Horseshoes and Hand Grenades | January 18, 2026 PM

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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist

Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us

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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you there.

Was an old saying that I know that you are familiar with that,

that something that is close, or rather something that's close,

it is only good in horseshoes and hand grenades.

You ever heard that before? You know, close enough they

would say is only good for horseshoes and handy gangrene.

To be honest with you, I know a little bit about horseshoes.

Don't know a whole lot. About hand grenades, but I

imagine. It's.

True for both this that that you can be close and that is good

enough, but in general, close enough is not what we're aiming

for in life. But I will say when it comes to

the issue of sin, when it comes to the issue of righteousness,

the issue of just being close enough is not good enough.

In fact, interestingly enough, the word sin comes from the

Hebrew word hata, which literally means this to miss the

mark. You have probably heard me

mention this here before at Liberty, that when someone is

sinning they are missing the mark.

Now what is the mark that they are supposed to be hitting?

Well, that is the mark of God's righteousness.

That is the mark in which each of us are to try to achieve in

our daily life. And we know that we fail at

that. We know that we fail miserably

at that. But yet it is our aim.

It is our goal and everything that we do to not be kind of

sort of righteous, to not be close enough when it comes to

righteousness, but rather that we are to be righteous in the

sense that the Bible teaches about the righteousness of God.

It's his righteousness that we're aiming for, not our own

twisted version of righteousness.

That might be close enough, but that misses the mark.

It's interesting and I've illustrated this here before in

the past, but I feel like when I talk to people, maybe not

necessarily in the church, but just when I talk to people in

general about SIM, a lot of times they feel like almost if I

was to divide this room between that which is righteous and that

which is evil, they kind of feel like there's a dividing line

right here in the middle. And they kind of feel, I have

found that people in general, and a lot of times if we're not

careful as believers, our mindset can end up being the

same way. That as long as they're on this

side of things, as long as they're on the side of

righteousness, everything's OK. Look, they don't need to be all

the way over there. That that's for extreme people,

you know, that's for fundamentalist extremists and

all those kinds of people. That's not what we're talking

about. As long as you know, if this is

the middle mark and righteousness is on this side

and unrighteousness is on this side, as long as they're

somewhere over here, then they're probably right with God.

And as long as they stay away from this over here, they have

stayed away from unrighteousness.

But that kind of definition, that kind of philosophy or

thought process is exactly opposite of what we just talked

about a moment ago about sin being missing the mark.

If we were to use this room as an illustration of righteousness

and unrighteousness, it would not be like a scale where as

long there's more on this side than on this side, you're doing

pretty well. It would be as if all the way on

this extreme, all the way at this wall, this is

righteousness. And if we are to be righteous,

then we have to be right here. We got to be right on the mark

of that which God has for us. Now, if we are like this, the

world would say, wow, you're doing really well.

Wow, you, you, you must be, you know, some kind of super

Christian or something like that.

That's what the world would probably think of us.

Again, call us an extremist or something like that.

On the other hand, but I would say to you this evening that

even if we are close to the mark but we're off the mark, we've

missed the mark. If we're close to the mark but

off the mark, we have missed the mark.

It is not that this is all righteous and this is all

unrighteous. It is that the Word of God

teaches that this is righteous and everything else is

unrighteous. Now I don't know about.

You. But I like this version better,

you know why? Gives me a lot of wiggle room,

gives me a lot of license to be able to kind of handle things in

a biblical kind of way, in a kind of sort of godly way, but

yet not have to necessarily meet the mark.

But that is not what the Bible teaches.

Now, what we're going to look at here tonight is an issue that

takes place in David's life. Now you'll remember that David

has had the issue of Amnon and Tamar take place and then

Absalom took matters into his own hands, murdered Amnon

because David did not do righteously and he should have

executed Amnon for what he did according to the the law.

Absalom took matters in his own hands, by the way, that was

unrighteous. Also, he was not allowed to be

able to be the judge, jury and executioner himself according to

the word of God. Absalom has fled and now things

have started to unravel in the House of David.

And so we're going to look tonight at a larger passage of

Scripture that's going to give us something to, I believe, be

helpful to us tonight to understand that just because

something might seem righteous, just because something might

seem like it is good enough, that the only righteousness that

you find. The only way that we should

handle things as believers is not being kind of sort of

righteous, not a generic version of righteousness, but rather

that we are to be righteous in the way that God has told us to

be holy. He said be holy, for I am holy.

Not kind of sort of holy, but God's holiness.

I'm asking you to remain seated tonight because we're going to

read a longer passage of Scripture this evening.

So we're going to start the end of chapter #13 as I mentioned,

verse #37 that's going to give us a running start into what's

going to take place in verse number or chapter number. 14 And

the word of God says that Absalom fled and went to Talmi,

and the son of Amahud, king of Gesher, and David mourn for his

son every day. So Absalom fled and went to

Gesher and was there three years.

And the soul of King David longed to go forth unto Absalom,

for he was comforted concerning Amnon seeing he was dead.

You'll remember we said several weeks ago that overtime that his

mourning for Amnon went away, but yet his mourning for Absalom

still being estranged from him was greater.

And so now three years have taken place.

Now into chapter 14 verse one it says now Joab the son of Zariah

perceived. That the king.

'S heart was toward Absalom, and Joab said to Tacoma, and fenced

since a wise woman, and said unto her, I pray thee, feign

thyself to be a mortar. Now that word feign.

What does that mean? Could I just give you a quick

definition here? Means lie.

Don't tell the truth. I want you to lie about this,

Feign thyself to be a mourner and put on now mourning apparel.

Anoint not thyself with oil, but be as a woman that had a long

time. Mourn for the dead, and come to

the king and speak on this manner unto him.

So Joab put the words in her mouth, and when the woman of

Tocola spake to the king, she fell on her face to the ground

and did obeisance, and said, Help, O king.

And the king said in her wedding.

And she answered, I am indeed a widow woman, and my husband is

dead. And thy handmaid had two sons,

and they strove together in the field, and there was none to

part them but the one smoke the other, and slew him.

And behold, the whole family is risen against thy handmaid.

And they said, Deliver him that smote his brother, and we may

kill him for the life of his brother whom he slew, and we

will destroy the air also. And so they quench my coal,

which is left, and shall not lead to my husband, neither name

or remainder upon the earth. And the king said unto the

woman, Go to thine house, and I'll give the charge concerning

me. And the woman of Toccoa said

unto the king, My Lord, O king, iniquity, be on me, You know my

father's house, and the king and his throne be guiltless.

The king said, Whosoever saith, ought unto thee, bring him to

me, and he shall not touch thee anymore.

Then said she, I pray thee, let the king remember the Lord thy

God, that thou wouldest not suffer the revengers of blood to

destroy anymore, lest they destroy my son.

And he said, As the Lord liveth, there, shall not one heir of thy

son fall to the earth. The woman said, That thy

handmaid, I pray thee, speak one word unto my Lord the king.

And he said, Stay on. And the woman said, Wherefore

then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God?

For the King does speak this thing as one which is faulty, in

that the King does not fetch home again his banished, for he

must needs died, or his water spilled to the ground, which

cannot be gathered up again. Neither does God respect any

person, yet does he devised means that his banished be not

expelled from him. Now therefore that I am come to

speak to this thing under my Lord the King.

It is because the people have made me afraid.

And I handmaid said, I will now speak under the king.

It may be that the King will perform the request of his

handmaid, for the king will hear to deliver his handmaid out of

the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son together

out of the inheritance of God. Then thy handmaid said, The word

of my Lord, The king shall now be comfortable.

For as an Angel of God, so is my Lord the king to destroy the

good and bad. Therefore the Lord thy God will

be with thee. Then the king answered and said

unto the woman, Hide not from me, I pray thee, the thing that

I shall ask thee. And the woman said, Let my Lord

the King now speak. And the king said, Is not the

hand of Joab with me in this? And the woman answered and said,

As my soul, as thy soul liveth the Lord the king, none can turn

to the right hand or to the left from aught that my Lord the king

has spoken for thy servant Joab. He bade me and put all these

words in the mouth, thy handmaid, to fetch about this

form of speech. Hath thy servant Joe done this

thing? And my Lord is wise, according

to the wisdom of an Angel of God, to know all things that are

in the earth. And the king said unto Joab,

Behold, now I've done this thing, Go there, for bring the

young man Absalom again. And Joab fell to the ground on

his face, bowed himself, and thank the king.

And Joab said, Today thy servant knoweth that I found grace, and

thy sight, my Lord, O king. And that the king had fulfilled

the request of his servant. So Joab arose and went to

Gesher, but Absalom to Jerusalem and the king.

Said, let him turn to his own house and let him not see my

face. So Absalom returned to his own

house and saw not the King's face.

There's a lot going on in just those few verses between David

and a woman and Joab and a story and then a reveal, and then

Absalom gone and Absalom's return.

You might say, Pastor, what does any of this have to do with what

you talked about in the introduction just a few moments

ago? And I'm hoping by God's grace we

can weave it all together to be able to help us to understand

that kind of sort of righteousness isn't really

righteousness. And that for the child of God,

we do not want to miss the mark in what is true and right

because he is holy. We must be holy as God's people

as well. Heavenly Father, just be with us

tonight. I do ask to be able to give the

word of God and to explain what is found here in this text, as

well as the other text we'll be looking at in a few moments from

now. Or help us not to settle for

that which is kind of righteous, that's sort of holy, but rather

may we understand that when it comes to the issue of your

righteousness, we must be as you have told us to be.

Do not make compromises when it comes to sin, but rather that as

believers, that we must do right as you've commanded us.

Or thank you for this text. Help us to be able to look at it

tonight. Help me to explain.

It in a way that's proper and I ask it in Jesus name, Amen.

Like David's life has been a soap opera since Second Samuel

chapter #11 and a lot of ways it has been, hasn't it?

David was doing right. David was showing himself to be

a godly man. And we saw that play out over

and over and over again from the beginning of Second Samuel as he

held himself accountable. And he's, he made sure that he

was taking care of things in the way that he ought to be in the

matter with Ishbosheth. And then as he arose to become

the king, and even with the matter of Mephibosheth and

trying to honor the House of Saul, instead of exterminating

the House of Saul as would have been the case in many kingdoms

during that time and that. Part of the world.

But David handled himself well. But then we got to the matter of

David and Bathsheba and things started to unravel, didn't they?

The fact that he laid with Bathsheba, the fact that he

tried to cover up his sin with Bathsheba, and then ultimately

leading to the murder of Bathsheba's husband, Uriah.

And yes, while he wasn't the one who had the sword in his hand

that took the life from Uriah, you can be sure that David was

the one that was the murderer just as much as anyone else,

because it was his own hand that made sure that he wrote down the

death warrant of which Uriah died.

And so from that time when Nathan the prophet came to him,

as we'll look at in a few moments, and Nathan the prophet

explained to him his sin, that God had seen his sin even if man

hadn't seen his sin. And he said to him that the

sword would never leave his house again.

And what we're going to see is 1 calamity after, another after,

another after, or another in David's life.

No, I'm not saying that David was ineffective for the Lord the

rest of his life. I'm not saying that.

I'm not saying that David was no longer a man after God's own

heart. I am not saying that.

But what I'm saying is the shine has kind of come off David's

life a little bit has that we're starting to see him for who he

is, the reality that he is a flawed man because he is a man.

And as the old saying goes, the best of men are men at best.

And we're seeing that in David's life playing out right now from

Second Samuel chapter #11 and on from there.

But but we get to this place where you'll remember we read at

the very end of chapter #13 that Absalom, after he murdered

Amnon, remember, he had vigilante justice.

He decided to take care of Amnon because David would not take

care of Amnon as he should have. Absalom was wrong to do what he

did. David was very upset at what

transpired. And So what happened was Absalom

went on the run. And the Bible says that he went

to go live with his grandfather in his grandfather's country for

space of three years. And that over that time that

David went from being angry to Absalom and mourning for Amnon

to no longer really mourning for Amnon.

And his anger abated from Absalom.

And now his heart yearned to be able to see Absalom again.

And we see chaos in David's life.

And may I remind you that one of the consequences of sin in the

life of anyone, but including the believer is chaos.

And yes, is God a forgiving God? Yes, he is.

Is is God a gracious God? Yes, he is.

But the consequences of sin are real in the life of a believer.

That which a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

And David has sown to the wind, and now he's reaping the

whirlwind. That's why it's so important for

us to understand what true righteousness is.

That's why it's so important for a preacher to get up in a pulpit

and to be able to admonish those who are listening to be able to

live holy and righteous lives. Because God is real.

God is righteous and God will bring recompense into the life

of someone who has not done right.

Not because again, he's punitive, not because he's

trying to punish for the sake of punishment, but because he's

trying to chastise that person. He's trying to chastise that

brother's sister, to bring them back in the fold and to bring

them back in fellowship. Again, I'll remind you what I

said this morning. Hebrews chapter 12 talks about

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

that very well. And if you say, well, I've never

been chastised of the Lord, then the answer is you don't belong

to the Lord because who belongs to the Lord are the ones that he

chastises. Listen, my kids do wrong, I

chastise them. Someone else's kids do wrong, I

don't chastise them. Why is that?

I'm not saying I don't tell them maybe they should stop, but I'm

just saying there's a difference in how you handle your children

and someone else's children. The law would make that clear as

well. Amen.

And God does the same for his own children.

It's not that he doesn't handle those who are not his children.

Listen, judgments coming for them as well, but I will say

this, that for the child of God, we're not going to pull a fast

one over on God. And David is dealing with the

consequences of that in his life.

And that brings us to our current chapter, where we see

this entering interesting interaction between three people

in a woman, David and Joab. And this is a.

Very interesting chapter. The chapter starts with Joab,

the son of Zariah that perceived that the King's heart was toward

Absalom. He understood that David had

some sort of yearning to be able to see his son, but could not

bring himself to be able to restore Absalom.

Now, maybe the reason that David was so conflicted was the fact

that David knew that the real penalty for what Absalom had

done was death and that David was the one who was supposed to

execute that justice. And we'll look more at that in a

moment. So David is conflicted.

David maybe wants to see him, but then can't bring himself to

see him. And so Joab, understanding that

this is a situation that needs to be remedied, maybe even

understanding that Absalom is a little bit volatile, and perhaps

if he's not handled in a way that should be handled, that

something bad could happen. And by the way, that's exactly

what will happen. But maybe he's understanding

this. And he says, you know what?

I need to find some kind of reconciliation.

I need to find a way to bring David and Absalom together, to

bring the temperature down on this, and to make sure that we

get them back together again. And So what he does, he ends up

calling this older woman from Toccoa.

And he says, I want to talk to you about a story.

And I want you to have this story.

And I want you to play a part. And then I want you to go talk

to David. Now, I think there's something

very interesting in verse #3 when it says at the very end of

the verse. So Joab put the words in her

mouth. Now, listen, Joab was an enigma.

Do you remember we've talked about Joab before.

Joab would be doing really good one day and he'd be on the king

side, and the next day he'd be murdering somebody in cold

blood. I mean, Joab is not the guy that

you want to be friends with because one day like he's going

to love you and the next day he's going to punch you right in

the face if you're lucky. All right, This is who Joab was.

And so Joab says, I'm going to put this story into this woman's

mouth. And so this woman goes to David

and she says this fake story. She says, I had these two sons

and they were fighting and one murdered the other one.

Now my right, my family wants to be able to take vengeance

against the son who did the murdering, the son who did the

smiting. Can you see how this is getting

a little bit close to home here, how this story was perfectly

crafted by Joab to try to make David think?

And so she says, but now they want me to deliver my son to

them so he can be executed. I can't do that.

I don't know what to do. And so David kind of goes back,

back and forth with her a little bit, but finally they get to the

place in verse #11 where it says at the end of the verse, David

says, as the Lord liveth there shall not one hair of thy son

fall to the earth. Now, why was the story

important? It was because she was trying to

get him to a place where he would get his emotions risen up,

his emotions would be stirred up.

And that would be the perfect time to introduce the fact that

his own murdering son, Absalom should also be brought back into

the fold in the same way that she has given this illustration

just a few moments ago. Now, again, biblically, this was

not what was supposed to take place.

Biblically, it wasn't the fact that, well, hey, listen, not a

hair on his head shall fall. In fact, it was quite the

opposite. Absalom was supposed to die.

David was not supposed to be a respecter of persons.

Well, after all, he's supposed to look over the transgression

of his son. Now, the Bible's very clear

about the fact that what's good for the goose is good for the

gander, and that when it comes to equitable justice, it doesn't

matter if it's a peasant or a Prince, that they were to be

under the chastisement of the Lord and His word.

And in this case, that meant execution, That meant death.

But this woman kind of boxes David in with his emotional

response about saying, listen, a hair on your son's head is not

going to fall. Again.

That's not biblical what he's saying.

It's just his emotions rising up within him.

But now he's put himself into a strange place.

And the woman says, you know, now that you mentioned.

That Can I talk to you about something else?

And he says stay. On And she says, you know, you

have a son who's in a very similar predicament and.

It seems that if there's some things that aren't taken care of

that his this son. Will, will not.

Be in a place where he feels safe.

He feels like maybe there's going to be some difficulty that

doesn't there need to be some reconciliation?

Shouldn't he come back in the fold?

Shouldn't you take the step, David, to be able to bring him

back into the fold? And so the king answers and he

says, you know, it's interesting you say that, But he says, I've

asked you a question. Will you answer it?

It says absolutely. King, he says, is Joab behind

all this? It isn't interesting that David

immediately suspected that his friend, his buddy, his armor

bearer Joab was somehow behind all this.

And she says, well, the king is very.

Wise, because that's exactly who is behind it.

And Joab is called by David, and he says, look, go get Absalom

and bring him back. But ironically enough, it says

in verse #24 what he brought was brought back to Jerusalem.

The king says, let him turn to his own house, and let him not

see my face. So Absalom returned to his own

house and saw not the King's face.

By the way, you know how long that was?

Two years because we drop down to verse #28 it says.

So Absalom dwelt 2 full years in Jerusalem and saw not the King's

face. So this whole story is concocted

between Joab and the woman, and it is brought to David, and

David listens and David has his emotions stirred and brings

Absalom back. But then, even still, that

really didn't bring anything to a head, did it?

Because for two more years now, Joab's not living in a far

country, or rather, Absalom's not living in a far country.

Now he's living in Jerusalem and David still.

Won't see him and David still won't execute justice.

It's like, what are we doing here?

What's taking place? Now, when we look at this

chapter, and I know I've given you a very brief synopsis of

this chapter, it rings eerily similar in a lot of ways to what

took place in Second Samuel chapter 12.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

You say what happened in Second Samuel Chapter 12?

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

Well, after the affair of David and Bathsheba, who came to talk

to David? The prophet Nathan wasn't it.

You remember the prophet Nathan came to tell him a story, and

the prophet Nathan made an application to try to get David

all stirred up, and then he spoke the word of the Lord.

I want us to go back there quickly.

Leave your space there, but go back.

Just you're going back just a couple pages.

Second Samuel chapter #12 I know we read this before, but it's

been several weeks, but I want you to look.

At some of the similarities here Second Samuel chapter 12, verse

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

one, it says, And the Lord sent Nathan unto David, and when he

came unto him, and said unto him, there were two men in one

city, the one rich, the other poor.

The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds, but the poor

man had nothing save one little you lamb, which he had brought

nourished up, and grew up together in him with his

children. It did eat of his own meat,

drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a

daughter. And there came a traveler under

the rich man, and he spared to the take of his own flock of his

own. Herd.

To dress for the wayfaring man that was coming to him, but took

the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to

him. And David's anger was greatly

kindled against the man. And he said to Nathan, As the

Lord liveth, the man that had done this thing shall surely

die. Now who was the man?

Well, we're going to find out that Nathan says in verse #7

Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of

Israel. I anointed the king out of her

Israel. I delivered thee out of the hand

of salt. I gave thee thy master's house,

thy master's wives, and thy bosom gave thee the House of

Israel and of Judah. If it had been too little, I

moreover to given him more such and such things.

Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do

evil in his sight? Thou has killed your eye, the

Hittite with the sword, and has taken his wife to be thy wife,

has slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house.

There it is because thou has despised me, and has taken the

wife of your eye, the Hittite, to be thy wife.

Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee

out of thine own house. We'll take thy wives before

thine eyes, we'll give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie

with thy wives in the sight of the Son.

And we'll see that fulfilled in chapter #16 by someone that you

wouldn't expect. We'll talk more about that

later. But interestingly enough,

chapter #12 and chapter #14 at first glance seem exactly the

same, don't they? David is doing something wrong.

Someone comes to him and talks to him and urges him to make a

change, to go in a different direction.

David has his emotions stirred and then changes are made.

These two seem alike but yet like a generic version of your

favorite soda. Like a store brand cereal or a

fancy watch that says Roll Locks instead of Rolex once you get a

little bit deeper. You start to find there's

actually some differences, and while what we see in Second

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

Samuel chapter 12 is righteous, it's conflict resolution in all

of its righteousness. What we find in Second Samuel

2 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

chapter 14, although it looks righteous, although it seems

kind of sort of godly, when you get down to it, you find out

these two couldn't be any more different than what you see at

first glance. Second Samuel chapter 12

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

represents a man of God who gave a parable based on the word of

God. David was convicted by the word

of God. Nathan proceeded to give him the

word of God. What happened?

You see, over and over again. Thus saith the Lord, Was Nathan

lying to him? No, what Nathan was doing was

explaining to him this parable, and he was bringing him to a

place where he understood the righteousness of God.

Thou art the man. Everything that Nathan was doing

was trying to draw him towards God's righteousness, and it was

achieved because Nathan was a man of God who spoke the word of

the Lord. Well, the situation in Second

Samuel 14. Well, that was much different.

Verse #2 Joab finds a woman and tells her, I need you to lie.

Verse #3 It's not the word of the Lord.

Do you see this where it's so different?

We see the word of the Lord in Second Samuel chapter 12, but in

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

Second Samuel 14 it says who put the words in her mouth?

Joab put the words in her mouth. It's not the word of the Lord,

it's Joab's word. Verse #7 The woman appealed to

David's emotions in a way similar to Nathan, but she was

wanting him to make an unrighteous ruling, not a

righteous. 1 She was trying to stir him up emotionally so that

he would not do the word of the Lord instead of doing the word

of the Lord. Remember, the word of the Lord

was that Absalom was to die. Exodus 21, verse 12.

Exodus 21:12

He that smiteth a man so that he die shall surely be put to

death. Numbers 3531 Moreover, you shall

take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is

guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death.

And Deuteronomy 117 I just mentioned a few moments ago, Ye

shall not respect persons in judgment, meaning this.

It doesn't matter if it's your son or not.

What God has told you to do, you're supposed to do.

But this woman stirs up his emotions not to make him do the

righteous thing, but rather to. Get him to do the unrighteous

thing. Verses 18 through 20.

David is wise enough to know that Joab is behind it, but he's

not discerning enough to realize that Joab isn't a trusted

counselor. He recognized, you know, that

seems like the son of Zariah Joab.

He's the one to put these words in your mouth.

But that should have given him 'cause to stop and say, is this

a guy that I should be taking counsel from?

A guy that murders people like it's going out of style, all the

name of protecting the Kingdom, but really it's because of his

own issues of his own life that he is taking other people's

lives. There's a problem here.

In the end, these two chapters, although they look the same at

first, don't they look so similar at first?

When you start to dig deep, you find out the differences are

real and the differences are great.

In chapter 12, a godly man uses the word to appeal to the spirit

of an unrepented Sinner who ends up getting right with God.

In Chapter 14, two people scheme to lie to David and appeal to

his emotions, and David makes a decision that is contrary.

To the word of. God, what do we see?

We see the chapter 14 represents something that looks godly at

first, but is not truly godly at all.

New Testament warns us of this when it says in Second Timothy

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 verse five. I mentioned this verse just a

few weeks ago having a form of godliness but denying the power

thereof from such turn away. A form of godliness, but denying

the power thereof. From such turn away, people have

this idea that godliness is the sliding scale.

As long as what they do is kind of sort of godly, they believe,

that's OK. But yet for us, even as

believers, even as people who come to church Sunday morning,

Sunday night, even Wednesday night, we have to be careful

that in our minds we do not allow ourselves to get to the

place where as long as what we're doing.

Seems righteous enough, then we're square with God, but

rather that we are to aim as believers to be righteous and

holy, as He is righteous and he is holy.

The fact of the matter is that consequences of actions.

That are almost. Righteous are just as

devastating as outright sin, and sometimes even greater.

I'm going to say that again, because I don't know that we

often understand this. The consequences of actions that

are almost righteous are just as devastating as outright sin, and

sometimes even more so. Well, I'm not living like a

heathen pastor. Well, that doesn't mean that

you're doing that which God wants you to do.

Well, it's not like I'm living like the world.

They're in rebellion and sin and they're they're sleeping around

and they're, they're drinking and they're abusing substances

and the things that come out of their mouth are vile and wicked.

And listen, Pastor, I mean, I'm not like that.

Well, praise the Lord, but that doesn't mean that we're being

righteous. We may seem to be righteous on

the outside, or we may exhibit it in certain ways, but that

doesn't mean that God is pleased with us just because we are

seemingly righteous or partially righteous.

No, righteousness is being. Completely and totally

righteous, just as a little bit of poison and something greater.

Is not something. Someone would want to have a

part of sin, poisons, even the righteous actions when it is all

combined together. No, no, what we need to do is to

aim to be that which God wants us to be.

We see examples of this all throughout the Word of God.

Saul spared A gag and the spoil in First Samuel chapter #15 Oh,

sure it's going to be. Used for sacrifice.

So sure it's good, right? Well, it sounded good.

It sounded godly, but God said don't do it.

So that made it. We looked at.

Few months ago Aza touching the ark.

He was just trying to stabilize the ark.

That's all he was trying to do. But God said this.

Don't touch the ark. But he was doing it for a good

reason. But God said don't touch the ark

and the Bible said a breach took place and Aza died.

Nate Evan Abai who offered strange fire in Leviticus

chapter #10. Well, they were making a

sacrifice. I mean, they were, they were

working in the temple, after all.

They were, they were doing what God wanted to do.

And the answer is they weren't because they didn't offer the

type of sacrifice that God had told them to make.

It wasn't good enough that they had all the right clothing.

It wasn't good enough that they went in the right time.

It wasn't good enough that they went to the right places and the

right points within the Tabernacle.

They offered fire, which God had commanded them not to offer, and

they died. King Uzziah offered incense.

The second Chronicle chapter #26 it was not for him to do.

It was the job of the priests. Well, come on, Pastor.

I mean, he's, he's offered incense to God.

Who could be upset about that? Well, the one who could be

unhappy about that would be the same God who said that it was

for the priest to do and not for the king.

Because it's God's decision what's righteous and what's not,

not man's and an ISIS Sapphira. Well, I mean, Pastor, they did

give an offering. They lied about it.

They lied about the price of which they gave and of it they

paid their life. Partial obedience is not

obedience. Often tell our children.

Partial obedience is not obedience.

Slow obedience is not obedience. One of the first messages I ever

preached. In fact, I think it was the

first message I preached at Heartland that preachers roundup

when they had the the students preach in a separate area for

practice and those kind of things.

I preached a message called when half equals 0.

The idea I've done halfway what God's told me to do.

Well, that's still equals 0 in the eyes of the Lord.

Why? Because God wants us to do right

all the way through to the end and not to mix our righteousness

with unrighteousness. Charles Spurgeon said this, My

dear here I trust you are convinced that no half obedience

can ever be accepted by God. AW, Tozer said One compromise

here, another there, and soon enough the so-called Christian

and the man in the world look exactly the same.

This is true for us too. We must be careful to not get

haughty that we're being spiritual all while using

ungodly means at the exact same time.

I'll give you an example when I was.

First in the ministry. I worked for a pastor that there

were times that he got upset about things and things weren't

the way that he wanted them to be or got upset at staff or got

upset at church members. And it manifested itself in a

way that wasn't always pretty. Can I put it that way?

And I started to pick up on that habit myself.

Now, some of you think I'm so tender and so kind and so sweet,

but I'll tell you, I started to pick up some of those habits

myself because it's I kind of got to the place of listen.

The man of God. Says it.

That's the way it needs to be. You don't like it, get out of

the way. Kind of enjoyed that kind of

attitude, you know, kind of Lord, can we call that fire down

from heaven? Jesus didn't enjoy that, did he?

He said, you sons of Thunder, you, you don't know what you're

talking about. Calm yourself down.

So I I. Got to a place where, where that

was the case for me in ministry. But after that, I worked for

another pastor in the same ministry.

And, you know, I learned that there was a better, a more Godly

way to do things to be able to not just blow up at somebody

because they did wrong. I learned this from him.

But at the same time, over time, I would find that that in this

working with him, that there would be sometimes issues with

people and, and difficulties. And people would say, I feel

like there's a problem. He would say to them, is there

some kind of problem? There's not a problem.

There's not a problem. He wouldn't blow up.

He would blow up like I had learned before, he would just

say there's not a problem. And he would talk so calmly and

so quietly. It was so different.

And I thought that it was actually a very godly way to

handle things. But then I found out that really

he would say that there's not a problem, but then he would

complain after they left. About the problem.

For weeks and weeks and weeks on end.

And I started to find out that I picked up that habit, too.

You starting to see a pattern. I'm very impressionable,

unfortunately, when it comes to pastoral leadership.

I guess what I'm saying is that I would get in a conversation

with somebody. I would try to take the high

ground, try to be calm, cool and collected.

I'm not blowing up at anybody. I'm not angry at anybody.

But you know what? In my heart I was just as

seething as I was before. Well, Pastor, at least you

handled it in a more righteous way.

You know what the Lord convicted me about later on?

Neither of those are righteous. 1 looks a little more righteous

than the other, doesn't it? But both are unrighteous.

That if I am upset with somebody, you know what, it

would be had better for me to say I'm upset, I'm not happy,

and maybe I shouldn't feel that way.

Let's talk about this. Like brothers in Christ or a

brother and sister in Christ. To not lie about it and to

gaslight somebody. I heard.

I hate that term gaslight, but but that's exactly what it is.

To pretend there isn't a problem and then to walk away and say

man. What's the problem?

Seems godly because you're not yelling and screaming, but it's

not godly. What happens when conflict

resolution in Second Samuel chapter 14 doesn't deal honestly

2 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

and righteously? I'd submit to you and we'll look

at this in a moment. Second Samuel chapter 14 ends

2 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

much differently than Second Samuel chapter 12.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

Because when the Word of God is spoken in Second Samuel chapter

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

12 and a man is stirred not just in his emotions, but all the way

down to the heart, and is convicted, convicted by the word

of the Lord. Real change takes place in

chapter #14 when everyone seems godly and talks about the Lord,

but the Lord's nowhere near what's taking place.

The end results are much, much different.

Pseudo godliness is dangerous. This is important because we can

come into a church setting and we can say how you doing

brother, how you're doing, sister.

And we can interact with each other on the most, on the nicest

of terms. In fact, the outside.

Would come in and would look at us and say, boy, aren't they

really happy with one another or don't they treat one another

well? But in your heart, if what

you're portraying on the outside is not what's on the inside,

that pseudo godliness is a generic version of godliness.

That pseudo godliness is the Rolox instead of the Rolex.

That pseudo godliness looks good, but just like the generic,

just like the Rolex. Over time, people can tell the

difference. You know, for some reason, when

I was a teenager, I got to visit New York City and it was my goal

to buy a fake Rolex. I mean, what a stupid thing that

would be like my goal is to try to find a fake Rolex.

For some reason, the fake Rolex dealers, I never found them, but

I have heard that they look very convincing at first.

But if you know what you're looking for, you can find it

immediately. And even those who don't know

what they're looking for, over time start to realize, hey, this

thing isn't keeping time. I guess it's not worth $20,000.

Why is the gold peeling off? I guess it's not real.

Listen, pseudo godliness in the life of a church or in the life

of a believer feels good for a while, but over time, the wheels

start to come off. What do we need to do?

Not just act like we're godly. We need to be godly.

Not be, well, I mean, listen, we're in church.

I mean, how bad can we be? I mean, listen, we're already in

church. And so if there's a little

gossip, what's the big deal? I mean, it's a prayer request.

That's that's all it is just a prayer request.

Well, it's a prayer request probably formed as gossip.

So that's not really, I'm not saying every prayer request is

gossip, but I'm saying there's a lot of gossip that goes on in

churches sometimes as prayer requests.

Will you pray? For them, let me tell you

everything that happened in their lives last couple weeks.

What? That's pseudo.

Godliness. That's not godly.

There's nothing godly about that.

Phil, shake someone hand. How are you doing, brother?

But in your heart saying, boy, I hope it won't stop to talk to me

because I don't want to talk to him.

Listen, there's anyone in this building that you shouldn't be

able to sit down and have a 5 or 10 minute conversation with at

any given time. If you can't, that's a problem.

Yeah. This is going over real great

tonight. OK, It's all right.

I'll plug away nonetheless. All right?

If there's someone that you actively avoid within this

building, that's a problem. Was it?

Well, listen, I mean, I don't. It's not like I hate it.

It's not like you love them. We ought to be able to sit down

and fellowship with one another. And truly, even knowing that we

come from different backgrounds and we look at things

differently, that's OK. But yeah, we have the

commonality of the blood of Christ within us, and pseudo

godliness shouldn't be. Hey, brother.

OK, don't talk to me. It ought to be hey.

How was your week? How's how's work?

No, don't answer. I don't.

I don't care. But no, I do care.

But I just don't have time. All right, to be, to talk to

someone, fellowship with them, to pray for them.

You know what my concern is not necessarily for Liberty Baptist

Church, because this is a great church in so many ways, but just

in general with Christianity that if we're not careful, we

can look like Second Samuel 14. Hey, at first blush it looks

great, doesn't it? But then you start digging

deeper to go, whoa, this is not good.

And listen, this can go into every area of our life because

we can make a lot of excuses about why we're doing something

wrong for a good reason. Well, I know I lied, but I, I

didn't want to hurt their feelings.

I know I lied, but I didn't want to worry my wife.

Well, I, I know I fudged the numbers on my taxes, but, you

know, the government gets enough anyway.

Well, yeah, I, I, I know I, I clocked in earlier than I

actually got to work, and I didn't actually work the whole

time I was clocked in for. But you know, our company makes

enough money anyway. We can start to make all these

rationalizations in our life of even why we're doing good when

we're doing bad. And all of that pseudo

righteousness is actually unrighteousness.

No, it's not like what I mean. I've got a good motive, so at

least I'm somewhere over here. The mark is not here.

The mark is here. It's God's righteousness.

Anything else is unrighteous. Well, I mean, I, I drank.

The water with the poison and it was half water and half actually

it's 51% water, 49% poison. So it was OK, you know what I

want? I want 100% water and 0% poison.

But that's the way it is with sin.

What does the Bible say that our, that our, our he's going to

cleanse us in Isaiah chapter 1 is white as Snow White as snow.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

What is that? That's the absence of anything

else, whiteness, the absence of color.

There is nothing, you know, if you add just a little bit of

color, it's no longer white, it's off white.

It's the same way with God's righteousness.

You add a little bit of anything else to God's righteousness.

You know what it is? It's unrighteousness.

That's what it is. So I know this may be a strange.

Turn off of this text. But my mind has been on this for

a while. It's been on this, this text for

probably a month and a half because we've been out of the

series for a month and a half just trying to seek what the

Lord would have for us. And honestly, I had difficulty

trying to parse out what's going on.

You know, should David, should David have been, you know,

should have said what he said, You know, with this woman, what

was she being wise and what she said?

Because the Bible even says she was a wise woman, but was she

being wise in what she said? Was Joab trying to help David or

was he off the mark? And I came to the conclusion

that in the end, once you started comparing it to chapter

#12 everybody was wrong, even though everybody seemed right at

first. When I look at Liberty Baptist

Church. I don't want us to just seem

godly. I want us to be godly.

When I look at my own life, I don't want to just portray

myself as someone in the community that is godly.

I need to be godly. No, I need to make sure the

things I look at, the things I talk about, the things I listen

to are things that are pleasing to God.

And it doesn't matter if the world thinks that I am.

Well, he's a very dedicated Christian.

Well, if I portray myself that way, but I am not that, that's

not a good thing. In fact, after a while, you know

what'll happen. The more they see me, the more

they're around me. Just like that, Roblox, they're

going to realize, no, this isn't quite right and you'll do more

harm to the cause of Christ than good with your fake, phony

baloney godliness. I'll leave you with this.

I'll be to have some other stuff and we're going to end here.

But I would say this, it seems like there was another group of

people that had this problem. They were really good at showing

how godly they were, but there was no godliness to be found

within them. Pharisees.

The long robes standing on the corner, praying.

But they weren't praying to God, they were praying to themselves.

Remember the the Pharisee who was praying with the the public

and not far off in the Bible said that that Pharisee was

praying to himself. His prayers weren't even getting

as far as the ceiling as far as I believe the Word of God would

teach. We don't want a Pharisee spirit

that looks godly, that seems godly.

It's horseshoes and hand grenades godly.

But in God's economy, that's not what he's looking for.

He's looking not for close enough godliness.

He's looking for you and I to be godly.

By the way, the end of this story, the fruit of the end of

the story, tells the story. David still couldn't bring

himself to see Absalom, so Absalom gets upset at Joab and

he burns his fields down. David couldn't bring himself to

be able to make things right with Absalom.

Or or rather to to execute justice.

I should say with Absalom would be a better way of putting it.

He didn't want Absalom to die. Well because he didn't handle

this in a godly way it would end up happening.

Absalom leads a rebellion, 20,000 Israelites die, and

Absalom still dies by the hand of Joab.

Did David handle it well with a pseudo godliness?

No Did Joab handle it well with a pseudo godliness?

No. Did the woman of Toccoa do

anyone any favors by lying? No.

It seems so good, but it all went so bad.

Because that's what fake godliness will do.

Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of

Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing

to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us

know by contacting us at [email protected].

Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,

MA. May the Lord bless you as you

grow in His Word.