(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

So we're in 2 Samuel, chapter number 12, and we have to understand is that we're coming right off of chapter number 11's story. Because chapter number 11's story, David had ended up committing adultery with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. And in order to cover that up, because she became pregnant, he solicited the death of Uriah by the hands of the enemy. However, he is the one who ultimately killed him, because he gave a letter to Uriah handed to Joab that said, hey, go send Uriah out to the hottest part of the battle. Retire from him, and essentially it's allowing him to die, putting him in a bad situation. Even though technically David's not the one to slay the sword, he killed him by the means of the enemy. And in chapter number 11, the last verse, 27, it says, when the morning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house talking about Bathsheba. And she became his wife and bare him a son, but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Now, we have to understand about chapter number 11 and 12 is that David, from a human perspective, has gotten away with his sin. No one's going to be able to hold him accountable. There wasn't anyone. I mean, obviously some of his servants probably figured it out or kind of know what's going on. But he's the king. There's maybe not enough evidence to suggest foul play here. David's kind of covered his tracks a little bit, and it's kind of gotten to the point where you could say, humanly speaking, David's gotten away with this. But the problem is that God knows what's right and wrong despite humans not figuring it out. You know, there are ways to commit crimes or do evil where you can't get caught humanly speaking, but the problem is for you is that God still knows what you did. God knows that what you did is wrong, and you can't hide from God. You can hide from Pastor Shelley. You can hide from your parents. You can hide from your spouse. You can hide from your brother and sister. You can hide from all man what you do, but the problem is that God sees. God knows what you're doing, and there will be a punishment. You will reap what you sow. And it says in verse number 1, and the Lord sent Nathan unto David. So notice, God figures it out, so he sends him a preacher. He sends him a man of God in order to confront him on his sin. You know, that's another reason why you need to go to church is so that you get confronted on your sin. Because a lot of times what these people do is they hide from church. They hide from reading the Bible, and really, they're just hiding from God being able to communicate with them, talk to them, or deal with their sin. But even when that happens, God might just send the prophet after you anyways, all right? And the Lord sent Nathan unto David, and he came unto him and said unto him, there were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor, the rich man at exceeding flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, save one little oo lamb, which he had bought and nourished up. And it grew up together with him and with his children. It did eat of his own meat and drank of his own cup and lay in his bosom and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveler under the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him, but took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man that was come to him. David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, as the Lord liveth, the man that had done this thing should surely die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. So Nathan comes to David, and what's interesting about this is he's kind of giving him a parable, but David doesn't know that it's a parable at first. To David, this is a real story. To David, Nathan's kind of giving him a scenario and saying, you know, the way Nathan is portraying this is like it's an actual event. Like there was really a rich guy somewhere in their county, and this rich guy stole the poor man's little ewe lamb, and he took it unto himself. And David then instantly judges the situation without Nathan even asking. Nathan never even said, so what should be done unto the rich man, or what say ye, or what do you think's gonna happen? Just immediately, he just interrupts, he just immediately just says something after the parable and just says, you know what, kill him. This guy deserves death. That was wicked. How dare he take his little ewe lamb and not realizing that the parable is about him, not realizing that this story is all about David. And it says in verse number seven, and Nathan said to David, thou art the man. Now that's a really powerful phrase found in the Bible, because David rightly judges the situation, but the problem is is he's pointing the finger at himself. And there's a lot of things we could learn from this chapter. This is a big point of where Matthew seven comes into play, that it says judge not, that ye be not judged, because you don't want to judge people hypocritically in the sense that you don't want to cast a judgment and say, in this scenario, this is what should happen to the person. And they're like, well, that's exactly what you did. And you're like, well, you know, it's different, because I did it, or different because my son did it, right? Like, oh, my son has committed treason and videotaped himself doing hard cocaine and illicit drugs and sleeping with prostitutes and committing espionage and child pornography. It's like, what say ye, Biden? Oh, the guy should definitely go to jail. Well, it's Hunter. Oh, well, you know, that makes you a wicked judge, doesn't it? It makes you an evil person when you can rightly judge, but you don't want to ever point at yourself. And I even notice this sometimes when you go soul winning. I'll bring up a scenario and I'll say, all right, so if I ran into a guy and he says that go to heaven, you have to both believe and do works. Where's that guy going? They're like, hell. Now, you said that when I knocked on your door and they're like, no, no, no, no, no. You're confused. And I'm like, I'm not confused. You're confused, right? It's frustrating when someone can apply the proper logic, but then they refuse to apply it to themselves. You know, that always seems a little bit frustrating when people can. And you know, of course, most of us can typically judge right when it's someone else. The problem is judging ourselves. And I notice this with everyone. Sometimes it's funny, my wife will talk to me about someone's situation. And she'll be like, so and so asked me for advice. And I told them X, Y, and Z. And I'm thinking like, that was some really good advice. You know? And it's like, why? But you know, that it's funny because obviously we're all guilty of doing bad things at some times, right? Even myself included. It's like, hey, that's really good advice to give to them. You know, that's really good advice to give to your children. That's really good advice to give to your brother. That's really good advice to give to so and so. But it's like, why don't we take our own advice sometimes? Why do we have a hard time judging ourselves? And you know, with David, he immediately judges the situation correctly. And then Nathan cleverly says, thou art the man. What if Nathan had just walked in and said, hey, there's a king of Israel named David who committed adultery and murder. What do you think should be done unto him? You know, he may not have judged rightly. And I think that Nathan employing this tactic is kind of a good tactic. You know, sometimes we've got to help people just identify the right judgment first and then apply it to themselves. You know, that's another good tip for preaching a sermon. You know, in preaching a sermon, a good structure for a sermon is just to teach the biblical principles first and just to teach what's the right judgment. And then in the latter portion of the sermon, apply it. You don't know, you know, sometimes people have a hard time accepting the application before they realize that that's the right decision, OK? Or that's the right judgment, or that's the right principle found in the scripture. So really good preaching often will teach you the principle first, give you the application later. Nathan's giving you the principle first. Then he's going to give you the application afterwards. And of course, David's guilty. It says, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed the king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul. And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives, and 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. 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. 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. Now, he applies the story. The rich man is David. All the sheep is his wives. The poor man is Uriah. The ewe lamb is his wife. And he's simply saying, you had all of these wives. Why do you need another one? On that night, why didn't he just call for one of his wives? Why did he have to call for Uriah's wife and take what he had and steal the one woman that he had? He had all these other options available to him. And yet, he's covetous. He ends up desiring that which is not his. He commits adultery. And he does this evil thing unto Uriah. Not only that, then he ends up killing Uriah. And notice how God attributes it. He says that he had killed him and has slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. So notice who God attributes the death and the murder of Uriah to. He attributes it to David. He doesn't attribute it to the Ammonites. He doesn't attribute it to Joab. He attributes it to David, the plotter, the person who came up with the scheme. And even though man may not be able to prove these things, even though a court of law may be able not prove these things, God is his own court system. And he can prove those things. And he's an eyewitness. And he knows what really happened. And he is calling out David for his sin, for his wickedness. Now, verse 10 to me has always been like a verse that always grips me a little bit and just really, it convicts me in this sense. Because notice what God says about it. He says that he's going to punish him, the sword will never depart from the house. But notice this, because thou hast despised me. God looks at a man that commits sin and says, you actually despise me. You despise God. His sin wasn't just following his lust. It wasn't just doing some bad thing. It was actually despising God himself, like hating God himself. And that just always just really convicts me. I'm just thinking like, man, when I sin, sometimes I don't realize it or think of it in a way like, I'm like hating God when I do this. I'm like despising God's commandments when I just know the commandment and you just do it anyways. And of course, in this picture, it's like a presumptuous sin. It's one where you actually just know that it's wrong, but you just do it anyways. And it just shows that in your heart, you have some kind of hatred or some kind of despite towards God's commandments. It doesn't matter what sin we're talking about here. We're talking about all of the sins. When you know that that's wrong and you just do it anyways, it just shows you don't have a love of God. If you love me, keep my commandments. That's what the Bible says. And you want to know those who love God? They're those who are afraid to break God's commandments. Those that have no problem breaking God's commandments, those that know to do right and just do wrong anyways, it shows they have a hatred towards God deep down. It shows that they despise God. And look, this is the man after God's own heart. This is David that we're talking about. And if David can be described as despising God, how much more could we be when we sin, when we presumptuously rebel against the Lord's commandments? And it just always convicts me when I read that part about how thou has despised me. That's got to hurt. I mean, one of the worst things I think I can have God say to me is just like looking at me after I've sinned and just been like, you despise me. Because I mean, we're supposed to love God. You know, that would really hurt to hear that. But you know what, that's the truth. The truth is we despise God's word when we violate his commandments, when we go against his word, and especially in a presumptuous way. It says in verse 11, thus say 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 sun. Thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun. Now, here's another thing. David's not going to get away with his sin. We like to think like, oh, David got away with it. But notice he gets it way worse in the sense that the sin that he committed, taking someone's wife and doing it secretly, is going to happen to David, but now publicly. And not just one wife, many wives. In fact, it's 10 times worse because it's going to have his son Absalom eventually come and take his wives, his concubines, and lay with them in front of the entire world. All of Israel is going to know what a shame and an embarrassment and a mockery. I mean, to have your wife being laid with another man has got to be one of those embarrassing things imaginable. And he's saying, he is going to get so publicly embarrassed. I mean, what was the point of him covering up the situation so he wouldn't be embarrassed? But then what does God do? OK, I'll embarrass you 10 times worse then, publicly. And I'll say this. You know, what David should have done is at any point in David's life that he was, you know, before this event happened, he should have probably got on his knees and begged God to be merciful unto him. He kind of waited until he got confronted to get right with the Lord. And you know what, that's a bad thing to do. We don't want to wait. It's kind of like your parents. Like kids, if you do something wrong, you should be the one to tell your parents rather than letting them catch you. Because when they catch you, they're more likely to punish you more severely than if you go to them hat in hand and say, Mom and Dad, you told me not to eat a cookie. I ate a cookie. Mom and Dad, you told me not to hit my brother. I hit him, you know. It's a lot better, you know, when you come forward, you're repentant, you tell them what you did, you explain what you did. And you know, there's been times where I had to explain to my dad or my mom that I did something wrong. And you know, they punished me less severe than when they caught me doing something wrong. I remember one time I got in trouble at school, bad really one time. And back in public school, your parents don't necessarily always find out, right? Not unless the parents are going to call the teacher, the teachers call the parents or something like that. But I remember in school, I got in big trouble one time. And I just felt really bad about it. So I ended up telling my parents. And you know, they talked to me, they were mad at me for doing it. But I didn't really get any kind of punishment. But I'm certain that if I had gotten a call from the principal's office or from the teachers first, oh, I would have gotten a big whooping. I would have gotten destroyed virtually if I had allowed it for them to find out instead of me going to them first and saying, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done this. And basically, I was mad at a kid. So I took all this stuff and threw it behind a cabinet. No one could find it. But that wasn't the right thing to do, OK? And then I lied about it. And I told, I didn't tell anybody that I did it. Obviously, I could lie. You know, when I was a kid, I did these things. But you know, that was the wrong thing to do. And I got the entire class punished. Because the teacher said, no one knows who did it. So I'm just going to punish the whole class. Everyone's getting detention. Everyone's getting in trouble. There's these kids crying. There's all these little girls in my class that are crying. They're like, I've never gotten detention in my life. Whoever did it, just please come forward so I don't get detention. And I'm just like, oh, man, I feel bad. The teacher's like, we're not having class until we find out who did it. I'm just like, what? And all these girls are crying and weeping. And I'm just like, not me. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. And I basically, because I was worried. I was like, if I find where the stuff is, they'll know it was me. So I was like, we're kind of all looking for it. And I'm like, hey, why don't you go look over there? Some other guy found it. And then I'll give him this heat, like, why'd you know it was over there? And I'm just like, sorry. It was stupid, right? But I felt so bad about it. And then I decided, I was like, OK, I'm just going to confess to the teacher the next day and take the ownership and take all the heat for it. So the next day, I went to the teacher and I said, I did it. I'm sorry. Please don't punish any other kids. Please don't punish any of the students. And she's like, you know what? No big deal. I'm not even going to give you any attention. So I'm not saying that was right. I probably deserved it. I probably deserved worse punishment. But at least I went to her and I just said, hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. And look, you'll typically get a better outcome when you're a pendant, when you're sorry. When you get caught, though, it's not as easy to then be like, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, I didn't mean to do that, or whatever. That's not often true repentance, even. That's just you're sorry you got caught. Bill Clinton wasn't sorry that he slept with Monica Alinsky. He's just sorry he got caught about it. And so it's not like he was really apologetic, even though he might say those words. It's just he's sorry he got caught and he's sorry for himself. But that's not real true repentance. True repentance is when you don't have to apologize. You don't have to get right, but you just do it anyways. You just approach the situation. You come hat in hand. I've had people approach me on issues where they did something they shouldn't have done. And they came to me and they were repentant. And I didn't get mad at them or even do anything about it, because I was like, they're already repentant about it. When you catch someone doing something wicked, and then they don't, it's like, how do you know that they're actually apologetic about it? Like, hey, I caught you railing on me or something. It's like, oh, I'm sorry about that now. It's like, are you, though? How do I even know that that's sincere or that's legitimate? It's better to just confess your sins and forsake your sins than it is to just wait until God catches you. Because here's the thing, God will catch you. God will figure it out. I don't even have to worry about it. Did David really think he's going to get away with this? Do you really think? I mean, I think that some of us think, I'm really going to get away with my sin. That is the dumbest philosophy ever. You should never believe you're going to get away with anything. If I sin, I always pray. If I think about it, I'm like, I need to get right with God now and pray and ask for his mercy, because I don't know how severely I'm going to get punished. But I'd rather just get right now, not sit here and think, well, nothing's happened yet, so maybe I'll get away with it. Be sure your sin will find you out, is what the Bible says. And we should be quick to repentance, quick to get right with God, quick to make it right, not allowing it to just go secretly, because then God might expose it publicly. That's way worse than having dealt with it privately or not have it go to everyone. Now, even though this is the worst outcome for David, probably, I mean, virtually, there's a little bit worse, but this is kind of like the worst outcome. Look at verse 13. And David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. Now, what we have to notice is he's giving him the punishments, but Nathan didn't necessarily stop giving the punishments. He didn't stop saying what was going to happen. Not until David acknowledges he sinned does then Nathan also bring up the idea that he's not going to die. Now, technically, according to the Bible, adultery and murder are worthy of the death penalty. So from a civil perspective, David would deserve the death penalty for his sins here, but the Lord allows him to have mercy. And so notice that some people get confused about this. Even if we live in a civil society that had the death penalty for certain crimes, like adultery or like murder or like witchcraft or some of these things, there is the room for the judges to actually give a merciful sentence and not force them to get that punishment in those cases. It's just that that would be the law, right? The law would be that's what you deserve, but then the judges would have leeway to give mercy to someone depending on the circumstance, depending on the situation, or what happened, they may give them mercy. And of course, you want to give mercy to those that are repentant, not necessarily. I mean, what if someone committed adultery, but they're really sorry about it, and they told the judge, I don't want to do that again. I love my spouse. I'm going to be paid for my spouse the rest of my life. And the judge says, you know what? We're going to let that person live, and we're not going to punish them with death in this situation. And then maybe the spouse is saying, please save my spouse. I don't actually want them to die. Whereas the other person that's just like an unrepentant adulterer and hates their spouse, and they're like, what do you think we should give them? They're like, off with the head. And it's like, OK. Well, then that's the legal recourse, right? So I mean, there's still leeway there for the judge to make those determinations. So just because it's just doesn't mean you can't have mercy triumph over justice or over judgment. You know, the Lord triumphs over our judgment in the sense that we all deserve hell, but you know what we get? Heaven. So just like David deserves the death penalty here, yet his death penalty has been taken away, has been purged from him. The same is with us, who deserve death, and we deserve the death penalty, and we deserve hell. But you know what? Mercy is going to triumph over that judgment, and we're going to get to go to heaven by the blood of Jesus Christ. And it's wonderful that we have mercy triumphing over judgment. But here's one thing. You can't have mercy without judgment. You can't have mercy without the law, because mercy is undeserved favor, right? Well, if I don't deserve a punishment, then how could I ever have mercy to cover over that punishment or that judgment? You can't. So you have to have judgment in order to even have mercy. Mercy cannot exist without judgment, without law. And it's funny, people all constantly say, like, oh, I'm under grace, or I'm in the New Testament under mercy. And it's like, well, if that's true, then that means you deserve something bad for what you've done. The only way to receive grace or to receive mercy is if you've done something wrong. And of course, yeah, in the New Testament, we're under grace. Meaning what? Meaning if I transgressed the law, I don't have to suffer the consequences of the law, because we're under grace. But I shouldn't just use grace as a token to do whatever I want, thinking that God is not going to punish me. Because God is still going to punish me. And of course, our punishment is often going to be related directly to how repentant we are, right? If we repent, if we have a contrite spirit, if we're asking the Lord for mercy, we're asking for grace, he's much more likely to extend that to us in the New Testament and not necessarily give us the physical punishments we deserve, even though we're not technically under the law anymore, OK? Evidenced by the fact that in Acts chapter number 5, Ananias and Sapphira lie to the Holy Ghost. They lie to man about the money that they give to the church, and God kills them. He kills both husband and he kills wife. As evidenced by in Revelation chapter number 2, when Jezebel is going into a church teaching false doctrine and committing fornication and adultery, you know, seducing people to commit adultery with her is what the Bible says. Teaching fornication, seducing people to commit adultery with her, God gave her space to repent of her fornication, right? But what happened when she didn't repent of that fornication, didn't repent of that adultery? Then he says he's going to kill her and her children with death. So notice that God will give us space, God will give us long suffering, God will give us an opportunity to get it right on our own. But when we don't get it right, then comes the hammer. And it's like David had his opportunity, potentially, to get it right, but since he waited, now he gets the hammer, doesn't he? Although he does admit partially his sin in this point, and he doesn't get the full hammer. So there's never a bad time to get right with God, OK? It's like you sin, when do I get right with him? Day one, OK? But if you didn't get right on day one, get right on day two. But if you didn't get right on day two, get day three, OK? You get rebuked by God, that's still the day to get right. There's never a bad time to get right, and it can always lessen the consequences. But realize the longer you prolong that getting right with God, the longer you let go out, the bigger the punishment, the bigger the consequence. And so it's always right, it's always good to confess your sins and get right with the Lord and try to minimize the damage, minimize the consequence of that sin. And the Lord, not giving David the death penalty, is merciful. Now notice, though, it's not like God didn't believe in the death penalty. He says, the Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. So notice, if he hadn't put away his sin, what did David deserve, what was he going to get? He was going to get the death penalty. So God's always believed in the death penalty, OK? But of course, if he puts away the sin, if the sin's been paid for, then he's no longer going to die. I mean, this is a great picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And how you can picture your sins, your sins have been put away. And so you can't have that punishment because it's been put away. Verse 14, how be it? Because by this deed, thou has given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord of Blaspheme. The child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. And Nathan departed unto his house, and the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bareth to David, and it was sick. It was very sick. David, therefore, besought God for the child, and David fasted and went in and lay all night upon the earth. And the others of this house arose and went to him to raise him up from the earth, but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them. And it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died, and the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, behold, while the child was dead alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice. How will he then vex himself if we tell him that the child is dead? So they're saying, you know, David has been told by God that his child is going to die. Very sad about it. He's praying and fasting and seeking the Lord to give mercy unto this child, and he's very grieved. And his servants are so afraid, they say, man, if David has taken it this hard and the child's still alive, what's going to happen if he finds out the child's dead? And they're just like, they're afraid of even telling David. Verse 19, but when David saw that his servants whispered, David received that the child was dead, therefore David said unto his servants, is the child dead? And they said, he is dead. Then David rose from the earth and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord in worship. Then he came to his own house, and when he required, they set bread before him, and he beat. Then said his servants unto him, what thing is this that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child while it was alive, but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, while the child was dead alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child might live? But now he is dead. Wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her, and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him. So in this story, David's child is struck by the Lord. For a period of time, he fasts and weeps. But at the moment that the child is dead, David then anoints himself, goes on with his business, goes back to normal life. And his servants are confused by this. They're thinking, why are you sad when the child's alive, but then fine when the child's dead? But what you have to understand is that David is approaching this situation with logic, not emotion. Because logically, he only had an opportunity to save the child while it was alive. And now that it's dead, there's literally nothing mourning is going to do for it. It's not going to bring the child back. It's not going to help him feel better about it. It's not going to help his wife feel better about it. It's not going to help his kingdom. It's not going to help his servants. So from a logical perspective, the best thing you can do is just move on with your life. Now, here's the problem with this approach a little bit, is that it's not very empathetic per se, but it is logical. And one thing that's really hard is when it comes to loss, especially the loss of a loved one or loss of a family member, men tend to be more logical than their spouses about it. And I can't imagine losing a loved one like a child. I've personally never had to go through that. And God willing, I never will. But I have lost other people in my life that are very dear to me. I've lost my mother. I've lost grandparents. I've lost other people. And it's very sad. It's very hard. But having gone through those experiences, having read the Bible and having thought about it, I just know for a fact that it would be easier on me than it would be my wife. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't be sad or it wouldn't hurt me or it wouldn't harm me or I wouldn't have bad days. But what I'm saying is just I know for just a fact that my wife would have it way worse than me. And she would be in mourning much more than me and be much more difficult on her. And I'm not saying that because she's worse than me or weaker than me. She's just different than me, number one. And she's a woman. And again, men are much more logical than women. Women are more emotional. And it's not to say that it's bad. It's just different. The reason why women are more emotional, in my opinion, is because God made women to raise children. And so they have to be more empathetic. They're more sensitive, which allows them to deal with children more effectively than I would. Because for me, babies and toddlers, it's just like, get over it. No one cares. You're crying or whatever. Whereas moms, they know what's going on. When a baby's crying, a dad just wants to solve the problem or whatever. Whereas moms, they know what's going on. They know, oh, that's a hurt cry or that's a hungry cry or that's a I just need to hold mom cry. There's all these cries. For me, it's just crying. I just hear, ah, you know, whatever. And I'm just throwing stuff at it. I don't know what's going on. I don't know how to fix the problem. And they're so much more in tune because they're more sensitive. And there's nothing wrong with being more sensitive. It's just being different. If I were to listen to music on my phone, just playing out of the speaker, and you listen to, especially, like, secular music where they have a lot of bass, deep tones, and they have a lot of things going on, you really can't hear it. But if you put on headphones where it really magnifies the sound and everything like it, you can just hear all these different things that are actually going on in the song a lot differently. Whereas with the phone, it's just kind of like you barely kind of hear it. You just kind of hear the essence or whatever. So anybody that's ever worked on a project that has music in it, you can tell a huge difference between the headphones than just what's coming out of this or whatever. And the same is with women and men. For me, I hear kids coming out of this, whereas my wife has the headphones. And she can just hear everything. And that's good. That's fine. That's great that God made women more sensitive than men. But here's why I'm teaching you this, is because when you have loss or you have these things that happen in your life, you shouldn't expect your spouse to necessarily always match your line of thinking or your emotion. Sometimes you have to help them with that situation. You have to have a little more empathy towards them, because I would probably be more like David, where it's just like, well, I can't do anything about it. Let's just move on and go on. But you know, the Bible talks about things like weeping with those that weep and condescending to men of low estate and kind of just the idea of matching other people's emotions. And if someone's struggling with something more than you, to sometimes go down to their level and try to help them and encourage them, even though it may be harder on them. A miscarriage, that is going to always be harder on the woman than it's going to be on the man. It affected their body. It affects their emotions. Their body, when they get pregnant or they go through these things, they have all these hormones just spiking through their body and causing all kinds of different things going on mentally, their stress levels. They have to feel these things. And so as a husband, well, from a logical perspective, after a miscarriage, yeah, let's just move on, you still sometimes need to show some empathy towards your spouse and there's nothing wrong with moving on. Obviously, we want to get to that point. It's healthy to eventually get to the point where you say, you know what, there's nothing I can do. Let's move on. But I also want you to realize that men and women are different, and sometimes women, they can't as easily be like David and just like, oh, it's dead? I'm fine now. I'm just moving on. I'm just going to the next level. That's kind of more a man thing, a more logical thing, and it might take more time. And that's OK. Notice that it says that David comforted Bathsheba, his wife. So did David need comforting after the death? No, he was fine, right? He just immediately fixed himself. He's good. But you know what, just because he's good doesn't mean his wife's good. He needs to go and comfort her and help her. And you know a great way to get over the loss of someone is to have another person in your life, right? That's another good thing about not believing in birth control is even though miscarriages are a fact of life, you can focus on the kids you do have sometimes, or try for another one, or just get plugged in with other people in your life. Just focus on the people you do have rather than the people that you don't, because you can't affect the people that you don't have. You can only affect the people you have. You've got a spouse, you've got a brother, you've got a sister, you've got a church, you've got a family. I mean, just focus on the people that you have. You've got a grandchild, you've got whatever. You know, focus on those people and don't necessarily just get caught in the past, because I can't change those things necessarily. I can't fix those things. And David's here comforting his wife. And it's good that they comfort each other. It's good that they still had normal relations, because notice he has Solomon. And I mean, talk about a great child. Isn't it interesting that David committed one of the worst sins, adultery, and then topped it off with probably arguably the worst sin, murder, took a wife he shouldn't have had, his child dies, he's in severe chastisement from God, but then out of all of this, they get Solomon. And that should also just illustrate with the fact that God uses sinful people to do great things for him. You know, I mean, it's crazy when you think it's like this is like Jerry Springer stuff constantly in the Bible, and then it's like Solomon's the next guy. And Solomon isn't just some guy in the Bible. I mean, this is the smartest guy to ever live apart from Christ himself. I mean, the wisest man to ever live is Solomon, and he comes from this situation. You know, it's kind of crazy when you think about it. Arguably, Solomon may not even have lived or come into fruition if it hadn't been for the miscarriage of this child, because through the natural process of the lamb method, women can't get fertile or can't get pregnant while they're breastfeeding. So by this first child dying, it may have actually caused her to become fertile earlier than she would have if the other child had lived. And then it allows Solomon to come in. So you could almost even look at this as like a mini gospel, and then it's like Christ died to give us life. It's like this baby died to give Solomon life and to give Solomon the chance to rule and to reign and to basically become a son of God and to be loved and to have all these things. And so we might look at this child as like, oh, man, this child dying is a horrible thing. But wait a minute, isn't that the whole Bible? Isn't the whole Bible about the gospel of Jesus Christ? Isn't it all about a father sacrificing his son? And think of it this way. Perhaps my David's son being sacrificed by dying gives life unto Solomon and gives us Solomon, just like Christ dying for us gives us life and gives us an opportunity to have a great existence. And so there's always gospels just hidden in the text everywhere. Even in these horrible situations, we still have them. It says in verse number 25, and he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet and called his name Jadida because of the Lord. And Joab fought against Rabbah of the children of Ammon and took the royal city. And Joab said message to David and said, I have fought against Rabbah and have taken the city of waters. Now therefore, gather the rest of the people together in a camp against the city and take it. Lest I take the city and it be called after my name. And David gathered all the people together and went to Rabbah and fought against it and took it. And he took their king's crown from off his head. The weight thereof was a talon of gold with the precious stones and it was set on David's head. And he brought forth the spoil of the city in great abundance. And he brought forth the people that were there in and put them under saws and under harrows of iron and under axes of iron and made them pass through the brickland. And thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned and drew some. Now that was pretty harsh. I love when we read stories about David and be like, why can't you be like David? And it's like, oh, you mean like making people pass through the brickland and put them under saws? Sometimes you just got to purge evil out of your society. And you've got to be pretty harsh with some people. Some really wicked people. They deserve some really wicked, you know, they deserve punishment at least, OK? Now I kind of want to take a minute, and I appreciate this chapter, but I want to make another application. And I just want to think about the chapter as a whole, OK? David sins. David gets confronted. David admits it. David suffers consequences. But here's really the big thing at the end. But then David is still blessed by God. But then David still wins wars for the Lord. But then David is still God's man. But then David still, you know, is winning the battle for the Lord. So this also tells me that just because someone screws up, just because someone does something wrong, doesn't mean that God's forsaken them, that God can't still use them, that God doesn't want them to go out and lead the battle, that God doesn't want them to still lead the charge, that God's just done with this leader or something like that. And you know, there's some people out there, they just want to throw away people when they commit some kind of mistake or they do something wrong. And you know, here with David, this is an extreme example. I mean, we're not just talking about doing something wrong. We're talking about the worst sins. We're talking about adultery and murder here. And God still didn't throw them away. God still didn't get rid of him. God was still willing to use him. And arguably, his sins are worse than Saul's. Because Saul is simply offering sacrifices to God before the man of God shows up. But what was the big difference between Saul and between David? Well, when Saul got confronted by Samuel, what did Saul do? Blame the people. Oh, I have kept the sacrifice of the Lord. You know, I have performed the word of the Lord. That was his first response. What was David's first response when confronted by Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. That's a big difference. And let me tell you something. God is more interested in those that have a fear towards Him that are going to do right and be repentant, even though they may have big sins, than those that have minor sins, but they're just a rebellious, stubborn person. God doesn't want to use those people. God gets mad at those people. God resists those people. God even destroys those people. And look, David and Saul are both saved. So it's not like we're talking about two different people, like, oh, this guy is not saved, or whatever. No, they're both saved. It's just that one, when confronted with an issue, fixes it. The other one confronted with an issue blames everybody else and always shifts the blame, doesn't take ownership for his actions, and really is just a rebellious person, and then starts persecuting God's people. Now, I think it's interesting, because I preached, like, a whole sermon about this a few months ago. I can't remember exactly when. I preached at the middle building. I don't even say the old building. I don't even know, OK? The one that was really nice, OK? The really nice building. The Hearst Building, OK? I preached a sermon at our Firebreathing Baptist Fellowship called, you know, Stay Away from Saul. And I specifically called out Tommy McMurtry, Pastor Tommy McMurtry of Liberty Baptist Church, for attacking God's people and being stubborn and sticking to his sins, OK? And, you know, after that, he called me, and we talked about it. Really, it was just, he's talking to me, but. Most of the conversation, he wasn't repentant about anything he did. He basically just shifted the blame and constantly acted like he didn't really do anything wrong. And it's like, look, you know, everything I said is provable. You know, all the things that you've done, all this slander that you've said, you know, in my opinion, you blackmailed Pastor Thompson. And he's just like, nah, I don't think so. And it's just like, yeah, you did. I mean, here's the evidence. It's like you've been slandering people, lying people. In fact, there was people that had committed felonies against our church, and he had received bank statements from people from a church they didn't even go to. And then after finding out that these people had committed felonies and crimes, he then continues to use that information that was given him. And I'm like, and I said, oh, this guy's consorting with people or taking information from people that are felons and still using it. And he's like, oh, when am I consorting with them? And it's like, look, it's one thing to take information from somebody and not realize how bad they are. But then once you realize how bad they are, why are you still using that information? Why are you still relying on that information? You know, he even said things on the phone to me about, like, horrible my friend Pastor Thompson is, and how, like, we have these, like, secret meetings where basically we're conniving together. And he's like, Pastor McMurtry is saying that I'm conniving with Pastor Thompson and making up lies about Tom McMurtry to preach publicly to take heed off of Pastor Thompson. I'm like, what are you talking about? I've never had, like, none of my friends or me have ever told each other what to preach ever. And usually, any time I've even given people a suggestion, they don't preach it. I told Pastor Mejia what to preach at Red Hot this year. I said, you should preach a sermon called Fag Hags. But he didn't preach it, OK? So maybe I'll have to preach it, OK? But I'm like, you know, the one time I give a suggestion, you know, they didn't even do it, right? Because I guess we're independent Baptists. But they want to claim that we're, like, this denomination or that we just tell each other what to do or we connive together or something like that. It's like Pastor Thompson doesn't even need to defend it on anything. There's nothing even to defend. And he told me, he said, look, all you're going to do is preach against me forever. You're just going to constantly, you can't let things go. And you're going to constantly preach against me. And I'm like, I don't even care about you. I don't want to mention you again. I don't, you know, whatever. And I said, look, I'll promise you, I will not preach against you publicly again unless I call you first or talk to you first about it, OK? And I was not planning on saying this tonight. But then he texted me a bunch today. And I told him, I said, fair warning, this is going to go public. So, you know, he got his warning, OK? But there's another pastor, Pastor Boyle, Pastor Patrick Boyle of Revival Baptist Church, which I've been pretty silent about for a long time. Now, he took our church in Jacksonville. Now, if you don't know these things, you know, come see me after the sermon. I'll explain it or whatever. But we gave him a church in Jacksonville, Florida in 2020. It was in March of 2020, approximately in that time frame. And the only reason I gave him that church is because I thought he would be a better fit for that church. I thought, you know, I'm not going out there that often because I'm so far away. I've got other church plants. I can only see these people so much. He's closer. He could go there every Thursday. And I said, you know what? He's a better pastor for them than me. And I truly believe that. I sincerely thought that was a better option. So I'm like, y'all have him. You know, he, you know, it's a marriage made in heaven, I thought. And, you know, he was excited to take the church. And, you know, from my perspective, it was fine. I mean, because there's still soul winning church. He's preaching there. He's letting other guys preach there. You know, whatever. Then he started preaching some weird stuff about the King James Bible and kind of showing his ruckmanism. And, you know, he had some other issues. He was like praising Adam Fanon from the pulpit, like asking him to pray for their services when he visited in Orlando and stuff. And but at the same time, I was just like, you know what? That's his business. You know, there's still soul winning church. God bless them. I hope they just reach people for Christ. Who cares if they're, I mean, it's not like in heaven the ruckmanites are going to be on a lower level or something like that. Those that are saved, you know, and I'm sure there's still some ruckmanites that are saved. I know Peter Ruckman's not in heaven, but, you know, like there's probably some people that have come under his influence that are in heaven. Okay. And if you get saved and they convince you to use the King James Bible with really bad reasoning, at least you're still using the King James Bible, right? And I've said that before and I'll say it again. And my test of fellowship is that you're saved, you got a King James Bible. You know, and I don't want to attack churches that have that going on, no matter what they say. But for whatever reason, I guess Pastor Boyle's decided that I'm like the biggest scum of the earth and he like preached against me so hard. And I'll even say this, I was not even planning on mentioning him tonight. McMurtry stirred me up, okay. I was going to let it go. And I'll even say this, even after all the horrible things that Pastor Boyle said about me, my initial thought was to pray that God would bless him in his church. Because I think that's what the Bible teaches, that when people are saying evil things about you and falsely accusing you, you're still supposed to pray for their blessing. And I don't think that Pastor Boyle is a horrible reprobate or something like that. I just think he's just misguided and has some issues, but he's still saved and still reaching people. I mean, look, you and I are not gonna go to Orlando and get anybody saved anytime soon. And if their only option is Pastor Boyle and his church members going and knocking on their door and getting them saved, I sure hope he does. I'm not gonna get anybody baptized in Orlando anytime soon. I sure hope someone goes and knocks on their door and gives them the gospel and gets them baptized and gets them into church and whatever. I'm not gonna sit here and start attacking people for being a fundamental Baptist and soul winning. That's not my goal is just to see how many godly people I can tear down because they're not like me exactly or they disagree with me on things or whatever. But Pastor Boyle preached like a whole sermon. You know, it felt like it was dedicated to me, but at least one section was for sure. And it was about my use of the F word, okay? Now here's the thing, and I'm not saying faggot, okay? I'm saying the other one, all right? Here's the thing, I've already addressed that and dealt with that with my church. So I don't feel like I need to bring that up again. But here's my perspective. I'm totally fine with other preachers not agreeing with me on that issue and saying that it's wrong or even preaching against it. I don't care. In fact, I have friends that are like that. You know, one of my good friends, Pastor Bruce Meha, he doesn't agree with me on that at all. He thinks that cussing is a sin and he's preached that. And he would think that that's wrong. But you know what, he's still my friend and he doesn't attack me about it, okay? And if he tells me it's wrong, he'll just tell me it's wrong and you know, whatever. But you know, he preached that cussing is a sin in 2018. And in 2020, I preached cussing's not a sin. And it's like everybody wants to hold me to his standard. And it's like just because Pastor Meha preaches something doesn't mean that that's what I believe. You know, he can believe that and I understand why he believes that. And I respect his opinion, I disagree with that, okay? And I still love him. I still think he's great. And you know what, why would I dislike a guy that doesn't wanna use bad language, quote, unquote? That's one, that's fine. You know, I don't care. But I preached in 2020, literally from the pulpit, I preached I will not curb my language behind the pulpit. That's what I said verbatim. Not only did I say that, I said, if you don't like it, you can get out. You can leave, you can go wherever you want. I said in 2020, I used the word faggot a bunch of times in that sermon. And then I used almost every possible dictionary alternative fricatrice, bugger, I mean, you name it, you think of it, I said it out loud, okay? Now you say, well, I don't like that. That's okay, you don't have to like it. You don't even have to agree with me. That is fine. But I didn't change my doctrine in 2022 when I preached that cussing is not a sin. And then I used the most extreme version of that probably. Now we can all argue whether or not that was the right decision or the right judgment. And I can see both sides of the aisle. But here's the thing. I believe I have liberty there, I did it. I said I'm sorry to those that are offended to it. And I don't wanna use it through the pulpit on a regular basis because I don't wanna offend people. That's not my goal. It was to make a point that people are offended by the word and it worked, okay? It meant to prove that people are brainwashed into thinking that censorship is a real moral issue when it's not, okay? And it's like these guys don't even get the point that I was making. And of course, I'm sure they've said all kinds of stuff that is not okay with society. So when they try to come up with their cussing is a sin doctrine, they have a real hard time doing it. It's like which verse are you gonna point to? And then of course, it's like, okay, so then you shouldn't use faggot? And it's like, well, they've used that word or let other people use that word behind their pulpit. They can never come up. Or are you gonna stop using bastard or hell? And in fact, when I preached the Cussings on a Sin in 2020, a bunch of these guys made all these sermons, reactive sermons to me or whatever, because apparently I'm the only thing they can preach about. They have to preach about like, oh, we shouldn't use words like bastard or hell. And I'm thinking like that's attacking the Bible. You know, whether or not you agree with the extreme of my doctrine, how can you sit here and start condemning the Bible itself or words in the Bible? You know, even Pastor Boyle got up and he said, oh, Jesus, in all his anger, he never swore. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. The word swear in the Bible means the promise or make an oath. Here's a phrase you find in your Bible a lot. The Lord swear. Look that up. Or how about in Hebrews when the Bible says that the Lord swear by himself, when he can swear by no greater? And when he can swear by no greater, he swear by himself. What does that mean? He made a promise to himself. He made a promise on himself. It's not saying he used choice words, but even if you were gonna say, well, I don't know if Jesus used choice words. I mean, what do you think it is when he's yelling at the Pharisees that you're a child of hell? I mean, do you really think that if I went in the world today and I just looked at someone and said, you're a child of hell, that they wouldn't say, oh, you're cussing? They would say I was cussing. Or if I said, how can you escape the damnation of hell? They would probably accuse me of cussing, okay? So where are you gonna start drawing these lines? I mean, you can't draw these lines. These people just end up drawing lines that make themselves hypocrites. But in their zeal to preach against me, Pastor Boyle said that I am a Bible, and I'm just summarizing, this is not a direct quote, but I'm just summarizing what he said I am. He said I'm a Bible-corrupting pervert who is defiling children like Sodom, and that my church has disgusting fruit, and that my grandchildren are gonna be Ichabod. That's what he said. And then, you know who said amen to that? Tom Emmett Murtrie. And I'm just like, what in the world? Like, I get disagreeing with me, okay? I could see why people, I know people that disagree with me that I love and I respect highly. But then they call me all of these names, and they say all these things about me, and I'm just thinking like, what in the world? And of course, he's like saying, oh, his mouth must be stopped. I'm like, okay, let's go to Titus, chapter number one. Let's even just, let's like look up some of these things that they're saying about me. You know, they're like, oh, filthy communication. Well, it's funny, because I preached a whole sermon called filthy communication. Go listen to it. And I address, it's funny, because I like bring up all the same verses they do, but I actually bring them out in context. Because you know it's filthy communication preaching a false gospel. You know it's filthy communication describing sin. You know it's filthy communication blaspheming God. You know what the Bible never says is filthy communication using certain four-letter words. I'm sorry, it just doesn't say that. And it doesn't fit any of the context. Now, you can decide that it's gross, but what happens when they decide the word cow is gross, like I evidenced in my sermon about cuss words, is that now I can't use the word cow? Isn't Jesus Christ even considered one of the worst things you could say if you used it blasphemy, in a blasphemous way? But I love using the name Jesus Christ. We sing about Jesus Christ. I mean, this is just, this is nonsense. And then they're saying that my mouth must be stopped. Okay, why don't we just look up that phrase and see what the Bible is actually saying. Titus chapter number one, verse 10. For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they have the circumcision. Now, you notice the circumcision? The Jews. The Christ-rejecting, Christ-killing, false gospel-preaching Jews, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake. They're saying that about me for having used a certain expletive. I mean, talk about taking something out of context. And I mean, let's just stop for a moment. Let's just say that I committed a horrible sin. Okay, let's just say I did, right? Well, can't I just get right with God and then just move on and be like David and just keep winning the battle anyways? Why does my entire mouth have to be stopped just for having used that one bad word or whatever, even if that was the worst thing imaginable? I mean, is that really the worst thing imaginable? And some of them will even say it's like blasphemous. I've heard this online. And I'm thinking like, is Joe Biden God? I'm like, what are you talking about? Like I'm gonna say, oh, you're using something like a bedroom talk. And I'm like, I wasn't saying that about Joe Biden, my friend, you're sick if you think that's what I meant. You're the one that's kind of perverted if you're gonna say that's what that means. I mean, if you're gonna say, what does that word mean? It means damn. The equivalent would be damn. And God and the Lord Jesus Christ constantly used the word damn in the Bible, okay? That is the modern equivalent to what was said and what was meant. I didn't even say it in a derogatory way. I was saying it in an explanatory way. And yet they still wanna condemn me and say that I'm like Sodom, that I'm defiling children. You can believe whatever you want. They want our entire church to just overthrow me as a pastor, and they say that. Not only that, I mean, Tommy McMurtry, he said in text messages to me about it because I said I don't think it's fair that you called me all these things. I said it's fine if you wanna preach against what I said or you disagree. I just think it's unfair for you to call me all these things. Let me just give you direct quotes, okay? I said I would expect for pastors who disagree with me to say something about it to their church and even teach differently. However, I don't believe it's fair for Pastor Boyle to call me a Bible-corrupting pervert with disgusting fruit who defiles children like Sodom and will have grandchildren named Ichabod. I also find it bad to say amen to such accusations. I still believe you and Pastor Boyle are saved pastors getting people saved, and I hope God will bless your churches. I wish you guys wouldn't misrepresent my position and slander me. Because I think there's a lot of validity what he is saying. What? There's a lot of validity to what? I mean, which part is the valid part? I mean, how can I corrupt the Bible with a word that's not even in the Bible? I didn't take anything in the Bible and then twist it to something else. I'm just using some extra-biblical word. Which even Pastor Boyle's saying like, we shouldn't use any extra-biblical words. Like Bible? Like, I mean, what does that even mean? Like, what are you even saying? Like, I don't even understand these people's doctrine. It's about as intelligent as Ruckmanism that says that speaketh and speaks are different words. That says that everlasting and eternal are corruptions. I mean, if you're gonna tell me that John 3.15 and John 3.16 being swapped, eternal and everlasting, is a Bible corruption, now I can see why you label me a Bible corruptor. Because you don't even know what that means. Like, and how quick are you to label people with these harsh labels that are considered brethren? I mean, I really just don't get the logic of these people. And I still wanna think that they're saved and good men generally, even though they may not like me. But it's just, it's completely bizarre. Now, I'm trying to find, I wanna find this quote, but Pastor Nick Ritchie texted me and he basically just said, hey, I wanna know what happened. Did you really apologize about this? Or, you know, what was the situation? So like, out of courtesy, just told him what happened. And was even saying, hey, I don't care if you preach about me or even say that you disagree. Just please don't call me these horrible things that really are just a slander, right? And then he's just like, oh no, that's valid. And you know, you basically are guilty of all those things. So we kinda went back and forth on a few different items. And I don't necessarily, I don't wanna necessarily bore you on all that. But he basically said that he didn't have the power to overthrow me as the pastor, but that he wishes that my church would. He said, I believe you pervert the Bible. And he said that I, let me, I wanna give you exact direct quotes. He says that I'm, also he said that the reason why he wanted to text me and preach about this is people keep associating us together. So let it forever be on the record that we're not friends. Okay, I still wish the best for him. I hope God blesses the church and they get people saved over there. But you know what, no association. It's been erased, none. Now of course, look, if the guy apologized for everything he did wrong and wanted to be my friend, I would probably help him out if he ever needed it. But I don't believe that would ever happen. He doesn't wanna be my friend. Let me, there was a, it was a long conversation. I apologize, okay. And he brought up a bunch of stuff about how, when I preached against Grace and Fritz, I had mentioned about his wife lying about Pastor Thompson. And I brought out a story, go go to Deuteronomy 25, okay? Go to Deuteronomy 25. Like, when does this sermon be over? I don't know yet either, okay? He said this about me, he said, your preaching is often over the top and clearly meant just to just shock people. And you regularly twist or pervert scripture to do it. Your mouth should be stopped. It's a shame your congregation won't do it. I don't have the power to do it, but I do believe you need to be publicly marked. So it's like, it's like this guy is like no different than our protesters. He's like, I'm not gonna do it. It's like this guy is no different than our protesters. It's like, he just wants our church to be destroyed. And it's like, any church that just rallied against the pastor and just overthrew the pastor is basically just gonna destroy that church. It's a stupid idea. I've taught this in the past, and you know, he's preached like whole sermons on how to dismantle a church, like how the congregation can basically rebel against their pastor and throw them out. I think that's wicked. I'm strongly against that. If your pastor's doing something wrong, you can always go to another church, number one. You could confront him and hope that he gets it right if there's truly something, some kind of an issue. But I mean, if your pastor was just so egregious, like Greg Locke just divorced his wife and married the secretary or something like that, obviously if your pastor did that, the whole church could be like, hey look, we're all gonna leave unless you step down. And that's fine. But I don't think you should pick the pastor up and throw him in the parking lot. That's wicked. Just like David got mad at the guys that were gonna come and kill Saul. It's like, yeah, was Saul wrong? Should Saul step down? Absolutely. But you know what's wicked? To go and put the sword through Saul's belly. You don't do that. Okay, it's not your place. God will take care of it if he needs to take care of it. And I've heard this argument, it's like, oh, you really, you know, you're just making it where there's no accountability for pastors. You know, it's like, I go to a church where God removed the pastor. And the congregation didn't have to. The whole congregation didn't know anything, virtually. I mean, you might have suspected stuff, but I'm just saying, like, nobody really knew what was going on. Nobody had a clue. No one was gonna be able to stop that crazy train. It was God that just confused all these people and brought all the right events together to basically just allow the church to keep going. And why wouldn't I think that God would do the same thing in every scenario? It's God's church. It's not my church. You know, it really frustrates me, these people, it's like they have no faith whatsoever. They just think, like, everything has to be in their hands or something like that. Look, I just go to church trusting that God will take care of everything. God will expose everything that he needs to do. You know, it's so funny that they, it's like they're, it's like their life goal to expose a new IFB church or something. It's like, why can't you guys just fade into a non-existence? I think it's because they're so boring, they have nothing to do. It's like Michael Johnson's sermons get five views, so then he has to preach like a four-part series against me so that he can get 200 views on his sermons, or whatever. It's like, I should be sending them a bill for the fact that they have so much to preach about for the last few months or whatever. But he gets so mad, and I said, look, another thing, I never told your wife, Pastor Tommy McMurtry, that her hand should be cut off literally, which they keep like making this lie about me, saying that I told, I said, I preached that Pastor's wife's hand should be cut off literally. And I'm like, okay, I preached a sermon called Loud and Stubborn Women, and I brought up how women intervening in a men's spat that according to the law, they would have their hand cut off if they grabbed the guy by the secrets. Look what it says in Deuteronomy 25, look at verse 11. When men strive together, one with another, and the wife of one draweth near to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand and taken them by the secrets, then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eyes shall not pity her. I believe that. Number one, because it's in the Bible. Now, number two, just because the law has a really specific interpretation doesn't mean we can't extract the principle from it. What is the principle from here? The principle is that women shouldn't get involved and fight between men. Now, of course, this is not talking about like a home invasion, okay, folks? If someone breaks through the house, your wife should have a shotgun just as well as you, okay? And it's also not saying that women cannot kick or punch a guy in the secrets. Let me tell you something. If you're caught in an alleyway and there's a guy, you kick him in the secrets as hard as you can. You punch him, you fight dirty. You poke him in the eye, you poke him in the ear, you kick him in the secrets, you do everything nasty and mean you can, okay? What's this talking about is two men that are in a fight for honor, right? Two guys are in a fight. No one's gonna die. It's just that it's basically about a respect fight and it's disrespectful for the wife to go in there and sack-tack the guy while he's getting beat up, you know, sack-tap, whatever, sorry. It's like, no, she needs to stay out of it, right? And well, what could be another application? What if two guys are just arguing? It's not right for her to break into the argument and basically use some cheap shots or do some cheap sayings or whatever to attack them. And that's what Daniel Fritz did, Grace and Fritz's wife, where there's an argument between Grace and Fritz, Pastor Fritz and Pastor Thompson, they're arguing, and then she comes in and just lies about Pastor Thompson. And I said, hey, her thumbs should, I'll give you the exact quote, because I even typed it out, all right? Because I know people don't actually believe exact quotes anymore or something like that. But I actually looked it up just to double-check exactly what I said on this point, because I'm getting all this flack for it or whatever still, which goes to show you it's not about the F word, it's about their just hatred and the heart that they've had the whole time. But I said, stop letting those thumbs post those stupid garbage texts and posts. It should be cut off. I'm not saying literally, okay? It's not Sharia here. And then they say, he literally said that it should happen. How many times can you slander me? And then I did say later, I said, if we lived in a righteous society, it would be, but that was in context of the fact that this law would be the law, right? The application, I wasn't making this application to texting folks, okay? If your wife makes a bad text, don't get out the knife. All right? It's not the Japanese game show with Chris Farley. Who knows what I'm talking about? Anybody, okay. An SNL skit, Chris Farley's on there, he goes, I'm gonna tell you the story, okay? This is like Japanese game show on SNL and Chris Farley's a guest. He doesn't speak Japanese. And so they're asking all these questions and Japanese, he doesn't know how to answer. And whenever the person gets the question wrong, they have to cut their arm off. And so like, he's just watching and they're just like, they're like, and he's like, and the guy's like, oh, sorry, sorry. And then the guy gets a knife and just cuts his hand off or whatever. And then it goes to the next person and then he gets to Chris Farley and he's like, I'm on the wrong game show. Like I have to get out of here. Cause it's like, he doesn't even know how to answer the question. And it's like, look, we don't believe that for texting something you shouldn't have texted, your hand should get cut off. That's stupid. No one believed that. But then he has to just falsely, he just goes online, just blows his mouth off. Oh yeah, you know, Pastor Shelley believes that, you know, dating a friend's hand should be literally cut off. Or he said like, oh, my wife, you know, doesn't ever defend me online anymore. I don't know if that's true. Because the pastor taught me that, you know, her hand should be cut off. Like that's stupid. These people are just still bitter in their heart. They hate having been called out for doing something wrong, for being a slanderer, for having done evil. And instead of just getting it right, they just dig in. Or they blame other people or they shift the argument. And then they suggest that my entire church should be destroyed. Look, I think these guys are slandered and railed and I'm not even asking for God to destroy their church. I don't want their church members to rise up and throw them out of the pulpit. Even though, look, their issues are 1 Corinthians 5 issues. I mean, they're literally railing on me constantly. And then falsely accusing me of being a railer. Tommy Hamer-Mertry was calling me a railer because I had said that some people had stolen our money and committed felonies against our church. And he said, oh, well, where's the record? I'm still waiting for the record. And I said, oh, so you actually have, just because they haven't prosecuted the person, I'm a railer now for saying that? I mean, would I be a railer for calling David a murderer and an adulterer in the chapter that we read because there wasn't a human government record? There was no, I mean, where is the human record to call David a murderer and adulterer? I mean, I guess we just have to have it on the physical record for it to be true. O.J. Simpson's not a murderer. Bill Clinton's not a murderer. George Bush isn't a complicit murderer in 9-11 because we haven't had the human trial. I mean, Jeffrey Epstein isn't really a pedophile because he died in prison before getting convicted of all of his crimes. I mean, what kind of logic is this? And why are you so quick to want to defend people? Why are you sitting here saying like, well, I don't know if these guys are felons or not? You know, you just seem like a bad guy labeling them felons or something. Yeah, for committing felonies, you idiot. If I witness a murderer, I'm not gonna be like, well, I'm gonna wait until the final record comes out and the jury votes him a murderer to say he murdered someone. I'm gonna be like, he murdered someone. If I witness someone committing felonies, yeah, you better believe I'm gonna go to the cops. And you know what I did? I filed a police report and they said, hey, what crime was committed? And I'm like, these felony crimes. And they were like, you're a railer. I mean, how else would you report a crime if you're just an automatic railer when it hasn't even been proven yet? I mean, you have to report the crime first and then you have to let law enforcement do their job. But I guess, you know, I mean, who could, how dare you say that Hunter Biden has done anything illegal? Where's his trial, huh? Hunter Biden's done nothing wrong in my opinion. I mean, where's the record, buddy, hmm? Hillary Clinton's clean as a whistle, buddy, hmm? All of her witnesses are dead. What kind of logic is this? You know what, I don't know what these guys' plan is, but them already just publicly saying it or saying it to me that they wanna destroy my church put me on enough alert to say, hey, have nothing to do with these people. And their church members be extremely leery of. Because there's some bad church members in these churches. Like Pastor Boyle's dad is like one of the most wicked people I've ever seen. He's a flat earther, he denies that hell is eternal, he mocks soul winning, he mocks easy believism, he mocks Pastor Anderson, he mocks like, you know, anti-feminism rhetoric. It's like, what in the world? I mean, the guy is just so evil. Yet, I guess that's welcome at the church. You know, just not Pastor Shelley, right? You know, because Pastor Shelley might use the wrong word. But it's okay to be a flat earther, it's okay to be attacking soul winning, it's okay to attack the gospel. I mean, what was Titus 1 about? It was about people that are attacking the gospel. You know, there's all kinds of other railers that go to that church. I've seen it, and it's not shocking. You know, they talk about our fruit being disgusting. Do you know it's an interesting admission to me? Because when me and Pastor Murphy talked about it, he said, he's like, man, I just have this feeling you're constantly like, you know, railing on me, you're lying about me, and that's why I never asked you to preach for me, and this is a while back. And he's like, but for some reason, your church members never seem to be going online and like railing about me and lying about me and causing me any kind of problems. Yeah, but then he wasn't talking about my fruit. And it's because like, oh, maybe it's because from the pulpit, I screamed at my church and said, if you're lying and railing about him, you're gonna be in trouble with me? And then it's interesting that their church members are railing and lying about me on a regular basis. I wonder where that's coming from. I wonder what the source of that fruit is. And it's also interesting, you know, I don't see any of my church members running around screaming profanity. You know, I'm constantly, it's like, oh man, Pastor Shelley, you know, they're such a cult and they're so violent. None of my church members commit violence. My church members aren't going around screaming profanity. My church members aren't going around railing and lying on people. My church members aren't these keyboard warriors. And you know what, it makes me mad when people are lying about my church members saying it's disgusting fruit, because honestly, it's one of the greatest churches I've ever seen in my life. There's wonderful people here. We don't have a spirit of gossip and a spirit of railing and a spirit of just all this evil that they want to constantly falsely accuse us of. And you know what, I would take it personally if it did. And I would try to fix it to the best of my ability. You know, because as a pastor, you know, it's not just you that's affected by what you preach, everyone's affected by it. And if I'm all these horrible things, I would see it manifested in all my congregation. You know, I just don't see it. And maybe y'all are just all better than me, I hope so anyways. But, you know, it just, it really, look, I was not planning on talking about this, I don't want to talk about these guys anymore because I know that they just want attention. And I've already preached don't feed the trolls. But the reason why I am is because I, we're on a lot of attack right now. And the devil has not been successful in attacking us inwardly right now. He's only been like outward attacks. But I know what these guys can do, they could try to corrupt some people in here and start trying to get a rebellion and start trying to get a little squashed. So let me just make it clear, if you want to overthrow me for saying the F word, you better get out. Because you might hear worse words than that. I'm serious. Like, that's stupid. I mean, and talk about an attack on the gospel, because these guys aren't coming to a talk anytime soon and getting anybody saved. Just like I'm not going where they are, why do they want my church to be stopped so bad? Why are they so interested in me going down so bad? You know, is it because I expose them for lying and railing and slandering? I mean, what is it? Why do they just want these churches to go down so bad? It's pride. They just want to be like justified that they left the new IFB or they railed about the new IFB. This is what I've noticed about railers, is they believe if they can somehow get you to be guilty of their railing in the future, justified their railing. So they'll rail about you about being a liar, a slanderer, or doing something evil. Even when you've never done it, they're gonna try and provoke you to end up doing it, so then they end up being justified they did it. So they'll just lie about our church being disgusting and gross and evil and having all these problems, even though it doesn't, hoping that eventually in the future it'll happen, and then they'll be justified in their response. You know, it's like Jesus has said, wisdom is justified of all our children. Meaning that if we continue on the right course and we stay strong and we keep preaching the gospel, ignoring all these weirdos, ignoring all the lies and the slander that's out there, rejoicing that people are lying and slandering us and saying all manner of evil against us falsely for Christ's sake. Now again, that's hard verse for me to always apply in this situation, because yeah, I can see why, if you want to get mad about my choice words, that's one thing, okay? But then don't just like label our whole church as this evil, wicked, disgusting, fruit nonsense. Or wishing that my children, I mean, Ichabod, really? Did you even read that story? Hophni and Phineas were sons of Belial. Like think about that application. You'd be wishing someone that all their children are reprobates, and that they all die in a horrible, gruesome way, and that the mom dies in a horrible way, and then the child's literally named Ichabod to say that this whole family's just cursed from God. I would love to know if whenever their church members accidentally say a bad word, if that's what they wish on them too. I wonder if when they're in secret they actually hit their thumb with a hammer and they said something that wasn't right, if they think that about themselves. I mean, I would not want to be these guys and ever accidentally say the wrong word. Based on how they're describing it, based on what they're teaching, their doctrine. You know, I'd rather go to my church where it's just like, ah, whatever. I mean, because it's not even a Bible verse, right? Why am I gonna get so mad at people for things that aren't even in the Bible when there's so much that is in the Bible to get mad about, right? I mean, come on folks. And look, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir a little bit but at the same time you have to realize that the attacks are real. And the devil wants our churches to get stopped so badly. And I know why. It's because we have a church in Oklahoma City too. Because we have a church in Houston. And you know, these churches are dependent on us too. You know, if one goes down, the other ones could go down. They could crumble. You know, all these things are really sensitive and really delicate and we don't understand. Like, the devil just wants to knock things down from the top so that they'll all crumble, they'll all be destroyed. And we have to stay united. We have to stay in lockstep. We have to keep rank as Pastor Anderson preached. And we have to keep our focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ and not worry about all the weird things that are going on. If you have any questions or you ever are concerned about something, just talk to me. I'm an open book. I try to tell people exactly what I believe. I didn't change my doctrine. Still haven't changed my doctrine. Even if I did, you know, it happens, right? It's funny to me that I have tons of pastor friends that all disagree with me about my usage of that word and none of them attack me about it. Why are they not concerned? Oh, because they're respect as a person. I don't believe that. Not even for one second. Okay, if your brother sins, go tell him, confront him, try to help him. Don't just wish that his whole life turns into Ichabod. Okay, folks, just because you don't like him anymore. And it's interesting that when I preached in 2020 that Cousins is not a sin and used every other word that's bad, quote, unquote, that Pastor Bullard takes our church and our money right after that. But then now, it's just like I'm the worst scum of the earth or whatever, you know. And of course, he can't say my name, but we all know who he's preaching about. We all know what he was saying. You know, at least some people use names. They're not vague, booking about everything they say. I wish they would just use my name. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for the word of God. Thank you for giving us the story of David. Thank you for letting us know that even if we screw up, we could still be used of God. The importance of getting right, the importance of confessing our sin, the importance of seeking the Lord at a timely manner and not allowing our consequences to catch up with us. I pray that whatever sins or whatever issues that we have as a church, that we would all just confess them right away, that we get right with God, that we wouldn't continue in them, and that you would show us mercy and grace because we realize that we're all sinners. None of us are perfect. We all need your grace on a daily basis, and I pray that you would give us that grace so that we could reach more people with the gospel, that we could get more people saved, and even those people that don't like us or may falsely accuse us, I pray that you would just still allow them to get people saved and give them grace and help them just understand the error of their ways so that they won't continue down a dark path, but I pray that you would just allow the gospel to keep going forward and people get saved. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.