And, you know, thank you for all that leeway. I am aware, however, that sometimes preachers mistake a preaching service for a hostage situation, and those two are not the same, amen? Usually you don't beat a dead horse, but so we'll see how that goes. Thank you again, really from the bottom of our hearts. It's been a blessing to us. You know, it's always special to visit for everybody. We do that, too. It's a bit like having a guest preacher, and it's like ordering out sometimes. You can have the best, like, food in the world and in the house, but it just kind of makes it different, right? It's the same kind of thing. Same thing for our church, you know? I think they enjoy the preaching and the ministering, but whenever we have a guest preacher, it's like, oh, yeah, this is like ordering out, so it's kind of cool. Diversifies things. I love it. It's been a blessing to get to know Pastor Charlie and his family and this wonderful church. I didn't know it, but I have friends that sang here at Horsepower. I just found out the young teenagers, the Filipino teenagers, they sang here, so that was a, I was, I'm gonna talk to them about it. I was really happy to hear they sang here. I'll ask you please to open the word of God to 2 Samuel chapter seven. 2 Samuel chapter seven. We do have the podcast with Pastor Jonathan Marshall-Whitson. It's kind of an on and off thing. We try to get by as many episodes as we can as we're both busy. If you like something more formal as far as Bible studies, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you about my YouTube channel. It's called Council and Might, as in the spirit of counsel and might in Isaiah 11. So that's not C-O-U-N-C-I-L, it's C-O-U-N-S-E-L. Council and my dr. George Antonio's and the reason I started this thing I tell you about it is I was an assistant pastor in Arabic Baptist Church in Montreal a Few years back and I was with the teenagers with the teens the youth group. I Yeah, but they're all under 20. And I said, I want you to write down, write down for me why you think you're saved, if you're saved, and why you think you're saved, and don't give me the answer that you think I want to hear. And I'm not even gonna tell your parents. In fact, make it anonymous. Don't write your name on the piece of paper. I just kind of wanted to get a sense where they are. I'm telling you, 20%, 20% of that youth group got their assurance of salvation. You know where they got? They told me YouTube. I couldn't believe it. And this is like, you know, good people going to church, going to Sunday school every Sunday. They got their assurance of salvation off of YouTube. I mean, thank God that they got something good, I suppose. And then it really hit me. I was very slow in getting on there. So we wanted to kind of take that medium, but here's the thing. A lot of the people on there are enemies of the local church. I have a message actually on that stuff. They're enemies of pastors and of local church. Can I just tell you, it's easy to be an expert behind the camera when you don't have to be there with the people. Something happens and people have to do the dirty work and you're in pain. That's the man and the sister you're calling, not the person behind the camera on YouTube. Everybody's an expert who's behind the camera. and they put their best foot forward. So the idea there, what we've been trying to do, and we did this here in this visit, is to let people know we're here to teach some good doctrine, to balance out all the garbage that's online, but we're also here to help people find good Bible-believing churches where they can get plugged in and serve the Lord. And I always am careful to communicate on there that you're either called to pastor or to help a pastor. I believe that wholeheartedly and the Lord has blessed me for that kind of mindset I believe in my life. So that's that because we need the Christians to help each other out. 2 Samuel chapter seven. 2 Samuel chapter seven. Father in heaven, I pray God you'd lead along again as we need you, Lord, one more time, Father, as each time. I pray, Father, that you give utterance and you minister to your dear people that you've loved enough, Lord, to sacrifice your own son to redeem. In Jesus Christ's name, amen. 2 Samuel chapter seven. Now, let's see. How many of you are How many of you are like under 25, let's say? Okay, so you're kind of here, okay? There's something for everybody in 2 Samuel 7, and verse 10. God is about to make a covenant with David. David is in the prime of life, and he's gotten some victories, he's defeated Goliath and whatnot, and not only that, now God has settled and established him, and David is thinking about building a house for the Lord. He's in the process of finishing his house. He's kind of dwelling in his house. So, he's like somebody that just, just came out as a youth, starting to get established, and he's starting to get established with a home and a family and a career, whatever, but he's also spiritual enough in the midst of all this to be thinking about the work of God, and he wants to build God a house. And this is where the Lord steps in through the prophet Nathan and he makes a covenant with him, 2 Samuel chapter 7, verse 10. Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them that they may dwell in a place of their own. Good stuff. and move no more. That's good. Neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them anymore as before time and as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel. Good. And have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee an house. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. Guys, that right there, I mean, I don't know, what else do you want? I mean, God shows up, he says, I'm making a contract with you. I'm gonna bless you over, under, besides. I'm gonna establish you. You're gonna have a stable life. Not only that, I'm gonna bless your kids. I'm gonna make your name famous, and you are good to go. Boy, man, you get something like this, let's go, let's charge the gates of hell, I got a promise of God, God has made a special covenant with me. That's where you are once you're saved and once you've gotten the victory and you're beginning to get established in life and in the work of God. Now, we actually connect to that covenant. that you just read. There's actually a connection right there. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you connect to that. In the prophet Isaiah, he says, incline your ear and come unto me. Here and your soul shall live. You hear the gospel, you believe it. And I will make an everlasting covenant with you. Anybody who hears, Isaiah 55 is a generic invitation. And he says, what is that covenant? He says, even the sure mercies of David. And since you believe it, how do you plug into the covenant of David? The covenant of David is essentially eternal security in the Old Testament. He's the only one, him and his seed, that have this. And that's a figure of the New Testament Christian. So how do you plug into that? Because according to Paul, he picks that up in Acts chapter 13, when he's preaching in Antioch and Pisidia, his very first message. outside of Israel, and when he preaches, he mentions the sure mercies of David that they are found in Christ. He says that one of the applications of the sure mercies of David is that God raised them from the dead because, of course, Jesus is the Son of God. David, right? Yeah, God, but in context, David. So, here's what happens. When you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because I want to connect it to you so you know this is addressed to you. That's my point right here. When you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you kind of get absorbed into his genealogy, into his human genealogy. The Bible says that we are children of Abraham by faith in Christ Jesus, not only children of God, right? We are the spiritual seed of Abraham. Well, how are you connected to Abraham? Through Jesus. which means you're also connected to David. So now the eternal security that God promises David and his seed is passed on to you through Jesus Christ. All right, so that's you, that's you. Now, David is gonna go on and live a very tumultuous life. The Bible talks about the times that passed over him. And boy, does life, give you a beating sometimes. Matthew Arnold, the famous dean of a British school, 19th century, writes a poem, and he's got an interesting passage in there. He says, he talks about life till that from change to change, numb the elastic powers. of the human spirit to adapt and put up with trouble and problems. It numbs the elastic powers. And then he says, until to the just-pausing genius we remit our worn-out cause and are what we have been. The just-pausing genius, meaning God. He knows when to say, come home. Until to the just-pausing genius we remit our worn-out cause and are what we have been. I think sometimes we're gonna cross the finish line, and again, I know my illustrations are not the most spiritual in the world, but it works for me. But you ever remember the Disney movie Herbie? Okay, I grew up watching this, again, American television, that's how I learned English. And I think, I forget which one, the first or the second, do you remember how the car crosses the finish line? It's cut in half. and like the top, so the car is cut in half and the top is over the bottom, and it kind of just rolls across the finish line like that. I think some of us are going to cross this finish line just like this, kind of like Paul, or how about here, here's a more biblical illustration. It's like Paul's ship crashing, and they just kind of float on pieces of wood up onto the seashore and stand up and sing hallelujah, you know. I think that's kind of, some of us, we're going to cross the finish line like that. But hey, we're crossing the finish line. David, has had this tremendous promise of God. So much so, he's so overwhelmed with like, like he's fought battles. That's the thing. The guy is not like, he's not like a teenager anymore. So this is somebody that went through the trouble of the teenage years. He's won some victories. He's had some defeats. And he's like, all right, I kind of finally got this thing. I've got both feet into the Christian life. I'm starting to get established. And now God gives me this amazing promise. I'm going to have a glorious future for God. And I understand there'll be problems, but I've defeated the giant in the past. By the grace of God, and I'll do so again. And then David lives out his life, and times go over him. And now watch David. This is at the end of his life. Watch what kind of mindset he's in. 2 Samuel chapter 23. You were in seven. Go to 2 Samuel chapter 23. So now we're going to leave 20-something-year-old David behind, and we're going to look at 60-year-old David, okay? Forty years in to that promise of God. Forty years in to the life of that man that typifies our own. 2 Samuel chapter 23 and verse 1. 2 Samuel chapter 23 and verse 1. Now these be the last words of David. Here's a guy that goes into the temple of God, he says, Lord, thou hast spoken concerning thy servant for a great time to come, and what shall I say more unto thee? Oh God, that's amazing, praise the Lord. 40 years later, he now is looking back on a life that's lived, and here's what he says. 2 Samuel 23, verse one. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, I've been exalted. I've been blessed. I've had some amazing victories. I've been honored. I've had careers. I've had ministries. I had a family. I had kids. I had this. I had that. He says, I've been exalted. I've been raised up on high. The anointed of the God of Jacob. He says, I've been anointed with the Holy Spirit of God. And the sweet psalmist of Israel, I've written a diary about what Jesus has done for me. I've written poems. I've written Christian literature. I've sang hymns and meant them and offered them as praise to God. Said, verse 2, the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue. He says, God has used me. God, I've preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to others. I've preached messages to others. I've given godly counsel to others. Verse three, the God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spake to me, he that ruleth over men must be just. Ruling in the fear of God, I've had positions of responsibility, and I did it in the fear of God, to the best of my ability. Verse four, and he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds, as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. How cool is that, guys? Man, look at that description. You know, after like a storm, and you wake up and there's a rainbow, and there's a smell of fresh rain, and everything smells fresh, and you came out of a difficult night, weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. David, like, he just looks at that, he says, God says, your house, the promise was, in 2 Samuel 7, in the prime of his life, the promise was, He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. And David looks on that, and you know what the last words of David are? Although my house be not so with God. What a downer. How anticlimactic, David! He's just the sweet psalmist of Israel, the man that was raised on high, the man by whose mouth the Spirit of God spake, who ruled over men in the fear of God, whose house was supposed to be like a clear, shining day after rain. He says, although my house, he says, yeah, that's not my house. That ain't my family, that ain't my ministry. Although my house be not so with God. I don't know about you, but I heard a preacher illustrate it once this way. I'm not a golf player. I didn't think it was a sport until a couple of my friends in church took me for 18 holes for the first time in my life, and I apologized to all golfers everywhere. It absolutely is a sport because I was exhausted after 18 holes. But the illustration was, You start, I don't know if you're golfers or not, but I'm hoping it works with you guys. You can apply it to any sport you will, but it starts like you think you're going to play that 18 golf course. You think you're going to play it like at par or something close to par, something that you can boast about. And, you know, golf courses are kind of beautiful. It's greenery and nature and wide open spaces. And it's kind of that description right there, clear shining of the sun after rain, clear springing herb, green herb. He says, the first nine holes, all right, okay, I'm saved. I've figured out my career. I'm gonna have a family. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that. I understand there'll be some persecution, some trouble along the way, but that's okay. The grace of God will carry me through. And he said, by the time you get to hole number nine, hole number 10, hole number 11, your life is nothing like you imagined it was going to be. Like, I don't even recognize my life. That wasn't the plan. And that is difficult to process. David is not at just the whole 9 and 10. David is at the whole 17. He's looking back. He says, my house be not so with God. I know we love David. We talk about David. To God, we're like David. But David says, my house is a mess. David says that. Now, you know, We don't believe in the prosperity gospels, in the prosperity gospel. We don't believe that, that there's a guarantee, that God guarantees riches and health. But we do believe, and I think rightly so, that if you obey God and if you, the Bible says, he that handleth a matter wisely shall find If you handle things good, and if you do what you're supposed to do, we still believe that there will be blessings in your life, and rightly so. That's not wrong. At least I'm going to have, at least I'm going to have some sort of stability, maybe like a stable family, a united family, and a career, at the very least, and or ministry. The messages that obedience yields success and stability in relationships and endeavors that you hear from the pulpit are true. It absolutely is. You've got a pattern for building a career and life in that book, and you follow the catalog, it works out. You don't, it doesn't. It's that simple. Now, so it's true. If wives submit to their husbands, things will tend to go well. If husbands love their wives, things tend to go well. If servants obey their masters, things tend to go well. If children obey their parents, things tend to go well. If you love the people around you, forgive them, things tend to go well. If fathers don't provoke their children to anger, Things tend to go well. That is absolutely true. And accordingly, these things ought to be sought for and hoped for. And I encourage you to do that. But here's what I want to tell you this morning. Although there are instructions in there, To obtain success, God tells Joshua, meditate in this word day and night and thou shalt have good success. Although the instructions are there, that is not what the primary purpose of that book is. Listen to me. The primary purpose of the Christian life is not to have a good career and a good family and a good church. It's not that. It isn't. Because if it is, and a lot of us don't have that, and you probably think you failed, and I'm here to tell you, you haven't. That is not the main thing in the Christian life. Maybe sometimes we forget that. So you may be looking around at successful families and individuals and ministries, and you may be saying exactly what David was saying. You look at that thing, you look at the family and say, although my house be not so with God. It says, that ain't my family, man. You know, one day I had a, she was a young student in the school. She's like my daughter before I had my kids. She's a pastor's wife today, all grown up. She came one day to church and she was kind of like embarrassed. I don't know how we got on the topic, but she was kind of like embarrassed. I could tell the family had had a fight in the minivan on the way to church on Sunday morning. And she thought that they're the only family that fights in the car before they show up on Sunday morning. And I'm like, Are you embarrassed that your family had a fight in the car on Sunday morning and said, let me tell you how Arabs fight before Sunday morning. And she felt a lot better after I told her some of our crazy stories. There was one day, that's one of the better ones, but we got in the car Sunday morning, And as I was opening the sunroof, simultaneously, Sunday morning, I'm going to preach, I'm the pastor, my wife was placing her coffee cup on the roof so she can get in the car while I'm opening the sunroof. And then that whole thing just comes, you know, we had coffee stains on the ceiling of the car. Like, I've seen them on the seats. That was on the ceiling. You can imagine what it was like getting to church on that Sunday morning. You saw, people get into this thing, like they look at others like, wow, they really have got it together. You know, my house, be not so with God. And then they feel bad and they feel like, you know, God hasn't blessed them and that they're failing or whatnot. Listen, you're in good company because David says, my family is not like this. He listens to all these amazing things. He says, that ain't my house. That ain't my family. And that's okay. You know, David had a great promise, but it did not get fulfilled really in David's life. Partly because of David, because he messed up. He said the sword is not going to depart from your house. Why? Because he committed murder and adultery. That's what goes back to tell you that there are still principles in there that if you follow, you'll avoid yourself a lot of problems. But the Bible is not a how-to book exclusively for how to build a family or how to build a career or a ministry. I mean, listen, Tony Robbins can tell you marriage advice, you know. I'm not saying it's gonna be the best advice in the world, but there's psychologists who have helped people navigate through things. There is. It happens. You understand? I'm not telling you go see a psychologist. Don't, you know, nuance is really important in interpreting the Bible and listening to messages. What I'm saying is there's some good practical advice. There's some good how-to book. There's some good, there's like a, there's some, some Jewish doctors who are kind of like theistic, and they've got some wisdom. They'll tell you some tips for raising your kids. They're like, you know what? It's pretty good, and it works. They didn't have to go to the Bible through it. Now, I understand they're applying a biblical principle without knowing it, but what I'm saying is that is not the main purpose. That's what I'm saying. It's not the main purpose. And I'm telling you this to encourage you, lest you think that if I failed at life, I failed with God, and that is not true. God is actually interested in something else. Let me say this too, and hopefully that'll help you, something I've noticed. Some Christians, they're trying, so like let's say, They were away from the Lord, and things have become a mess in their life, and then they say, okay, I need to get right with God, and they start coming back to church, they start reading the Bible again, they start praying again, and then something bad still happens. We had a lady, she showed up in church, they had been out of church for 25 years. Raised in a Christian family that loves the Lord, her sister is a pastor's wife. She's still in church today, in our church, I hope. And this is public knowledge, so there's no issues there. She was living with a guy for those 25 years, unmarried. All right, after 25 years, they decide to do right, and they show up at Hope. And I was like, wow. You know, so I called their family, like, hey, man, so-and-so show up at our church, and they're like, oh, that's amazing, God is answering our prayers. Well, her boyfriend of 25 years We weren't sure if he was saved or not, but he starts showing up a little bit earlier to church and helps set up, we had construction lights, because we were meeting in the cinema, it was dark when we first started the church. So he's coming in early and he's setting up the lights. It's like, wow, that's pretty cool, what a blessing. And then they said, we wanna get married. We wanna do right in the eyes of God. And we're like, wow, everything you wanna hear, right? And then one Sunday, one Saturday, or one Friday morning on November, the train ran over him and killed him. Right in the middle of, right in the middle of that upswing, three months into their repentance, train took him out. It was all over the news, it was pretty gnarly, nasty kind of death. I had another guy in church, divorced, messed up, drugs. His wife was a Christian. He gets saved, and he figures, I'm saved now. I'm going to do things the way the Bible says, and everything is going to be okay. And he starts coming to church, and he becomes a regular at church, and he starts growing. And then, lo and behold, his estranged wife shows up with him at church once. She shows up with him twice. The kids are back together. He's got kids from another marriage. and they're kind of trying to reconstitute their family, and things are going well. And they had a fight in the car, and they split up, and it was such a shock to his system that, I don't get it, but I'm doing the right thing. And I still end up having with my, basically divorced a second time from the same woman. He got so discouraged by this, he went back into drugs. He's a criminal on the run from the law today, still. People have a hard time processing this. Maybe this will help you. You've been going in the wrong direction downhill on a train at 100 miles an hour like this. Then you realize that you're about to fly off a cliff, and then you've got to do a hard right. Now, should you do the hard right before you fly off the cliff? Absolutely, because your alternative is flying off the cliff. But if you do a hard right, what are the odds that that train and that caboose and every wagon behind it are going to perfectly marry the curve and swiftly and fluidly continue on their course in the right direction? You know what's probably gonna happen? You're gonna go, and then the wagon's gonna go, and then, you know, especially if you're slowing down and you hit the brakes really quick, so you don't fly off the ravine. You hit the brakes really quick, because now I want to do right with God. What happens to all the wagons behind you? All the stuff that you've been carrying for years, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And to think people say, hey, that's not supposed to happen. It is supposed to happen. It's the laws of physics. You can't be going in the wrong direction for 25 years and then hit the brakes suddenly and say, well, I hit the brakes. Everything is supposed to be OK. No, no, those wagons are coming. You say, well, then I'm not going to hit the brakes. OK, but the alternative is you fly off the cliff and everybody dies. So, yes, things happen. You know, at the end of the day, the Lord is not so much concerned with how many wagons He can save. He's more concerned with the lesson you learn and the growth that it produces in your life. That's what God is after. He's after spiritual growth. That's what He wants. Our error has been in making a family and career and or ministry a sure seal of divine approval. You say, oh yeah, man, I already knew that. Yeah, well, sometimes you need to be reminded. The purpose of the Christian walk is not to end up with a good family and a career. Too often we preach the Christian walk as if it were a spiritual version of, you know, a how-to book. You can achieve those goals, as I said, by other means, however limited, than Christianity. Christianity, listen, Christianity yields the best results. I heard, we had a visiting pastor, Pastor Joel Newman in Alberta at our church. He really made a good point. I asked him to preach on the family. He raised seven kids. Lost one, like, passed away. And he said, I'll tell you what the Bible says about child rearing. And if you tell me I can achieve good results other than the Bible way, and here's what I appreciate about an older man of God who has some balance in his life. He said, you know what, maybe so. See, a younger preacher maybe would have said, no way, man. But that older seasoned preacher said, you know what, maybe so, you could probably achieve some good results, but you're not gonna get the best results. The Bible will give you the best results. And I believe that. The best results are in there. Absolutely, God knows what the family is and what people are and what children are. He knows the best about everything. He created it, so you better listen to what He's got to say. He wrote the catalog, He invented the whole thing. But those results cannot be the ultimate purpose of the Christian life. Things like a good home, a good family, a good career, a good ministry, listen, There are a byproduct of doing right. They're not the aim of doing right. That's a simple thought, but it was liberating to me and a lot of people. It's the byproduct of obeying God that you tend to get those blessings, but those blessings are not the main aim of why you live for God. Because here's what happens, and I've seen it happen once, and twice, and three times. If you think that the ultimate aim of the Christian life is for me to have a solid marriage, well, some of us are gonna end up divorced, guys. Then what do you do after the divorce? You might draw the wrong conclusion that I have failed at the Christian life, get discouraged, get bitter, and walk away, when you haven't failed. That's not the chief aim of the Christian life. A solid marriage is a byproduct of the Christian life. I came here, I was, one of the things we had to kind of process coming from Lebanon was that you guys build with gyprock. Gypsum, I don't know what you call this here. Gypboard. Yeah. So, I mean, my parents grew up in Lebanon. They'd be watching Hollywood movies and the guy would get upset and he would punch the wall and he would make a hole in the wall. I was like, those Americans, they expect us to think that they're strong enough to punch through a wall because our walls are cinder blocks and armed concrete. Nobody's punching a hole in any wall. Not even the bombs barely can do that. And then I got there, and people were telling me about the gyprock, you know, because I was asking about the house, the gyprock, the gyprock. And I'm literally standing in the house like, what gyprock, man? I don't see any rocks here. It was really frustrating. To you, that seems like simple. And then they were explaining to me that it's the gypsum rock, some kind of sulfate that's found in their mine. Okay, now I get it. Now, here's the thing. A lot of that gyprock now that you're buying, It's actually a byproduct. What happens is that in America, there are regulations about the amount of, what is it called? Sulfur, the amount of sulfur you can put out. So the government forces the manufacturers to put an absorbent that the smoke has to go through before it goes out into the air. And as the smoke goes through that absorbent, there's a chemical reaction that actually creates synthetic gyprock. And then that's become really cheap for them rather than mining it to put it into the sheets and sell them to you at exorbitant prices. They're actually, what you're building your homes with is a by-product of another process. And I think that's exactly what the Christian life is. I think you build your family, it's, you know, When I am not pursuing, like my mind is not, my goal in life is to have the perfect Christian family. My goal in life is I am pursuing God, I'm pursuing pleasing God, and that tends to generate as a byproduct a solid family, a solid ministry, a solid career. Guys, the difference may seem small, but you know, that's the difference between true worship and idolatry. One of the ways Satan tricks people is, Jesus, I mean, God is on the throne. He's the one that you worship. But coming out of the throne are cherubims, angels. And so you're worshiping, you're centered on God. If you go deviate by two degrees, now you end up in angel worship. It's pretty close to the throne. It's actually part of the throne. It's pretty close to God, right? But it's right on the side. And the longer you walk in that line, the further away you get from God. So you may think, well, I know that. Yeah, I'm not sure you do. I'm not sure, here's how you find out that you really were after God himself, is that when the problem happen, it will happen, and when you get divorced, and you might get divorced, and when you lose your kid, and you might lose your kid, they might not grow up walking with God, and then the church splits, or your career fails, that will determine if you stay centered on the Lord, that will kind of tell what you were centered on. Because if you're centered on family, and you lose the family, then you've lost your reason to exist. God was basically just a tool, a means to an end. He wasn't the end. He was the means to bless me. And now that I've lost the blessing, well, I don't need him anymore. And the devil gets on top of you, and he discourages you, and he tells you that you failed. You haven't. You haven't. These things are just a byproduct. So we build with it. But as a byproduct, it's not the chief end of the process. When they're manufacturing, they're producing all those smoke. You know what the chief end is? Energy. Life, that's the chief end. And they get the gypsum as a byproduct by obeying the government. The chief end is life, it's worship, it's pleasing the Lord. And if you obey God as a byproduct, you get building tools. David's family was a mess, my friend, but the end of his life, Who would you rather be, listen, who would you rather be? Would you rather be 20-year-old David after he defeated Goliath, or would you rather be seven-year-old David? As far as spiritual maturity. Every day of the week. You know, when I'm reading the story of David, and I read the amazing things he does, he's smiting, he's killing the Philistines and taking their foreskins, and he's killing Goliath, and it's like, ah man, that's amazing, amazing stuff, but I know what's coming. You know the story that's coming, Chapter 11. You know this guy's gonna mess up royally, not just with Bathsheba, by the way, and Uriah. He messes up with Mephibosheth when he believes Ziba who lies to him. He messes up when he gets proud and he wants to count how many people he's got, you know. He messes up a lot, but then you get to like David at the end of his life, and man, you've got on your hands a guy with a messed up family, but boy, is he a mature, stable, temperate, wise, and listen, humble man. And he is humble precisely because he's been broken. You got a Christian who's put through the grinder, and you lose bits and pieces and parts of peace, you got a messed up life. But if you come out of all those problems, and you walk into those church doors, and you have been humbled, and you've learned to trust God, and not to judge others, and to love the Lord no matter what, and you're tempered, and you're gentle, and you're kind at the cost of a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and failures, that is what the Christian life is about. Getting you to some kind of lesson in your life. If you've internalized the lesson, everything else is fluff. You say, even family? Even family. Let me remind you, these human connections, as dear as they are, are temporary. My wife doesn't like that part. She's going to argue with the Lord that she's filing a form that we're going to be married forever. You know? I'm not telling you that it's temporary to take away from how special it is. I'm telling you that it's temporary, look, if anything you can lose, because if you don't, if you overvalue it, and it is super valuable, it is super valuable, but it's not eternal. This is a temporary state. God knows what the social contract is on the other side of heaven, I don't know what it's like. but this is a temporary arrangement and messing up and failing as painful as it is and as undesirable as it is, is not the chief end. It's not like you failed at everything. The question is, did you learn a lesson? Are you the better for it? That's what the Lord is trying to get you to. He's preparing people to run his universe, guys. You are the people that will run the universe for God. And you do that, listen, the last guy you want, even especially in the ministry, the last guy you want is a guy who has never had a failure in his life. I'm not impressed with a guy who walks in that basically everything he touched turned to gold. Because one day, something he's gonna touch is gonna break, and I don't know if he can handle being wrong, I don't know if he can handle being broken, I don't know if he can handle being embarrassed. You've never been tested. You've never been tested, but you come in. I don't know if you guys know a little bit of boxing, but we've got a lot of Filipinos up in Montreal. You've heard of Manny Pacquiao? He's a Christian boxer, one of the fastest boxers ever. And I really appreciate that guy. I learned something from that guy. He's auditioning for a coach, somebody to train him in professional boxing. What boxers usually do is they're going after the best coaches, and to get the best coaches, they'll give a video of themselves at the top. They'll show themselves punching and ducking, and they'll show themselves winning a fight against somebody who was rather skilled at boxing. Manny Pacquiao in his CV puts a video of him losing. when he was seeking out a particular coach, and he puts a video of him losing a fight, and the coach had never seen that. The coach asked him, he's like, he's like, why would you put a fight of you losing? Manny Pacquiao says, because it's my life, it happened, and I need to learn. I want you to see how I lost so you can help me not lose again. Man. I respect that guy more for that than for his boxing exploits. He lost to Floyd Mayweather, if you remember. I got more respect for Manny Pacquiao. That's a man. Yep, I failed. And he shows it. And by the way, he doesn't go, I failed, so I'm gonna get out of the ring and not box again. I thought I was gonna win if I walk with God. No, sometimes you're gonna lose if you walk with God. Sometimes the Lord's gonna let the devil wipe the floor with you. and you're gonna come back to the corner crying, and you've got a choice. Either you just get in there and you pull off a rocky, or you get angry and upset and you walk away, you throw in the towel. But it wasn't about the boxing match. It was about building character. We know this stuff, but we don't. You're in good company. I'm sure you've heard it preached before, a church this old, I'm sure you've heard it preached before, but like, I mean, guys, you know, I made it a mental exercise to myself to try to come up with some family in the Bible that wasn't dysfunctional. Just like one, like, you know, I really, it's like, there's gotta be one, like, you know. I mean, Adam and Eve, the two kids are so envious of each other, one kills the other. Can you imagine the day, the kind of fight Adam and Eve had after they got, I could just see it, man, like after they got kicked out of the garden? You could just close your eyes and just run through that whole argument in your mind, you know? You know, like Adam's going, I can't believe it, you believe that guy, he's a liar, you shouldn't have been talking to him. And she's like, well, you're the husband, you're in charge, you should have been praying more, the serpent doesn't come in there, you know? And for the first time, they're getting bit by a mosquito, and they're experiencing cold. Those guys had a fight. They had a fight and a half. And then they're kids, one kills the other. Noah's family, Noah. You know, God picks three righteous men in the Bible, Job, Noah, and Daniel. And Noah gets drunk, and you know, I'm not going to tell you what his son did to him. You can go read about it in Genesis chapter 9. You say, you're going to tell me about your messed up family? Abraham married his half-sister. I get it, back then, but you know, it's still kind of, I'm pretty sure there were other women than his half-sister after the flood. This is the Tower of Babel. I'm pretty sure there was other women. Because you know, stuff like that, there's stuff like that, it happens. Still Abraham. It's still Sarah. Lot's family ends up in a cave, and you know what he did there? Lot! And Peter says that godly man, Peter, talking about Lot, he says it's a righteous man, it's a godly man. Lot? Have you read about Lot? That's where most people stop reading the Bibles in Genesis 19. Isaac's family, the brokenness continues in Isaac's family system. They've got, you know, the two sons, the twins, Esau and Jacob. Boy, are they different. How about this? I've got a complex because mommy loves this sibling more than me and daddy loves this sibling more than me. You just described Isaac's family. The Bible says that Isaac liked Esau because he ate of his venison. Yeah, that's my boy, he's a hunter, he's a man's man, you know? Rebekah's like, oh my sweet pea Jacob, he cooks with me in the kitchen, you know? Everybody's got their little predilection, you know? And then the two hate each other and Esau wants to kill Jacob. That's a pretty messed up family. You've got nothing, you've got nothing on what the stuff that's in the Bible. And then Jacob has to run away for 20 years, 20 years. He doesn't see his family. Each is craving the approval of the other parent. And then the division in the family came to a head one day. Isaac is old and dying, and he wants to give his blessing and inheritance to Esau, and then one guy steals from the other. Then Jacob gets tricked into, marrying the wrong girl. You know, some people feel like that. You know that, right? There are some marriages where they're convinced, I married the wrong person. I mean, Leah knows it. Put yourself, my husband doesn't really love me. He was pressured into, we had to make this work. Put yourself in Lena's shoes. She knows that her husband likes her sister more than her. You know how hard that is to live and endure? That's a messed up marriage, man. The rest of your life, and there's no out in there. And she's vying with her sister for 20 something plus years. Do you ever notice where Jacob chooses to be buried, by the way? Where does Rachel die, the one he loved, the good-looking one? Where does Rachel die? In Bethlehem, right? Jacob, at the end of his life, he's in Egypt and he's commissioning his sons at his death. Where does he tell them to bury him? Near who? He says, bury me next to Leah. You don't think that means something? Oh man, it means something. Bury me next to Leah, he says. I don't know if you know this, but there's quite the possibility that Abraham and Sarah were kind of separated, if not full on divorced. If you read the text carefully. In Genesis 22, the Lord says take Isaac and offer him up for a sacrifice. It doesn't say what he told Sarah. I don't know if he ever told Sarah. Can you imagine that? You ever been called of God somewhere and you have to break it to your family? We're going to Timbuktu, honey. Timbuk-who? No, you're going. God told me to sacrifice our only son. You know the one we waited for and prayed for and fasted for 40 years? The only one we got? Yeah, that one. God told me to sacrifice him. I'm pretty sure that conversation didn't go well with Sarah. If I was Abraham, I would have done this whole thing on the quiet, waited for God to resurrect him, come back, say it was a great hunting trip. But when you read, the Bible says that right after, in chapter 23, that Abraham arose and went to Hebron to bury Sarah. It's kind of weird. Yeah. You got a girl, daddy's girl that stepped out and got knocked up. Jacob's got Dina. She goes out to see the daughters of the world. falls in love with Shechem. Shechem falls in love with her. They have a one-nighter, and she's defiled. And Jacob finds out, and the sons find out. And look at the reality. You know how much tension that was? The sons find out. They're like, it must not be so done in Israel. They want to take up swords and kill everybody. You know, honor killings? That's Middle East stuff, man. You know what the Bible says about Jacob? What did Jacob do? What is he going to say? He's so embarrassed. He's so humiliated. Just keep this a secret and let's go on. Tell me one family, and those are the guys we look to as like the patriarchs. Those are the examples. Listen, those guys, we haven't even touched upon Judah and his brethren. You take your own brother and you throw him down the pit and he's crying out to you for anguish of soul, then you sell him as a slave for 20 pieces of silver into a foreign land? While he's crying and weeping, saying, please don't, please pull me out. And you harden your heart so much. Those 12, those 12 have their names on the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. I mean, that stuff does my head in, but that's the grace of God. That's a messed up family. Don't tell me your family is more messed up than that. Not that one lot did and others did. Jephthah pulls up, you can talk about a stupid move that really hurt your family. Jephthah says, Lord, if you give me the victory, I'll sacrifice whatever comes out of the doors of my house. He's got only one daughter, and guess who walks out of those doors? And now this guy's got to basically sacrifice his kid for the ministry. Type of Christ, by the way. Jephthah's an amazing type of Christ. You want a little doctrinal nugget for fun? You'll never read the story of Jephthah the same way, but you gotta know how the Jews think about Jesus Christ. Remember in John chapter eight? In John chapter eight, they're having the debate, Jesus and the Pharisees, and they're saying, God is our father. And the Lord's saying, God is not your father. He says, if Abraham didn't seek to kill people, if you were Abraham's real children, you wouldn't seek to kill me. They say, we have God for our father. He says, no, Abraham, God is not your father. And what do they say? We be not, we, you gotta read it with the intonation, we be not born of, Fornication, what are they saying? You are. And you know they are because a few verses later they say, say we not well that thou art a Samaritan. They knew who Joseph was, because remember the gospel says we know their parents, Joseph is not his father, the carpenter Joseph. Why are they, and they know Joseph is of the line of David, he's a Jew. Why are they saying Jesus is a Samaritan? You know what they're accusing him of? That Mary, that he was born of fornication. You know who Jephthah, what Jephthah is? He's born of fornication. And his brethren say, you're born of fornication, you're not gonna inherit with our father's house, get out. And they seize his inheritance, Matthew chapter 21, the parable of the husbandman. So where does Jephthah go? He goes to the land of Tob. You found out in Chronicles, Tob is where the Syrians are. Jephthah, rejected of his brethren for being born of fornication, is received by the Gentiles. And then when the Jews get in trouble with the Ammonites, they call them back the second time and say, you'll behead over us, deliver us. That's the Jews telling Jesus, you're born of fornication, get out of here. And when the Antichrist shows up, they say, oh, please come back and save us. Of course, Jesus is not born of fornication, but the type is there. Now that's Jephthah. Did you ever think of Jephthah that way? That's the guy who messed up by sacrificing his daughter for God. And we look at that, you're like, man, how disgusting. What a fool, what an idiot. And he's flagellating himself for the mistake he did that cost me my kids for the sake of the ministry. And I'm a failure. And then he turns out to be a figure of Jesus Christ in his failure. In his failure. Because God still looked at that man. He said that he loved God. He learned his lesson. That is what he's interested in. When you cross the finish line, it's not like, let's get a trophy to whoever kept their family together. Let's get a trophy to whoever kept their career together and their ministry together. It's, did you learn a spiritual lesson? Are you a more mature Christian, a wiser Christian, a more gracious Christian, a more compassionate Christian? Yes, then well done, thou good and faithful servant, not thou successful Good and faithful. That is success. That you've internalized the lesson. God help us that we don't reduce the Christian life to a how-to guide on having success. At the judgment seat of Christ, you will be asked more about your growth and your attitude and your holiness and your faithfulness than about all these things. So you may be saying, although my house be not so with God. Actually, look at what he goes on to say. You're in 2 Samuel chapter, is it, what did I say, 23? 2 Samuel 23. David was promised something amazing that never quite materialized in his life. Let me encourage you and we'll finish with this. Look at this. Verse five. Although my house be not so with God. Verse five, although my house. Look at verse four. He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun rises, even the morning without clouds as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Yeah, although my house be not so with God. Yet, I'm hanging on to the promise. He hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things, including all the side stuff and the byproducts, and sure, look, for this is all my salvation and all my desire. I want nothing else than the blessing of God. I want that so bad. Although he make it not to grow. He says, man, God made me this great promise. and I'm striving, and I'm laboring, and I'm praying, and I'm working, and I just don't have that perfect thing I'm supposed to have, like other people seem to have in the church. He maketh it not to grow. It feels like God's blessing is not on my life. You know, sometimes you're gonna live through those things in the church. All the girls are going to get married before you and you're older. It's going to happen. She's going to ditch you and marry somebody else in the church. It's going to happen. You say, they're evil. No, they're not. No, they're not. They're people like you. Not everybody's gonna have the great Hollywood romantic story. Not everybody's gonna have the story, we started out with a small ministry and God has blessed and now we're running thousands. Not everybody's gonna have that. He maketh it, although he maketh it not to grow. That stuff is neither here nor there. The Lord can do this, this, and raise up children to Abraham out of stones. Remember what John the Baptist said? He says, that stuff is neither here nor there for God. He can literally, at the speed of a thought, like just fix everything in your life. That's not what He's interested in. He's interested in working you. Blessings are great. And I preach that stuff with trepidation in my heart, because God knows, you know, God knows what's waiting for me around the corner. I sure hope that that understanding will help me. Please understand that you may not need, maybe you don't need message now, but I've seen it happen where Christians get messed up, they fall, and they go, they draw the conclusion that, oh, the church couldn't help me with it. So obviously the entire church model is wrong, and let's reconstitute the church. Why? Because they draw that conclusion because I went to church, I did what the preacher said, and I still didn't have success, so something is wrong with the system. No, you're missing it. The system is not geared for that. These things are a byproduct. The system is geared for spiritual growth, knowledge of God. That's what he's interested in. Now, all this stuff, you are going to get it. As hard as it is to conceive of now, but you will get it. And listen, this is on the side. You don't have to take that. You don't have to take that. So this is completely free, and you can freely ignore this, but it blesses my heart, and it helps me, okay? So if it helps you, let it help you. We read a lot of stuff into the Bible that's just not in the Bible, okay? Now, you've got ladies, let's take as an example, who never got children, never bore. And they've got that in their heart. And I understand, you know, we tell them Jesus is enough, and He is. And the grace of God will help you through, and it will. You know, it will. I'm not convinced that we can't get kids in the resurrection. He says there is no marriage. We read into that the inability to procreate. But anybody that knows anything knows that you don't have to be married to make a kid. Christians kind of lose their common sense sometimes. They become so theological, they forget common sense. This is a common sense book. He said, then what marriage contract governs the procreation? I don't know, because not everything is revealed, but there's probably another social contract. Here's what I'm trying to say through this in as maladroit a way as I'm communicating, as indirect, as unskilled way as I'm trying to communicate, is that David says, my house be not so with God, But look at what he says, look at the wording. Watch this in verse four, and I'll ask you a doctrinal question. You tell me prophetically what that represents, okay? Look at this, verse four. Let's do this together, verse four. He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth. What is the second coming of Jesus Christ compared to in the Bible? Unto you shall the son of righteousness arise with what? Healing in his wings. He shall come to us as the morning. The Bible says in Hosea chapter six. The tribulation is likened to a night, and the sign of the Son of Man is Jesus Christ coming, is likened to the rising sun. Peter says, until the day star arise and shine where in your hearts. The second coming of Jesus Christ is multiple times. That's what the whole thing is, eschatologically. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the? That's Jesus Christ. The joy of the Lord shall be your strength. The second coming of Christ is likened to the rising of the dawn. So David is looking at his messed up family and man, did he ever have a messed up family. He's got a kid who raped his half sister. Okay. And he looks at that stuff, and he says, God, I started off here as a 20-something-year-old, all these amazing promises. I looked at the future of my life, and I thought, yeah, man, I'm going to get all my ducks lined up in a row, and I'm doing the right thing, and I'm taking the right decisions, and I'm taking counsel, and I'm walking in godliness, and you should do that, and it will simplify life a lot. But it's possible. that something comes out of the blue and hits you out of the blue and kind of knocks you out, and you're going to have to have some spiritual understanding in your life not to come out of this and draw the conclusion that this whole thing is a failure. No, no, no, no, no. To reconstitute yourself and learn that spiritual lesson, and David's outlook is he doesn't make it to grow, but he did tell me that the house of the righteous is going to be like the sun rising in the morning. You know what the promise is? When Jesus Christ shows up, He's going to line up all your ducks. and I believe it's more than just, well, it was just to learn a lesson. It's, you've learned the lesson, and the God I know, once you learn the lesson, oh, and by the way, seek ye first all the kingdom of God and His righteousness, but this doesn't stop there. All right, you learned righteousness, let's stop there. No, he says, and all. These things shall be added unto you. I'm convinced in some way or another, you don't have to believe in what I said about the resurrection stuff, but here's the principle, get the principle, fair? In principle, I'm convinced that the Lord will find a way to give you exactly those things that you longed for. Do you not see it constantly? Here's Abraham, he trains him on being patient for a child, but then he does give him a child. Sarah, he trains her on being patient for a child. She doesn't get one, but then he does give her a child. He ends up, he always ends up giving you your heart's desire, always. It's a question of when and where and how, but the promise is that the second coming of Christ, your house will be so with God. It will be like the clear shining after rain. It will be like the tender grass coming up on a spring morning after a winter tempest. But he says, not now. And David is sitting back and he's got satisfaction, he's got peace. He's looking up at a, that wasn't supposed to be it. I've got a reconstituted family. I've got this and this kid here and this kid here. I got messed up here and I messed up there and I made this mistake here and I got this car and this car. And that's not the life I imagined. Lord, that's good. Thank you. I'm a better person for it. And I know when that sun rises, everything will fall in line. How much so? You know that David comes back as the prince over Israel. I'm just showing you that to see that it's in the very thing that David longed for that God answers him back, not just in some vague spiritual blessing. David resurrects to be the eternal prince over Israel under Jesus Christ. That's in the book of Ezekiel. David said, but God promised me a sure house. God promised me a sure house. Where is it? Lord, where is it? God answers, in the morning, David. In the morning. Pastor Charles.