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Now in chapter 26, we see a little bit of a repeat of what we saw back a couple of chapters ago. When David had come upon Saul, David and his men were hiding out in the cave. And if you remember, Saul went into the cave to cover his feet, to use the restroom. And David had the opportunity to kill him, and some bad had killed Saul. But he refused to do it, and if you remember, he just cut that piece off of the skirt of his robe in order to prove that he had the opportunity to kill Saul and let him go. Well, at that point, of course, Saul was telling him how he was sorry, how everything was going to be fine now. Well, now some time has gone by, and now, of course, Saul is hunting David again. Somebody in verse number 1 of chapter 26 gives Saul a tip that says, hey, this is where David's hiding out, and guides them to him. And it says, verse 4, David, therefore, sent out spies and understood that Saul was coming very deep. So he hears a rumor that Saul has come after him. So David sends out some spies to figure out which way Saul is coming from, where he's camping. And remember, David does not want a confrontation with Saul. He doesn't want to lay his hand on the Lord's anointed. He's just trying to escape. He's not trying to battle these people. He has 600 troops. Saul has 3,000. But that's not the point. He doesn't want to fight against the Lord's anointed. He doesn't want to fight against his own father-in-law. But he reconnoiters and figures out where Saul and his troops are coming from. And it says in verse 5, David and Rosa came to the place where Saul had pitched. So David knows where Saul is. Saul doesn't know where David is. So David has the element of surprise. He brings all his troops. And he's right there next to Saul's camp. Saul doesn't know it. And it says, David beheld the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner, the captain of the souls. And Saul lay in the trench, and the people pitched round about him. Verse 6, then answered David and said to him, elect the Hittite. This is just an unknown guy. And then also to Abishai the son of Zeruiah. This is one of his relatives. Brother to Joab saying, who will go down with me to Saul to the camp? And Abishai said, I will go down with thee. Abishai is one of the sons of Zeruiah, which is a relative of David, a female relative. And Abishai says he's going to go down with him. So just the two of them are going into a camp of 3,000 troops. Just the two of them in the middle of the night. It says in verse 7, so David and Abishai came to the people by night, and behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his spear stuck in the ground in his bolster, but Abner and the people lay round about him. So obviously because the king is the most important guy, they put him in the middle of the campsite, in a trench, in a fortified position, and all the people are sleeping around him. Abner, all the soldiers. So that in order to get to Saul, you've got to go through all these soldiers. Well they slip through at night, everybody stays asleep. It says in verse 8, then said Abishai to David, God hath delivered thine enemy and thine hand this day, now therefore let me smite him. I pray thee with the spear even to the earth at once. And I like this last phrase, and I'll not smite him the second time. He's basically saying, I'm not going to need to smite him the second time. He says, I'm going to do it once, I'm going to smite him all the way into the earth, it's going to go through the heart, and I'm not going to need to do it a second time. And of course David stops him, it says in verse 9, and David said to Abishai, destroy him not, for who could stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointing and be guiltless? David said furthermore, as the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him, for his day shall come to die, or he shall descend into battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lord's anointing. So again, David is following the principle in the Bible that says, vengeance belongeth unto me, saith the Lord, I will recompense. God doesn't want us to avenge ourselves. The Bible says, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. When somebody does you wrong, when somebody steals from you, or rips you off, or harms you, or slaps you in the face, the Bible says we don't need to avenge ourselves. God might repay, no, He will repay. And so we don't have to take it into our own hands, we don't have to just burn with anger. Letting out the sun go down on your wrath. God will settle everything one day, and we'll get to that a little more later on. But we see David following that principle, and it says in verse 11, halfway through, David tells Abishai, but I pray thee, take down now the spear that is at his bolster, and the cruise of water, and let us go. So they're still, they're going to take a few more tokens, just like they did where he cut off the skirt of Saul's robe. He's pretty much doing the same thing, taking a water container, and also taking a spear, just to prove again, that he had the opportunity to kill them and chose not to. And it says in verse 12, so David took the spear and the cruise of water from Saul's bolster, and they gapped them away, and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither awake. You say, wow, they were really stealthily in there like a ninja. But look, it says, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the Lord was fallen upon them. So this probably wasn't really the best thing to do, to sneak in there to 3,000 troops, somebody's going to wake up. But God didn't want this confrontation to take place either. Now, think about this, what would have happened if somebody would have woke up? What would have happened if he would have stabbed King Saul? Now, here's the thing, David was a pretty mighty warrior. So we don't know, could he have fought his way out of there? You know, because people are just, they're waking up, the element of surprise. Could they have got out of there? They might have killed a few guys on their way out and escaped. You don't really know what the outcome would have been, but somebody would have died, somebody would have got hurt. Maybe it would have been David or Abishai, or maybe it just would have been everybody that was in their path as they're trying to get away. But God sends this deep sleep just so that there won't be any bloodshed, just so that this will go down the way that it went down, where nobody gets hurt. God sends a deep sleep. That's interesting, God sends a deep sleep in a few other places in the Bible too. If you remember when, where was the part? Well, I know you made Adam go under a deep sleep, you know. Before you do that kind of surgery with somebody's rib, you better put him under first, right? And I was thinking of Daniel and the lion's den, but I don't think that was a deep sleep. He closed their mouths. It was a little bit different scenario. But I remember one time we were out camping, and we were out in the middle of nowhere, and it was me and my brother and some other relatives, and there was this bear that we kept seeing over and over again. And then we'd go hiking for a while, then we'd come back to our campsite and it had left some droppings to show that it was there. So we were a little concerned about this bear. And we have all this food in the camp, and we're stringing it up in a tree and everything like that, but we were a little bit nervous that this bear would come and feed on us at night. We were just going to wake up with it, because we weren't even in tents. We were just sleeping in sleeping bags. And we were at a very remote location, backpacking. This is about 11 years ago. And I remember me and my brother prayed before bed, and we were praying, and I remember my brother was praying and saying, God, you closed the mouth of the lion. Close the mouth of that bear. And I remember I was praying, God, you sent that deep sleep on Saul's troops. Just make that bear go to sleep or something. We're praying he's going to pray. So God's able to do these kind of miracles. And you know what? I'll bet you David didn't even know that a miracle took place. He probably just thought that he was really good at sneaking around. You probably thought that Abishai was really good at sneaking around. So this goes to show that God intercedes in our lives sometimes without us knowing it. Sometimes maybe something really bad could have happened, and God prevents it. And it's not a noticeable miracle. Like we don't see the Red Sea part, or we don't see fire come down from heaven. But this was a miracle. Where God sent this deep sleep on 3,000 people, no one perceived it as a miracle. None of the people in Saul's camp. As we as readers of the scripture here, we know it was a miracle. So that goes to show that I bet a lot of stuff like that could happen in our life too, where God's intervening and interceding. That shows why it's so important to be praying, because God will intercede on our behalf. And we know David did a lot of praying from reading the book of Psalms and reading about his life. He definitely did a lot of praying. And so God's interceding and keeping him safe and protecting him. And so this deep sleep from the Lord was fallen upon in verse 13. David went over to the other side and stood on the top of the hill afar off, a great space being between them. And David cried to the people and to Abner the son of Ner, saying, Answer, is thou not Abner? Then Abner answered and said, Who art thou that cries to the king? And David said to Abner, Art not thou a valiant man? And who is like to thee in Israel? Wherefore then hast thou not kept thy lord the king? For there came one of the people in to destroy the king thy lord. This thing is not good that thou hast done, as the Lord liveth, ye are worthy to die. Now, again, notice, he's saying to Abner, Wherefore then hast thou not kept the lord thy lord the king? Now, thee, thou, thy, is that singular or plural? Singular. It's always singular. And this is why it's important, the thes and the thows. Everybody's, ah, the thes and the thows. But actually it's important because the thes and the thows are singular. The ye, you, your, anything that starts with a y is plural. Anything that starts with a t is singular when it comes to thee, thou, you, your, ye. And so he's saying to Abner, thou hast not kept thy lord the king. And in verse 16 he says, this thing is not good that thou hast done, as the Lord liveth, ye are worthy to die. So is he talking just to Abner now? No. Now he's talking to a whole group of troops. Ye are worthy to die because ye have not kept your master. See how it's all plural? Ye have not kept your master? The Lord's anointed. And now see where the king's spear is, and the cruise of water that was at his bolster. And Saul knew David's voice, meaning he recognized David's voice, and said, is this thy voice, my son David? Remember, it's his southern law. And David said, it is my voice, my lord o king. And he said, wherefore, or why, doth my lord thus pursue after his servant? But what have I done? Or what evil is in my hand? Now therefore I pray thee, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If the Lord hath stirred thee up against me, let him accept an offering. But if they be the children of men, cursed be they before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, go, serve other gods. Now let's talk a little bit about this verse, because this is an important verse. Notice what David says. He says, if the Lord hath stirred thee up against me, for our way through the verse, let him accept an offering. Now what's he talking about? He's talking about a burnt sacrifice. He's talking about the offerings that they would offer in the Old Testament. The burnt offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the meat offering. These are all called offerings, okay? Now why did he say that? And what was the purpose of the offering in the Old Testament? Well, a lot of people misunderstand what that offering means. Go to Hebrews chapter 10, if you would. Hebrews chapter number 10. Now some people will even go so far as to teach that, well, in the Old Testament, in order to be saved, you had to do these offerings in order to be saved. Now let's stop and think about that for a minute. First of all, I preached all sermons and showed just multitudes of scriptures that salvation was by faith in the Old Testament, just like it was in the New Testament. Of course, Romans 4 is a great example. It mentions Abraham, but then it also, and people say, oh, that was a different dispensation than David, which was under the law. Well, David was under the law, and it mentions David in Romans 4 as being saved by faith without works. So that covers all their stupid little dispensations. So it proves in Romans 4 that people were always saved by faith. There are plenty of scriptures in the Old Testament of calling upon the Lord for salvation. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved in the New Testament. Romans 10.13 is a quote from the Old Testament. It ties in with a lot of scriptures and psalms about taking the cup of salvation, calling upon the name of the Lord. I believe, therefore I have spoken, and on and on and on. That's a whole other sermon in and of itself. I don't want to get into that, but it's very clear. I've got tons of scripture. I've done whole sermons on the fact that salvation is by faith. It's always been by grace through faith, always shall be. My sermon on dispensationalism a couple months ago, I totally proved that. Yanni, Shadow of a Doubt, and other sermons I've gone on and on about it. I don't want to sit here and reprove that right now, because you should already know that if you're out of spiritual kindergarten tonight. So, what was the purpose of the offering? Some false teachers would say, oh, that's for salvation. Here's the problem with that. According to the Bible, any time somebody sinned, right? What do they have to do? They're supposed to go down to the house of God, or if they were too far away, whatever. But they had to offer an offering for their sin offering, and it would make an atonement for them upon the altar when they would make that offering. Now, if that was salvation, now you're getting into almost like a Roman Catholic doctrine of, well, what if I sinned and then I die before I have a chance to get to that offering? And that's the way Catholics are. That's why they have to have the last rites, and that's why they have to be in what's called a state of grace. Because if they sinned before they have a chance to confess it under the priest and get absolved of it by the church, well, in that interim, they're in danger of eternal damnation until they get that fixed. Now, a lot of Protestants kind of believe the same thing. They have to ask forgiveness, is how they phrase it. Well, if I sin, I have to ask forgiveness, because you ask them if they can lose their salvation. You say, hey, what if you did a really bad sin? What if you committed adultery or committed a robbery or killed someone? And they'll say, well, you've got to ask forgiveness. Or even more minor sins. They'll say, you've got to ask forgiveness for all your sins every day. And if you don't, you lose your salvation. So it's this thing of, well, hurry up and ask forgiveness for all my sins before I die or something. And then the Catholics kind of water that down by saying, well, there's purgatory. In case you were doing everything right and you kind of blow it at the end, you're not in a state of grace, well, that's what purgatory is for or whatever. So you get all these false doctrines, because if you look at the Protestants, you look at the Catholics, it's kind of the same type of a doctrine as what a lot of Baptists are trying to say about the Old Testament. Like, they had to keep offering these sacrifices to save their soul. It would be something that they would have to keep doing over and over again. And they'd have to do it every time they sin. The problem is, they don't even realize a lot of the things that we sin. And in Leviticus, they're all sections on sinning through ignorance. When you realize, whoops, I sinned and I didn't even know it, then you go bring an offering and so forth. But the Bible's clear that those offerings of the Old Testament never saved anybody. They were a picture, they were figurative of salvation, because they were figurative of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would be sacrificed once for all for our sins. And Hebrews 10 goes into that a little bit. It says in Hebrews 10, verse 1, For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. Now, he's talking about past tense. He says they were offered. He's not talking about them being currently offered, because at this time, of course, there's no need for them to be offered by God's people. Those who are saved, those who are believers are no longer offering these sacrifices, because they realize that Jesus Christ was the sacrifice. But he's referring back to the Old Testament, back to the law, where they, past tense, offered those sacrifices year by year continually, and it says they could never make the comers thereunto perfect. Verse 2, For then would they not have ceased to be offered? So you see, that was a continual process. They had to keep doing it. He said that the worshippers once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices, there's a remembrance again made of sins every year. Verse 4 is the key, and this is a timeless verse, because he's not talking just about the present, because he's doing it in the context of the past. He said, in the past, they offered these sacrifices year by year, and it didn't make them perfect, because for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. He's not saying it used to be possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Now it's not. No. He's using the present tense there, but he's just referring to, in general, period, past, present, future. The context is past. He says, an animal's blood on an altar cannot take away your sins. Period. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. And I'm going to explain that in a moment. Then said I, lo I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God, above when he said, sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin, thou wouldst not, neither hath pleasure therein, which are offered by the law. Then said he, lo I come, to do thy will, O God, he taketh away the first, that he may establish the second, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. And people will say, well, but what about before he died on the cross? He's the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. That's why. Because God speaketh of those things which are not as though they be. Obviously, chronologically, in our concept of time, Jesus Christ died on the cross, you know, a little less than 2,000 years ago, not chronologically before the foundation of the world, but he was slain from the foundation of the world, because all of human history has already existed in God's mind. I mean, think about it. John, the apostle, was caught up spiritually into heaven, not physically, as the pre-trib rapture liars will teach you, but in Revelation 4, 2, it says he was in the spirit. John was caught up spiritually and saw revelations of the future, and he looked upon a multitude in Revelation 7 of people of all nations, all kindreds, all tongues, that no man could number. And think about it. We were in that crowd. He was looking at us. So, I mean, we have already existed. The Bible says we live our lives as a tale that's told. We live our years as a tale that's told. I mean, God knows the end from the beginning. God has already got to the end, and Revelation says it is done. I'm Alpha and Omega. It's done. It's over. I mean, Satan has already been defeated. The Antichrist has already been defeated. We've already stood in heaven before God in a great multitude, and John looked upon our faces. I don't know if he made eye contact with you in particular, you know, how close you were to the front, but he literally looked. He literally saw you, because he saw every believer of all time there. That's an interesting thought. Now, this isn't Calvinism saying that God controls everything. No, but God does know everything. And so these events might as well have already taken place. I mean, the Bible talks about how we're already seated in heavenly places with Christ. I mean, we're already there. It's over. He's Alpha. He's Omega. It's done. It's finished. The end has already been laid out in Revelation as if it had already happened. That's the way it is with the crucifixion of Christ. So in the Old Testament, although he had not yet come to this earth, because he was going to die on the cross, that's what forgave their sins, the fact that he died on the cross. And basically, even though they could not look back, earthly speaking, and say, hey, this already happened, because it was going to happen, that's on what basis they were forgiven. Because Jesus Christ died on the cross, and he's slain from the foundation of the world. I mean, from the very beginning, God already knew. That was already the plan. That was already the salvation. It was already through the blood of Christ. It just had to play out. That's all. And so I'm not trying to go really deep or philosophical here, but it's just silly to say, well, nobody could have gone to heaven because Jesus hadn't paid for their sins yet. Well, no. He was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He dwells outside of time. He's God. And so God could apply the blood of Jesus Christ to someone's account. He could apply His righteousness going for all time. And you say, well, I don't believe you're making that up. Well, then how did Jesus die on the cross for your sins before you'd even done them? See what I mean? If you can't understand what I just explained for the last five minutes, then pray tell me, how could Jesus die for sins that you're going to do next week? And you haven't even done them yet. So if He could have applied, listen to me now. This is important. If He could have applied your sins that you're going to do in 2012 to Jesus' account when He was on the cross, why could He not apply Jesus' righteousness on Abraham's account? In fact, that's what Romans 4 says that He did. He said righteousness was a purity unto David. Who's righteousness? Jesus' righteousness that He lived on this earth. And you can say, well, He hasn't done it yet. It doesn't matter. That righteousness was already there. And so this is biblical doctrine and sound doctrine that Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world because the whole history of the world has already played out as far as God is concerned because God dwells in eternity. He is the beginning. He is the end. He is Alpha and Omega. He is not confined to time the way that you and I are confined within time. And so I hope you understand that. The sacrifices were a figure. The Bible says in verse 1, for the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things. So these sacrifices were a shadow. Now if you were to look at a shadow of me, for example, let's say I'm standing out in the sun. That shadow would resemble me. But it wouldn't look exactly like me. You wouldn't be able to make out every detail of me. But let's say you put me next to somebody who was, let's say there was a man who weighed about 350 pounds. And you put him and me side by side and the sun is shining. Do you think you'd probably tell, okay, this shadow is Pastor Anderson and this is that guy's shadow? See what I mean? So you can make out the form, but you're kind of seeing through a glass darkly. You don't really know the exact detail. The people in the Old Testament, they saw through a glass darkly. We see more face to face. They knew in part. We know a lot more than they knew. So that's what the law was. It was a shadow of things to come. Now with that all in mind, what we just read in Hebrews 10 verses 1 through 12, what we read, now jump down to verse 25. Or let's read verse 24. It says let us consider one another to provoke and to love in the good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. Now let me interpret this for you and then I'm going to prove my interpretation using verse 28. In verse 26 he says if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. Now in order for the Bible to say there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, did there used to be a sacrifice for sins? Yeah. Did it remain? No. It remains no more. Does that mean it was never there? No, it means that it was there, but it's not there anymore, right? He says if we sin willfully after that we receive the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. Now here's where he's going to compare the present day with the thing that used to be there that no longer remains. Look at the next verse. He that despised Moses' law died under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who had trodden underfoot the Son of God, and had counted the blood of the covenant wherewith ye was sanctified, an unholy thing, and had done despite under the Spirit of grace. Now this is talking about a sinning person because it says counted the blood of the covenant wherewith ye was sanctified. So what this is talking about is a New Testament believer sinning willfully, just brazenly, willfully saying, you know what, I know the truth and I'm just not going to do it. I know what I'm doing is wrong, but you know what, I'm just going to do it anyway. Just that kind of a rebellious type of a sin. And he says if we do that, we don't have a sacrifice for sins system like they had in the Old Testament. We just wait for judgment. We just wait for punishment from God. We just wait to get our spanking from God. And he says he will recompense and it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God and so forth. And so I'm running out of time. I don't want to spend too much time on that. But what I'm trying to say is that in the Old Testament, when somebody committed sin, okay, there's a guilt associated with that sin, right? Like let's say you do something wrong today. You go out and commit a sin and you know what you did is wrong. Do you feel guilty? Yeah. Let's say you're at work and somebody asks you a question and you lie to cover up your mistake or whatever. Do you feel guilty? Yeah, sure you do. I mean, I hope so. You know, you look at something you're not supposed to look at. You say something you're not supposed to say. You do something you're not supposed to do. You take something that's not yours. You feel guilty. You feel sorry for it, okay? Now, what do you do to make that right with God? Now, in the Old Testament, what you would do is you would bring an offering. You know, you've done wrong. You've committed sin. And this is what the Bible lays out a little bit. You know, if a man sins, if a man breaks his law, you know, you basically, in order to make things right between you and God, you basically take this offering and you offer that offering upon the altar and basically God will forgive you for that. Again, we're not talking about salvation. We're just talking about the fellowship between you and God of just telling God you're sorry, okay? Like the Bible says in the New Testament. It says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we've not sinned, we make him a liar and this word is not in us. So in the New Testament, we just confess our sins to God. We just, we don't go through a priest like they would go to the priest in the Old Testament. They would bring a sacrifice. They would say I'm sorry and they would use that sacrifice as a way of atoning for their sins, not talking about salvation here, not talking about heaven and hell, but just talking about restoring fellowship with God so that God's hand of judgment would not come upon them. So you're living in the Old Testament, right? You go out and do something that's wrong, okay? Well, you don't want God to cloud up the rain on you. You don't want God to be mad at you. You don't want God to curse you because he says he's going to curse you if you do wrong, right? So in order to get God to not curse you anymore and to bless you, you bring this offering to God to placate him and say, hey, I'm sorry that you're acknowledging that you've done wrong. It's your way of confessing it and actually you're giving up some of your property because, I mean, you have this animal that belongs to you and you're bringing it as an offering to the Lord and it's kind of like this. Let's say I did something and made my wife really upset and made my wife mad, okay? And then let's say I want to make things right with her so I go out and buy something for her and give it to her. And sometimes you'll joke around like, hey, this is my peace offering that I'm bringing. But that's kind of how it was with God. It's like, you know, you've done wrong. You've committed sin. You don't want God to curse you. You don't want God to be angry with you. You want to have a right fellowship with God and so you bring an offering to God and offer that offering and now things are right between you and God and now you're not going to get judged for that, okay? Now, look at Psalm 51. And I hope this is making sense to you tonight. Look at Psalm 51. Now, in Psalm 51, David had committed a horrible sin. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and he had Uriah killed. Well, now he's sorry about it. Now he's making things right with God. So he's confessing his sin to God just like we would do in the New Testament. He's confessing to God, but look what he says in verse number 14. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God. He doesn't want the guilt and the reproach. He wants to make things right with God. How did they do that in the Old Testament? With an offering, with a burnt sacrifice. And that symbolizes spiritual salvation through Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice. Now, it says this. O Lord, open now my lips, verse 15, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desireth not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifice of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then shall they be offerable expunal. So when God said in Hebrews chapter 10 that he had no pleasure in burnt offerings when he was making that quote, what he's referring to is that some people would bring the burnt offering, but they have no plans on changing their ways. They weren't really sorry for what they did. And be kind of like the proverbial Catholics who will, you know, commit sin, confess it, yeah, I did this, I did that, and then they think it's all mine and they go out and do it all again, type of thing. People criticize them for that. People would do that in the Old Testament sometimes. They would just go out and just willfully sin, do all this bad stuff, and then they'd come to God, they're not even sorry, but they would just offer the offering and think, okay, I'm covered, I'm good to go, let's go on with my sinful life. And the Bible's saying that in order for God to be pleased with that sacrifice, they had to, you know, have a broken heart, a contrite heart, and again, this is a guy who's already been saved for years. Nothing to do with salvation here. David had been saved for a long time. You know, these phony repent of your sins preachers out there that try to say, you know, oh, you've got to have a broken heart, and you've got to be crying and weeping before you can get saved, when the Bible just says, believe. Some of them have even said, like, this is where David got saved. I mean, what kind of madness? I mean, David had already been saved for so long. You'd already been a man after God so hard. I mean, you'd already been serving God. You'd already believed God and called upon the name of the Lord so long ago. It's ridiculous. And that's why he didn't say restore my salvation or give me salvation. He said restore to me the joy of thy salvation. He still has salvation. He just lost the joy. And when you're in sin, you're going to lose the joy. And so this isn't where David got saved. David had long been saved. And what people don't understand is that the whole Bible is not about getting saved. Now, I'm only 30 years old. I'm a young man. I got saved when I was six years old. So am I spending more of my life saved or unsaved? Saved. Now, here's the thing. Most unsaved people probably aren't doing a lot of Bible reading. So who's doing the most Bible reading? Saved people or unsaved people that are actually understanding it and learning it? Obviously, saved people are understanding it. Most of it's written to the saved. Because the part that's for unsaved people, I only needed that like once when I got saved. Or maybe you needed to hear it a few times. Maybe you first heard it when the seed was planted and then it was watered. But really, more of the Bible is not telling you how to get saved. Most of the Bible is just telling you how to live your life. Because you get saved once, for example, like me when I was six. And then I spend my whole life living the Christian life. I don't just spend my whole life just talking and thinking about how I got saved 24 years ago. Let me read more about how I got saved. I'm reading about everything else I'm supposed to do with my life. I'm reading about everything that I'm supposed to be doing and how to get right with God. And they say, oh, well, you know, you got to repent of your sins. Yeah, after you're saved, you're going to do a lot of repenting over the years. I mean, when you fall into sin, when you start committing sin, when you do wrong, when you get back to sin, you're going to become... That's why God is telling churches over and over again. Look at Revelation 2 and 3. He's talking to churches. He's talking to people that are already saved. He's even praising them for some of the things that they're doing right and saying, you know, you guys are good in this area, but you're bad in that area. Repent. You don't need to get saved. They've already been saved. They just need to quit being so lukewarm. They need to get fired up, whatever. He's telling them to repent. Well, David here, he's not getting saved, but he's sorry for what he's done. And he's wanting to do the right thing, and he's offering and offering unto God to make it a peace offering with God, to make things right with God. So that's what the offering was in the Old Testament. Number one, it symbolized Jesus Christ coming to pay for our sins. The death of the animal symbolized the death of Jesus on the cross. And it was just a way for them to make things right with God after sinning. The proper thing to do after you've sinned in the Old Testament was to be sorry, confess it to God, and then bring an offering, and then you're good to go. Now, in the New Testament, do we have that offering? No. So what happens? We're just going to get punished a lot more than people in the Old Testament. Because people in the Old Testament, they're sorry, they bring the offering, they're good to go. And the New Testament says, God says, no, I'm going to expect more of you because you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. You have the entire Word of God, the whole Bible. And unto whom much is given, of Him shall much be required. And in the New Testament, we are held to a higher standard. And this is why it's such nonsense when people are like, oh, the Old Testament was so strict and now we're just free in Christ. No, people in the Old Testament got away with a lot more stuff than you're going to get away with. Try having two wives now, ten wives now, and see how well your life turns out. And look, it was never right. But let's face it, there were some people who got by with it. You're not getting by with it today. This is the New Testament. God is expecting way more of us because we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we have the Word of God, and we have the local church. David didn't have a church like this to go to. He encouraged himself in the Lord. He didn't have a church to go to all the time. And they did assemble and have preaching. But we have it way better. We've got preaching. We've got the entire Bible. We've got the Holy Spirit indwelling us. We are held to a higher standard. And God says, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fire in any nation which has a fire. He said, you better be careful. You better watch out and don't sin willfully once you know that something's wrong because it's going to be worse on you than it was on people in the Old Testament. You think it was bad on Korah, Dathan, and Abirah? You think it was bad on David when he sinned? You think it was bad on Aaron when he sinned? Hey, it's going to be worse for you because you are held to a higher standard. That's what the Bible is teaching. Not a lower standard in the New Testament. A higher standard. Why would God relax things in the New Testament? They're not under the law. That's talking about salvation. That's talking about the sacrificial system. When it comes to right and wrong, he says, be holy in the New Testament. Perfecting holiness in the fear of God, as I talked about on Sunday morning. And so let's finish up the chapter. I kind of went off on tangent there, but I just wanted you to understand that when David said in verse 19, Now therefore I pray, let my Lord the King hear the words of the up... I'm sorry, let the King hear the words of his servant. If the Lord has stirred the up against me, let him accept an offering. Do you hear that? So he's saying, look, if I've done wrong, if God has stirred you up, if you're here doing God's will by persecuting me, then I'm willing to make an offering to God right now to make this right. Do you see how it's a way of settling things with God, like I've just been explaining for the last few minutes? It's a way of settling things with God. Today we confess it, but we're still going to get this banking. Old Testament, they could get by with a little more. They were able to make the sacrifice to call it good in a lot of ways. Now obviously there are still consequences for their actions, no question about that. But God was chastising them less than he will chastise us today more. If we do the same stuff they pulled in the Old Testament, we're going to get chastised more. That's biblical, that's a fact. But as we go through this, he says, look, let him accept an offering in that case. But if they be the children of man, cursed be they before the Lord, for they have driven me out to stay from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, go serve other gods. He's saying, look, what's the result of me being persecuted like this? I'm having to keep leaving the land. Remember, he's going to Moab, he's going to the Philistines. He keeps leaving the Promised Land. He knows that God's will is for him to remain in the land. But he's saying, look, I'm being driven to all these heathen lands where all these false gods are worshiped in all these different places. He said, that's what wicked people would love to see happen, for me to go into effect under these other nations and worship other gods. He says, they are wicked. He says in verse 20, now therefore let not my blood fall to the earth before the face of the Lord, for the king of Israel has come out to seek a fleet. So again, he's humbling himself before Saul here, as when one does hunt a partridge in the mountains, something that he would just do for fun or for sport. Then said Saul, I've sinned. Return to my son David, for I will no more do thee harm. Well, he's heard that before. Because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day, behold, I have played the fool and have earned exceedingly. And David answered and said, behold the king's spear, and let one of the young men come over and fetch it. The Lord rendered to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness, for the Lord delivered thee into my hand today, but I would not stretch forth mine hand against the Lord's anointing. And behold, as thy life was much set by this day in mine eyes, so let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord. Let me talk about that for a moment. You see, when we do right, we can't look for retribution from man all the time. If you do something nice for somebody, remember David learned this last week. Remember he did nice things for Nabal? Nabal turned around and just cursed him and attacked him and was rude to him? When you do something nice for somebody, don't expect to be paid back from them, because it might not happen. But the Bible says here, and look, David has already figured out that Saul is not going to repay his good with good. Because he's already said this before, that he's not going to hunt at me, he just keeps doing it again. So that's why David says, as thy life was much set by this day in mine eyes, so let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord. He's saying, look, I'm expecting God to recompense me for doing the right thing here. And when you do the right thing, or even let's say you do nice things for people and help them out, they're not always going to appreciate it and they're not always going to do nice things back. But God will always pay you back. That's why the Bible says, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. That's talking about employees who are on a job situation where they're not getting paid right. He says, God will pay you. Man will not always repay you, but God will. And David's saying, look, I know, Saul, you're not going to respect my life. I've respected your life. I've spared your life twice. You probably won't spare mine, but God will, and let God spare my life. He says, let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord, and let him deliver me out of all tribulation by rapture, before it ever happens. Now, here's the thing. Here's what's funny. You say, what does that have to do with anything? Well, because if you look at the New Testament, this word keeps coming up over and over again. Tribulation, tribulation, tribulation, tribulation. Now, there's a synonym for the word tribulation that's used. Not cinnamon, but a synonym. In Matthew 24, the Bible talks about the tribulation, the great tribulation, and it says, for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world, no one ever shall be. But in Mark 13, when Jesus preached in the same sermon, he says, for then shall be great affliction, such as was not since the beginning of the world. So he substitutes the word affliction for tribulation in that version of when he preached it. You say, well, which one did he? He said both. It's funny, people look at the Sermon on the Mount, and they'll say, like, man, he preached a long sermon, this big, long sermon. Or they'll say, this big, long sermon that Stephen preached. Well, instead of stopwatch and read the chapter, it's not that long of a sermon. Think about it. Read Matthew 5, 6, and 7. You're going to be done reading in a matter of minutes. I mean, what's it going to take, 15 minutes probably or something to read through 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew or maybe even a little less than 15 minutes? Do you really think that Jesus preached for only 15 minutes? People can't. The people have been there for days. That's why they had... That's why he had to preach at 5,000 different times. Okay, when he preached these sermons, he didn't just get up and preach for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Okay, the Bible is not recording the entire sermon for you. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? The Bible talks about how Jesus preached and he didn't just preach at 10 minutes and then leave. He's preaching for hours. And so when you have different statements in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it's just different. He said it all because he's reiterating the same points over and over again in the same sermon. He's being repetitious. And also, he may have just preached the same sermon more than once because he's preaching to different crowds and he's reiterating things over and over. You know, he didn't just teach on divorce once and then just forget about it. No, he's preaching on it in different contexts, in different sermons. He's preaching on the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. He's preaching on stealing. He's preaching on your eyes, all different places, all different things. And so he preaches the same sermon. He doesn't call it Great Tribulation. He calls it Great Affliction. Does he not? And here's what the Bible says. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all the Lord delivereth them. That's what David's saying here. Let him deliver me out of all tribulation. And in Psalm 34, he said, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all the Lord delivereth them. And look, do we have to go through the litany of New Testament verses? Jesus said, These things have I spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation. You will have it. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. What about when it says in 1 Thessalonians 3, For verily we were with you. We told you before that we should suffer tribulation, even as it came to pass, and ye know. 2 Corinthians 1, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. The Bible says God comforts us in our tribulation. He delivers us out of our tribulation. He gives us peace and good cheer in our tribulation. But does he keep us away from tribulation? Show me that in the Bible. Show me the Bible and say, Where God says you're going to escape tribulation. You will not experience tribulation. I'll protect you to where you'll never go through tribulation. No, the Bible over and over just, and look, if you don't believe what I'm saying, just go home and just look up the word tribulation and it concords. Every time it occurs, I read it. And you're just going to read believers going through it, being comforted through it, being peaceful through it, through the Holy Spirit. And so that's what we see here, the same thing. He's not saying here, God's going to deliver me out of all tribulation like I'm never going to go through any affliction, never going to go through any trouble. No, maybe it's the afflictions of the righteous. We all go through tribulation. Paul told the Thessalonians, and look, were the Thessalonians living in the last days and the end times? No. He told those people, you're going to go through tribulation because every believer who's ever lived has gone through tribulation. Not necessarily the greatest tribulation. And what's going to happen in the end times is there's going to be the greatest tribulation that's ever happened on the earth. But it's not going to be much different than what's been going on all along. It's just going to be more of it. It's going to be a more intense persecution, a more intense affliction, where people are going to be, you know, forced to get the mark of the beast, and there's all the technology of the surveillance, and they're trying to hide, and they can't buy ourself. You know, it's going to be more extreme than what's happened in the past. But don't be fooled for a minute to think that God's people have ever gone through any period where they weren't going through tribulation. And so we see here that he says, let him deliver me out of all tribulation. David says the same thing in Psalm 34 when he said, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all, same wording, out of them all the Lord delivereth them. Out of all tribulation will be delivered. Not we're going to be delivered, you know, before it ever happens and so forth. No, Jesus Christ will come in the clouds at the rapture, but that's after the tribulation. Get a Bible, read Matthew 24, and it's that simple. Look at verse 25, it says, Then Saul said to David, Blessed be thou my son David, thou shalt both do great things and also shalt still prevail. So he leaves him with a blessing. So David went on his way and Saul returned to his place. So who is the good guy and who's the bad guy here? Again, David is doing everything right. David is overcoming evil with good. He's not taking things into his own hands. He's being kind and nice to the person who's persecuting him and he wins Saul over. Saul ends up blessing him. Now, Saul's going to go back at the same thing, but at least in this case, he averted a battle, he averted bloodshed, he did the right thing, and you know what? God's going to protect David for the rest of his life. David's going to be in all kinds of battles. He's going to have some near-death experiences and God's going to protect him. Why? Because his, Saul's life was precious in his eyes. So look, don't expect to be recompensed by man. Don't expect to always be paid back by man, but God will take care of you when you do right. Just do the right thing and let God bless you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for our church dear God and thank you for this chapter that we can learn from. Help us to emulate David in this chapter and follow his good example and pray that everyone would have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow and that they would remember to be thankful for all the wonderful blessings that they have, salvation and a home in heaven, the word of God, and also just the earthly blessings that we have of food, clothing, and a warm place to live. And please just bless our church dear God and help us have a great week. In Jesus' name we pray.