Life Around "The Fire"
This podcast is dedicated to those wanting to experience a living and real relationship with God as well as growing together in love for one another. We consider that to be a true sign of spiritual growth as we journey along The Way. If this is you then come along with us as we co-operate with God in what He is doing around the corner and around the world!
Life Around "The Fire"
Trevor McMahan, Perspective Changes Everything: What Saul, The Amalekites, And David Teach Us About God’s Justice
Obedience sounds simple until fear, pressure, and convenience crowd the soul. We sit down with Trevor McMahan to examine why “obedience is better than sacrifice,” how Saul’s half-measures cost him favor, and why David refused to strike a fallen king. Through the story of the Amalekites and the ripple effects into the book of Esther, we unpack the law of sowing and reaping, the difference between gifts and favor, and the quiet wisdom of honoring God’s timing. It’s a timely call to resist outrage culture, stop platforming division, and choose the harder path of unity and prayer.
Trevor shares how divination isn’t just sorcery—it’s trusting any voice over God’s voice. That lens reframes leadership failures, our response to messy churches, and the temptation to weaponize discernment. We explore why leaving an unhealthy environment doesn’t require burning it down, why God can still work through imperfect vessels, and how a heart like David’s protects calling without compromising truth. Expect scripture, context, and a practical, pastoral tone that aims to heal rather than hype.
We also step into the tender ground of suicide—naming the lying voice, rejecting the myth of an unpardonable label, and speaking directly to anyone standing on the edge. Trevor offers a grounded testimony from street outreach and a prayer for freedom, worth, and life. If enemies once held a corner on iron, God held a corner on David; that same hope meets every listener who feels outmatched today. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs courage, and leave a review to help others find a lifeline. Then tell us: where is God inviting you to choose obedience, unity, and hope this week?
Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!
Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearoundthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.
Shalom to you and your home.
Howdy folks, I want to welcome you back to another episode of Life Around the Fire. And today in our studio, we have a real treat, man. This is one of my favorite teachers, preachers that I've come across recently. And he is here live with us today. And his name is Trevor McMahon. And we've gotten to know each other over the course of the past year. Feels like I've known him longer. And that's one of those things, kind of a koin and near relationship, a real common bond. And I'm really thankful for him. And he's become a regular and is going to remain a regular on Life on the Fire. And so today he's going to be picking up from Matthew chapter 15 and covering chapter 16. It's going to be a two-part message today. So, Trevor, welcome back, brother. And I don't need to say any more. You just go ahead and have out. You have free reign, bro.
SPEAKER_01:Amen.
SPEAKER_00:All right.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, thank you, my brother David. I say my brother, I mean my friend of my brother David, who I love deeply and I appreciate. I want to start today in 1 Samuel 15, but before I do, I want to speak about perspective. Because perspective truly changes everything. Through this life that we live, it's a fallen world, and everything in this world tries to conform us to that fallenness. But God has made it different. Now in the Old Testament, they didn't really have that perspective, so we have the ability to look back and try to see what God was trying to do in the mess that was going on. And so I want to start off with the verse Galatians 6 7. It says, Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reapeth. That is so powerful to think about. And whenever you look through that lens, that God is judged, that God is not mocked. You cannot mock God, that whatever you sow, that whatever you plant a seed, whatever that seed is, that that seed will make a harvest. And so I want to look at that through the lens of God as judge and start off in uh 1 Samuel 15. But before we get there, I want to tell you a little bit about the Amalekites. The Amalekites, a lot of people try to say, like, oh man, God's not just. How could he say to wipe out every man, woman, and child and all the beasts? But like that's so crazy. But the Amalekites, they were distant relatives to Israel. In fact, they are descendants of Esau, Jacob, or Israel's twin brother. Whenever Israel was weak and at first came out of the bondages of Egypt, they had not really formed a military strategy. They really didn't have any weapons, and they were wandering in the wilderness. And the Amalekites, their relatives, were charging from behind and killing them and st and plundering what they had. In Deuteronomy 25, 17 through 19, it says that never forget what the Amalekites did to you as you came from Egypt. They attacked you when you were exhausted and wearied, and they struck down those who were straggling behind. They had no fear of God. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies in the land, he has given you a special possession, you must destroy the Amalekites and erase their memory from under heaven. Hold on, he says, Never forget this. And so the Amalekites were planting seeds of destruction. They were attacking God's people when God's people were weak. And God took note of this. He said, Hey, there will be a harvest coming for the Amalekites. So let's turn over to 1 Samuel chapter 15 now. And we're going to start off in verse 16. It says, Then Samuel said to Saul, Stop, listen to what the Lord told me last night. What did he tell you? Saul asked. And Samuel told him, Although you may think little of yourself, are you not the leader of the tribes of Israel? The Lord has anointed you king of Israel, and the Lord sent you on a mission and told you, go and completely destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are all dead. Sound familiar? Why haven't you obeyed the Lord? Why did you rush for the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord's sight? But I did obey the Lord, Saul insisted. I carried out the mission he gave me. I brought back King Akag, and I destroyed everyone else. Then my troops brought in the best of the sheep, goats, cattle, and plunder to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. But Samuel replied, What is more pleasing to the Lord, your burnt offerings and sacrifices? Or your obedience to his voice? Listen, obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness is as bad as worshipping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you. Wow. Wow. He says, Because you have rejected the commands of the Lord, he has rejected you. I want to put the lens of the New Testament on top of this. And so in Romans chapter 11, verse 29, it says, For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. Psalms 105.15 talks about for saying, Touch not my anointing, and do my prophets no harm. So even though Saul had stepped out of favor with the Lord, now I want to point out that this is what happened. So God had anointed Saul as king. So God did not remove that anointing. When it says that he rejected Saul, he didn't remove his gift because it says the gifts and the callings of God are without repentance. So Saul remained king. What God did was he removed his favor. He removed his favor. And why did he remove his favor? Because it says that rebellion is as the sin or is as sinful as witchcraft. Witchcraft is the word divination or means divination. And divination is fortune telling. So because of Saul's like fear of rejection of people, he chose to believe another voice. He chose to take in stock in the future or in his future and put it in the hands of someone else. You hear him say later on that he's like, it wasn't me, but it was the people who did this. He didn't take responsibility to it. He believed that his future was better held in his hands than God. That if he gave the people what they wanted, then he would be successful. Instead of the ultimate obedience to God. This is so important that we understand this that God has anointed leaders in this world today. So many leaders today have fallen from the favor of God, but God has still anointed them. I want to fast forward into 1 Samuel, and you can see over and over and over again that David had the chance to wipe Saul out. He had the chance to kill him. He went in there right next to his bed while he was sleeping, and David did not touch him. He said that, do not touch my anointed. Even David understood this. And whenever it came down to the very last breath of Saul, Saul took his own life. Saul took his own life. God did not kill Saul. Even for the rejection, even for the atrocities that Saul had done, God did not kill him. Saul took his own life. And so this is so important that we pray for our leaders. And I really wanted to open this up that we don't come into this place of where we throw stones at the people that are anointed by God. And every person who calls himself a Christian is highly anointed by God. I'm trying to wipe out the strife and the division that's going through the body of Christ today because this is such a horrible thing in God's eyes. I've seen it in my own congregation that that spirit of division comes in, the murmuring and complaining comes in, and God is just standing up in heaven shaking his head at this because he wants a unified body. And so you have the the right, if you see something going wrong in your own congregation, to leave. Nobody's holding you into that place. Actually, you have the spirit of God inside of you, the spirit of revelation, the spirit of truth, the spirit of wisdom, and you can see things as they are. And if you see somebody that is not biblically leading, you have the right to leave. Now, when you leave, you should hold your peace. Because there's so many times today that people are making YouTube channels about this leader or that leader that are talking about that this person is uh fallen or saying this negative thing about this person. Well, Paul said, you know, if one person comes to salvation through that person, it's successful. So we should hold our peace. We should use the spirit of wisdom and revelation to go where God wants us to go and not speak against his anointed, not try to kill his anointed, not try to wipe out his anointed. Because that anointed person, which we're all anointed, is in God's hands and God will handle that situation far greater than we possibly ever could. I don't mean to rant and rave about this, but I see this so much in churches today. God is not the God of denomination, he's not the God of the Baptist, the Pentecostal, the Lutheran, the Catholics. He is the God of His people. The believers, every single one of them. I don't care what type of church you go to, we are one body under one Christ with one head, Jesus Christ. And so he wants us to put down the divisive walls and just serve him together in unity and love. And so this is so important whenever you see this. David, we're gonna get into this in the next episode, but David had the chance to serve Saul, and he did it faithfully because that was God's anointed. That's all I got, brother.
SPEAKER_00:That's powerful, brother. Could you uh could you could you back up just a little bit? And you covered something concerning Saul and the fact that he took his own life. And this is a little bit of a little bit of a caveat, but I think it's something that is is worth looking at, and that is this, that how do how do you how do you handle the issue of suicide, man?
SPEAKER_01:How do I handle it?
SPEAKER_00:How do you handle it?
SPEAKER_01:Spiritually. So I have well I had to tell a testimony about it first. We do park outreaches where we firmly believe, like how Joshua says, every place that you put your feet, you know, God has given you that place. And so we go to parks and we prayer walk and all that. Well, the first time we went to this prayer walk, it was E-Wing Park. I'm not gonna say his name, but I ran across this guy. He was extremely downtrodden. And so we prayed for him and spoke life into him. It presented the gospel, and the suicide is a voice. Okay, it starts off with these voices inside of your head. They try to get you to come into agreement with you're not worthy, your life would be better off gone. And what happens is that voice is a spirit, and so essentially we came against that spirit, and the guy he he's telling us that he's like, Hey, look, I came out to this park to end my life today. But Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is a freeing message. They call it good news, right? Good news. So that good news is what set them free. I don't know if that answered your question or not, but it it's getting there.
SPEAKER_00:Uh and and and we're gonna park on this because we've got a little bit of time left over, so uh, let's just kind of camp here for a minute. And there's another thing I want to talk about too, but uh and and this is for the record, this is totally unscripted here. So we're we're uh live and direct, and nothing is a watershed. Meaning I'm not limiting Trevor to his beliefs by what he says now because they might be in process. It might be a developing thing. So some people feel, and here's where I'm going with that. Okay. Some people, Trevor, some people feel that suicide is the unpardonable sin.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:That you commit suicide, you took God's role in your own hands, and you took your own life, and so you're pretty much on your own pal, regardless of any decisions that you made prior to this. You follow what I'm going with this? Yes. What do you what are your thoughts on that, bro?
SPEAKER_01:My thoughts are why argue the point of who of whether the person's going to heaven or hell, but like that's God's jud judge judgment, you know. My job is to get them before they hit that point and to save their life. Right. You know, whenever we get to heaven, we'll see what happened. Right.
SPEAKER_00:What's your Well, I I I think that that's the only way that you can really say because it's not ours to put the period at the end of the sentence. Yes. That's God's job. Amen. His judgment. A judgment is his decision. His decisions. And the scripture says, decisions, decisions. The day of the Lord is near in the valley of decisions. Yes. And that means judgment. Amen. Judgments, judgments, and his judgments are clear and they're true. And just because, here's my belief, just because a person commits suicide doesn't mean they've committed the unpardonable sin. It means that they have reached a point in their own life where they felt that it was better off. It's a lie, it's a true lie, but they believe the lie. But that's not something that would prohibit them from entering into heaven had they been a believer. I don't believe so.
SPEAKER_01:Well, the only unpardonable sin supposedly is blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00:Right. That's and that's a whole nother topic. Yes. That's a whole nother kettle of fish to get into. And we're not going to try to go there in this one. And so what we're doing in right now is we're kind of prepping things for this next episode in this time of transition, but there's a very important point that you made in your first run at 1 Samuel chapter 15. And what would you say would be the one thing you came away from? What's your takeaway from that portion of scripture?
SPEAKER_01:That God sits outside of time, right? And so that perspective truly changes everything. I thought I put it in my notes, but I didn't. So the Amalekites originally sold the sowed the bad seeds of attacking Israel from behind and plundering them. And they were supposed to reap the harvest of that right here with Saul. But you find out later on that I think it was around a hundred years or something like that, that the book of Esther was written, right? But so you find out that the book of Esther probably would not have needed to be written if Saul would have wiped out all of the Amalekites. Because Haman, the one who came against the Jewish people in the book of Esther, he is a descendant of the Amalekites. So if all the Amalekites had been wiped out right then, then God would have not had to send the Mordecai or an Esther. So God, in his foresight, he is trying to plan things out to have his will and purposes done on the earth. And I think it's pretty cool to watch throughout history about how God had tried to set things in order, but man fumbled things, but God still got his purposes fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00:It's is you know, we're in this portion of scripture right now, well, well stated to her, by the way. We're in this portion of scripture right now where that's a again a transition time and decisions are being made. Amen. And it's really key. Some of you listening are in a transition time. Some of you listening, there might be someone listening who is even considering suicide because your situation in life has gotten really out of hand. And God is not after you to kill you. And the Amalekites, they were on one hand, they were a step ahead of Israel because they also had a corner on the blacksmithing. And so the Israelites couldn't even make a spear on their own, they didn't know how to. Iron hadn't come into their equation yet. Right. But the uh Philistines and the Amalekites knew how to work with iron. And iron was greater than the things that they had for war, their weaponry, except they had a corner on the iron, but God had a corner on David. Yes. Amen.
unknown:Amen.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm not gonna steal your thunder, but God had a corner on David. And though the Philistines had a corner on iron, God had a corner on David coming on the scene. God was ahead of them.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And that's a word of encouragement to someone listening today. You're in a situation that's kind of deep, but God is ahead of it.
SPEAKER_01:Amen.
SPEAKER_00:Don't worry, you don't have to take things into your own hands. And Trevor, would you do us the the uh a kindness by just uh leading us in a ton of prayer right now?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, um, before I do, I want to speak to uh that issue of suicide. I run across it quite often. Me personally, I was a person I didn't want to live anymore whenever I got saved. You don't have to believe those voices that that whenever you understand and have the revelation of God's love, it changes everything. And so I want to speak to anybody today that is contemplating suicide, and I just want to say a simple phrase that God loves you. Something is worth determined by the price that is willing to be paid for. For you. The most expensive ransom ever paid was for you. Your life is important. Father God loves you so deeply that it says in the word that he would leave the 99 to go for you. And right now, the the the God of the whole universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God that sits in heavens and laughs at the enemies, he is chasing you today. That your life is meaningful and he loves you deeply. So I want to speak to any suicide. I command you to leave in Jesus' name, that you have no place inside of this person's life. And Father, I ask that the eyes of the understanding would be opened and enlightened for everybody under the sound of my voice, and that that great ransom that was paid by the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ would be revealed in its fullness to every person listening. That love that changed my life would change every person's life under the sound of my voice. Your life is important. Psalms 139, 16. I said this last time I came on, that God wrote a book about you in heaven. That means you are important to him. So I just want to close in this prayer. That Father, we love you, we love you, we love you, Father. Father, I just thank you for the opportunity to share the love of Jesus Christ. Father, I ask that that love would be ever revealed to every person under the sound of my voice today. That they would just seep deep into the hearts and the minds of everybody listening, that there would be no doubt, that there would be no variance, that we would just come into a full revelation of God's love today. And everybody who is suffering with suicide, and suicide is such a huge thing today. It comes across my path all the time, and I say suicide no more in Jesus' name. I say suicide leave in Jesus' name. And Father, we thank you. We thank you for that saving grace. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, brother. Folks, we love you. And if you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, please feel free to drop us a line at LiferonTheFire at gmail.com. That's life around the fire. gmail.com. That's our email address. If you want to just check us out on the web on the internet and check out our website, you can just type in LifeRound the Fire and you'll find our website, and we would love to hear from you. In the meantime, God bless you. Adios, amigos.