Great Texts of The Bible: Who Will Be the King of Israel | 1 Kings | Pastor William Hixson

picking at least one message from each

book of the Old Testament. Not a book

study, but just a taste to give you an

appetite hopefully for studying the Old

Testament. We're in a time when few

Christians even read the New Testament

the way they should, let alone the Old

Testament. But we're trying to stimulate

that. That's our purpose.

And so we've we're up to first kings.

So I call your attention to first kings.

And some of you may have been with us in

our Bible study when we did a book study

on first kings. I think it was 11 years

ago.

And

so you know some of this material fairly

well.

But I want to look in chapter one

of first kings.

Decided to select a message from that

chapter

for us.

You remember when we taught in 2 Samuel,

we were on the Davidic covenant, right?

That's where we were.

And that is the great covenant

that God gave with King David.

that his line, his devidic line would be

the one that would bring the Messiah

into the world

and his and God made that promise to

him.

Everything in first kings chapter 1 is

1 Kings 1 · chapter mention

based on all that.

So the fact that we studied 2 Samuel 7

was a preparation

for this chapter and by the way for the

New Testament.

You cannot really understand the New

Testament Jesus's birth in Bethlehem or

uh who he is and the supernatural

uh pres preservation of the Davidic line

that Matthew 1 is talking about

if you don't know something of these

things.

Now, David's an old man now.

He's not the young teenager that killed

Goliath.

Was able to do exploits

by God's grace above and beyond what

anybody could imagine. He's not the

warrior that he was for

four decades at least,

probably more.

His health has deteriorated

dramatically.

He's old

and he's not a young man anymore.

And in chapter one of Kings, we see

that

the problems that come

to David because of his age,

some of it was physical,

but now there are other problems.

David's not the man he used to be.

There's a saying in America, the old

gray mare is not what she used to be.

And most of us are a shadow of our

former selves once we hit a certain age.

Now,

Satan has been fighting

against God's declared program

since he heard

what God said to David.

And what God said to David was said

3,000 years ago.

And Satan heard every word of it.

And so there were attempts to destroy

not just the nation but especially the

Davidic line just as our government has

been trying to decapitate the leadership

in Iran as well as destroy their

munitions and ability to fight.

Uh the Old Testament idea of battle was

kill the king

and Satan was all in on that.

So it wasn't just the physical fighting

that the idea was like a chess game.

Kill the king.

It was in the spiritual warfare.

Kill the king and kill all his

descendants.

Remove the Davidic line from the earth.

That was what's going on. You can't

understand the New Testament if you just

look at it as far as history without the

satanic component.

And

there was different oppositions that

will um manifest themselves in this.

Adaliah,

if you remember, wicked, wicked queen

mother and and Adaliah took power in the

southern kingdom about 129 years after

the Davidic covenant.

And she did her best. She killed all the

royal seed.

one baby escaped.

You know the story.

And that one baby continued the Davidic

line

that God had in mind

for the King of the ages, the King of

Kings, the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.

If you want to know about that, it's in

2 Kings 11:1.

2 Kings 11:1

That's going to take place after our

chapter.

after this particular chapter.

In our particular chapter, David's sons

have been in rebellion against him

to try to grab the throne.

Abselum's already tried it. And now

another son is going to try it.

And David has to face this

in his old age.

Um, the problem is David's not the man

he was.

Even when Abselum

was rebelling, David wasn't the man he

was. He had to stay behind the fighting

in here. Remember, David died 970 AD,

excuse me, BC, I'm sorry. David died 970

BC.

Adaliah grabbed the throne 127 years

after that.

The difference between Adaliah and this

particular chapter is a 100, excuse me,

129 years.

So that's the difference between you and

I and the cowboy days.

So, this is a longhaul battle

and and uh um Satan has used Abselum and

now he's going to use Abselum's brother,

sensing that David is passive,

sensing that David is ill,

wanting to take advantage of this and in

the in and saying, "Look, he's old, he's

ill. Uh, we need to get rid of him and

get a new start. And they actually got

some of David's chief people involved,

mainly because the chief people saw the

weakness in King David,

Joab,

his main general,

and high priest

and others.

So, Satan was using this

And um David was vulnerable.

His old age made him vulnerable.

So let's start reading some of it. It's

going to take too long to read the whole

chapter. I'm assuming that some of you

know some of this story

and we just don't have time to read it

all. Now, King David was old and

stricken in years. stricken in years,

which means agent caught up with him.

The outward man perishes

and David's outward man, his physical

man. Uh he he was limited now. He was

stricken in years and they covered him

with clothes because he because he could

not get warmth.

He could not get warm.

When I was a young teenager, 16, I've

told this story before. We had a lady

that lived right next to us. She had a

beautiful brick home and and a beautiful

driveway and a great big nice Buick. And

I would cut her grass.

And in July when I'm cutting her grass,

I got my shirt off.

It's so hot. I'm dripping wet. I'm

turning roses and cutting grass. and she

would come to pay me

in a mink mink coat.

She was so cold in July when it's 95 or

100 outside

that she came to the door

in a mink coat.

Mrs. Coppa,

nice old lady.

What was her problem? Circulation

problem. Whatever the problem she had,

she couldn't get warm.

The nice thing about it, she let me take

her Buick out for a drive and run the

and run it hard to blow blow the

carburetors out. And I enjoyed that

part,

a 16-year-old.

But in verse two, David can't get warm.

So here was the solution. And they

sought for a fair damel throughout all

the borders of Israel and found Abashag

a Schumanite and brought her to the

king. And the dames was very fair and

cherished the king and ministered to

him. And the king knew her not.

She was a human water bottle.

That was her job.

David's sitting under the covers

freezing.

And I'm not saying this was right. But

that's what they did.

David okayed it.

Then Adinijah the son of Hagath exalted

himself. This is David's This is

Abselum's brother

saying, "I'll be king." David's old.

He's out of it. He's preoccupied. He's

not doing his job. Just laying in bed

shivering.

and he prepared chariots and horsemen

and 50 men to run before him. And his

father had not displeased him at any

time, saying, "Why have you done so?"

So David was negligent in rebuking the

ambitions of his

son as he was with Abselum.

And he also was very handsome man. His

mother bore him abs after Abselum. And

he, that's Adonijah, conferred with Joab

the son of Zariah. that was the general

of David's armies and Aithar that was

the high priest and they followed

Adonijah helped him. Now things are

deteriorating. People are switching

sides. The future is with

Adonijah.

So they're treating David as if he's

gone before he's gone.

And Adonijah is trying to grab the

throne. The problem with this is that

Solomon was the rightful heir of David

and everybody knew it,

including these people.

But Zadok the priest and Banayiah the

son of Jehoeda and Nathan the prophet

and Shemi and Rei and the mighty men who

belong to David were not with Adonijah.

Now, here's what's going on. Adonijah is

throwing a

party for himself

and he has a plan that at that party the

people there will declare him king.

This is called a coup.

They didn't invite Solomon. They didn't

tell David. They didn't invite Nathan.

They didn't invite Basheba

because they knew that they would tell

David this was a secret party.

And Adonijah slew sheep and oxen and fat

cattle by the stone of Zohaleth, which

is by Enrogel, and invited all his

brethren, the king's sons, and all the

men of Judah, the king's servants. But

Nathan the prophet, and Baniah, and the

mighty men of and Solomon, his brother,

he invited not. pretty clear what's

going on there. Right

now, Nathan finds out about it.

Wherefore, Nathan spoke to Basheba.

He didn't go right to David. He went to

David's wife, Ba Sheeba, the mother of

Solomon, and said, "Have you not heard

that Adinijah, the son of Haggath, doth

rain, and David, our Lord, knows it

not?" Now, he wasn't really reigning. He

was that was going to be his coronation

party. This was an emergency.

They had to act and act now. Old people

aren't good at that.

Try to get an old person to uh to go

someplace and it always takes longer,

doesn't it?

Old people are not good at past stuff. I

can say that about David because I'm

seven years older now than he was then.

But David had a hard life. Anybody

that's a caveman for 10 years, anybody

that fights for 45 or so years, he was

kind of worn out,

old before his time.

Now therefore,

this is what Nathan said, "Come, let me,

I pray thee, give thee counsel that you

may save your own life and the life of

their son Solomon." If you want to live

and you want your son Solomon to live

cuz there's a coup starting and they're

going to kill you if you don't act.

They're going to eliminate competition.

Go and get the King David and say to

him, "Did not my lord, O king, swear to

your handmmaid, saying, Assurely

Solomon, your son, will reign after me,

and he'll sit on the throne. Why then

does Adonijah reign? And behold, while

you were talking there to the king, I'll

come in after you and confirm your

words." And that's exactly what they

did.

And that stirred up the old king.

That got his blood pressure up.

He wasn't cold anymore.

And David started to move.

Um,

I want to tell you something. There's a

warning here for young people or old.

The Bible says to all every Christian,

Romans 12:11, never be lacking in zeal,

Romans 12:11

to keep your spiritual fervor.

We have

a responsibility

all our lives to not be lacking in zeal,

but to keep your spiritual fervor.

serving home.

That's for young people, middle-aged

people, old people.

Very important.

David was active as a shepherd. He was

active as a warrior. He was active as a

king. He he uh got all the temple uh

stuff ready for Solomon. But he had now

wore himself out

and sickness had done the rest.

Proverbs 12:24 says, "Dilit diligent

Proverbs 12:24

hands will rule, but laziness ends in

forced labor."

There's a certain diligence, not just

the pastor, not just the assistant

pastor, not just the elders, not just

the deacons, not just the people who are

officers or leaders in the church.

There's a certain diligence that's

demanded every one of us.

We should be diligent students of the

scripture. We should be diligent in in

our efforts to serve and love the Lord

and minister to others and to pray. We

should be diligent in all these things.

In 1 John 3:18, it says, "Let us not

1 John 3:18

love with words or speech, but in action

and in truth."

And Hebrews 10 says, "Let us consider

one another to spur one another on uh

towards love and good deeds."

We are in a time when church attendance

across our nation is just falling apart.

People just stop going to church.

I'm a Christian. When was the last time

you in church? Well, I don't do that

anymore.

Robinson and Crusoe Christianity is not

biblical Christianity

and God has created us under good works.

He's before ordained that we should walk

in them. And some of those good works

are dealing with unsaved people, but

other of those good works are dealing

with saved people. And you can't do that

on your couch in the living room on

Sunday morning watching

the YouTube.

Now, thank God for the YouTube ministry.

I think God allowed all the things that

have happened so we would have a YouTube

ministry.

We need that ministry. We need to pray

for that ministry.

But God wants God's people to gather

together. They're the ecclesia. They're

called out, but they're called out to be

with each other as well as to win the

lost.

Cannot do the one anothers at home.

Say, I go to church. Somebody didn't

treat me right. Well, forgive one

another.

You understand what I'm saying?

Can't be longsuffering at home.

You can't. There's certain things you

can only do in a collective capacity.

And it gets hard because you get tired

of people that aren't what they ought to

be. You get they get tired of you

because you're not what you ought to be.

We get tired of each other.

But God has that purpose.

So there's been an increase in passivity

in David's life.

Everybody sees it. Everybody knows it.

Some are taking advantage of it. Others

are saying, "Look,

we are with David even though he's not

what he should be and not what he used

to be and we are with we know about

thisic covenant and we're going to take

action."

So Basheba

and uh the prophet Nathan

got in got together and they kind of it

was a little bit of manipulation on

their part. uh a little bit of

showmanship, but they did it to get his

attention. And they got he got his

attention and David David was stirred up

and says, "All right, this do this this

this this.

Get my mule and have Solomon sit on it."

And David set up everything. All of a

sudden, the old king was roused to

action.

One writer said, "The book of Kings

addresses an audience that was prone to

take God for granted.

And does not the current audience have

similar feelings?"

See, the book of Kings was written to

the Jews that were in captivity. All

this was history

to them, and it was showing them they

needed to be active even in captivity

for the Lord.

The original leadership was in captivity

when first kings was written. They had

no king. They had no country. They had

no temple. And they experienced national

death. But they expected them to be with

it.

No matter what happens to you, even if

Athens Bible Church fails to exist, you

got to be what? Zealous

for good works.

You got to do what you can do for the

Lord wherever you are.

Um,

now that doesn't mean we can indulge,

condone or cater to excuses or laziness

in leadership or lack of ability to

lead. Sometimes transitions need to take

place and leadership is the act of

leading a group of people or

organization. David wasn't leaving

leading so other people grabbed in.

Now there's a compressed history in

first kings but it's a significant

history.

First Kings, the whole book takes about

400 years

of Old Testament history.

And it's 500 50, excuse me, 50,000 words

to do a 400year history as a drastic

reduction in detail.

Would you like to take America's

history, 400 years of American history,

and do it in 50,000 words?

50,000 words is a lot but not a lot to

deal with history. So the p the stories

that are told are sto told told with a

reason.

Dale Ralph Davis said the writer of

kings must be very selective which

implies that what he does include must

be of vital importance. Can't write

everything.

Got to write a little bit on each thing.

So I'm going to select the main thing.

What's he want us to see?

He wants us to see that God works

providentially in times of emergency and

crisis to keep his program going.

He stirs people up.

This is an incredible time of danger.

Um later

Adaliah will try to grab the throne,

right? She'll try to grab the throne.

One of the most wicked womans that had

ever lived. And she killed all the

Davidic line but one baby as said

before. That was from without

Jezebel's daughter,

Nahhab's daughter. Apostate people from

the northern kingdom.

a gross idolatry.

This is from within.

So the troubles can come from without.

They can come from within.

David is old and cold.

He's lost his vitality and verility.

He's detached. He's out of touch both

with his family and nation.

He's confined mostly to bed at this

point. He's old before his time.

It's hard when you're not feeling well

to think about other things

yourself.

Pain has a way of doing that, right?

So anyway, David is in that shape.

The thing we'll see is that although

this was a problem,

David at the time

wasn't seeing it for what it was.

And when he did see it, he probably

thought, "Oh no, here we go again.

Here's Abselum 2.

God is sovereign

in his program. whether it's the kingdom

program in the Old Testament or the

church program in the New Testament.

And he's able to get people through the

times of transition.

What a wonderful thing to see God at

work here.

Sooner or later, Athens Bible Church is

going to go into transition, right? I'm

not going to be here if Jesus doesn't

come.

I just turned 77.

Half the people in the nursing home are

younger than me

that I minister to. I want to tell you.

Say, how old are you? Oh, I'm 73. Oh,

well, you know, when you get older, you

kind of find out, oh, I'm older than I

imagined myself to be till you try to do

this or try to do that.

Sooner or later, you run out of gas.

But God replaces the instruments and the

work goes on, right? Buries the workman,

but the work goes on.

And we need to know that.

And we can't avoid the fact as we get

older.

But we what a rejoicing it is at Athens

Bible Church to know God's at work.

Our work

is more important to him than it is to

us.

And von Rad is a

more liberal kind of Old Testament

theologian, but he said the line of

David has not yet come to an irrevocable

end.

So somehow God kept it going. You know

what happened here?

uh people started acting and Solomon was

anointed to be king sitting on David's

mule and the party started in Jerusalem

and the party ended with at Adonijah's

house.

What's all that noise? Oh, they they

just anointed Solomon as king and every

all the guests left.

Nobody wanted to be around him anymore.

So the party was over for those who were

trying to do the coup against David. And

God used Basheba. Think about it. He

used Basheba.

And he used Nathan.

God's providences keep God's promises

and programs going.

But there's something else that happens

here that's very important.

God's providence in the Old Testament,

his hand in the glove of history

shows that human kings that are not

immortal and incorruptible

are not the answer. Not even if they're

of the Davidic line

like Solomon or Hezekiah or Josiah.

None of these kings could foraw

forestoall the inevitable exile.

None of these kings could reign forever.

And God's providence shows prophetically

in kings that what is needed is a

Davidic king that is more than what we

see in Old Testament history and

history.

What is needed is a God incarnate

Davidic king who is immortal,

infallible

and irreplaceable.

And that king is Jesus Christ.

That king is Jesus Christ.

Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 9 and

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

verse 6.

What does Ezekiel say? God says, "I'll

overturn, overturn, overturn until he

comes whose right it is."

And someday the overturning will be

over.

Isaiah 9:6.

Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a child is born,

unto us a son is given.

Government will be on his shoulder.

His name shall be called wonderful

counselor, mighty God, the everlasting

father, the prince of peace. And of his

increase of his government and peace

there will be no end.

upon the throne of David

and upon his kingdom

to order it and to establish it with

justice and righteousness from

henceforth even forever more.

Underline this,

the zeal of the Lord of hosts

will perform this.

Now our Lord Jesus is of the seed of

David.

Our Lord Jesus was murdered and martyed.

But our Lord Jesus arose from the dead

incorruptible and immortal.

And he's coming again.

He's coming again.

And when Paul wanted to summarize his

gospel in 1 Timothy 1:16, he said this

1 Timothy 1:16

way, Jesus Christ of the seed of David

risen again.

That's the shortest summary he could

give to it.

Get those two things. He's the seed of

David and he's risen.

And he's not risen to die again as

Lazarus was. He's risen to live forever

and reign forever.

All the Old Testament kings died. All

the Old Testament kings sinned.

David's sins endangered him. David

David's age disengaged him from his

responsibilities. He had to be jolted

into doing the right thing. Other king

sins brought the nation to captivity.

There is one king who reigns forever.

He's impeccable. He's immortal. He's

incorruptible.

And the shortcomings of all the Old

Testament kings, even the best Old

Testament king, David,

prepare us for the perfections we see in

the identity, activity, and longevity

of our Lord

Jesus Christ.

First Kings chapter 1 is such a powerful

1 Kings 1 · chapter mention

passage.

Um,

we're we're reminded in ministry that

business doesn't take care of itself.

Old saying, you take care of business

and business will take care of you.

Well, none of us, all of us have

problems that tend to overwhelm us, tend

to preoccupy us with our own problems to

the neglecting of our family or our

nation or our local church.

David's physical health is all but gone.

The decrepitude of David was

exceptional. He was drained of his vital

force, one writer said.

And so the enemy of God is trying to

fork to program him.

And behind Adonijah and Adonijah's

gamble on David David's weakness

was Satan who wanted to make most of it.

And as one said, David acted with

surprising strength and discipleness.

Once he knew what was happening, old

lion became young.

And uh

the central

contention of the text, one Old

Testament scholar said, is that the Lord

maintains his kingdom in all its

precarious moments.

And what he does for his kingdom, he

does for his church.

Local churches come and go.

The local church is immortal till God's

done with it.

This is an individual is immortal till

God's done with. When your work is done,

it's over. People have individual

ministries that God wants them to do,

and they're immortal till that work's

done. Local churches have ministries

that are immortal till that work is

done. Churches come, churches go, local

churches.

But that church is immortal till its

particular work is done. And God can

raise up other churches in other places.

And so we we have a good God.

We have a great God.

And when we see in the battle that

things are hard and oh no, here we go

again.

As we walk with the Lord, we say we've

been here before.

I've been in this fight before.

There's a Civil War movie

that uh a general is on his horse

and the enemy artillery opens up and

shells are hitting all around

and the horse is becomes skiddish at the

explosions

and that Civil War

um

general pats his horse and said,

"Steady, world. We've been through this

before.

No matter how hard it gets,

we ought to be steady.

We've been through this

before.

Um,

it's sad, isn't it, that Joab and Athar,

uh, who'd been with David such a long

time,

failed

at a critical moment

and went with Adonija and his ambitions.

Someone said, "The problem with building

our own little kingdom is that we never

find our rightful place in the true

kingdom of God."

Is the most important thing to be king

or is the most important thing to be in

the place God wants you to be?

Jonathan was never king. His dad had

ambitions for him to become. He wanted

his dad wanted to kill David so Jonathan

could be king. Jonathan knew what God's

will was. He was very happy not being

king. You'll be king and I'll be after

you. That was his

motto.

He found his place in the program of God

and he was happy with it.

May we find our place in the program of

God in the church of God and be happy

with it.

I happen to think Jonathan is one of the

most attractive people in the Old

Testament.

And you wonder, why didn't God let him

be the next king?

In some ways, he's more attractive than

David.

Has nothing to do with it. God sets up

kings and takes them down according to

Daniel chapter 2 and chapter 7.

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

And I like that line that I read. The

problem with building our own little

kingdom is we never find our rightful

place in the true kingdom of God. Don't

try to be something you aren't.

Serve the Lord where he's put you in in

the body of Christ.

And let God's choice be your choice.

Adinijah did not consult Basheba. He he

did not consult Solomon. He did not

consult Hathan. Didn't invite him to his

party because he knew they wouldn't

support him.

Um

there's several times in America where

Christians aren't invited to the party.

We're not wanted.

They don't feel an affinity for us. They

got a different agenda than us and they

know it.

And you know what? We know it.

We know it.

And Christians are criminalized by the

winners in the culture wars and

demonized and falsely characterized

uh often, aren't they?

Um I hope this message has been a

challenge to you.

God puts the members in the body where

he will, not just the leaders

and that we'd be about our Lord's

business no matter what our position is.

Whether we have an official position in

the church or an unofficial position, if

God wants you in a local body, he's got

something for you to do in that local

body and something he wants to do

through that local body.

And sometimes where we're old, we can't

do what we used to do. I've told the

story so many times about Reverend Smith

who started Dover Bible Church. He got

kicked out of his church by the

liberals, lost his building, lost his

pension, started Dover Bible Church. And

when I knew him, he was an old man,

probably

my age,

but he had some serious health issues.

He couldn't preach anymore.

walked with a cane.

His wife was gone

and he had some digestive issues that if

he ate something on Saturday, he

couldn't go to church on Sunday.

That old man was very softspoken,

didn't say a lot,

but every Sunday he walked down the

aisle and came up front and he had a

special seat with a pad on it for his

old bones. He sat there.

Looking back on it, I wish I'd have

spent more time with him.

I was assistant pastor of that church in

the summertime while I was in seminary

and also over Christmas.

But I'm thankful for that quiet

faithful.

He wasn't trying to be something he

wasn't. He was too old to pastor and he

knew it.

But he was there.

And here I am, a young man in my early

20s.

And he marked me by his faithfulness

probably more than many sermons

never helped me.

You got a role. I got a role.

Got to play our part.

And may God stir us up to do it.

Nathan stirred up Basheba.

You're going to be dead and your son's

going to be dead. You either act or

curtains for you.

Basheba and Nathan stirred up. David

Alfred Eersshim

was a Jewish writer on Old Testament and

New Testament, Jewish Christian writer

in the 1800s.

And he said, "With whatever weakness

David may have been chargeable, he

always rose to the requirements of the

situation.

And in hours of decisive importance,

when either the known will of God or

else the interest of his kingdom were in

question, in this instance, his measures

were immediate and decisive."

All of a sudden, the old warrior woke

up.

Get Solomon. Get my mule.

Everybody do this. Get the trumpets.

Don't delay.

Get bananiah.

And he went to work.

Application

to ourselves.

Number one,

transfers in leadership

must take place.

Whether it's Sunday school class teacher

or whether it's elder or deacon or

pastor,

they must take place.

We all have just a brief time here.

But times of transition,

especially when people are older

and have been faithful till they're

older,

are times of testing and can can be

times of division.

And at key moments,

passing the baton

is one of the hardest things churches

do.

May God guide us in our transitions

as we're all getting older

and trust that bigger than any human

leader is the God above.

Second, the best of men are men at best,

and physical problems incapacitate those

that we think are irreplaceable.

Um, David served his generation by the

will of God.

And probably no one for many years after

David could compare with him. Everybody

was compared to him.

But the work of God didn't stop when

David died because the work of God was

bigger than David. And the only thing

that made David something was that God

behind it.

That's true for every church leader

today.

Have you ever noticed how many major

Bible teachers have passed on in the

last year?

You taking notice of that?

An unusual amount.

Some of them weren't so good. Some of

them are very good.

But God buries his workmen and the work

goes on

because it's not a work of man.

Um

people are looking

for an event.

We are looking

for a person.

We're looking for the Lord Jesus Christ.

May our minds and our hearts be upon

him.

Another application is authority is hard

to relinquish when you are used to

having it.

When you're in a position of authority,

whether it's a Sunday school class or

song leader or any position, it's kind

of hard to relinquish that, right?

Because that's my ministry. I'm I'm this

is my ministry. And we don't like to

give it up. And sometimes we should not.

We should just be faithful and keep

going. But other times it becames

obvious it's time for me to do something

else.

And that's true of all of us. And uh age

will teach us that if nothing else does.

Now there's no age limit for pastors by

the way.

You you just look at the

look at you buy a book and the

biographies of different pastors.

Some died in their 50s like Spurgeon.

Others were ministering in their 80s.

You don't know.

There's no age limit. Some churches put

an age limit on it. But God doesn't.

Uh but even if a pastor has to so-called

retire, hopefully he still be filling

pulpits.

And if he can't do anything else till

the Lord calls him, do nursing home

ministry or something.

Um, but authority is hard to relinquish

when you're used to having it. We all

like to have our own way, right?

Isn't that a pretty much human

condition?

And it's hard when you're old to see

other people doing what you used to do.

And maybe you don't like the way it's

done, but

you're not in that position anymore.

May God give us grace for any of those

things.

Every life has its limitations. Every

life had somebody that can't do all they

want to do. Moses, oh, let me go over

the Jordan and see the promised land.

Nope. You're not going.

Not going.

120 years is enough, Moses.

your state. You're going to get buried

in Moab.

Great disappointment for us.

Oh, but God let him see the other side

of the Jordan when

the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses

and Elijah,

Jesus, he finally got to go

on the other side.

If God keeps you back from something

that you want

that you need, that you feel is very

important. It might be this, that, and

the other thing.

Don't worry about it. The Lord gives,

the Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Anything

you lose in this life is going to be

made up for in the next.

So let's not let's get the proper focus

on all these things.

And we do not have to live a long life

to do and see all we would like to do

because we've got another life coming.

And this life with its limitations is

just to prepare us for the next. So what

should we do? We should do what David

did. You can't build me a house, but

I'll build you a house. But you can

prepare the materials for the temple

that Solomon's going to build. Now, it

was good because that took Solomon, I

think, six years to build it after David

prepared the all the materials. Can you

imagine if Solomon had to do all that?

So David had his role. Solomon had his

role.

Um Paul said I planted Apollos watered.

God gave the increase.

So I hope this message is just a

blessing and a challenge to you as we

think about all these things and we find

ourselves not with unholy ambition

but satisfied when transitions come in

our church or different leadership

changes take place in our church. Uh

that God is in charge of all that.

Let's not try to let's try to keep the

church uh as solid and good as it can

be, but let's be long-suffering with

providence of God that happens and rest

in the king that's above all kings and

the pastor who's above all pastors, the

great shepherd of the sheep, Jesus

Christ.

If you are hearing my voice and you

don't know the Lord, I want to tell you

something. I found this to be so. So

many people think if they find fault

with the church, they've got an excuse

for their unbelief.

Oh, this pastor did this. This person

did that. I saw this in this church. So,

I'm not going to be a Christian. Our

faith is not in the church.

Our faith is not even in the leaders of

the church.

We want a good church and we want good

leaders, but our faith is where? It's in

Jesus Christ.

And as George Whitfield told us a woman

who was overgushing about how wonderful

she thought he was, he he said,"Woman, a

a minister is a poor savior in the day

of judgment.

Don't put your faith in me. I got faith

in you. Don't put your faith in me. Put

your faith in Christ."

>> This is all very important, right?

And when someone is an excellent leader,

it's hard to lose them. But the danger

is sometimes we put our faith in the

human person too much. Faith is in the

Lord.

That's where it needs to be. Sometimes

God takes somebody before their time,

their so-called time to shock us into we

always think that person's

irreplaceable. Well, humanly speaking,

yes.

But we all have to know who the real

king of David is,

the son of David, Jesus Christ. And our

faith needs to be in him. Father, we

thank you for what we've looked at.

Challenge us with this truth. Bless our

church as we move forward looking for

the Lord, listening for the trumpet,

result,

waiting to rule and reign with our

savior Jesus Christ. Take all

manipulation and power plays out of our

hearts.

Take the disappointment out of our

hearts when things are different than

they used to be. Help us to do the right

thing even if it costs us.

Help us not to do the wrong thing even

no matter who's involved.

In Jesus name. Amen.

Lord, as we go from this place,

loving you more, trusting you more.

May the power of your love and the light

of your word shine to a sin darkened

world. As we go from this place,