Ep. 047 A Spirit of Conviction

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located

in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship

Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,

discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church

and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bickford and I will be

your host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages

are a blessing to you and bring you closer to God.

Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. My name is David Bickford.

I am the pastor here in Salmon Arm, our little church that is growing to reach the world

and many, many nations. The message I put together today is called The Spirit of Conviction,

Sinners, Saints, Salvation and Service. The text that we are going to be using is John

16, 5-11. If you are following along, you can go ahead and turn there.

A well-known professional golfer was playing in a tournament with President Gerald Ford,

fellow pro Jack Nicklaus and Billy Graham. After the round was over, one of the other

pros on the tour asked, hey, what was it like playing with the president and Billy Graham?

The pro said with disgust, I don't need Billy Graham stuffing religion down my throat. With

that he headed for a practice tee. His friend followed and after the golfer had pounded

out his fury on a bucket of golf balls, he asked, was Billy a little rough on you out

there? The pro sighed and said with embarrassment, no, he didn't even mention religion. Astonishingly,

Billy Graham had said nothing about God, Jesus or religion, yet the pro stomped away after

the game, accusing Billy of trying to ram religion down his throat.

This is an interesting illustration that we have before us. In the past, I've spoken about

the mob ruling, Israel's call for a king and the general decline of our current society.

I believe all these ideas have a similar route and we can all tie them back to an idea of

conviction or in our time, the spirit of conviction. When people sin or do something that goes

against their conscience, it seems that often we are faced with an emotional or spiritual

quandary within ourselves. We start to act funny or in a weird way, we will act differently

to our friends and loved ones and those in authority above us. I can come up with countless

examples. A kid with his hand in the cookie jar, how everyone tends to slow down when

they see a police officer, emotional outbursts when someone questions our behavior. Just

recently I came across how they are going to start using the prayer of Adon in Minnesota.

They are going to have the Islamic call to prayer five times a day. I find this to be

an interesting idea. I feel that they are convicted to be godly but in a way that they

don't want to admit their own sins. People will bend over backwards to placate different

faiths that they have no conviction over so they can feel that they are giving an heir

of godliness without accepting the reality of God and Jesus Christ. It is a spirit of

conviction. When people try to run away from godliness in their own lives, they have to

create their own gods. That is the whole purpose of idolatry in most of its forms. They need

to have something bigger than themselves but also something small enough that they can

control for themselves. The reality is that we do not like to be challenged or tested

in our lives. When someone comes along to shine the light of day on our actions, we

tend to instinctively recoil. The same thing happened to Adam and Eve in the garden in

Genesis 3, 7-8. It says, then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were

naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves in loincloths and they heard

the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his

wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord of God among the trees of the garden.

This instinct is due to the spirit of conviction. This is also something that has come about

lately. I don't mean to be overly political even though it is the political season but

there is a vice presidential candidate who has been charged with stolen valor in many

instances throughout his political history. It is interesting not the charge of itself

which it hits very close to home to me as a veteran myself but the reality is the fact

that once these charges started coming out at a much larger light, there was not a rebuttal

of these charges. There was just behind the scenes trying to change the wording of certain

things or hide certain things. It wasn't a repentance of an error. It was a let's try

to hide this failure. This instinct again is due to a spirit of conviction and we all

battle with this in our own lives. The conviction to be a convict is a Greek word or comes from

a Greek word, elencho which when it is used in the New Testament it is used to express

both the convicting work of God's spirit and the ministry of rebuke within the Christian

community. Generally the word means to convince or to refute. It gradually took on additional

meanings to correct often by accusing or to convict is used in the Septuagint to translate

the Old Testament term and to the NIV and the NASB translations to correct. So again

the idea of conviction or the spirit of conviction is one that's meant to lead people to repentance,

turning away, correcting their path. God's correcting is a powerful ministry. It confronts

human beings in their sin. In John 16, 18, June 15 we can see this. The Holy Spirit is

an active agent in this ministry. John gives us Jesus' promise that when the spirit comes

he will convict the world of guilt regarding sin and righteousness and judgment. So let's

look at our text in John 16, 5 through 11. But now I am going to him who sent me and

none of you ask me where are you going? But because I have said these things to you sorrow

has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that

I go away for if I do not go away the helper will not come to you. But if I go I will send

him to you and when he comes he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness

and judgment concerning sin because they do not believe in me concerning righteousness

because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer concerning judgment because the

ruler of this world is judged. So this brings me to my first point which is sinners. We

are all sinners and we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If you have

given your life over to Jesus then you have been redeemed but we were all born still like

still born into sin and without the grace of Christ we would have died in our sin. The

active ministry of the Spirit has been carried out since Jesus' coming at Pentecost. This

does not guarantee conversion. A person may hear the gospel recognize his or her personal

sin and need yet may choose not to believe. Even the brilliant light of God's revelation

directed by his Spirit to reveal an individual's heart does not release that individual from

responsibility of personal choice. So again we see this in our society today. People actively

try to put band-aids on problems that are sin problems. So rather than dealing with

the root sin, rather than turning to Christ and repenting and accepting salvation and

grace people will try to stick band-aids on things. People will look for politicians or

leaders to assuage their guilt by changing laws to make something legal that should not

be legal. There's some movements to normalize pedophilia within certain parties within Canada

and the United States. These ideas of normalizing sinful behavior is because we're trying to

put a band-aid on our soul rather than disinfecting the grievous sore or wound that we have.

So in Samuel 8, 1 through 9 we get the story of Israel demanding a king. When Samuel became

old he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, the name

of his second Abijah, and they were judges in Beersheba, yet his son did not walk in

his ways. But turned aside after gain they took bribes and perverted justice. Then all

the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, Behold

you gather together, or behold you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now

appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel

and when they said, Give us a king to judge us, and Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the

Lord said to Samuel, Obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they

have not rejected you, but they have rejected me for being king over them. According to

all the deeds that they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt, even to

this day forsaking me and serving other gods so they are also doing to you. Now then obey

their voice, only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who

shall reign over them. Give us a king like all their nations. So here's an interesting

situation right like an interesting picture because we see this today in our society.

We want to be like everybody else. We want to be free, liberty, liberty for everything.

We want no condemnation. We want no conviction. We want no judgment outside of the judgment

that we choose to apply to others. It's this idea that that we do not want God to be the

arbiter of truth. No, we want to be our own arbiter of truth. Our world today is rejecting

God and the danger of this idea of rejecting God is that it could be that God will let

us have the new kings placed over us. He is warning us of days ahead where we might be

in this same situation. We might be in a situation where the governments that we choose to elect

could end up taking everything from us. So these are very interesting things. So again,

the situation with Israel is the desire of the Israelites to have a king was both from

a place of unbelief and envy. Again, very similar to the time we live in now. There

are certain groups that believe that in the idea of not equality, but equity. And what's

the belief of equity is that everybody should have the same thing at the end of the day,

regardless of how they started at the beginning of their day. So if someone works really hard

all day, then they should be given the same reward as someone who works not at all. That's

the idea of equity. And in fact, it should be that at the beginning of the day, if one

party had more than another party, and at the end of the day, they still equaled off

is even it doesn't matter because they started with a benefit. So they still need to give

some of what they had in order to make sure everybody has equity. The idea is that everybody

needs to be equally poor. Because you can't have people striving to be to do their best.

And then getting ahead, you have to have everybody end with the same amount of misery in the

end. So that that's the idea of envy in this place with Israel, right? They envied for

what other nations had. They were convicted of the sins that they were harboring within

their own hearts. They wanted an earthly ruler who had the same frailties that had the same

sinful desires as themselves, because far be it for them to be judged by righteous king,

the God of heaven. It was be much nicer to be judged by a similarly sinful ruler. So

that they could also live in disobedience and sin. That this time in Israel's history,

they had yet to have a king outside of God himself. There were judges whom God rose up

to help the Israelites in times of need. And there were priests that were meant to point

Israel to the law of Moses and the covenant they had with God. If you consider the rights

and privileges that they had, and that were laid out in the viticule law, you could argue

that they were a constitutional form of government. They had a set of rules, a set of similar

common guidelines, but each tribe fundamentally governed itself. They were just required to

rule according to the tenets of the law. Our constitution given by God himself. They had

tremendous freedom, but were bound by a heavenly covenant. And they did not want to have to

live up to that standard, because a constitution or a covenant is a responsibility. It's something

that needs to be protected and something that needs to be held with esteem. But no

they wanted a more lowly standard from men and women just like themselves. Something

similar again we see in our day to day and age today, right? We see a society that wants

to take our constitutions or take our tenets and our beliefs that made such great nations

as England or Canada or United States, many Western nations. Things that made them great

and made them be able to handle World War I, World War II. But now we want a more lowly

standard. We want a different standard that changes depending on who is in favor. This

brings me to a subsection of this thought process. So we looked at the situation of

Israel, but let's also look at their desire. The desire that they had was to be like other

nations. We hear this a lot in Western politics. Such and such country is far more this or

far more that. We never look at the whole picture. We never look at the continuity or

the demographic makeup of those places and judge it based off of it being a totally different

nation. No, no. We want to be like other nations. We see something we like so we want to take

that something we like without any context of what damage it will do to what we already

have. That's the idea of idolatry. We can just bring in more and more gods into our

pantheon without any regard for what is going on around us. Without any regard to what wickedness

is being done in and around our towns. This happened when Moses was too slow coming down

from the mountain Mount Sinai. He went up to speak with God. He went up the God that

just rescued them from Egypt. Exodus 32 the golden calf. When the people saw that Moses

was so long and coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, come

and make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out

of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him. He was gone for a while. He wasn't

gone for years. He was gone for days, weeks, month, but they couldn't handle their own

conviction. They couldn't handle not knowing what would be permissible in their society.

They couldn't hold to the standards that they knew. They had to go and try to grab something

different. They live. Remember, they just saw the miraculous, but the Israelites were

very fickle with their faith. And we see examples of that today throughout our society as well.

Christian culture constantly strives to bend the word of God to fit the secular world around

us. We're called to accept ungodliness in our society as something to be revered. There's

groups of progressive Christians that will throw out whole sections of the scripture

to suit their needs. And this is nothing new because that's how a lot of cults start too,

is by taking the word of God and changing it for their own purposes. And when I'm talking

about that, I'm not talking about denominational differences. I'm talking more explicitly when

people will change the words more than just grammatically, but change the meaning to make

Jesus from being very God to being a God. We know about these things and this is no

different than what we're doing with society today when we're trying to take sexual perversion

and may and be able to hold it up as something worthy and something that God would deem righteous,

even though we have clear reasoning to know that it's not. We are persecuted and judged

for holding godly standards and we should welcome that because we're told by Jesus that

it's going to come. We are told that times have changed and that we need to reinterpret

what the scripture of God's word means. We don't need to reinterpret anything. We need

to conform to our identity in Christ. Our desire to fit in is moving against our conscience

and pressuring us to give up our beliefs in God. But I call to you, church, to hold fast,

to make your face as a flint. You might lose friends. You might lose members in your churches

if you're a pastor listening to this. But the reality is, is it's better to have a small

group serving God than to have a vast church that serves no one but themselves. And I'm

not singling out churches and that's not my place, but I am making the point that Jesus

Christ himself and his ministry, he had huge swings in the amount or the numbers of people

that he had. When he called his disciples, you know, as 12, there were periods where

it would, it would boom to hundreds and then go down to when he was being crucified to

having just, just John standing there. So we can't, you know, allow society to pressure

us to give up the word of God. Jesus didn't change his message to garner favor with the

elites. So if you're going to be a stumbling block in this world today, you should make

sure that you're clinging to the rock of Christ and that they're stumbling over Christ and

not your own pride. So here's a warning to the people of Israel. This is what happened

when the Israelites and it became their downfall. God's plan to govern his people through the

prophets, judges, and priests, a theocracy based on his benevolence and covenant. His

plan did not include an earthly clinging and despite God's warning, the people of Israel

wouldn't relent. So God gave them what they wanted. He allowed them to fit in and don't

be deceived. If you live in the West today and you think, Oh, nothing can bad can happen

to us. Nothing can change this gravy train that we've been blessed with, with living

in the West. Don't be deceived because we are at a very dangerous part of our lives

where large swaths of our population are adamantly rejecting God. In first Samuel 8, 10 through

12 it says, so Samuel told the words of the Lord to the people who are asking for King

from him. And he said, these will be the ways the King who will reign over you. He will

take your sons and appoint them to his chariots to be his horsemen and run before his chariots.

And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties and

some to plow his ground and reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the

equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks and bakers.

He will take the best of your field in the vineyards and olive orchards and give them

to a servant. He will take the 10th of your grain and your vineyards and give it to his

officers and his servants. He will take your male servants, your female servants, the best

of your young men and your young donkeys and put them to his work. He will take a 10th

of your flock and you shall be his slave. And in that day you will cry out because of

your King whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel and they said, no, but there shall

be a King over us that we also may be like all nations and that our King may judge us

and go out before us and fight our battles. And when Samuel had heard all the words of

the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, obey

their voice and make them a King. Samuel then said to the men of Israel, go every man to

his city. Often when we encounter peer pressure, we could seek out advice. Sometimes that advice

could have come from godly sources, but sometimes it's from the voice of our friends. So we

in this picture of Israel, we can see that they were choosing to look and see what they

thought they were missing out on from the rest of the world. And they gave themselves

to utter destruction. It didn't happen immediately. They ended up having a couple good Kings before

everything started going really sideways. The first King wasn't good. The next two were

okay, but that didn't come without civil war and rebellion. But the reality is, is that

we're on the precipices as nations of the West of seeing a lot of this take place in

our own lives as we cast out, as we make decisions to cast our God out into the cold. It's not

going to phase him, but it might be something we regret because he might just give us exactly

what we're asking for. In first Kings 12, three through five, it reminds me of this

piece of scripture. I really like it. It says, and they sent and called to him and Jeroboam

and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, your father made our yoke heavy.

Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us and we

will serve you. And he said to them, go away for three days, then come back to me. So the

people went away. So then the story of the key, the advisors of King Solomon, Rehoboam's

father recommended lightening the load and dealing with humility with Jeroboam and his,

you know, constituency stating that this would endear them back to the house of Judah. This

would help mend fences. Some wrongs were committed. Some heavy work was required of them. This

could help us to, to heal. The Rehoboam's friends, on the other hand, provided very

harsh advice and how to deal with the situation. They were recommended threatening a heavier

burden and harsher conditions and even punishment. The scenario played out the way that God intended,

but it illustrates that the point that often even a king can be led astray because of the

desire to follow his friends rather than, you know, heed the, the good advice. He resigned

himself to following the advice of his friends, the poor advice. This choice ended up leading

to the splitting of the kingdom of Israel. All but one tribe of Israel defected from

Judah because of Rehoboam's decision. So if only godly counsel was taken, if only the

spirit of conviction would have won the day, maybe the 10 tribes of the North would not

have been lost. All Judah was left with was the Judah Benjamin and of course some Levites

in the area, right? But the oath only he would have held to the, the covenant, the godly

covenant that is long forgotten. This brings me to my next point, which is the saints.

We're not responsible to the actions of others, but only for the message that we send or transmit.

Now, remember generally Alentio, Alenko means to convince or to refute, but when dealing

with the world, we are to strive to convince the loss that they need salvation. We are

also meant to refute the ungodliness of our culture. We're not responsible. You know,

we're not responsible for everybody else and how they respond to the message, but only

the giving of the message. So let's look at the saints with the Christian community, believers

are to exercise some responsibility for one another. And James 5, 19 through 20, my brothers,

if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know

that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and

will cover a multitude of sins. This responsibility is expressed by the other meaning of the word

Alentio, which is to correct or to reprove. The theme of reproof is often seen in the

pastoral epistles and first Timothy, second Timothy, the process outlined in Matthew 18,

15 through 17 is to be followed as to discipline. And as we read it here at 15, if your brother

sins against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you

have gained your brother, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with

you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If

he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to

the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and tax collector. Scripture makes it clear

that the ministry of reproof cannot be undertaken by a person with a wrong attitude. Paul provides

guidance or provides this guideline. Those who oppose the Lord's servant, he must gently

instruct in the hope that God will grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of

the truth. That's second Timothy 2 25. In our ministry of rebuke performed when we see

a brother or sister turn from the pathway that God's word marks out, as in the spirit's

ministry of conviction, it is the knowledge of God's word alone that will bring understanding

and lead to life transforming change. So as we look back at Exodus 32 and the golden

calf for Samuel eight and the demand for the king and or in our own life, it is a day it

is dangerous to follow the mob at the worldly culture, especially when it's in opposite

opposition or a direct conflict of God. And we see that in our society today. We look

at man's wisdom. Socialism can provide us with a good example of the dangers of the

mob. This philosophy is is always able to sway people's desire for equality and equity.

It at its core is built on covetousness. The reality is that it always leads to the same

disparities that it contends to fight against. But in the end, everyone has less than when

they started except for the one or two men people at the top. But again, keep in mind,

it is built on breaking one of the Ten Commandments. It's about envy. It's about coveting what

other people have. And we're told we shouldn't do that as Christians. But man's wisdom says

it's not fair. It's not equal. There's no equity. And so we're willing to throw out

God's word because we want somebody else's goods because we think it's owed to us. George

Orwell said, it was always the women and above all the young ones who were the most bigoted

adherents of the party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and the nosers

out of the orthodoxy of the unorthodoxy. This quote from Orwell highlights something that

we are seeing in today's society. The move to make everything overly emotional is a move

to push against rationality. There is this new wave of radicalization that is being led

in some part by the educated class. And when you look at the demographics of the educated

class today, it's fundamentally more younger women than younger men. And in fact, demographically,

you can see that women are being led to be far more liberal and socialist and in this

direction because they care far more about fairness. And so they're being able to be

led astray because of that. And luckily, some of the men, a good chunk of men are rejecting

that and they need to turn to Christ because that could lead them to a different harsh

reality. But we have to be able to understand what is happening in our society today so

that we can stand against it. An anti-Israeli protester wept as a judge, arraigned her in

California on Friday after she allegedly threatened to murder public officials at a city council

meeting. Riddhi Patel, 28 years old, sobbed as she pleaded not guilty to 18 felony counts

as she directed comments to the Bakersfield City Council members and Republican Mayor

Karen Goh for not backing a Gaza ceasefire resolution against Israel and for installing

metal detectors at City Hall. Patel was ordered to be held on a $1 million bail and stay at

least 500 yards away from City Hall. Patel was seen on video during the public comment

section of the city council meeting on the earlier Wednesday, claiming she hoped oppressed

minorities would guillotine city government members, declaring that even Jesus Christ

would kill them and threatening to go to their houses and murder them. So once a promising

athlete, 28 year old Riddhi Patel's fall into far left politics was pre was prelude to by

her joining the Center for Race Poverty and Environment, a nonprofit organization that

provides legal and technical assistance to low income and marginalized communities where

she worked as an economic development coordinator. Riddhi has had a controversial social media

presence and has had a history of going on anti-Hindu and anti-Modi rants.

These ideologies that people gravitate towards can be extremely damaging. There's a there's

a piece here where Mrs Patel or Miss Patel fell into far left politics. There was this

idea of it's not fair that you know, some people have more than others. Some people

don't get the same things as others. But it's not it's not rational to act this way. And

to go to this extreme to wishing death because again, now we look at like the commandments,

the 10 commandments that we're all supposed to follow. You know, Jesus summed them up

into two love your God, you know, with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor

as yourself. He summed up all the commandments into those two. And here we have this idea

of well that doesn't matter because I see what I feel to be in justice. So I'm going

to call for the murder of leaders. So these are ungodly ideas and we have to stand against

them as Christians, but we have to make those stands always with the purpose of seeking

redemption. You know, I pray that Mrs Patel comes to know the real Jesus Christ. That

is if she ends up spending a decent amount of time in jail for these threats, that she

might have a road to Damascus kind of meeting with Jesus Christ. I pray that she would repent

and turn away from these kinds of thoughts and ideologies so that she would accept Jesus

as the loving savior, as the servant king that he is. But we have to remember that kids,

these kids didn't raise themselves and they were taught these kinds of ideas by our society.

And this brings us to God's wisdom. Levitical law provides us guidance on property rights,

a preferred judicial system, and even a sort of welfare rights. God's law succinct in its

best form of law, it's the best form of law for any society. As Christians, we were ultimately

called to put nothing before God. He is to be our center. He was meant to be the head

of Israel's government. Humanity constantly strives to put celebrities in that position

today. Politicians, scientists, doctors, they all belong above God. There's a constant drive

to supersede God in our society. And we're called by the mob to deny God and our savior,

Jesus Christ, in order to please these other entities. We must strive to keep God at the

center of our focus. And when we're dealing with each other and when we're dealing with

the world, we must allow the Holy Spirit to convict sinners so that they have an opportunity

to repent. And we have to pray for the conviction of Christians so that we will continue to

further ourselves towards the path of sanctification. All that fancy word sanctification means is

moving closer and closer to Christ. Again, we're supposed to be becoming more Christ-like

as we grow in our maturity, not less Christ-like. When you think of the Holy Spirit in salvation,

you have the application of the Spirit in salvation. When you get saved, you are saved

by grace. There's a calling that hopefully happens. And when that calling is received

and accepted, there's regeneration, which is conversion. You're saved and set apart

by the, and now you are made in union with Christ in the body of Christ. You are justified

by your faith, adopted in to the kingdom of God. And then you are on the path of sanctification.

And that path of sanctification is, is the growing closer to Jesus day by day. In Psalms

1, 1 through 6, it says, blesses the one who does not walk in the step with the wicked

or stand in the way that the sinner take or sit in the company of mockers. Keep in mind

mockers. That's a good one. Verse 2, but who delight is in the law of the Lord and who

meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by a stream of water,

which yields fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither whatever they do, prospers. Not

so the wicked, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will

not stand in the judgment, nor the sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the

Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

So you really need to contend with your own life and service and your own understanding

of the world we live in today. Are you standing with, with the mockers? Are you sitting in

the company of sinners who are willfully sinning? Not, not with the purpose of trying to win

them towards Christ, but no, the acceptance of a sin. If you're doing that, then you're

really putting yourself, not only yourself in danger, but you're also doing a disservice

to those that you are with because they need to be hearing the gospel. And this brings

me my final point, which is salvation and service. Despite the sins of Israel, God provided

deliverance to the nations through the kingly line. Similarly, we can see the path to salvation

is for all men and women as sinners. We need the spirit of conviction to prompt us to receive

God's grace and salvation. As Christians, we still need the Holy Spirit and conviction

to help us grow closer to God, to be regenerated in the, in Christ, to accept his call for

our lives and to run the race for Christ and to be as emissaries here on earth.

Saul was chosen to be king and he was a good choice at the time. He initially presented

humility, which we could see in first Samuel nine. He was founded obscurity and he was

anointed in first Samuel 10. But what happened with Saul? Saul quickly allowed his pride

to be lifted up. Saul defeated the Ammonites, the Philistines, and then he made an unlawful

sacrifice. He took it upon himself to act as the priest outside of his role. But again,

he was the king. So what is above the king? Nothing in his mind. But yet there was something

about him. There's God above him and God says only the priest can make the sacrifice. And

that's at first Samuel 13. So then what ends up happening is the judgment of God falls

upon Saul and he has fallen into insanity, so much insanity that the Lord rejects Saul

because he refused to follow his commands. And then in his insanity, Saul just grasping

for the supernatural that he has now lost touch with his races off to the witch of Endor

for guidance. So then we see a picture of a better king. David is anointed king and

he also comes to being king from an initial place of humility. In first Samuel 16, he's

anointed in first Samuel 17. He battles Goliath. He spares Saul's life multiple times in first

Samuel 24 and 26. He's humble, but he too succumbed to pride in second Samuel 11, where

he commits adultery and plots the murder of Bathsheba, Bathsheba's husband, his friend,

one of his mighty men. What makes him different? What makes him better is that he took it upon

himself when he was when when he was rebuked by Nathan, the priest in second Samuel 12.

He does something very odd. He does something very odd that we don't see for many of the

kings of Judah or Israel. He repents. He seeks redemption. And because of that, because David

is constantly seeking to be in right relationship with God, he is considered a better king.

But he's also guaranteed to have the kingly line of Israel of Israel or Judah go through

him in perpetuity. This brings us to the best, the perfect king, which is Jesus Christ, king

of kings, perfect and blameless, came as a servant who willfully sacrificed himself,

taking all of the sins of humanity onto himself so that he could bring us after his death

and resurrection the opportunity of salvation through grace. It is through Christ that our

relationship with God is set right again. The sin of Moab is to turn away from God's

teachings and to look only at man's limited understanding. Sorry, the sin of the mob,

not Moab. We are convicted by our own sins, and so therefore we all the time seek a lower

bar to live by. But we constantly need to turn our eyes back to the cross and to our

savior Jesus Christ. We constantly need to return to the word and the truth of the Bible.

We need to allow conviction to convince us of our need for Christ, to correct us when

we are in the wrong and to guide us in a closer relationship with our father. If I could have

every about every I close with wherever you're listening, as long as it's safe. I just want

to take one quick moment. There's so much going wrong in the world today that we need

to remember to be the happy warrior. But it doesn't it does you no good to be a happy

warrior while you're serving a wicked master. And what I mean by that is there's a lot of

political puff going on right now, both in the Western world. A lot of people trying

to act like they're nice and they're friendly. Meanwhile, they're they're feeding wickedness

to the masses. We need to do what's right by God. We need to put our faith in him. And

we need to be ready for the wickedness that's going to continue to build until Jesus comes

back. You need to be strong. You need to understand that Jesus Christ died for your sins, but

you have to accept it. So if this message is impacting you and you've recognized that

you're not right with God, maybe you've never given your your life to Christ, or maybe you

have and you walked away, you know, lured away by the pretty lights of the city. I want

to give you an opportunity right here now to change that, to get your life right, to

get your heart right with Jesus Christ. So if you've never accepted him into your heart,

I want to use signify that up with Dan wherever you are, because I can't see it, but God can

see it. And this is a a act of faith on your part. You need Jesus. You want Jesus. Raise

your hand. God sees that hand wherever it is. We're going to pray here in just a second.

But I also want to cry out to those who listen, who are safe. But maybe they've wandered away.

Maybe they're on the verge of backsliding, or maybe you have and you just need to come

back. Signify that up with Dan. You want to recommit your life to Christ in a real way,

in an active way. Too many of our churches do nothing, say nothing, stand for nothing.

But we have to stand for the redeeming power of Jesus Christ in our society. The only way

that we get more time on this earth is to turn back to God. In mass. All the things

you think are wrong with this world are because we're leaving the message of Jesus Christ,

the message of the gospel behind. And we need to turn back. So if that's you and you want

to recommit, I want you to signify that with an uplift Dan as well. Now, I'm going to pray.

And if you rose your hand or if you just, you know, wherever you are, you just want

to follow along, please do. But I just want to say dear Lord God, and you can repeat this

after me. Dear Lord God, I know that I'm a sinner. But I know that you came. That you

came to earth and you died for my sin. I repent. I turn away from my sin. I accept you, Lord

Jesus as my Lord, as my savior, as my King, as my master. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

That simple prayer takes you from being lost to being found. From being in the wilderness

to being redeemed. Now let's move towards the path of sanctification together. I pray

this message is spoken to you. My messages might get a little bit edgier. I'm just trying

to be more, you know, more honest with with what God's putting on my heart. And I think

we're coming to a period of history that we need to be more honest. Everything we talk

about is about the redemption of souls. We should hate nobody. We can hate the sin, of

course. We have to hate sin. We're called to hate sin. But we're supposed to be so desperately

wanting to see people redeemed. That we are willing to be mocked, persecuted, slandered,

or injured for the sake of the gospel. It's not about civil wars per se, because we hear

that a lot today. And that could happen. It happened in Israel several times. But it has

to be about redemption. It has to be about coming back together under the banner of Christ.

So with that, I'll leave you and I thank you for listening. I pray that if you if these

messages are helping you or or you are, you know, getting something out of them, reach

out to me. You can find the show notes in several places. I'm going to do a better job

of trying to make sure that it's out there easier for you to get. You can even email

me at pottershouse, S A. So Sam and arm at iCloud.com. So potters house S A at iCloud.com.

If you if these messages are impacting you or maybe you need help getting the Bible or

finding a church, reach out. I'd be I'd be, you know, happy to help you. So again, thank

you for listening. I can't wait for you to come back next time. God bless.

Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A. Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. Be sure to follow

us on Instagram at pottershouse underscore salmon arm to keep up to date on what we're

doing. Join the conversation and discover how Jesus Christ can revolutionize your life.