Okay, so last week we focused on prayer. And it doesn't seem like last week that Mwaka and Leti, is that right? Did I get it right? Were with us, all right? That seems to me like a fortnight ago at least, but it was last week. And I focused on prayer last week as we were looking at the armor of God. And I wanna just give one final thought on prayer before we go on from that, because I kinda wish I would've said this last week. Just some basics about prayer. Plan a time to pray. You know, I mean, that's pretty basic, but if you don't plan a time to pray, you're not going to pray. So have a set time every day where you spend time in prayer. If it's morning, do it every morning. If it's evening, do it every evening. The danger of evening is that you get too tired and you put it off. The danger of morning is you don't get up, you don't have time, and you omit it. But if you plan a time to pray, that would really help. Plan a place to pray. Have a place that is your place, that you get a side to pray. You might have a lot of places, but the Bible does speak about get in your closet. It doesn't mean that we're to be totally secretive, like a spy or something. Nobody can know about my prayer life. We're not to talk about or pray to be seen of men. That's what the Bible's teaching when it speaks about that secrecy, but it's all right to let people know that you pray. I hope you think, your pastor prays, and I'm not gonna run around and act like that's a big secret. If I have a prayer life, and it's not like that, but we need that privacy, that secrecy, just to be us and God. And so that might mean getting into a closet to pray, getting into that place where you can pray. But as you think about that, pray out loud if possible. That's another good reason to get aside. Jesus often did. He went into the wilderness or into the mountainside or with his men even. He would draw off from his men a ways. And I think that's probably because he's speaking to God and he's praying out loud. And I think that's a great thing to do. It makes prayer very personal. It also prepares you for public prayer when we pray together as a church, and you're used to praying out loud, and so that's a good thing as we do that as well. And then keep a journal. If it helps you to write things down, and I've even been thinking about this lately. I've never kept a prayer journal. I've always just prayed. And I want to be careful about that because I don't want to be somebody that becomes like a person that prays rotely, where you just pray right through your prayer list. And it's kind of like, if I just say this, God hears me. We need to be sensitive, let the spirit of God lead us in prayer so that we never become like we're coming to God and reading a phone book to God, but that it's personal communion with God. And there might be somebody not on that list God wants us to pray about. We need to be ready to pray for them. but there might be some specific things. Like I thought last night, I prayed about this. I prayed, God, in the next two years, give us three deacons, all right? Maybe you want to join me in praying about that. In the next two years, give us three deacons. Did you get that? I see you kind of... Yes, three deacons for our church. All right. I could see the puzzle in your face. All right. And so if that would be a good thing to pray about together, but I want to write stuff like that down so that I put a date down so that two years from now and I want to continue to pray about it that we can see God do that. We're praying as a church for 50 people when we move into our permanent location. We've seen some great movement in that direction, and let's keep praying about that. But maybe that's where a prayer list comes in handy, as well as with that prayer list, you could have Bible promises. So you're praying about something, you could write down a promise beside it. This is what God says. And we, with our church, we're claiming Jeremiah 33, calling to me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not, as we're praying about a location. And there's some other scripture that God's given us with that as well. But it's always good to take the promise of God and say, God, this is what your word says, and I'm asking, and I'm waiting on you to do this. And so that would be a great thing. And that's where your prayer life can really grow as well. Now, back to our story. Saul gave a brief reprieve. I said before that it lasted for one verse in the Bible, but the Bible sometimes skips a length of time. It doesn't really tell us about that time. And so Saul said, okay, I'm not gonna kill David. Now he's back to wanting to kill David. And so as we think about how things are going here at Saul's life, it's not going well, and it's his fault. He could have prevented this, what's gonna take place, but he doesn't. I wanna think about how he could have prevented it. And so Saul, refused to cut himself off from his sin. Okay, he refused to cut himself off from his sin. Notice what it says, the verse here, let me see if I can find it because I'm jumping into the middle of a verse in my notes. And verse nine, okay? It says, as he sat in his house, and this is 1 Samuel 19, as he sat in his house with his what? Do you see it? Javelin in his hand, all right? He's got the javelin in his hand. Now, has Saul had a problem with his javelin in the past where it's caused him to sin or been part of his sin? Yes, twice he's tried to pin David to the wall with it. He's tried to murder somebody that was there in his court twice, and who knows other times that this happened, the Bible maybe doesn't speak about it, but he's had a real problem with anger, he's had a real problem with taking that and trying to kill somebody with that, but he's got it right there in his hand. You know, wisdom... Wisdom would say lock that javelin away except when you go to battle. It's an instrument of war. Now I understand the king's got to protect himself and maybe there's some argument there, but it's an instrument of war. It's been a temptation to Saul to take that in anger and use it in a way that God says is unlawful to use that. It would have been wise for him to lock that away. You know, one of the best things that you can do in your spiritual life is destroy that which is used in sin. All right, so if there's a temptation to the flesh, and I know my weaknesses, we all know our weaknesses, we know areas where we failed God, we know areas that aren't a temptation to us, I'll say alcohol's not a temptation for me at all. I didn't grow up in a home that had alcohol in the home. I've never drunk alcohol. I've had alcohol, I guess, in cough medicine or something like that. But I've never developed a taste for it. I've seen what it does to people. My granddad grew up in a drunkard's home. And I'll just say, I mean, for me, that's not a temptation. But from other people, that might be a temptation for them because of their background, because of where they've been and whatnot. But we understand. And let me give you this verse as well. And the thing is this, sin is common. So, you know, if I struggle with sin, I know this, other people struggle with the same sin that I struggle with. Satan likes to come and say, you're the only one that struggles this bad, you're the only one that has it this bad, things like that. But the thing is, everybody struggles with sin and we know the sin that we struggle with. So what should we do? We ought to look at the sin that we struggle with and say, I'm going to cut myself off from that sin. I'm going to make it as difficult as possible for me to commit that sin because I know maybe the word that comes to my mind is besetting sin, right? A sin that is a common stumbling block in our lives. And we can all identify things like that. You know, in Acts, Acts is, if you want to read the book of Acts in your Bible, it's a history of the early church. So after the gospel went out about Jesus Christ and his death, his resurrection, and salvation by grace through faith in him, when that gospel went out and the church was established, Acts is a record of what was taking place. When the gospel worked in the lives of some people that were involved in witchcraft, There was a great response that they had to God when they got saved and it's recorded in Acts 19 verse 19. It says, many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men and they counted the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver back then. Now if you read about that today, that people got saved and that their life was so radically changed that they took the instruments of sin that were in their lives and they took that and they destroyed it, you'd think, wow, something real has happened. Their avenue back to their old life of wickedness against God and wizardry and witchcraft and those things, that was burned. I mean, they couldn't easily go back to that because they had taken a stand and they said, no, I'm gonna live for God, I'm gonna obey God, and that is a great thing. Romans 6 verse 12 says, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it and the lust thereof. Now, is that a choice? Yes, let not sin therefore reign. I mean it's saying make that decision. You're not going to be a servant of sin, but you're going to be a servant of God. Verse 13, neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. Now our body has many members and with many of those members we can sin against God, whether it's our eyes, our tongue, our ears, our hands, whatever it is, we can sin with that. But the Bible says not to yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under grace. When you got saved, you're no longer under that condemnation of the law. You're under grace. God's forgiven you. He's given you new life. And then it goes on to say, what then, shall we sin because we're not under the law but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey? whether of sin unto death, of obedience unto righteousness." All right? I could be the servant of righteousness today, like Samuel, living for God. Or I could be the servant of sin, like Eli's sons that were living in wickedness and enslaved to ungodliness, even though they're at the temple. It's a choice of what we're going to do. We support in Ireland. Layton Kelly and he's gonna be here on a Tuesday and if you're able to visit the you know here on a Tuesday As we host the pastor's fellowship, you're welcome to come Layton's gonna come he's gonna preach there but Layton has a ministry to addicts and so people whose lives are enslaved by sin he has a A place where they can get away, where they can come and they can stay, get out of their old haunts of sin, get in a place with men to encourage them and strengthen their hands as they get victory over addiction, whatever addiction that might be. That's a great thing. You know, we just missed men's camp. It was this past week. I was praying for them. Men's camp is great, any camp ministry is great, because you get people away from the world, get them in an environment that's a great environment, and preach to them the truth of the word of God. That's a great thing, get them out of that environment of sin, get them in a place of righteousness where you can really work the truth of the word of God into their hearts. Our homes, as a believer, ought to be sanctuaries from sin. The best thing that you could do is you think about in the future, some of us, it's present, you know, one of the great things that we ought to think about is, God, help my home to be a sanctuary from sin. I understand Jesus said, you know, your feet are going to get dirty walking in the world, right? He talked about you're going to walk and you're going to get dusty feet and that whole picture that he gave of washing the disciples' feet is that you're going to be walking through the world and you're going to get at times stained by the world, but you gotta get what? Cleansed from that. So let's think about it. In our home, let's make our home an oasis, a place to protect from sin. Now, my cousin just had her first baby, all right? And they got home from the hospital just a few days ago with that little baby. You know what? When you have your first child, what do you do with your house? You childproof it, right? I mean, you start thinking about choking hazards, never thought about before, but you got a child in that home, you want to protect them. You start thinking about these outlets, you know, you got to turn them off and you got to put that plug in there because you don't want a little kid, you know, taking something and poking it into a hole. heaven forbid, having some horrible event take place. You're careful, you know, in ways that you've never been careful before. I remember when we took Kaylee and we put her in the back of the car from the hospital. You know, I got a little kid in the back and it's the first time for me driving home from the hospital. You know, you're just in a panic. You kind of feel like everybody's going to rear end you because you're aware that that little life is there and you want to protect them. Listen, we're careful about physical things in our home where we ought to be or we're not good parents if we're not doing that. So should we protect our home spiritually, right? Now, as you think about it, I think it's pretty obvious we ought not have alcohol in our home. I think that's an obvious thing. We shouldn't have cigarettes in our home. I think that's an obvious thing. We shouldn't have pornography in our home. I think that's an obvious thing. But the greatest avenue that Satan has into our homes is really, as I think about it, it may be a couple things, who comes into our home and the influences in our home as well as technology. Technology in our day has just opened up the world to our home. So we can say, well, our home's a sanctuary. We don't live like that. But if we allow that in, whether profanity or immodesty, indecency, wicked music, wicked ideas, even the advertisements that are advertising wickedness and promoting wickedness, and if that is just into our home and it is unfiltered and unfettered, we've got a problem. It's like Saul. I mean, Saul's got the javelin in his hand. I mean, what's gonna keep him from murdering somebody? I mean, he's got the avenue to that sin right there. We need to be aware of that and say, you know what? I don't want a javelin in my hand because that could hurt my kids. You know what? It could hurt me. It could hurt my marriage. And so I'm gonna do everything in my power to watch out for that. Now, there are filters that you can get. There are channels that you can block. You don't have to have a telly, by the way. You don't have to have a mobile phone. Do you know this? I mean, this sounds like a foreign concept in our day to say this, but I would say this. It would be better not to have a mobile phone. It would be better not to have a telly. It'd be better not to have internet access than to have a marriage defiled, a family defiled, a child corrupted by ungodliness that comes in through that means. There's a javelin there. We got to be wise about that and say, you know what? Let's get a filter. Let's have a filter. Let's have rules. Let's have regulations. Let's have transparency and clarity and accountability. There's a lot of things that you could do to really protect your home from ungodliness. We ought to do that. And we certainly don't want to wait too long to do that. It's too late after it happens to do something. James 1 14 says but every man is tempted When he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Okay, the end of sin is death Satan says it's life Satan says to young people, this is where it's at. It's in cigarettes. It's in alcohol. It's in immorality. It is in deceit. It is in thievery. It is in gambling. I mean, just think of the list of things that Satan says this is life. You know what? It's death. I'm going to refer to it in the morning message. We read last Sunday night about a lady whose life was destroyed by gambling. And you know what? She's one of hundreds of thousands in the UK. And actually one of millions in the UK. And Satan says, that's life. That's where it is at. You got to give yourself to that. And you got to give yourself to that sin. Listen, cigarettes kill. You know, I've been grieved by this. You know, Scotland has these laws about you got to put smoke detectors in your rooms and it's going to cost several hundred pounds to households around the United Kingdom to fireproof their home. Now, do I care about the people that have died because they haven't had those in their homes? Yes, I do. But I would say this and I would like to know the statistic. I wonder if it's out there. I would say it's under 100 people a year. I would just suggest that it's probably much lower than that. But you know, the number of people that die from alcohol, the number of people that die from smoking, the number of people that die from these vices that the government is making a ton of money on is far above that. Why? Because the end of sin is death. That's what the word of God says, and that's what it is. And so a marriage that gets into immorality and adultery, or it just leads to divorce, it leads to a broken family, it destroys that family. Why? Because the end of that sin is death. So what should I do? Let's protect our homes. Let's not have an avenue into any of these sins and do our best against that. And by the way, I'm applying it to our homes, but it applies to my life first. I can't say, well, I really wish I could get victory over my sin of murder if I've got a spear in my hand, all right? The javelin's in my hand, I can't say, God, set me free from this. I gotta say, set me free from this, right? Get rid of it so that you can live in victory. So I just wanna encourage this. Don't live in defeat, live in victory by not making provision. And so Romans 13, verse 14 says, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Okay, don't have that avenue to ungodliness cut it off. It might be deleting an app. It might be unfriending a friend. That's an ungodly friend. It might be getting off the chat rooms. It might be getting off, you know, those things. But if it burns you, burn it, right? Take care of it because we don't wanna have those avenues to sin. And so Saul refused to cut himself off from his sin. That's why we're gonna see that he's failing. And then secondly, Saul refused to open his heart to God. He refused to open his heart to God. It says in our verse here, and again, I think we're in verse nine, it says, and David played with his hand. All right, what's he playing? He's playing music, but what is it? It's God honoring music. It is music that is spiritual in nature. David's the sweet psalmist of Israel. If you didn't know this, the book of Psalms, the majority of that book, which is the Hebrew hymnal, as it were, that is written by King David. He's a great musician that God gifted in those ways. And so it's spiritual music. It should have worked in the heart of Saul powerfully. It's what the Bible speaks about in Ephesians 5, 19, when it says, speaking to yourselves in Psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." Now, spiritual music is powerful. God-honoring music is powerful. Now, the devil has power in his music, but it's in the music. It's in the wickedness of that. The power of God is in the purity of the music, right? Christian music. God-honoring music. Remember, evil spirits used to leave Saul alone when David played with the harp because God would graciously speak to Saul's heart and Saul would get victory. 1 Samuel 16 verse 15, remember the servants came and they said, come on, you need a man that can play well on the harp and that's going to help you when the evil spirit from God is upon you and it's going to make you well. And Saul said unto his servants, provide me now a man that can play well. and bring him to me. And it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took a harp and he played with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." Okay, that was in the past, right? Initially that worked. But in Saul's heart, what do we see? There is bitterness against whom? David, there's envy against David. So I mean, it's corrupting Saul's heart. And you know what happens when somebody grabs hold of sin and holds on to sin? The Bible calls it a hard heart. He's hardening his heart against God. God's spirit is speaking to his heart about it, but there's a hardness that's there so hard that when that spiritual music is played, it doesn't even begin to work in the heart of Saul anymore. You can't get anything out of it. You know, there ought to be a spiritual blessing when you come to the house of God, amen? All right, ought to be that there is a challenge that's given to our hearts and we ought to go away refreshed and strengthened and encouraged. But you know, we can't always get that if we've got a hard heart. If our heart is harboring sin, as soon as I start to grab hold of sin and my heart just hardens against God. And that's Saul. Saul has a hard heart and he's not getting the blessing from it. You know, spiritual blessing has to be received by men. It could be out there, but it has to be taken in by faith for those that would receive it. I remember Paul preaching at Athens in Acts chapter 17, verse 30. There's kind of three types of people in the audience. There's hard-hearted people, there's open-hearted people, and there's believing people. There, there, listen to it in the story. It says, and Paul's preaching, he says, the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. "'because he hath appointed a day "'in the which he will judge the world in righteousness "'by that man whom he hath ordained, "'whereof he hath given assurances unto all men "'that he hath raised him from the dead. "'And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, "'some mocked, they had hard hearts, "'and others said, well, hear thee again of this matter, "'they had kind of open hearts. "'So Paul departed from among them, "'howbeit certain men claimed unto him and believed, "'they had believing hearts. Among the witch was Dionysius the Arapagate and a woman named Damaris and others with them." Okay, some had hard hearts, some had open hearts, some had believing hearts. Now, hard hearts are made hard by unyielding to God when it comes to sin. John 3, 19 says, this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. All right, if I, and I say the vast majority of our day has hard hearts. I mean, you go and speak to them the truth of the word of God, that there is a God that loves them, that died on the cross for their sin, that he's creator, designer, that he desires to set them free from their sin and begins to name what that sin is. You know, a lot of them are like, forget you. They're gonna mock. There's other people that have open hearts. They're kind of like, well, maybe. Maybe, that's an open heart. I think an open heart is somebody that is weighing it and thinking about it. Hebrews 4.2 says, for unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. And I'd say this, somebody can have an open heart, but until they believe, they don't receive. Right, there's no profit yet. but they're thinking about it. Now it can go either way. They can either go hard-hearted, reject it, or they can open their heart and believe it, right? So the open-hearted person, I would say they're in the middle of that. And then there's the believing person. They're gonna get everything that God desires to give because they're gonna take it by faith. 1 John 5, 4 says, for whatsoever is born of God, overcome at the world, and this is the victory, that overcome at the world, even our faith. Faith is this, God, you said it, I believe it. And it is this as well, God forgive me because you are right and I am wrong, right? Some of that comes to that point, I mean, you're at the point of victory if you're at that point of yielding to God and say, God, I believe, and therefore I accept, and therefore I'm not gonna hold onto that. So I'm not gonna fight against you. As soon as we start to fight against God, we harden our heart. We'll see that tonight in our study of Proverbs, a great verse there about hardening our hearts. And so, what kind of a heart do you have today? As you think about it, you come to church, and praise God, you're here this morning, but do you have a hard heart? Is there anything in your heart that God is saying something and you're like, no. You know, pastor spoke about guarding our house from sin. I don't want to limit the telly. I just want whatever to be on the telly. I want on the telly. Well, you know, that's a hard heart because there's a lot of immorality. There's a lot of junk on the telly that dishonors God. And unless we're going to deal with that, we've got a hard heart, right? Cause we're not going to obey God in that. Right. I could have a, Open heart, well, maybe, maybe, you know, that's, maybe there is something to that, not just that, but everything. Maybe if God will convince me of it, I just, I'm weighing it in the balance and again, it can go either way, but, or do you have a believing heart? That would say, God, I accept it. I accept it. I take it because it's your word. It's your truth. I'm going to obey you in that. Saul didn't have that. Saul had a hard heart. And so he refused to open his heart to God. And the third thing I want us to consider is that only God's restraining grace kept Saul from great evil. Only God's restraining grace kept him from the sin of murder. And so verse 10, it says, and Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin, but he slipped away out of Saul's presence and he smote the javelin into the wall and David fled and escaped that night. Now, did Saul want to hit him? Yeah. Was Saul good with his weapons? Yeah, so who intervened? See, God intervened, and I know we could say, well, that was for David. God was being merciful to David, not allowing David to die and whatnot. I understand that, but God was also being merciful to who? Saul, because it's a very bad thing to commit the sin of murder. And so in God's grace, God prevented that. And yet, despite that, Saul refuses to give up his wicked lust to kill David, even though God in his restraining grace kept him from the evil that he intended to do. Yet, despite that, he's still pushing against God. And I want to say this, it's a sad thing when God intervenes in a man's life in a merciful way to prevent that man from great transgression, and yet that man continues to push on. Does that make sense? Now, I call this, and I think it would be properly called restraining grace. It's kind of like what the saying is, except by the grace of God, there go I. I see somebody falling into great transgression that I understand that it's only God's mercy that I haven't also fallen to that same sin. If a man be overtaken in a fall, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. And so there is a possibility that I could go down that path and I ought not look at somebody and say I would never do that because there's every chance in the world I would given the right circumstances. I pray God I never be put in a circumstance like that. Now praise God, God will never put us in circumstances beyond which we're able to bear. We've already talked about that. But why? Because God is restraining his grace. I'm sorry, he has restraining grace. Romans chapter one, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. How did he do that? By taking away his restraining grace. It's kind of like God says, all right, you want to have a hard heart against me? You want to have a hard heart against me? You've rejected me, you've rejected me, you've rejected me, okay, have your way. Have your way. You know what, I want to be somebody that when God stops me on a path of disobedience, that I go, whoa, God, thank you. And I'm gonna step back. Because I could've stepped over the edge. I could've fallen off a precipice that would've been very difficult to get back from, but God in his mercy kept me from going down that path. That's a great thing, God is a merciful God. Now I wanna illustrate that with the story of Balaam. Turn in your Bibles to Genesis, Exodus, Numbers. Leviticus, Numbers. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, fourth book. Numbers chapter 22. They're big books, so you have to go forward a little bit. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. In chapter 22, and it's the story of Balaam and Balak, okay, which is a little confusing. The king, Balak, king of Moab, desires Balaam, a prophet of God, to curse God's people, curse Israel. He's gonna try to get them to do that. Numbers 22, verse 12. And God said unto Balaam, thou shalt not go with them. Don't go with them, they want you to curse the people. Thou shalt not curse the people for they are blessed. In verse 13. And Balaam rose up in the morning and said unto the princes of Balak, get you into your land, for the Lord refuses to give me leave to go with you. And the princes of Moab rose up and they went unto Balak and said, Balaam refuses to come with us, verse 15. And Balak sent yet again princes more and more honorable than they. And they came to Balaam and said to him, thus saith Balak, the son of Zippor, let nothing I pray thee hinder thee from coming unto me. For I will promote thee unto very great honor, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me. Come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people. Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more. Now, therefore, I pray you, Terry, you also hear this night that I may know what the Lord will say unto me. God came unto Balaam at night and said unto him, if the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them. But yet the word which I shall say unto thee, thou shalt do. Okay, now, question, did God give him permission to go? Yes, but the permission is very limited, and he was not to fulfill what Balaam desired, and that's to curse the people of God. And so should he really have gone in a sense? And the answer is no. And notice what it says, verse 21, Balaam rose up in the morning, he saddled his donkey, he went with the princes of Moab, and God's anger was kindled because he went. And you might again think, why is God upset? God said he could go. Well apparently he's going but not as God intended. I mean it's obvious that somehow he's transgressed what God has said even though he's allowed to go yet in going he has disobeyed God. Now continue on in verse 22 in the middle. The angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him. This is Jesus pre-incarnate Now he was riding upon his donkey, and his two servants were with him. And the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand. And the donkey turned aside out of the way and went into the field. And Balaam smote the donkey to turn her into the way. Now listen, when you're on the path of rebellion against God and the way becomes difficult, what should you do? Go back. There's a reason it's difficult. There's a reason it's not easy. It's the mercy of God saying, no, don't do it, don't go there, don't have your way. And so God's trying to prevent something. Now, keep reading. The angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place, verse 26, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left. And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam and Balaam's anger was kindled and he smote the donkey with a staff. And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey. Okay, normally can a donkey talk? No, unless the creator designer allows the donkey to talk. And she said unto Balaam, what have I done unto thee that thou hast spent me these three times? And Balaam said unto the donkey, because thou hast mocked me, there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee. He's so upset, I guess he doesn't even realize he's speaking to a donkey. And the donkey said unto Balaam, Am not I thine donkey, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay. Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and the sword drawn in his hand. And he bowed down his head, and he fell flat on his face. And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine donkey these three times? Behold, I went out to withstand thee because thy way is perverse before me." Listen, if somebody gets off the path, is God going to do something about it? Yes. And when God does, that person ought to wake up, look and listen and say, I'm not going to go down this path because it's a path of disobedience against God. And so my point is this, and we got to conclude here because of time. My point is this, Saul didn't. Look at verse 11 in our text, if you have a finger there, I'll read it for you. It says, Saul also sent messengers unto David's house to watch him and to slay him in the morning. He misses him, but he doesn't give up. Because he is so set on his disobedience against God that he's gonna have that sin no matter what. And you know he's not gonna get it. God's not gonna allow him to get it. But he should have cut himself off from it. And so as we conclude with that, let's just think about it. How could Saul have had the victory? Well if he had Cut himself off from his sin, he wouldn't have gotten into greater sin. He should have had an open heart to God, because that music would have blessed his soul. He could have had revival, but he had a hard heart against God. And he should have responded. When God in his mercy allowed him to miss, he should have got on his face and said, God, I'm so sorry. I've tried to transgress against you again. Thank you for preventing me, and I yield. And so in those ways, all of us could have victory in our lives. if we will cut ourselves off, if we'll have a tender heart to God, an open heart, and if we will respond. When God in his mercy stops us, say, God, thank you, that's your mercy, let me respond to that. And Saul could have, but he didn't. And so we learn from the life of the failure of Saul this morning. Let's pray. Father, may the spirit of God speak to our hearts. Now, there might be things that we really need to do, like get rid of some DVDs, turn off some channels, block some channels, get some safety, internet safety on our phone, get some internet accountability with our devices, turn the internet off at night, or things like that. I mean, Father, Satan is very, Much a deceiver. He's gonna try to get people to go down a path of disobedience against God. It's not gonna work It's not to life. It's to death And father I pray that we would not be so foolish that knowing we have a problem with anger. We sit around with javelins in our hands And so spirit of God give us grace make sure that we deal with sin cut ourselves off And then yield as you graciously work in our lives so that we could be everything that we ought to be For God and for God's glory is in Christ and we pray. Amen