2 Samuel Chapter 23:1-10

You can try to walk alone in this life. And friend, even with the Lord, if you're walking alone, there's only so much that you're going to accomplish by yourself. But when you've got God leading you, and then you begin to develop a team around you, you can accomplish a lot more working with others. To accomplish great things, we need one another. God helps us to grow through other people.

Iron, sharpening iron. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee, senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today, Pastor David's teaching through 2 Samuel chapter 23, and we have as our guest in the studio, one of David McGee's associate pastors. Welcome, D.A.

Hey, Bob. We want to take just a minute to pray for some cities in our listening audience. In California, we have Bellevue, Sonora, Blythe, Borrego Springs, Burney, Byron, and Caliente. God, we thank you for these cities, and we pray that many will tune in today. We pray if there are some who are sick and going through some battles, that you would please heal them, Father. God, we pray that many would put their trust in you today for their eternal salvation. We pray that these cities would get excited about following you, and we pray for these churches and pastors that they would fill up, Lord, that they would apply your word in their hearts, and that many others will be impacted in these cities through that teaching. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen, brother. This is great to pray for one another, and thank you, listeners, for praying along with Pastor D.A.

D.A., what are some of the things that we want to take away from today's teaching in 2 Samuel chapter 23? Bob, the Bible clearly shows us that we are many members but one body. Pastor Dave is going to remind us today to do big things for God.

We need everyone involved. I agree, and if someone is just wanting to sit on the sidelines and be a spectator Christian, is that acceptable? Bob, you've been given gifts that I don't have, and God has given me gifts that you don't have. And we need both of us using our gifts together to reach as many people as possible for God's glory.

Well, that sounds challenging, but at the same time, it would be awesome to be able to be used by God along with other brothers and sisters in the ministry. So let's listen as David McGee teaches verse by verse through 2 Samuel chapter 23. We're looking at the life of David, and we're kind of—a couple of these things are a little bit out of sequence, like we talked about last week.

David's life is coming to a close, and it's an awesome thing. David is an incredible warrior, incredible leader, incredible man of God, and yet he was not perfect. And Scripture records that he was not perfect.

And that's one of the things that I really enjoy about the Bible is that it doesn't leave the faults and the frailties and the weaknesses of the people that it writes about out. 2 Samuel chapter 23 verse 1 says, Now these are the last words of David. And thus says David the son of Jesse. Thus says the man raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel.

That's kind of interesting in his description here. It says David the son of Jesse. Let's remember, it wasn't a well-to-do family.

It was a family of shepherds. And when he says that and then he follows it up with thus says the man raised up on high. Also, you know, David's kind of reminding us that God is the one who raised him up. And that's important to understand that it's always God who raises people up and blesses them. When you see somebody raised up in the leadership and when you see somebody being blessed, understand that's the Lord doing it. And sometimes you can't understand why God would choose this person or why God would bless that person. But let's understand that it is the Lord that's blessing. We tend to think of God as this dream crusher in the sense that, you know, if you hate the cold, God's going to send you to Alaska. If you hate the heat, he's going to send you somewhere near the equator to minister. It's always, well, you know, if I give my life to God, he's going to make me do the thing that I absolutely hate and abhor.

And nothing could be further from the truth. There's an interesting verse that says God will give you the desires of your heart. Now I've heard people teach that what that verse means is that anything that your heart desires, God will give that to you.

I don't believe that was the intended meaning. I believe the intended meaning is God will put desires in your heart. And then when you step out and begin to serve the Lord, he'll give a place for those desires to gain fruit.

And I think God far from being a dream crusher is actually the one that brings dreams to pass even beyond what you could think or imagine is what the Bible tells us. And we think of David, could David have ever imagined as a shepherd boy discounted by his father, by his older brothers out in the field by himself singing his songs. Could he ever imagine that God would take him and anoint him to be King over Israel and to be of the eternal lineage of Jesus Christ.

It's incredible, incredible story beyond what we can ask her thing. Verse two, the spirit of the Lord spoke by me and his word was on my tongue. So David is saying here, he is claiming the anointing of the Holy Spirit or saying that his writings are divinely inspired. Now, not only does David say that, but Jesus Christ actually says that in Mark chapter 12 verse 36. Jesus is speaking, he says, for David himself said by the Holy Spirit, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. So David was anointed of the Holy Spirit. That means that the writings of David are anointed by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus says they were anointed by the Holy Spirit and we need to understand that the Bible claims to be the divinely inspired word of God. So either you believe that or you don't. Either you're a Christian and a follower of Jesus and you believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God or you don't believe any of it. You discount Jesus as the son of God, as the savior of the world, and you can say the Bible is not the divinely inspired word of God. That is your choice. But, but let's understand for somebody to say that I am a Christian, but I do not believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God.

I'm sorry, that option is not up to you. You are either a follower of Jesus Christ and you believe the Bible to be what it claims to be, or you're not a follower of Jesus Christ and therefore it is your choice. Now, let me encourage you not to make this decision based upon what you see on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel, because I'm always talking to people, you know, speaking with somebody in the family, you know, who had seen this gospel of Judas or what, you know, and it's just like, no, no, no, no, no, no, time out, wait a minute, you know, you have to explain these things. But this Bible does claim to be the very word of God. Was it written by men?

Absolutely. Men who were inspired by the word of God, they were, if you will, they were pen in the hands of the divine author. As a matter of fact, when the Bible speaks of being inspired by God, the English doesn't do it justice.

The Greek is theonostos. It's actually God breathed and formed his word. That's why we take such time to talk about the word of God and teach the word of God. Because it's kind of interesting, you know, some churches say, oh, absolutely, the Bible is the divine inspired word of God, and we're going to spend about three minutes a week on it during our services.

It's like, no, no, no, no, if it is what it is, we should take time and dig into it. And I believe it is the word of God. There's just no way that all the prophecies that have come to pass could have come to pass if it was not the inspired word of God.

You probably won't see that one on the Discovery Channel. But there's simply no way. There was a mathematician who looked at the odds of the prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus Christ in his life. And he started figuring the statistical odds of these things come to pass. And there's the issue of compound probabilities.

It's a complicated word, but it's real simple. You know, if I said how many left handed people in here, that would be one percentage of people. And then I would say, okay, how many left handed people born on a Thursday, then I've introduced a compound probability, and it's going to reduce the odds of people who were left handed, born on a Thursday, first letter of their name is a name, etc.

Every time you introduce something, you reduce the odds of it actually occurring. Well, he started studying the odds of Jesus Christ fulfilling all these prophecies. And he came out with some staggering numbers. I mean, just for Jesus Christ to fulfill like 32 separate prophecies, the odds are astronomical.

Astronomical to the point that it would be like covering the entire state of Texas two feet deep in coins. And for a blind person on the very first try to pick out one coin in the midst of the sea of the state of Texas, that's 32 prophecies. Jesus fulfilled over 300 separate and distinct prophecies. How do you explain that? If you say, well, this is just a book, a collection of folk tales and fairy tales and stuff. It's interesting because a lot of people think, well, you don't believe the Bible.

You just got to cut your brain off and quit thinking. No, absolutely not. Actually, in order to not believe the Bible, you really have to not be willing to look at the evidence, which is staggering that this book is indeed the word of God that has stood the test of time. Amen. Verse three, the God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spoke to me. He who rules over men must be just ruling and the fear of God. Spiritual leaders have to be led by God, have to be led by God. Nothing is more dangerous than a spiritual leader who's not in submission to God or into those who God has an authority.

And there has to end a leader. There has to, especially spiritually, or there has to be a fear of God that's much stronger than any fear of man, because at the end of this life, spiritual leaders have to answer to God, a respect for people, but not a fear of people, a fear of God. And understand too, I believe all leaders should have a fear of God, not only spiritual leaders, but also political leaders. And I think this is the number one thing that if you consider yourself a Christian, that you think about and look at when you're considering who to vote for, not whether they agree with you on every policy, but does the person actually have a fear and a knowledge of God? Obviously, the anointing of God was on David, and you should never actually even follow a leader until you recognize that the hand of God is upon the person, the anointing of God is on the person. Then when you begin to follow him, follow him with all your heart, because God is obviously doing something. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be back with more in just a moment. But first, if you haven't been to our website at crossthebridge.com yet, what are you waiting for? Go to crossthebridge.com to learn more about how listeners like you are helping get the life-changing truth of God's word to more people through the radio, internet, and mobile technologies. At crossthebridge.com, you can also check out our broadcast schedule, listen to more teaching from Pastor David, and sign up for Pastor David's free daily devotional, and there's more there too, so visit crossthebridge.com today. Now, here's Pastor David as he continues sharing verse by verse. Verse 4. And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, like the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.

That's interesting. This verse mentions the sun and the rain. And what brings blessing? Sun and the rain. What do we like? We like the sun. We don't like the rain, do we?

I just want the sun to shine. It's an amazing, you know, even when we go through periods of drought and we don't have any rain and then it rains and you go out and you're talking to people, how you doing? Oh, I'm bummed out it's raining. Well, I mean, I know it's a drought and everything. I'm thankful, but you know, it's still raining. It's kind of interesting. See, there's this part of us that thinks that we want to live all the time in sunshine, but we can't grow like that.

We cannot grow. I love visiting places like San Diego where it hardly ever rains and the median temperature year round is like 72 degrees. That's why there's so many people out there. But when you're out there, and I've spent some time in Southern California, you know what? I miss the seasons. There's never really like a fall where all the leaves fall off the tree and they get colored and it gets cold.

It doesn't happen. See, I know that we would all prefer to have sunshine all the time, but if you have sunshine all the time, friend, you're not going to grow. Plants don't grow when there's sunshine all the time. There has to be rain. What does that mean to you? Well, sometimes things aren't going to go like you expect them to. They're going to take a decidedly different turn than you think they were going to and consider that a little rain falling in your life. And it's an opportunity for you to grow when the rain falls because without rain, without the challenges like that, you'll never grow. Verse five, although my house is not so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and secure for this is all my salvation and all my desire. Will he not make it increase?

This is an incredible thing. Everlasting covenant. David is speaking here of what we call the Davidic covenant, the covenant that God made with David and that covenant was a couple of things. The promise of a son, the promise of a son who would build a temple that his descendants would reign and endure forever.

Now didn't necessarily mean that they would always be sitting on the throne. As we get more into the history of Israel, we're going to see that ultimately that David's offspring were no longer physically on the throne of Israel. But then what we see is in the lineage of David comes Jesus Christ who will indeed rule and reign forevermore. Now this everlasting covenant, what was it based on? Was it based on the goodness of David? Was it based upon the moral purity of David?

No. It was based on those things. It would have been blown when David blew it. It's based on the blessing and the goodness of God and the purity of God. This is part of the beauty of the covenants of God. We need to understand covenants and covenants with God and covenants of God. Because one of the things I frequently hear is people say, well, God's no longer in covenant with Israel because Israel was disobedient and they don't understand the implications of that thought. Now that type of mentality is called replacement theology and that God has finished totally with Israel and he has totally replaced all the promises that he had to Israel.

Now those promises are extended towards the church and the church alone. Problem is you really have no scriptural backing for that. You go into the book of Romans and you read that Paul says absolutely God has not broken his covenant with Israel. But here's the real problem to a believer and a follower of Jesus Christ is you're saying, look, if you act up somewhat, God was going to break his covenant with you. Is that the kind of God that you follow and have a relationship with?

No. See, because what that leads you quickly into is a great religiosity and a performance-based Christianity that, you know, when you're doing good and your life is perfect and everything is hunky-dory, then God loves you. But the moment you step out of line, you mess up, bam, God now hates you and is waiting to put you in the microwave. That's not the kind of God that I serve and have a relationship with. Now, to be honest, that's the kind of God I perceived him to be for a long time. And then I really started reading the Bible and seeing time after time in the Bible God being portrayed as a God of mercy and a God of grace. And I saw something else when God made his covenant with Abraham, did an interesting thing.

And you have to read it carefully to see this. What they would do is they would take animals and they would cut them in half and then they would walk between the animals. And the covenant was a Hebraic covenant and saying, you know what? So shall we be, or you be, if I break covenant with you, I should be separated.

I should be cut in half. And when God made this covenant with Abraham, it's interesting because God and Abraham did not walk between the animals, only God did. What's the significance? It's a one sided covenant, if you will. That's hard for us to understand, but God made a covenant with Abraham. God made a covenant with Israel. God desires to make a covenant with us. And the moment we mess up, God doesn't say, well, that's it, the covenant's over. You're looking at a verse. If God was going to break covenant, he would have broke covenant with David over his adultery, over his murder, over the conspiracy.

But he never broke the covenant, an everlasting covenant. He calls it in here. It's an amazing thing. Why is that important for us to understand? Because friend, sooner or later, you will blow it.

You will blow it. You know, if you're sitting in here and you've only been saved for a couple of days and you think that you're never going to blow it again, it's going to happen. And I think a lot of times we talk in Christian circles about how to stand. And we should talk about how to stand, but we should also talk about how to fall and what happens when we fall and what to do after we fall.

Because a lot of times if we don't talk about that, when you do fall, you go, I don't know what I do now. I know what I do when I'm standing. I know what I'm supposed to do, but I'm not doing that now. Now I'm face down in the mud. What do I do?

Nobody's ever told me what to do. And the book of Proverbs says the righteous man, though he falls seven times, gets back up. I remember reading that verse and go, whoa, time out. The righteous man falls seven times, seven and being indicative of a perpetual number. How can somebody be righteous and yet fall? He gets back up again. Peter got back up again.

David got back up again. Neverlasting covenant that rests in the hands of our Lord. And it's safer there than anywhere else. Verse six, but the sons of rebellion shall all be as thorns thrust away because they cannot be taken with hands. But the man who touches them must be armed with iron and the shaft of a spear and they shall be utterly burned with fire in their place.

Strong words. Those who are rebellious will live an unstable life. And you certainly can see that when people don't have the Lord and maybe they've got stuff, maybe they've got things, but they're living an unstable life because they don't have that rock and that shelter and that foundation of the Lord. So now we will talk about the mighty men as David is talking about them at verse eight. These are the names of the mighty men whom David had. Josheph, Bathshebeth, the Tachmonite, chief among the captains.

He was called Adino the Esnite because he had killed 800 men at one time. So these are the mighty men where they are, um, may have been David's personal bodyguard. They may have been kind of as elite, you know, Ninja hit squad or something, or they might have been both, I don't know, but they were gathered around David. And what's interesting too is we kind of see in scripture the way they started gathering around David when he was on the run from Saul. And it says those who joined with David were those who were in distress and in debt and on the run. It's kind of interesting. They were kind of dissatisfied with life and then they started following David.

And you know what? That's something that I find in people who are passionate about Jesus, passionate about following Jesus, passionate about the Lord. There is kind of a, there's a dissatisfaction with the things of this world. You know, you just get to that point where, you know, you think, well, if this happens and everything will be hunky dory and I'll be totally happy. And then for a lot of us, we get to that point where that happens. We go, wow, that's nothing. This is not what I thought it would be.

And there's a dissatisfaction with this. This can't be what life is all about. And one of the greatest things you can pray is that somebody gets to that point.

Now, if you're a Christian in here tonight, understand, and I know we make the statement, but it's really a dangerous statement. When we say I'll be happy when blank, I'll be happy when I get that new job, I'll be happy when I get that promotion, I'll be happy when I get that new car, I'll be happy when I get that new house, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Cause you know what happened, friend? You'll get those things and guess what? You won't get happy. As a matter of fact, what you're doing is you're barring the mentality of the world and saying what it really takes for me to be happy is this little thing to happen or that little thing to happen. Now understand what you're saying to God in that moment. God, thank you for loving me unconditionally. Thank you for being willing to forgive me of all my sin. Thank you for desiring a relationship with me. But God, if I just had that V8 Mustang, then it would really complete me as a person.

You hear what that sounds like? See, there's part of us that should go, I want more than this out of life. Because when you start asking that question and you realize, you know what, there's a lot more to life than what you see on the television or what you read about in the newspaper. A holy dissatisfaction with all that stuff will cause you to passionately begin to follow the Lord as you realize that's really the important stuff.

Wanting something more. After him was Eliezer, the son of Dodo, the Elohite, one of the three mighty men with David. When they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle and the men of Israel had retreated, he arose and attacked the Philistines until his hand was weary and his hand stuck to the sword. The Lord brought about a great victory that day and the people returned after him only to plunder. So these are great stories.

They're interesting stories. And it's interesting, this phrase, and his hand stuck to the sword. Literally in the Hebrew, he wasn't sure where his hand stopped and the sword began as he was fighting. And you know what, what we're going to see as we read down this list, we're going to see that David had some really great people around him. He had some really strong people around him. And I think that's important. That's something I've certainly have learned, am learning as a, I'm a spiritual leader here is to develop a team. You can try to walk alone in this life and friend, even with the Lord, if you're walking alone, there's only so much that you're going to accomplish by yourself. But when you've got God leading you and then you begin to develop a team around you, you can accomplish a lot more working with others. It seems like sometimes we take this Christian independence that we don't need anybody else.

And I understand spiritually. That perhaps is true in that you can go directly to Jesus Christ, but to arrogantly think you don't need the church, you don't need Bible studies. You don't need to worship in a corporate setting with other brothers and sisters. That's not independence.

That's not confidence in God that borders on arrogance. God created us that we need one another, the life lesson here to accomplish great things. We need one another to accomplish great things.

We need one another. You know, there's a team approach to ministry here. We have a great team. We have a great team of staff members. We have a great team of pastors. I have a great team of elders, great team of deacons.

And I think sometimes we slip into this. Well, I just need God. I don't need people. Well, actually you do need people because God helps us to grow through other people.

Iron sharpening iron. So you've got people in your life. Well, let's use the sunshine and the rain thing.

You've got people in your life that are sunshine and you also have some people in your life that are rain and they are both causing you to grow. And that's what happens in the body of Christ. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. That sounds good, Pastor D.A.

And again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's Home Church, The Bridge in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com.

Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. And thank you for listening. We hope you'll join us again next time as we continue studying verse by verse through Second Samuel.