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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Second Samuel chapter #3 in the Word of God tonight, second
Samuel chapter #3 and that we saw last week the patience of
David. Remember, even though the goal
post moved, even though he thought he was going to be king
and still was not king yet, he was able to be patient because
he knew that God was in control. But tonight, we're going to
continue to look at David and Ishbasheth, and as Ishbasheth
and his splinter Kingdom, if you will, is going to be on the
decrease decline, we're going to see that David and his Kingdom,
the rightful Kingdom, Amen, is going to be on the increase and
on the incline. You know, for me being a pastor,
this is not just a job. You know, I didn't turn into a
pastor because I couldn't do anything else for a living.
And it's like, well, if you can't do something else, just be
a pastor. I guess that's not the way that
it works for me. It's it's a calling, it's a
ministry, it's a, it's a passion.
I hope that those of you who are here have known me long enough
to know that that's how I feel about the ministry, that this is
not a nine to five. This is just not a way to make a
quick buck. If it is, I picked a lousy way
to make a quick buck, all things considered.
But this is all about, it's about people and it's about
seeing people get it, you know, and seeing people get saved and
seeing them grow and seeing them get victory in their lives.
It's such an incredibly satisfying thing to be able to
see and one of the things that I have felt as a pastor often
times and one of the struggles. That I have is often times I can
see. Through someone's life and I'm
not talking about a strange prophetic type thing, but I, I
can just look at somebody and see I know what God could do in
your life if you would just give your life to him to, to look at
somebody who's struggling, you know, I know if you got saved
your life would change or to see them save but yet not really
living victoriously or not really living with Jesus as the
king of their heart. Oh sure, they're saved, but
they're not really listening to the Lord as they ought to and,
and we all go through those phases and those seasons.
It's unfortunate, but we do have those times in our own lives if
that's the case, but to look at somebody know that Jesus, Jesus
is the answer to your life. He's the answer to your problems
if you would just allow him to do the work that only he can do
it. It's really one of the things
that grieves my heart more than anything to be able to see
someone and say, won't you just let Jesus be your king?
Won't you just let him be the sovereign of your life because
it would change your life forever?
And by the way, this isn't just a problem for young people.
This isn't just a problem for new believers.
Listen, I have seen this issue from those from 8 to 80.
I've seen this issue from those who are young and the old hung
in the Lord and those who are older in their relationship with
Christ. That we all go through times or
seasons and some maybe even more so, who struggle with this.
That they just need to make Jesus Christ the King of their
life, whether through salvation, which is what we have to do
first and foremost, but then through the everyday struggles
and issues and walk of our life as well.
Well, this evening. We're going to look at the war
between the House of David and the House of Ishbisheth now.
It's going to end in our text this evening, and it's going to
come to an end through an unlikely source, someone that
you don't see as being the bridge between these two men.
But yet I believe there's a lesson that we can learn from
this man. An unlikely source, an unlikely
candidate to be able to say, you know what, David needs to be the
king. And I think there's going to be
some lessons that we can learn from this tonight in a message
that I have entitled now, then do it now, then do it down on
its face. That doesn't make a whole lot of
sense, but we're going to see where those 4 words are actually
found in our text tonight. Once you remain seated, then
we're going to read second Samuel chapter #3 beginning of
verse one and going to verse #11 Now we'll continue on after
that, but we'll stop at verse #11 for time to make some
comments as well. So it says.
Now there was long war between the House of Saul and the House
of David, but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the
House of Saul waxed weaker and weaker.
And then the David were sons born, and Hebron.
And his first born was Amnon of a Hinom the Jezreelitis, and his
second Chilean of Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.
And the third Absalom, the son of Maka, the daughter of Talmi
king of Gesher. And the 4th Adniga, the son of
Haggath and the 5th chef Hitath the son of Abatto.
And the 6th Ythrium by Igla, David's wife.
These were born to David in Hebrew.
And it came to pass while there was war between the House of
Saul, the House of David, that Abner made himself strong for
the House of Saul. You'll remember that Abner is
the uncle of David, or rather the uncle of Saul.
I apologies. And Saul had a concubine whose
name was Rizpa, the daughter of Aiya.
And Ishbashaf said to Abner, Wherefore has thou gone in unto
my father's concubine? Then was Abner Barry Roth for
the words of Istraceph, and said, Am IA dog's head, which
against Judah do show kindness this day unto the House of Saul
thy father, to his brethren, and to his friends, and have not
delivered thee into the hand of David, that thou charges me
today with a fault concerning this woman.
So do God to Abdura. More also, except as the Lord
has sworn to David Even so I do to him to translate the Kingdom
from the House of soul and to set up the throne of David over
Israel and over Judah from Dan even to Beersheba and he could
not answer Abner a word again because he feared him.
Now, whether you realize it or not, there's a great deal of
drama that just took place within the 1st 11 verses of this
chapter. So we're going to try to unpack
it a little bit and then we're going to continue on in the text
to be able to learn some lessons again in a message that I've
called now then do it. And if I was to give this
message a subtitle, it would be this Stop waiting to put the
king. On his throne.
Stop waiting to put the King on his throne.
Heavenly Father, I do pray to you be with us this evening and
allow me to say what needs to be said for these people tonight.
Allow my preparation. Allow the work.
That. Has taken place behind the
scenes to have been fruitful for the admonition for the help of
all who are here tonight and all who listen later on or watch
online. And Lord, may it help them as it
helped me and maybe bring them to a place of realizing some
things even as it did for me this last week.
Or thank you for this message and I pray that you would help
me as I deliver it. And we ask it in Jesus name,
Amen. Now from what we just read,
there's enough drama taking place here that one could think
that it came from the mind of a Hollywood screenwriter.
But it's not something that came out of the mind of Hollywood,
but rather it's found right here as we saw this morning, revealed
to us by the inspiration of the word of God.
Now, our chapter opens with this thought process of what's taking
place in this, well, civil war that's taking place between
Judah and the House of David and the other tribes and the House
of Saul, which is being represented by Ishbosheth.
But you remember, Abner is more of the puppet master.
Abner is more of the kingmaker that's here behind the scenes
that Ishbosheth, who we saw last week was a fairly weak man and
certainly a man that I believe had very little by way of, of,
of, of real character in and of himself.
And we see that David's getting stronger and Ishbasheth is
getting weaker. That that doesn't surprise us,
does it? Because we know, as we saw last
week, who was promised to be king, it wasn't Ishbasheth, it
was David who was promised to be king of Israel.
And so we have this ascension of 1 and the descending of the
other. And then we get this aside for
about four verses of the family of David and you'll realize that
as David has amassed some level of wealth and he is he is
ascending towards the Kingdom. He's also collected a few wives,
hasn't he? Along the way.
You might say, pastor, why is this mentioned here?
Because as I've said to you before, the word of God does not
shy away from the hard or sometimes the unsavory elements
of those who are still considered heroes of the faith.
David here is shown as a man who has collected women, as was the
custom of kings of that time. But let me remind you that just
because thing is a custom of those of the world does not mean
it should be the custom of the child of God.
You'd say, well pastor, where on earth does it say in the Bible
explicitly that a man should not have more than one wife?
And my answer to you is that it never says thou shalt have shall
not have. Be careful.
I would say that more than one wife.
But I would argue to you that you look right at the very
beginning. You look right at what marriage
is as instituted by God. It is what one man and one woman
that had been brought together. They leave their father and
mother and cleave together as one.
Nowhere is it ever introduced that there are to be other
elements that are involved to the marriage.
It's just implicit in the fact of what it's taught, that it's
one man and one woman and that others are not to be added into
this mix as well. It's not, well, this man and
this woman, but the same man and this woman, the same man and
this woman.
That was never God's intent. There's also a Bible principle
as well that you can find at times in the Word of God where
something is mentioned and maybe it's never condemned because
it's just being reported to us, the fact of the matter.
But you can see just from the very nature of what it is that
it's not going well. Well, I would challenge you to
go through the Word of God and find a time when multiple
marriages by one man is ever presented in a way where it
works out well. Did it work out well for David?
No Did it work out well for Solomon?
No Did it work out well for Jacob?
No. Did it work out well for Abraham
who took of his concubine, who took of his wife's servant and
had Ishmael with her? No.
It never worked out well in the Bible.
Why? Because it was never God's plan.
And if you're to look at this list of men that you have these
sons that were born of these woman in these 4 verses here in
chapter #3 of the men who were accounted for at this time never
amounted to anything, or even worse, amounted into something
quite wicked. You could take several of those
names, including Amnon and Adonijah, and find that these
are not exactly a paragons of Christian virtue, that these are
quite the opposite. So I feel like we just need to
clear off a spot there for just a moment and mention that while
these are brought to our attention here, that this is not
God's stamp of approval on what David has done here.
It's just God reporting on, well, exactly what David has
done and giving us the unvarnished look at his life.
But anytime you see this idea of polygamy in the Bible, it never
goes well. And isn't it amazing, by the
way, how things that are old always become new and polygamy
is in the news again, whether it's a reality show, Sister
Wives a few years ago, or place like Somerville where throuple's
are legally allowed to be able to be an entity.
And this is something that is becoming in the news once again.
And we just have to remind ourselves, look, God's word is
always God's word. God's truth is always truth.
And error just kind of keeps coming around over and over
again. Does it gets repackaged and gets
repurposed? You know, polygamy one time,
throuple the next, but yet what is it?
It's all sin in God's eyes, and certainly sin even though David
partook of it here in verses 2 through 6.
But then we get to the place where it says that Abner and
Ishbashaf have this conversation.
Ishbashaf comes up to Abner, and he says in verse #7 He says,
Wherefore has thou gone in unto my?
Father's concubine. Now this is.
Something that is going to be an issue a few times as we study
verse and Second Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, First and Second
Chronicles, as we look at the lives of the kings of Israel and
of Judah. But there is an issue at times
when someone who perhaps desires to be a king takes on as a
concubine someone from who used to be the king.
And the idea of so was to be able to say, look, this woman
belonged to the king and now she belongs to me.
So I guess I should be king. You say that's a pretty
backwards way of looking at things, isn't it, Pastor?
Exactly. To consider a woman a piece of
property, to consider a woman nothing more than being a a
prop, to be able to make the man a king over the people.
Certainly again, not the way that God looks at these things.
That's not what's being said. But yet Ishbashev comes up to
Abner. He says this.
Listen, man, I've heard about you.
I heard that you took one of my father's concubines.
And what he is saying in this is basically saying I'm here and
you want to make a play for the throne.
I'm here and you want to take my spot.
And again, we saw that Ishbashaf is a pretty weak man.
We saw the Ishbashaf is not a man of character.
And what's interesting about Abner's response, again, Abner
is a relation to him. They are family.
And his response is this look at verse #8 Abner was wroth for the
words of Ishbashaf, and said, Am IA dog's head, which against
Judah do show kindness. This day unto the House of soul,
thy father to his brethren, to his friends, and have not
delivered thee into the hand of David, that thou charges me
today with a fault concerning this woman.
So do God to Abner more also accept that the Lord has sworn
to David. Even so I do to him to translate
the Kingdom from the House of Salt, and to set up the throne
of David over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even unto
Beersheba. So I would say from reading this
that the accusation that Ishbasheth is making against
Abner was one that was seemingly false.
It was not one that was actually true.
Ishbasheth either had heard that this was the case, or perhaps
Ishbasheth is trying to poke the bear a little bit, if you will,
to try to make Abner mad, perhaps to try to remove him
from the way, and trying to make himself more powerful, realizing
that he seemingly looks like a puppet to all the people.
I don't know what Ishbosheth reasoning was to accuse Abner of
this, but it was a bad move. Listen, if you become king
because of a kingmaker, you don't want to make the kingmaker
mad. If you are a puppet, you don't
want to make the puppeteer mad. And that's exactly what he did.
He angered Abner and Abner says Ish Bashat.
Who are you? Who are you to say this of me?
Don't you know that the only reason you are in this throne
that you have right now is because of me?
Don't you realize you wouldn't even you wouldn't even beat
anybody if it wasn't for me? And you would dare accuse me of
trying to do something to hurt the Kingdom when I've done
nothing but try to help you? He says, you know what I'm going
to do? He says maybe I ought to just
wander right over to David and talk to him.
And maybe David ought to be the king over Israel, all of Israel
other than you. Well, verse #11 says this.
Berseth could not answer Abner a word because he feared him.
What a weak man he is. And we're going to find out how
weak even greater he is in just a moment.
But yet Abner says this. Hey, buddy, you want to?
You want to, you want to play with the bull and grab the
horns. He says you might get the horns.
And that's exactly what's going to happen right now.
He says, you think you're going to going to cross me?
He says, how about I cross the line and go over to David and
maybe we unify this Kingdom and guess who's going to be out?
It's going to be you. And we see as we continue on in
our text from verse #12 on, that's exactly what took place.
Now there's a lot of bitterness that is involved in this.
In fact, there's some of second Samuel chapter #2 that we did
not address last week that I think we may address next week
because it will pick up with where we leave off and Second
Samuel chapter #3 if that makes sense.
And so there's a lot of bitterness.
There's a lot of animosity between the House of David and
the House of Saul. And who's the one that started
all up in the 1st place? It was Abner.
Abner was the one who could not accept the fact that day would
be the king of all 12 tribes. He was the one that grabbed
Isbush Chef. He was the one who tried to make
him to be the king. He's for two years the one
that's been stirring the pot and keeping the animosity burning.
But even Abner realizes, man, this guy isn't just a puppet.
He's a fool. He's he's dangerous in the fact
of what the way he thinks he doesn't understand who he is.
He doesn't understand where he's gone or where he's been or who
David is. He says, you know what?
Let's just end this right now. And listen, we may not know
Abner's motives. It could have been just the fact
that he just felt wounded in his pride.
Look, I don't know what it is. All I know is this.
He says this has got to stop. And there's only one person who
could make this stop, and it's the one who got it started, and
that's me. So let's pick up at verse #12
and move on. Then we left off at verse #11
Look at verse 12. And Abner sent messengers to
David on his behalf, saying, Whose is the land?
Saying, also make thy league with me.
And behold, my hand shall be with thee to bring about all
Israel unto thee. And he said, Well, I will make a
league with thee. One thing I require of thee,
that is, thou shall not see my face, except thou first bring
Michael, Saul's daughter, when thou comest to see my face.
Do you remember in First Samuel chapter 18 that David was
promised that he would have Saul's daughter to be his own,
but yet Saul, in a bit of deceit towards David, ended up trying
to use it as a way for David to be killed.
David was not killed. And so he ended up giving away
Michael to another man. And so David says this, Hey, I
want to know that you're serious, Abner.
I want to know, I want to ask you to do something that's going
to cost you a little bit and it's going to cost the family a
little bit, he says. I want my wife back now again,
are we agreeing with this? David already has five more
wives than he ought to have, but yet this is what David perceives
as the correct way to go to be able to say listen she was
promised to me. I want to see her before we go
any further. So pick up at verse #14 it says
and David sent messengers to Ishbosheth soul son saying
deliver me my wife Michael, who my spouse to me for in 100 and
foreskins of the Philistines. Again, going back to that story
in First Samuel chapter 18. And Ishbosheth sent and took for
her from her husband, even from Faulty Elle the son of Laish.
And her husband went with her along weeping behind her to
Bayrum, and said Abner unto him, go return.
And he returned. This man's This man is married
to Michael and he's been married to her seemingly for probably 10
to 15 years, somewhere around that length of time.
And so Abner comes and he says, listen, Michael, remember,
David, remember, you're supposed to be married to him.
You're going to him. Hey, you, Sir, sit down.
She don't belong to you anymore. And so this man, well, he's
upset and you ought to be upset. He's about to lose his wife.
And so he's following behind Abner and he's crying and he's
weeping. And Abner says, hey, man, go
home. She don't belong to you anymore.
And talk about a weak man. He goes, OK, and he walks home.
We never hear from him again. I mean, what a crazy thing is
that, huh? That his man's wife's taken away
from him. And he's like, well, I'll try a
little. I'll cry a little bit.
But you know, oh, well, I guess I'll move on.
And that's what happens there. Verse 17 Abner had communication
with the elders of Israel saying you sought for David in times
past to be king over you. Now then do it, for the Lord has
spoken of David, saying, By the hand of my servant David, I will
save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, out of
the hand of all their enemies. And Abner Spake also in the
years of Benjamin, and Abner Witt to speak in the years of
David and Hebron, all that seemed good to Israel, and that
seemed good to the house, whole House of Benjamin.
Sorry, I lost my space there. Verse #20 And Abner came to
David to Hebron, and 20 men with him.
David made Abner and the men that were with him a feast.
And Abner said unto David, I will arise and go, and we'll
gather all Israel unto my Lord the king, that they may make a
league with thee, and that thou mayest reign over all that thine
heart desireth. And David said Abner away, and
he went in peace. So what takes place from verse
#17? And on Abner takes Michael,
delivers Michael to David, and says, David, I have kept my
word. Then he goes and he talks to all
the tribes of Israel. And he says this, listen, it's
time to bring the tribes together.
It's time to bring Israel together.
It's been a long two years. Saul died two years ago, and
we've been split in half. Judah, the larger tribe with
David, the 11 other tribes with Ishbasheth.
It's time to bring the family together.
Then he goes to the tribe of Benjamin, his own tribe.
Why is that important? Well, that's the tribe of Seoul.
And of course, they had great pride in knowing that Seoul was
their king and he was one of their own.
And he went to them and he told them the same thing.
He said it's time for us to bring everybody back together.
It's time for the civil war to be over.
And then he goes to David, and David very graciously throws a
banquet for him. And David very graciously
decides to be a unifier instead of trying to make things worse
and instead of trying to get a pound of flesh, an ounce of
blood from Abner, he says this, Listen, the time for this is
over. It's time for us to come
together. It's time for the Kingdom to be
is 1. It's time for me to be the king
as God has promised all of that time ago.
So with all of that being said, there is an interesting
statement you might have caught because it came from our text
just a few moments ago. There's an interesting statement
that I want to focus on for the remainder of the message that we
have tonight because it's something that I think is really
helpful to us when we consider, look at verse #17 and it says an
Abner had communication with the elders of Israel, saying you saw
it for David in times past to be king over you now, then do it.
I'm going to stop right there for a minute.
He says there have been times in the past when you knew David
should be king. Now when exactly that is, I
don't know. It very likely could have been
that after Saul died that the tribes were starting to believe
that they needed to coalesce together under David and that as
they were starting to that process and allowing it to
begin, that Abner ended up saying, no, no, no, hold on a
second. Before you go to David, there's
another option. Before you go to David, there's
another way. You may not have realized it,
folks, but there was a another son of Saul that I have hiding
over here, and he was hiding because I believe he wasn't in
battle. He was not a man who was.
Honorable in any way? But he says, listen, you don't
have to have David. You could have this guy over
here and wouldn't he be so much better for you?
And, and so Abner was saying, look, there was a time when you
all sought for David and then you let him be.
He said, but now listen, now then do it.
It's time to make the king the king.
It's time to stop talking about this.
It's time to stop talking about putting him on his throne, and
it's time to get this done now. Then do it.
You know, I feel like we've been calloused by the phrase just do
it over the years. And we can probably thank Nike
for that, can't we? Because starting in 1988, they
started one of the most popular advertising campaigns in history
by simply saying those 3 words. Just do it.
And Nike came became from a boutique shoe resaler or seller
rather, to becoming an international juggernaut, which
it is today. And much of that can be
attributed to that phrase. Just do it.
And so I feel like we've heard it so many times that it's
something that almost we don't really think about very much
anymore. And it's just become a slogan.
It's become an advertising phrase.
It's not really something that maybe we internalize as we ought
to do. But, you know, there is an
element of the Christian life that it really comes down to
this. Just do it.
There's enough of the talk. There's enough of the preaching,
there's enough of the teaching. You say there's enough preaching
and teaching. Well, obviously there's never
enough in one sense. But what I'm trying to say is
this. There's some people who just
want to absorb preaching and absorb teaching and read and
hear and learn, but yet they never want to put it into
practice. They never want to.
They never just want to do it. They want to feel like they're
learning. They want to feel like they're
growing just by sitting under the Word.
But listen, God didn't give us the Word just so that we could
expand our minds and not actually put it into practice in
the 1st place. When it comes to the issue of
having the King on the throne, just do it.
And when it comes to having the King on the throne of our heart,
what are we to do? Just do it.
Is Jesus Christ the King of our heart?
You know what's interesting about David?
David never forced himself on anybody, did he?
David's passive here, David is a representation, I believe, of
Jesus Christ. What is he doing?
David is ready, David is available.
He's the king of promise, but he is not going to force himself
upon anybody. Do you realize our king, King
Jesus? Is there any other king, I mean,
any other king can only get their power from the King of
kings and the Lord of Lords. But Jesus will not force himself
upon you. He does not force himself upon
you in salvation. He does not force himself upon
you in your daily life. You know what we have to do.
We have to take that which we understand the word of God and
do it. And every day we have to wake up
and say, Lord, you're in control of this day and not me.
Lord, you're in control of my wallet and not me.
Lord, you're in control of my agenda and not me.
Lord, you're control of my eyes and not me.
Lord, you're in control of my mind and not me.
You're in control of my ears. You're in control of my hands.
You're in control of my feet and where they go.
You're in control of my heart. You're in control of my car.
You're in control of my house. You're in control.
You say, pastor, that's a lot of stuff, and I'm not even close to
being done. If he's the king, he's in
control of everything. But yet I've often found to be
the case is that you and I as believers, we want him to be the
king. But we only wanted to be the
king so much, and we only wanted to be the king so far.
And sure, we like having him around.
It's comforting to know that he's there.
But we still want to exert some level of autonomy on our own.
We still want to be our own person.
And here's Jesus. He's waiting to be crowned.
He's waiting to be put on the throne.
And we get to a place where even Abner looks at this.
He says, man, just do it. Just do it.
Get it done. And you know, there's another
part of this that's it's almost galling when you think about it.
And I don't know that I caught this.
I, I've been working on this message all week and I've
actually struggled with this message all week and trying to
the compose it and trying to put it together.
I've been working on it as early as Tuesday and just not, not
happy with how things lined up and, and, and I don't know.
But every time I came back to this thought because it was
troubling to me, because listen again, do you think Abner's a
hero here? I mean.
Abner's the. One that got everyone into this
mess in the first place. Abner's hands aren't necessarily
clean here, but for whatever issue, the insult by Ishbashaf,
whatever it was, Abner did come to his senses and we can be
thankful he came to his senses again.
I, I can't really say the motives of his heart and
entirety because the Bible doesn't tell us.
We can probably infer some things, but you and I have
probably been someplace in our lives where, you know, we got to
the right side of things and it's because we got to a pretty
low place. And perhaps this is what
happened to Abner here. He realizes that even the level
of control he thought he had, he doesn't even have the level of
respect he thought he engendered from Israel he didn't have.
And he got to a low place. And he said, look at this.
Just look at this verse 17 or verse #18 Now do it.
For the Lord has spoken of David saying, by the hand of my
servant David, I will save my people Israel out of the hand of
the Philistines and out of the hand of all of their enemies.
The part that really troubled me, of course, the first part.
Now then do it. You know, that's where we're
we're we're kind of getting the thrust of the message.
But Hebner admits in that second phrase that he knew all along
that David was supposed to be king.
Am I reading the same thing you are this evening?
Look at it now then do it. For the Lord has spoken of
David. Well, how long?
Has he known that? I would have to wonder that he's
known that for some period of time, and he's saying it in a
way to the men of Israel, to the leadership of Israel, as if
they've known that for some time.
And so what's the problem here? And you're saying basically for
the last two years, I knew David was king.
I knew he was supposed to be on the throne, but yet I decided to
do my own thing anyway. You know what often times is the
problem with believers. And listen, I am.
I'm right there with you is that we know what's right, we know
what we ought to do, but yet we just don't want to do it because
the throne of our heart is ruled by self instead of by King
Jesus. Abner knew David was supposed to
be king. There's an argument to be made
that all the people of Israel knew David was supposed to be
king, but they wanted to be the ones in charge and not David.
And so many times, when it comes to the life of the believer, so
many times we know that Jesus should be on the throne of our
heart, but yet we're just too comfortable with the Kingdom
that we have created ourselves. And so we know what's right.
We know we shouldn't be doing these things.
We know we shouldn't be watching these things.
We know we shouldn't be saying these things.
We know we shouldn't be acting this way.
Or we know we should be doing certain things, or we should be
acting in certain ways, or we know we should be doing things.
The things we're not supposed to do, we know not to do them.
The things that we're supposed to do, we know to do them.
But yet, as Paul said, but yet we do the opposite.
Why? Because who's the king of the
heart? We ourselves are.
And now Abner says, listen, I realized I was wrong.
David needs to be the king now. Do it now.
Do it too many times. We as believers just get to the
place where we know what we're supposed to do.
But yet the Kingdom of self is far too great and it cannot be
overthrown. So what do we do?
We stop waiting to make Jesus the King of our hearts and make
him the King of our hearts, both in position and in practice.
We stop waiting for Jesus to be the King of our hearts, and we
make him the King of our heart, both in position and in
practice. Listen, Jesus could force
himself upon you as sovereign, but He will not.
He's there like David, waiting for you to acknowledge who he
is. Now is was David the King of
promise? Absolutely.
It didn't matter who said he was or he wasn't.
God had said he was, but yet it was important for all those
people to recognize it as well. Listen, whether you admit Jesus
is the Lord of your life or not, He is the Lord of your life.
But it sure does make a difference in your life whether
you admit it or not, doesn't it? But he's the Lord of your
speech, No, He should govern the way that you speak.
He's the Lord of your actions. He's the Lord of every area of
your life, and there's no area that the sovereign is not
allowed to be in control of. You know, we have trouble
understanding this in our society because we don't live in
the monarchy. I don't know about you.
I'm happy for that. We kind of did a war over that
to make sure we didn't have a monarchy anymore.
Threw some tea overboard. I don't know if any of you heard
about that, but that happened around these parts a little
while ago. We don't have a king, but I do
realize that maybe we have a little bit of overlap with a
work relationship. My very first job that I had, I
worked at McDonald's because that's, you know, America,
right? You know, I was 15 years old and
I was working at McDonald's making $5.00 an hour thinking
that I would pretty cool stuff, let me tell you.
And there I was on the keyboard making the orders, getting
everything done. And it was amazing to me that
there were times I only worked, I think maybe 10 hours a week
for the longest time because my parents, you know, I was just
working maybe a 5:00 to 8:00, a 5:00 to 9:00 after school.
My parents were very careful with how much I worked at the
store there. And, but I remember, you know,
you go in at night and a lot of times there'd be a little bit of
a dinner rush and then it was quiet and I didn't know what to
do. And so a lot of times I would
just start cleaning stuff up because I didn't want to just
stand behind the counter. I just kind of started to work.
And I remember working with other people because back in
those days there wasn't those kiosks that you had to order
from. They're like real live people
taking orders. And there are usually two or
three of us each at our station to get people through the line
quickly. I know that's a concept that's
from a long time ago, McDonald's, It's not that way
anymore, but that's the way it was.
And I remember I had a manager, his name was Jose.
He's the very first manager that I ever had.
And Jose would tell us, listen, if there's time for you to
stand, then there's still time for you to work.
And he would give U.S. jobs to do.
You need to clean the Mcflurry machine.
You need to clean the milkshake machine.
Oh, my kid, the milkshake machine didn't work even 25
years ago. But anyway, these are all these
different things that you had to do to be able to clean, you
know, go clean up the dining room.
You know, just make sure you sweep up, make sure the tables
are wiped over all that. And I remember I'm 15 years old.
And so I'm just dumb enough to think that when the manager
tells you do something, you just do it.
But yet I was working with people sometimes twice my age,
who would say something like this.
Jose can't tell me what to do. Like he thinks I'm gonna go
clean the dining room. I work the I work the register.
I'm I'm not Mcflurries. I'm not dealing with Mcflurries.
Help the drive through. Why would I do that?
And it was amazing to me, people that would sometimes behind his
back and oftentimes to his face, say something like this.
I'm not doing that. And it just struck me as odd.
I'm thinking they're paying us right, but they're telling us
what to do. We knew when we came in that for
whatever time we're here, we have to follow the instructions
that they're giving us. And I just never understood why.
Why would I even want to stand around?
I'd rather work and keep myself busy than I would just standing
there for 20 minutes waiting for the next customer to come.
I'd rather wash a Mcflurry machine.
I'd rather pray over the milkshake machine, see if we can
get it to work. I'd rather do all these things.
This would be a much better job to do.
And I was just dumb enough to do what the supervisor told me to
do. And I was told at 15 years old
that they would have made me a manager if I wasn't 15 years old
because I was one of the few people.
It just worked. And it wasn't because I was
special. It's just because like, well,
that's what you're supposed to do, right?
Well, after a while, I was making $5.00 an hour at
McDonald's and that wasn't enough.
And so I went over to Target to work.
I was now 16 1/2 and I was making 650 an hour.
Whoa, baby, 650 an hour. I mean, that was a, that's a big
deal from $5.00 an hour, 650. I mean, come on, you know, so
I'm going to go over work at Target.
They hired me to work at the cash register.
And by the way, I'm old enough to remember that when you had a
credit card, there was no PIN pad.
We got to pull out the carbon copies and the, you know, kind
of the old fashioned way. That's how we used to do things
back when I worked at Target. And that was the way it was.
Back in those days, so anyway, I worked for a while, they would
say, hey Adam, we need somebody to work carts, go fetch those
carts. And you know, it looks fun up
here in the spring when it's 75° in Florida, when it's 95 and
100% humidity, it's really not fun.
But I didn't know that I had a choice to tell them I didn't
want to do it. So I just went.
I worked carts for a while. I learned how to do customer
service. I ended up learning how to be
able to process returns. One day they said, hey, we need
you to work in the Food Ave. That was the where you did short
order cooking back in those days.
There's a little fat flat top grill and you would work there.
They gave me one day of training and then left me alone.
And I would say there's a lot of people should have got their
money back for their food for a while because I was cooking eggs
and omelets and all kinds of things for breakfast and going
to lunch, cooking hamburgers and stuff like that.
He said, well, you should have told him no, I didn't know I had
an option. They were in charge, they were
paying me how I worked out in the lawn care center.
Hey, should this plant get sun? Should this plant get shade?
Does it have A tag on it? Because I don't know.
We had a big book back in those days because there was like no
Internet. Or if there was, it took an hour
to be able to pull up a picture. And so we had a big book that
was about this thick that we would go through and check out.
You know, it gets this much water, it gets this much light,
it gets this much shade. You plant in the summer, you
plant in the in the, in the spring, you do all these things.
I did all of it. Why?
Because they told me to. I didn't know I had any choice.
And the fact of the matter is I did have a choice.
I could say no and get fired. That might have been a long
processes. It seems like in a lot of these
places, sometimes it is a long process of defiance to firing.
But yet in the end, it's always the same.
You're fired, you don't want to follow instructions, you're
gone, bye bye. That's the way it works.
But you know what I found? I found this to be true.
God tolerates a level of self will that no manager, no
employer, or no king ever would. He allows us to say no.
He allows us to push away His lordship of our life.
Why? I would submit it's because He
loves you more than any supervisor, than any employer or
any king ever could. He loves you so much that He
will allow you to say no, even to your own detriment, because
he will not force his love upon you.
He will not force his kingship upon you.
He wants to be your king, but he only wants to be your king if
you put him on the throne yourself.
We all know what to do. I would submit.
We all know what to do. That's right.
But the issue is this are. You going to do it, We make him
the king of your heart and Abner's a great example.
He was a flawed man. He was a man that had a lot of
problems. He was a man that knew to do
right and actively went against that which was right for a long
period of time. But even he came to his senses.
He says, you know what, we just got to do this.
We've got to make the rightful man the king.
And you and I, we might have a long complicated back story, but
by the grace of God. We need to make him King, who is
King in our lives first through salvation.
He needs to be king of everyone's life through
salvation, but then He's sovereign in our day-to-day life
that every minute of every hour we allow Him to be in control.
And there's no area of life that we say He doesn't control.
Lord, you can have everything except my finances.
Lord, you can have everything except my family.
Lord, you can have everything, but I'll worship as I want to.
Lord, you can have everything, but I talk the way that I want
to. Lord, you can have everything,
but my friends are my friends. Lord, you can have everything,
but I look at what I want to look at.
I experienced what I experienced.
You know, then he's not the king because David wasn't the true
king until he was the king of every tribe.
If Abner got it and Israel got it, you can get it and I can get
it. And to the final admonition is
this Now then do it. Do you bow your head and close
your eyes with me this evening? It's not just enough to know
that he should be the king. You've got to do it.
I can't do it for you. Your spouse can't do it for you.
The kids can't do it for you. Your boss can't do it for you.
Diane can't do it for you. No.
Who does it? You have to put him in his
rightful place. And here's Abner.
He do all along. David was supposed to be king
because of his own selfishness. He caused those problems for two
years. Don't allow your own
selfishness. Don't allow your own self will
to keep you from doing that. What you must do to allow God to
be sovereign over everything, that He has control over every
area of your life. Just as a manager can tell you
to work in whatever area, just as a king can require anything,
then yes, our God requires all. But may I remind you, our God is
more loving and benevolent than any manager, than any
supervisor, than any CEO, than any king.
There is no more loving sovereign then your King Jesus.
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.