This story has always bothered me, and it still does. And I'm gonna make the application here. We're heading down the road toward Benedict Arnold's final treason, act of treason. And what I'm doing, I'm trying to explain to you Bible principles of how we get where we get. Now this isn't just a history lesson, this is us. This explains the areas in our life to where, for example, what bitterness can do to you. What greed, greed can do to you. What having unforgiveness can do to you. And all this mess gets in our hearts is what clogs our life up. So 2 Samuel 16 and verse number 1, when David was a little past the top of the hill, now here's the context. David is being chased out of Jerusalem by his own son, Absalom. Absalom is trying to steal the throne from David and he will do so temporarily. But he knew as long as David was alive, he could never really be king. And he's gonna seek his own father's life to destroy him. And David, that's the context here. So David is leaving Jerusalem, going across the Kidron Valley, weeping as he goes, and they're going up, I guess, Mount Olivet to escape. When David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth met him. And with a couple of asses saddled, upon them two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred bunches of raisins, a hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine. The king said unto Zippo, What meanest thou by these? And Zippo said, The asses be for the king's household to ride on, and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine that such as be fain in the wilderness may drink. And the king said, and where is thy master's son? And Ziba said unto the king, behold, he abideth at Jerusalem for he said, today shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father. You know how absurd that is? How absurd. Why, if Absalom would kill his own daddy, he's certainly not gonna let the only surviving male of a dynasty of Saul live. But David's gonna act in haste and not discover, not investigate, and not think this through and make a rash statement. "'Then said the king to Ziba, "'Behold, thine are all that pertaineth "'unto Mephibosheth. "'And Ziba said, I humbly beseech thee "'that I may find grace in thy sight, O Lord, my king.'" Now you'll find the rest of this story in verse 24 of 2 Samuel 19. And I won't get to this probably to the end of this little thought, but verse 24, 2 Samuel 19. Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king. Of course, that was his grandfather. His father was Jonathan. But the Bible often never distinguishes between one's grandfather and father, because all your forefathers are your fathers, according to Scripture. So my grandfather is my father. My great-grandfather is my father. The bloodline there is what it's talking about. And Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet. Now, you know, he's lame on his feet. Nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed into the day he came in peace. So he's in an act of mourning. And it came to pass when he was coming to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, wherefore wentest thou not with me, Bemphibosheth? He answered, my lord, O king, my servant, that Ziba deceived me. For thy servant said, I will saddle me an ass, that I may ride there on and go to the king, because thy servant is lame. He has slandered thy servant unto my Lord, the King. But my Lord, the King is an angel of God. Do therefore what is good in thine eyes. For all of my father's house were but dead men before my Lord, the King. Yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table? What right therefore have I yet to cry any more unto the King? And the king said unto him, why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I've said thou and Ziba divide the land. Ephesiah said unto the king, yea, let them take all. For as much as my Lord the king has come again in peace unto his own house. So what David does here in this story, he doesn't deal with the issue. What he does, he glosses over it. He never deals with the slander. And the reason being, he's so thankful to God, he's gonna show mercy on Shimei. He's gonna show mercy on Joab. They killed Absalom. He disobeyed a direct order. When David comes back to town, he's not in the mood of extracting judgment. He got so much mercy in his heart because God set such mercy on him. But still, the name of Mephibosheth was never cleared. That's a sad thing. This was an outright slander. I want you to know how wicked before God it is for you to slander somebody. You can inflict pain and suffering that can never be fixed in this world. by lying on people. I was going to wait to the end of this, but let me go ahead and get started. I want to talk about Arnold and the power of slander. Arnold, Benedict Arnold, and the power of slander. That's some of the reason he did what he did. Now, understand, Battle of Saratoga is over. Arnold's been in a hospital for five months recovering. He's finally got on his feet and he's went to Valley Forge to meet with George Washington. While that he's there, not Valley Forge, he'd done that before. But while Arnold is recovering, George Washington appoints him as military governor over Philadelphia. Now for the last over a year, William Howe and the British have been occupying Philadelphia. You've got three main factions in Philadelphia. You've got the conservative patriots, you've got the radical patriots, and then you've got the loyalists, and then there's another one, you've got those that were neutral. So there's really four. So after all of these British taking people's property, I mean taking their homes, you know, commandeering everything, then Benedict Arnold of all people is sent to Philadelphia. That's not his gift. Benedict Arnold's not a politician. He don't know how to deal with people. He knows about fighting and killing and leading soldiers into battle. That was his gift. And Washington gave him the very thing that he was not equipped for. Because Arnold has no patience. I mean, let's just do this and do this right now. And I mean, he's an arrogant man and a proud man. And he doesn't know how to deal with people in mercy and grace in a lot of instances. Sometimes he does. But what Arnold is sent to do is to restore civility and restore peace because the radical patriots were just rough shodden through the country. Anybody they accused of being a Tory or a sympathizer, they was taking their land, taking their houses, and I mean, just doing great damage. And you don't, two wrongs don't make a right. And that's what's going on. So Arnold is sent there to protect the loyalists and the Tories and the patriots. and trying to get them to be friends one with another. So you've got a rift here. Here's the big rift. Philadelphia and the radical patriots saw Arnold as a symbol of national government and they abhorred it. They wanted to run their colony. They wanted state control and state government. And they wanted totally to be delivered from the federal government. So Arnold represents all of that and everything they abhor, they see it in him. and they're gonna do everything in their power to destroy him as he's military governor over Philadelphia. Now, what the neutral people wanted and the loyal people wanted, they wanted British reform, but they still wanted British government. That was totally untenable to the patriots. They would not adhere to that. Then you got this division between the rich and the poor. the poor man inflation so bad, the poor people were barely existing while all the rich aristocrats in Philadelphia was living like there's no tomorrow. Having all these extravagant parties and all these balls and all these dances, sort of like Nero fiddling while Rome's on fire. and they are highly offended at the extravagance of the rich when so many were in need. So you got that division. Now, so Washington sends Arnold to restore peace and Arnold gets right in the middle of all that. Arnold's a big spender. His real weakness was he always overspent. He always tried to live a life of luxury. And he always tried to give the impression he was a whole lot richer than he was. Therefore, he stayed in constant debt about all the time. There, he'll meet the attraction of Philadelphia, a woman by the name of Margaret Shippen. She's called Peggy Shippen. Her daddy is Edward Shippen IV. Her ancestors, her daddy's grandfathers, two of them, had been mayors of Philadelphia. I mean, she is with a connected family. She lives the plush life. She lives in luxury. I mean, here's a woman that knows nothing more But the highlight, the brother, some of her brothers had died. The brother that was to carry on the family name had disappointed the family. And now the whole family, her daddy especially, Peggy Shippen is his pet and she's the one that's gonna get all of the attention. And think about a girl, she's been raised her own personal tutor all of her life. Her personal servants fed her, clothed her. I'm talking about living in luxury of the day. And that's who Arnold's wanting to marry. He's going to marry above his pay grade. And that's one reason he's going to commit treason. He's trying to keep up that lifestyle. He goes and buys the nicest house in all of Pennsylvania to impress her father because her father would not give his daughter in marriage unless Arnold showed that he was of wealthy means. And anyhow, he's gonna be 38 and she's gonna be 18 when all this comes about and the age difference. But the main thing is, Arnold has gotta prove that he's got the money. So he's gonna go borrow 12,000 pounds to go get that house to impress her daddy and to impress her, I mean, that's him. That's how he lived. Arnold had been a great businessman, going to the West Indies and going to Canada and dealing with tea and sugar and coffee and tobacco and nails and building material and timber, all kinds of things. And he had done real good. But when he went into the military, his business, of course, was left behind. And he run up all this debt, as he paid out of his own pocket many times, the very wages and the food, the provisions of his own men. And that Quebec campaign, he was never reimbursed properly by the Congress. And therefore, he's running out of money. And so that's what I want you to understand. They said, well, where's your receipts? Well, the Royal Savage was the ship at Lake Champlain where he had all of his records. And when they're in the process of him getting on another ship, the British, that ship went aground and the British burned it. So all of his papers were destroyed. And therefore, all it was was political wrangling to get out of paying because really, the Congress had no money anyhow. But in Philadelphia, he became friends with wealthy men. Robert Morris, called the financer of the revolution, will be in with Arnold on some of these business deals that he is going to do. And so what Arnold does, he goes in and George Washington tells him, now shut down the city, all the businesses for two weeks. Well, they thought Arnold done that, but it was the command of George Washington. And he said, the reason being, you've got to go in and take inventory of a lot of these supplies that are military supplies that are being sold on the black market. And you find out what belongs to the government and what belongs to the individuals. Well, when Arnold done that, He shut down the town. He went in and everything that was not military equipment and things that belonged to the federal government, Benedict Arnold bought all those supplies at a real good rate and then went and sold it all over Philadelphia and made a lot of money. It was not technically illegal. but it sure didn't pass the smell test. Well, while he was at Valley Forge, a merchant came to him from Philadelphia and told him about his ship. And it was a Charmin Nancy. That's the name of the ship, the Charmin Nancy. And he knew the British were about to take his ship or the Americans and confiscate all of his goods. So Arnold gives him a free pass to certain American ports. Well, when Arnold gets to Philadelphia, I'm trying to set this up where you'll understand it. When Arnold gets to Philadelphia, he sends government horses to go get all those goods off the charming Nancy. And that man would rather cut the profit with Arnold than to have nothing. And then they sold that stuff all over Philadelphia and the man that owned it got rich and Arnold got rich. Well, the thing he did that was wrong when he took that ship at Egg Harbor, New Jersey, is that he's using government equipment. Well, Arnold says, here you owe me all this money, I'm gonna take your wagons. And in Arnold's mind, he had done nothing wrong. But there's all, when you get enemies, when you, listen, when you got enemies, they'll nitpick at everything. and there's eyes are watching him, and they're building a case against him, and gonna slander him, and even bring up false accusations, and a lot of it lies of wrongdoing, and then that's what he's gonna have to face the whole time he's there, is a bunch of allegations that most of them aren't even true. Isn't it amazing that for the past year we've been hearing fake news and slander when the whole time the accusers were those that were guilty. I pray they die in prison. Amen. That's what you're dealing here. You're dealing with people accusing him and they're doing worse things than Arnold is. Is that not bad when your accuser is worse than you? That doesn't, that's not very good for winning friends and influencing people. But if what Arnhem was doing, using those city wagons, Pennsylvania wagons, they go pick up those spoils, and by the way, the populace did get something out of it. All the poor people had nothing to eat hardly. And Arnold's bringing in all those goods and flooding the market. He wasn't just stealing it. I mean, the man that owned it, he was in business with him. He just used the wagons when he wasn't supposed to. But what some of this other crowd's gonna do, makes him look like a Sunday school boy. That's what I'm trying to say. We don't live in glass houses. If you're throwing rocks at people, you better be living right. He's exactly right. I'll tell you something. I heard a saying the other day and I hope I never forget this. If you're not an eyewitness, you are a false witness. Don't spread slander. Unless if something's true and it comes from a liable source, if it's hearsay, don't repeat it. Don't repeat hearsay because you can't unsay it. Right. You can't fix it. Why do people get such joy in the misery of others I don't understand. Amen. If somebody messes up, somebody falls, somebody has an accident, why would I glory in that? Why would I not be sympathetic? I mean, what's wrong with Christian people? Somebody has a hard time in their life. Everybody's trying to figure out how much judgment of God's on. That's people's attitude. It may not have nothing to do with the judgment of God. It might have to do with God maturing somebody. Amen. Now, I'm just trying to tell you how this thing of slander is so offensive to God. Arnold is calculating all that the revolution has cost him that can never be returned to him. How do you give somebody their leg back? He's already been shot twice. Here is his left leg. It's three inches shorter than the other. He's been shot twice. He'll never walk again without a cane. And then he's got so much gout in his right leg that he can't hardly even walk on crutches. I mean, this man has given a lot. He left his three sons. He's coming back from Fort Ticonderoga. His wife's died. His sister Hannah raises his three boys while he goes off to war. When Arnold is at Lake Champlain, his little boy rides him through Hannah, his sister. And Hannah wrote him and said, little Hal sends a kiss to Paul and says, auntie, tell my papa he must come home. I want to kiss him. I'm talking about a man that sacrificed a lot. And what galled him was he didn't feel appreciated. And I've got into all that. And he was slighted. He was overlooked. And he wasn't even treated with the dignity that he deserved. He sacrificed his family. He sacrificed his health. He's bleeding out. He should have bled to death at Quebec and Saratoga. He should have got gangrene, but he didn't. And he felt that he's owed a lot more than what he got. And he had spent most of his fortune on the cause of independence. And again, the way the Congress had done him and all that goes into all this. So what Arnold did, he felt like was so insignificant, big deal, because I've given so much. I don't make it right what he did, but my goodness, the Congress won't pay him nothing, or what they owe him, and so old. Arnold says, well, I'm just gonna take a little bit. But a man by the name, don't forget this name is gonna hurt some of you's name, man by the name of Joseph Reed. I hate to say that. Joseph Reed. He's the same age as Benedict Arnold. He's a lawyer. He's the former aide, adjutant general, that means chief of staff of George Washington. And that's what he was. And he left and came back to Pennsylvania. And now he's the current vice president of the Pennsylvania Executive Council, which run the state. And he will become what we would call in our day, the governor twice of the state of Pennsylvania. And like many men that's got power, he's gonna abuse it. I'll tell you what, when the federal government weaponizes the CIA and the FBI, we're a banana republic. That's right. You better know the seriousness of these charges is coming down. I'm telling you, there's people ought to be hung for treason. What about this uranium deal where 20% of our uranium is given to the Russians. All I've heard for a year, but these liberals, Russia, Russia, Russia, they're the greatest enemy we ever had. And nine branches and different committees of the federal government approved, that's giving away 20% of our storage reserves of uranium. And a little bit later, the Clinton Foundation got $145 million. That's treason. Boy, I'm talking about a scandal. Probably the worst in American history. And it amazes me how this crowd has done everything in their power to impeach a rightly elected president and make him so weak and turn his own party against him off of a bunch of fakery of a dossier put together by KGB agents paid $12 million by the opposition party. I'll tell you what this is. This is illegality. It's scary. And that crowd done all that with impunity because they thought they'd keep the presidency. You better hear me. You better forget about your Republican and Democrat and independent side. I'm telling you our Constitution's on the line. I ain't talking about slander. I'm talking about stuff there's evidence. Joseph Reed had been one of Washington's most trusted officers. Washington saw correspondence where Joseph Reed had been corresponding with Charles Lee. And instead of Gates, Gates and Lee had been on a scam. And Charles Lee was wanting George Washington's position and so was Gates. But either one of them would yield to the other if they could oust George Washington. And Joseph Reed is right in the middle of that. And finally, he resigns from his place as Washington's chief of staff. And he ought to have, man don't have any more loyalty than that. Joseph Reed would stoop to the bottom to assassinate the character of Benedict Arnold. Everything he said was not a lie, just 90% of it was. And people will remember the 90%. So he's out to spread vicious rumors in the newspaper, anonymous sources. All we've heard for a year are anonymous sources. I think they're mainly made up by these news media outlets. He claimed that Arnold, listen to this, Joseph Reed claimed that Benedict Arnold, when he was retreating from Canada, had massacred Canadian villages while he was retreating and outright fabrication and lie. Reed was a leader of the radical patriots who after the British left Philadelphia thought he had the right to, anybody he accused, hey, he's all the time committing a miscarriage and abuse of justice. Cause he just makes accusation. And that's supposed to make it right. And you haul people into court with no evidence. That's what he did. He done a lot of that. And that's one reason they hated old Benedict Arnold. He was messing all that stuff up. So he comes and confiscates people's property. And if it was proved that somebody was a loyalist, they were hanged. Reed was guilty again of miscarriage of justice. The very house Joseph Reed lived in, he had confiscated from a loyalist family. He had come, he had left George Washington to come to prosecute and oversee the trial of 23 suspected of treason. He stirred up an already drunken mob into a frenzy who attacked the defendant lawyer of these people accused and the future Supreme Court justice by the name of James Wilson. And it's called the Fort Wilson War. And if it had not been for the Calvary, those men that Reed had got in a frenzy would have killed him. He should have been in prison for that. but twice he'll be elected as governor of Pennsylvania. Reed automatically despised Arnold's position and despised his authority. And we see that Reed abhorred the fancy parties of the wealthy and Arnold was the one throwing them. Here's what Arnold would do, he was sent there to keep peace, he would bring in the Whigs, that's the Patriots, he'd bring in the Whigs, he'd bring in the Tories, he'd bring in the neutral people, and he would have a party and invite all of them, trying to secure peace, and of course, advancing his business. Don't ever forget how greedy Benedict Arnold was, because he's got a high-maintenance wife. You got a high-maintenance wife, you better have some money. Amen. Or you better pray that she gets saved in low and lowly. Amen. But Reed had an abhorrence of the Shippen family because they were loyalists, neutralists, or probably loyalist sympathizer. He abhorred them. And when Benedict Arnold got to dating her and then eventually married her, it was a sin he could not forgive. Now folks, I want to show you what we're dealing with here. This is the mentality of Joseph Reed. Reed's pious wife complained that one of Peggy Shippen's relatives had accused her of being sly, claiming that religion is often a cloak to hide bad actions. That was a grudge that Reed would carry against Edward and Peggy Shippen and the rumor wasn't even by Peggy Shippen. It was somebody kin to her. That's somebody just looking for something to hate somebody with. I wonder, If Reed's problem wasn't, he is guilty himself. Are you listening? I wonder if it was a cloak to hide his own actions. Now, John Cadwalader, I guess that's how you pronounce that name, Cadwalader, he accused Joseph Reed of visiting a home in Heston, occupied New Jersey, where he said he poised to surrender to the British side in case of American defeat. Cadwall, Cadwall Wallander, I hope I got that right. The very night George Washington was making his assault on Trenton, he said that Joseph Reed was in this German Hessian house doing his planning. I don't know if that wasn't totally proven, but it was not unproven. But it's amazing to me how Joseph Reed did everything in his power to keep Washington from charging that night on Trenton. And he wasn't there, claimed he was sick. Could it be when all these accusations come out against Reed, it's an amazing thing. When all these accusations come out, it's when he got to wanting to kill all the Tories and the Loyalists to prove what a patriot he was. He persecuted Quakers and others. George Washington, when you think about all this goes back to him and being with him in the summer of 1778, Reed had been contacted by a woman representing the British Peace Commission and was offered 10,000 pounds. If he could assist the commission's assist with Congress, Wanting to move about to end the war is what it was all about. They say, some say, where he took the money. He come out in the newspaper with the big boast, I can't be bought by the King of England and all that stuff. I don't know if that's true or not, but back in England, when this woman met with Reed, it's an amazing thing, that one of the commissioners assured Parliament that secret efforts were underway to destabilize the United States government and by other means that would prove more effective than ending the war by military attempts to defeat Washington. I don't know if Reed done that, but that man sure believed he was in on it. Are you listening now? Hey, you're gonna throw rocks at people. You better not have sin in your life. You better not have any skeletons. In other words, if you do, you better have mercy on people. I didn't say overlook sin. I didn't say condone sin. I'm here to tell you right now, don't be like a Pharisee. That stuff will bite you. It'll come back to bite you. If it don't bite you, God will get your attention through your children. You better hear me. We better learn to have mercy. Suspicion's not enough. When somebody's accused of something, if they're guilty, they're guilty, but there better be evidence. Amen. So I wonder how much of this is Reed's own guilty conscience. So there's a whole lot of animosity on both sides. Reed was a churlish man. Here's what people said about him. He was a brilliant man, but mercurial, that means volatile, fickle, unpredictable, erratic, unstable, and outspoken. He had a habit of antagonizing Many of his closest friends. Don't you just abhor a smart mouth. Then don't be one. I don't mean abhor the person. Somebody always got some smart aleck something to say. Always got to get the last word. Always got to throw their arrows at you in a subtle laughing way. Are you listening now? Some of y'all have had boss men like that. Some of you have had school teachers like that. Some of you have had parents like that. I'm trying to help us today. Hey, we need to learn, love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. God, help us to learn how to love one another. If we do that, there'll be so much Holy Ghost in here you won't be able to see. Here's what was said about Reed by those that knew him best. He was always restless. He was always the smartest in the room. He was the most judgmental person in the room. A New England minister once wrote George Washington about Reed to warn him of him. He said, he done more for dividing than for unity. As mentioned before in the fall of 1778, he stepped down from the Pennsylvania or from Washington's position of chief of staff to be a delegate in Congress to prosecute 23 suspected as lawless for treason. Is it not amazing? 21 out of 23. There was no evidence. And even the courts had to let them go. But in Reed's zealous pride, two Quakers were found. Well, Quakers back then wasn't on either side. They were non-combatants. They did not believe in being in wars. Now, some of them did, but most of them didn't. They didn't believe in taking up arms against anybody. They were pacifists. So he hanged two Quakers, Joseph Reed. Arnold's response was to all of this, Reed complained about his life. Reed was gonna do everything in his power to bring smear upon Arnold. Arnold thumbed his nose at him. He thumbed his nose at these radical patriots. Given Arnold's interest in Shippen's daughter, that made it all even worse than it ever was. So Arnold is trying to accommodate people where he can. But what does Reed do? He hates three groups of people. He hates conservative patriots because they don't want to kill everybody. See, read, if you're not a radical patriot, he thinks you'll be in jail or dead, go get all their property. That's him. The conservative patriots were of this regard. We'll fight for America, die for America, but let's treat one another with some civility. And I think it's the right place to be. And he abhorred the Continental Congress and he abhorred the Continental Army. So this guy sure knows how to make enemies. He hates Arnold, he hates the Continental Congress, he hates the Continental Army, and he hates conservative patriots. He launched an investigation into Arnold's conduct as military governor. And, uh, So much of this stuff was just hearsay. So he's gonna lead the charge and just gnaw at him. As I said, he go to the newspaper, eight charges. And that anonymous sources. And just spread this stuff all the time. Just a burr under Arnold's saddle. Just relentless with all this scandal. Trying to get him to leave Philadelphia. Arnold would also write passes for loyalists to go visit their families at like holiday times. And he abhorred that. He abhorred the fact how that Arnold was friendly to what he called the opposition. Now, here's some of the silly charges that Reed brought against Arnold. Listen to this. He was ungracious to a militiaman. You know what Arnold's, oh, David Franks is Arnold's number one man. David Franks told a militiaman to go get him a barber. He didn't go. Afternoon, he said, I said, go get me a barber. Well, he finally did and went and told his daddy that took him to the government with Joseph Reed. How dare you send a militiaman to go get you a barber? Can you imagine such pettiness as that? If you're under somebody's authority, they said, go get a barber, go get a barber. Amen. So, we're talking about, he said he preferred loyalists to patriots. Well, wow, that's your opinion. Even the charge of Arnley legally purchasing goods, when it first came up, it lacked evidence. The only charge that stuck was him using those state wagons that was in. Washington took Reed's charges with a grain of salt. Now he's gonna go to blackmail. When scandal's not gonna work, he's gonna use blackmail. During being the president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, he forced Washington, he forced, he's gonna force Washington to do what Washington doesn't wanna do. it's gonna cost. Although Arnold, he's gonna write George Washington a letter or his wife and talk about how polite Washington's officers were and Washington's gonna be backed in a corner to do what he don't wanna do, out of blackmail. Now listen folks, back in Philadelphia, Arnold's under these ceaseless attacks. The Congressional Committee examines the charges against Arnold and dismiss the case for lack of evidence, and they rule in Arnold's favor. That ought to be the end of it. You ever heard of double jeopardy? You can't try a man for the same thing twice if he's been acquitted. And he was acquitted and Reed just keeps harassing and keeps harassing, not getting his way. Here Reed resorts to blackmail. Reed goes to George Washington and he tells George Washington and he tells the Congress, I'm cutting off state militia and I'm cutting off state provisions and Pennsylvania was depended on as almost as much as any state to provide soldiers and to provide provisions. He said, if you don't publicly castigate Benedict Arnold, I'm going to cut off all of our aid to the military cause. Arnold's just been acquitted by a jury or a committee that tried him in Philadelphia. Now he's gonna go to Congress to force his way. In the meantime, Arnold needed money. And of course, to get money and to show his wealth and all that, he's just gonna make a matter, matter, matter. But Reed held Arnold in such contempt. If Pennsylvania doesn't supply militiamen and provisions, we can lose the war. But to get Arnold, he's a radical patriot and willing to put the patriot cause on the line because he hates somebody. I'm telling you, slander is as wicked as the devil. Arnold wanted clarity in a speedy resolution. He demanded a court-martial by the Congress. He said, you're going to try me, and if I'm guilty, you're going to convict me, put me in prison or hang me, but you're going to try me and clear me or convict me. Joseph Reed, you know Arnold, is gonna go to New York. He's thinking about getting out of the military totally. He goes to New York to look about buying land. Old Reed's scared to death he ain't gonna get his pound of flesh. And he made him put off the court-martial so he could gather up evidence, gather up evidence. You make any kind of charges, you don't have any evidence, and you gotta go gather up evidence? So, Arnold writes, Washington, having made every sacrifice of fortune and blood, have become a cripple in the service of my country. Little expected to meet the ungrateful returns I have received of my countrymen, but as Congress has stayed in gratitude as a current coin, he said they're paying me with ingratitude. I must take it, but I wish your excellency, that's Washington, for your long and imminent services may not be paid off in the same coin. So finally, you know what Congress does? They do what they do a lot of times, they pass the buck. And they put, they won't deal with this issue. So they pass it off to George Washington to deal with it. It ain't his responsibility, it's theirs. So George Washington He done the accusation and what Washington's going to do, he's going to do at a morning, he's going to have a general, the daily general orders and mention this indiscretion with Arnold in there. And he's going to try to hide it and make it as palatable to Arnold as he can. and satisfy this nut job over here in Philadelphia, the name of reading, get him to shut up. That's what Washington's trying to do. He's trying to please both sides and especially do something to preserve Arnold in the military. So the use of the wagons was determined to be improper by the court martial. Now it's up to Washington to make the, give out the penalty. Washington writes Arnold and talks about how grateful he was to him. And Washington's in the process of making Arnold his second in command. Washington knows this is a bunch of nothing. He knows that. But he knows they've got to have the provisions and the men from Pennsylvania. He said, I believe that read more than anything. Washington's letting him know that he understands what that Arnold's up against, but it's all that bitterness and it's dog eat dog. Now folks, I'm gonna tell you something. You young people, listen to me. Don't you ever get caught up in this stuff. You can cause some young person to commit suicide. It's happened to many a time. I went back and talked to my boy, because I wanted to get the facts straight. I told this here before, and I wanted him to refresh my memory. I thought it was a buddy of his in the military that told him this, but it was a professor in one of his schools and college. Happened in the state of California. There's a young man, now we're not justifying sin. What this man's about to do is gonna be, it's gonna be sinful. That's why you listen to me now. You ain't got no clue what tail of a dog you're grabbing onto and the ear of a dog when you start sinning. And this young man, his wife's having all kinds of marital trouble. They got children. He goes down to the bar to drink with his buddies. You know what drinking alcohol does? It takes away your inhibitions and you get stupid real quick and say stuff. He's seen this knockout girl in there, young lady. She's buying alcohol. And she comes over there and he gets to talking to her and he gets talking back and they're buying each other drinks and he goes out that night and has a one night stand. That's sin. That's wicked. But it ain't something you kill somebody over. It's mutual consent there. Why is it that the man about always gets the dogging? I know a boy in a nearby county started having a relationship in high school with a girl, both of them underage, and done that for a year and a half, and when he turned age, then they broke up, and they'd stay together, and her parents railroaded that boy. Well, what about her? What if she'd have been 19 and him been 16? They would have done a thing to her. I'm not jumping on women, I hate injustice. What's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. What's good for Donald Trump, it's good for Hillary Clinton. Amen. Slander. And this man, the law comes to his door and they arrest him for statutory rape. The guy gets convicted. A few months later, his buddy is down at the same bar. And by the way, that girl, when she went to court, wore a little old skirt like she's in a little Catholic school with little pigtails to make her look younger than she normally looked. Ain't that sorry? God, I hate stuff like that. I abhor stuff like that. So this buddy goes down to the bar. He wasn't expecting her, just going out there to drink. He sees her. She's up there buying alcohol. And the man behind the bar, she give him, she is drunk and give him her ID and forgot and left it there. The man walks up there, she just bought alcohol and she had a fake ID saying she is older than she was. He calls the police department, tells the sheriff to send somebody down there and get this car that his buddy's been railroaded. They send the deputy sheriff down there. And that ID never sees the light of day. It's mysteriously lost. That deputy sheriff was that girl's daddy. And that boy finally got out of jail and killed himself because he's a registered sex offender. I'm telling you, God help those that slander. If you're doing that, you better find repentance, buddy. What goes around comes around. It'll be tenfold on you. Amen. That's what happened to Benedict Arnold. That's some of it right there. Somebody probably sorrier than him throwing the rocks. Amen. You say this ain't on salvation, but it sure is right. 2 Samuel 16, done read the story to you. Mephibosheth is slandered. And the whole time David is in exile, he thinks Mephibosheth has turned on him and sought his own self-interest. He had no idea what the truth was. I guess Ziba thought it would never come out. But I'll tell you one thing, some people ought to be sued for defamation of character. Amen. Amen. Be careful what you say. You say, well, so-and-so, it's true. Then why does it need to be repeated? Where's any edification in that? Why, Christian people will tire each other down more than some sinner out in the community. There's no mercy. but they're guilty. Hey, men that are guilty will be judged by God and that'll be judged by the church if they're church members. But at the same time, if I found any ounce of gloating and glory at the misfortune of somebody else, it's a coming on me. Boy, I'm telling y'all something. You get jealous of some girl, some boy and start lying on them? I mean, you better listen to me. You ought to just about be horse whipped. And I don't mean that in the PC way. I don't mean that literally. You say, what do you mean by horse whip? You ought to be shamed. If you're too old for your daddy to whip you, you ought to just be real good and gut shamed. Amen. There's people that never survived this stuff. There's been girls accused of things and they wasn't guilty. And men since their name was spoiled and tarred, they went into that lifestyle. Some of this stuff, I'm telling you. Here's Mephibosheth. He hadn't dressed his feet. He's a cripple. He's not taking care of him. He's in mourning that his king, the one that showed him such grace and mercy, bringing him out of Lodabar, adopting him as his own son, him at his table, eating with his king every day. Then his king was gone. And Mephibosheth, he probably would have died if he would have known the slander. It's a good thing he didn't know the slander, but he probably suspected it because Ziba had to tell David something. Folks, all these lies are going to be straightened out. I'll guarantee you one thing. If these things are not fixed this side of the judgment, it'll be shouted from the rooftops and the world's gonna know it. You better get stuff right on this side of heaven. Amen. God, I feel God's anger at this stuff. Marries that little old cripple boy, man. He's got children, he ain't a boy. He can't defend himself. He can't even walk. He's been lied on. David comes back to town and says, more or less, Mephibosheth, I can't understand it. Why would you not be loyal to me? After all, he said, oh my Lord. And then Mephibosheth told him what happened. He said, but David, king, if you don't give me back any of my property, it's all right. Just that you're safe and you're on the throne. That sounds like the two women in Solomon's deal. Amen. The mother, the real mother cried to spare the baby and was willing to give it to another woman that her baby wouldn't be cut in half. The other one says, cut her up, cut him up. Huh? But what David did, oh, Zeba come to him, bringing him all these goods. Boy, you see his motivation now, don't you? Wasn't that a love for David? Oh, no. That was to get Mephibosheth's property. And David said, okay. I said, divide the land, divide the land. Things are back the way that it was, and Zeba's gonna get some, and you're gonna get some. I'm gonna tell you something, Ziba deserved nothing. That's injustice. But for David to keep peace, that's what he did. Proverbs 10, 18, Chancellor, you come on. He that hideth hatred with lying lips, he that hath slander is a fool. Proverbs 12, 22, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are his delight. Ain't the Lord good? Life and death is in the power of the tongue. Brother Dean, when I started out preaching, I've had other preachers that said something off cuff about another preacher, and I was always skeptical of them. And then come to find out later, What a great person they really were. I can't tell you, just because you got confidence in somebody, don't take for gospel them slandering people. Amen. That's exactly right. If there's evidence, there's evidence. In the mouth of two or three witnesses, you are commanded by God to receive it. If it's two or three credible witnesses. If it's not, you don't. But if it is, you do. But then again, you don't just go out to destroy, just to destroy somebody. Now if somebody sold you a car as a piece of junk, then you know your buddy over here is going to that car lot, you got every right to tell him. He sold me a piece of junk, I went back and he wouldn't make it right. You got every right to expose something like that. And I'm talking about hearsay. You ever been on the side of that? Somebody said something about you wasn't so? It hurts, don't it? Hurts real deep. Amen. God help us. I'll tell you one thing, and kids, hey, that is a temptation in you to spread stuff. God help us. And you say, what's this got to do about going to heaven? It's got a whole lot to do about going to heaven. Jesus said, they hated me without a cause. They slandered him. The only way they could nail him to a cross was slander. They lied on him. They paid people to testify against him and nothing would stick. But in their own mind, they had the evidence. He's blasphemed God. He said he'd destroy this temple in three days, build it up. Anybody in their right mind knows what he's talking about. Jesus wasn't trying to bring about a revolt in the Roman Empire. He'd come to die for the sin of the world. Then they're screaming out for his blood. He's a, to the Jew, he's the blasphemer. To the Gentile over here, these Jews, the Pilate, they're accusing him of being an insurrectionist, trying to overthrow the Roman government. And he crucified. Thank God he was. It was all the plan of God. But it all come about from man's point out of slander. They slandered Peter, James, and John. They slandered Apostle Paul. slandered him in the church. That's right. Christ was willing to bear that shame and guilt the way they did him. You say, well, preacher, I've got caught up in this stuff before. You better get forgiveness. Get forgiveness and guard what we say. No, I'm telling you, I feel God in here. Christian people, it's a whole lot better to say nothing than have to eat crow. Because God ain't going to let up on you until you do. Eat it while it's hot. I've eaten so much of it, it goes down better than when it gets cold. Amen? Let's bow our heads. God bless y'all. God bless us, Lord. Thou will be done. Thou will be done. done. Thou will be done. Thou will be done, Lord. Have mercy on us, God. Tenderizes.