2 Samuel chapter 21, the Bible says in verse 1, Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. And David inquired of the LORD, and the LORD answered it. It is for Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. The king called the Gibeonites and said unto them, Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the children of Israel had sworn unto them, and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah. Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we do thank You for many blessings. Thank You for sending Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on the cross of Calvary. Lord, give me the words to preach. Lord, help me to teach and say the things You'd have taught, nothing more and nothing less. And Lord, I pray that I would hide behind the cross and all the glory and honor for anything that is said and done according to Thy will would be given to Thee. In Jesus' name and for His sake, Amen. So there's a famine. Three years of famine. The Bible says that David inquired of the Lord. If you'll hold your place here and go back to the book of Joshua in chapter 9, we read about what happened with the Gibeonites. We'll sort of jump in at verse 3 for time's sake. Joshua 9.3, when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai, they did work wildly and went. That's three W's there in a row. Worked wildly and went. And made as if they had been ambassadors and took old sacks upon their asses and wine bottles old and rent and bound up. and old shoes and clouded upon their feet, and old garments upon them, and all the bread of their provision was dry and moldy. And went to Joshua into the camp at Gilgal, and said unto him and to the men of Israel, We become from a far country now, therefore make ye a league with us. The men of Israel said unto the Hivites, Peradventure ye dwell among us. And how shall we make a league with you? They had a gut feeling, but they didn't follow it. Maybe it was a God feeling, but they didn't follow it. Verse 8, and they said unto Joshua, We are thy servants. And Joshua said unto them, Who are ye, and from whence come ye? And they said unto him, From a very far country thy servants are come, because of the name of the Lord thy God. For we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites, that were beyond Jordan, to Sion king of Heshpon, and to Og king of Bashan, which was at Ashtoreth. wherefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spake to us, saying, Take victuals with you for the journey, and go to meet them, and said unto them, We are your servants, therefore now make ye a league with us. This is our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses. On the day we came forth to go unto you, but now, behold, it is dry and it is moldy. Don't look for appearance to tell you what to do. These bottles of wine which we filled were new, and behold, they be rent. And these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey. And the men took of the victuals and asked not counsel. at the mouth of the Lord. Now it's coming back to haunt them now because Saul tried to wipe out the Gibeonites and he did it for Israel and Judah, the Bible says. He did it to please man. Verse 15, Joshua made peace with them and made a league with them to let them live and the princes of the congregation swearing to them. There is no excuse for that to happen, but it did happen. And if it did happen, that league was made, that vow was made, that agreement, that treaty, and they were bound to abide by it, and Saul chose not to do it because he decided he was going to kill them all. And now it's causing a famine for three years, and David inquires of the Lord and finds out this is the cause. Sometimes it's not about you that their problems exist. If you go out there in the world, you say, well, Lord, why are we having such bad weather in the Midwest? Well, it may not be you. You didn't vote for abortion or you didn't vote for same-sex marriage, but it may just be that God is judging the good and the bad and you're caught up in the middle. David's innocent in this thing. Israel at the time is innocent, but they're reaping for what they've sown in the past. I think you ought to find out why a problem exists in your life. If you'll turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter 1, this is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. I don't know, you could say that a better few minutes when you're preaching. But it talks about comfort. In verse 3, it says that God is the God of all comfort there in chapter 1. He comforts us in all our tribulation. verse 4, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. I like that. I like to know that the God of all comfort comforts us in our tribulation so we can comfort others that have any trouble, that go through the things that we're going through with the comfort that we receive from the God of all comfort. Isn't that cool? Look at verse 8. Paul is writing again. He says, "...for we would not, brethren..." This is 2 Corinthians 1 verse 8. "...for we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble, which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life." Listen, Paul says, look, it looked hopeless. But we have the sentence of death in ourselves. Why did Paul, as he examined the situation, why did Paul have the sentence of death in himself? That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead. So you see, in David's instance, there's a sin that Saul brought upon the nation of Israel, and an examination needed to be done, and it needed to be reconciled and rectified. But in this case, when Paul is writing, he's saying, look, I had problems and tribulations and afflictions that came upon me, but it was more for my learning, more to teach me not to trust in myself. And then I just like verse 10, I'll throw it in there for free. "...who delivered us from so great a death," that's the past, "...and doth deliver," that's the present, "...in whom we trust that He will yet deliver." You've got to trust God for the future. So, as you're looking at why a problem comes, David is inquiring of the Lord. By the way, that is the first step. You want to know why you're going through something? Inquire of the Lord. Ask God. And David got the answer. And I'm sure David didn't expect it to be. Well, you remember Saul. Wait a minute, God. You made me king. Saul's not king. Why are we suffering for what Saul did? It's a principle. It's a principle. You can't just turn the page on the calendar and think that everything's going to be okay. Sometimes it's not. David answered, it's for Saul and for his bloody house. Boy, what a descriptive way of saying it, because he slew the Gibeonites. Well, remember what it said in Joshua. Try to find the root of the problem. You know, Hebrews talks about that. I think in chapter 12, it talks about a root of bitterness. You've got to find out in your life whether the things that come upon you are because you've got some type of root that is springing forth bad results. A root of bitterness. You know what's wrong with the world today is there's such a heavy, entrenched root problem and much of it has to do with bitterness. We're bitter over our past. We're bitter over our upbringing. We're bitter over something that happened to us. We're bitter about the present circumstances. We're bitter about the future outlook. Bitter, bitter, bitter. And then we wonder, what's the problem? Well, that's the root problem. So here's David. He inquires of the Lord. That's the first step in trying to find the root of any cause of any problem in your life. And so he found out. Paul inquired. He said, hey, we had to sentence to death in ourselves. Why? So we wouldn't trust in ourselves. So we'd learn not to trust in ourselves. The worst thing, worst thing, that's like the only one. One of the worst things in your life is trusting yourself. Trust in Jesus Christ. You know, Ephesians 1.13, that's the only time you're told about trusting in Christ. It's taken out of the modern versions. "...in whom ye also trusted at salvation." But listen, it's a daily thing too. I'm not going to get off verse 1 if I don't get going. So verse 2, this is King David called the Gibeonites and he wants to know, you know, what do I need to do? Saul and his zeal had killed him, and it says in the end of verse 2, it was for the children of Israel and Judah. Listen, any time you try to please others, you're going to be in trouble if it's not pleasing to God. Mention zeal there. In his zeal. Listen, Romans 10 talks about the nation of Israel and the zeal they have, but it's not according to knowledge. They sought about going and trying to... Well, it's in Romans chapter 10. Hold your place here. Let's look at this zeal and look at what the Bible says about the zeal of the nation of Israel as a group. Individually they believed, but in Romans chapter 10 there were many of them in general that were trusting in themselves. Romans 10 verse 1, "'Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record, they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.'" Listen, everybody needs to get saved. That goes for Israel too. The nation of Israel individually as people need to get saved. They don't get a pass just because they are the nation of Israel. There's no pass for them. 2 Samuel chapter 21 verse 3. Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And wherewith shall I make the atonement?" That's why you have to rightly divide the Word of God. The atonement? I thought our atonement was in Jesus Christ. Listen, you can't take every word in the Bible and make it fit into a box and go, well, that's the atonement. They did this, they were saved, or safe, or anything else. Listen, they had a problem. And they had to atone for something, but it wasn't going to save them. It wasn't some type of work they had to do to have some atoning grace. Listen, they were having a famine. They were looking, trying to find out what's the cause of the famine. Shall I make the atonement that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? They needed to make a wrong right. Verse 4, 2 Samuel chapter 21, and the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house. Neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that will I do for you. And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, that would be Saul, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coast of Israel, let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give them." What a terrible story to look at. My goodness. Listen, wrongs, after a time lapse, does not make them go away. The country wronged a people under a previous king and now they were reaping the whirlwind for it. As I said, turning the page on a calendar doesn't make things right. Time does not heal all wounds. You've heard that saying, but that saying is not necessarily true. Matthew chapter 5 verses 22 through 26 says that if you have ought against your brother and you're coming to the altar, well, let's look at it. Matthew chapter 5. Look what the Bible says when you've got a problem with your brother. You know what you do? You go on Facebook. Blow it out there. Let's see what it says about Facebook here. Matthew chapter 5 verse 22. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the counsel. But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him. Lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison." He says, look, go make it right with your brother. That's a missed art today in Christianity. Go make it right with your brother first. There's a famine in the land. Three years of famine. David's wondering, what's the problem? You've got to make it right. You've got to make it right. Unresolved crimes of the past need reconciliation. Listen, you're already reconciled in Jesus Christ according to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We are ambassadors with a ministry of reconciliation. If you're saved, you're already reconciled with the Lord. But sometimes that reconciliation needs to go horizontal and not vertical. Vertical is already taken care of, but even vertical needs to be taken care of every now and then. You have a standing and state. Listen, your standing's fine, but your state may be messed up. If I said it right. Practice and position. Yeah, your position. Yeah, I do like that one better. Your position's right. It can't be changed, but your practice needs fixed. That's why we have a pastor of a church. Every now and then I need a little input. Hey, have you told lies about somebody or spread rumors or slandered them or, you know, robbed their testimony or their joy or their zeal or anything like that? Make it right. So I can't do that. The only reason we can't do it is because of pride. Pride stops us from saying, hey, I've got to make things right. They told the king, we want seven sons of Saul. Say, why? You know, those sons may not have been innocent. They may have been part of the battle too. They may have been the ones that Saul sent to kill the Gibeonites. We don't know. But then again, they could be somewhat innocent. Makes you think of Jesus when He went to the cross. He was an innocent going to the cross. So, verse 6 again. Let seven men of the sons be delivered unto us and we will hang them up unto the Lord. Boy, that is just interesting. Gibi of Saul, whom the Lord did choose, and the king said, I will give them, verse 7, but the king spared Mephibosheth. the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. You see, here's a contrast. Saul breaks the oath and David keeps the oath. Three years of famine. That's rough. This country could not handle three years of famine. This country can't handle three weeks of famine. Three days of famine would get most of us. Verse 8, But the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Ai, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni, and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michael, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barsaliai, the Meliathite, Saul's step-sons. So I thought Mephibosheth was spared. He was. I thought Mephibosheth was delivered up. He was. That's why you need to be careful with these endless genealogies that people go into the Bible and they say, look, there's errors in the Bible. Well, was it Mephibosheth or wasn't it Mephibosheth? I mean, that's a pretty unique name. There are two different Mephibosheths. One of them is Jonathan's son that was spared, and the other one was a stepson, probably, of Saul that was not spared. Right there in the text. 1 Timothy 1 verse 4 says, "...neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies." Titus 3.9 says, "...avoid foolish questions about the genealogies." Do you know where most of the Bible haters go? The genealogies. Well, it says he was king at eight years old. Over here it says he was 18. There's an error in the Bible. Well, what's it say about his mother? Did his mother reign with him? Listen, there is an answer to every one of their foolish questions, but we don't have to go and spend our time trying to find every one of them. You know how many errors in the Bible I had to find before I was convinced it was perfect? One, the book of Acts. Acts 9, Acts 18, Acts 26. They heard a voice, heard the voice. I was a new Christian and a Mormon showed me that supposed error. I went back to those guys teaching me that Bible. They were down at Faith Independent Baptist Church in Niceville, Florida. And I was a Methodist charismatic with a New American standard. I went to that church and now I became a Bible believer. And I went back, that Mormon showed me that error and I thought, man, that's an error. This Bible's not perfect, but I had access to somebody that could show me. And you know what happened after that? I never, ever, ever doubted the Bible one more time. You want to know why? God gave me the evidence at that time. He doesn't have to give me the evidence anymore. I just believe it by faith. You believe it by faith, and then when God gives you the evidence, you don't even have to believe it by faith. You've got the evidence. But what if God doesn't give you the evidence? What are you going to do? Oh, I'm not going to believe the Bible. Somebody comes to me and they say, here's an error in the Bible. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to believe the Bible and say, I don't know the answer, but I believe it's true. Oh, well look at that contradiction. Look, it contradicts itself. There must be an answer. I don't know what it is, but maybe I'll know one day. I'm going to believe it by faith and without faith it's impossible to please God. I'd rather please God than to please man. I'd rather be right with God and believe the book. And that's what I'm going to do. You cannot show me an error in the Bible. The King James Bible. You cannot show me an error in the Bible because they don't exist. You say, well, do you have every answer? Right now I don't think I have any questions. But that doesn't mean I won't next week. Think about it. So as you go on, Mephibosheth. Boy, what a problem you can't overcome. Oh yeah, you can. Verse 9, He delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord. And they fell all seven together, were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. Remember Ruth chapter 1? Ruth and Naomi returned to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest. So you got life, and now you got just the... Man, this is the time of life, the beginning of barley harvest. And it's death. Look at Rizpah here. Verse 10, Rizpah the daughter of Ai took sackcloth and she spread it for her upon the rock from the beginning of the harvest until water dropped upon them out of the heaven and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night. She protects those bodies from the vultures and from the wolves. And it was told David would whisper the daughter of Ai, the concubine of Saul, had done. Listen, she doesn't get anything in return. Those bodies are dead. Those are corpses. And you know what she did? She spread that sackcloth upon that rock, and then when those vultures would come by, she'd jump up and get them away from those seven dead bodies. Wolves would come by. She'd do something. Sticks, rocks, whatever it took, she kept them away from those bodies. You say, why? Those bodies couldn't do anything. They were dead. They were gone. They couldn't pay her back. They didn't even care. That's love. Love is giving when you expect and cannot get anything in return. For God so loved the world that He gave. That's what love is, giving. She expected nothing in return. Rizpah needs to be our view of the lost world. Jesus Christ in 1 John 2, Christ is our propitiation for the sins of the whole world. Hebrews 2, 9-11, He tasted death for every man. Not just those that deserved it because none deserved it. 1 Timothy 2, 3-6, who will have all men be saved. 1 Timothy 4.10, He's the Savior for all men, especially those that believe. He's the Savior for all men, but some people don't accept Him as Savior. All men. This Calvinist stuff is just... it's just a bunk. Tulip. Tulip. You go and the Bible talks about their heresy. I can't imagine being a Calvinist because if I was, there's a lot of people I had to quit witness to a long time ago in order to keep peace. You witness to them one time. If they're going to get saved, they're going to get saved. What does it matter if I keep talking to the same person over and over again? You got a job? Talk to them one time as quick as you can. Get it over with. You're done with it because if you're a Calvinist, that's what you can do and get away with it. Tulip, total depravity. Unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints. Total depravity. They have no free will to choose Jesus Christ according to that teaching. Unconditional election. God decided who would get saved and who would be birthed to go to hell. Limited atonement. Christ's blood was shed only for the chosen. Every verse I read to you just a minute ago disproves that. He died for all men. Irresistible grace. When God choose the sinner, He is drawn and cannot stop it. That's what Calvinism is. Perseverance of the saints. Eternal security should be perseverance of God, really, not perseverance of the saints. You don't keep your salvation. Calvinism will destroy a church. Ephesians 2.1 says we're dead in trespasses and sins and yet God still loved us. What a great God. That's Rizpah. Those seven bodies, those corpses are hanging up there and they can't do anything for her and she, out of love for her sons and the others that are there, takes care of those bodies. And you know what happens whenever you love like that? The King finds out about it. Who do we have? We've got King Jesus. If we just love like that, maybe King Jesus would take notice of us a little bit more than we know. Or maybe we would know that He notices us more. Because He'd make Himself known to us more. Romans 5.8 says, God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And then verse 10 talks about us being an enemy of God. He died for His enemies. What a ludicrous teaching to say that He only died for the chosen. What a mess. Rizpah. What a sad story. What a glorious thing that you can look at in the Bible and see the picture that maybe God wants us to see. Verse 12, David, in 2 Samuel 21, David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan. Now this is something separate. His son from the men of Jabesh-Gilead, which had stolen them from the street of Beth-shean." Beth-shean is a walled city. It's probably 700 to 800 feet high that they had to scale that wall to get those bodies of Saul and Jonathan. They had to breach that wall. It says, "...where the Philistines had hanged them when the Philistines had slain Saul and Gilboa." Look at 1 Samuel chapter 31. This is the end of the book of 1 Samuel. It tells us the story of what took place. These were valiant men. They retrieved the bones of Saul and Jonathan from Jabesh Gilead. Look at verse 9. 1 Samuel 31 9, and they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent him to the land of the Philistines round about to publish it in the house of their idols and among the people. It's always a spiritual thing. You think, well, they're just killing two guys. No, it's Israel. God's chosen. And they're putting their bodies in with the idols. Verse 10, they put his armor in the house of Ashtaroth. They fashioned his body to the wall of Beth-shan. When the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul, All the valiant men arose and went all night, took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bethshan, and came to Jabesh and burnt them there." They burnt them because they were... idol worship was involved here. Burial is the way, because it took their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh and fasted seven days. They may have also burned them because of the potential for disease at that time. So you go on in verse 13, "...they brought those bones up, the bones of Jonathan and his son were buried," or verse 14, "...and the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin and Zillah, in the sepulcher of Kish his father, and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that, God was entreated for the land." It's all about the land, by the way. You know what breaking the law did? It got them kicked out of the land. You know what breaking the law did? It got God to judge those in the land of Israel. You know, it's shameful not to have a proper burial. You honor life. We're looking at Memorial Day coming up tomorrow when we celebrate it. When you honor life, you do it by honoring the dead. There are people that gave their life for this country. Yet in Korea, we left 8,000 behind. Bodies, people, men. In Vietnam and Laos, Cambodia, we left men there and some politicians didn't care about it until the pressure got too great. They went back and recovered some more of them. It's a shameful thing for a country to leave their military behind. That's a shame and a black eye to this country. But listen, it's not really that surprising. When you have a culture not based on life, it will be based upon death. If people are animals, it's survival of the fittest. You have Darwin's theory of evolution. That's what we have in this country. You send children to school and they say, you came from an animal. You're only one step apart from an ape or a monkey. Why do you act like that? Well, I mean, you're just shooting animals when you go in and shoot a school. That's how they could think about it. That's not true. Not according to the Bible, but according to their philosophy, that's what it is. When you have abortion, you call it a fetus or fetal tissue. It's not living, they think. Listen, do you know who needs love more than anybody else sometimes is somebody that's had an abortion? That's how we need to be careful. There are young people and middle-aged people and old women that have suffered greatly at the hands of those abortionists because they were lied to. They can still be forgiven and many of them are forgiven. Those that have trusted Christ their Savior, all sins forgiven. We need to be careful when we talk about this thing called abortion that we don't forget those that have been hurt by it on the other side. But you know what's coming is euthanizing the elderly. I'm starting to get pretty old. I'm getting up there. You know what they're going to do? They're going to kill us all eventually. As soon as we get to where we're trouble or no use to society like they did in Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was just evolution enacted. Really. I mean, you know who wasn't a hypocrite? Hitler and Stalin and Goebbels and Himmler and you name it. All those guys, they just weren't hypocrites. We got a bunch of hypocrites in Washington. Listen, this is gonna be a civil war here in this country over abortion. Especially if... and you want some prophecy? The Supreme Court's not gonna overturn Roe versus Wade. Why? Well, I said this when I was out of town last week. The Bible Belt, what it used to be and still is or was, or the place, the people in it, the Baptists, what are they doing? They're getting some laws passed. Alabama and Georgia, Missouri, I don't even know where all it is, but the southern states are getting these laws passed, anti-abortion. It's going to go to the Supreme Court. And guess who's going to decide on the Supreme Court? The Catholics. The Catholics. the Pope and his men. I wrote an article called, All the Pope's Men, and I got in a lot of trouble with some Catholics because I said, what happens if this Pope is brought to court and he goes before the Supreme Court because of the child molestation stuff? Because he's guilty as sin on all that and covering it over. He's guilty as any other cardinal is. What would they do? Would they go by the rule of law? No way. And listen, if they overturn these laws, what should the Pope do? He ought to, I was saying, exorcise them. He needs to do an exorcism. What's that called when he kicks them out? Excommunicate. Yeah, it's not in the Bible, so it slipped me. There's no such thing. He needs to excommunicate all those Catholic Supreme Court justices that are going to vote against this. Verse 15, lest I go into politics. Moreover the Philistines had yet war again with Israel and David went down and his servants with him and fought against the Philistines and David waxed faint. Why did he wax faint? Because he's getting old. I'm starting to wax faint myself. One day you wake up and you're a giant slayer. The next day a giant is trying to kill you and you need help. That's David. And Ish... Who named this kid? Ish-be-banab. You know who named him? Goliath, his daddy. You say, I thought they were brothers. Look at what it says. Enish b'banab, which was of the sons of the giant. That's Goliath. He's of the sons of the giant. There were four sons of the giant. I thought there were four brothers of the giant. Ah, it's called incest. They were the sons of the giant and the brothers of the giant. His mama. Listen, don't look so shocked. It's a coming to America. Because why? Well, if a boy can love a boy, I should say man. That's just gross what I just said. If a man can love a man, that's gross too. If a woman can love a woman and marry a woman, then what about marrying your stuffed teddy bear? It's probably happening. What about your fluffy? What about your relatives? It's all coming and we as the church are going to be demonized for being against it. I don't even know what to call it. You've got homophobic and incestuophobic. Can you imagine if that becomes a term? If they start looking at the church and the believers and saying, you're incestuophobic, that's your problem. I'm going to go, glory, hallelujah, amen, I am incestuophobic. I preached every day this week, so sorry. And I'm in a high. I love living life. I love Jesus. I just love being a Christian. And I love studying the Bible. I studied this out and I thought, man, this chapter... I didn't tell Brother Ray this, but when I first looked at it, I went, oh my goodness, look at the sadness there. Look at the sadness here. But God is good. You can take a chapter that has a lot of negative there with Rizpah and the dead bodies hanging there. God can turn it around and make it a glorious thing. So, Ish-bi-banam, sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear weighed 300 shekels of brass and weight, he being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David. But Abishai, boy, old Abishai, he wanted to smite Saul. That's who we're talking about. He wanted to smite Shimei for cursing David. He is a ruthless killer. You know who you want when the devil gets his giants coming at you? You want a ruthless killer. Now, you know, we're all Christians. We're supposed to love one another, pray for our enemies, love those that do you wrong. God, send me a giant killer. Send me an Abishai today. The son of Zuriah suckered," that just means he ran swiftly to the aid of another, "...suckered him, and smote the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David swear unto him, saying, Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the light of Israel." The king's gone out to his last battle. Timothy writes about it in 2 Timothy 4-7. He says, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I pulled the song, Softly and Tenderly, it's number 343 in our new songbooks. And the third stanza says, Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing, passing from you and from me. Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming, coming for you and for me. It's either the deathbed or it's going to be the rapture. It says in verse 18, "...it came to pass after this that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Shebekai the Hushethite slew Sath which was of the sons of the giant." Notice sons, brother. Remember he had four brothers? The five stones? And there was, again, a battle in Gob with the Philistines where Elhanan, the son of Jerogam, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of... notice the italics there... the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff whose spear was like a weaver's beam. That happened... well, if you look at the modern versions, like the 1984 NIV, they take the brother of out because it's not in the original Hebrew. It's not in there. The brother of is in italics because it's added. You say, what? In the King James, they use a Roman type instead of the Gothic. They use a Roman type to show what was added for understanding. Translating from one language to another, you may not have a corollary word or you might have an idiomatic expression that cannot be understood without adding words. If I say, go to the store, the Germans don't say it that way. You know what they say? Well, I won't turn it all around, but you go to the store is the gist of it. You is understood. You would be in italics because it's an understood word. When the translators translated, they knew that. That's why the brother of is in italics. But when you take the brother of out, it says that this guy, Elhanan, killed Goliath. Thank you. He says that. The 2011 NIV changed it to match the King James, but doesn't give italics, even though there's no Hebrew support for those words. You see, the King James is a literal translation of the words, except when you have the italics, it's added for understanding. It's added for translation. You can't have contradiction in your Bible and lies if you don't. That's the way translating from one language to another is. And you got these bozos that think you can translate word for word. Well, then you end up with something like this. Like the ESV doesn't fix it yet. Either does the Holman Christian Standard fix it yet. Either does the Good News Bible. They all say that Goliath was killed by somebody else. What a mess! Listen, it's a mess unless you leave the Bible alone. The italicized words are supposed to be in there. They are as inspired as anything else, and it's not re-inspiration either. That isn't why these things were added. Look at verse 20. And there was yet a battle in Gath, where was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number, and he was also born to the giant. The giant is Goliath. He has four brothers. He also had four sons and they were one and the same. And when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, the brother of David, slew him. These four were born to the giant in Gath, that makes it very clear, and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. That's why David got five smooth stones. He had to kill Goliath and kill the four brothers of Goliath that were actually his sons also. The Bible is a very peculiar book. The Bible deals with things very delicately, but if you cross-reference and study these things, you'll find out there's no new thing under the sun. All we're doing in America is devolving back to the way it used to be. And in Noah's day, God destroyed the earth. It's a coming again with fire. And we're going to be raptured out before that seven-year period when God is just... He's going to have to judge every day. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for many blessings. Just pray you'll be with Brother Ray and the services this morning. Give him peace of mind, clarity of thought. In Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.