Bible Roulette - Part 4 - 2nd Samuel 22 - Looking for God_ [The Bride of Christ]

This is a place where we talk about the bible. Jason Ryan Smurzynski looks into the Word of the Lord and just like you, desires to know what is actually going on. The Holy Spirit will open your ears to hear the truth and your minds to understand scripture. Together we will explore portions of the Bible that you don't normally hear at Sunday service at church. The veil will be lifted and the mystery of Jesus Christ will be explained.
Your invited to be The Bride of Christ.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hey guys, Dark Desert Highway here. And today I just wanted to talk about the Lord. He is alive. And the reality of him being alive today has really become real to him. Not that he's in a distant, far away place that no man can reach, but that he can present himself to us in even physical form if he chose. And the way he presents himself to us today, I mean, look, you saw it um with Saul on the road to Damascus. Jesus just showed up. Uh, you saw it um with uh the tomb after it was empty and they were looking for him, and he appeared to them in the locked room. There was a locked room, and they were all gathered together, and the Lord appeared before him um with his scars. He still had his scars, and even told one of his disciples, Look, put your hand in my side, put your finger through the holes in my hand, see that it is me. So he's close enough to hear us talk with each other about the things that we talk with each other about in our daily lives, and I believe with all my heart that he's looking. The Bible says that the Lord's eyes go to and fro the earth to show himself strong to those whose hearts are fully dedicated to him. So he's looking for people to be looking for him, and I'm convinced that if I fully invest my heart into really standing up and on the word of God, that he can present himself to me in a real way that will blow my mind. He is there to show himself strong to those whose hearts are fully dedicated to him, and the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So when I see these spiritual principles in the Word of God, I'm thinking I can have that today. That's just not something that was said a thousand years ago. It was said a thousand years ago, it applied then, it applies now. So if he is unchanging, then I have a complete record of everything that he has said and done with humanity over the years since creation. And by looking into the word of God, I'm looking into what he has already told us. The spiritual principles that are in place that we can, I wouldn't really want to say the word play, but that we can interact with. That I tell myself that this will make me feel better, or this is going to help me, or if I only had this in my life, my life would be complete. But it's it's not, and the more I have, the more I want. There's always that one other thing that I can have, you know. Um I have what I need, and I have more than I need. And seeing that I'm free to do what I want because I've done what I've wanted all my life, seeing that I'm free to do whatever I want, I want to try this out. I want to give it a go. And I want to give it the best that I have. I want to put all of my heart into this and really dedicate myself to the principles of the Lord. And while I'm reading the Bible, I'm finding new things that I didn't know about the relationships he's had with other people and the way that they've conducted their lives before him, and the response that goes along with it. So I have a whole bunch of stories of people interacting with the Lord and the Lord's interaction with them in kind, um, in response to how they behave themselves. There have been horrible things that have happened. You know, uh somebody just steps out of the way for a minute and boom, he's done. Somebody steps in the way, they they meet God, they have a radical interaction with him. He becomes real in a way that they didn't know that he could become real. Let's look at Saul on the road to Damascus, right? Out of the middle of walking down a road, the Lord appears, and Saul sees him, and he goes, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he goes, Who are you? And he says, I'm Jesus, the one that you're persecuting. And afterwards he's blind from the interaction, and he's taken to um a house where you know he's cared for, um, but he was persecuting the Jews, and it radically changed his life. His his mission wasn't necessarily to the Jews, um, his message was to the Gentiles. But and you know, I these people that say that they don't believe in the Pauline gospels because he was never one of the disciples, he met Jesus. He met Jesus on the road to Damascus. His name was Saul, and his name was changed to Paul afterwards. So, like I said, I can't stop thinking about the Lord. He, um, if I'm not intentionally distracting myself with something so that I can have a break from thinking about the Lord, because I can't stop thinking about him, um, you know, I think I lost myself there. But I just wanted I just wanted to talk about the Lord, and so I was doing some Bible roulette, I grabbed the Bible, flipped it open. It landed on 2 Samuel chapter 22, and it's a song that David wrote. And David had a really amazing relationship with the Lord because his heart was uh really he was enamored by the Lord. He was his thoughts were on the Lord. Now look, he's a murderer, yes, and he's an adulterer, yes. He he murdered um uh what what's her name? Um oh man, I can't believe that I forgot her name. Solomon was one of his sons out of that relationship. Uh I did forget the name though. Um let's let's go ahead and Google that. Bathsheba. That was it. I didn't even have to go to Google. Bathsheba. So he sees that Bathsheba taking um uh a bath one day, and she's married, and he sends for her, but she won't have anything to do with him. So he sends her husband to the front lines and has them draw back, and he's the only one standing out there, and he gets killed. Now he's free to be with Bathsheba. The Lord was so upset over what had happened in this situation uh that his first child dies from that uh love uh interaction, but the second child was Solomon. So even out of his initial sin, that that's how it all started with was with sin, you know, Solomon came and stepped on the seed because the scene because of that, and he was the wisest of all men. You know, he had an interaction with the Lord, but the Lord came to him and said, Solomon, you know, basically what do you want? He came to him in his sleep. And Solomon says, I want to know how to lead your people, I want the wisdom to lead your people. And he says, you know, because you didn't ask for riches or the long life or the the your enemies um to be given into your hand, not only am I gonna get you give you um the wisdom that you asked for, but I'm gonna give you all of these things um as well. And he built the temple to the Lord. And if you look at the temple's construction and the the houses that Solomon built for himself, he had a pretty good life, except that in the end of his life, he started being led away by his wives, and he started um uh worshiping uh false gods at the end of his uh at the end of his life, and because of that the kingdom was split, you know. Um so, anyways, David had a really interesting he wrote a lot, he wrote a lot about the Lord, and what I see when I look in David's life is I see a person who interacted with the Lord, even though he was a man of fault, you know, he was a murderer, he was an adulteress, um he still held the Lord in the highest regard. And he wrote, and what I believe the whole thing about David writing about the Lord is the Lord accepted what David said about him and included it in the canon of the Bible so that we can understand how it is to think about the Lord. What when we think about the Lord, you know, and we we say things about the Lord, what can we say, and what what are the appropriate thoughts that we can have about him? And David gives such a good example of that. So let's look at that. Um Samuel 22, verse 1. David spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from the grasp of his enemies and from the grasp of Saul. He said, The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock where I seek refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, my refuge and my savior, you save me from violence. I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I was saved from my enemies, for the waves of death engulfed me, the torrents of destruction terrified me, the ropes of Sheol entangled me, and the stairs of death confronted me. I called to the Lord in my distress, I called to my God. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry for help reached his ears. Then the earth shook and quaked, the foundations of the heavens trembled, they shook because he burned with anger, smoke rose from his nostrils, and consuming fire came from his mouth. Coals were set ablaze by it. He bent the heavens and came down, total darkness beneath his feet. He rode on a cherub and flew, soaring on the wings of the wind. He made darkness a canopy around him, and gathering of water and thick clouds. From the radiance of his presence blazing coals were ignited, the Lord thundered from heaven, the Most High made his voice heard, he shot arrows and scattered them, he hurled lightning bolts and routed them, the depths of the sea became visible, the foundations of the world were exposed, and the rebuke of the Lord at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. He reached down from on high, and he took hold of me, he pulled me out of deep water, he rescued me from my powerful enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out to a spacious place, and he rescued me because he delighted in me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, he repaid me according to the cleanliness of my hands, for I have kept the ways of the Lord, and I have not turned away from my God to wickedness. Indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me, and have not disregarded his statutes. I was blameless before him, and kept myself from my iniquity, so the Lord repaid me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight. Now, I definitely want to say something that is a recurring theme in the Bible, and that is that is it matters what you do. It absolutely matters how you conduct your life. And David's experience with the Lord by keeping his statutes, his law, was that the Lord rewarded him. Excuse me. According to the cleanliness of my hands. So there was definitely an effort made in the way that David conducted his daily life. And that's what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about it matters what you do, you can't just take this salvation. Yes, saved by grace, our our sins are forgiven. But are we going to continue to do the things that the Lord hates? If I was in a relationship with you or somebody, and I did what that person hated all the time in front of them, and then asked them to forgive me, they forgave me, and then I continued to do what they hated in front of them. How long do you think that relationship would last? How strong do you think that relationship would be? It would be very one-sided of me to do what I wanted if you hated the things that I did or that I wanted, and to have a relationship with you. You wouldn't be in a relationship, you'd just be somebody I had around because you had good things, and you know, because of you, I have a safety net that I can fall in if what I do leads me down a destructive path. And that's just not a way to have a relationship. A relationship is respecting and honoring the person that you're around, finding out about them, their likes, their dislikes, what makes them angry, what makes them happy, what makes them laugh, and then being the kind of person that that person appreciates, being the kind of person that that person approves of in a friendship. So if I do whatever I want whenever I want, and I do the things that the Lord hates, and I come to him and I'm like, I want to be your friend. Well, maybe he doesn't want to be my friend because of the things that I do, even though I know what he expects from me because I've read his word, I continue to do the things that he hates, and then I come back to him, and my prayer is Lord forgive me again because I continue to do the things that you hate. I just can't seem to help myself. You know how sincere is that? I'm sure that there is a time where we need to set down the things that the Lord is displeased with and start from there. Start a relationship from that point. Alright, forget all this stuff. The consequence of it, you know, and it's the consequences of it. It it you're playing with death, it eats your life away, it makes you tired, and you're hungry, and your relationships are messed up, and you know, uh, you got you you have nothing, uh, you look other people what they have, and you're filled with jealousy and envy, and and you know, maybe you're just gonna start taking what they have, and then you sell it, whatever, whatever happens, man. There's a lot of things that happen. You know, it's it's it's not a good place to be in. Let's try this. Set down the things that anger the Lord, and start from there. You know, it's gonna take a while. It's definitely a matter of the heart, it's a matter of the heart. So set down the things that you know that the Lord hates, turn your heart towards him, humble yourself by agreeing that. God's word is the line that we need to respect. We need to be on this side of the field. If you're gonna be calling yourself by the name of the Lord, then respect the things that the Lord holds dear and start conducting your life as if you know him, as if you really have a relationship with him. Because I have to ask myself, you know, have I really respected the Lord's position as king? He has inherited us as a reward for giving his life and bearing our sins and dealing with the penalty and the consequences of sins, the the eternal separation from the Lord, he's laid down his life for that. So the work is done. The work for the redemption of our souls and for the blood of the lamb to be sprinkled on us, so for the forgiveness of sins that we may be right before him. But you know, do I respect him? Do I respect him? I would have to say from an honest look at some of the things that I've said to him about him. I don't believe that I have a good track record of really respecting his position as Lord of all. All authority has been given to him, he is now in total control of the world, all the things in it, um, and that's the way that it's gonna be from here on out. He is the king, and he is in charge. So what he says goes, and if I see that I'm doing something or investing myself into something that he has said is evil and that I should keep my hands from it, then I need to respect him by changing my life in order to reflect that spiritual quality. And David was talking about that in verse 21. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, he repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands, for I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not turned from my God to wickedness. Indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me, and have not disregarded his statutes. I was blameless before him and kept myself from iniquity. So the Lord repaid me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanliness in his sight. With the faithful you prove yourselves faithful, with the blameless, you prove yourselves blameless, with the pure you prove yourself pure, but with the crooked you prove yourself shrewd. You rescue an oppressed people, but your eyes are set against the proud. You humble them. Lord, you are my lamp. The Lord illuminates my darkness, with you I can attack a barricade, and with my God I can leap over a wall. God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is pure, he is a shield to all who take refuge in him. For who is God beside the Lord? And who is a rock? Only our God. God is my strong refuge, he makes my ways perfect, he makes my deer like the feet of a deer, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and sets me securely on the heights. He trains my hands for war, my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the shield of your salvation, you your help exalts me, you make a spacious place beneath me for my steps, and my ankles do not give way. I pursue my enemies and destroy them. I do not turn back until they are wiped out. Look at the confidence, the confidence, the sheer confidence that that David has because he has made the Lord his friend by obedient by obedience. And he's confident. I mean thirty nine. I wipe them out and crush them, and they do not rise. They fall beneath my feet. You have clothed me with strength for battle. You have subdued my adversaries beneath me. You have made my enemies retreat before me. I annihilate those who hate me. They look, but there is no one to save them. They look to the Lord, but he does not answer them. I pulverize them like dust of the earth. I crush them and trample them like mud in the streets. Wow. So wow, that's some confidence right there. You have freed me from the feuds among my people, you have preserved me as a head of nations, a people I had not known serve me, foreigners submit me to cringing. As soon as they hear, they obey me. Foreigners lose heart and come trembling from their fortifications. The Lord lives, blessed be my rock. God, the rock of my salvation, is exalted. God, he grants me vengeance and casts down peoples under me. He frees me from my enemies, you exalt me above my adversaries, you rescue me from violent men. Therefore, I will give thanks to you among the nations, Lord, I will sing praises about your name. He is a tower of salvation for his king, he shows loyalty to his anointed, to David, and his descendants forever. So this must be an acceptable way to speak about the Lord. Not only do we get some insight into what the Lord is capable of to those who are faithful to him and what the Lord is willing to do for those who are faithful to him, whose heart is wholly invested into humbling themselves before the Lord. But we get insight into a way of speaking about the Lord that is acceptable to the Lord because it was included in the canon of the words that we have to equip ourselves with the knowledge of God. So I just I just really wanted to talk about the Lord today. That's it. I wanted to read some of his word. Um I need to continue to invest in reading the word of the Lord, even if it's just flipping it open for 30 minutes and seeing what it says wherever I land, it is all good for instruction, um, for understanding, and I have a lot of time because I have given up all of my sinful ways of life. What I found is I had a bunch of free time, and I really didn't know what to do with all this time, so I started by sleeping. I I got plenty of sleep, I've I've I have too much sleep, and I was like, okay, if I'm gonna get into this and I'm really gonna put my heart into it, then I need to do something to meditate on the Lord. I went to church, I I I went to church, I church hopped, so I would spend my Sunday going from church to church to church to church, just listening, and that's not really where it was. And I started giving to the poor. Um, I would give to the poor randomly, um, and then I found a dedicated church that is involved in outreaching to the lost, the drug addicted, the poor, um, the guys who are sleeping on the side of the streets. They open up their doors for them, and they read the word of God every day, and they have a program that these people could become involved in. So, alright, so I've invested myself there. I've invested myself there, I've thrown away my sin, right? I've humbled myself before the Lord by saying, Lord, look, you're right and I'm wrong. I'm wrong and I've been wrong. And you have had mercy on me for me to make it this far. And thank you for having mercy on me. Because if I was to pay the consequence for the sins that I had involved myself with, I would be dead or I would be in jail. Real stuff. So I thank him for the opportunity that I've had to back off, to set everything down because you could cross that line and it completely changes your life, and your sins find you out, and that's it, man. You gotta pay. You gotta pay for them. So my sin found me out, and I was confronted with it, and I had to admit to everyone that this is what I was doing. I was ashamed, and I was forgiven, and I did not expect that. I didn't even know that anybody knew what I was doing. I didn't because I thought God was far away. I thought that his home was heaven, and I didn't realize that he was so invested in the salvation process that he could manifest himself into my life situation and expose the sin that was in my life in front of everyone. And I realized by recognizing his hand in the situation that I was in that he had something to say about it. He's the one that found me out, he brought it to light because he was offended by it just as much as everybody else is offended by it. And it was time for me to man up, to stand up, or to suffer. And I was given a choice do this, pay for it, or let it go and humble yourself before me. And out of just, I don't want to be the person that my sins made me to be. Look at uh David. He said, I called to the Lord in my distress, I called to my God from his temple. He heard my voice, and my cry for help reached his ears. And the Lord took action on David's behalf to defend him. Now I'm not in the position where I need him to defend me, I need his mercy, and I need a moment to humble myself before him. This is what I need. I need the time before I am overwhelmed by the consequence of my sin. I need the time to set it down and walk away from it and strengthen myself in a direction towards the Lord so that I can repent. It's time for me to repent. And the Lord granted me an opportunity by staying the consequence I feel of my sin. And I had, I saw an opportunity to set it all down, and I didn't want any of it. My prayer to him, my prayer to him was, Lord, please don't let me die in my sin. I know your word, I know who you are, and I have never humbled myself before you. Lord, please allow me to humble myself before you so that I don't die in my sin. I know what's true and what's right. I've just never done it. And I want to do it, and I want to be in your presence with a track record of humility. I want to be so far down that road of humility that I look back and I can't see where I started. And I feel like my prayer was answered, and I have this great opportunity to set everything down. I'm not just gonna, I'm just not gonna pick it back up again and be like, dodge the bullet on that one. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if I just if I prayed to the Lord, got an answer to a prayer and said, Thanks, see you later. That's just one of those things, that's that's the miss, that's the misconception that the Lord is grace upon grace upon grace without consequence. Sin has consequence. The Lord came to deal with that, but if I continue to invest in my sin, I will see the consequence of it because sin is a living thing. Like it lives in me and it wants to kill me. It wants my death. The the fullness of the maturity of sin is death. It as an as an as a um like an element. As like an element, it is it is it is it is it exists. You see what I'm saying? It exists as sin, and sin as sin must behave like sin and grow up like sin, like like just everything else on this earth that has birth, it grows up into what it is, and then it goes away, and in me, that means I die, and sin no longer lives in this body because this body is dead because of it. So, like I said, I've I've had a great opportunity, and now I want to talk about the Lord because I saw his hand in a real way that proved to me that he is alive and able to step into my life like he was able to step into David's life. And in David's situation, he was already he was already doing the right thing, right? And the Lord came to his defense in my situation. I was doing the wrong thing, and the Lord came to confront me. But there is a point, okay. Let's look at 21. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, he repaid me according to the cleanliness of my hands, for I have kept the ways of the Lord, I have not turned from my God to wickedness, indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me, and have not disregarded his statutes. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my iniquity. So the Lord repaid me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanliness in his sight. With the faithful, you prove yourself faithful. With the blameless, you prove yourself blameless. With the pure, you prove yourself pure, but with the crooked, you prove yourself shrewd. You rescue and oppress people, but your eyes are set against the proud, you humble them. So there is something to my obedience, to being obedient to the Lord's word, even the old testament word into the new testament, the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. These things, it if if I add something to my life that he has said is good, I should have the confidence, and I do have the confidence that it is still good in his sight. So even though it's old, even though it's an old book that was written, you know, a thousand years ago, or two thousand years ago, or the beginning of creation, right? These stories come all the way from the beginning of creation. So even though they're that old, if the Lord is who he says he is, and if he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and if these things are good in his sight, then I can say to myself that if I adopt this principle into my life, it will still be good in his sight. So I I'm looking, I'm searching, and I'm looking for these things that I can add to my life to get further invested into a relationship with him because he says that they're good. And I am looking for the result of my behavior. Just like I can expect the consequence of my sin, I should equally be able to expect the consequence of my obedience. Because it all matters,