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Love lifted me, love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me. All my hearts will give my giver to him a thing. In his blessed presence live ever his praises sing. Oh, so mighty and so true, where has my soul been sung? Faithful loving service to to him belong. Love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me, love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me. Souls and people look above, Jesus completely saves. We who live to buy his love out of the angry ways. He, the master of the sea, will lose his will all day. He, your savior, wants to be saved today. Love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me, love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me. Amen. Brother Riley, will you open this for the word of prayer, please? Amen. Alright, let's turn to song number 56. When we all get to heaven, on the day of rejoicing, that will be amen. Song number 56, when we all get to heaven. Sing it out loud. On the first, sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing his mercy and his grace. In the mansions, bright and blessed, he'll prepare us a place. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory. While we walk the pilgrim pathway, clouds will overspread the sky. But when traveling days are over, not a shadow, not a sign. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory. Let us then be true and faithful, trusting, serving every day. Just one glimpse of him in glory will the toil of life repay. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory or blast. Onward to the prize before us, soon his duty will be full. Soon the pearly gates will open, we shall trend the streets of gold. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory. All right, well good morning. Welcome to Shield of Faith Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, just raise your hand or you need a pen and Mauser will sprint you one. Just keep your hand up. All right, well let's go through these announcements here real quick. Weekly church service time, Sunday morning services at 10.30. Sunday evenings at 6 and Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Underneath that's the list of our soiling times. We've got Saturday morning at 10.30 a.m. meeting right here. Sunday afternoons at 2 with brother David. Mondays at 6.30 with brother Mauser. Wednesdays at 11 with brother Briley. And Thursdays around 6.30. Pretty soon that'll be like always at 6.30. So that's good. 208-391-5323 is the number to call. Let's see praise reports. We are at seven salvations for me. And that's 50 year to date. Last Sunday morning we had 38 in attendance. 20 in the evening service and 22 on Wednesday. And is that sowing number correct on the bottom there? It's 11. We have three and one more ready. I think we have one on the Thursday. All right, sowing numbers are all messed up. So it was a late night yesterday trying to get this thing. You wouldn't believe it. This thing took like until one o'clock in the morning to put in here. Just this, whatever this is. So hope it works, Kayden. So anyways, back page. So tonight we are starting 2 Samuel. We'll be in chapter number one. Don't forget about David and Kara's wedding. He has all the information you could ever possibly want. Date, times, order of services. So if you have any of those questions, go see him immediately after the service. He'll be happy to tell you all that information. And let's see here. Come join us Father's Day, June 20th. There will be a gift for all fathers in attendance and a barbecue after the evening service. Hamburgers, hot dogs, and buns will be provided by the church. And please bring a dish to share. And let's see, we already did all the birthdays this month. This week's memory verse is Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 8, which says, He that diggeth the pitch shall fall into it, and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. We're a family integrated church, and that means children and infants are always welcome in the service. So there's a daddy baby room right over here to your left. And a mother baby room right out the hallway here. Just follow the scent of lavender. It'll lead you right there. Don't forget to turn your phones off or place them on silent so they're not a distraction. And the very bottom line on your bulletin is cut in half. So I've got it here on my phone. Which says, The perverse traits of the house of Ahab are contagious. Christians are not immune, and God's word is the antidote. And that's from Brother Jeff two Sunday evenings ago. So we're going to have one more song before we receive the offering. So if you want to turn in your hymnals, song number three. Right in the front of the hymn book, song number three. Jesus paid it all, amen. Song number three. Jesus paid it all. Sing it out loud like you mean it, amen. Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. For now indeed I find, Thy power and thine alone, Can change the leper's thoughts, And melt the heart of stone. Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe, Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. For nothing good have I, Whereby thy grace to claim, I'll wash my garments white, In the blood of Calvary's plan. Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe, Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow on the last, And when before the throne, I stand in Him complete, Jesus died my soul to save, My lips shall still repeat. Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe, Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Amen. All right, well let's go ahead and pray. Thank you so much, Lord, for allowing us to be able to meet here this evening. I'm sorry, this morning. Let's pray you bless the service, Lord. Bless your tithes and offerings. Help us to continue to serve you with a great zeal, Lord. And we thank you again for all that you do for us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. All right, let's pray. Good morning, everyone. Turn to Job chapter 1. Job chapter 1. Between Esther and Psalms, Job chapter 1. Job chapter 1, starting in verse 1. Man was the greatest of all men of the East. And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one on his day, and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, God in their hearts does the job continually. Job said, And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power. Only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their elder brother's house. And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the ashes feeding beside them. And the Sabians fell upon them, and took them away, yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their elder brother's house. And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Then Job arose, and reigned his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, and said, Naked came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Brother Anthony, you want to pray for us? Dear Lord, thank you that we are here together this morning at church. I pray that you just come and bless this earth. All right, amen. So we're in Job chapter 1. So real quick, look at verse number 10. It says this. So when Satan's being asked about Job, this is one of the things he says. He says, Has not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Now let's bless the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. Now the title of the sermon this morning is Hedge Trimmers. Hedge Trimmers. And what this sermon's about, it's about God's protection. It's how to maintain God's protection in your life and for your family. It's how to repair it if you've maybe done some things in the past that have breached God's protection, if you will. And it's really just to provide comfort, if you will, you know, because like the world's going, you know, things are not getting easier in today's day and age. They're getting much, much worse. And so we need to understand that though bad things happen to us, we need to understand that God is always there and wants to protect us. So what we're going to do is we're going to start off just going through verses 6 through 10, and then I'm going to get into the explanations and all that stuff. So look at, if you would, at verse number 6. It says this, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And so what you have to understand right away is that this is not like the Nephilims and all that garbage, okay? But what we're doing here is we're getting a glimpse of the eternal, okay? That's what we're doing here. We're getting a glimpse. God is showing us basically battle preparations that the spiritual enemy makes against us, right? So keep that in mind. Verse number 7 says this, And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it. You got to kind of laugh a little bit at the vagueness of the devil, right? He doesn't say, Oh, you know, I've been going around messing with people, right? Just poking around and trying to see who I can get. He doesn't say, I'm just walking up and down in the earth, you know, no big deal. Just kind of hanging out, you know, just doing my thing. Verse 8, And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil? Okay, now, obviously, God never asks a question because he doesn't know the answer. He full well knows the answer. And so what he's doing is just basically telling Satan, Hey, why don't you just be honest for a change? Why don't you just tell me really what you're doing? And so he presents the name of Job to Satan. Now you have to understand as we read this, okay, Job was an exceptional human being, okay? Most of us in here, I'm sure that maybe there's a couple of you, I don't know, that are close to Job. I'm definitely not it, okay? If you're like me, we're in the same boat. We're definitely not like Job. Thank God that we're in dwelt with the Holy Ghost, okay? So if you're like Job, you know, come see me after the service. You know, last year we had a guy who came into this church and said that he was exactly like Job. He did. He said he knew he was going to heaven because he was righteous. He turned from all of his sins. He used to be a Mormon and he repented of that. The problem is Job never went down a road like that, okay? He was perfect. He was complete. He was obviously good to go from his youth, okay? He didn't have like this bad past. So just keep that in mind. He's an exceptional person here, okay? Look at verse number nine. So God tells him, hey, you know, my servant Job, he fears me and he eschews evil, which means he hates evil. He avoids it. He shuns it. He sets out on a task every single day to find possibilities of evil and says, you know what? I hate that with a passion. I'm going to set up a plan. I'm going to set my day up so that I can avoid that. So keep that in mind. Look at verse nine. Then Satan answered the Lord and said, does Job fear God for naught? So he's like, well, the only reason he fears you is because you protect him, right? Well, what did the devil just tell God? Oh, I just walk around in the earth, just hanging out, just kind of, you know, going up and down to and from. But that's obviously not the case, right? He's been going around taking note of people, how they live their lives, what they're up to and what they're doing. Because look what he says in verse 10. Has not thou made an hedge about him and about his house and about all that he hath on every side? Thou has blessed the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land. That is a very sobering statement here because he says, does God worship thee for naught? And then he what does he do? He basically names all the different sides of Job's life. And you know what? That is exactly every single day of your life. Whether it's him, one of his minions, right? Maybe not every single day, but at some point during the month, I'm sure there is a devil that is walking around and looking especially at you fathers. Hey, where's your weak spot? Turn to 1 Peter chapter 5. How's your thought life going? How is your walk with Christ going? Just kind of walking around trying to find a gap in that hedge. And I find it interesting here that the devil uses that word hedge, right? He says, thou has made an hedge about him. Well, what's a hedge? Well, it's basically a fence or a boundary that's formed by shrubs or different types of bushes. When I was growing up, my parents, they grew hedges near our fence and they grew up to like what? Probably eight, nine feet tall. Thirteen, fourteen. Yeah, super tall. I mean those things, once they get going, once they take root downward and they start to shoot up. I mean it is a nightmare trying to get through those things and to tame them and to trim them up and stuff. It's a lot of work. But the reason why people do that is to keep animals out, keep people out, especially back in the old times, especially back in a time like this. They didn't have chain link fences and barbed wire and stuff like that. So they would often grow shrubs to form boundaries and to form fences. And the idea was when you walk up to that, you realize, wait, there's a limitation here. I'm not going to be able to get through that. I'm not going to be able to proceed and go inside that person's property. And that's exactly what the devil realized when he went and observed Job. He realized, okay, God has set some kind of a hedge, some kind of a protection. We don't know exactly what it looks like. It's eternal. But one thing we do know is that when the devil sees that, he's like, that's beyond my limitations. Obviously, I can't get in. But what does he do? He doesn't just stop at, you know, your thought life or at how you're living your life. He goes all the way through your life to try to find an area where he can get in and where he can start to do damage. You see, the idea today, a lot of people have, oh, well, I could just name it and claim it, right? I could just, you know, I could just call the devil out. I could call angels down, you know, and there's the spiritual battle. They're going to defend me and I'm going to be able to just take possession of the devil. Okay, that is not true. Now, you do have responsibility in this. We're going to talk about that. But you're there in 1 Peter 5. I want to show you something here. Look at verse number 8. Very familiar verses. We use these all the time, right? 1 Peter 5.8. Look at the first two words. Be sober. Now, look at the next two words. Be vigilant. What were the two things that God said about Job? That he fears God and he eschews evil, right? What is Peter saying here? Be sober. Well, he's not just talking about alcohol. He's talking about pride, right? He's talking about being sober minded. Hey, you need to be sober minded because when you're full of pride, you literally cannot see truth like you were meant to see truth, right? What is the opposite of pride? Well, it's humility. And when you're humble, when you're full of humility, you are then able to actually properly fear God. This is very important to understanding God's protection, how to maintain his protection. What is the next thing? Vigilant. What are we supposed to be vigilant for? What are we supposed to be watching out for? Evil. That's what we're supposed to be doing. What's the second thing that God said about Job? That he eschews evil. He hates it with a passion. This is key, and we're going to talk about this here later, but look at the rest of the verse. Because your adversary, because your adversary, see, again, a lot of people today mistakenly say, oh, you know what? He's not my adversary. I've got him in the bag. Really? Then why does he purposely seek out Christians and walk around them and look for a way in? He is our adversary. He's got the world in the bag. He can yo-yo them all day long because they don't have God's protection. You see, step one into getting God's hedge of protection is to be saved. Right? Is to be saved. And we're going to talk about that here in a minute. Because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. We need to understand this. What did Jesus say to Peter? He said, hey, Peter, you better wake up because the devil desires to sift you with wheat. He wants to shake you up. He wants to go into your life and turn things upside down and pull things inside out. He has that desire for every single person sitting in this church, every single person who's going to watch this sermon online. That is what he desires. Now, turn to Ecclesiastes chapter number 10. Ecclesiastes chapter number 10. Now, I was sitting here writing the sermon. I was thinking, which one of the million stories should I tell about myself where I have purposely done things in my life to breach God's protection? Now, I don't believe that God can remove. He's not going to remove all your protection and just completely let them come in from all sides. But you're going to see that there's something that we can do to where we become a hedge trimmer and we say, you know what? I've got this over here, God. I'm going to take that hedge trimmer and I'm just going to go ahead and carve me a little path right here because I'm comfortable. I know better than you. And just see what happens, right? We're going to talk about that. But, you know, we've all made decisions in our lives. We've all made mistakes. We've all done things and wondered, like, why is this now happening to me? You know, why did I say that to so-and-so and now all of this stuff? You know, it just happens to all of us. We all tend to either, you know, put our foot in our mouths with our families, our neighbors, you know, or maybe we say something else. Someone says something at work and we regret it. You know, or worse, we do something worse than that. You know, and God says, okay, well, guess what? Now I'm going to have to chasten you and now I'm going to have to deal with you and I'm not going to protect you from that. You're going to have to bear that punishment. You're going to have to bear that chastisement. But even through all of that, guess what? He's still protecting you. See, that's the glorious thing about being a child of God, that even when we make these mistakes, he still wants to replant those hedges. He still wants to provide that protection for us, right? So that's a glorious thing. That is a great thing. That's what blows my mind about these people out here, these parasitic patriots, if you will. You know, where we're going. We're just trying to simply invite people to church. And people all over, you know, the church valley are just talking about flags, right? All my jobs on Friday. Oh, you know, are you going to plant flags in your yard this weekend? Are you going to plant the flags? Did you see all my flags out there yesterday? There's a lady, you know, hanging up all these flags. USA, you know. I'm not interested. Get out. I don't want nothing to do with that. Or I'm Buddhist, right? That was the one on Thursday. I'm Buddhist. You know, but they got all this, you know, don't tread on me or don't tread on me and stuff. You know, all this garbage. And it's like, I'm not interested. Look, God's clearly going to remove the protection that he once had around this nation. And these people are just floundering in society. Oh, why is God allowing this to happen? Oh, why is God doing this? It's because you don't want his protection. You don't want his truth. You don't want to fear God. And you definitely don't want to hate evil. In fact, you want to promote evil like Buddhism. You want to promote evil like worshipping the flag. Right? That's exactly what's going on today. Now, you're there in Ecclesiastes chapter number 10. Look at verse number eight. It says this, He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it, and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. Very interesting. What is this saying here? Well, this is obviously saying that, you know, when we make choices, we're going to have to bear the fruit of those choices. If you want to go around digging pits and traps for other people, guess what? You're going to reap what you sow. But I like this last part here where it says, and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. And that's kind of common in a lot of places, especially in America. You know, landscapers will often tell you when they're trimming hedges or they're cutting into them, there's snakes and stuff in there. Right? And so, you know, it's definitely a real thing physical, but it's also a thing spiritual because what is the devil doing in Job chapter one? What is he letting us know? That he's the serpent and he's going to your hedge and he's going to your hedge and he's trying to find a way in. Right? Isn't that kind of weird? Isn't that kind of interesting? So here's the bottom line. God provides my protection, but I can cause an insurrection. That is what he is up to. That is his goal, is to insurrect. It's to overthrow the authority that got us set up around your life, the authority that you have a responsibility of to maintain that hedge. He wants to break through that. And you know what? When you give him a reason, when you give him a pathway, he is going to come in and cause hell. So I got this little illustration here. I'm not supposed to tell you who drew it. Okay? But I think it's pretty good. It wasn't me because I can only do stick figures. But, all right. So let's just say this is Job, for example, or somebody who gets a, you know, born again Bible-believing Christian. Right? God's obviously going to give you a hedge of protection. Okay? And again, I don't think that God's ever just going to, you don't want to mow the whole thing down and you're just, you know, whatever. No, it's not like that. Okay? So, for example, here's Job. Here's his, you know, Job, his house, his wife, everything that he has. Now, inside of here, this is the physical. This is life. Okay? We have trouble in life. Job probably, I guarantee you, he had issues on a day-to-day basis. Family, kids, arguing, fighting. I'm sure he had thoughts. You know, he had to struggle with different things. You know, there's all kinds of issues that we have. Okay? That's going to take place inside this hedge. But outside of this hedge here, okay, outside of this hedge is the spiritual realm. And here's what you need to understand. There is a whole battle going on that we cannot see, but we're told that we're given the remedy, we're given the recipe on how to protect ourselves from that battle. Okay? Each day has enough trouble of its own, doesn't it? Right? We don't want to invite more trouble into our lives, and that's what this sermon's about. So, for example, when we do something, like we're going to talk about here in a moment, with David. Okay? Like when David did his sin with Bathsheba, what did he do? He became a hedge trimmer and said, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and just for a moment here, fall prey to evil. And what he did is he trimmed a hole in his protection. God didn't do that. God didn't tell him that. He did that. Right? But all around here, what do we have? We have serpents. We have devils just patrolling all sides. So here's your prayer life. You know, here's your Bible reading. Here's your, you know, your walk, however you want to look at it. He's looking at all of these sides, looking for a way to get in. What does Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 8 say? He did break it into a hedge. What's going to happen? We're going to get bit. Right? So when we break into that spiritual protection that God has given us, because we think we know better, because we just are going to get complacent, backslidden, whatever the case is, guess what? There's a possibility, not every time, but there's a possibility for one of these guys to, ooh, ooh, nice, there's a hole there. Right? I'm going to go ahead and slip right on into that. So we have the ability to cause that insurrection. It's very important to understand that. And guess what? When we go outside here and we cut hedges down, it takes time for those things to grow back. It's not easy. It's not overnight. And because we live in a day and age where people want everything right now, and they don't give everything right now because we don't serve a God who's infected with the disease of now, guess what happens? People get discouraged and they quit on God. And then the next thing you know, they're just fighting all these battles and they have no idea why. It's because they've got their head strung out, just ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, just going crazy with that thing. You know, and then they're trying their own methods to fight with that thing. And guess what? It never works out. And you're going to see that here in a moment. So turn to 2 Samuel chapter number 16, if you would, 2 Samuel chapter number 16. So again, the bottom line is God provides my protection, but I can cause the insurrection. I think that when we personalize it like that and we understand that, you know, it's going to help you to realize, hey, you know, whatever I'm faced with, whatever temptation I'm faced with here, I better be careful. Better be careful because I have no idea what spiritual enemy is waiting outside of that door to come in and wreak havoc. And look, I'm not up here saying that I've never done that. I've told you, I've done it. Okay, I do it all the time. We all do, okay? But the idea is to realize, you know, you can cut a big enough hole in that thing to where the roots, some of the roots, they ain't coming back. You know, now does that mean that the gap is always going to be there? Not necessarily because even, let's say, let's say I get ahead here, okay? Now let's say I take out this chunk right here, okay? And it's a big chunk. And I'm like, you know what, I'm getting the weed puller out, I'm getting, you know, the root killer out and I kill the roots. Well, they're still going to try to grow back together, but it's not going to be as strong. And you're actually going to see that as we read this story here with King David. So you're there in 2 Samuel chapter number 16. And so the context here is that Absalom is about to try and take over the kingdom. So he's, you know, he's got people, he's already basically won several people in the kingdom over to his side. He's trying to make preparations. He's got Ahithophel, the mighty counselor on his side. And in this chapter here, Hushai, David's friend comes up to him, right? And this is basically the beginning of the end for Absalom, but he shows up and, you know, Absalom's like, Hushai, you know, would you leave your friend? And he's like, yeah, God save the king, right? But he's up to, he's got a plan to go ahead and help David out, but Absalom doesn't know that, but he's being tricked here and he thinks, okay, well, things are really starting to go good now. Now I've got his best friends. I've got, you know, I've got most of the kingdom here. I'm about to take an insurrection here. I am about to be the king. So look at verse number 20. It says this, verse number 20 says, then said Absalom to Ahithophel, give counsel among you what we shall do. Now remember, Absalom is David's son. And look at the advice here that Ahithophel gives in verse 21. It says, and Ahithophel said unto Absalom, go in unto thy father's concubines, which he hath left to keep the house. And all Israel shall hear that thou are aboard of thy father. Then shall the hands of all that are with thee be strong. Verse 22. So they spread Absalom 10 upon the top of the house, and Absalom went in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel. Verse 23, and the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counseled in those days, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God. So was all the counsel of Ahithophel, both with David and with Absalom. Now go back, if you would, to 2 Samuel chapter number 12. And so what often happens here is people, our enemies, if you will, will pull the story out of the Bible, and they'll say, see, I'm gonna show you here that God actually made this happen. God caused this to happen in David's life. Well, I'm gonna show you the answer to that, that that is not the case at all. And people will say, well, then he lost his protection. Yeah, he lost his protection because he took the hedge trimmer out, and he went in and made that hole. He made that breach. Look at verse number, I'm sorry, look at 2 Samuel chapter number 12 and verse number seven. Okay, so 2 Samuel chapter 12 starts off after David has committed his sin with Bathsheba and after he has already ordered Uriah the Hittite to be killed in battle, that has already taken place. And so Nathan the prophet comes up to David and gives him a parable and says, hey, there's a rich guy, and then there's a poor guy, this traveler comes to town, and instead of taking the rich guy's lambs and his flock, he takes the poor you, or he takes the you lamb from the poor guy. Right, and so he tells David this, and David gets upset, and he's like, you know what, that guy's gonna die, and he's gonna have to pay back fourfold. And then in verse seven, or right before verse seven, he says this, Nathan says this to David, he says, hey, you are that guy. You are the traveler. You're the one that took the you lamb from the poor. Meaning you're the one that took another man's wife. You're the one that committed the murder. Now look at verse seven. And Nathan said to David, thou art the man, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, verse eight, and I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah, and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Let's stop right there for a second. If you're confused about the events in 2 Samuel chapter 16, it's because you're not old enough to understand. You just need to understand that it is very bad, it's a very bad thing that happened to David, okay? And just learn the principle. Now here in chapter number 12, Nathan is saying that yes, God did give him those wives. But you know what, it was David that desired those. You have to also remember that people were not necessarily, they weren't indwelt with the Holy Spirit like we are. They didn't have enough truth, right? They just were concerned about being right all the time. They're like, hey, at least I'm not committing adultery so what do they do? I'll just go marry 12 wives. I'll go marry, you know, 14 wives. I got the money, I can handle it, okay? It's foolish. Every person that had more than one wife in the Old Testament paid for it. None of them were like, you know, oh, I'm treating all of these great, I have no drama. Get real. It is hard enough to be married to one woman. And I know, Jessica's like, it's just like, me, what about you? And that's true. You know, for her, she's like, hey, being married to me is a challenge, okay? Look, ladies, I'm not trying to offend you but I'm just saying, for us guys, we can barely handle ourselves, let alone a wife, right? We have to come to church to learn how to do these things. But let alone 12, 14, however many he had, okay? It is a challenge. It is not wise, okay? That is what I'm saying. So don't say, oh, well, God's committing sin here. No, that's not the case at all. This is what David desired. It wasn't wise but you know what? He wasn't out committing adultery before the Bathsheba thing so God's like, hey, I'm just gonna allow you to have the stuff and you're gonna have to deal with it, you know? So he's cutting a little hedge in, a little pathway in his hedge there, if you will. Verse nine, wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Again, what are the two things that we need to be on top of to ensure our protection from God? Fear God and eschew evil, to hate evil. Think about this for a second here. One moment, one lapse in character and this is what happened to David. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord? That's how God looked at what he did. He says, you have despised. So instead of eschewing evil, instead of hating evil, you took this moment to think upon this maid and guess what? Disaster is coming, right? So he says, wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and hast taken his wife to be thy wife and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Verse 10, now therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house because thou hast despised me and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. So David's sin was so grievous here, it was so bad that he literally himself pulled up some roots in his hedge of protection. That's what he did. He put a big hole in that thing to where God says in verse 10, hey, the sword shall never, never depart from thine house. Think about that for a second here. You know, did it grow back? A little bit because he still kept his life, he still kept the kingdom, but even on his deathbed, his son Adonijah is trying to do the same thing and overthrow the kingdom. So God's saying, hey, we need to realize this and be careful. Guess what? It takes one moment, one moment to decide I'm not going to hate evil in this instance and you could ruin your life and you could ruin the lives of your family members. And you have to understand this. Verse 11, 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. So did God make this happen? Did God cause Absalom to do this? Did God come up to Absalom and say, hey, I want you to go do this? Did he go up to Ahithophel and say, hey, Ahithophel, I want you to counsel Absalom to get David. No. No, that is not what happened. What happened was we always have a devil. We always have people. We always have trouble around us. And when we make that breach in that hedge, we're opening the floodgates of hell to come into our lives. And God's saying, hey, because you gave the enemies, because you gave my enemies, David, a reason to blaspheme, now I have to teach you a lesson. Now when this trouble is outside of your hedge, I'm not gonna be able to stop it because you did it. It's David's fault. It's not God's fault. Do you think this is God's will for David's life? You're crazy. Out of your mind. And I know nobody in here thinks that. But there are people out there that will challenge you with these things. And so you have to learn this. You have to understand these things. You have to be able to defend the Bible. That is why we come to church. That is why we do what we do. This is why we are in a leadership position every single one of us, is because we have the truth. We have the ability to influence because we have the answers to these tough questions. And so here is the first point that I wanna make. All it takes is one single moment to fall prey to evil, to face Satan's heel. It takes one moment. That's all it takes. At any given time you need to realize there is evil outside of your hedge. And when you start taking that thing blindly and cutting into the eternal, you have no idea what lies outside of that. You see, because sometimes we do things or we think things and nobody knows it but us. Right, and we're like, oh, it's okay, it's all good. And you get away with it one time. You know, because maybe there's something you know, because maybe the devil wasn't there that day or maybe one of his minions wasn't there. Maybe he was checking something else out and he had to go over here. We don't know how that looks. We don't know how that really works. But we do know that it happens. And then you progress. Well, I'm gonna keep doing it. Right, and then they take notice. Because you gotta remember the devil, he's not omnipresent. He's not all knowing. He has to do the research. That's why he goes into the earth and he walks up and down all around and observes people, picks people, picks these politicians, these rich people. How can I stir this guy? How can I move this guy? What can I put into his heart? He does the same thing to believers. He did the same thing to Ananias and Sapphira. Isn't that why Peter said, hey, you know, why has thou lied to the Holy Ghost? Why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? It's because they took out that hedge trimmer and said, oh, you know what? This is getting a little tall here. Cut it down. And guess what? Death ensued. One moment. The Bible is filled with stories where people made one decision and ruined their lives and ruined the lives of other people. So all it takes is a single moment to fall prey to evil to face Satan's heel. He is ready to kick you in the teeth with his foot at any given time. And you know what? The overwhelming principle is here. The bigger the sin, the bigger the breach. I mean, think about this. David's like, I'm king. You know, I know I should be able to battle right now, but I'm just, this girl looks good. I'm just going to take her. And then he realizes, oh, she's a child? Well, I got to cover this up now. And it just led to more and more and more ungodliness. And the sword never departed from his house. Now, did he do great things? Yes. Did he still win in battle? Yes. Did Ahithophel eventually die? Yes. But think about how much more he could have done if he didn't do that. Think about how much more he could have got accomplished if he didn't do that. Think about how much we could get accomplished when we don't do stuff like that. Turn to Matthew chapter number six. So God simply here just removed a portion of protection from David because of what he did. It's not like God caused this to happen, like some Calvinist might tell you. Oh, he did this because it just fit into the order of the universe or something like that. That's ridiculous. David is solely responsible for that happening. And it's just important for us to realize that. And that should be a very sobering thought. Matthew chapter six, look at verse number 34. So Jesus says this in verse 34. He says, take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. You have to realize that from the moment your alarm clock goes off, or if you just wake up naturally, whatever, you get up, there is evil in the day. There is always evil surrounding us. There is a spiritual battle taking place. The Bible says that angels from God are ministering spirits, right? We ought to live our lives with this idea in mind. You know what, we should make it as easy as we can on them. Because when we make those types of breaches, you know, it's battle on. You know, it's kind of like in the book of Daniel, right? When the angel's like, you know, the prince of Persia withstood me, and I had to get help from Michael, okay? Think about that for a second. When we have that God-given hedge around us, there's no worry, there's no concern. We just have to deal with the typical daily battles, you know, people, he said this, she said that at work, whatever. You know, the petty things. The things that we just need to use in our lives to get mature. But when we start to break that protection down because we think we know better, because we fall, then guess what? Now we're inviting literal hell into our lives. And that's exactly what we don't want because there's enough evil in the day for that to happen to all of us, okay? We don't need to add unto that. That is what I'm talking about here. Now, go to Psalm chapter 97. Psalm chapter 97. I'm just gonna show you what this looked like. You know, Job said, he said this, he said, I made a covenant with mine eyes, and then he says, why then should I think upon a maid? Why then should I think upon a maid? Interesting. What if David would have made that same covenant and would have had that same hatred for that action? What if he would have had that? You know what, we'd be reading a different story today. That's what we'd do, we'd be reading a different story. The outcome would have been different. I don't believe that this thing with Absalom would have played out like it did. You see, because this thing goes deep. Let's say, let's just play with me for a second here. What if David did make this covenant and he said, you know what, I'm not gonna do that. I know I should be out to work now. I'm gonna go ahead and just lay down and go back to sleep. And that thing with Bathsheba never happened. Well, you know what? God's protection around his family when the devils came up and started chirping in their ears, God would have protected them. And they would have had those thoughts. They would have made that thought. You know, Ahithophel wouldn't have gone the way that he did. So sometimes when we take that hedge trimmer out, we're not just trimming down our own hedge, we're trimming down other people's. You have to realize we have great power in the eternal. We are God's children. And what we do, what we bind here on earth is also bound in heaven. It's bound in the eternal. So just think about that. Don't be selfish. Don't think, oh, you know, this is just gonna affect me. No, you have no idea who it could affect. It could affect people you haven't even met yet. So be careful. That's why Peter says, be sober, be vigilant. Which means what? Fear God and eschew evil. These things are very, very important. So I'm gonna show you what we need to do about this here because we've all made these mistakes. We've all took the trimmer out. We've all breached our hedge at some point to some degree in our lives. Okay? What I'm gonna tell you right now is this. You need to stay motivated to hate evil. This is a good thing about this church. We have a church full of people that hate evil. Now, does that mean we don't make mistakes? No, of course we do. We're human. We got the old man. We're bipolar, okay? We make mistakes. But one thing I know about this church is that we hate evil. We hate the evil that goes on out there with a passion. And that is a good thing. But you know what? We need to maintain that because that is key in keeping that hedge of protection around our lives and around the lives of our family. Psalm 97, look at verse number 10. Ye that love the Lord hate evil. Ye that love the Lord hate evil. He preserveth the souls of his saints. He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. Turn to Proverbs chapter number eight. Proverbs chapter number eight. Ye that love the Lord hate evil. He preserves our souls. We should be thankful for that. We should respect that greatly on a daily basis. But notice what he says there. Hey, ye that love the Lord hate evil. And you know what? We're about to come to June. So guess what that means? We need to renew, maybe we don't, but we need to make sure that we hate the evil that that month symbolizes in this world, especially in this country. And that's the pedophile and that's the fag. We need to make sure that we hate these people. Oh, just hate the evil, not the person doing it. No, if you hate God, we hate you. And we need to maintain that. You know what? There's a reason why God protects this church. There's a reason why God's protected us from so many wicked evil people who have come in here. And it's because there are people in here that hate evil. And God can use you. You see, God can't use the skinny jeans guy that just wants to love everybody and give everybody hugs and kisses all day long. He's not gonna use those clowns. He's gonna use people like you. They hate the pedophile. They wanna go out and preach the gospel because we hate the false way. We hate the fact that people are out there saying, you know what? It's not just by faith alone, it's by works too. We hate that with a passion. And you know what? God looks on that and says, you know what? I'm gonna protect that church. I'm gonna protect those people. I'm gonna protect their families. And I'm gonna make sure that they put that head strimmer away because it's my job to trim those things up, not theirs. Proverbs eight, look at verse number 13. It says this. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance, and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate. Isn't that interesting there? God says, you know what? I hate the mouths of evil people, people that are prideful, arrogant, boasters. If he hates their mouths, then you know what that means? He hates them, right? And guess what? We wanna be a church after God's own heart too, like David was. And so you know what? I say, hey, let's hate them too. If God hates them, I hate them. If God hates them, we hate them. I know it's not popular today, but that is reality. That is truth. That is what the Bible teaches and that's the standard that we will maintain as a church. Go back to Psalms and turn to Psalms chapter 119. Psalms chapter 119. And we're gonna look at 104. Psalm 119 verse 104. It says this. I love this verse. It says, through thy precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. So this verse says a lot. Through thy precepts. So through reading the word of God, through meditating on the word of God, through learning the Bible, through preaching the different avenues that God has given us, going through that, what does that do? That gives us understanding, which gives us a tool to become wise. Okay? That's what it does. And what does it produce? It produces a hatred for the false way. So when we run into people and they're like, well, you know, I don't hate the guy that's out there teaching people to turn from their sins. I just love them. I just wanna bless them and I just wanna help them because God loves everybody. Well, you know what? I know you're a person who does not go through the precepts of God. You might go to church. You might watch stuff online. You might watch Stephen Furtick and that Calvary Chapel guy that everybody listens to around here. Whatever. You're not going through church. You're not going through his precepts. They are not teaching you anything because that mindset is unbiblical. It is the opposite of the way God has called us to operate. We are to go through his statutes. We are to go through his commandments. We are to read the Bible. We are to go so and we are to do these things so that we can gain understanding and hate every false way, which in turn, what? It produces the same mentality that Job had and even David, he hated evil too. He just made, he just messed up. Messed up and he messed up big. And then when we get that eschewing, when we get that deep hatred for evil, you know what? We're gonna have more success. You're gonna protect your families. You're gonna protect the people around you. You're gonna protect the people you haven't even met yet. Go to James chapter number one. So the key here is to hate every false way. Hey, keep up on that hate. Make sure that when somebody's like, oh yeah, you know, I go to Bogus Basin Bastard Church and you know, we actually are proud of our LGBT, ABCD community. We just love them so much. You need to realize you're a wicked person. That church that you go to is absolutely not a church. It's a satanic synagogue is what it is. I mean, it's a Baphomet service. I say this all the time. It's like, you know, you don't have to go to your local satanic chapter to go to a satanic service. All you have to do is walk into a building, whether it says church, Bible, brother, sister, it doesn't matter. If they're teaching a false gospel, it's satanic. You walk into a Mormon tabernacle this morning, you're in a satanic service. You walk into a church and it says on their church doctrine, repent of your sins, turn from sins to be saved. You are now in a satanic church and you need to get the hell out. James chapter one, we're going to move on here to my second point. Look at verse number two, James chapter one, verse two says, my brethren counted all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing. Now isn't it interesting that God said about Job that he was perfect? Does that mean he never sinned in his life, never made a mistake? No. But he was complete. He had the fear of God and the hate of evil down in his life. Right? And so what had to happen is he had to pick the devil up and say, okay, here's how you can mess with him. And remember, Job was an exceptional person and God knew that Job could handle that trial and that temptation. What did it do? Well, at the end of his life, he got more back than what he'd lost, including his mentality, and he never lost his wife in the process. Think about that for a second, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing, wanting nothing. Think about that for a second. All of us struggle with coveting things, wanting things, wanting things, things that we know don't really matter, things that we know, you know, whatever. You know what that just tells us? This is a sobering reality that we're just not perfect. We just have not arrived yet. And you know what? We have more temptations. We have more trials that we need to face. And so here's the second thing that I wanted to bring up this morning to make sure that we all understand, and it's this. We should never get trials confused with punishment. A lot of times, you know, bad things happen and people will look at them like, you must have done something wrong, right? Isn't that what Job's friend said to him? You must have done something wrong here. But it wasn't that at all. He was just a strong enough human being to take that trial and that temptation. It wasn't a punishment. That wasn't it at all. Sometimes we will go through things in life and we're sitting here like, man, what did I do? Sometimes you don't know. You just didn't do anything. God's just trying to get you to that perfect state. He's trying to get you to learn something so that you can maybe help somebody out five years from now, 10 years from now, to strengthen the kingdom of God. So we need to not have this bitter attitude when bad things happen to us. And look, even though you mess up, even though I mess up, we need to rest in the fact that we serve a God that wants to grow that hedge back. Nobody in here has done anything like David has, okay? So just keep that in mind. We weren't there when Stephen was stoned. We don't have to live with that. Yeah, we've done some pretty bad things, but we need to make sure that the past stays in the past and move forward and realize, you know what? Whatever it is, God's going to turn that thing into a blessing for you. He's going to turn that thing into your wisdom so that someday you can have a conversation with somebody who's about to go down the wrong path and say, hey, I did that. Here's what happened to me. And maybe that person's going to be like, hey, thanks for sharing that with me. Right? Because oftentimes, you know, we come to church and we dress up and people, you know, can get disconnected or whatever and kind of think, man, you know, there's something wrong with me. There's just something wrong with me. Everybody else has it put together. And I say this all the time because it's true. There's people on different levels, but none of us have it all put together. You know what I mean? We've all got issues here and we need to realize that. So if you would, turn to Acts chapter five. Acts chapter number five. I'm going to read for you a psalm real quick. That's Psalm 138 verse seven, which says, Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me. Thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies. And thy right hand shall save me. You know, that's us. We walk in the midst of trouble and we need to realize that God will revive us. He wants to use us. There's not a plethora of soul winners out in the Treasure Valley or in the United States of America or even in this world, is there? No, there's not. So we have to live like that's true because we know it's true. God wants to use us. So we should never have this attitude. Oh, God's doing this because he just wants to kill me and he's just, oh, it's just, my life's over. People get that attitude all the time. And all that does is hinder your work for God. Make sure that your past stays the past. I don't care if it was this morning and you got out here on Fairview and you showed them the wrong finger. You know? Make it the past. And I'm not hinting that I did that. I did not do that. I had a smooth drive. I didn't run into any queers today. It was great. We got you. We got here real quick from downtown, right? But I know how people are, okay? I'm just saying. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me, right? All it takes is for us to say, hey, I have sinned. That's what David said every single time he got caught doing anything wrong in his life. Yep, you got me. So he told Nathan, you got me. That was me. That's what God's after. Just admit it. Just admit it. Just confess. He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. See you there in Acts chapter number five. So going back to this point, we should never get trials confused with punishment. Whatever it is you're going through, you know, only you really know or can have a good idea if you've caused that breach. And if you can't think of anything, you know what, maybe it's just a trial. Maybe it's just in that box, in that hedge. It's just life. It's just something that we have to be strong enough to power through and to get through so that we can gain that wisdom which comes from that. We gain perfection. We gain patience from trials and temptations. That's what James is saying to us, okay. Look at the attitude of the apostles here in Acts chapter number five. Look at verse 39. It says this. But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it lest happily be found even to fight against God. So you know the story here. The Pharisees, you know these Jews. They're getting upset because these guys are running around preaching the gospel and so they're like locking them up, you know, constantly pursuing them. And so, you know, this statement is made here. They're like, hey, you know, maybe we ought to think about what we're doing. We ought to think about what we're doing to these people because maybe it is from God and maybe we need to just kind of back off because if it is from God, there's nothing that we can do about it. Look at verse 40. And to him they agreed. And when they had called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. Now look at verse 41. And they departed from the presence of the council. That's the disciples. Now look at this next part of the verse. Rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. You know, it's like half the time, I'll be honest with you, when I'm out soloing and somebody's like coming at us, you know, like the Kevin Rhodes style, you know, it's like, man, I just want to drop you. You know, I have that same feeling that he's projecting towards us, towards them. But that's not being perfect, is it? That's not the perfection. I mean, that does the kingdom of God no good. It just shows that, you know, we got some work to do because in the coming years, in the coming months, we're going to experience more and more people hating God like these people here do and wanting to stop us. And I have a feeling that we, if not us, definitely our children, are going to be put in situations like this. So the time to strengthen for that is now. And we've got to swallow that pride, right? We've got to fear God and eschew evil. Just swallow that and be like, hey, not my will be done but thine. You know, and just realize these people oftentimes, they just don't know any better. They're just lashing out because that's what they do. That's what the world teaches them. Look at verse 42. Look what happens when we do that. And daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. So when we have that patience, we allow these trials and these temptations to work in our lives, we become more successful at building the kingdom, don't we? We become more successful out sowing and we become more successful discipling people. That's the result. So we should never get trials confused with punishment. We should just take it, just accept it for what it is. Now go to Psalm 112. Psalm 112. Psalm 112. Look at verse number one. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. That was the disciples there in Acts chapter five. They feared God. They delighted in his commandments. They did the commandment. They're fulfilling the great commission. And when the punishment came, they said, you know what? This isn't God just being mean to us. This isn't because we did some kind of a sin. This is spiritual warfare. This is battle. This is for our own benefit. And they said, you know what? We are so thankful that Christ looked down and said, hey, you're worthy to even suffer from my name. Look at verse two. It says this. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth. The generation of the upright shall be blessed. His seed. How do we protect our families? How do we ensure that our kids grow up to make the right decisions? How do we get that family protection that we all want so bad? Well, again in verse one. Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord and delighteth greatly in his commandments. When you adopt that mentality, guess what happens? Verse two happens. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth. Your children, your family, your seed, your offspring, your fruit are going to grow up to serve God in a mighty way. Look at verse three. Wealth and riches shall be in his house and his righteousness endureth forever. And again, in this church, we like to rightly divide the word of truth. This is not teaching you that if you love God's commandments, you will be rich with physical money. That is not what it's talking about at all. The riches and the wealth that it's talking about here, they're the kind of riches and wealth where moth and rust doth not corrupt. Eternal, that's what it is. Turn to Ephesians chapter number one. We're gonna move on to the last point here. Last number point, last point here. Ephesians chapter number one. So again, we don't want to get the punishment of God mixed up with trials. We're gonna go through trials. We're gonna go through these temptations. Whatever adversity that you're gonna face in your life, just eat it. Just own up to it. And just live it. Just try to figure a way out. Just trust in God. Fear God. Get on the right track. And you know what? It's gonna play out good for you. Just like it did for Job. Just like it did for David. Just like it did for the apostles. Ephesians chapter one, look at verse 13. Very comforting verse here. It says this, in whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after that, in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. So as God's children, we need to understand that we are sealed with his promise. Verse 14, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory. That hasn't happened yet. We are saved forever. We are sealed forever. Right? So God's not gonna just take all his protection away and we just lose our salvation and go to hell. No, we're saved. Think about that every day of your life. That you are saved. You will not go to hell. You're never gonna go there. Go to chapter four. I'm sorry, go to chapter number four. Go to chapter number four. So again, very basic truth. We are sealed until the day of redemption. Look at verse 40. I'm sorry, verse 30. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. So again, we use this a lot. Well, how long is that seal? You know, this guy Tim Conway. He's some pastor. I've seen him on YouTube. I forgot what church. It doesn't matter. But he's got this video where he talks about the seal and somebody asks this question. Well, it says in the Bible you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise and he says, yeah, but seals were made to be opened. And you know what? Everybody's got that knife and can just cut it open. Well, no. Apparently that's a different kind of seal here. You're sealed until the day of redemption. You know what that speaks? That speaks protection. That means there are tools available to you and I that we can use to get ourselves out of any situation that we got ourselves into or that we didn't get ourselves into. Think about this. Back up a couple verses here because I wanna show you something. We're sealed until the day of redemption. We cannot lose our salvation. But look at verse 26. Because we have the old man, we have the ability to invite trouble into our lives like I've been talking about all morning. Verse 26, be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Just stop right there. It's okay to get angry. We all get angry. We need to hate evil. We need to be angry about the right things. But you know what? We all make mistakes as well. We understand that. Be angry but sin not. Don't hold on to these grudges because here's what's gonna happen to you. Look at verse 27. Neither give place to the devil. And again, this smashes that notion that so many people have. Oh, the devil, he can't just come into my life and do whatever he wants. There's no way. Which means I can live however I want. I can do whatever I want. I can get that hedge trimmer out and just go to town. No, the Bible saying here is something very, very true. When we become angry, when we become bitter, and we let the sun go down on that wrath, guess what? You are giving place to the devil. That is what you're doing. This here pictures you being bitter and being angry all the time. Guess what happens? Now you're giving place to the devil. So now you're not only fighting the devil, so now you're not only fighting that petty situation that happened in your life, now you're in the spiritual. Now you've got trouble. Now you've got a problem. The good news is, the blessed news is, the encouraging thing is you're saved forever. And you have tools. You have tools. Go to Ephesians chapter number six. We kind of talked about this on Wednesday, but let's visit it again real quick. Here's the solution. Here's the key. Here's what we have got to remember. This is why our church's name, Shield of Faith Baptist Church. Let's say you give place to the devil, because we all do from time to time. Verse 16, above all. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. So you say, I've messed up. What am I going to do? I've given place to the devil. You know what? You have the ability to put on that armor of God. You have the ability to pick that shield up. See, the problem is we set it down sometimes. Don't we? It's our job to pick that thing up. Don't set it down and pick up the world's hedge trimmer and start cutting and thinking you're a landscaper. Leave that to those people, okay? Every time I try to do landscaping, I mess something up. Yesterday, seriously, I was weed eating down the back, and I went to town on all these flowers, because I love that still weed eater that I have. It does a great job, and it hacks everything. I just love it. So when I go out there, if I don't have a briefing, because I'm military, you know, I used to be a military. If I don't have a briefing, like, don't cut this. I cut everything. I just get going. And so Jessica comes out, and she's like, what are you doing? You cut all these flowers. Don't cut these flowers down. I'm like, oh. At first, I was like, I didn't do that. Did I? Yeah, I did. But I still spared some of the roses. Those are roses, right? I don't know my flowers, okay? I buy them once in a while. I suck at that. It's a problem. But whatever. I'm not a landscaper. I'm not trained in that field, okay? So when you give me the weed eater, man, I cut everything down. I'm going to bring it here and get these stupid things down out here, but that's another sermon for another day. Anyways, let's move on to this point here. This is the last point that I want to make. We need to understand that when a devil comes into our hedge, we have the ability to pick up the shield, okay? Whatever it is that you're facing that is hard, that is an attack on you, on your family, you better understand the armor of God. Understand what that means. It's your job. No one's going to come by to your house and dress you and put the breastplate on you and put the helmet on you and put the sword in your hand and go like this. Oh, go like this. I'm going to walk you around all day with your hand and that sword and just swing it around for you. No. It's your job. You have to do that. You pick that shield up and you block those darts. That's what happens. And guess what? The glorious thing is, I love this picture here. This is us a lot of times, isn't it? Well, you know what? I should have drawn one with a shield because you always have that inside of here, don't you? So when those little bastards come in and it's our fault, you have the ability to still fight them off. Don't tell me God doesn't care about you, about your problems, whatever it is, because He does. Even though we mess up, He's right there to protect us every single time. Turn to Matthew chapter 21 real quick. We're getting very close to being done. Matthew chapter number 21. The shield of faith. The shield of faith. When we hear the word faith, we have to just think, okay, faith and believing and I'm saved and that's it. No. That's step number one, okay? When you're saved, now you have the ability to pick the shield up, to pick the sword up, and to actually use that in your life. And so you say, okay, I've made a breach. I've got spiritual trouble. I've done all this damage. What do I do? You take the shield of faith and you start blocking those attacks. And sooner or later, those devils get tired of it, don't like it, and they flee and that hedge grows back. That's what happens, okay? But here's what this looks like. Matthew 21. Look at verse 21. It's faith. Jesus answered and said unto them, verily I say unto you, if ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive. The reason why we often fail in this battle when we make these breaches and now we're fighting the devil, we're fighting his minions and we're all distraught, we're tore up on all sides is because we drop that shield of faith and we don't use it. We think we've screwed up too much and God's not going to help us. He's not going to save us. And then you know what that is? That's a double-minded mindset. A double-minded person is unstable in everything that they do. So the answer is to realize that. Acknowledge what you've done, just like David did, and pick that shield up and just believe. Have the faith that God is going to heal you, that he's going to help you out. It's the doubt that kills us. It's the doubt that is like the weed killer. You know that black stuff that people roll out on the ground so that the weeds don't go through? That's doubt. That's what we do. We make this breach and we say, God's not going to help me, and we just wheel that thing out so the hedges can't grow back in. But if we would just realize that and get some faith and realize, hey God, I messed up. I need help. And ask him, what does this say here? This is a promise. This is from Jesus Christ's mouth in all things. Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. If it's for your benefit, if it's for your family, if it's for the kingdom, he's going to give it to us. Turn to Luke chapter number 18. Luke chapter number 18. And look at verse number 42. Actually, look at verse 41. So this guy says this. Saying, what wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? So Jesus is having this conversation with this guy, and he says this. And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. Well, look at verse 42. And Jesus said unto him, receive thy sight. Thy faith hath saved thee. So when we get into these sticky situations, we've messed up and we can't see. Everything's just going wrong, and we're just like, I can't make sense of the situation. I don't know what to do. Well, you need to pick up that shield of faith. You need to ask God in prayer for the help and believe that he will help you. And then guess what? Doors are going to start opening up. Things are going to become clear. He will give you your sight back. But you have to believe it. What does he say here? Thy faith hath saved thee. You know what he's saying? Hey, Shield of Faith Baptist Church, that shield has saved you when you pick that thing up. That shield, you've got to pick it up. And you need to start living your life by faith. We walk by faith, not by sight. See, the problem is we live in the physical, and so all of our problems, I've got to see the solution. I've got to see it. I've got to see it now. But that's not how God has designed the life of the believer. We need to learn to live by faith, by asking in the realm which we cannot see and understand that he is there to protect us. And when we realize that, you know what? It's a glorious thing. Go back to Job chapter one and we're done. We're going to wrap this thing up. It's a glorious thing. Then we don't have to worry about it. Yeah, we've messed up. We let him in. But the solution is your tool bag, your armor. You have the ability to put that on and to use that, to learn what those things mean. And then guess what? You can maintain that protection. If you've lost it, you get it back. You can fix that breach because God has given you that ability. So let's wrap this up here. Job chapter one, look at verse number eight. It says this, And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and estueth evil. And again, that is the solution there. Be sober. Be vigilant. Fear God. Be humble. You humble yourself. Guess what? You have the ability now to fear God. And what does that produce? Protection. Why did Job have that complete perfect hedge around him? Because he feared God and he hated evil with a passion. That is the solution to getting your life back once you've messed up, once we have messed up. So I'm going to answer a couple of questions to close this out. How do we get that hedge of protection? By being saved. You're saved. You have it. God doesn't ever just cut the whole thing down and just, Oh, have fun, buddy. No. We mess it up. We think that we're landscapers when we're not. Because we think we can see. So what can this protection do for you and your family? What can protect you from tragedy? It can protect, obviously it's going to protect you. You know it's going to aid in your spiritual growth. And if you do experience tragedy like Job did, and he didn't do anything wrong, you're going to have the strength to overcome that. You're going to have the strength to cope with that. I mean, isn't that what we all want? You ever seen the heathen, how they act when they lose somebody? Completely crazy. Completely nuts. I don't know if I've ever told this story before, but I went to a house off of Lake Hazel. It was like all by itself. And I mean, you know, they had just lost the father in that family. And they were just so distraught. Like they couldn't, they could barely talk to me what their problems were. You know, and his mom was just telling me like, well, she's like, my son, he's so messed up. He's on all kinds of drugs. And he gets shock therapy like every, like twice a week or something like that. Shock therapy? How about a shocking fact of just getting saved and reading the Bible? You know what I mean? But they don't want nothing to do that. And you can tell by the way they talk. Every other word is broken. Every other word is blasphemy out of their mouths. You know what I mean? We don't have to act like that. God's given us the tools to cope with the deep pain, the hard things that could come to us. But either way, he still gives you that protection. You're protected either way. Realize that, right? And what's the other benefit that we've been talking about? You stop unnecessary additional spiritual attacks that we don't need. Sometimes God's like, I didn't even plan for that to happen to you. Okay, you caused this. We caused this. But when we realize it's two simple things, fear God and eschew evil. Fear God and eschew evil. Hate it. Maintain those two things and you know what? You're gonna keep that protection all around you. Now, can a Christian lose that hedge? I've already said it, no. But the bottom line is God provides my protection, but I can cause the insurrection. Because the devil, you know, everyone wants to talk about the insurrection that happened in D.C. You know, who's ultimately responsible for that? Well, the security there. Or somebody with a lot of money that paid those people off to let those people in, right? Guess what? We serve a God that's not gonna let that happen. Nobody can pay God off to let the devil come in. But you can pay yourself off to do it. You can mess that up yourself and that's what I'm trying to prevent. That's the idea here. God provides my protection, but I can cause the insurrection. That's what David did. That's what a lot of people in the Bible have done. And again, I've already said this, how do we maintain it? Fear God, hate evil. You can maintain these things, those two things. Fear God and hate evil. You will, listen to me, you will be successful in the Christian life, just the way it is. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for this wisdom that you've given us this morning. Just pray that you bless the fellowship after the service, Lord, and the soul wanting to come today. Bring us back all safely this evening. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. All right, let's grab our hymn books one final time this morning and turn to number 129, Rock of Ages. This is song number 129, Rock of Ages. On the first. Rock of ages, Let for me, Let me hide myself in thee, Let the water and the blood, From thy wounded cypress flow, We of sin want our way, Save from wrath that make me good, Let my tears forever flow, Could my zeal no languor know, These forsaken could not atone, Thou must save and thou alone, In my hand, O Christ, I pray, Simply to thy cross I claim, While I draw this fleeting ground, When my eyes shall close in death, When I rise to worlds unknown, And behold, Thee on thy throne, Rock of ages, Let for me, Let me hide myself in thee. Amen, Brother David. We close with word of prayer, please. Thank you, Father God, for this morning, for the message that you laid on the pastor's heart, Lord, and all the passages that we went to and read out of your holy word, Lord. We ask you to please let us take all these all these words and apply them to our life, and we just pray with soul and efforts that you keep that head of protection around us and that we don't be a people that will cut through it. I just pray that we all be a people that loves your law, loves your commandments, and eschews evil, Lord, day in and day out. And we just ask for your continuous protection on our lives Lord, we love you, and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.