Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.
Let me ask you this question. Have you ever come to grips with how difficult you are to live with? By the way, that would be, I would love to hear that someday. All these decades of counseling never heard it. Come in for marriage counseling and the first person says, before we start, I want to tell my husband or my wife and you just how difficult I am to live with. But I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've heard, you know how difficult they are to live with. You see, that's a destroyer.
A destroyer has this ability just to pass it off. It's all their fault. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.
Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. The stakes for forgiveness and being forgiven are enormously high. On the eternal plane, to not accept the forgiveness that God offers us through the person and finished work of Jesus Christ has unthinkable consequences.
On the temporal plane, to try to live a life that is not filled with being forgiven and offering forgiveness can leave you alone and bitter. And science says there's even a lot more to it than that. Researchers have documented that unforgiving people or unforgiving people have higher rates of stress related disorders. They have higher rates of cardiovascular disease. They have higher rates of clinical depression, as well as a lower immune system function. They commit more crimes. They have higher divorce rates.
And they're more likely to become alcohol and drug dependent. There's a lot at stake when it comes to forgiveness. Forgiveness is an inescapable subject. Virtually all of us have been at one time or another in our lives betrayed. We've had broken promises. The breaking of confidences.
Personal rejection, false accusations, physical and or emotional abuse. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but I have. Some people are harder to forgive than others.
They are. Some people are like repeat offenders. They no matter how many times you forgive them, they just go right back to it. And then there's another group of people that seem to be completely unaware of the carnage that is all around them because of their actions.
I want to look at two examples of those kind of people this morning. I'm going to call them destroyers and spear throwers. So let's look at a destroyer first. Open your Bibles to Genesis Chapter four.
Genesis Chapter four. As you're finding the spot, let me say a few things about what I call destroyers. One is they're found everywhere. They're found in Christian homes. They're found in churches. They're found in the office.
They're found in the schoolroom. There are destroyers everywhere. They may be pleasant, charming, helpful. But if they feel that their image or their authority or their opinion is being attacked, they will try to destroy anybody who stands in their path.
They are obsessed with self-protection, self-absorption, and almost never do they feel guilt. Let's look at the destroyer Cain. Now, the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have begotten a man child with the help of the Lord. And she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of the flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And so it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. And Abel, in his part, also brought the first things of the flock of their fat portions. Up to that point, this is a happy story that Adam and Eve, you have two boys. You have Cain and you have Abel. One's a tiller of the ground, a farmer. The other's a rancher. You know, you have these both of them are making offerings.
Everything at this stage seems to be very, very happy. But then something happens at the end of verse four. It says the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering. But for Cain and for his offering, he had no regard. Now, that has brought about all kinds of speculation. What happened?
What went on? A lot of commentators and they may be right, have said, well, the idea is, is that Abel made an offering of blood, an animal sacrifice, which was required. And Cain decided just to make an offering of grain from which he had killed from the ground. And that may be true, but the text doesn't say that. And when you get to the mosaic law, there are plenty of offerings you can make as grain offerings.
So I don't know if that's necessarily it at all. In Hebrews Chapter 11, the writer of Hebrews says, by faith, Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. You see, I think the issue is more in Cain than in the sacrifice. I believe that Cain is already displaying a really terrible attitude. That Cain is already becoming the destroyer that he will soon make evident. This doesn't happen to Cain in just one day. This is something that has spent time with Cain.
Now, notice what happens. Cain's response. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Cain becomes extremely angry. And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen?
Now, I want you to see something here. We know one answer to the why question, by the way. Cain can't blame peer pressure. It's just I mean, you're going to go hang out, you're just going to hang out with your brother.
That's it. There's something else about Cain here, though. He said the greatest counselor that ever existed.
This is a rare instance. Who's his counselor? God. I mean, if you're doing something that's not quite right and you're going to get counsel, who better than have God give you the counsel?
And that's what he gets. He gets God. And God says to him, Why does that happen? And then God gives him what I'd call nuthetic counseling. God says, Look, we can straighten this out. He says in verse seven, If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? He says, And if you do not do well, here's the warning. Sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you. You've got to master it. There it is.
Diagnosis, prognosis. It's all there. Cain, you've got to do better than this. You see, there's something going on inside of Cain. One of the things about the story is one of their characteristics is they often refuse counsel. If you've ever tried to counsel a destroyer, you get nowhere. And the reason for that is, is that they're really not at all interested in truth. They're only interested in their perspective and they'll do anything to defend it. But they're not interested in truth.
And so when you think, oh, I'll give them some insight, I'll give them some truth and everything will go well. It doesn't. So God tells Cain exactly what has to happen here.
It's interesting, though, in the warning. He says sin is crouching at the door and it has a desire for you. The word crouching is the word ribbits, and the word ribbits is not even Hebrew. The word is Akkadian.
Very unusual word. And in fact, in the Akkadian language, every time it's translated in Akkadian, it's translated demon. So some of the older Jewish translations of the Old Testament say translate the phrase this way. Sin is the demon at the door.
Now, obviously, somebody else has stake in sowing discord in this family. We know it's Lucifer because Lucifer has been told just a chapter or two earlier that the seat of the woman is going to be his destruction. And so consequently, he wants to try to kill off Cain. And you can see hold your place here and go to the end of the Bible. First John Chapter three. And John gives us some insight. First John Chapter three. And just the verses 11 and 12.
Notice what John writes. He says, For this is the message which we have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain. Who was of the evil one and slew his brother.
And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous. So John gives us some real insight there.
There is a spiritual element here. He said he is of the evil one. And what is he so upset about? It's his it's his deeds. It's his life. His brother was righteous. He's not. He's evil. And when that happens to a destroyer, he always lashes out. You see, what is Cain's no matter how you look at this story, what is Cain's real issue here?
Well, I think Cain is basically with Sinatra. He said, I'm going to do it my way. You know, I'm just going to do it my way. I'm sure God was very specific with what he wanted done and how he wanted it done. And he said, I'll ignore that.
I'm just going to do things my way. The destroyer almost always refuses any kind of counsel. He's not interested in the truth.
He also avoids responsibility. What's what happens now? Cain told Abel his brother.
Now, I don't know if you've seen that there before. He talked to Abel about it. What did he talk to him about? I don't know.
Scripture doesn't say, but I can speculate. I think typical of a destroyer, he's victimizing himself. You know what God said to me? God loved what you did.
He hated what I did. And by the way, destroyers love to victimize themselves. They love to be the victim. They're the victim of everybody. They're the victim of their parents. They're the victim of their spouse. They're the victim of the workplace. They're the victim of the neighborhood. They're the victim of family and friends. They're victims. And he said so he tells them, but notice the response.
And when it came about that they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and he kills them. Like, wow. Well, his thought is, look, I don't look that good before God right now. And the reason is you. You look good. You make me look bad.
I'll eliminate you. And he does so. But watch this. See, because, watch how he avoids the responsibility. And the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know.
Am I my brother's keeper? Now, did you think about that for a moment? How many people are on the planet? There's three people. There's just three people. Now, you don't think you know where your mom, dad and brother are? He goes, I don't know. He said, I have no idea where he's at. By the way, destroyers will lie to get their way. And that hurts as well. God says to him, what have you done? He said, the voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground. You see, the destroyer always refuses to take responsibility.
And by the way, when you're trying to do counseling with an explorer, especially marriage counseling, there's nothing you can do. Because from their point of view, it's all their fault. You see, it's all their fault. Not my fault. It's all their fault. That's the reason these things are so terrible. Now, they don't have to kill this spouse.
All they have to do is divorce them. And I'll get somebody else. But you know what? There's a biblical principle. No matter where you go, there you are.
You see, there you are. And so they end up to be repeat offenders. And they still never want to take responsibility for it. Destroyers refuse counsel. They avoid responsibility.
And they are completely self-absorbed. Notice what happens now. He says, God says you are cursing the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. And when you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you.
And you shall be a vagrant and a wonder on the earth. Now, what's the response? Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is too great to bear. He committed Capital One murder. Think of any defense attorney in America. You have somebody who has been guilty of Capital One murder and you're able to plea bargain that he's going to have a tough time growing crops and then wander around. Does that sound like a pretty good sentence?
Does that sound lenient to you at all? It didn't to him. Danny, you think he would have been doing the dance of joy. You would have thought he would have been elated with that. He goes, this is just too much for me to bear. He never even mentions any remorse or guilt about his brother. Notice there's no sorrow. There's no repentance.
There's nothing like that because he doesn't feel guilt. My punishment is too great to bear. He says, behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground and from your face I shall be hidden and I shall be a vagrant and a wonder on the earth. And it will come about that whoever finds me will kill me. I must think about that a minute. How long is that going to take?
There's just mom and dad and me. Now, there's clearly that are going to live for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, and there's going to be countless people born in all those generations. But how far down the road could that be? And that's what he's upset about. As I wander around as a vagrant, 250, 450 years from now, someone might kill me. He never even mentions he just killed his brother. That's the way destroyers are.
Refuse counsel, avoid responsibility, and they are completely self-absorbed. Now, I realize that you're not likely to kill someone. But I sort of spring off of the words of Jesus, if you've ever had anger in your heart, you are murder.
And we've all done that. And so is there any of the destroyer in you? Let me ask you a few questions and you can answer them for yourself. Do you have a difficult time accepting the truth about you?
Someone sits down with you and says, I want to tell you the truth about you. Do you have a difficult time accepting that? Because if you do, you got a little destroyer in you. You see, you don't want to hear the truth. Secondly, for you is accepting advice completely off the table when it comes to making choices. You don't ask for counsel. You just go and do what you're going to do.
You make your own choices no matter what. You see, that means we could be destroyers. Now, we don't destroy by murdering our brother in the field. We destroy with our words. We destroy with our attitude. We destroy with a critical spirit. We destroy. We lash out.
We hurt. Let me ask you this question. Have you ever come to grips with how difficult you are to live with? By the way, that would be I would love to hear that someday. All these decades of counseling never heard it come in for marriage counseling and the first person says, before we start, I want to tell my husband or my wife and you just how difficult I am to live with.
But I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've heard, you know how difficult they are to live with. You see, that's a destroyer. The destroyer has this ability just to pass it off. It's all their fault. There's a lot of lessons here we can learn. There's a sidebar lesson in this. And it's right in the words of the Lord there. Either you will master sin or sin will master you.
You see, and once you go down this road, it's a very slippery slope. Steve Gallagher wrote these really, I think, clear words when it comes to what sin is like in our lives when we accept it. People are prone to overlook their deeply embedded sin because it has an extremely deceptive nature. There exists an interesting correlation between a person's involvement with sin and his or her awareness of it. The more a person becomes involved in sin, the less they see it. Sin is a hideous disease that destroys the person's ability to comprehend its existence.
It could be compared to a computer virus that has the ability to hide its presence from the user while systematically destroying the hard drive. Typically, those who are most entangled in sin are the very ones who cannot see its presence at work inside them. Sin has the ability to mask itself so well that it can actually make a person who deals with it the least think they are the most spiritual. That's what sin can do.
It's self deceptive. And that's exactly what happened to Cain. And he became a destroyer. Now I'd like you to meet a spear thrower. Now let me just say what a spear thrower is. Spear throwers are people who love to intimidate you. The modern day term for a spear thrower would be bully. A spear thrower is a person that likes to see you squirm. And even spear throwers look mighty impressive on the surface. Open your Bibles or turning your Bibles to First Samuel chapter nine, verse two. And I'd like to introduce you to Saul, a spear thrower. And by the way, you might be surprised how impressive he is. Saul is one of those guys that just gets a lot of bad ink.
He doesn't have a very good publicity agent. And so in light of Saul and David, everyone thinks, well, Saul's just the rat and only a rat. And David's wonderful and only wonderful. And by the way, when you read the scriptures, neither exactly true. But Saul was pretty impressive. Chapter nine, verse one. There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish. Now, verse two, he had a son whose name was Saul. Now we're going to get a biblical description of him. A choice and handsome man. So that's the first thing you know about him. He is a choice and handsome man. There aren't a lot of men in scripture described as handsome. Maybe that's because there aren't a lot of men there are.
I don't know. But he is. Now, he says, there was not a more handsome person than he among the sons of Israel.
This guy is that. He is drop dead gorgeous. No one's more handsome.
And that's God's opinion. And he says from his shoulders and up, he was taller than any of the people. So he is the tall statue of masculinity.
Handsome. That's who he is. But it's not done yet. Look at verse 17 of Chapter nine. When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said to him, behold, the man whom I spoke to you, this one will rule over my people. Chapter 10, verse one. When Samuel took out a flask of oil and he poured it on his head and he kissed him and he said, has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance? Saul's king, he's anointed by God to be king, tall, handsome, anointed by God.
And he's still not done. Look at verse six of Chapter 10. Then the spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily and you shall prophesy with them the other prophets and be changed into another man. It shall be that when these signs come to you, he says, do for yourself what the occasion requires for God is with you.
Verse 10. And when they came up the hill, behold, a group of prophets met him and the spirit of God came upon him mightily and that he prophesied among them. God has given him the gift of prophecy like the other prophets in Israel. And so this is a tall, handsome man anointed by God to be king of the people. And he has this incredible, unusual gift of prophecy. But typical of people who are spear throwers, what you see is not what you get. Typical of people who are bullies, what you see is not what you get.
No matter how impressive they look on the outside, there's something wrong inside. There's a deficiency and Saul has it. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org, that's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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