Am I a Person After God's Own Heart? Part 1

Society is spiraling down toward its eventual destruction. Jesus Christ was very clear that that destruction will be total and complete, erasing all life off the planet, unless He intervenes. So the remaining of life on this planet will be if and when He steps in. The mindset, though, that is taking us toward this total destruction could be summed up in one word, and that is lawlessness.

Now, lawlessness has quite a definition to it on many levels. There is a spiritual lawlessness that the Bible, the apostles, Jesus Himself talks about, which is against the laws of God. But there is a corresponding lawlessness against civil law, of people who are breaking civil laws and breaking the laws even that mankind took from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Even that which it decided is good, mankind is deciding to break. So this lawlessness against God and against fellow man is coming at all levels. It's associated with Satan the devil, who is a lawless one, who came at some point in time from having a perfect in the way he was created to being lawless and going against those established principles that he had lived by and actually had taught others. Lawlessness is about promotion of self and therefore others are not protected by law. It involves things like violence and corruption, slavery and looting, decimation of the earth and the environment. Notice this week an article that came across the international version of CNN online. It says, Political Instability on the Rise. I'll give you a short quote from that article. Growing levels of conflict, etc., are driving a rise in political instability worldwide. In other words, the structure of countries worldwide are becoming unstable. Since 2010, one in ten countries surveyed have experienced a significant increase in risk of political instability or the structural instability.

As we see the world breaking God's laws more and more, we see society itself breaking its own laws, its own established pillars and foundations on which it is based.

The article says these risks include governments asserting controls, popular uprisings and expropriations of what other people own.

When you think about that, governments taking control of things, their backlash is people saying we will disobey government and bring it down, and then governments and people going in and expropriating or taking other people's things. Companies, ownership, land, money out of banks. This is a breakdown in what you might call law and order. King News reported October 1st this year in an interview with Richard Russell. Richard Russell is called the father or the grandfather of these newsletters. He started way back in 1958, and he's been writing something called the Dow Theory Letters. He's still writing them today. He's an old man now. But he warns of a pending radical and massive change as global stock markets peak and begin a historic plunge. On October 1st, he said that the stock market might actually reach 16,000 or slightly above. He says, but what looks like may happen is a historic plunge down to about 5,000 level. Currently, that's not important, and that's not an insider tip or anything. I don't deal with the Dow, I don't really care. But the reason I'm telling you this is, in his own words, it seems to me that the emphasis is on profit, growth at any price, power, greed, and wealth. The Sabbath that we observe today, in part, celebrates a total difference to a lawless society. It celebrates the coming of a lawful society, a wonderful world tomorrow, a time when God, in his way, his laws, the knowledge of the law of God will spread around the earth like the waters are of the earth. The waters are of the sea. It'll be deep. The knowledge of God's laws will be deep. You and I have been called to assist the head of that time, that lawful area, Jesus Christ, as assistants, as a type of a bride, as rulers, as priests in a kingdom that is coming to this earth. We need to have a mindset that is fitting of the next age. We need to be part of that kingdom. When we say in our prayers, God, your kingdom come, that should be come now into my thinking, my mind, my character. Let me bond with that kingdom now, with the Lord of that kingdom, with my Lord and Master and my soon-coming King. Let me be prepared with the mind of the kingdom and let your will be done, which is a lawful will, that God's will of love, love for God, love for man, love for all things, that caring for others. Let that be done in my life now, in preparation for a time when we want that literal kingdom to come to this earth and begin God's rule instead of Satan's.

You and I on the Sabbath day are celebrating such things. What will that kingdom be based on? What should your life be based on? Your life and my life should reflect the same thing. We should be people about the kingdom of God. We don't just declare, oh, I like that country, I want to be there, sounds like a great place, but actually are part of the mindset of that country, a foreign country. David, in Acts 13, verse 22, is said to have been a man after God's own heart. You think about that. David, if you read 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, seems to be a man associated with sin.

David can be seen as disobedient, a liar, a traitor, a deceiver, an adulterer, and a murderer. He will rule over the 12 tribes in the millennium. Do you sometimes want to do what David did, give yourself a shortcut, and say, eh, I don't have to worry too much about these rules and laws. I just want to be like David.

Do you sometimes feel like in the church we get a pass, like it's not about laws? In other words, as this age goes down into lawlessness and gets destroyed, is it okay if we also sort of dance with it in a way, but somehow are spiritually different? Or should the character that you and I are building be totally different, as stark a contrast as day and night with what is taking place in this world? Why was David said to be a man after God's own heart? The title of the sermon today is, Am I a Person After God's Own Heart? And this is part one. Obedient or Lawless? That's the question.

Am I a person after God's own heart? Obedient or Lawless? Let's examine a statement by Jesus Christ. Think of statements by Christ. You're probably ready to turn to the Gospels, but nope. Let's go to Revelation 2, verse 19. He's talking here to the church. Maybe some 60 years after his death, he's now reviewing, assessing his church. He says in Revelation 2, 19, I know your works, your love, your service, your faith, your perseverance. Verse 20, nevertheless, I have a few things against you.

What does he see in the church? Well, you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality. Oh, we'd be horrified! But wait a minute. What he's talking about here is lawlessness coming into the church, because who is the Jezebel? Who is the one who seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality? Who is he referring to?

He's referring to his virgin. Virgins don't do that. The ten virgins, the bride of Christ, they don't do that. They are virgins, and yet here is some female that's enticing those individuals not to be virgins, to buy into some other spiritual religious philosophy. Revelation 14, verse 4, let's just go back a few pages and be reminded. The 144,000 that will reign with Christ are ones who are not defiled with women, not this woman.

They didn't fall for this religious concept of lawlessness that can filter its way into the church, and I believe under the label of Christianity, under the label of, you don't have to obey God so much. Don't be a Pharisee.

Don't buy your salvation through works, etc., etc. See, cool it with the obedience thing. That is an underlying thing that slips into the church. If you don't believe it, read Peter, Paul, Jude, John, words of Christ. It's always prevalent. It's always there, and he's finding it right here in the church.

These are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from among men being firstfruits to God, and in, and the Lamb. Firstfruits to God, and that's what we want to be. Not mixed up with what's going on. We've got to understand the lawlessness of this age. It's pervasive. It's everywhere. And it's in your mind and mine because our carnal human nature likes it.

It's very self-appealing. Revelation 17, verse 5, says, On her forehead was a name written, Mystery Babylon, the great mother of harlots. Remember, Jesus said, Somebody seducing my servants to commit sexual fornication. Here's harlots. This system is something that virgins don't get involved in. We're to stay away from that. Revelation 18, verses 3 through 5, For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. What is that? The kings of the earth have committed fornication with. We're not supposed to be kings and priests of Jesus Christ. The merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.

For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. It's very clearly in God's mind that lawlessness is not acceptable. To wink at it, or to buy into some philosophy that waters down and reduces the importance of lawlessness while flying along under some banner of religion, is not acceptable to God. In fact, he names and shows that that religion is false. You know what? It really comes down to two lands.

Revelation 13, you have one individual, the beast, who looks like a lamb, but he speaks like a dragon. In the next, you just flip to chapter 14 in verse 1, there you have a lamb standing on Mount Zion. Two lambs, two Jesus', two religions.

They sort of look and sound close. And Jesus says they'll use my name. Be careful. Be very careful not to slip into mainstream ideas that are alluring and tempting in lawlessness. In Romans, there's a statement. We don't want to turn there right now. Romans 6, verse 13, it says, For you are not under law, but under grace. That sounds good to my carnal human nature. I don't know about yours. I don't have to worry about those laws. We're not under law. Don't sweat the laws. Don't sweat the rules. We're under grace. The question comes out sometimes.

Are you under law or are you under grace? It's an interesting question, like there's a choice. But be careful because whatever answer you give to that question will be wrong. That's a loaded question. If you look in Romans 6, verse 13, where it says, You are not under law, but under grace.

Law here is referring to the lake of fire. The word for law, Paul, as I've taught you before, abbreviates his comments. He'll just say, law, or he'll say, grace, or he'll say this, or he'll say that. Paul's not talking about the law. When he says, you're not under law, he's not even talking about the law. He's talking about the lake of fire. We're going to see that in a few minutes, which is the penalty for breaking the law.

And yet, these terms can slip in, and next thing you know, we've got some issue in our mind.

I'll read you something referring to grace. In many of the lexicons, the primary meaning for grace is graciousness. In, for instance, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says this about grace and justification. Justification, this meaning of Cheris was obtained by expanding and combining other meanings. It came again into Christian theology as a technical term. The formation of the special tense seems to have been the work of Paul, which many twist to their own description. And Jesus is never, quote, or is even saying the word grace. So we come back to the concept of, I'm not under law, I'm under grace, when in fact, law in that statement is talking about the lake of fire. Grace is God's graciousness. You and I could be trapped, if we're not careful, into a mental concept that's very much a worldly one. Paul's real statement is about repentant members. If you read all of Romans 6, you'll find that Romans 6 is about being baptized.

It's about repenting of sin. It's about not being slaves to sin anymore, but walking a new life with Christ. And being a receiver of God's graciousness. And when he then, in that context, says, for you are not under law, you're under grace, what he means is you're not sentenced to the lake of fire, but as a repentant sinner, you are a receiver of God's graciousness. Very clear. You and I are not sentenced currently to the lake of fire, because we repent. Our sins are being forgiven, as it says in 1 John 1, verses 7-9. And therefore, we are not sentenced, we are being forgiven as we go forward in repentance.

Human nature is a master of disguise and deceit. Jeremiah 17-9 speaks of a heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked. That's my heart. I don't know about yours. I can't judge yours. But mine is so desperately wicked that I can't know it, unless God shows it to me. And if I'm going to be a man after God's own heart, it's going to take a whole lot more than me just assuming that I'm fine.

This is a very challenging calling that God has given us. And one prominent deception that floats around in the Christian world is that Jesus changed the requirements of keeping the law to balanced obedience. Balance. Be balanced in all things. I can't find that in the Scripture, but it sounds really good. Be balanced. He wants balanced obedience. He diminished a requirement for obeying the law. Sometimes we get the notion that the New Covenant diminishes the law. And if you try to obey what God said, you're a Pharisee.

You're a legalist. Those are worldly terms that people use for people who are trying to obey God in some cases. I'll give you a classic example. Let's go to 1 Timothy 1 and verse 8. 1 Timothy 1 and verse 8. Sometimes these things can seem a little unclear, especially something that's this bold. Paul says in 1 Timothy 1.8, But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous person. All right. Well, there's a pass for me. I don't know about you. Law is not made for a righteous person. I'm good. You good. I feel good.

But for the lawless, the law was made for the lawless and the insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners. Oh, I'm not a sinner! So I won't keep it. Of course, we could have a discussion about that. But it's made for the unholy and the profane, for murders of fathers and murders of mothers, for manslayers and fornicators and sodomites and kidnappers and liars and perjurers and any other thing that's contrary to sound doctrine. So don't push the law on me, bud. Wait a minute. We just identified a while ago, Paul's not talking about the law in grace. He's talking about the lake of fire, the penalty for breaking the law. We're not sentenced. In other words, we're not undersentence of the lake of fire if we are forgiven as we go forward as repentant. What does this mean? Exactly the same thing. Let's look at it. 1 Timothy 1, verse 8. If we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this, that the lake of fire is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and the subordinate and the murderers and on and on. Oh, makes sense now, doesn't it? He's not talking about the law. He's talking about the penalty, the death penalty, the lake of fire. Now, what this tells us as we begin to look at this, we say, Oh, guess what? God is about keeping the laws. God is about obeying the commandments. We are not given some sort of a parallel pass with society to dis-law and be lawless while flying along with some special helmet that protects us from the lake of fire.

Some will look in here and look in there and pick up Paul's writings and say, Well, you know, you don't have to sweat it. You need this balanced obedience. So it's okay to lie a little, cheat a little, steal a little, break the Sabbath a little, a little sexual immorality, as long as you despise doing so. You've got to have the right mind, you know. It's okay if you do a little of it. Just hate it.

Because, you know, you're of the God family. And I worry sometimes in the Church, just like Jesus said in Revelation 2 to the Church. I worry in my life and in your life, are we accepting just a little bit of lawlessness because, yeah, we're balanced. Do we allow just some of these things to fly just a little easy in our lives and be a little bit of, mix it up with breaking the rules of society, of the Bible, of God, of family, of marriage, because, I don't know, it just seems like it's okay?

Jesus was accused by the Jews of breaking the Sabbath on many occasions, but he justified what he did. David broke the law a lot. So, maybe our carnal nature says, so what's the big deal? I could break the law a little too, you know? It's more about the grace side of things than the law side of things, when in fact, we identified it wasn't even about the law, it was about the lake of fire being sentenced to the lake of fire.

Hmm. Which is for the burning up of those who are lawless. Let's go to Matthew 12 and verse 2. I'll show you an example. An English translation here would indicate that David sinned, and Jesus was okay with that. You know, so lighten up. Matthew 12. Let's just read verses 2-4. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what's not lawful on the Sabbath. They're breaking the law. What did Jesus say? I'm okay with it. Or did He? He says, well, haven't you read what David did?

When he was hungry and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God, actually into the holy place, into the sanctuary, the first holy place. And He ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests. Have you not read that in the law and the Sabbath, the priests and the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? So cool it with the obedience.

It sounds like in the English, doesn't it? Is that what's being said there? Did Jesus Christ change the law? Was He okay with it? Did He diss the very law that He said just over a few pages before, would not have one flick of it changed until everything would be fulfilled? Where does that put Him? You know, if you say, I did not come to change a thing, but to magnify it, in fact. And then suddenly He's here. Have you heard about all this lawlessness? It seems to be okay again.

The reason I bring this up is for a very important reason. As this society marches into its death, or what would be its death, because of lawlessness, what is your foundation? Where does your obedience begin and end? How riveted are you onto what God wants us to be? I ask a good question.

Right there, we just read in Matthew 12, David seemed to do something that was unlawful. That would be a bit of a challenge, wouldn't it? It really would. Because Jesus commanded Israel of something, let's go over to Exodus 16, verse 22. In Exodus 16, verse 22, He commanded the Israelites to whom He was giving manna, gave them a directive to prepare food for the Sabbath, not to go out and do that six-day-a-week type of activity on the Sabbath, but rather do a different type of work, a serving kind of work.

Exodus 16, verse 22, it's important to note this. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much. Verse 23, this is what the Lord has said, Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning.

Verse 26, six days you shall gather, just like six days were to do our weekday work, but on the seventh day there will be none. When Adam went out on the seventh day, in verse 28, the Lord said, How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? How long do you refuse to obey? It's an obedience thing. It's a lawless thing. The point here is, the Lord saying this is the same Lord that is making a statement about the disciples eating grain on the Sabbath and David eating bread out of the showbread.

What changed? Or did anything change? You know, sometimes it's our perception of things that changes. What about this law? Was there a change in the law? Or did he do away with the law? Are people after God's own heart now lawbreakers? Let's take a look here and see. What about David eating the showbread in the holy place? Jesus seemed to be okay with that. I want to look at Matthew 12, if you'll turn back with me to Matthew 12. We're going to look at this passage in a unique way that I think will help you understand that God and Jesus Christ's statement here had nothing to do with breaking laws and being okay with it.

He's not advocating us to lighten up and now sort of have balanced lawlessness in our lives. And yet this passage sometimes can give the same impression that Paul is saying, I'm not under a law, I'm under grace, because the way it reads in the English, we don't fully understand. In Matthew 12, I find it helpful to read this passage in reverse, because then we see the context.

We see what the theme he's talking about. If you go to Matthew 12, verse 12, to the end of this passage, here's what he said. Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Lawful doesn't mean it's bending the rules. No, it's lawful. In other words, it's law that you should do good on the Sabbath. That's part of the law.

You think of some of the things that is lawful to do good. Works of agape on God's Holy Sabbath day, when the Lord of the Sabbath is with us, when He is with His bride, and He's preparing on this day that represents their reign in the Kingdom, is about good works, doing good, doing agape works based on God's Holy Spirit. If you think of some of the good works that are done on this day, look at spiritual gifts in the Bible.

What we call spiritual gifts are those things that really accompany Sabbath service. The giving of messages, the being able to speak prophetically, to teach, to be able to translate that teaching into other tongues, to be able to serve one another with various gifts and services. When are we together on the Sabbath? Not six days a week. We're scattered around the world like salt, but on the Sabbath we have holy convocations. When did Jesus do a lot or most of His teaching?

It was His custom to go in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He healed quite often on the Sabbath. He did good works. The point here is that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Now, that's a different type of work that you would do six days a week. You have to prepare for that. The message like this comes over time, days and days of work. Then it's prepared and ready for the Sabbath.

It's like outside here, we have snacks today. We prepared those this week and we bring them. Now we're going to have a different kind of work. It's the work of serving one another. Serving and giving and loving and having concern and fellowship with one another. As we keep the spirit of this day not thinking our own words or our weekday feet tromping on His Sabbath. And so it is here. The law says to do good things. It is very good to do good on the Sabbath. In verse 11, what about oxes and ditches on the Sabbath?

This actually frames the context of the rest of this passage. What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? If you're a sheep herder, you don't herd sheep on the Sabbath. But if your sheep should have an ox in the ditch situation, He says here, it's good to go do good for that and help that in kind of an emergency. If you back up from that in verse 10, there's a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath.

And they said, is it lawful to heal? This is not a normal person. This is a person who is in a real situation. He's in their synagogue. Verse 9. Verse 8. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of Man, is Lord of the Sabbath. No breaking of law here, is there? Verse 5. Have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless?

Why? It's not the amount of work that's done on the Sabbath. You don't sort of put a work meter or some kind of a kinetic device to measure the amount of effort.

It's the type of work. God worked six days to create a situation where He could do spiritual work on the Sabbath day. We do work six days so that we are ready to step into a relationship with Jesus Christ and His body and do a different kind of work on this day. The priests were guiltless. Sure, yeah, they probably sweat. In front of the altar with stuff burning in it, they were serving of a spiritual kind of work that day. If we go back to verse 4, how David entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat. Same context, turns out. Verse 3, if you're not heard when David was hungry, and before that if you back up, the disciples in verse 1 were hungry. Something unique about those two incidents of hungry. One-time events in the Scripture for both. An extreme situation like this lamb, this sheep that fell in a ditch. Jesus Christ says that in that situation what is not normally good was fine. It's interesting here because all of these matters are on the same topic. They all avoid six-day type of work. Good works for the Sabbath like 1 Corinthians 11, 12, the spiritual gifts, all these things flow together. There's time for holy thoughts as we see in Isaiah 58. Let me ask you a question. Did you know that David never ate God's showbread? But you got the idea here that he just broke into the temple and probably just busted through a wall. He went into the holy place, grabbed the bread, and God was okay with that. No, God has laws. God has rules. If David's a man after God's own heart, then we can't really see that being set up as an example by Jesus Christ, can we? I want to take just a little bit of time and explain this because David was actually trying to comply with God's law. And David never desired any showbread. He never even thought about any showbread. Showbread was never his idea. So we do a little background. We begin to find out here on our theme that God wants obedient children different than the society. Don't take something in the Bible that's written in English a certain way and ascribe it to allowing our carnal human nature to become lawless like this world. You know, David found himself in an accident situation. As the Sabbath began, he found himself unprepared for any food for the Sabbath. He'd been three days away from Saul's table. He was expecting, as the sun went down Friday night, to go back and eat with Saul.

But Jonathan then shot an arrow, you'll recall, that said, don't come here. They'll kill you. That was right as the Sabbath began. It takes a little bit to put it together, but it's all there and it's very, very clear. He probably had four companions who also were with him and were hungry. You know, Jesus said he was hungry.

You try running around for three days, maybe living in the woods and expecting your food to be provided, then suddenly show up at a Sabbath without food. David was hungry. Now, let's consider who he was. David, even in his youth, killed Goliath. The stories that he told were, you know, when I was out with my father's sheep, you know, I took this lamb out of the lion's mouth. I could kill a bear with my bare hand. What? He can't find a turtle dove to eat all of a sudden? He's got to go raid the temple or the tabernacle, steal the bread. We just think for a minute. David had been away from Solomon's table for three days. We'll see it's the start of the Sabbath. Now, if David intended to say in his mind, it's okay because it's an extreme situation to break God's law, he could have gone out and killed a deer. He could have gone out and gone hunting. He was evidently very good at that.

If he wanted to say, well, this is an emerging situation, he could have stolen a sheep. You know, sheep are pretty easy to grab. He'd say, I could excuse stealing a lamb and eating it and roasting it. I could kill a chicken. I could snatch a couple of sleeping turtle doves.

It's a lot of things that you could do. He could have picked berries. He could have grabbed some grain. He could have eaten honeycomb, milked a cow.

Reading the English New Testament account sounds like he's saying that, sound like Christ is saying that breaking the law is now okay.

But if Jesus' mention of David eating the showbread is okay, and that's breaking the law, why wasn't David eating a squirrel or a rabbit or crawdads out of the creek? I mean, we're talking about breaking God's law here. It doesn't seem a little odd that David would suddenly have some pang for showbread.

I'm out in the woods. I just want some showbread.

In Hebrews 9, verses 2-6, it shows that the showbread was placed in the sanctuary. That's the first holy place of the temple. And it was placed there for God.

We read in 1 Chronicles 9, verse 32, that the kohathites were in charge of preparing the showbread for every Sabbath. That's what it says. They were in charge of preparing the showbread for every Sabbath. The showbread was prepared during the week. It was baked hot on Friday. And it was served as the Sabbath began into the holy place in the sanctuary.

As we'll see, it was placed before God on Friday evening, right after sunset.

David found himself suddenly hungry and with no place to prepare food.

Remember, he couldn't return to Saul's table. Where would you look? If you suddenly were in that situation and you didn't want to go out and start doing your weekday processing food, where would you look? With people who had already prepared for the Sabbath. So he went to the people that Saul's, you know, the king's house was in constant contact with, and that was the priests.

That was the priests. They had a constant relationship with. Let's go to 1 Samuel chapter 21, verse 3.

1 Samuel 21, verse 3. We'll see David show up here.

Let's see what he was looking for. What's on his mind?

1 Samuel 21, verse 3. David, verse 1, came to knob to a bimilec the priest. He comes there to a bimilec the priest.

Verse 3, David says, Now therefore, what have you on hand? This is as the Sabbath has just started. He asks, do you have some food on hand? What do you have? This is David's question. What do you have on hand?

Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever can be found.

You know, people had food. He's not asking for God's food.

He's not running up to the tabernacle, trying to break in and get showbread.

He's asking, what do you have? Give me five loaves. It's probably because there's five people standing there, it would be my guess. And this would be their food.

It's kind of interesting, though.

If we go forward, the priest answered David in verse 4.

He says, there is no common bread on hand. That's what David was asking for. Do you just have some bread, some common bread? And he says, there's no common bread on hand.

But, now it's the priest's idea. He's referring to his own resources now, and what might be available. He says, but, there is holy bread, but there's rules.

If the young men have at least kept themselves from women.

So, in order for him to qualify for the showbread, he has to keep kept himself from women. And David says, well, as a matter of fact, we've been running for three days.

And truly, women have been kept from us about three days since I came out.

And so, the priest, in verse 6, gave him the holy bread.

Notice, for there was no bread there, but the showbread which had been taken from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place on the day when it was taken away.

The bread had just been changed out. We just read it was changed out for the Sabbath. This was Friday evening. The hot bread had just been taken from before the Lord. And now, this is the week-old showbread that you can read was given to the Levites. It was their food God gave to them.

Now, the interesting thing was we find that Jesus made the statement, how did they go into the holy place and eat the bread and not sin? Well, the priests, you see, got the old bread and it was their food. And according to their rules, David and his men qualified for it. But God's law was it had to be eaten in the holy place. So, wherever those men were at somebody's house or wherever, they had to go to the tabernacle, they had to go into the holy place, and they had to eat it there because it had to all be consumed right in the holy place.

Very different than one might assume that there's a whole bunch of lawlessness going on. Let's go back to Acts 13, verse 22. You know, it's interesting there, and it's interesting to me in Matthew 12, that the two exceptions of people who were hungry, one was the disciples who were hungry for some reason.

I mean, you can fast on the Sabbath. It doesn't matter. I mean, we all fasted this year on atonement. It fell on a weekly Sabbath. That's not a big deal. But for some reason, they're hungry. And we saw David was hungry and he'd been away for about three days. The disciples ate something that already existed before the Sabbath began. It was grain. They didn't grind it. They didn't bake it. They didn't boil it.

They just took it the same way it had been that week, and they put it in their mouth and chewed on it. If you take barley, which they were no doubt eating, because it was the second Sabbath after on leaven bread, and chew up barley, it's good survival food, but you probably wouldn't want to make a meal on it every day. It'll get you through. That's kind of what we're talking about.

And David and them did not transgress the law by going out and doing a whole bunch of weekday work on the Sabbath. In Acts 13, verse 22, we see this said about David. I feel this is important again for us to understand what the Bible is saying about things that are often taken to be excuses or permission slips for lawlessness. We've got to get this nailed down.

Acts 13, verse 22. When he had removed him, he raised up for them David as a king, to whom he also gave testimony and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will. So David is set forward for us in the New Testament as being a man after God's own heart who would do his own will.

What does that mean? A man after God's own heart. David sinned. Does that mean God has sinned and God has a heart of sin? Can't mean that. David repented, if you read Psalm 51. Is God a repenter of sin? No, the Bible says God doesn't repent. So what is it that God doesn't change? David changed. Created me a clean heart, he says in Psalm 51. What is it that's after God's own heart, if David is so different than God?

What are we talking about here? David was an example of what God wants you and me to become. He wants us to grow into a heart, like he said in Psalm 51. Create in me a clean heart. That's the heart that David had, that he began to have. It was a heart, it was a new heart, it was a godly heart. It was a heart after God's own heart, a new heart like God's.

So David was a man growing in God's mindset. It was a gopi with obedience, with humility, with submission and good works. But many times we'll read 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, and we'll see all the things that David did, and he sinned, and people got killed, and this murdered people, and traitor, and all this stuff. And we think, wow, where's the heart in all of that?

Those are the deeds, and those deeds are recorded for us for our own personal growth. You and I have similar deeds in our life. That's not the heart. Samuel and Chronicles don't record the heart, they record the deeds. And David's deeds are just as imperfect as yours or mine. Psalms records the heart.

Psalms and David is a totally different individual. Take, for instance, the 23rd Psalm. David as a sheep, letting God lead him, letting God help him, marching with God towards the kingdom as an imperfect and humble sheep. Psalm 51, I have sinned, created me a clean heart. Change me, wash me. Psalm 119, how many times in Psalm 119 does he say, oh God, how I love your law. It is ever with me. It's my meditation day and night. The Psalms really talk about the heart of an individual who was overcoming and growing.

We must be of that type of heart. It's easy to get stuck in legalistic comparisons. Who sinned more? Who sinned bigger? Who sinned more often? How much did they sin? Will they be in the kingdom? That's not it. That's not it. Nobody is going to be under the penalty of the lake of fire who is cleaning up and transforming into a godly individual. We can be very thankful for that. Mainstream Christianity blurs the distinction between the two lambs, the coming Messiah and the lawless one, the man of sin. Let's go to 2 Thessalonians 2. Don't let this happen to yourself. Don't get swayed and begin to think that this phony descendant of Tammuz, the son of Nimrod, that's paraded around whose actual birthday probably was on December 25th, and is worshipped at Easter and all other kinds of things, and worshipped on Sunday as the sign and all that. Don't mix those two people up, because remember those two lineages come right down, and one is the lamb on Mount Zion with 144,000 first-roots, and the other is the false lamb-like looking demonic individual led by Satan. They look a little alike to the writer John and to us. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 7, For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he, Christ, who now restrains, will do so until he is taken out of the way, and when the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. That false lamb-looking beast is going to be thrown in the lake of fire, says it, in Revelation chapter 19 at the very end.

Verse 9, The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish. Verse 12, That they may all be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness, lawlessness, breaking the laws of God. You, in your life and in your mind, as an individual, need to rivet down the fact that you need to be an obedient child of God if you expect to be in the kingdom of God.

Don't let anybody inside the church, outside the church, convince you otherwise. Because Jesus said there will be lots of teachers who come into the church, and there will be even this woman, this false woman, this false religion that will be pervasive. People probably like to read books about that and maybe listen to music from that, and maybe even go around religious people and kind of feel good to the self. Sing the songs, you know, of the gospel music that's kind of about me and encouraging to me.

Pretty soon you mix it all up into a religious package and whatever. No different than the world. And that is going to be destroyed. Jesus Christ stand is very clear. Matthew 5, verses 17-20, I do not think I came to do away with the law. Oh, he says I didn't come to do away with a flick of it.

In fact, I came to make it more comprehensive. But I'll give you the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will be your helper, and you'll be able to keep it. You'll be able to think like me. You'll be able to grow up as children of your Father in heaven and be perfect like Him.

This is in John 15, verse 10, If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my agape love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. This is a family trait from top to bottom. We are obedient to law. And not just God's law, all law.

We find that the bride is clothed in righteousness, white linen, the righteous acts of the saints. Revelation 19. Revelation 14. Here's the perseverance of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ. In 1 Peter 1, verse 14 and 15, As obedient children, He who called you as holy, you also be holy in your conduct.

The point is that every person, after God's own heart, has this element. They are obedient. They perform all of God's commandments. God doesn't wink at sin. There's no wink at the letter and keep the Spirit. No. You have what you might call the letter, and now you have the Holy Spirit with an expanded version of it. We focus on the spiritual side because our covenant is full of the Holy Spirit, full of God living in us, and full of His heart and mind being developed in us.

The goal of God's first fruits, His bride, is becoming children after His own heart. Let's look at Hebrews 5, verses 8-9. Hebrews 5, verse 8. Though He was a son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. I don't know what that term means by the writer 2,000 years ago, Paul. Jesus always obeyed. He never broke any rules. But He learned something, and it was in concert with obedience.

He submitted, and He submitted to God's directive to go through and be sacrificed and crucified, and that was a terrible thing for which He sweat blood. I assume that there's a strong context there that He remained obedient rather than learned it. He remained obedient, and He was very, very devoted to that sacrifice He made for you and me. Verse 9. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to who?

To everybody? No. To all who obey Him. This is a conditional calling that we have. There's a lot of ifs involved in it. You and I can be successful in this calling, or we can get stuck in the gap. We can get stuck along the way. We can jump the tracks, you know, all kinds of things.

But we've got to grow on. It says here, meat, spiritual food, spiritual meat, belongs to those who are of full age, spiritually mature. You and I need to be growing. That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Not as the human nature would, but as God and His Spirit would, through the tree of life. And you and I are responsible to obey God. We have that responsibility. You can't push that off on anybody else. You can't say, well, I went to a church and the minister said I could do this.

I didn't have to do that, so I'm okay. Christ warned you about that. Paul warned you about that. Peter warned you. Jude is all about it. Jude is written about that very thing. Warning to those who keep the feast with you, you know?

In fact, God's church is created in a way that is kind of a smorgasbord of options. When you come into the United Church of God, the doors are pretty wide open for everybody. And there's nobody here with a hammer to say what you can and can't do, or what you will or won't communicate out on the Internet. We are like sheep with the fence down, and the wolves can kind of come in.

And yet, you know what? You have God's Holy Spirit. And you need to study to show yourself approved to rightly divide the Word of God. You have to be strong because we don't always have everybody around us. We don't always have somebody there. And you will walk through the valley of the shadow of death alone, but you should fear no evil because God and His Word will guide and shine the light.

You are responsible to obey God. And that's where the responsibility begins and ends.

What is my spiritual maturity level? What is your spiritual maturity level? Has our spiritual maturity advanced to something like godly greed?

I'm spiritual and I'm greedy, but I'm godly about it.

Spiritual materialism? God is blessing me as I dive into more and more materialism. Inspired critic? I'm not supposed to slander and cut, but I'm inspired. I know a lot. I can really slice and dice well.

When we think about breaking God's law, there's a lot of law. Titus says, remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities and to obey and to speak evil of no one. Oh, but I'm in the church. I can slice my president. I can trash Congress. I can rip apart any and everybody because they're sinful. Or they're making mistakes. Or they're dumb or whatever.

We can be spiritual critics.

That's not what we're called to do.

This Richard Russell of the Dow Theory Letters regarding the pending Dow collapse in his mind, he says, this could be an advanced message to the effect that we must all be ready for massive and radical change. He's telling this reporter this, right? The reporter's massive and radical change on a worldwide scale, including currencies flipping, changing out currencies, changing out global powers. And so the writer asked the really smart question, the obvious question. He says, how do you think we should prepare for these massive changes that you foresee?

Mr. Russell says, I'm not really sure, but my first response is that we must abolish greed and become spiritual.

Even somebody who is not even religious can figure that out. This is going the wrong way. This is very humanistic. And we should be doing something more spiritual, he would perceive. Well, the Bible would say that as well. Ephesians 2, verses 1-10, you know, we were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, Satan the devil, the spirit which now works in the sons of disobedience. We've got to pull back from that. We've got to draw the line and say, I don't go over that line. And what does that line include? Well, the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath, the Holy Days, we can feel all real cozy on this side of that line, church-wise. But Jude 1 and other areas, hey, talks about breaking civil law.

Paul talks about civil law, talks about us being subject to the laws and the kings and the governors and the police, those who can put you in prison, the police. He says, be subject to all law and also don't even speak evil about others.

In Jude 1, verse 7, it's only one chapter long, but you've got to give it a chapter name. It says, regarding suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, likewise, also these dreamers, he's talking about people in the church, defile the flesh, reject authority, speak evil of dignitaries, they feast with you, verse 12. Verse 14, behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints, 144,000, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way.

Verse 16, these are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts, and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. There's a lot of this that goes on even within the church community. As chairman of the Doctrine Committee, its purpose is to preserve the doctrines of the church, not to change them. We simply review papers that ministers and members send us that have suggestions about prophecy or doctrine. We then respond after setting that out and send it back to them.

But there are individuals within the church community who are liars, that try to get people to leave by saying, we're changing, or about to change, or we're going to change, doctrines become lawless. We're not going to be obedient anymore. And there's some slippery hidden agenda in some dark room somewhere that's being cooked up, so run away with us. Those are liars. It's not possible for the council or the Doctrine Committee to change anything regarding doctrine. It requires 75% of all the collective ministers of the church to even touch something like that.

So it's preposterous, and it's a lie on its face. And to those liars, I encourage you to read and heed Revelation 21, verse 8. Again, it's short. You made up the lies. There's the consequences. I love you. I want the best for you. I do not want you to burn.

But that's between you and God. Only you can spare yourself. God is not counting sins again, but He wants us to be righteous. He is looking for righteousness in His children. He is looking for His mind. Christ obeyed the Father. He tells us to obey Him. Obedience is of God. Lawlessness is of Satan. So we wrap this up. Let's look at Christ's words in Matthew 13, verse 41. Matthew 13, verse 41. Jesus says, The Son of Man will send out His angels. He's talking about Himself. This is coming up. And they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness.

Be clear, brethren. He is not one that advocates breaking law. He doesn't give anybody a pass. He doesn't wink at it. He's going to gather those who practice lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire, and they will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then who will shine?

Verse 43. The righteous, the obedient, those who have the mind of God, those who have a heart, like God's own heart, will shine forth as the Son and the kingdom of their Father. You know what's important about that verse? They will shine as the Son. They will be given the inherent components of a God being and shine like God shines and like Jesus Christ shines. And they probably, if there were any humans alive, would kill any human that looked upon them, because they take on the attributes of a member of the God family.

And who are they? They are individuals after God's own heart. I want you to be one of those. I want us to be together. I want all humans, sinners, to repent, like Jesus came proclaiming, repentant. He didn't come proclaiming, oh, let's all take a break. Repent. Seek the kingdom of God. He who has hears to hear, let him hear, he says. In conclusion, let's take a look at a brief overview of a person after God's own heart.

Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 through 6. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 through 6. I hope what I've been able to do here today is chip away at a philosophy that exists in my nature, in your nature, and that is looking for ways to bend the rules. We learned as children how to bend the rules. Adults got good at bending the rules. Some people even get in a position where they can rewrite the rules.

This is a tendency of Satan. It's a tendency of human nature that's going the wrong way. God's nature is about keeping the rules. The laws of God promote goodness. All things good. Here, in Ephesians chapter 5, beginning in verse 1, he says, Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. Meditate on it. Think about that. And walk in agape as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

And as John says, if he's done that for us, then we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren. That's a heart after God's. But sin, verse 3, 4, 5, sin, lawlessness, don't even have anything to do. Don't even let it be named among you. For you know, verse 5, that none of these individuals has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. No. Is that clear? Is that clear to me? Yes, it is.

It's clear. Obedience is required. Not obedience will not have an inheritance in the kingdom of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not be partakers of them. Brethren, you and I have a wonderful calling, but our calling is to develop a mind and a heart like that of God's. In this first part, we should have shown clearly that obedience is a fundamental aspect of having a mind like God's. Next time, I'd like to cover another crucial aspect of having God's own heart. In part 2, a promoter of peace, oneness, and unity. Have a happy Sabbath.