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March 26th is a Saturday and everyone's welcome if you would like to come I think maybe it's people with kids maybe it's kids party right so it's not that we don't want to spend time with the adults but it's primarily a kid's birthday party so you're welcome to come you know if you don't have kids you could show up to you if you want to get my address but it's it's primarily gonna be a kid's function and Leslie's coordinating it and like usual and the details I think we're we're having lunch at 1 p.m. and that's when the party starts 1 to 4 1 to 4 March it'll be in the bulletin next week but we just wanted to throw that out there it's gonna be at my house if you need my address or anything let me know and that she's probably I was waiting for the message because I know she's watching now maybe she's let me know if I said something wrong if she did I'll correct myself right before I preach but that's about it for announcements I appreciate everyone who's who's traveled out here to visit and be you know and enjoy our church today appreciate having you here with us and with all that being said I'm gonna turn the service back over the cards you lead us in our next song number 325 right let's sing this out together on the first what a glory he sheds on our way while we do his good will he abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but you trust and obey not a shadow can rise not a cloud in the sky but it's how quickly drives it away not a doubt or a fear not a sign or a tear can abide while we trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but you trust and obey not a burden we bear not a sorrow we share but our joy beneath the three-week day not a grief nor a loss not a frown nor a cross but it's blessed if we trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but you trust and obey but we never can prove the delight of his love until on the altar we lay for the favor he shows and the joy he bestows on what men who will trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but you trust and obey then infamously we will sit at his feet for we'll walk by his side in the way what he says we will do when he says we will go never fear only trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but you trust and obey Brother Lizzie, would you mind getting our offering for speech? And while we're collecting our offering as you all can turn in your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 18 Once again, that's Ezekiel chapter 18 And as we do custom, we read the entire chapter We're going to ask Brother Jesse if he could do our reading for us In Ezekiel chapter 18 the Bible reads The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, What mean ye that ye'st this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine, as the soul of the Father, so also the soul of the Son is mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man will be just, and do that which is lawful and right, and hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbor's wife, neither hath come near to a menagerous woman, and hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the dead or his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment, he that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath but drawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments to deal truly. He is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God, if he beget a son that is a robber, a shepher of blood, and that doeth alike to any one of these things, and that doeth not any of those duties, but even hath eaten upon the mountains, and defiled his neighbor's wife, hath oppressed the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination, hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase. Shall he then live? He shall not live. He hath done all these abominations, he shall surely die, his blood shall be upon him. Now lo, if he beget a son that seeth all his father's sins which he hath done, and is considerate, and doeth not such like, that hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lived up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, hath not defiled his neighbor's wife, neither hath oppressed any, hath not withholding the pledge, neither hath spoiled by violence, but hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with the garment, that hath taken off his hand from the poor, that hath not received usury nor increase, hath executed my judgments, hath walked in my statutes, he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live. As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, spoiled his brother by violence, and did that which is not good among his people, lo, even he shall die in his iniquity. Yet ye say, Why? Doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him. In his righteousness that he hath done, he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways and live? But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and commiteth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned. In his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Here now, house of Israel, is not my way equal? Are not your ways unequal? When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and commiteth iniquity, and dieeth in them, for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die. Again, When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful right, he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? Are not your ways unequal? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourself from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore, turn yourselves, and live ye. Brother Jesse, if you would, lead us in a word of prayer. Thank you for all the salvation that you've given us, Lord. And thank you so much for being with us, God. And I just pray that you bless the pastor as he comes on to preach for us. And give us ears to hear the Lord. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. All right. Ezekiel chapter 18 here. I'm going to expound a little bit just on this passage to give kind of a high-level overview of this passage. But when I give the overview, it's not going to be what the entire sermon is really about. There's a reason for starting here, but we can't read this entire chapter and not really touch on this. This is a chapter that, for some people, may be a little bit confusing, especially if you understand a little bit about the repentance controversy between what different people believe as far as salvation goes. In this church, we don't believe that a person has to repent of their sins or turn from their sins or repent of all of their wickedness in order to be saved and go to heaven. We don't believe that. We believe that a person is saved by changing their mind on what they're trusting in for their salvation and put that faith or that trust on our Savior Jesus Christ, on what he did for us. That is biblical salvation. I'm not going to, you know, worthy of entire sermons preached just dedicated to this one subject. But people who want to promote, no, no, no, you have to turn from all of your sins in order to be saved, will oftentimes go to Ezekiel chapter 18 to try to prove that as being this is why, you know, you have to turn from all of your sins or else you're not saved and all this other stuff. So let's turn to Ezekiel chapter 18, and essentially you have to ignore what all the rest of the Bible says, especially like New Testament verses are extremely clear about salvation being by grace, through faith, not of yourselves, the gift of God, you know, not of works, ascending man should boast, and everything else. That's not by law, everything else. So just real briefly, though, what Ezekiel 18 is talking about, this is not talking about your soul being saved eternally. I mean, that's the bottom line. When you understand that, it's really easy to understand. And it actually gels completely with the rest of the scripture. It fits perfectly with everything else that we see happening, that Ezekiel 18 is talking about you living your life. Okay, and if you're, you know, basically it's about responsibility for your actions and for your sins. And let's say you're living a righteous life, and I'm going to summarize this. We're going to look at some verses here in particular in just a bit. But just a high level overview. You're living your life, you're pretty good, you're obeying the commandments, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, and then you break the law and you do something extremely wicked. The Bible is saying, you know what, I'm going to punish you for that wickedness. That it doesn't matter how much good you've been doing, I mean, when you turn and just do something extremely wicked, you're going to die for that. You're going to be punished for that. And on the flip side, you know, people who might have had a life of crime and just kind of walk in a wicked way, but then they realize, man, I need to stop doing this, and they repent, and they turn, and they go, you know what, I'm going to start doing what's right. What God is expressing in this passage is, you know what, they're going to find mercy and be able to continue moving forward, because God doesn't want people just to die. He's not just happy about people living a wicked lifestyle and dying. God would rather have them start doing what's right in this lifetime. Very simple. And when I said this, this matches up perfectly with what the rest of the Bible says. You know, think about the book of Jonah. Jonah was sent to preach to a city, to Nineveh, where people are doing extremely wicked things. So their day-to-day life, I mean, they're just full of wickedness. And he sends this message, and it's a warning, and what happens, they repent. They go, you know what, we're going to have a fear of God, you're right, we need to get right with God. So they turn from, you know, and the Bible says in Jonah 3.10, and God saw their works, that they turn from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he thought to do unto them, or he said he was going to do unto them. That's what it says in Jonah 3.10. God repented, which means he changed his mind about destroying the city, because that's what he was going to do, when he saw their good works, that they stopped doing wicked things. But it speaks nothing to their souls being eternally saved. And one of the key factors here, if you want to talk about Ezekiel chapter 18, where is their mention of a savior, if this is talking about your soul being saved? I mean, even people who believe in works-based, you know, Christians who believe in works-based salvation, they don't want to just completely say, well, Jesus has nothing to do with it. Right? I mean, they're going to have to mix in the faith plus the works. They're going to have to do something to do that. But that's not what Ezekiel 18 says. Ezekiel 18 is complete works. It's complete works. Basically saying, if you do good works, you're saved. And if you don't do good works, you're not saved. It can't be talking about your soul. It can't be talking about your eternal life. It is literally talking about your life on this earth, because there is such a thing as, you know, physical death, and that being a judgment of God as well, if you do wickedly, even for a believer. If you just choose to live a wicked life as a believer, guess what? God can take your breath. God can destroy you. And you're done. And you reap what you sow. So, from that standpoint, I just want to, you know, kind of make that clear. Just because we're starting off with this passage and we read the whole chapter, I want to give, you know, spent five minutes on that, great. We're going to move on now to what I really, you know, the reason, the real reason why I wanted to start here, because we do need to have another understanding of reconciliation of what this is talking about, how this applies, but how also, so, let's, before I get any further, let's just reread a few of these verses. Look at verse number four. The Bible says, Behold, all souls are mine. Right? God says, All souls belong to me. As the soul of the Father, so also the soul of the Son is mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just and do that which is lawful and right, and this is talking about how they're just, by doing lawful and right. It's not talking about being just because you put your faith in the Savior. It's talking about being just just based on your actions, right? There's different levels of justification in God's eyes. If a man be just and do that which is lawful and right, and hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbor's wife, neither hath come near to a monstrous woman, and hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment. He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments to deal truly. He is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God. Now, this is not talking about someone having to be perfect, but it's basically saying, you know, it's listing off a whole bunch of things from God's law saying, you know, if you're keeping yourself from all these, from all this stuff, you're obeying God's commandments, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, you're kind of living your life in accordance to the law of God. It's not specifying like you have to be 100% perfect in every single area. It's just saying, look, this is how you're living, right? There's people who live and can keep themselves from committing adultery, for example, right? We could live an entire life without ever having committed adultery. You could not be involved with usury, right? Not charging interest on people when you loan them money, right? There's plenty of people that can fit this bill of living a pretty virtuous life in general, right? This isn't just impossible to do. And he's basically saying, you know, if you do these things and you live this way, then you're going to thrive, you're going to be blessed. And God already pronounced that in his law, hey, if my people live this way, you know, I'm going to bless them. And if they turn from my commandments and turn from my laws and they don't have anything to do with me and don't have anything to do with his laws and commandments, then they're going to be cursed, right? It's that simple. Verse number 11, or excuse me, verse number 10, the Bible says, If he beget a son that is a robber, a shearer of blood, and that doeth alike to any one of these things, and that doeth not any of those duties, but even hath eaten upon the mountains, and defiled his neighbor's wife, hath oppressed the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination, hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase, shall he then live? He shall not live. He hath done all these abominations, he shall surely die, his blood shall be upon him. So basically he's saying, you've got a father and a son, you know, the father's doing everything right, he's doing everything good, he's going to live, because he's doing right in the eyes of God. And then you've got his son that goes, and basically he's doing the exact opposite, right? He's a bad seed, he's a bad kid, he's going around just getting in trouble, stealing, committing adultery, doing all these wicked things, living a wicked life, and he says, you know what, he's going to die. This whole chapter is essentially saying, your personal, what you do, your choices, is what's going to make that determination. So the father's not responsible for all the sins that his son does, and vice versa, right? The son's not responsible. If dad's a real wicked person, but the son's doing right, the son's doing good, he's saying, you know what, dad's going to die, son's going to live. Real simple. But what this passage is doing is it's assigning responsibility, and basically just saying, you own your own actions, you cannot be held responsible for what anybody else does, whether they're close family members or not or whatever. That's what this passage is teaching. But we're going to reconcile this, because that's ultimately what this is saying, and just because this truth exists, that you're responsible for your own sins, does not mean that when you sin, it doesn't affect other people. And what I want to preach about this afternoon is a warning for you to understand and to think about, and especially those you care about and those that you love, if you're going to think about sinning, and I'm talking about willful sinning, and you know you're doing something that's wrong, and you start getting into things anyways, the damage that you're going to do to those around you. Anytime that you sin, it never just affects you. It never affects you. So I'm appealing to your love for other people, whether it be your children, your siblings, your parents, your spouse, whoever it is that's close to you, understand this, when you sin, you will definitely negatively impact them, even though it's not their fault. So while we see in Ezekiel 18, hey, God's only going to hold you responsible for the stuff that you do, it does not mean that someone doing bad things will not spill over onto you and cause bad things to happen unto you anyways, even though you're not responsible. And I tell you, my sermon is collateral damage, because that's what it is. You've got people who, they didn't do anything wrong, but they end up suffering the consequences of someone else who's involved in sin. They're not owning the responsibility for that sin, but they are having to deal with the fact that anytime someone sins, it will cause problems for everyone else around you, guaranteed. And the reason why I'm preaching this sermon is just because oftentimes people have their secret sins and they think, this is just affecting me. This doesn't impact anyone else. I'm the one doing this. You know, I'll suffer the consequences. I'll pay for it, right? If God's gonna, you know, judge me, then fine. But it's a bad attitude to have, because it's not even reality. You have to understand, it will go beyond just you. And your sinful actions will definitely impact other people. So I urge you, just from the perspective of if you love and care about other people, those close to you, reconsider the sins that you want to do, the secret sins. So we're gonna get into some specifics that definitely will always impact other people. And we're gonna use David as kind of our prime example from Scripture of how that actually plays out, because the Scripture records very clearly what happens when people do sinful things and how it can impact other people, even though they didn't have anything to do with it. Turn, if you would, to 2 Samuel chapter 12. I'm gonna read for you from Exodus 20. We read that this morning. That was our primary passage from the sermon this morning. But if you picked up on this in the Ten Commandments, I'll read these verses 5 and 6 for you. The Bible says, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, talking about idols, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. So what's that saying? People who are guilty of committing this sin of having other gods before them and bowing down to these idols and stuff, you are going to bring harm unto your future generations of children under the third and fourth generation. Now, that does not mean that God is holding those children responsible for the sin of their father, grandfather, great grandfather, whatever, right? But they will have to suffer as a result of their sin. And that's a big burden. That's a big price. And if you're laying that on other people's shoulders, you know, shame on you. When you know the truth, especially, you know that you're not supposed to be doing these things. You say, you know what? I'm gonna do it anyways. You are bringing a curse on, you know, you could potentially be bringing a curse on future generations. Specifically, the Bible even says, look, this is what's gonna happen all the way up to the third or fourth generation. That's a high price to pay. And that definitely goes well beyond, oh, well, I'll just, you know, I'll deal with it. I'll handle, I'll pay for it if it's me. You know what? Sometimes the price tag goes beyond just you. Now, it still does apply to you. And that's why God does it, because the punishment is still a punishment against you. Because anyone that loves their kids is not gonna want them to have to suffer for something that you did wrong, which in itself is a punishment on you. And this is, you know, God's punishments are always deterrent also from having to do these things, which is why I'm preaching this, so we can all fully understand the full total ramifications. And, you know, you think about sin as like a nuclear bomb, right? A bomb goes off, there's gonna be a lot of innocent people that end up getting hurt around that. Okay, we don't want to be messing with sin. The wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. You better believe, I mean, that's a pretty destructive force that's going to be impacting other people around you. So let's look, kind of closer look at David, right? David's, you know, I'll call them secret sins, clearly impacted other people. These are sins that you can look at, and maybe if you were involved in this, you'd be like, well, no one else really needs to know. I'm the only one that did this. I'm the only one that's gonna be impacted by this. But it's clearly not the case. Look at verse number 9 of 2 Samuel chapter 12. The Bible says, Now, when this happened, when David took Bathsheba and committed adultery with her, right, he could have said, well, no one needs to know about it. And that is what he did. He was just thinking, like, well, no one needs to know about this, right? Here's an act that happened. It's done. It's over. But you know what? Everything could be just fine. No one needs to know this ever happened. But he's guilty of it. She was trying to cover it up. And obviously, then, as we all know, she's pregnant. So he's trying to cover that up because, oh, no, her husband's off fighting a war, and she becomes pregnant, right, with his child. So then he's trying to get Uriah to come in and try to make it look like, oh, the pregnancy happened because he came back into town, but that didn't happen. So he ends up having Uriah, a righteous guy, you know, one of the top 30 men, you know, these great mighty men that David had, he ends up killing him, all just to try to cover up his sin. So he commits adultery, and he commits his murder, but it's still all like a secret, right? I mean, no one really knows what's going on, but you know who knows? God knows. Now, obviously, this is extremely grievous, okay, and would to God that no one here would ever come close to being involved with such wickedness in their entire life, right? I hope not. But we can't, you know, let him that thinketh he stand and take heed, you know, lest he fall. We all need to take heed, just in general, you know, be a humble mind and make sure that we're taking precautions so that this would never happen to us because, you know, these sins still, you know, that sinful nature is inside of us and could potentially draw you to do something even as wicked as this. But look at what the Bible says here. So as a result of David's sin, verse 10 says, Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house. Well, I hope that was fun, David. I mean, you really enjoyed that, right? That one night that you thought you could keep a secret that turned into murder, adultery turned into murder. Now, you know what God says? The sword's never going to depart out of your house. There's always going to be fighting and conflict and death from the sword. Way to go. So that impacts not just David, but his whole house. That's a high price to pay, right? David might be thinking, well, I made my bed, I'll sleep in it, whatever, you know, like, yeah, you will. But guess what? That price now is over spilling on to other people as a result of your actions. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house, but that's not it. He says, Because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of your eye that hid tight to be thy wife, thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this son. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun. So basically, what David reaped, or what David sowed, he's going to reap, but it comes back a lot greater than what it started with, right? I mean, you say he committed over with one person and, you know, did all this, but now it's going to be like, you know, he has multiple wives, and these concubines are all going to have this happen to him. It's going to be his whole house that's going to suffer. There's going to be multiple people that die as a result of what he did, and it's not just one to one, okay? When you sow a seed, it comes back a lot greater, so when you're sowing wickedness, don't be surprised. You sow to the wind, you're going to reap the whirlwind. It's way stronger. It's way bigger. It's a lot more than you ever thought you'd want to pay, and, you know, when the whirlwind comes through, there's collateral damage. There's people that are going to get hurt around you, those that you love, when you thought it was just you committing that sin, and no one has to know about it. Well, you know what? When God knows, sometimes he just wants to make sure everyone knows about it, too, and that's why he said, here, you did this thing secret. He said this is going to be public for everybody to see. Verse 13, and David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord, and Nathan said unto David, the Lord also hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. So God still shows him mercy here, because David deserved to die for what he did, but David truly did repent, and he really was sorry, and God can see that, you know, some people, it's like, they kind of show, they pretend like they're repented because they got caught, like they're just more upset that they got caught than anything else. That wasn't the case with David. David drew, you know, genuinely did, once he was confronted, was like, oh, man, you're right, you know, he did wrong, and he repented, which is why God showed him mercy, which also matches up with Ezekiel 18, you know, when someone does wickedly, but then they repent, and they get right, you know, that there is mercy available for those people. Verse number 14 says, how be it, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. Another point to understand, and remember, that when you are guilty of committing wickedness as a Christian, as if someone was going to hold the name of Christ, and people know, oh, yeah, you know, so and so, they're a Christian, they live this clean life and everything else, and then you're guilty of wickedness, you're not only, like I said, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're not only, like I said, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wickedness, you're guilty of the wicked like I said, bringing, you know, the shame or guilt upon yourself, and not only are other people around you going to get hurt, but you're also bringing a bad name on Jesus Christ because you're his representative here. You're an ambassador for Christ to preach the gospel, to let people know about Jesus, and if you're going to give that example of what Christians do, you know, that's even more shame and punishment, God's punishing him on top of all that and saying, you know what, now that child is going to die also. You know, it's not that God's holding the child responsible, that's a punishment on David. That's a punishment on him. But David's the one who brought that on his family. No one else did. He's the one responsible for that. He brought it on those around him. And Nathan departed on his house and the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife barren of David and it was very sick. And of course it ends up dying. Flip over to chapter 24, we're going to see another example of David's sin impacting others. Now what's interesting about this is that you might not think this is really that bad. It's pretty easy and obvious to see, yeah, the adultery and murder, really bad, right, really bad. And then you can see the results of that and we could all probably nod our heads and go, yeah, I mean, you shouldn't have done that. Right? I mean, you're reaping what you sowed. It impacts other people. It's terrible. Right? There's nothing good that comes out of that sin. It's just horrible. And a lot of people have to suffer as a result of it. But you can say, but I'm never going to commit murder. You know, I'm never going to commit adultery. So, like, at least I don't have to worry about that. Well, good. I hope not. That's great. But look at this next sin of David's that we're going to look to where other people are impacted. We're going to start reading verse number 10 of chapter 24 there in 2 Samuel. But then David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly and that I have done, and now I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly. What does that mean? David was told by God, commanded by God, not to take a census. That's what it means to number the people. He says, you know what? God wanted his faith just to trust that the Lord would defend them, the Lord would protect them, and that they don't need to know exactly, because the whole point of this numbering is to figure out how many troops you have. How big of forces do you have? What size army can I raise? If I needed to fight against someone, how many able-bodied men are there in our midst where we can go and fight and know all this stuff and get the number of the people just to have a peace of mind, just to be able to plan, just to be able to do the war and everything? And God said, don't do it. I'm your defender. I'm your shield. I'm your buckler. I'm your stronghold. You come to me and don't worry about the rest. If you're doing what's righteous, if you come to me, then I will make sure that all of your enemies are defeated. But because of David's lapse of faith, he decided still to just go ahead and number the people. He commanded Joab, go forth and number the people. And Joab tried to resist a little bit and be like, no, I don't think we should do this. Don't worry about it. God will bless you. Let the people of Israel be the sand of the sea. But David wouldn't hear it, and he still said, nope, go ahead and do it, just clearly in disobedience to God's word. You say, but really, is that a big deal? I mean, just counting the people? I mean, how bad could that possibly be? Well, let's see. Let's see how bad God thinks that that can possibly be. See, we're really good at minimizing the sinfulness of sin, at minimizing how big of a deal sin really is, especially when you're involved. You don't want to think that you're doing anything extremely wicked. Well, let's see what God thinks is an appropriate punishment for the sin that David committed. Verse 11. You know, pick your own tool there, right? You're going to get punished. You're going to get disciplined here. But this is way beyond just, you know, a whipping on the rear end. This is much more serious. Let's see what the options are. Verse number 13 says, Pestilence in thy land, now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me. So you've got seven years of famine, three months of being on the run from your enemies, just destroying you, chasing you down, killing you, or just three days of a famine, of disease. You know, pestilence just coming, not famine, of pestilence coming through the land and people getting sick that way. And verse 14 says, David said in the Gad, I am in a great strait, let us fall now into the hand of the Lord for his mercy. Mercies are great and let me not fall into the hand of man. So David decides, you know what? I'm just going to just leave everything completely to God's and not have any human ability to kind of go beyond what God intended on to be judged. So he's like, I'm just going to stay with God because God has a lot of mercy. So hopefully he'll hold back a little bit and not be too hard on us. So he chooses the pestilence. Verse 15 says, so the Lord sent the pestilence upon Israel. From the morning, even to the time appointed, and there died of the people, look at this, from Dan even to Beersheba, seventy thousand men. Seventy thousand people died as a consequence for David's sin. Now that is, that is a, I mean, you talk about collateral damage, you know, I was talking about a nuclear bomb going off, that's significant there. That's a big deal. That's a lot of people having to suffer as a result of David's decision. David's the one that did that. And he even pleads with God, you know, we didn't read the whole story, but he's just like, look, I'm the one that sinned, God, please, you know, just, just, you know, please show us some mercy. And God did show mercy, but not until all these people died. Now, the sin that you commit may not hold the weight or gravity of seventy thousand people dying. Okay? Let's be real. Let's be fair. It's not like we see seventy thousand people dying every day because of sins that people are committing. But what this is showing us, what this is demonstrating, is that your actions and your decisions, even though you may think this only applies to me, I mean, that's what David, I'm sure that's what David thought. David probably never thought that he would be the purpose or the cause for so many people dying in the land because of his decision to just get the senses, to get the count. He misunderstood, or he, you know, he blatantly disregarded the word of God, but he didn't count the cost properly. And when it comes to sin in our life, nobody counts the cost properly, because if you really did, you really wouldn't, you're preventing yourself from doing it because the cost is very high. Now, turn if you go to 2 Samuel chapter 3, I'm going to show you another impact of collateral damage in a different sense, right? Not just the exact punishment for your sins, but other things that go along with your sin that impact other people is with your children. Okay? And the sins of the parents and the sins of the children and how oftentimes you'll find that whatever sins you have in your life, your downfalls, your shortcomings, the sins, the children many times will pick up on those and then take it to a whole other level. They'll see what you've done and go much further beyond that because the kids are learning from you as the example, and hey, if something's good enough for mom to do this, if it's good for dad to do this, if it's not that big of a deal, then guess what? I'm going to do it too. But see, whereas mom or dad might be like, well, I know this is bad, but I'm going to try to keep it reduced to a minimum. I'm going to try not to do too much of this and try to hold back on the sin without just going forward. The kids don't see it that way. The kids just see it as, well, mom or dad is doing this, so it must not be that bad, so why not? And then, you know, that causes even more pain and suffering on your family and on your children, right? We think about, you know, there's a perfect example of Abraham when he was with Sarah and they went into the land and he lied about Bimlech, you know, Bimlech was going to take his wife. He said, don't, you know, say that you're my sister and everything else, and Abraham explained, well, she's my husband. She's my half-sister, you know, and we don't know 100% if that's true. It probably is true, but then when it comes to Isaac, Isaac does the same exact thing, but his is just a total lie, and, you know, he ends up doing more, you know, it's just like he sees this from his dad, and then he kind of does the same thing, but it goes even a little bit farther with him, but, you know, focusing more on David. Second Samuel chapter 3, we're going to see a list of all these different sons that David has, but look at how many different moms there are. David ended up taking multiple wives, okay? We know, first of all, that Michal was the first. That was Saul's daughter. That was his wife. That was his first wife. It should have been his only wife, but when David goes on the run, he marries a couple more women, right? He marries Abigail, and he marries, I forget the name of one of the other ones, that, you know, he starts collecting these wives, and then he's ruling in Hebron, and then he goes on to Jerusalem, and then he adds even more wives. Look at verse number 2 of 2 Samuel chapter 3. The Bible says unto David were born sons in Hebron, and his firstborn was Amnon of Ahinoam, the Jezreelites, so Ahinoam is a wife, and his second, Chiliab of Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite, so there's another wife. Absalom, and the third, Absalom the son of Maacah, the daughter of Telmai, king of Gishur, so, oh look, there's another wife, and the fourth, so his fourth child, you'd think, well maybe he's back to Ahinoam, the Jezreelites, you know, burying another son. Oh wait, no, Adonijah the son of Haggith, so there's another another wife, and the fifth, Shepetah the son of Abital, and the sixth, Ithrium by Igla, David's wife. These were born to David in Hebron, so his first six children are born from six different women, and none of them are his first wife, so at this point he has at least seven wives. But he hasn't stopped there. We flip over to chapter 5, verse 13, and because we also know that he married Bathsheba, right, after Uriah died, he took her unto unto his house, and she became his wife, so he could try to cover up the adulteries, still show that like, oh yeah, she got pregnant after, you know, Uriah died, and and and then she had the baby. So he married Bathsheba, and then in verse 13 of Second Samuel 5, the Bible says, and David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after after he was come from Hebron. What was written in chapter 3 was, that's what he had in Hebron. Then he marries even more concubines and wives after he's come from Hebron, and there were yet sons and daughters born to David. We don't know the total number, you know, exact number, but that's kind of a lot, right? I mean, more, plural, concubines, wives, we could venture to say some, I mean, I don't know, 10, 20, right? Okay, well turn if you go to 1 Kings chapter 11, David takes these multiple wives. Now, it's commanded in the law of the Lord that a king is not supposed to multiply wives unto himself. That absolutely is a commandment. Now, I believe it's it's it's a commandment, or at least a principle, that we go all the way back to Genesis, that nobody should have multiple wives, that, you know, a man leaves father and mother and cleaves unto his wife, and they too, they twain, become one flesh. And that's it. That's that's what the Bible teaches from beginning to end of what is right, the way that God intended things to be. Now, we know that men in the Bible, even some godly men, did have more than one wife, but it wasn't right, and it wasn't what God intended. So now we have David but there's absolutely no disputing the fact that the law says that the king is not supposed to multiply wives unto himself, and David was a king. So he absolutely disobeyed the word of the Lord, having these these wives and concubines. Now, what did Solomon do? Okay, Solomon sees that. And look, and think about how important this is. The king is not supposed to multiply wives. How many kings have there been in Israel at all, prior to David? One. Right? I mean, we've had judges. I mean, there was judges, but they weren't kings. They were rulers, they were judges, but they were not kings. They didn't get a king until the people demanded a king, when Samuel was the last judge, and then you've got Saul becoming king, and then you've got David replacing Saul. So very early in their kingdom, you've got one of the king, the second king, multiplying wives unto himself. And then you've got Solomon and his son witnessing this, going, oh, okay. Well, I guess our interpretation of what the law says there is a little bit different. I guess it doesn't really mean that you can't, I mean, what does multiplication even mean? I mean, well, Solomon apparently doesn't know what multiplication, or he definitely knows what multiplication means, or he just must not have cared. Look at verse three. And he had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. 700 wives and 300 concubines. I mean, a thousand women. David was not close to that. I mean, I know we don't know the exact number, which is, well, he took more wives than concubines. I guarantee you, he wasn't in the hundreds. Right? I mean, there's nothing to tell us that he got that close. But this is a great example of, you know, the sin of dad. Okay, he dabbled around with having multiple wives. He started multiplying wives. So then we see the child going, hey, I mean, if dad could do it, pfft, why stop? Why stop at 20? Why stop at 500? I mean, a thousand women. Like, what's wrong with you? You can't have a meaningful relationship with any of them. I mean, because if you spent one day, just one day, all right, I'm going to spend the day with you. Right? Let's spend the day together. And then you go through all of them, you're not going to, I mean, it's going to be a few years before you could spend another day with the same person again. Like, that's crazy. That's crazy. But why not? Right? Why not? If you're going to multiply, you might as well multiply. You might as well go logarithmic on this. I mean, let's just go exponential, right? Let's, I'm not multiplying. It's totally exponential. This is just one example we can see in the scripture of that. But I'm telling you, you know, the parents that, well, you know, we drink socially. We'll bring out some booze on some occasions. Well, I mean, if it's okay on some occasions, why isn't it okay? Why isn't it okay every day? And if it's okay every day, I mean, having a glass, well, why not two? Why not two? I mean, what's one more? I mean, you see how this grows when you're, when the kids learn this and they can see something that's wrong. And they can see it just being accepted and tolerated. You know, even if the parents don't have a huge major problem with that, but you're accepting, you're kind of have this open sin that's like, yeah, you shouldn't have that. Oftentimes, the kids can just take that to a whole another level, a whole another extreme, because they're learning that that is okay. And, you know, this is what happens in churches, also, by the way, that don't exercise biblical church discipline that we see in First Corinthians chapter five, okay? When you have church discipline in place that says, hey, the fornicators, you're not welcome. You have to get right with God and repent and get right. And then you can come back. But when you have kids growing up in church, and very clearly, you've got unmarried couples just coming in, acting like they're married. No one says everything, anything. Everything's just fine. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I saw what the Bible said there in First Corinthians five, but I mean, nothing's being done about it. I guess that must not be that important. I guess I must be misunderstanding what the Bible says there about, you know, put away that wicked person from among yourselves. Apparently, I don't understand that because the church just seems to be just fine with it. And then the kids grow up seeing that happen, and they're like, well, sure, now I'm shacking up with people until I'm 30 years old or 40 years old, then maybe I'll get married, maybe, after I've already had a whole history of a bunch of people, because marriage is even that big of a deal anymore. And you just expect, well, of course, I'm going to be welcome. Of course, you should let me in here. No, no, we need to, you know, keep the biblical standards. You end up in the situation where we're at right now. Let's keep reading here, because there's more to this I want to get into in just more application with this type of sin, specifically. Because not only did he increase his wives, obviously we see there are 700 wives, 300 concubines, but he's also going after the strange women. That's another aspect of this that's also very important. He's going after strange women. Strange women, Solomon, these heathen women, that they're not saved, they're not believers, they're not following the Lord, they're going after all these other strange gods. And the Bible also commanded against this and also warned against this that, you know, don't start making marriages with the heathen, because they're going to turn away your heart from the Lord. And this is exactly what happened to Solomon. Let's keep reading here. Verse number four says, For it came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. And we're going to get into this in just a minute, but just don't forget, Solomon was like the most wise person on the face of the earth. Okay? You say, well, I know better, I'm smart, I'm never going to let that happen. Solomon had wisdom. Solomon had more wisdom than you do. Okay? He did. Solomon had more wisdom than I do. But he succumbed to these lusts of the flesh. He allowed himself to give in to something that he knew was wrong. And there's a huge price as a result of Solomon's sins that comes in. We'll get to that in a minute. Let's keep reading here. Verse number five. The Bible says, For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, the abomination of the Ammonites. So, one of the things that we often will downplay is saying, oh, well, Solomon was just building up altars for his wives, but it says here that he went after Ashtoreth. Let's keep reading. Verse six. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. So he is definitely building these altars and high places and everything else for these false gods for his wives, because they're all worshipping all these phony gods. Verse number nine says, And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice. Solomon's heart was turned away from the Lord. Now, look, I don't know about you. I believe King Solomon was saved. I absolutely believe he was saved. And this is something to understand, you know, and this is a separate subject, but be very careful on labeling people saved and unsaved just in general, because there's some things that you might not be able to comprehend or I might not be able to comprehend. How is that even possible? But we definitely have some people recorded doing some things that I would be like, man, how could he be saved? And then just start building these altars, these false gods, and having your heart turned from the Lord God of Israel. You know the Lord God of Israel. He gave you all this stuff, and you've turned your heart away from God? And you've gone after a false god? Now, I'm not saying he renounced his religion and became an atheist, right? But he's dabbling, getting involved in these false religions. To some extent, to where his heart is turned from the Lord, and verse 10 says, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods, but he kept not that which the Lord commanded. So Solomon definitely went after other gods. The Bible clearly says, look, he went after other gods because he didn't keep what God commanded about that. So it's possible for a saved person to get themselves into a position where they're doing this type of thing. Now, it's a result of his love for the strange woman, right? They were able to turn his heart completely away from the Lord, which no one should be able to do that. But God warned against it. God's word is true. You know, I don't care how smart you think you are, Solomon. You, of all people, should know better than this, since God endued you with wisdom from his word that this will happen. He thought he could handle it, and he couldn't. Now, the strange women for Solomon They all were strange, because anyone who's not your wife originally is a strange woman unto you. There's a foreign woman that should not, you should never be going after strange women anyways. Especially that, you know, so for a married person, anyone who's not your wife is a strange woman. Anyone. Okay? And if you and your heart are going after strange women, watch out. That's a serious sin. It's a serious sin. When you start going after strange women, they're going to turn your heart. They're going to turn your heart away from God, and they're going to turn your heart away from your family and away from your spouse. Okay, that's what's going to happen. That is what happens. Don't play around with that. And I think that every married couple ought to have some very strict rules for themselves to prevent this from happening. You don't have secret chats. You don't play these secret games and do all these other things and start making connections with people, whether it's anonymous or not. I don't care. You don't do those things. You don't want to start having your heart affected towards other people that are strange if you're not married to them. Okay? And start building these relationships. It's going to bring a lot more damage than you realize. And if you have that happening in your house right now, you better stop immediately before some real destruction happens. There is so much divorce rampant in this land and don't, you know, amongst Christians and unbelievers alike. And the vast majority of those divorces happen because of infidelity. And that infidelity doesn't just happen like you wake up one day and all of a sudden you commit adultery. It's a process. You start turning your heart away, turning your heart away and building these other relationships, going on to strange women or strange men. Married people, the strange woman is someone who's not your wife, not your spouse. And for, you know, for the unmarried, it's the unbeliever. That's the strange person. You don't want to start going after people who are not saved if you're unmarried and you're looking to marry someone because guess what? They're going to turn your heart away from the Lord. They don't have the same value that you do. They're not even saved. They're not worshiping the same God. You shouldn't be messing around with people that you know are unsaved. But what was the result of Solomon's sin? A divided nation. Right? He goes after all those women. What does God do? He rends the kingdom from him and he splits it up. Now, instead of having one unified house, the house of Israel, it's divided up, split apart. Well, when you start going after people, strange women, not your wife, you're going to divide your house. You're going to be split up. That's exactly what happened on a large scale with Solomon. It's going to happen individually with you. You're going to split up your children. You're going to split up your wife from you. You're going to split up your family. Your house will be divided. That happens. Okay? And look, this happens when your heart starts going after other people and they're just about to destroy your entire house. Don't mess with it. And don't try to justify yourself saying, oh, well, I didn't actually do anything. You're playing with fire. People like to justify their actions all the time. Oh, I'm going to dabble in this. I'm going to play around with this. You know, when your heart starts to turn, I mean, think about the harm, too. I mean, what about your spouse? What about your children, if you have children, right? Think about your spouse. If you start gaining affections and having some kind of relationship with people, you are doing damage. Just say, oh, well, I'll deal with it. I know it's a sin. It's just my problem. What are you doing to your wife? What are you doing to your husband? But they don't know about it. It doesn't matter because they don't know about it. Because they're going to find out. And especially if you're a child of God, guess what? God sees all that stuff, and he's not just going to let that go. It's going to blow up in your face. One way or another, deal with it before it gets out of hand. Oh, I didn't do anything. Look, you start turning your heart away, you're going to end up with a divided house. And everybody suffers for that. You know who suffers the most in these type of situations? The children. When there's children involved, they always end up getting the brunt and the worst of it. The least deserving end up usually having to deal with it the most. There's plenty of other sins we could talk about. Obviously, this is one that was coming from the passage, but, I mean, think about, like, drug addiction, right? Because that's a lot, that's something that people, alcohol abuse, drug addiction, people might think, well, this only affects me. This is just my choice. This is just what I want to do. I live by myself. I'm just going to do this. It's always going to impact other people. Always. Always. I was just having a discussion with one of my neighbors about this subject, about a family member of theirs, just saying how much he hates. He's like, man, I hate, I hate, I hate the drug use. I hate it. He was never a drug user himself, but he has siblings that were. And he's just, you know, we're talking about it, like, you know, the amount of pain that's inflicted on the immediate family. On the parents. You know, the parents that are upset and cry and are distressed over their children, that, you know, who knows what's going to happen to them because they're involved in the drugs and stuff. It's a self-centered type of a thing, but you're inflicting pain on other people. You know, you've got a spouse that loves you and you're involved in this type of drug addiction abuse. You're bringing pain and hurt unto them. And your children, and you're teaching your children wrong. There's so many things that just spiral out of control. All sin stinks. All sin. I don't care what, you know, we can go on and on and on the list. I'm not going to go on and on the list. I've kind of ran out of time here. But remember, take, if you take anything away from this sermon, take this away. You know, you know you've got some secret sin going on. You better deal with it right away because you're probably not considering those around you and the people that might end up being affected by whatever it is that you want to hold so dear and so close and I don't want to give this up. It's going to blow up in your face and other people are going to be hurt by your sin. Whether it be your children, your spouse, or other family members, deal with it before it has to get to the point to where you're being confronted by Gad the Seer going, okay, now you've got a choice. Which punishment do you want? That's it. I don't want a punishment. Not a choice. And guess what? It's not just you being impacted by this. Now there's a bunch of other people that are going to be impacted as well. Don't play with fire. You get burned. It's like the Bible says not to embrace the bosom of a stranger, right? That's playing with fire, playing with your neighbor's wife, you know, that type of stuff. It's going to come back and bite you. God, I pray that you please help us all to have a sober mind and be able to overcome our flesh, be able to overcome the sins and, you know, everyone here individually, I'm sure, has got something in their mind where they're going, you know what? I need to take care of this, Lord. I pray that you please help every single one of us here be strengthened to be able to overcome the sin that's in our life that we know has to be dealt with. I pray that you please show us mercy. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. I pray that you please help us. And that everyone here would have a repentant heart, that we'd be able to move forward and just, you know, overcome, mortify the deeds of our flesh and be able to walk in the Spirit increasingly every day, dear Lord. We do love you. We want to serve you. We want to be used of you. We don't want to bring a shame or slander unto the name of Christ. And I pray that you would please just strengthen us and help us to do what's right every single day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Will Brother Carter come up and lead the last song for us? It's hymn number 41. Once again, it's hymn number 41, Sweet By and By. All right, let's sing it out together on the first. All right, let's sing it out together on the first. The melodious songs of the blessed And our spirit shall sorrow no more Not a sign for the blessing of rest In the sweet by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sweet by and by We shall lead on that beautiful shore To our bountiful Father above We will offer our tribute of praise For the glorious gift of His love And the blessings that hallow our days In the sweet by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sweet by and by We shall lead on that beautiful shore Amen. Thank you all for being here this evening. We are dismissed. Amen.