Now Then, Do It! | May 11, 2025 PM

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

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

Second Samuel chapter #3 in the Word of God tonight, second

Samuel chapter #3 and that we saw last week the patience of

David. Remember, even though the goal

post moved, even though he thought he was going to be king

and still was not king yet, he was able to be patient because

he knew that God was in control. But tonight, we're going to

continue to look at David and Ishbasheth, and as Ishbasheth

and his splinter Kingdom, if you will, is going to be on the

decrease decline, we're going to see that David and his Kingdom,

the rightful Kingdom, Amen, is going to be on the increase and

on the incline. You know, for me being a pastor,

this is not just a job. You know, I didn't turn into a

pastor because I couldn't do anything else for a living.

And it's like, well, if you can't do something else, just be

a pastor. I guess that's not the way that

it works for me. It's it's a calling, it's a

ministry, it's a, it's a passion.

I hope that those of you who are here have known me long enough

to know that that's how I feel about the ministry, that this is

not a nine to five. This is just not a way to make a

quick buck. If it is, I picked a lousy way

to make a quick buck, all things considered.

But this is all about, it's about people and it's about

seeing people get it, you know, and seeing people get saved and

seeing them grow and seeing them get victory in their lives.

It's such an incredibly satisfying thing to be able to

see and one of the things that I have felt as a pastor often

times and one of the struggles. That I have is often times I can

see. Through someone's life and I'm

not talking about a strange prophetic type thing, but I, I

can just look at somebody and see I know what God could do in

your life if you would just give your life to him to, to look at

somebody who's struggling, you know, I know if you got saved

your life would change or to see them save but yet not really

living victoriously or not really living with Jesus as the

king of their heart. Oh sure, they're saved, but

they're not really listening to the Lord as they ought to and,

and we all go through those phases and those seasons.

It's unfortunate, but we do have those times in our own lives if

that's the case, but to look at somebody know that Jesus, Jesus

is the answer to your life. He's the answer to your problems

if you would just allow him to do the work that only he can do

it. It's really one of the things

that grieves my heart more than anything to be able to see

someone and say, won't you just let Jesus be your king?

Won't you just let him be the sovereign of your life because

it would change your life forever?

And by the way, this isn't just a problem for young people.

This isn't just a problem for new believers.

Listen, I have seen this issue from those from 8 to 80.

I've seen this issue from those who are young and the old hung

in the Lord and those who are older in their relationship with

Christ. That we all go through times or

seasons and some maybe even more so, who struggle with this.

That they just need to make Jesus Christ the King of their

life, whether through salvation, which is what we have to do

first and foremost, but then through the everyday struggles

and issues and walk of our life as well.

Well, this evening. We're going to look at the war

between the House of David and the House of Ishbisheth now.

It's going to end in our text this evening, and it's going to

come to an end through an unlikely source, someone that

you don't see as being the bridge between these two men.

But yet I believe there's a lesson that we can learn from

this man. An unlikely source, an unlikely

candidate to be able to say, you know what, David needs to be the

king. And I think there's going to be

some lessons that we can learn from this tonight in a message

that I have entitled now, then do it now, then do it down on

its face. That doesn't make a whole lot of

sense, but we're going to see where those 4 words are actually

found in our text tonight. Once you remain seated, then

we're going to read second Samuel chapter #3 beginning of

verse one and going to verse #11 Now we'll continue on after

that, but we'll stop at verse #11 for time to make some

comments as well. So it says.

Now there was long war between the House of Saul and the House

of David, but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the

House of Saul waxed weaker and weaker.

And then the David were sons born, and Hebron.

And his first born was Amnon of a Hinom the Jezreelitis, and his

second Chilean of Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

And the third Absalom, the son of Maka, the daughter of Talmi

king of Gesher. And the 4th Adniga, the son of

Haggath and the 5th chef Hitath the son of Abatto.

And the 6th Ythrium by Igla, David's wife.

These were born to David in Hebrew.

And it came to pass while there was war between the House of

Saul, the House of David, that Abner made himself strong for

the House of Saul. You'll remember that Abner is

the uncle of David, or rather the uncle of Saul.

I apologies. And Saul had a concubine whose

name was Rizpa, the daughter of Aiya.

And Ishbashaf said to Abner, Wherefore has thou gone in unto

my father's concubine? Then was Abner Barry Roth for

the words of Istraceph, and said, Am IA dog's head, which

against Judah do show kindness this day unto the House of Saul

thy father, to his brethren, and to his friends, and have not

delivered thee into the hand of David, that thou charges me

today with a fault concerning this woman.

So do God to Abdura. More also, except as the Lord

has sworn to David Even so I do to him to translate the Kingdom

from the House of soul and to set up the throne of David over

Israel and over Judah from Dan even to Beersheba and he could

not answer Abner a word again because he feared him.

Now, whether you realize it or not, there's a great deal of

drama that just took place within the 1st 11 verses of this

chapter. So we're going to try to unpack

it a little bit and then we're going to continue on in the text

to be able to learn some lessons again in a message that I've

called now then do it. And if I was to give this

message a subtitle, it would be this Stop waiting to put the

king. On his throne.

Stop waiting to put the King on his throne.

Heavenly Father, I do pray to you be with us this evening and

allow me to say what needs to be said for these people tonight.

Allow my preparation. Allow the work.

That. Has taken place behind the

scenes to have been fruitful for the admonition for the help of

all who are here tonight and all who listen later on or watch

online. And Lord, may it help them as it

helped me and maybe bring them to a place of realizing some

things even as it did for me this last week.

Or thank you for this message and I pray that you would help

me as I deliver it. And we ask it in Jesus name,

Amen. Now from what we just read,

there's enough drama taking place here that one could think

that it came from the mind of a Hollywood screenwriter.

But it's not something that came out of the mind of Hollywood,

but rather it's found right here as we saw this morning, revealed

to us by the inspiration of the word of God.

Now, our chapter opens with this thought process of what's taking

place in this, well, civil war that's taking place between

Judah and the House of David and the other tribes and the House

of Saul, which is being represented by Ishbosheth.

But you remember, Abner is more of the puppet master.

Abner is more of the kingmaker that's here behind the scenes

that Ishbosheth, who we saw last week was a fairly weak man and

certainly a man that I believe had very little by way of, of,

of, of real character in and of himself.

And we see that David's getting stronger and Ishbasheth is

getting weaker. That that doesn't surprise us,

does it? Because we know, as we saw last

week, who was promised to be king, it wasn't Ishbasheth, it

was David who was promised to be king of Israel.

And so we have this ascension of 1 and the descending of the

other. And then we get this aside for

about four verses of the family of David and you'll realize that

as David has amassed some level of wealth and he is he is

ascending towards the Kingdom. He's also collected a few wives,

hasn't he? Along the way.

You might say, pastor, why is this mentioned here?

Because as I've said to you before, the word of God does not

shy away from the hard or sometimes the unsavory elements

of those who are still considered heroes of the faith.

David here is shown as a man who has collected women, as was the

custom of kings of that time. But let me remind you that just

because thing is a custom of those of the world does not mean

it should be the custom of the child of God.

You'd say, well pastor, where on earth does it say in the Bible

explicitly that a man should not have more than one wife?

And my answer to you is that it never says thou shalt have shall

not have. Be careful.

I would say that more than one wife.

But I would argue to you that you look right at the very

beginning. You look right at what marriage

is as instituted by God. It is what one man and one woman

that had been brought together. They leave their father and

mother and cleave together as one.

Nowhere is it ever introduced that there are to be other

elements that are involved to the marriage.

It's just implicit in the fact of what it's taught, that it's

one man and one woman and that others are not to be added into

this mix as well. It's not, well, this man and

this woman, but the same man and this woman, the same man and

this woman, the same man and this woman.

That was never God's intent. There's also a Bible principle

as well that you can find at times in the Word of God where

something is mentioned and maybe it's never condemned because

it's just being reported to us, the fact of the matter.

But you can see just from the very nature of what it is that

it's not going well. Well, I would challenge you to

go through the Word of God and find a time when multiple

marriages by one man is ever presented in a way where it

works out well. Did it work out well for David?

No Did it work out well for Solomon?

No Did it work out well for Jacob?

No. Did it work out well for Abraham

who took of his concubine, who took of his wife's servant and

had Ishmael with her? No.

It never worked out well in the Bible.

Why? Because it was never God's plan.

And if you're to look at this list of men that you have these

sons that were born of these woman in these 4 verses here in

chapter #3 of the men who were accounted for at this time never

amounted to anything, or even worse, amounted into something

quite wicked. You could take several of those

names, including Amnon and Adonijah, and find that these

are not exactly a paragons of Christian virtue, that these are

quite the opposite. So I feel like we just need to

clear off a spot there for just a moment and mention that while

these are brought to our attention here, that this is not

God's stamp of approval on what David has done here.

It's just God reporting on, well, exactly what David has

done and giving us the unvarnished look at his life.

But anytime you see this idea of polygamy in the Bible, it never

goes well. And isn't it amazing, by the

way, how things that are old always become new and polygamy

is in the news again, whether it's a reality show, Sister

Wives a few years ago, or place like Somerville where throuple's

are legally allowed to be able to be an entity.

And this is something that is becoming in the news once again.

And we just have to remind ourselves, look, God's word is

always God's word. God's truth is always truth.

And error just kind of keeps coming around over and over

again. Does it gets repackaged and gets

repurposed? You know, polygamy one time,

throuple the next, but yet what is it?

It's all sin in God's eyes, and certainly sin even though David

partook of it here in verses 2 through 6.

But then we get to the place where it says that Abner and

Ishbashaf have this conversation.

Ishbashaf comes up to Abner, and he says in verse #7 He says,

Wherefore has thou gone in unto my?

Father's concubine. Now this is.

Something that is going to be an issue a few times as we study

verse and Second Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, First and Second

Chronicles, as we look at the lives of the kings of Israel and

of Judah. But there is an issue at times

when someone who perhaps desires to be a king takes on as a

concubine someone from who used to be the king.

And the idea of so was to be able to say, look, this woman

belonged to the king and now she belongs to me.

So I guess I should be king. You say that's a pretty

backwards way of looking at things, isn't it, Pastor?

Exactly. To consider a woman a piece of

property, to consider a woman nothing more than being a a

prop, to be able to make the man a king over the people.

Certainly again, not the way that God looks at these things.

That's not what's being said. But yet Ishbashev comes up to

Abner. He says this.

Listen, man, I've heard about you.

I heard that you took one of my father's concubines.

And what he is saying in this is basically saying I'm here and

you want to make a play for the throne.

I'm here and you want to take my spot.

And again, we saw that Ishbashaf is a pretty weak man.

We saw the Ishbashaf is not a man of character.

And what's interesting about Abner's response, again, Abner

is a relation to him. They are family.

And his response is this look at verse #8 Abner was wroth for the

words of Ishbashaf, and said, Am IA dog's head, which against

Judah do show kindness. This day unto the House of soul,

thy father to his brethren, to his friends, and have not

delivered thee into the hand of David, that thou charges me

today with a fault concerning this woman.

So do God to Abner more also accept that the Lord has sworn

to David. Even so I do to him to translate

the Kingdom from the House of Salt, and to set up the throne

of David over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even unto

Beersheba. So I would say from reading this

that the accusation that Ishbasheth is making against

Abner was one that was seemingly false.

It was not one that was actually true.

Ishbasheth either had heard that this was the case, or perhaps

Ishbasheth is trying to poke the bear a little bit, if you will,

to try to make Abner mad, perhaps to try to remove him

from the way, and trying to make himself more powerful, realizing

that he seemingly looks like a puppet to all the people.

I don't know what Ishbosheth reasoning was to accuse Abner of

this, but it was a bad move. Listen, if you become king

because of a kingmaker, you don't want to make the kingmaker

mad. If you are a puppet, you don't

want to make the puppeteer mad. And that's exactly what he did.

He angered Abner and Abner says Ish Bashat.

Who are you? Who are you to say this of me?

Don't you know that the only reason you are in this throne

that you have right now is because of me?

Don't you realize you wouldn't even you wouldn't even beat

anybody if it wasn't for me? And you would dare accuse me of

trying to do something to hurt the Kingdom when I've done

nothing but try to help you? He says, you know what I'm going

to do? He says maybe I ought to just

wander right over to David and talk to him.

And maybe David ought to be the king over Israel, all of Israel

other than you. Well, verse #11 says this.

Berseth could not answer Abner a word because he feared him.

What a weak man he is. And we're going to find out how

weak even greater he is in just a moment.

But yet Abner says this. Hey, buddy, you want to?

You want to, you want to play with the bull and grab the

horns. He says you might get the horns.

And that's exactly what's going to happen right now.

He says, you think you're going to going to cross me?

He says, how about I cross the line and go over to David and

maybe we unify this Kingdom and guess who's going to be out?

It's going to be you. And we see as we continue on in

our text from verse #12 on, that's exactly what took place.

Now there's a lot of bitterness that is involved in this.

In fact, there's some of second Samuel chapter #2 that we did

not address last week that I think we may address next week

because it will pick up with where we leave off and Second

Samuel chapter #3 if that makes sense.

And so there's a lot of bitterness.

There's a lot of animosity between the House of David and

the House of Saul. And who's the one that started

all up in the 1st place? It was Abner.

Abner was the one who could not accept the fact that day would

be the king of all 12 tribes. He was the one that grabbed

Isbush Chef. He was the one who tried to make

him to be the king. He's for two years the one

that's been stirring the pot and keeping the animosity burning.

But even Abner realizes, man, this guy isn't just a puppet.

He's a fool. He's he's dangerous in the fact

of what the way he thinks he doesn't understand who he is.

He doesn't understand where he's gone or where he's been or who

David is. He says, you know what?

Let's just end this right now. And listen, we may not know

Abner's motives. It could have been just the fact

that he just felt wounded in his pride.

Look, I don't know what it is. All I know is this.

He says this has got to stop. And there's only one person who

could make this stop, and it's the one who got it started, and

that's me. So let's pick up at verse #12

and move on. Then we left off at verse #11

Look at verse 12. And Abner sent messengers to

David on his behalf, saying, Whose is the land?

Saying, also make thy league with me.

And behold, my hand shall be with thee to bring about all

Israel unto thee. And he said, Well, I will make a

league with thee. One thing I require of thee,

that is, thou shall not see my face, except thou first bring

Michael, Saul's daughter, when thou comest to see my face.

Do you remember in First Samuel chapter 18 that David was

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention

promised that he would have Saul's daughter to be his own,

but yet Saul, in a bit of deceit towards David, ended up trying

to use it as a way for David to be killed.

David was not killed. And so he ended up giving away

Michael to another man. And so David says this, Hey, I

want to know that you're serious, Abner.

I want to know, I want to ask you to do something that's going

to cost you a little bit and it's going to cost the family a

little bit, he says. I want my wife back now again,

are we agreeing with this? David already has five more

wives than he ought to have, but yet this is what David perceives

as the correct way to go to be able to say listen she was

promised to me. I want to see her before we go

any further. So pick up at verse #14 it says

and David sent messengers to Ishbosheth soul son saying

deliver me my wife Michael, who my spouse to me for in 100 and

foreskins of the Philistines. Again, going back to that story

in First Samuel chapter 18. And Ishbosheth sent and took for

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention

her from her husband, even from Faulty Elle the son of Laish.

And her husband went with her along weeping behind her to

Bayrum, and said Abner unto him, go return.

And he returned. This man's This man is married

to Michael and he's been married to her seemingly for probably 10

to 15 years, somewhere around that length of time.

And so Abner comes and he says, listen, Michael, remember,

David, remember, you're supposed to be married to him.

You're going to him. Hey, you, Sir, sit down.

She don't belong to you anymore. And so this man, well, he's

upset and you ought to be upset. He's about to lose his wife.

And so he's following behind Abner and he's crying and he's

weeping. And Abner says, hey, man, go

home. She don't belong to you anymore.

And talk about a weak man. He goes, OK, and he walks home.

We never hear from him again. I mean, what a crazy thing is

that, huh? That his man's wife's taken away

from him. And he's like, well, I'll try a

little. I'll cry a little bit.

But you know, oh, well, I guess I'll move on.

And that's what happens there. Verse 17 Abner had communication

with the elders of Israel saying you sought for David in times

past to be king over you. Now then do it, for the Lord has

spoken of David, saying, By the hand of my servant David, I will

save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, out of

the hand of all their enemies. And Abner Spake also in the

years of Benjamin, and Abner Witt to speak in the years of

David and Hebron, all that seemed good to Israel, and that

seemed good to the house, whole House of Benjamin.

Sorry, I lost my space there. Verse #20 And Abner came to

David to Hebron, and 20 men with him.

David made Abner and the men that were with him a feast.

And Abner said unto David, I will arise and go, and we'll

gather all Israel unto my Lord the king, that they may make a

league with thee, and that thou mayest reign over all that thine

heart desireth. And David said Abner away, and

he went in peace. So what takes place from verse

#17? And on Abner takes Michael,

delivers Michael to David, and says, David, I have kept my

word. Then he goes and he talks to all

the tribes of Israel. And he says this, listen, it's

time to bring the tribes together.

It's time to bring Israel together.

It's been a long two years. Saul died two years ago, and

we've been split in half. Judah, the larger tribe with

David, the 11 other tribes with Ishbasheth.

It's time to bring the family together.

Then he goes to the tribe of Benjamin, his own tribe.

Why is that important? Well, that's the tribe of Seoul.

And of course, they had great pride in knowing that Seoul was

their king and he was one of their own.

And he went to them and he told them the same thing.

He said it's time for us to bring everybody back together.

It's time for the civil war to be over.

And then he goes to David, and David very graciously throws a

banquet for him. And David very graciously

decides to be a unifier instead of trying to make things worse

and instead of trying to get a pound of flesh, an ounce of

blood from Abner, he says this, Listen, the time for this is

over. It's time for us to come

together. It's time for the Kingdom to be

is 1. It's time for me to be the king

as God has promised all of that time ago.

So with all of that being said, there is an interesting

statement you might have caught because it came from our text

just a few moments ago. There's an interesting statement

that I want to focus on for the remainder of the message that we

have tonight because it's something that I think is really

helpful to us when we consider, look at verse #17 and it says an

Abner had communication with the elders of Israel, saying you saw

it for David in times past to be king over you now, then do it.

I'm going to stop right there for a minute.

He says there have been times in the past when you knew David

should be king. Now when exactly that is, I

don't know. It very likely could have been

that after Saul died that the tribes were starting to believe

that they needed to coalesce together under David and that as

they were starting to that process and allowing it to

begin, that Abner ended up saying, no, no, no, hold on a

second. Before you go to David, there's

another option. Before you go to David, there's

another way. You may not have realized it,

folks, but there was a another son of Saul that I have hiding

over here, and he was hiding because I believe he wasn't in

battle. He was not a man who was.

Honorable in any way? But he says, listen, you don't

have to have David. You could have this guy over

here and wouldn't he be so much better for you?

And, and so Abner was saying, look, there was a time when you

all sought for David and then you let him be.

He said, but now listen, now then do it.

It's time to make the king the king.

It's time to stop talking about this.

It's time to stop talking about putting him on his throne, and

it's time to get this done now. Then do it.

You know, I feel like we've been calloused by the phrase just do

it over the years. And we can probably thank Nike

for that, can't we? Because starting in 1988, they

started one of the most popular advertising campaigns in history

by simply saying those 3 words. Just do it.

And Nike came became from a boutique shoe resaler or seller

rather, to becoming an international juggernaut, which

it is today. And much of that can be

attributed to that phrase. Just do it.

And so I feel like we've heard it so many times that it's

something that almost we don't really think about very much

anymore. And it's just become a slogan.

It's become an advertising phrase.

It's not really something that maybe we internalize as we ought

to do. But, you know, there is an

element of the Christian life that it really comes down to

this. Just do it.

There's enough of the talk. There's enough of the preaching,

there's enough of the teaching. You say there's enough preaching

and teaching. Well, obviously there's never

enough in one sense. But what I'm trying to say is

this. There's some people who just

want to absorb preaching and absorb teaching and read and

hear and learn, but yet they never want to put it into

practice. They never want to.

They never just want to do it. They want to feel like they're

learning. They want to feel like they're

growing just by sitting under the Word.

But listen, God didn't give us the Word just so that we could

expand our minds and not actually put it into practice in

the 1st place. When it comes to the issue of

having the King on the throne, just do it.

And when it comes to having the King on the throne of our heart,

what are we to do? Just do it.

Is Jesus Christ the King of our heart?

You know what's interesting about David?

David never forced himself on anybody, did he?

David's passive here, David is a representation, I believe, of

Jesus Christ. What is he doing?

David is ready, David is available.

He's the king of promise, but he is not going to force himself

upon anybody. Do you realize our king, King

Jesus? Is there any other king, I mean,

any other king can only get their power from the King of

kings and the Lord of Lords. But Jesus will not force himself

upon you. He does not force himself upon

you in salvation. He does not force himself upon

you in your daily life. You know what we have to do.

We have to take that which we understand the word of God and

do it. And every day we have to wake up

and say, Lord, you're in control of this day and not me.

Lord, you're in control of my wallet and not me.

Lord, you're in control of my agenda and not me.

Lord, you're control of my eyes and not me.

Lord, you're in control of my mind and not me.

You're in control of my ears. You're in control of my hands.

You're in control of my feet and where they go.

You're in control of my heart. You're in control of my car.

You're in control of my house. You're in control.

You say, pastor, that's a lot of stuff, and I'm not even close to

being done. If he's the king, he's in

control of everything. But yet I've often found to be

the case is that you and I as believers, we want him to be the

king. But we only wanted to be the

king so much, and we only wanted to be the king so far.

And sure, we like having him around.

It's comforting to know that he's there.

But we still want to exert some level of autonomy on our own.

We still want to be our own person.

And here's Jesus. He's waiting to be crowned.

He's waiting to be put on the throne.

And we get to a place where even Abner looks at this.

He says, man, just do it. Just do it.

Get it done. And you know, there's another

part of this that's it's almost galling when you think about it.

And I don't know that I caught this.

I, I've been working on this message all week and I've

actually struggled with this message all week and trying to

the compose it and trying to put it together.

I've been working on it as early as Tuesday and just not, not

happy with how things lined up and, and, and I don't know.

But every time I came back to this thought because it was

troubling to me, because listen again, do you think Abner's a

hero here? I mean.

Abner's the. One that got everyone into this

mess in the first place. Abner's hands aren't necessarily

clean here, but for whatever issue, the insult by Ishbashaf,

whatever it was, Abner did come to his senses and we can be

thankful he came to his senses again.

I, I can't really say the motives of his heart and

entirety because the Bible doesn't tell us.

We can probably infer some things, but you and I have

probably been someplace in our lives where, you know, we got to

the right side of things and it's because we got to a pretty

low place. And perhaps this is what

happened to Abner here. He realizes that even the level

of control he thought he had, he doesn't even have the level of

respect he thought he engendered from Israel he didn't have.

And he got to a low place. And he said, look at this.

Just look at this verse 17 or verse #18 Now do it.

For the Lord has spoken of David saying, by the hand of my

servant David, I will save my people Israel out of the hand of

the Philistines and out of the hand of all of their enemies.

The part that really troubled me, of course, the first part.

Now then do it. You know, that's where we're

we're we're kind of getting the thrust of the message.

But Hebner admits in that second phrase that he knew all along

that David was supposed to be king.

Am I reading the same thing you are this evening?

Look at it now then do it. For the Lord has spoken of

David. Well, how long?

Has he known that? I would have to wonder that he's

known that for some period of time, and he's saying it in a

way to the men of Israel, to the leadership of Israel, as if

they've known that for some time.

And so what's the problem here? And you're saying basically for

the last two years, I knew David was king.

I knew he was supposed to be on the throne, but yet I decided to

do my own thing anyway. You know what often times is the

problem with believers. And listen, I am.

I'm right there with you is that we know what's right, we know

what we ought to do, but yet we just don't want to do it because

the throne of our heart is ruled by self instead of by King

Jesus. Abner knew David was supposed to

be king. There's an argument to be made

that all the people of Israel knew David was supposed to be

king, but they wanted to be the ones in charge and not David.

And so many times, when it comes to the life of the believer, so

many times we know that Jesus should be on the throne of our

heart, but yet we're just too comfortable with the Kingdom

that we have created ourselves. And so we know what's right.

We know we shouldn't be doing these things.

We know we shouldn't be watching these things.

We know we shouldn't be saying these things.

We know we shouldn't be acting this way.

Or we know we should be doing certain things, or we should be

acting in certain ways, or we know we should be doing things.

The things we're not supposed to do, we know not to do them.

The things that we're supposed to do, we know to do them.

But yet, as Paul said, but yet we do the opposite.

Why? Because who's the king of the

heart? We ourselves are.

And now Abner says, listen, I realized I was wrong.

David needs to be the king now. Do it now.

Do it too many times. We as believers just get to the

place where we know what we're supposed to do.

But yet the Kingdom of self is far too great and it cannot be

overthrown. So what do we do?

We stop waiting to make Jesus the King of our hearts and make

him the King of our hearts, both in position and in practice.

We stop waiting for Jesus to be the King of our hearts, and we

make him the King of our heart, both in position and in

practice. Listen, Jesus could force

himself upon you as sovereign, but He will not.

He's there like David, waiting for you to acknowledge who he

is. Now is was David the King of

promise? Absolutely.

It didn't matter who said he was or he wasn't.

God had said he was, but yet it was important for all those

people to recognize it as well. Listen, whether you admit Jesus

is the Lord of your life or not, He is the Lord of your life.

But it sure does make a difference in your life whether

you admit it or not, doesn't it? But he's the Lord of your

speech, No, He should govern the way that you speak.

He's the Lord of your actions. He's the Lord of every area of

your life, and there's no area that the sovereign is not

allowed to be in control of. You know, we have trouble

understanding this in our society because we don't live in

the monarchy. I don't know about you.

I'm happy for that. We kind of did a war over that

to make sure we didn't have a monarchy anymore.

Threw some tea overboard. I don't know if any of you heard

about that, but that happened around these parts a little

while ago. We don't have a king, but I do

realize that maybe we have a little bit of overlap with a

work relationship. My very first job that I had, I

worked at McDonald's because that's, you know, America,

right? You know, I was 15 years old and

I was working at McDonald's making $5.00 an hour thinking

that I would pretty cool stuff, let me tell you.

And there I was on the keyboard making the orders, getting

everything done. And it was amazing to me that

there were times I only worked, I think maybe 10 hours a week

for the longest time because my parents, you know, I was just

working maybe a 5:00 to 8:00, a 5:00 to 9:00 after school.

My parents were very careful with how much I worked at the

store there. And, but I remember, you know,

you go in at night and a lot of times there'd be a little bit of

a dinner rush and then it was quiet and I didn't know what to

do. And so a lot of times I would

just start cleaning stuff up because I didn't want to just

stand behind the counter. I just kind of started to work.

And I remember working with other people because back in

those days there wasn't those kiosks that you had to order

from. They're like real live people

taking orders. And there are usually two or

three of us each at our station to get people through the line

quickly. I know that's a concept that's

from a long time ago, McDonald's, It's not that way

anymore, but that's the way it was.

And I remember I had a manager, his name was Jose.

He's the very first manager that I ever had.

And Jose would tell us, listen, if there's time for you to

stand, then there's still time for you to work.

And he would give U.S. jobs to do.

You need to clean the Mcflurry machine.

You need to clean the milkshake machine.

Oh, my kid, the milkshake machine didn't work even 25

years ago. But anyway, these are all these

different things that you had to do to be able to clean, you

know, go clean up the dining room.

You know, just make sure you sweep up, make sure the tables

are wiped over all that. And I remember I'm 15 years old.

And so I'm just dumb enough to think that when the manager

tells you do something, you just do it.

But yet I was working with people sometimes twice my age,

who would say something like this.

Jose can't tell me what to do. Like he thinks I'm gonna go

clean the dining room. I work the I work the register.

I'm I'm not Mcflurries. I'm not dealing with Mcflurries.

Help the drive through. Why would I do that?

And it was amazing to me, people that would sometimes behind his

back and oftentimes to his face, say something like this.

I'm not doing that. And it just struck me as odd.

I'm thinking they're paying us right, but they're telling us

what to do. We knew when we came in that for

whatever time we're here, we have to follow the instructions

that they're giving us. And I just never understood why.

Why would I even want to stand around?

I'd rather work and keep myself busy than I would just standing

there for 20 minutes waiting for the next customer to come.

I'd rather wash a Mcflurry machine.

I'd rather pray over the milkshake machine, see if we can

get it to work. I'd rather do all these things.

This would be a much better job to do.

And I was just dumb enough to do what the supervisor told me to

do. And I was told at 15 years old

that they would have made me a manager if I wasn't 15 years old

because I was one of the few people.

It just worked. And it wasn't because I was

special. It's just because like, well,

that's what you're supposed to do, right?

Well, after a while, I was making $5.00 an hour at

McDonald's and that wasn't enough.

And so I went over to Target to work.

I was now 16 1/2 and I was making 650 an hour.

Whoa, baby, 650 an hour. I mean, that was a, that's a big

deal from $5.00 an hour, 650. I mean, come on, you know, so

I'm going to go over work at Target.

They hired me to work at the cash register.

And by the way, I'm old enough to remember that when you had a

credit card, there was no PIN pad.

We got to pull out the carbon copies and the, you know, kind

of the old fashioned way. That's how we used to do things

back when I worked at Target. And that was the way it was.

Back in those days, so anyway, I worked for a while, they would

say, hey Adam, we need somebody to work carts, go fetch those

carts. And you know, it looks fun up

here in the spring when it's 75° in Florida, when it's 95 and

100% humidity, it's really not fun.

But I didn't know that I had a choice to tell them I didn't

want to do it. So I just went.

I worked carts for a while. I learned how to do customer

service. I ended up learning how to be

able to process returns. One day they said, hey, we need

you to work in the Food Ave. That was the where you did short

order cooking back in those days.

There's a little fat flat top grill and you would work there.

They gave me one day of training and then left me alone.

And I would say there's a lot of people should have got their

money back for their food for a while because I was cooking eggs

and omelets and all kinds of things for breakfast and going

to lunch, cooking hamburgers and stuff like that.

He said, well, you should have told him no, I didn't know I had

an option. They were in charge, they were

paying me how I worked out in the lawn care center.

Hey, should this plant get sun? Should this plant get shade?

Does it have A tag on it? Because I don't know.

We had a big book back in those days because there was like no

Internet. Or if there was, it took an hour

to be able to pull up a picture. And so we had a big book that

was about this thick that we would go through and check out.

You know, it gets this much water, it gets this much light,

it gets this much shade. You plant in the summer, you

plant in the in the, in the spring, you do all these things.

I did all of it. Why?

Because they told me to. I didn't know I had any choice.

And the fact of the matter is I did have a choice.

I could say no and get fired. That might have been a long

processes. It seems like in a lot of these

places, sometimes it is a long process of defiance to firing.

But yet in the end, it's always the same.

You're fired, you don't want to follow instructions, you're

gone, bye bye. That's the way it works.

But you know what I found? I found this to be true.

God tolerates a level of self will that no manager, no

employer, or no king ever would. He allows us to say no.

He allows us to push away His lordship of our life.

Why? I would submit it's because He

loves you more than any supervisor, than any employer or

any king ever could. He loves you so much that He

will allow you to say no, even to your own detriment, because

he will not force his love upon you.

He will not force his kingship upon you.

He wants to be your king, but he only wants to be your king if

you put him on the throne yourself.

We all know what to do. I would submit.

We all know what to do. That's right.

But the issue is this are. You going to do it, We make him

the king of your heart and Abner's a great example.

He was a flawed man. He was a man that had a lot of

problems. He was a man that knew to do

right and actively went against that which was right for a long

period of time. But even he came to his senses.

He says, you know what, we just got to do this.

We've got to make the rightful man the king.

And you and I, we might have a long complicated back story, but

by the grace of God. We need to make him King, who is

King in our lives first through salvation.

He needs to be king of everyone's life through

salvation, but then He's sovereign in our day-to-day life

that every minute of every hour we allow Him to be in control.

And there's no area of life that we say He doesn't control.

Lord, you can have everything except my finances.

Lord, you can have everything except my family.

Lord, you can have everything, but I'll worship as I want to.

Lord, you can have everything, but I talk the way that I want

to. Lord, you can have everything,

but my friends are my friends. Lord, you can have everything,

but I look at what I want to look at.

I experienced what I experienced.

You know, then he's not the king because David wasn't the true

king until he was the king of every tribe.

If Abner got it and Israel got it, you can get it and I can get

it. And to the final admonition is

this Now then do it. Do you bow your head and close

your eyes with me this evening? It's not just enough to know

that he should be the king. You've got to do it.

I can't do it for you. Your spouse can't do it for you.

The kids can't do it for you. Your boss can't do it for you.

Diane can't do it for you. No.

Who does it? You have to put him in his

rightful place. And here's Abner.

He do all along. David was supposed to be king

because of his own selfishness. He caused those problems for two

years. Don't allow your own

selfishness. Don't allow your own self will

to keep you from doing that. What you must do to allow God to

be sovereign over everything, that He has control over every

area of your life. Just as a manager can tell you

to work in whatever area, just as a king can require anything,

then yes, our God requires all. But may I remind you, our God is

more loving and benevolent than any manager, than any

supervisor, than any CEO, than any king.

There is no more loving sovereign then your King Jesus.

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.