I'm going to stand and read a couple of verses here in 2 Samuel chapter 24. Not sure, this could be the last message on this series of things that hurt the church. I might have one or two. So if this is not the last, then maybe two more messages I would think at the most. But this may be it. We'll just see where things go and then we'll see also where the revival goes after Brother Pilkington preaches to us. I've really enjoyed studying through this storyline of David's life and looking at it from a perspective of making an application to church. And boy, it doesn't just apply to church, it applies to life. You're not going to avoid getting hurt in your life. It's pleased God to bruise Jesus Christ. You ever stop and think about that? The Bible actually says it pleased God to bruise him. It says he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He said he was wounded in the house of his friends. So pain and hurts and things like that are a part of the Christian life. You're not going to get away from it. But it's a matter of how you deal with those things that determines whether or not you get bitter or better. Another thing is realizing the causes of the hurts is huge because if you can realize the source, the root of the problem, then maybe you can avoid being the one doing the damage. I do not want, listen to me, I mean this from the depths of my heart right now, I don't want to hurt anybody. I haven't always felt like that in my life, to be honest with you. There were times I wanted to obliterate people that hurt me. But I'm at a point right now where I realize that doesn't do me any good. I don't want to hurt anybody. I even feel bad teasing Brian just a minute ago. He was like the mad scientist when he showed up. Most of you know that. Everybody gets it. He's a brilliant guy. His IQ is way past mine. And he just didn't think about little things. And it's a blessing to watch him grow, and so I'm sorry. I hope I wasn't at all offensive, and I don't want anybody else to think I was... Brian and I are pretty close, so I think he knows, but I don't want to send anybody else the wrong message. I don't want to hurt people. I don't even want my jokes to hurt people. And the fact of the matter is, is we still do. So I hope that you've gotten some help from this. And tonight, this or this morning, whatever it is, depending on when you got up this morning, I think the one that we're looking at is literally the number one, even though it's last in the order. the thing that can hurt the church more than anything else on the planet is what we're gonna look at today and I wanna talk to you about the pain of pride take me a minute to set it up so if you would bear with me we'll get to that point in just a little bit but let's read a couple verses here from the beginning and and then we'll get get into the message the Bible says in 2nd Samuel 24 verse 1 and again the anger the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them to say go number Israel and Judah And the king said to Joab, the captain of the host, which was with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number ye the people that I may know the number of the people. Joab said unto the king, Now the Lord thy God added unto the people how many soever they be, a hundredfold, and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it, but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing? Notwithstanding, the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the host. And Joab and the captives of the host went out from the presence of the king to number the people, Israel. For once in his life, Joab was right. You know, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while, right? And this man, Joab, who's been a wicked man as we've looked through the studies, was actually right this time. But you notice in verse number one, the motive and the reason behind the numbering. It's because the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Let's pray and then we'll try to sift through this if we can this morning. Father, I love you and I thank you so much for loving me. I thank you God for using a human vessel like that you have, Lord. I realize anytime that you've ever used me, it's never been because of me, it's always because of my Savior Jesus Christ. And Lord, I desire this morning to be out of your way. I want to be a vessel fit for the master's use and prepared unto every good work. And I pray this morning that you would please see fit to use me. I pray that you would show your power because your strength is made perfect in weakness. And we all as humans and myself, especially this morning, we are weak without you. And I need you and these folks need you and they need your words. And so I pray right now, Father, that you would just give us free course this morning. Give the Word of God free course. Make me a blessing. Help me not to misrepresent you or even myself. Help me, Lord, to have the right heart and the right attitude. And I pray that you'd give your people this morning ears to hear what the Spirit of God would say to them and help them to leave here tonight, this morning, better off than they were when they came. We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. I found it really interesting when I looked at verse number 1 and just the first sentence starting to look at this chapter and trying to figure out what the message was in it and it didn't take long to take shape and begin to see how this thing fit in. It says, the anger of the Lord is kindled against Israel. And I got thinking about that and it was like, well, why was God mad at Israel? And then I was looking for the reason and what Israel had done and I wasn't finding it specifically spelled out in the passage what Israel had actually done to make God mad. And then the Lord reminded me of what I actually teach about studying the Bible. Context is everything, right? You take anything out of context, it's a pretext. So even though God didn't say exactly why his anger was kindled, the only thing that we can get from the passage and from the book and from the storyline is what had just taken place. Well, you know what had just taken place. Absalom had revolted against his father and tried to kick David, the one that God set on the throne, off the throne, right? And then all of Israel had gone after Absalom. And David takes off with his few men that went with him, the 600, and they take off and they go to try to save their skin and to keep from hurting God's people, to keep from fighting for his throne. David is a man after God's own heart, and as he's gotten older, he's like, you know what, it's not worth it. If God wants me on the throne, God will put me back on the throne. So because of his love for his son and his desire to see his son survive the battle, you remember that, he said, don't lay hands, don't hurt that boy, bring him back to me all intact. He didn't care what was right or wrong, he cared about that boy. He didn't want a war. So David relinquishes his throne and leaves that thing, and Israel turns after Absalom, and I showed you as we went through this, Absalom's clearly a type of the Antichrist throughout the Bible. One of the greatest types of the Antichrist in the Bible is Absalom. He represented all that the flesh could offer. The Bible says he was beautiful, and that his hair was long, and it grew thick and strong, and that he had not a blemish on his whole body. And on top of all that, he was charismatic, and he was very political, and everybody liked him. And he knew exactly how to manipulate the people, and capitalize on what he perceived was a weakness in the old man, and make himself out there readily available. He was a man of the people. It was all about you when you talked to Absalom. Oh, I wish that somebody was deputy to the king, and if I were king, I would hear your matters, and, oh, I'm here to take care of you, and he's too busy, I know, he just, he rules, oh, he's over there in his palace, and enjoying his wonderful life, but I'm here to take care of you. Making it all about them. Absalom represents everything that is like pretend Jesus and pretend church and pretend God, but not the real thing. He knows how to make it into what's all about them. And so all of Israel's heart quickly goes after Absalom because he's the young guy and he's the future and David's getting older and man, he really is gonna make us all better. Look at this guy. And obviously all we can get from the context is God is very upset about the fact that these people turned against the man that was after God's own heart, the man that God had put on that throne, and that they so quickly were ready to throw him out, get rid of him, and go do their own thing. And God was angry with Israel because of the move that they had made in running David off the throne. Now here's the weird thing. In the passage, God is not only angry with Israel, but God is also upset with David. Because David admits, and we'll get to it in just a few minutes, that it was his sin. And he says, let this be upon me and upon my house. I did wrong. I know I did wrong. This is the second greatest mistake David ever made in his life. The second greatest sin David ever committed in his entire life. And listen, do not forget, David is a great man. Literally, in my opinion, outside of Jesus Christ, my favorite Bible character would be King David. I think the one Bible character outside of the Lord Jesus Christ that I've studied the most over the years, and I don't even feel like I'm anywhere near done, is King David. So that's my take and my personal opinion. God did say he was a great man. God said he was a man after God's own heart. God gave him an everlasting covenant. He is going to be ruling and reigning in the millennium. You think about how God views this guy. This is a great man, and yet he still messes up. That, to me, is a little bit encouraging. Because we all fail. Not one of us in here is perfect. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Even the apostle Paul said, in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing, for the will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. Paul said, I'm a mess. And we all are. But God still loved him, and God still used him, and God put him on that throne. And now he's made a massive mistake, a sin, and God is actually dealing with David about that sin too. So David's under judgment for what he did. The weirdest thing about it, in verse one, anger of the Lord's kindled. So then what does God do? God, it says God, right? Gets him to do something he shouldn't have done. Wait a minute, time out. Pause. Doesn't the Bible say God can't be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man? Why'd the passage say God did it? We preach against Calvinism that says that it's really not my fault and God's omnipotent and therefore because God's sovereign and God's omnipotent then God determines what we do and don't do and it puts the blame on God for the sins we commit. Ain't that a little bit messy? You see it? You know what I'm doing this morning? I'm gonna show you how perfect the Bible in your lap is. But you know what we don't do? We don't run from the truth. I'm not gonna hide these passages from you. I'll show them to you before the Bible correctors get to you with them and say, see, look, there's mistakes in the Bible. How does that not make, I'll show you what they teach and why they teach it and then I'll show you also and you can look at it with your own two eyes and judge yourself. I'll show you why that book is divine in your lap and it's from God and you need that book and you can trust that book. You can't trust men. It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in... I shouldn't say you can't trust men. You can trust a man that'll follow God. Be ye followers of me as I also am of Christ. And how do you know he's following God? By putting your eyes on that book and making sure. You understand that? You can't trust a man that'll say, I'm the authority, you don't need God. You can't trust a man that'll undermine the real authority. You can't trust a man who's not himself under authority. And the authority is the Word of God. So I'm going to show you this morning. But here's what happened, and let me get to the topic of the message. Here's what happened in this storyline. David falls into a snare of the devil, and I'll show you in just a minute. He falls into a snare of the devil. What's the snare of the devil in the book of 1 Timothy? The Bible talks about a preacher. It says, not a novice, right? Less being lifted up with, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. pride is a condemnation of the devil. So when God's dealing with a preacher, God says, listen, when you have a pastor in a church, you make sure that that pastor is not a novice. You don't get saved and get called to preach and jump right into the ministry. You don't get saved, process yourself through a Bible school where you're completely surrounded by nothing but other people thinking the same way you're thinking all the time, and then go right from Bible school, now that you've got your degree, you're ready for the ministry, where you're supposed to be preaching and teaching to people that have lived longer than you, experienced things you've never experienced. Listen, when it comes to serving God, this thing takes us out of our own agendas, out of our own qualifications, out of our own man-made degrees, and puts you into a whole other world. This battle is not like a regular battle over in Afghanistan or Iraq somewhere or Russia. This battle is a supernatural battle. It is a spiritual battle. It has a lot more dangers to it than even a human battle because the worst thing that happens there is you die and then if you're saved you go to heaven. But this battle involves the souls of men. This battle involves people's lives. This battle involves the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ. And some things Jesus Christ wants to do in your life, this thing is trickier and more dangerous than any other battle you could fight anywhere. You have to be ready to fight this battle. So he said, not a novice. Why? Because the new guy will come in. and have a gift that God put in him. And get up and preach a book that God gave that has the power of God in those words. And he'll start preaching that Bible, especially if he's got a special gift. Like, some people have a gift to preach, a lot of people have a gift to preach, and then there's guys that actually have, that just have another level that God put there. Does that make sense? When you got a young man who's just got the gift to preach, and gets up to preach, God blesses his word. You know what happens to a young man that sees God start blessing his word? You know why? Because everybody's like, oh, that was wonderful. By the way, they're going to say that no matter what, because they're just trying to be encouraging to you. But you know how us men are, right? We look in the mirror. We don't see 5 foot 6. We see 6 foot 5. So the problem with us is we believe everything everybody says about us, especially when they're saying nice things. Because we think they're sort of starting to get it. Do you know what I mean? So you start getting all the compliments, you start seeing the results. Listen, it becomes more dangerous if really you're extra gifted to preach the Word of God, because it's something God put in you. It has nothing to do with you. It is what God had designed for your life. He puts it in a young man. He says, here, go preach the Bible. And he starts preaching the Bible. And the fruits of the Bible preaching, it starts getting to your head. And you're like, man, look at me. I got influence. I got power, people are responding, I'm getting complimented. God is blessing, and you start thinking that it's you when God blesses God's word. He says that boy has to take a little bit of time to be broke down. Before I can use him, I got to bruise him. It pleases God to bruise his own son. Before God uses a man, he bruises him. God takes a man, God breaks a man, and then and only then will God ever make a man. But you gotta let the process play out. You gotta get broken before God can make you in such a way where if God blesses you, the pride doesn't begin to take over. You gotta know the weakness. It's the brokenness that really matters. So God is a big one on pride. You start looking through your Bible at pride and you're gonna realize it's an extremely dangerous thing that every last one of us are prone to. Here's the problem. Pride is so much trickier than shallow preachers and preaching presents it. Do you know it is not proudful for me to say God's given me an ability in this arena? Oh, you're so proudful. But if that's a fact and I recognize that fact, that doesn't automatically mean I'm proudful. Do you know that there is actually, when you look at the definition of pride, there's portions of the definition that are not wrong, i.e. like this, is it a sin for you to say to your kids, I'm really proud of you? Is that sinful? Well, maybe not, but you know it actually could be. If when you're looking at him, you're saying, you are just like me. And everything about you is all because I taught you everything you know. I am such a great parent. Look at my wonderful family. Well, you're full of pride. But if your kid did some stuff in their own merits, yes, you invested in them. Sure, you gave them a start. But they made a choice to accept what you taught them, and you recognize that. And you say, hey, I'm proud of you. Is it a sin for me to get up and tell you guys, hey, I'm proud of this church? Well, it could be if I think that you're all a product of me. But if I think that you respond the right way to the word of God and that you, in spite of me sometimes, still make good choices and are a good bunch of people and are a pleasure to pastor. And when I go to the judgment seat of Jesus Christ and I give an account, I'm not going to do it with grief. I'm going to actually do it with joy if things keep going like they've gone. You've got no idea. I'm not trying to be in any way like I'm putting anybody down. I'm just saying I don't think 99% of people have any idea what I'm talking about. I did not want in the ministry because I've seen the other side of it. And boy, I was so wrong. And you know what? I'm proud of this church. I am grateful for you. And you ain't perfect. And I'm glad you're not because it would be a bummer pastoring a bunch of perfect people. Because I don't think I'm perfect. So what is pride? It's tricky. Pride is dangerous. Pride is something that will get you and I in so much trouble, it's not even funny. Can I say this about pride? Pride is blinding. It's tricky. It's related to rebellion. It's related to sin, but they're not the same. I want to say this. In the passage, God moves David against them, right? But your Bible says God can't tempt a man with evil. Watch. Go with me, if you would, please, to the book of 1 Chronicles, and you may just want to mark 1 Chronicles. We're going over to chapter number 21. This is one of the errors in your Bible, that the people that don't believe the Bible, but want you to believe them. I said the people that don't believe the Bible, but want you to believe them. will tell you there's errors in your Bible and they'll show you this is one of them and I'm gonna show you more than one this morning. Watch it, it's a correction. Because in 1 Chronicles we're given another account of what God's given us in 2 Samuel 24 and in 1 Chronicles in verse number 1 it says, and Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. Who did it? Satan or God? Because in 2 Samuel it said the Lord. Now, what have I told you a hundred times around here? What did we go over and over and over and over and over when we studied the Book of Job? Satan and the Lord work so closely together sometimes that you can't hardly tell the difference. Now, I'm not trying to scare you. I'll show you how to be sure, okay? But that's how close they work. Satan copycats everything God does. Everything. He's got, God's got a bride, Satan's got a bride. God's got a church, Satan's got a church. God's got a book, Satan's got a book. God's got ministers, Satan's got ministers. The Lord is light, Satan appears as an angel of light. The Lord's got ministers of righteousness, Satan's ministers appear as ministers of righteousness. He wants to copy, what his desire was at the beginning? What's the condemnation of the devil? It's pride, right? We already talked about it. So how did that pride show itself when the Lord first showed you who Lucifer was? He said, I'll exalt myself. I will be like the Most High. We always said Satan wanted to kick God off his throne, but I'm still struggling to see where we get that from. He wanted equality, equal rights. I think I deserve more. I know God's made me the number two being in all of the universe, but look at me. Why can't I have the next level? I want more dethrone, conquer, recognize me as a great right alongside of God. His pride said I deserve more. And so the Bible talks through it, spells it out going through the book of Job, how Satan appears before the Lord, the Lord looks at him and God's got a plan in his mind. God sees Job, a perfect and upright man, one that fears God and eschews evil. And God says, I know how to bless him more. That's God's plan in his mind. God says, I know how to take Job to the next level since he wants me and he's been trying to walk with me and he's been seeking me and he's a good man. He's perfect and upright, fears God and eschews evil. I got to break him. in order to make him. Have you seen my servant Job? There's none like him in the earth. Satan says, yeah, yeah, you got a wall about him. You won't let me at him. Let me at him and I'll show you what he's really made of. And so God gives him permission. In that case, it wasn't the judgment of God. It was God recognizing the greatness of that man and saying, I need to teach him some more things. So then the devil begins doing some stuff in Job's life that God allows to benefit and prosper Job. Job comes out the end of that thing twice as good off as he went into it. More blessed after the fact, and the whole world's been blessed by it. That's the oldest book, I think it was written around 1500. The oldest book in the Bible is the book of Job. People have been getting blessed by the word of God and by Job's life ever since. The power that God's, the eternal rewards Job will be getting for what he went through before you start judging God so harshly. So God and the devil can work so closely together that you can't tell the difference sometimes. Is the devil doing it and Job's thinking God's doing it? Job's getting bitter towards God. But it wasn't God, it was the devil and God allowed it. When God got upset with Israel here, God says to the devil, all right, go ahead. I got an issue with David, too. You know what I think? I think God's problem with David was probably that David did not fight for what he was supposed to fight for. David erred on the side of grace. Well, that's a great way to err, but either way, isn't it an error? David erred on the side of grace when he should have said, boy, you lost your mind. What are you doing to Israel? What are you doing to these men? Don't you realize God made me a king, and I got to watch out for those sheep? And just because you're my boy doesn't mean I'm going to turn a blind eye to the fact that you've become a wolf. You're a wolf among the sheep. Doesn't matter that you're my family. Blood is not thicker than the Bible, but most people think it is. and it angers God because he gave up his own son for you and I. Hey, he put your sin on his perfect son. The least you and I could do is say, God, I love my family, but when my family's wrong, they're still wrong and you're right. David compromised on that. And I think that might be why God's upset with David now. So God says this, since y'all are rejecting the light I've given you, that light becomes lightning. And now Israel, since you aren't listening to me anymore, since you're going about your own way, since you're filled with your own selves, and David, since you put your boy ahead of the will of God, then it's time for some reckoning, it's time for some judgment, and God allows the devil to go down there and to begin provoking David's pride. David's thinking, I got a great kingdom, and Israel's strong, look at all this. And so he has him go out and start numbering Israel. You see how tricky that is? You know your Bible's never wrong. Go back to 2 Samuel please, chapter 24. Your Bible's never wrong. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them. How did he do it? He did it by backing off and saying, okay, Lucifer, go on, because 1 Chronicles tells you Satan tempted him. God didn't tempt them with evil. One of the most destructive and hurtful things that can ever happen in your life is if God says, fine, since you won't listen to me, since you won't listen to the Bible, I will drop that hedge of protection, and I will allow the devil to come after you. Hey, Paul taught it. Give him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of Christ Jesus. They don't lose their soul, but the protecting hand of God is gone. And I'll tell you this much right now, you cannot stand up against the pressure that the devil can bring in your life to temptation without the help of God. He will capitalize on your flesh every time and he will win that battle. You need God. You need him more than you realize and I do too. So what has happened here is that your Bible is absolutely perfect and it's showing you that God allowed this thing. and backed off, but it is the devil that went in and did the tempting. So the pain of David's pride comes in here because David is looking at this whole thing and his pride and Israel's pride, Israel's pride shows in their open resistance to lawful authority. It shows in their rebellion, which is a result of pride. When you openly resist lawful authority, you are rebellious. It kindles the anger of God. I don't want to kindle God's anger, do you? It is our pride that kindles the anger of God, and pride is any time that you begin to lift yourself up. It's an inordinate self-esteem. It's thinking you're more than you are. It's an unreliable and unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority. It literally boils down into thinking you're more than you are. Doesn't the Bible tell us in the New Testament if you have a gift, exercise that gift, but realize what do you have that you didn't receive? So it's great if you're a blessing. It's wonderful if you do things and if God does them through you. And it's okay to recognize this is my abilities. This is what God does with my life. This is my gift. But don't you ever forget that you did not do it on your own. Pointed out what a high IQ he has. Well, who gave him that? Not him. He wasn't just like, you know, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to make sure that my brain works better than most people's. Born that way. He had an aptitude to be able to digest information. By the way, this isn't specific to him. By the way, if you do have a high IQ, guess what you're supposed to do with it? It's a pound God gave you like we talked about Wednesday night. Go do something with it. Or sit around and stare at a stinking piece of technology 24-7 and never develop what God gave you. Just because somebody has a higher IQ than you doesn't mean they're smarter than you. Takes work. What do you have that you didn't receive? Well, I'm good looking. Well, if that's true, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I mean, if that's true, where did you get it from? You healthy? I don't get sick. Okay. If that's true, where do you get it from? Do you know the Bible tells you that God looks upon everybody that's proud and obeisism? You know the Bible tells us that only by pride cometh contention? And that in the book of Proverbs, I read them this morning, that pride, the result of pride is humiliation, basically. You better watch out for pride. God did not want them numbering the people because God did not want Israel beginning to rely on its own strength, rely on its own power to get the job done. Because pride and recognition of self and exaltation of self and recognition of my own abilities and my own strength leads to sin. Pride is a sin in the heart. Sin is an actual committing of the act. So what happens? David gets into this debate with Joab and sends him out to go number the people, right? Well, guess what? Now he has sinned. He went from pride beginning in his mind and beginning in his heart. That's the conception of the sin, right? We talked about that a few weeks ago in the book of James. And next thing you know, he's actually committing the sin. He's actually taking the step. He's actually going to do something that goes directly against the word of God, and that is a sin. What's sin? How do we define sin? You live in a culture that has rewritten the rules on everything. Well, I just don't think it's wrong. I was born that way. Okay, well, it doesn't matter what you think, you proud little thing you. Do you see where the root of that is? We are being taught, and we're teaching our children, and we're even being taught in churches today, that it is literally all about you. You get to write the rules. What's truth to you is your truth, and your truth is all that matters, but not in the eyes of God. Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. The truth is defined by Jesus Christ, and he said, thy word is truth. So Satan's desire with this lost world is to keep them, blind their eyes, and keep them from seeing the gospel, but Satan's desire for those of you that are already saved is, now that God's got you, and listen, Satan can't touch you when God's got you. You do understand that, right? He has to get permission to do anything to you, because you're not his anymore, you're not in his kingdom anymore, you're not under his authority anymore when you get saved. You follow that? So guess what he does next? Well, I know how to get to him. What I'll do is I'll get their God mad at them. Number one thing that'll hurt the church, kindling the anger of God. How does he do it? He does it the same way Balaam did it. When Balaam couldn't curse them directly, he said, I got a plan. Let's teach him to commit fornication and to offer things, offer a sacrifice on the idols. Let's take this other route here, and then God will curse him himself. Number one thing that hurts the church more than anything else is when our pride starts lifting us up just a little bit, we start thinking that we're strong, we start thinking that we're spiritual, we start thinking that we're not gonna do those things anymore, and look at this wicked world around us, and we got it all together, and so we stop listening to God. Because since Satan can't get at you himself, he'll get you on the wrong side of God, he'll get in the way of your relationship with Jesus Christ, and when he can come in the way of your relationship with Jesus Christ, he can get God himself to judge his children, because Satan knows the Bible, and he knows Hebrews chapter 12, and he knows that God chastens children that don't listen to him, and he knows what Paul said in Corinthians about kicking him out and giving him over to Satan for the destruction. He's got all that down, but he can't get at you until he gets you, on the wrong side of God and he'll do it real subtly by lifting up your pride which will lead to a commission of the sin. David goes and commits the sin. From there what happens? Iniquity begins. I'll show you where I get iniquity from and I'll explain to you what iniquity is. Look down at verse number 8. So when they had gone through all the land they came to Jerusalem and at the end of nine months and twenty days You see that? They came to Jerusalem at the end of 9 months and 20 days. How much time has passed from the time when David told them to go number Israel to this point? 9 months and 20 days. How much time passed between the time that David committed the sin with Bathsheba, the conception took place, and David's repentance? The infant died, right? You got a little over nine months from the time he committed the sin to the time he finally decided to get right. Do you know what sin leads to? Iniquity. Do you know what iniquity is? You start running the references throughout your Bible on iniquity? That's a wild thing, man. It's always connected to a passage of time. It's a passage of time with no repentance for the sin that was committed. You follow me? The Amorites, first time it's mentioned, their iniquity is not yet full. A passage of time had taken place with the Amorites committing a bunch of sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, and no repentance after that sin, and so they're living in and continuing in the sins that they committed, and they're not getting it right. That is iniquity. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children. What sin? The first time sin appears in the Bible is when Abel offers a sacrifice to God. It was spiritual. He comes in to God and he says, I'm sorry, Cain offers a sacrifice to God. He comes in and he offers the fruit. Look what I've done. Abel came with a blood sacrifice like God commanded. God accepts Abel's offering. God rejects Cain's offering. Cain gets mad at God. God says, why art thou wroth? If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." What did he do? Well, I came and offered God a sacrifice. Yeah, but you ain't offering God the sacrifice God said He wants. Yeah, but I have... That's your problem. But I'm offering... But I think God... But my God would... That's your problem. Your problem is you're proud and you don't know it. You think that what you offer matters, you're not checking with God to see what the rules are, and being willing to say, you're God and I'm not, I'll do it your way. Now what's your way? It's pride. Pride leads to sin. His sin was something he wouldn't even have recognized as a sin. He's offering a sacrifice to God or the fruit to the ground. He's bringing the best of what he has. And God's like, I don't care. That is not what I asked for. You live in a generation that don't like this message, man. But it boils down to what did God want? What did God say? It boils down to authority. Somebody said to me years ago, looking at our church constitution, well, I just don't like the word authority. Well, then you got the wrong church. believe in authority and guess what you're not looking at him now if I'm the pastor and the founding pastor and we built this thing from day one based on something bigger than me an authority that goes above my head you think I'm gonna compromise that now for anybody there's an authority and that authority keeps us safe and submission to that authority and obedience to what he says your soul is saved eternally by obedience to the gospel and your walk with the Lord and your life is saved from destruction of the devil by continued obedience to the word of God. David disobeyed. David knew what he was doing was wrong and to add insult to injury what happens is he's committing iniquity. He not only committed the sin, which he should have never committed, because in his heart some pride built up, and then the sin gets committed, and then he continues in that sin for nine months, so now he's off into iniquity. Doesn't Timothy tell you, let everyone that name it the name of Christ depart from iniquity? Well, it's interesting to me that he knows we all sin. If any man say he hath not sinned, he deceived himself, and the truth is not in him. Not one of us would sit here and say, I don't sin. You know you do. You know you shouldn't. You try to stop it before you do it. But sometimes you mess it up and you do it anyways. Don't add iniquity to your sin. Can I give you another example of iniquity? It's over in the book of Ezekiel, a holabah and a holah. They're sisters. God tells them that they're full of iniquity. You know what they did? In their youth, they committed whoredoms. You know what God said to her? He said, you've multiplied your iniquities because in your old age, What you did when you were an old lady and you were past your prime and all the boys aren't coming for you anymore, all of a sudden in your old age you start thinking back to what you used to do. That's iniquity. Well, I'm not doing it anymore. Yeah, but you're sitting around daydreaming about the old days. You're bragging about the old days. You're thinking about the old days. You're letting the devil get in your mind, and that flesh begins stirring up, and you're remembering back in the old days. That's iniquity in the eyes of God. That's continuing in what you did back then, and you're multiplying the judgment of God on you because your heart is still back there. And then you wonder why your kids are following suit. Never understood these middle-aged people living vicariously through their kids. Well, you remember how we were when we were kids. What's that got to do with the price of tea in China? Well, we can't get on them because you know what we were like. So what? Yeah, you messed up. Have you gotten it right? If you've gotten it right, then you have a responsibility before God to get on them when they're going the wrong way because you don't want them to live with what you have to live with, do you? See how the devil plays those games, boy? And before you know it, you're living in iniquity because you're back there when you shouldn't be back there. And this world you're living in is wired to connect you to your past. All this Facebook stuff and all the rest of that stuff. Old boyfriends, old girlfriends. You married now, ain't you? Why are you looking up an old girlfriend? What do you care what her old man looks like or how much money he makes? What's wrong with your heart? That's iniquity. What you looking up an old boyfriend for, lady? You dumped him, didn't you? Why'd you dump him? He's cheating on you? What do you care what he's doing with his life? Stick with the one you got. Don't add iniquity to your sin. God don't put up with it. You gotta understand, I mean, I'm gonna get to a better part of the message here in just a second, but you gotta understand and take very seriously the fact that pain, that pride produces pain in our lives, and pride begins in the heart. Pride begins in the mind. Pride begins in saying, I deserve more, and I am right, and this really isn't wrong. I'm rewriting the rules my way. Hey, listen, that pride will lead to sin, and the sin will lead to iniquity, and listen, the judgment of God comes on that stuff. You don't want God to let the devil after your family. I don't want God to let the devil after this church. What's the greatest security? Well, he said, I stand at the door and knock when he was talking to the church. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I'll come in and sup with him and he with me. You know what we do with Jesus? Jesus, Jesus, come on in. And if He ain't in here, we're gonna get after Him till He is. We're gonna get on our face in prayer. We're gonna find out what's going on. We're gonna beg Him to show up. Why? Because we need Him to keep us safe, to keep us strong, to keep us from messing up our own lives. We need His Word to show us, to help with our thinking, to help with our heart, to help get us right, to wash us and clean us and keep us on the safe. It'll keep you safe. The knowledge of God's Word is how we avoid kindling his anger. So it's a pretty confusing thing when I tell you that the devil and the Lord work so closely together you can't hardly tell the difference, right? A little scary, a little unnerving? Well, here's the deal. Get to know your Bible. Stay in the book. I want to know God's leading me. I want to know that I'm not being deceived. I want to know that when I have these spiritual experiences that they're the right kind. I want to know I'm in the right place. I want to know I'm in the right church. I want to know I'm setting the right standards in my home. I want to be sure that I'm right with God. How do I know? Well, we can't get all superstitious and weirded out, right? We got to go by the book. Do you know that David had God's word telling him what to do about numbering? Keep your finger here a second, Samuel, please go back with me to the book of Exodus chapter 30. Exodus chapter number 30. God gave them specific instructions about numbering the people. There was necessary times in which they had to number. Because how are you going to go out to battle and know how to set up your troops, and how to orchestrate your troops, and how many to hold in reserves, and how many to send forward, and whether you need the cavalry, or the swordsmen, or the bowmen? How do you do all that without surveilling the enemy, looking at what you have, and counting the cost? This process we're going through with this edition, we have to count the cost. We have to sit down and add up the numbers. We have to look at what we have. We have to look at what comes in. We have to make sure that we're doing. We have to go through. They required us three years ago to start counting how many people are here on Sunday morning. We weren't counting up to that point. You know why? Because it bums me out when we're missing 25 or 30 people this morning. And it really pumps me up when we're growing. So I'm like, you know what, it doesn't matter. We're just going to minister and just preach and I'm going to just follow up with people when they're not there and just be pastor. And they said, you have to number. OK. So we realize we have to number. So we do what we have to do. God recognized Israel had to number. So look at Exodus chapter 30 and verse number 11. And the Lord spake unto Moses and said, when thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, After their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them, that there be no plague among them when thou numberest them. This shall they give everyone that passeth among them, that are numbered half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary, a shekel is twenty giraz. And half a shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. You know what God said? When you have to number them. I wanted you to see that. Back to 2 Samuel 24. So here's what we're getting out of that. God says when you have to number them because you're going out to battle, make sure that you offer a ransom so I won't send a plague. You know what David did? David's sitting in a time of peace and he's sitting there and that pride begins in his mind and in his heart. And he's wondering where he's at. And he's like, hey, Joab, go number them. He picked Joab. Well, he knows what a renegade Joab is. And Joab for once makes the right decision. You know, it's aggravating when people get spiritual on you all of a sudden, you know, that never have been. And so he starts kicking back, and David's like, shut up and go number them. And God's like, David, you've been off track for a little while without realizing it because you put your boy ahead of me. You've been off track for a little while without realizing it, and you're sitting there thinking about how powerful your nation is because I put you back on the throne like you knew I would do. but you forgot it's me. So all right, devil, they gotta learn something. Go ahead, just like in 1 Kings, how are we gonna deceive Ahab? Oh, I know, I'll go be a lion spirit in the mouth of the prophets. God said, okay, go. God just let a devil go in there and preach to the people. Ain't that a weird thing? You know what you got a nation full of right now? You got a nation full of people that don't know what's in the Bible, don't care what's in the Bible, but go sit in churches and trust that they're hearing from a guy speaking to them the words of God. And as long as they like and feel good when they come and feel good when they leave and like everything that's said and the way it's said, then they'll go back and they feel spiritual. But there ain't a bit of truth to it. There ain't nothing about getting closer to God in it. It's just make you feel better. That's demonic. You say, who did it, the God or the devil? Do you know God will give them a lie if they want a lie? God's not the one lying. God does not override your free will. And he never will. If that's what you want, you got it. We'll see some more of it this afternoon. It boils down to a heart. So they wanted a lie. God said, all right, go ahead. And that evil spirit goes in there and starts preaching to them boys to lead them to their destruction because they didn't want God. And the Lord said, OK, have at it. Well, where's the root of the problem? The root of the problem is the word of God. Do you know they knew? Jehoshaphat said, is there not one here that speak of the word of the Lord besides? He said, oh, I know one, but I hate him. Why? He never speaks good concerning me, but evil. Go get him. And he comes in there all sarcastic. Yeah, go prosper. How many times I have died in the word of the Lord not to speak in me, not to speak in the image of me? Oh, I know what God said. You're gonna go get wiped out, you wicked piece of garbage. See, I told you he'd never say anything good about me. Lock him up till I come back. If you come back, God didn't speak by me. Go ahead and lock me up. You see that whole thing? Like, what? How weird is that? It boils down to somebody that does not want to listen to what they know the Bible says. David is out of line here because he's disregarding the words of God. and then when he does it he doesn't offer a sacrifice because his motive in the beginning was wrong and he did the wrong thing at the wrong time using some kind of Old Testament Bible to justify it and then doesn't follow through so he adds iniquity to his sin and God's wrath. Now watch this. Look at verse number 9. Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto the king and there were in Israel 800,000 valiant men that drew the sword. And the men of Judah were 500,000 men. See that? Very specific, right? God gives you the exact number of the men in Israel and the men in Judah, right? Now, what I'm trying to do here is show you that you've got to know your Bible and you've got to go by your Bible or the devil will mess you up. And one of the ways he messes you up is to get you to start doubting the perfection of your Bible. Watch this. This is what the Bible correctors are going to show you. The people that want you to put your faith in them are going to show you this stuff. Go with me, if you would, please, to 1 Chronicles 21. 1 Chronicles chapter 21. I want you to see verse number 5. Now, exact same account, all right? Exact same account. Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David, and all they of Israel were a thousand, thousand, and a hundred thousand men that drew sword." That's 1,100,000 men in Israel. But in 2 Samuel 9, he said 800,000 valiant men. In verse number 5, then he gets to the men of Judah, and Judah was 400, 3 score, and 10,000 men. So a score is 20, so 3 score is 60, so 470,000. In Judah, right? But in 2 Samuel 24, 9, he said there's 500,000 in Judah. Mistake in the Bible. Now, let me show you how important it is to study your Bible and believe every word of the Bible. Watch. Look back at verse number 9. There were in Israel 800,000 valiant men that drew the sword. in 1 Chronicles 21 5, all they of Israel. You guys remember David's 600 men? How many of them were mighty men? Out of the 600, there was like 30? In one passage, he's telling you how many of them were valiant. that were actually hand-to-hand combat, drawing the sword. But that's not all there is to an army. Some guys have to ride the chariots. Some guys use bows. Some guys are in the cavalry. They're not all valiant men that are drawing the sword out there shedding blood on the front lines. Mistake in the Bible. Look, it says here 800,000. Here it says 1,100,000. So there's a copyist error. You can't read. It boils down to every word of God is pure and when you read every word of your Bible it says valiant men and then it says all they. The total number of the army was 1,100,000 men just in Israel's army and the valiant ones 800,000 special forces. We are talking about one hard core unconquerable army. And then in Judah, there's 500,000 total, but 470,000 are active and they got 30,000 on reserve. There's no correction in your Bible. The problem is these brilliant, educated guys that were taught out of their Bible are now undermining the faith of God's people in the Bible and crippling God's people from getting to actually know God and actually putting them in a position where they're sinning against God because they don't know what God expects out of them anymore. That's what church is for! You're supposed to be here to be equipped to grow in the Lord, to believe your Bible, to be spoken to from the Word of God, to keep you safe from the attacks Back to the devil! Keep you from getting hurt. That book in your lap is perfect, and if you'll do what it tells you to do, the devil won't get after you, but if you disobey the Bible, if you disobey the Bible, anger of the Lord's kindled. David's problem was he disobeyed the Bible, so the knowledge of the word of God is what you need to keep you safe from the sin of pride. Back to 2 Samuel chapter 24, if you don't have a knowledge of the word of God, then how do you even know what pride is? Oh, look at his strut. He might not be proud. He might just be confident. I know some guys are like, I'm not respecting him. You know, they're going to compete. My coach would always say, don't respect him. You think, oh, that's awfully arrogant. No, it ain't arrogant. It ain't arrogant. It's be confident in what you know and go about it the way you're going to go about it and make sure you control that thing because if you don't, you know he's going to kill you. So don't you get scared of him. It ain't arrogant. It ain't like, oh, I got this. Never, never one time was like, this is no problem. Ah, they bump up your ego. You got this, man. You can do this. But it's like, you better go. Confidence. They're not the same thing. How do you know what pride is? Who's defining it? Oh, he's such a humble man. Some of the most humble men I've ever met, the humble men I've ever met, were the most arrogant, proudful thing. Oh, he's such a humble Christian. I don't think so. I don't think he's humble when he gets up there and he's kissing up to everybody and kissing up, oh, you know, we just love you folks, and then corrects the Bible. But then they look at somebody preaching with confidence, like Jesus Christ, they said about Jesus Christ, he's spake as one that has authority and not as a scribe. Confidence in the word of God doesn't mean I'm arrogant. It means I know where the truth is, and I got my faith in God, and I'll stand for that thing, and I gotta live by it. And I got confidence in him. How do I define pride? Well, I gotta get in the book and find out what it is. And pride is whenever I lift myself up against God, whenever I think of myself more than I ought to and more than what God says about me. And yet He's saved my soul and He's changed me and He's done some good things in my life and He's put some stuff in me and put some stuff in my family. He's been a really good God. He has blessed me. He's given me a family I'm very happy with and very proud of. He's given me a church I'm very happy with and very proud of, but that does not mean it's because I'm something special. It's because He is. Look at my last point so we can go eat some food. I'll try to end on a positive note. I wish I'd have gotten to this point earlier. I want you to see the kindness of God's mercy. So we're talking about kindling His anger. We're talking about the pain of pride. And our pride that kindles the anger of God. And we talked about the fact that every one of us sins. And every one of us at some point or another has sinned and not gotten it right. and therefore lived in iniquity. Remember 1st John 1.9? We're talking about the judgment seat of Christ and getting things right now before you see Him. Because when you don't confess your sin, it says He's faithful and just to forgive and cleanse, doesn't it? That means He's faithful and He's just, you're not. He is. That's where everybody gets hung up. Why are you going to do it again? I always do it. I keep coming back for the same thing. He never said you're faithful and just. He said when you're sorry and you come try to get it right, He's faithful and He's just and He will forgive. You got a God who's kind in His mercies. So when you've messed up, don't stick it out. Get it right. Notice the kindness of God's mercy. Look at verse number 8. I'm sorry, look at verse number 17. David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people and said, Lo, I have sinned and I have done wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me and against my father's house. And Gad came that day to David and said, Go up and rear up an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Arunah, the Jebusite. So for the sake of time, let me just quickly give you this summary. David gets an offer from Gad. He says, you got three things, three options, because God's angry, the anger of the Lord's kindled against Israel and against you. And so there's three things you can do. You can either flee before your enemies or a plague can come on the nation. These are the judgments you're going to get. You pick them. And David says, don't let me fall into the hand of man. Let me fall into the hand of God. So the pestilence comes and begins to sweep through the land. And he said, seven years of famine, fleeing before the enemies are a pestilence. David said, give it to God, so God sends a pestilence. Like he said he would do in Exodus chapter 30, remember. David sees the judgment of God coming and I am 100% sure that David remembered what a merciful God he serves. I'm a hundred percent sure I'm sure God will correct me when we get to heaven if I'm wrong but David thinks back to his sin with Bathsheba and all the mercy that God showed him and how he should be dead and David goes running up there boy and he gets on his face before God and he says oh God I numbered them but these poor sheep what did they do now think about that guy he wasn't saying God they kicked me off the throne and all these people turned against me see how he's a man after God's own heart God's like, yes, they did. You don't see it the way I see it. And David's saying, God, please, let it be on me and on my father's house. You know what God does? God stops that thing early. He says, all right, listen, Gad, go tell David something for me. Go tell him to offer a sacrifice. You know what David did for himself? He removed all defense. In verse 17. He got on, God, I'm the problem. God, I messed it up. God, I deserve it. God, I will take what I deserve. Did you hear that? Think about that level of wanting to be right with God. A level that takes a man to a point that says, let all the judgment fall on me. I will take the pain. I will take the punishment. I will reap what I've sowed. I'm not even asking you to stop the judgment. I'm asking you, don't let it affect my family. Don't let it affect my church. Don't let it affect the people I love. Don't let it ruin the testimony of Jesus Christ. Put it on me. And what God does is God says, tell them to go offer a sacrifice. David goes up there to offer that sacrifice, and Arunus says, I'll give it all to you. And David says, I will not offer to God that which cost me nothing. Where are the Christians like that? I am willing to take up my cross and follow you. I'm willing to pay the price. I'm not offering to God. So he buys the threshing floor, and he buys the property off of him. I don't have time to show you, but in 1 Chronicles, you have another mistake because the number offered to give him doesn't match the number in 2 Samuel 24. Because in one passage, it talks about the property and the threshing floor. In the other passage, it's just talking about the threshing floor. So he made a deal, how much is the threshing floor worth? All right, I'll pay you for that. How much is the property? I'll pay you for that. And he gives you two different numbers, but there's not a mistake in your Bible. David says, I'm not offering God something that I don't pay for first. You know what the problem with this generation of Christianity is? We want a get out of jail free card 24-7. I think we got a lot of Christians that are living in iniquity. but don't even know it. Because we sin, and I'll thank God for the blood, which we'll talk about tonight. Thank God for the blood of Jesus Christ. It cleanses you from all sin. You're not going to hell, no matter what. But it does affect your relationship. Your sin will affect the here and now. If you continue in your sin, God will allow the devil to have at you if you won't listen. and it boils down to your knowledge, kindling is anger, your knowledge of the Bible is what helps you know when you are and how to get it right when you do, and then your reliance on the kindness and the mercy of God will get you to say, Lord, I'll take whatever you give and I'll give whatever you want. Whatever it costs me, I just want everything clear between me and you. That's all. And you know what happens every time if we can really get our hearts there and just, God, I'm not asking for anything from you this morning. I pray daily for protection of my family, protection of my church. I pray God blesses you financially and me financially. I'm not saying you shouldn't pray for all that. I'm asking you, when is the last time you came to God saying, I am not asking for anything. I just want things right between me and you. I love you. I'm sorry for where I've done wrong. If I have done wrong, show me. If I haven't, God, please protect me and help me to get to know that Bible better so that I can please you more. Offering him something. I won't take from God or offer to God that which cost me nothing. I wonder if there's some Christians here this morning that are willing to pay any price to have everything right between them and God. Any price. No defense. Just total reliance on God's kindness and God's mercy. I'll take what you give, good or bad, but Lord help me to have things cleared up between me and you. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes this morning.