood still.
David basically says, son, I don't have much use for you.
You're a messenger with no message.
You ran all this way, you ran so fast, and now you've got nothing
to say. Just stand off to the side.
I'll wait for this other man to come.
And Kushai was slower, but Kushai was willing to give the
message. And the king said unto Kushai,
or rather verse #31 Behold Kushai came.
And Kushai said, Tidings my Lord the king, For the Lord hath
avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee.
This is, this is the same thing that a him has just said.
And the king said unto Kushai, Is the young man Absalom safe?
And Kushai answered, The enemies of my Lord the king, and all
that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man
is. Now He said this very artfully,
but yet still gave the truth. And that boils down to this.
Absalom is dead. And if you don't think that's
what he said, look at the next verse.
And the king was much moved and went into his chamber over the
gate and wept. And as he went, he thus he said,
Oh my son Absalom, my son Absalom would God, I had died
for thee. Oh Absalom, my son, my son.
And this will continue the next chapter.
We'll look at it by God's grace next week.
But Kushai was slower. We got the job done.
He gave the message that needed to be given.
You know, we've been given a message of grave importance and
it requires that we give the message even if we don't get
there as fast as others may want us to get there.
It's not about how fast we get there.
It's about the fact that we get there and are faithful to the
message that we've been given. Now look at Brother Sandy.
Every month Liberty Baptist Church sends $100 a month.
You say that's not a big deal. Well, when there's 30 or 40
other churches that are also sending $100 a month, and I
don't know, that's how many supporting churches they have.
I'm just guessing. But we're giving him the money
that is necessary to do what? To be able to do that which God
has called him to do. And if we could, I would say
something like this, that we put money in Scott Sandy's hand and
we tell them this, run, run, go give the message.
That's what we're doing. Kenny Keck in Papua New Guinea
and Kaylee Keck, I should say, because he's not the only
missionary. His wife's the missionary and
the kids are the missionaries. We put money in their hands and
say this, run. Now, we don't put that on the
memo line of the check. We just put their name.
But do you know what we're saying?
Hey, go run. You got a message, and when you
get there, you give the message that you're supposed to give.
Run. I don't know if you're aware of
this, but you pay me. I hope that doesn't upset any of
you, but it's you pay me a little bit of money.
And that's not always been the case, but I thank the Lord of
the past few years. That's what it is.
But you know, you probably think that, you know, you pay your
pastor to gallivant around the world and be an international
speaker, but that's not why you pay me.
I thank the Lord that there's abilities to be able to do
certain things at certain times. But you know why you have a
pastor? Every month there's a paycheck
that's put in my hand. And you know what you're telling
me as a church run, do not run away from here, but to go run
and give the message to as many people as I can.
That's what you expected me, by the way.
You ought to expect that of me to be able to proclaim from
behind this pulpit or in front of this pulpit the good news and
to proclaim the good news outside of this building to as
many people as we can. This is what you expect of me.
But also remind you today that the expectation that is had of
the missionaries and the expectation this had of the
pastor is God's same expectation for you as well, is that he's
put the gospel in your trust. And this is what he's saying,
run, run. And when you get there, make
sure you open your mouth and say what you need to say.
You know, here's the problem. This man had the story.
He had the speed, but he didn't speak.
What do we have? We have the story.
You know, I'm not talking about a story like a fairy tale.
We have the greatest story ever told, the story of the good news
of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.
We have the story. We have the speed.
The message can get out faster than any other time in human
history that God has allowed you to be able.
Some of you will give the gospel on your social media.
I see you do that. You can.
You can give your own words to hundreds, if not thousands of
people for free. Do you realize how amazing that
is? Now, not everybody is
comfortable doing that. Not everybody should do that.
But we can have tracks printed at a low price, a very low
price. In fact, we've got three boxes
in the back that I'm about to put out now that I'm back that
because we've used so many of them and there's more.
We can print those. We can do social media
campaigns, a YouTube videos, all these different types of things,
but it really all comes down to this, that every single one of
us, we have the story, we have the speed, but if we don't
speak, we're nothing better than him as who runs and runs and
runs and runs. He gets there, he's out of
breath, and when he looks the guy in the eye, he's got nothing
to say. Now, let's get real here for a
moment. Not that I haven't been real for
the last 30 minutes, but let's get real here for a moment.
There are times you know you need to give the gospel.
You can feel within your heart the Holy Spirit telling you this
is someone that you need to talk to about the Lord and you look
him in the eye and it doesn't come out.
Why? Well, it could be like a him as
you're afraid of the repercussions.
Maybe he thought he was going to die.
It could be because you're just afraid of the reaction to the
other person. So I'm not afraid of what other
people think. Well, come on, man.
Let's get, remember, I said we're getting real.
Of course you are. I'm a pastor.
I get afraid. I, I, I, I'm embarrassed to
admit that. But at the same time, I, I have
to be honest with you. There are times I am fearful of
giving the gospel. Why?
Why should I? God's given me everything.
But yeah, I looked that guy in the eyes.
I looked that woman right in the eyes.
And I, I think I don't know how they're going to respond.
Maybe this isn't the day and I'm a Himez.
I got the story, I got the speed, but I don't speak.
But yet there's all these different groups out there that
have got lies wrapped up in lies, gift wrapped in further
lies, and they're out there peddling their wares everywhere
you go. And here we are.
We got the truth. We've got a Resurrection Sunday
two weeks from now, and there's people you know that need to be
in this building even more that there's people that you know
that need to know the gospel. And you can invite him in here
and we can preach the gospel to him.
Praise the Lord for that. But you could also give it to
him if the Lord opens the doors for you as well.
We have a visitation right before the day before.
Why? Because there's some people we
want to remind him the next day, hey, there's a church you need
to go to that's open, that loves you, that's going to preach the
gospel. We need help that day.
We need help every time we have visitation.
We need help that day. I'll tell you something that
really affected me while I was away.
Diane had about an hour that she was doing something in Edinburgh
and, and I had an hour to myself and here I am in a foreign
country. And I thought, what am I going
to do for the next hour? And I said, you know what, I'm
just going to walk around and see what I can find.
And so downtown Edinborough, the old city, the castle's right
there. I mean, it's, it's so
incredible. And I start walking and I
realized, oh, you know what I would do?
I'll go walk to the train station because I love trains.
And so I'm going to walk over there.
It's about 10 minutes away. So I walk over the train
station. I look inside and it's, you
know, it's train station all right.
But it's pretty neat. And so I walk back out and I
look around. I say, what else?
What else should I do? I still got a decent amount of
time. And I remembered as I looked
over into the gardens that was across the road a little bit of
a way, that there was a statue of David Livingstone.
Now the world looks at David Livingstone as a great explorer,
the one who saw the first from Europe, who saw what would be
called become Victoria Falls, the first who who mapped out
Africa in a very meaningful way. But we know him not as much as
explorer, but the preacher of the gospel.
In fact, he was the one who requested at his death, he says
you can bury me at Westminster Abbey, but bury my heart here in
Africa. And there were men who had great
expense, decided to take his body themselves and a journey
that was arduous that delivered him there.
But they buried his heart there in Africa because he loved them
so much and gave them the gospel.
He was, he may have been explorer second, but his heart
was not let me be an explorer. His heart was, I'm going to be a
missionary and he made track so much.
They haven't explorer quite a bit.
I'm going to look at this statue and I go over, there's David
Livingstone. The statue of him, just to be
clear, I know I'm jet lagged, but I know it wasn't him.
All right, there's the statue. I'm looking at it, and I look
just about 15 feet away and there's four people standing
there, groups of two with communication racks.
And there are 4 Jehovah Witnesses standing in front of
the statue of David Livingstone. And my heart broke and I thought
there's no one here to tell the story of David Livingstone.
There's no missionary that I know of in Edinburgh.
There are some places where there are churches, but there
are so many of them don't even preach the word of God.
I couldn't even tell you where you could hear the word of God
preached in Edinburgh or many places in in in Scotland today.
A place in the United Kingdom that sent out missionaries in
the 1800s in a way that no one else did, that now needs
missionaries in equal proportion.
And here I'm looking at one of the greatest missionaries,
Whoever lived and the ones who are speaking the most are for
Jehovah Witnesses. I thought if that's not the
state of Christianity Today, I don't know what is.
We've got the message, we've got the story, we got the speed, but
we don't speak. It's a problem.
So if you know the comedic duo, Penn and Teller, I, I've used
this before. It's a very well known story and
it, but it is a real story of Penn Jillette.
He's an avowed atheist. He went to church as a younger
person, but now is an atheist. And there was someone who came
up to him with a Bible at the end of a show and wanted to give
him the Bible. And there were people that
mocked this man for doing so. And Penn Jillette, you can look
this up. This isn't just preaching.
This is true. All right.
I did find it on the Internet. But it's true that Penn Jillette
said this. I have more respect for this man
than anyone else. I don't believe a word he's
saying. But if he believes the message
of which he does, then he has to tell as many people as possible,
including me. Why?
Because the message is this heaven is real, hell is real,
and that if he believes that he has to tell as many people as
possible, I have more respect for him than almost anyone else,
even if I don't believe it. No, if we're not careful, we
could be messengers with no message.
This isn't the Country Club. This is not a recreation room.
It's not a place where good Christian people meet and mingle
and have friendships that they can't have other places.
There's a place where we gather for fellowship, but so that we
go and tell as many people as we can.
You may be a Kushai, you may be a little bit slower, you may not
be the first one there, but when the times are ready, open your
mouth and say what God's told you to say and God will bless
it. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.