1 Samuel 27-28

Good morning, everybody. We’re gonna We’re gonna continue Terra’s announcement Theme of celebration of Easter coming up. I agree. Invite some friends because a lot of people are planning on their first return to church on Easter is what I’m hearing. So make sure you invite your neighborhoods, your network. So I’d like to roll the celebration on into this morning. Um, anyone know what this is? This is a hat. Does anyone have? Does anyone have an idea of what happens? What’s different about our building? What? The floors. You’re right, Brandon. The floors. I’m throwing at you. Ready? Catch we? That’s that’s on me. That’s not me. Are we like to celebrate the end of our restore campaign. We’ve been doing a lot of building projects and we finished the lobby, so yeah, give yourself a hand church. That’s a big thing. Come on, come on. That was a big thing. It’s fun to celebrate, so I think we should another thing, uh, next Sunday, the fourth Sunday of every month for a while. We’re going to try something out. Thanks for Let’s try stuff. We’re gonna do a next step class. Um, if you are interested in who we are, what we are, what we do, how are structured, where we’re going, why we do what we do. The thought is that it would be during church during this exact 10 30 hour. I can be if any of you new people have been coming around that don’t know us yet. We can have a class leveraging Sunday school and nursery that’s rolling. I’ll bring a box of doughnuts and we can go through some material. It’ll be fun. It’ll be upbeat. And I could be fun to get to know some of you guys and just talk about who we are. And I know it’s hard to get to know people and any church experience, especially during a pandemic time. It’s difficult to get to know people, and so that’s our attempt at trying to take that step with you finding out what the next steps might be for you. Um, another thing I think we should and could be celebrating is, uh, you know, we we have large gatherings like this. Uh, this is our churches large gathering version. And Jesus had, you know, I’m not Jesus, but Jesus did this with, like, 5000 people. I’m not Jesus, but you’re not 5000 people. But, you know, we have large gatherings as our rhythms of the church, and we have small group gatherings we have. We have a bunch of community groups where people try to get to know each other better, because I’m not my best in the morning. I’m more a night out, and it’s fun to hang out people and get to know people. And those happen in homes. Those happen at church. Some are masked, some are casual mask and those happen all around the city, different nights of the week. So that’s the second rhythm we have, and then a third rhythm we’re trying to implement. Some groups have done it. Some groups are working towards that of having a smaller group from that small group of 3 to 5 friends that hang out and get to know each other. If you’re not friends, you’re not going to really be transparent to know each other. And so, ideally, you and a few guys that you know from your small group are you in a few ladies, you know from your small group are hanging out and get to know each other better. And the hope is that we just keep pushing discipleship down into the deeper and deeper recesses of our church because this time is great. But small groups are a time that really helped move that needle of helping people take next steps and their faith in those smaller groups of three guys and three girls meeting and praying for each other, holding each other accountable. That’s what life’s take. 234 steps forward. And so it’s exciting. Celebrate what God is doing. It seems like God has, you know, solar church. The There’s a lot of themes in that parable of the Sower, but it seems like the main theme is you cast seed, and you trust that God will multiply that seed with new fruits. And and it seems like trying to find a silver lining in the last year and a half of our lives that, it seems I got is potentially. It seems like he’s setting us up to be multiplying to having to services. That’s the thing. That’s a lot of work, and it seems like God is raising up leaders and laborers, and I trust God will keep doing that as we go forward and we broke up to two services. So we could, you know, love our city. Love you. Love, love. People spread out, do a pragmatic, pregnant, pragmatic thing to help out. But now we’re coming out of this thing. It seems like we might just have to stay in this this whole to service world because of size and growth. And so I think we should celebrate when God is multiplying and growing us and multiplication of pain. It’s challenging. It’s stretching. But I think it’s It’s good. It’s what you see in the New Testament Church. You see multiplication of leaders, labor servants. More people need to step up because there’s more roster spots to fill when we spread out our labor pool. And so I just I’m excited about what God is doing. So let’s let’s pray and let’s turn to our our topic we’re looking at today, Uh, let’s pray. Jesus, Thank you for this church. Thank you for what you’re doing in the lives of this church. Lord, your church is a gathered people, and it’s good to be with your people this morning. It’s good to pray. It’s good to look at your scripture. It’s good to good to talk and laugh and be challenged and be encouraged and be instructed. Lord, we just We just need you, Jesus, To really instruct us, encourage us convict us approach to the spirit would really convict us and challenge us as we look at this passage today. Attitude reveal things to our minds that we didn’t. But we missed things that were complacent towards things that were compromised in Lord, I pray to just really challenge us in areas in our life. We commit this time to you. If you don’t show up, why did we show up? God, we trust that you’re going to show up today, but you show up to humble hearts. Contrite hearts yielded hearts. I ask that you would see a room full of humble yielded men and women that want to serve you and obey you and your word. We commit this time to you in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right. So if you read ahead like I think some of you are doing, you peeked ahead. Uh, this chapter is quite different than last week’s chapter. Last week’s chapter David was about to sin and commit almost genocide of a people group, and Abigail came and appealed to him, and he repented and was humble. Remember last week, If you missed it, go watch it later this week, not not the same exact thing is happening. So David is this time in his life. He’s at the end of that, either 10 to 13 years of being on the run, running from his life from Saul, who was attempting to kill him, Solves, tried to kill him individually, and saw has been trying to systematically hunt him with 3000 of his soldiers chasing him throughout the wilderness of Israel. And David is going from tired, too fatigued, too exhausted to deep exhausted, and David is on the path to burn out right now, Um, and David is not his best in this chapter. Deep fatigue, deep exhaustion is setting in and in Chapter 27 God is not mentioned in this chapter, and God is not consulted in this chapter. We pick up in Chapter 27 verse one first, Samuel, 27 1, David said to himself. One of these days, I’ll be swept away by Saul and David. We see he’s looking to his own his own resources. He’s anticipating that Saul is going to catch him. In the past, he was, like, stuck and trapped in the wilderness and solves. 3000 men are closing in that, a messenger said. The Philistines are attacking, so saw how to leave Saul. David was stuck in a cave, and Saul’s men are outside the cave. David has been in a fortress hiding for years. David is running, He’s tired, he’s breaking down and he’s thinking to himself, David said to himself, Someday someone’s going to get me. I’m not gonna. I’m going to use all my nine lives. God’s not gonna protect him anymore. I’m going to get caught. I’m going to get killed by Saul and David. It feels like he has no other options, David said to himself, and I was reminded of the wrestling team. Shane and I were on in college. Um, Shane was on the team. I was injured on the team, but on this this wrestling team, we I could be wrong, Shane, remind me later, but it seems like we lost every year before we got there. We lost all the time as a wrestling team. We got 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. It seemed like the program never quite won. In the end, they always seem to choke in the end. Uh, that’s a strong thing to say. They always seem to struggle in the national championship playoffs camp, and then Shane arrived, and then we started to win. But beyond just that, it seems like the head coach got a sports, uh, mental health coach who came in like, coached us up. He helped with the Huskers with some of their athletic programs as athletes deal to stress and anxiety and pressure of normal life and then peak performance in the playoffs and then the national championships. And and and And that seemed to occur about the same time we started winning, and then we won three national championships in a row. I think that was a part of it. It kind of helped some athletes not be head cases. They said to themselves a lot of things that weren’t very constructive to say to yourself the night before a big competition. They said to themselves things that weren’t very helpful. An hour before competition, they said to them their self talk wasn’t very helpful, and it helped a lot of head cases not be such head cases. I think I think that’s that’s reality. What would you say to yourself? We in this room, we can say things to ourselves, driving to work tomorrow morning. You said things to yourself, looking in the mirror this morning as you brush your teeth. You said things to yourself, getting on the car, walking in here during the worship songs, you had a narrative occurring in your head, thoughts that were registering in your head about you yourself. What’s happening around your expectations for the future yourself. Talk is occurring all the time, and we could be very wise in what we say to other people and very foolish from what we say to ourselves, David in this passage in Verse one, David said to himself, a very foolish, faithless statement. One of these days, Saul is going to get me and Saul is going to kill me. We can be our own worst enemy. We can be self sabotaging. We have unhealthy thoughts. We could have non faithful thoughts that are flying through our minds. And if we don’t register them and check them to the ground. They can just keep a life of their own, and they can lead us in a different way. David is a terrible counselor to himself. In this passage, David leaves the wilderness of Israel and goes and lives at a high risk, high venture political asylum. Political refugee in the nation of the Philistines in his old enemy, the philistine king he’s getting in political bed with, and he’s living in the capital of the Philistines nation. This is a low point of David’s life. It’s known by deception. It’s characterized by a deception in his life, and it’s known as also genocide We see in vs two through 12. This is the final period of David’s life before he comes to the throne. He’s this. This period of this chapter last about a year and four months. It’s about their 10 10 BC, and it says that his Army grew and first chronicles 12 20. It says that these two other tribes started to really send soldiers to join David and his army, and they really had beef with Saul. And so they join David and they love David, and they seem to hate Saul the Philistines they really lean into. That whole enemy of my enemy is my friend concept. And they knew that Saul and David had a turf war, and they knew there was a bad breakup that occurred. And they’re trying to leverage the goat. The greatest of all time quarterback. I mean, the greatest of all time soldier that ever existed joined their ranks just like Tom Brady and Bill Belichick split up in Tampa Bay. Capitalized. The Philistines capitalized on David has. He’s running from Saul, and they try to leverage that to help get the edge on solve. The Philippines have been fighting against all for four years. All of Saul’s political career has been fighting against the Philistines, and I think, maybe David, give us that edge to get over the top and put salt down once and for all. So the Nation of Israel can be a subdued people group who can give us resources and goods as they need. And so David escapes. And during this season, David is on the run, and he escapes and runs to the enemies of God, the Philistines, David one. He escaped Saul and experiences some reprieve from Saul to David builds his wealth during this time, and he uses that wealth to curry favor with the Israelite leaders. We see in first Samuel, 30 Verse 26 Here is a Gift to You, which we received from the Lord’s Enemies, and David built his wealth during this time. We’ll read about in a moment, and he used that to curry favor with the leaders of Israel when he gets reunited with the Nation of Israel. The third thing David learned during this time he learned military tactics in iron warfare with the Philistines, which they were known for, which serves him later in his military career. And then David also eliminates some of Israel’s smaller enemies in the wilderness to the south of the border. David has a short stint in the capital city near the King, but then he’s under observation in an occupied city, and so he decided to move 25 to 30 miles south of Gaff. He’s close, but not too close, and we pick up in first Samuel, 27 verse 11. It says this David did not let any man or woman live as he went on these rating trips frequently his known custom for him and his soldiers, he went on. He did not let any man or woman live to be brought to Gaff for, he said, or they will inform on us and say, This is what David did. This was David’s custom during the whole time he stayed in the Philistine territory. Now this might be pragmatic, but this policy is obviously wrong again. God is not mentioned in this chapter. David is not consulting the Lord. This is not a highlight of David’s life. This is an example of a fallen man, a fallen future king of Israel who’s doing what makes sense in his own eyes. This policy David is doing take zero faith to execute. David is being very worldly in his dealings. He’s being very political, very strategic and very faithless. It’s not a fun chapter to read. It’s not a fun chapter to preach. It’s not a fun moment. This is the This is human thinking, on display human strategy, David and the forgetfulness is of God David forgetting the promises of God, the protection of God. The problem. The providence of God. David is a shadow of his former self. David is on and I would say he’s blowing up right now. He is not doing what he should be doing. David is not a man after God’s own heart. In this passage, David is showing he’s skilled at playing people against people. David is D duplicate do protest in this chapter, and David is deadly in this chapter, and then we go to Chapter 28. That’s David. The five philistine armies are rallying to put salt down once and for all, and they want to leverage David. And the King said, I’m going to make you the leader of my bodyguard to keep me safe like you used to do that for Saul. You’re gonna do that for me and David. The tension in the story is just rising, and it’s building, and it seems like you can feel it as you read the the paragraphs and David says to the king, almost something ominous. He says. You will know what you’re serving can do, kind of like he’s going to betray the king in front of everyone that doesn’t register at the Philistine King, and you’ve got to tune in next week to hear how this story ends. Because the narrative shifts from David and what he’s doing to Saul and Saul is not doing any better. This series has many themes, but the workbook we’re working through calls it working, looking for a leader, and one of the themes we’re seeing is leadership on display. Good leadership and bad leadership solves a 60 year old man at this time who his whole leadership career has been plagued of insecurities and indecision. We see in versus Chapter 28 verses, three through six, Saul is in full panic mode. His heart is afraid and his heart is pounding. He sees the five, you know, hoards of philistine soldiers closing in. He’s on this mountain area is what scholars, biblical historical battle scholars think he’s in a safe area. But he’s trapped and their surrounding him with their huge number of armies. And David, I mean, saw his whole life. His whole career has been plagued by this, this prophecy from the judge, Samuel, who said, God will take the nation of Israel. He’ll rip it from you like this road was ripped. God will rip the nation of Israel because you have a proud heart because your unrepentant man and Saul’s heard this message over and over in his life. And he’s thinking, I’m 60. I looked trapped. There’s five Nations. There’s five armies out there. How is he going to get away? And so we read about in those verses. Three through six. Samuel is dead. That solves Go to guy for hearing from the Lord. He inquires of the Lord and he receives silence is what you’ll read. He consults the your, um and he received silence. He goes to the profits of the day. He receives silence. And so what does all do? He goes the door number five and he consults a witch. You’re like, what a psychic. A medium depends on your translation. He goes to the occult. So as we talk about the occult, it seems like an American Christianity. In most churches, the pendulum swing to one of two extremes. When talks about demonic the topic of demonic influences, we talk too much about it or too little about it in American Christianity. Yeah, Earlier in Saul’s life, he banished sorcery and rich witchcraft. You’d read from other biblical accounts of this time in the history of the nation of Israel. He banished sorcery and witchcraft. But it seems like Saul is proud of that in his younger career of how he was Obi obeying the Lord. Now he goes to seek direction from one remind you of one of the early times. Samuel told him that God would take the Nation of Israel from Saul. Let’s look back to Chapter 15 versus 22 23. It’s kind of ironic that saw heard these words earlier, and it’s now becoming true. Does the Lord take pleasure? This is right. After right after Saul was impatient to do the sacrifices before the Army of Israel. He was impatient waiting on Samuel and he went, and he just made it happen himself. And then Samuel arrived just in time and saw that the sacrifices being done and he confronted and corrected Saul and then Samuels, correcting Saul. And he said this to him. Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as is obeying the Lord Look to obey is better than sacrifice. To pay attention is better than the fat of ramps for rebellion, for rebellion is like the sin of divination, and defiance is like wickedness and idolatry because you have rejected the word of the Lord He has rejected you as King for rebellion is like the sin of divination. We see him versus seven through 25 saw consults of which, because he isn’t hearing from God. Fear makes you do stupid stuff when you’re fearful. You do stupid stuff. David. Two chapters ago when he was angry, he did stupid stuff as a leader. Saul. When he’s fearful, he does very strange, stupid things. So what’s going on like? Okay, Mike, we’ll pick me up this morning. Thanks. Glad I came in. I don’t need this, Mike. What are where are we going and what are you doing? All right. So, Sol, he has no means to hear from the Lord. No means to hear from God. And so he’s going from legit methods at that time to illegitimate methods at that time, to hear from God. It seems obvious to us the readers and more and more obvious as the book keeps going. But Saul is abandoned by God, like God said he would abandon him, and Saul goes to a witch and which delivers a God ordained revelation of an appearance of a message from Samuel to say to Saul again the same thing. Saul is heard over and over again. The which conveys the same words that seem like Samuel or the word Samuel already told Saul. Who is that God rejected him. Apparently, Samuel seemed to be directed to do an unusual request to speak again to Saul, and it’s this hard hearted, evil Kane. And this is the final message to King Saul. Another opportunity for him to repent. And he doesn’t we don’t. He’s told in that passage in Chapter 20 that he’s going to die that day. We don’t know if we have tomorrow. So the next days of our lives Saul has a unique gift. He knows he’s going to die that day. Men and women G. K. Chesterton talks about this with atheists and belief in God. He says this when people cease to believe in God, they don’t believe in nothing. They believe in anything. And Saul has rebelled against God run from God, and he’s willing to believe in anything right now. And he’s desperate to hear from God because he knows what that’s like to hear from God and the peace and comfort that brings in your life. And it seems, ironically, to the surprise of the witch, Samuel appears and speaks. Maybe she was going to pretend something. Maybe she had some sort of relationship ship with some demon that showed up periodically that would do sorcery that she would work with. But in the past, if there’s an act or whatnot, it seemed like an authentic, shocking revelation of Samuel arrived, looking like Samuel and speaking words that sound like Sam. What? Samuel said earlier. So just to be obvious, Mr Captain, obvious here as we talk through the Bible, just because some things in the Bible doesn’t mean it’s endorsed by the Bible. This is narrative of the Bible, where the Bible talks about historical narrative, of the people of God and sometimes the enemies of God and what they do and what they don’t do. I mean, you see, like rape, you see incest, you see adultery, you see murder. You see all sorts of sins in the Bible, and it’s not an endorsement of the action. So let’s just address the obvious statement that I just hoping to save some face for you in the future. small group as you’re discussing this, but the Bible is brutally honest about people’s mistakes and their failures and their achievements. The Bible is brutally honest about what we are as following people, just because salted, this does not mean it’s an actor endorsement of this act. There’s no scriptural bias for what he is doing. This is wrong, what he’s doing. I know our culture is getting more curious and more open to witchcraft, to divination, to sorcery from movies, books, podcast, instagram, influencers. But the Bible sternly condemns what Saul is doing and do it around me. 18 Exodus 22 Leviticus 19 Leviticus 20 in Leviticus 27 Jeremiah 27 You can go read those. The Bible has a very strong stance on what Saul is doing and how it is not good. I’m in the position that God did a supernatural act to speak once again to the very hard hearted Sol, a scene that God chose this occasion to speak to the evil king who once served him. So the title of our sermon is is, uh when God speaks, what do you do? So when God speaks through, which what do you do? when God speaks, what do you do? Because God is able to speak to you as a believer. God used the donkey to speak to the hard hearted Belem. God used a fish to speak to the hard hearted Jonah. God used the burning bush to speak to the hard hearted Moses. God used a wet fleece, and God used the dry fleece to speak to the hard hearted Gideon. And it seems like God is able to use a witch to speak to a hard hearted soul. When God is able to God is able to do what he wants when he wants, how he wants if he wants. God historically speaks through a variety of different ways to people. God speaks to people through circumstances. You get the job, you don’t get the job. Well, you kind of know what’s going on. God speaks to people through peace. When the right road is laid out, you feel peace in your heart like, yes, that’s what we should do or when the decision is made and you feel peace about something, you talk about your options, and one option just gives you peace. God speaks to you through people through council. Ideally wise counsel, a wise older man or woman in the faith who can tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. God speaks to people. God speaks through signs and wonders. It’s not on that list. The Book of Exodus, Those 10 plagues that we read about when God is waging war against the gods of Egypt and God just pummels their top 10 gods with 10 plagues. God is flexing on signs and wonders throughout the Book of Exodus. Of those 10 plagues to lead the people of God out of the nation of Egypt. God speaks in the Bible through dreams and visions. God can speak to you through your thoughts, and I just wanna give you a warning because sometimes we think and what we’ve said this I probably said, This is the younger believer. You know, the Lord told me to do this. It’s like, just just tread softly. If that term people because that I think we don’t know what that means. That means the heavyweight term. Uh, I think God does speak to us through passages in the Bible. God speaks to principles in the Bible God speaks to promises in the Bible if they apply to you. Sometimes there’s promise in the Bible that don’t apply to us. There’s promises apply to other people in other places, but passages, promises and principles. God can speak to you through those and you feel prompted to obey those. That’s good. But you just say the Lord told me, I think that’s going to get you in trouble. God could speak to you through nature. Psalms 19. It’s a beautiful song and it’s something you love nature and you love this song. The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies display the works of his man. Day by day, they pour for his praises. Blessing. I’m hacking it up now, but solemn 19 is a beautiful song. I had this amazing book of all these amazing photos of the world, and I just wrote that solemn out as a young man, God speaks to us through nature and the last on the list, which shouldn’t be the last on any list we have. God speaks to us through Scripture. This is the safest way to discern the will of God. It’s more correct. It’s more consistent than anything an equivalent are liver. And he thought, we have firing through our brain. Anything that happens in our life, we need to go to this. This is why God designed this book. My Bible. I hope you have a Bible. If you don’t have a Bible, will get you one. We have a bunch. God speaks to you through Scripture. Christian. I was reading this this morning in Proverbs four Verse 20. It says, This is my son. Pay attention to my words. Listen closely to my saying, Don’t lose sight of them. Keep them within your heart for their life. To those who find them in health to one’s whole body. Guard your heart above all of us for is a source of your life. Don’t let your mouth speak dishonestly. Don’t let your lips talk deviously Let your eyes look straight forward. Fix your gaze straight ahead. Carefully consider the path for your feet in all your ways will be established. Don’t turn to the right or to the left. Keep your feet from evil. God’s word is always the right word at the right time For us Christians, God speaks to you through the word of God, There’s promises, there’s principles. And there’s passages in this Bible that speak to you, men and women. That’s why scripture exists. That’s why it’s it’s purpose for the Bible is the guy would speak to you. The Bible is speaking to all of you for all of your life. The problem is you’re just not listening to it. God speaks more correctly and more consistently through Scripture than any other method. And God’s primary method for speaking to the people of God is through the word of God. Many times I’ve sat in a conversation and I felt reminded I felt instructed and prompted to say, X, y or Z And instead of just saying Oh, buddy, you gotta do X, y or Z I’m reminded of principles and promises and passages in the Bible that say X, y or Z, and I quote x, y or Z. I’m like, you know, the Lord said in James, the tongue is destructive. It will destroy things. You got to watch your mouth, man, you’re gonna wreck your marriage, you know, I mean the Bible, said Parent. That folly is bound up in the heart of a child on the rod of discipline drives it far from them. You gotta be disciplining your son or daughter’s parent, you know. I mean, I I grab onto principles, passages and promises of God for that person. And God reminds me those and with the Holy Spirit with the Scripture, because the word of God is what changes people. The word of God. Uh, I forget John Maxwell, John McCosker said. The word of God is like a caged lion. All we have to do is let it out. The word of God is what changes people’s lives, not my opinions, principles, promises and passages in the Bible is what changes your life. I was at a conference as a young man. This is a warning for young people in the room. All right. I was at a conference as a young man. This pastor was talking about was an older man in the Lord Walk to the Lord for many years, and he was walking with God and praying and communing with the Lord and his prayer and singing and just burdened by stuff. And he’s walking and he stepped on the golf ball and he picked up a golf ball and he read a message on the back of the golf ball, and I thought, I want to hear from God. So instead of grabbing my Bible, I started walking hundreds of times around that Elmo golf course to hear from God. And I was off grabbing golf balls, crawling through the creek, looking for golf balls, trying to CERN. Some word from the Lord from a golf ball title is Infinity. Oh, yeah, just get That’s not good. You don’t think that’s immature. Don’t be that Mike. Learn from my mistake. That’s I think God redeemed some of that prayer time and stuff. But, I mean, God does speak to you. Christian. Do you hear that God speaking to you, Christian? I mean, God can speak to you through nature. God can speak to you through other topics, but I think I don’t want to wink at those other topics. But I do think let’s just let’s boil it down to the trustworthy gold standard way of God. Communicating is through the principles, promises and passengers in the Bible. Young folks, we can get off on this topic, and the thing is, we make this for ourselves because we prop up certain stories on Sunday mornings, I remember hearing a story of a young man who was on the run from God, who is married, who was living there, was off on the ocean somewhere on a vacation. He was just rebelling and running from God. He was doing drugs, having it from his family and everyone, and he went out swimming into the ocean. He got caught by the riptide. He was pulled out deeper and deeper out in the ocean. He could his wife and everyone was a long ways away and no one knows Saw him and he’s trying to swim against the tide. And he was running out of Who’s gonna drown he’s contemplating. I’m just going to go down and let out my hair and I’m just gonna drown. And then right before he’s going to do that, he looked down. He saw a sea turtle swimming along. He said, I have an idea of swimming the right way. He swam down, held his breath, grabbed on the sea turtle. The turtle swam and violently shook and swam back towards sure. And then he let go and he went back up for air and he looked at the sea Turtle, the sea turtle locked eyes with him and he felt like he got convicted about his life of sin. And he was able to get back to shore and give that testimony on Sunday morning. That’s the That’s the stories that we have. But the fact is, Scripture supersedes sea turtles, men and women. And but we do this ourselves because we get those crazy, weird, random God stores and get them in this space. And we all listen to that and we could go home and try to replicate that. But what’s really changed my life? Just read this Bible one day. I’m like, Yeah, you’re right. God, I’m an idiot and he’s the one. I should go married. You’re right. I didn’t go home and talk to them. That’s drastically changed my life. By the time I’m like, Oh, man, I am sitting and I need to tell my accountability group about that or oh, I do need to start serving. I need to start tackling. I need to start turning, and I obeyed the Bible’s what changed me. It’s not those random different situations men and women. God is not going to contradict what he said in Scripture with what you think he said outside of Scripture, a lot of you as we conclude here a lot of you can relate to. David, you’re doing your own thing. Do in your own life fixing your own problems and you call it God’s handiwork. A lot of you, if you’re honest, you can relate to Saul. You do. You do your life, your role in day to day and you’re you’re stuck in a life of sin and you have a hard heart in an area. And every time you go to the God, you’re like Ah, nope, don’t wanna hear that. Uh, Put that down. I’ll come back next week. Same thing. God still beating me up on one area of my life. I’ve sat across from people that are addicted to drugs, and they’re telling me they think it is God’s will for their life to do drugs. So that’s how to hear from the Lord. Men and women were obviously self deceive people. Our heart is wicked and deceived and depraved. Who can understand this wicked heart of ours? We can self deceive. Second, Thessalonians 29 through 10 talks about satanic powers and how they’re real and it helps reveal to us Christians and the church were living in. It reveals to us in our day and age satanic strategies. So let’s read it. The coming of the coming of Lawless one is based on Satan’s working with all kinds of false miracles, signs and wonders, and with every wicked deception among those who are perishing. They perished because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved. They perished because they do not accept the love of the truth and be saved. There’s false signs, false miracles, false wonders of every wicked deception out there, men and women. And we are saved by our love of the truth. False signs, miracles and wonders are saying strategies to mislead us and to deceive us. And as our country becomes more and more post Christian more and more secular, that protective veneer of Christianity in America is going away, and I think the interest and influence of the occult will probably grow in our lifetime. We’re in the Midwest, so it’s going to happen on the coast before it gets here, but it’s it’s a thing that’s probably happening. So as we conclude, you’re saying thinking, Mike, I don’t struggle the occult and I don’t murder genocide. People bring on communion. Let’s go. So £50 your neighbor. If that’s where you’re at this morning. Like I’m the man and woman today. We’re good. No one. No one wants a £50 their neighbors. Alright, great. So So when God speaks to you, you know it and it changes the way you live your like. Okay, fine. Mike. Yeah, but God did speak to Saul, and he didn’t change. God did speak to me over and over again, and I’m still stuck in the same old son. I mean, you’re like Mike. I read a journal. I pray I got a small group, and I still sin this this voice of God and the voice of my old sin. Those two are fighting each other. And I feel like this photo. I feel like these kids trying to pull on the Titanic. And I am on the struggle bus here. I read and I pray and I go and I know I’m still stuck. If I said I mean, I started reading the Bible when I was I think 13 and I right up till this morning. So that is you have to look at my notes. That’s 23 years. I have read my Bible, and I think the problem for us isn’t that God doesn’t speak isn’t God’s. Not that he’s speaking to us is that we are obeying God as Christians. You’re like, That’s my that’s just find some areas of my life where I am on the struggle bus, the tide of my heart, my flesh. The world is pulling on this area of my life and I’m trying to rein it in and bring it onto the shore. And it’s a joke, and that’s me. And that’s my accountability partner. And we’re trying to rein in this thing. When God speaks to you, you know it. It changes the way you live. When God speaks to you, you have a unique responsibility to respond. Colossians 3 16 says that the word of God dwell in you richly. I would say to you that God speaking to you and how you respond is why you feel like this. I mean, as anyone here ever been hungry and eating a big old steak, the rest. You need to come into my house when you need a big old steak. What are you doing next week? Let’s have a big old steak party. Um, but I would say, Have you ever took in your steak? Here’s a steak cooking your steak and be like, Look at that lightly, bloody lot of seasoning. Mm. And you go. I’m full. That’s enough for me. Who wants the rest of this? No one. You eat your steak, you cut up your steak, you sink your teeth into steak. You don’t lick steak, right? That’s not something you do. All right. So you’re like, Okay, Mike, where are you going? All right. So I think many of our times reading in the Bible. So I got thousands of times I’ve read the Bible. I’ve done this So tired. What’s going on? Okay. Many were appalled at you as a parent. Okay, Alright. Alright. Great. There’s my verse. Let’s go. I’ve done that many times. And you’re laughing because you guys have done that too. I’ve rushed through my quiet times. I’ve licked the word of God and walked away. I’ve licked the stake of this meaty truth that changes and protects and transformed my life. And I walked away and change because if you like steak, you’re only getting at the seasoning. You don’t actually get changed. I had I was a journal was given to me that I’ve been using, and the on the journal is, says Cairo’s on it, which I didn’t know what it meant. So Ben looked it up for me in a pastor’s group, which is probably good. He did that and it said, Uh, Kairos is a Greek word. It means the right word at the right time. I was at a conference this last weekend and when the speakers was sharing this Kairos Journal studying method. It’s just the tool. We don’t need to worship the tool, but it’s a good tool. When God speaks to you, what do you do? That’s the whole topic here. When God speaks to you, what do you do? And every time in my life, I’ve had the word of God breakthrough and transform and land the boat on the on the shore. These things happened. I would observe an area in my life where I was openly sinning. I would observe, and I would reflect on the consequences, seen and unseen intentional, unintentional consequences of that action. I would discuss what was happening with someone that was a part of the problem or the solution. We would make a plan together as a group of people of what would happen next time. I would be held accountability accountable and I would act, observe, reflect, discuss, pray and act you people online. It’s right here, Okay, observed, discussed before a reflect and act plan Accountability act. And every time in my life I have an area of my life where I don’t grow and I stopped growing. It’s because I observe something. I reflected about it. I didn’t tell anyone. Yeah, I didn’t discuss if anyone. So we stopped on step two. Other times I observe, I reflect, I discussed. But I just keep talking about it because I know if I make a plan, I got to do something and I’m just going to keep talking about it, because then if I just keep talking and talking that I want to do anything that’s just so we get all that down and we make a plan and we don’t have anyone that wants to keep we don’t want to. You want to keep us accountable? Men and women, If you think about it honestly, the word of God can transform all of your life when you do this strategy this Bible study tool of how to get the word of God deeply into your soul so it can dwell richly in your soul. Quit looking your Bibles, Christians. Sink your teeth into the meat of God’s word, and this is a good tool to make you get out of that little legalistic right you can be in of your readings. So we’re churches. I hope that we would. So the gospel, richly in our lives and the lives of our city that we would sell the gospel in our community. We had so community and have authentic, real, genuine community of friends, friends, sometimes family, but mainly friends, the people that you actually like, that we grow in our generosity or time or talented treasurer that the word of God model richly in our hearts. God has the right word at the right time for all of us. We just need to handle God’s word rightly. What do we do when God speaks to us? we have a response. We need to respond correctly. What do I do when God speaks? Let’s be at church That obeys. Responds this way. Amen. Alright, let’s Let’s let’s pray. God, I thank you for today. I thank you for your word and how can change all of our lives. And we need all of your word for all of our lives. I pray that we would be a people that go to you and we don’t go to anything else. We don’t go to any counterfeits. We don’t go to the knockoffs. We don’t go to. We go to the real authentic the real deal. God, I pray you would speak and instruct and challenge our souls and our lives would be people that do the work of changing God. Give us friends that we could actually go deep with in Jesus’ name. Amen.