Broken Heart Surgery

Well, good morning. All right, now, I am used to interactive church. That means you got to talk to me a little bit. Can you talk to me a little bit? You can say amen.

You can say hallelujah. You can say oh me, oh my. Whatever, what else do you say in Virginia Beach? I lived in Virginia Beach, Norfolk. See, I said it right, Norfolk.

You don't have an L in there. For about six years, I was a student at Regent University, and then I was a youth pastor in Newtown Road, over on Newtown Road at what was Glad Tidings Church. I think it's called COVID Church now. Not COVID. COVA.

COVA. Not COVID Church. Yeah, it's the church where you go and you get sick. Oh my goodness, that's horrible. Anyway, so, I am so honored to be here, and I want to say thank you.

I know that you guys are in transition. And I do want to say thank you to Pastor Leon and Miranda for having me this morning and for you guys welcoming me here. I'm good friends with Hans Hess, the bishop of your fellowship and the pastor at Fountain of Life Church. And so, I preached at Fountain of Life back in June and was in the area. I actually came up for breaking barriers and talked to Hans, and he said, hey, go over and preach at Salt Church.

Be with them and bless them. And so, we are here. As Corey, right, or Paul? Carl. You got my family all messed up.

No. Can I ask a favor? Okay, I don't usually try to go against people's culture. Can we turn the lights on where I can see you, if that's okay? I like to look at you when I'm preaching, if that's okay.

I know I am not cool at all, and that's okay. I'm comfortable with my uncoolness. But I've been in ministry for, that's better. I can see people now. I have been in ministry for 29 years.

Next year in June will be 30 years that I've been in full-time ministry. And I was a pastor for many years on staff at churches. I've worked at churches from as small as 30 to 8,000. And God has blessed me to be involved in ministry and all these things. And then the Lord spoke to me that I was to go to the nations and step out.

I've been to every continent but Antarctica, and someday I'd like to go to Antarctica because there's about 4,000 researchers there that need the gospel as well. And the Lord has blessed us. My wife, unfortunately, couldn't be here this morning. My son got sick yesterday, had a fever and coughing, so we didn't want to give it to your kids. And so he stayed at the hotel.

But we've been traveling and ministering through this ministry called Crosswind Global Ministries. And we have a card, and what we're asking is God to raise up 300 people that will pray with us every single day for at least one minute. So you can put this on your refrigerator. You can put it in your Bible. You can put it on your mirror.

Wherever you look at the most, wherever you are the most, just take this and look at it and pray for us and remember to pray for us. And if God leads you to support us, we're asking that God would support us with 300 people so that we can go to take the gospel in all the world. How many of you know the gospel's free? But playing tickets to Africa costs money. And I just got back from the Gambia this summer, a nation that's 97% Muslim, and we had about 60 people come to Christ.

I preached in a mall. I preached in a church that meets in a mall. And then I preached in a church that isn't nice at all. It was a dirt floor. It had a tin roof.

But there were 60 children that gathered there. Their parents aren't involved in their lives, but they came every Sunday for church, and God met them. And so we go wherever God opens the door. I'll be in Missouri next month in Texas, and I'll be in Juarez, Mexico. I'll be preaching a tent crusade in Juarez.

So please pray for us. Juarez is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. And we lived in El Paso, Texas for about six years. And we know that area, but God just spoke to me to go and do a crusade there. And we're going to give Christmas presents to kids that live in little tin shacks because we want to bless them and minister to them.

And so that's our passion, our heart. My wife is from Bogota, Colombia. She is Latina. And we've been married 17 years. We have one child.

His name is David Santiago and Absher. And we just are in love with each other, enjoy being together. My kid's the best kid on the planet. I know you think yours is, but really mine is. He is.

He's the most perfect kid. But God has blessed us with this family and this ministry. And we're thankful to be here with you this morning. We want to encourage you in the Lord today. And I have a word for you this morning.

I want you to get this word. Now, I'm going to transition into the message in just a moment. But I want to say a prayer for this church and for Virginia Beach and Norfolk and this area. Because we need strong churches that are not afraid to be bold for Jesus. Now, I live in Fort Myers, Florida.

And some of you go, wow, that's awesome. All the surfers are like, no, it's not. Because Gulf side, you have no waves, right? But that's perfect for me because I'm afraid of the water. So if I can't see my toes, I have no desire.

I go about this deep at Virginia Beach. And then I can't see my toes, I'm backing up, all right? But in Fort Myers, it's like, you know, it's a lake there in the Gulf. But we live there and we are in ministry there when we're home. And we have a passion for the things of God.

And we're believing God for a move of the Holy Spirit there. But I have a heart for this area as well because I lived here for a long time. I lived seven years in Hampton, about six over here. And I love this area because I believe God has something special for it. So would you join me in prayer?

Would you just stand for a moment? And can we pray for our city and for our community in this area? Father, I pray in the name of Jesus, God, that you would touch Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk, God, across the bridge into Newport News and Hampton and Williamsburg and that whole region here in the Tidewater-Hampton Roads area. And, God, we pray that you would send awakening and revival to this area, God, that people would be saved, lives would be transformed and changed, and that the Holy Spirit would breathe upon this city in Jesus' name. Now, God, speak to every person in this room.

Touch their hearts. Change their lives in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. You may be seated. Tell somebody next to you, you look good today.

Actually, you look better than you did last Sunday. If you have a Bible, I want you to turn to two places, or if you have your iPhone, it may be on the screen behind me, to Acts 3, verse 19. Acts 3, verse 19, and then to Psalm 51. Now, how many of you have seen the movie Lord of the Rings? Anybody seen Lord of the Rings?

Now, how many of you have read the book? How many of you love the book and the movie? Okay, I had never read the book. I didn't know much about it, so I went to see the movie. When I went to see the movie, I'm watching it, and when it was over after two days of this one movie, okay, maybe that's an exaggeration.

How long is it, like three hours or something? Yeah. I was like, what was that all about? I was so confused, I didn't know any of the names of the characters. I couldn't keep up with them.

I kept introducing somebody new every time. And I went with a friend of mine who was really into it, and I was like, is that it? What happened? What's the story? And he goes, yeah, there's a part two.

I was like, oh, so we've got to wait another year to find out what happens. We go see part two. At the end of part two, I'm like, what happened? How does this end? Oh, there's a part three.

You've got to be kidding me. This is like a 50-hour movie. It's horribly long. And so I went to see that movie, and so I was confused. And the only thing I remember from it is this, my precious.

Something about a ring, okay? But anyway, I'm sure it's great. If you like it, I'm thrilled for you. But I need like an Adam Sandler movie that's over in an hour and 20 minutes, and I laugh, you know, and I knew. What it was about.

So we're going to be going into a story this morning that's going to relate to your life, but it's got a lot of characters in it, and so I'm going to be telling you a story about the characters, so if you can't keep up, it's okay. You can watch it later online. Okay? So that's what we're going to do this morning, but I want to read this first verse to you. It's out of Acts chapter 3, verse 19.

It says, Repent. Everybody look at your neighbor and say, Repent. One time when I was in Bible College down in Southeastern College in Lakeland, Florida, one of my friends was preaching there. He was on staff at our church in North Carolina. He was a professional water skier before he was doing a backflip.

He was practicing a one and a half gainer for the movie Jaws 3, and he was on a trampoline. He fell, broke his neck, was paralyzed from the neck down. God healed him. He walked out of the hospital like two weeks later. And he was on staff at my home church as an evangelist.

And so he got to come back and preach at the school, and there's like a thousand students in the room, and he's preaching on the service, and he knows that I'm there. And so there was another girl from our church there, and he said, Would Angela stand up? And Angela stood up, and he said, Man, your mom's missing you, and she wanted me to tell you how much she loves you, and she wanted me to share with you how much she loves you. And then he said, Is John Absher here? And so I stood up, and Harold says, John, I talked to your mother.

She said, Repent! In front of all these people. Of course, that got a big laugh, and we hear this word repent thrown around a lot of times. And in Acts chapter 3, verse 19, Peter says this in a sermon that he preaches. He says, Repent.

What does that word repent mean? Does it mean to simply ask for forgiveness? Does it mean to simply come forward and maybe pray at the altar, or pray with somebody, or to say you're sorry? That's not where repentance is. Repentance is from a Greek word that the Bible was written in.

The New Testament was written in Greek. And it's this word that means to have a change of mind. It means that literally, the word actually meant you're walking in this direction, and you turn around, and you walk the other way. So when you repent, it means that you're not just sorry for what you've done, you're willing to change what you've done. You're willing to go the other way.

Your thinking is this direction, but you meet something that changes your thinking. Jesus Christ, when I met him, he changed my thinking. Because I took on his mind. Now it says this, it says, Repent, therefore, and be converted, be transformed, that your sins may be blotted out. Do you know what it means to blot something out?

It means to obliterate it. In those days, when they wrote on the scrolls, and they wrote on tablets, and they wrote on these different things, they didn't have computers like we do that we could delete and backspace and replace a word. If you made a mistake, what they would have to do is they would either have to tear it up. As a matter of fact, if they were writing scripture, and they made a mistake, they had to tear it up and start all over. But what this blotting out means, if it wasn't as an important document as scripture, you could take a blotter and put some ink on it and just blot out that word and put in the next word.

That your sins may be blotted out. Now this is going to be really important for us this morning to understand what it means to be blotted out. It means to be removed, to be covered, so it doesn't appear anymore. And listen to what it says next. It says, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

If you don't enjoy your walk with God this morning, if you're bored with your Christian life, you need to check your heart and see if there's something inside of you that you need to repent of to change your mind about. Because if you change your mind, then the Spirit of the Lord will come and bring a refreshing to your soul. He will bring joy into your life. Because believers, we're going to have our ups and downs, that's for sure. We're going to have our trials.

We're going to have our problems. But we should not focus on those trials and problems. We should focus on Jesus. And it should elevate us to the place where we're walking in joy. But so often we're not walking in joy because our minds are not focused on where Jesus wants us to be.

They're focused on what our lives used to be like or what we want them to be like. And so it's a difficult thing for our minds to transform. Now see, you are three parts. You are a body. You are a mind.

And you are a soul. Soul, spirit, I believe, can be used interchangeably. And soul and spirit is the person who you are, the emotions. And I always say it like this, your mind is your referee for your body and your soul. Anybody here, emotional.

If you're sitting next to your spouse, do not look at them right now. If you're an emotional person, that's an okay thing. It's good to have emotion. Emotion is important. And for those of you that say, well, you know, when y'all start singing to the Lord, I'm not going to dance.

I'm not going to raise my hand. I'm not going to show any emotion because I'm just not an emotional person. Listen, let's go to the parking lot. Let me open the car door. Put your hand inside.

Slam the door shut. You're going to have emotion. You're going to have anger. You're going to have a response. Something is going to happen.

Why? Because we all have emotion. There's just some of us that show it more than others. So you have emotion. So if this morning you spat on me, okay, you spit on me, what's going to happen?

I'm going to get wet. Now I'm going to make a choice to get mad or not get mad. And all of this can happen in a split second. So he spits on me. My emotion of anger rises up.

My fist comes back and I go, he's bigger than me. He's probably more street smart than I am. He's probably rougher than I am. Yeah, that's a bad idea. My mind now takes over to check my emotions to keep my body from doing something stupid.

So when it talks about repentance, it means that I've changed my mind. So now that the referee of the emotion, when I have the emotion of lust, my mind kicks in and says, wait a minute. I'm not supposed to do that. I'm supposed to focus on the Lord. And it causes my eyes and my actions to come and check.

You're getting the pre-sermon. I'm not even into the good stuff yet. But that's the way it works. So when God redeems you, the word sozo, which is the Greek word for salvation, it means that he transforms not only your spirit so you get to go to heaven, but he transforms your mind. He transforms your body so that it comes into submission of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

And when it comes into the submission of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are transformed and we are changed. And when we do, there is a refreshing that comes. We had a great time down in Elizabeth City at Fountain of Life this week. And the services, all of the services were different, but the same. Why?

Because the same spirit was at work. My wife grew up Catholic. She met Jesus when she was 19, 20 years old. You say, well, I thought Catholic, they believe in Jesus. She had religion.

She didn't have Jesus. But she met Jesus, transformed her life, changed her. But my wife is a skeptic. My wife has a hard time sometimes when people pray over you and they fall down and different things like that happen. I grew up Pentecostal.

I grew up in church where if you didn't fall down, it wasn't a good service. You know? I mean, if you didn't get wiped, use a surfer term, wiped out. You see how I know the vernacular here. And so we were at this service.

And this guy's praying. And I'm looking to see. And all I see is my wife's toes because she's on the ground. She's like, I never had that happen before. We want the power of God, but we want it to be real.

And that's what we experienced this week is the real power of God. There's some people who will try to hype it. They'll try to manufacture it. But when... When God shows up, you don't have to do anything.

I was preaching, I'm sorry, I'm not to the, this pre-sermon. What time do we stop? Or whenever I'm done? I asked the pastor, how long can I preach? He said, as long as you want.

But we're all going home at 12. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, so I'm preaching in Obstadt, Germany. I'm preaching in Germany. And they were telling me, Germans, we are reserved.

We do not respond. We don't move. We have no emotion. We're emotionless. I was like, how'd y'all get married?

That's a story for another day. And so I'm in this church, and this church is crazy. It's an old nightclub. They took a nightclub. It had a bar still right in the middle of the church.

And you know those horseshoe seating like they have on the movies for night? It was just like that. And they're saying that, you know, well, we're German. And I said, well, God, he ain't German. And God does what God wants to do.

And I love it when God surprises people by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so I gave an altar call for people to come forward. And I'm not the guy who's like, you know, pushing. I'm just like, you know, and they're falling all over the place. Why?

Because when the Spirit of God shows up, he doesn't need a hype man. He just needs to show up. And when you have a receptive heart, God shows up and fills you. Now, this isn't about falling down today. I'm going to talk about repentance.

So I'm going to get to the story. Now, how many of you remember where we were supposed to be after Acts chapter 3, verse 19? Psalm 51. Yes, exactly. I knew you were thinking it.

You just were afraid to say it out loud. It's okay. Psalm 51. This psalm was written after David, who was king of Israel, committed a horrible sin. And it's a blueprint for repentance.

It is a blueprint for repentance. And I've entitled this message this morning, Broken Heart Surgery. Broken Heart Surgery. I, if you didn't notice, am white. I am painfully pale.

And there are some things I don't like. I don't like sunscreen. So when I go to the beach, I become a lobster. But I still go because my wife and son, being Colombian and half Colombian, they can stay there all day and all they get is that, you know, bronze. And I'm like, God, why?

Why do you not love white people, God? I always find it funny we call people of other colors colored people. When we turn red, when we get sunburned, blue, when we're cold, you know, we're really the colored people. And so, I got something on my face. I went to the dermatologist just to get a checkup.

I had some little skin tabs I wanted to remove. And I had a basal cell carcinoma. And they wanted to do a biopsy on it. And then when they did the biopsy, it came back positive for cancer. And he said, we're going to have to cut that out because even though it's the lowest form of skin cancer, it needs to be removed.

And I'm like, yeah, you need to start cutting yesterday. Let's get it out. So they set an appointment for me to meet with the surgeon and to go in. And I don't, to this day, still remember the surgeon's name. I can't tell you his name if you put a gun on me.

I would never guess his name. The only thing I know about him is he went to the University of North Carolina at the same time Michael Jordan did because I grew up in North Carolina and I love Tar Heel basketball. And so, I'm a Jordan guy. So, that's all I remember about the guy. And I'm going to let him have his assistant, which looked like she just got out of eighth grade, come in and poke me with needles to numb the area.

Then I'm going to let a guy, I don't know his name. I don't know anything about him except he went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Cut me open and remove something that needs to be removed from my life. God this morning is going to remove something that needs to be removed from your life if you're willing to have a change of mind, if you're willing to repent. So, I go in, they cut it open, they cut it out, and I took care of it.

And now, I avoid the sun like the plague. I'm almost like a vampire. But in Psalm 51, David, who was king over Israel, committed a horrible sin. You may have heard the story of David and Bathsheba. And you'll have to look up these scriptures from 2 Samuel 11 through 17.

You need to read that to get the whole gist of this story because it's going to take a few moments to tell. Then I'm going to walk us through Psalm 51. And then I believe God is going to come and touch us today. He's going to change something inside of us. Do you believe that this morning?

Psalm 51 verse 17 says this. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise. Later on in Psalm 51 verses 10 through 12, earlier he says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me by your generous spirit. David had committed a horrible, horrible sin. Actually, two of them. Now, I want to talk about that for a moment because David was supposed to be out leading his army. And David was on the roof of his house pacing.

In that culture, they had flat roofs, and the roof was a place you went in the evening to get cool. And while he's on the roof, he looks across the other rooftops, and there's a woman taking a bath on top of the roof. Now, that brings a lot of questions to mind that probably won't be answered. Why is she on top of the roof taking a bath where everybody can see? Doesn't make sense to me.

Unless she knew David might be home, and he might see. We don't know. I'm going to throw a little conjecture in there. Maybe she just did that normally. Or maybe it was because they had no other place to go.

Or maybe one of her family threw up on her or something, and she had to take a bath. I don't know why, but she's there. And David sees her, and he goes, hey, hadn't seen her before. Who's that? And so he calls two of his servants to come.

And these two servants come to him, and he says, who is that woman? They're like, we'll find out. So they find out, because, see, in that culture, it was okay back then to have more than one wife. I don't know how they did it. His son Solomon is a legend.

700 wives, 300 girlfriends. That's a lot, 1,000 people, 1,000 women. I was in the Gambia, and in their culture, you can have as many as four wives. And they kept calling me one wife because I only had one. But he was looking, and so they assumed that he was interested in her.

So they go find out who she is, and they come back, and they go, oh, that is the wife of Uriah the Hittite and the daughter of Eliam. Do you know what they were trying to do? Warn him. Because, see, when you're the king, you get to do whatever you want. And they can't tell him, hey, king, this is a bad idea.

So they're like, let's explain it to him in language he might hopefully get without us getting our heads cut off. And so what happens is he tells them, they tell him this, that this is the wife of Uriah the Hittite, the daughter of Eliam. Immediately, David would have knew who they're talking about. Why? Because Uriah and Eliam were two of David's mighty warriors, two of his mighty soldiers.

And so they are warning David, off limits, do not go near, red light. And David said, go and send for her. And so she comes to him. Now, we don't know if this was an affair where they were willingly participating in a relationship or if that's true. Sheba just came because when the king summons you, you're not allowed to say no.

So some Bible scholars believe it was an affair. Some Bible scholars believe that David really forced himself on her, he raped her. Because as king, he cannot be denied anything. And if she did, she's worried if she said no, would this result in some kind of punishment for her or for her husband? And there's even some scholars, a few, not a lot, that said David had a right to sleep with her because as king he was married to every woman.

Now why is the problem with this? David already had like six or eight wives. This man only had one. This man was out serving, Uriah was out serving in the army for David when David should have been out leading the army. And Uriah is summoned by David because what happens is over the course of many nights together, Bathsheba sends word and says, I am with child.

So now David can't even pretend like it didn't happen or say this woman's lying if she accused it because somebody's going to know she's going to have a baby and they're going to start doing the math and like, Uriah ain't been home for a while. So David sins for him and says, Uriah, come home. And so what his hopes are is that Uriah, like a normal person, would go home, sleep at his home, eat his food, and people would assume the child is Uriah's. He's trying to cover up his sin. See, you can't cover up your sin.

Eventually, it's going to come out. Eventually, whatever's in your heart is going to be exposed. The only way to get rid of those things that are in your heart is to have a renewing of your mind and your spirit and be transformed and changed. So Uriah comes in from the army, brings a report of how the battle's going. And David says to him, Uriah, go home, be with your family.

Go home, refresh yourself. Enjoy your time. And guess what Uriah does? He sleeps at the city gate. He doesn't even go home.

David calls him into his courtroom on the next day and he says, Uriah, why did you sleep at the gate? You're home. He goes, how, my king, could I go home and enjoy my wife and enjoy dinner and enjoy fellowship at my house when my brothers in arms, the army of Israel is in the field? The Ark of the Covenant is in the field. They're out there suffering.

How could I go? What integrity Uriah had compared to David? The next night, Uriah doesn't go home. He stays. And so David realizes this guy's not going to go home.

So do you know what David decides to do? He decides that he's got to cover this up so he's going to have him killed. So he writes a letter to the head of the army, Joab, sends the letter by Uriah. Now, I'm a little sneaky, so I'm going to peek to see what was in the letter. Not Uriah.

He carried it back and this is what the letter said. The letter said, put Uriah into the fiercest part of the battle. And when the fighting is at its intensity, call the army back and let Uriah stay out there by himself. Can you imagine? You're in the army.

We're charging. We're trying to take this city. And all of a sudden, everybody starts going backwards and you're the only one out there. Guess what? You're a great target now.

And Uriah dies in battle. And a messenger is sent from Joab. Now, here's the problem when you sin. Especially when you sin publicly like David did. People are going to know.

And they're going to talk about it. It's going to get around. How in the world did David think that this was going to be hidden from anybody? That he could get away with this? Because Joab knew.

The servants that went and got Bathsheba knew. Bathsheba knows. And I think, I would imagine Bathsheba has other family. And people are going to say things. It might take some time, but it's going to come out.

So David thinks he solved the problem. He waits for her to have her time of grieving over her husband who died. And then he marries her so that that child will have a father. And people will think this just happened naturally after he was such a great king. See, the problem was David wasn't worried about losing his job as king.

David was worried about people thinking he was ungodly. There's a lot of cover-up going on in our world today. I'm not a conspiracy theory person, but there is a lot of cover-up. And God is exposing it, especially in his church. One of my favorite groups was the Newsboys in D.

C. Talk. And for 20 years, the lead singer or more had been doing all kinds of vile things. Addictions that were destroying his life. Destroying other people's lives.

Moral and sexual problems that he was having. And he wasn't confessing. He was just covering it up and pretending like it would go away. But eventually it came out. See, God is shaking us in this world.

He is shaking us in our culture. He is shaking us in the church to expose what's inside of us. Because he wants us to repent. And if we repent and fall on the mercy of God, we will have times of refreshing and there will be a change. But if we continue down that road of sinfulness and wickedness, it's going to come out.

So what happens is God speaks to a prophet named Nathan. So now we got David, we got Uriah, we got Bathsheba, we got Nathan. We got a few more people to throw in here in just a moment. And Nathan goes to David. Now, I don't know if Nathan heard this naturally through the rumors and gossip or if the Holy Spirit revealed it to him, but the answer that Nathan has given is exposed to David.

Do you realize David didn't even think he did anything wrong? That's the greatest craziness of the story. David doesn't even realize he's sinned because he's king. And a lot of us, we act like we may not be a king of a region or a country, but we act like we're king of our own lives, don't we? I'm going to do whatever I want to do, and I don't care who it hurts.

I'm going to do whatever I want to do. I'm going to act on my emotions, and I'm going to have an affair, or I'm going to stay addicted to this substance, or I'm going to do this kind of thing because I don't care because I'm the king. And God brings things to warn us. I have a strong addiction to Coca-Cola. Y'all thought, Coke, oh my goodness.

I have a strong addiction to Coca-Cola. I love Coca-Cola. I used to call it the nectar of the gods. Love Coca-Cola. I love chocolate.

But I had a little bout with gout. I had a kidney stone that sent me to the emergency room. Guess what I drink now? Water. That's it.

No tea, no Coca-Cola. Water. With lemon because lemon supposedly helps. I hate water with lemon. But here's the thing about it.

There's a sign that comes to me to change my mind so that my body and my emotions can form. And that's what God is trying to do in David. But David's ignoring it. So he sends Nathan, the prophet. Nathan goes to him and he says, he tells him a story.

What was David's job before he became king? He was a shepherd. He watched over sheep. And he loved his sheep. He cared about his sheep.

And so he tells the story that there was this really rich man who had lots of sheep. And his neighbor only had one little sheep. And that little sheep went with him everywhere. It's almost like a dog. A family pet had slept with him.

It ate at their table. And a visitor came to visit the rich man. And according to that culture, you had to put him up. You had to give him a place to sleep. You had to give him food to eat.

And so he doesn't want to kill one of his valuable sheep for his prosperity. So he goes next door and takes the sheep from his neighbor and kills it. And the Bible says David is angry. And he says, you tell me who that guy is. I will have him killed and we'll take all of his sheep and we're going to give them to this guy.

And Nathan goes, David, it's you. He's like, what are you talking about? It's you. Your neighbor only had one wife. You have tons.

You could go get another. Find another one from the single women. You can fill out a ChristianMingle.com app. David, find another one.

But you don't go and take your neighbor's wife and then you killed him. And he says, so God is bringing three judgments on you, David. And let me tell you something. We're experiencing a great awakening and revival in the United States of America. But at the same time, we are experiencing the judgment of God.

Because the divisiveness of our nation is exposing not just this political ideology, it's exposing evil. And those of us that hold on to Jesus, we're going to be okay. But the Bible, if you read the end of Revelation, a great awakening is going to happen and people are going to be saved. But the evil still triumphs until Jesus sets foot on the earth. And when Jesus steps onto the earth, all evil is destroyed.

So we're in this great harvest of awakening. But we have to come to the place where we understand that this world is not our home. I love the United States of America. I'm glad I live here. I've been all over the world and I'm thankful for where I live.

I reside in Florida, but my citizenship is in heaven. I'm still an American citizen. I love my country and I'll defend my country. But at the same time, I have a higher calling to heaven. Now listen to this.

So Nathan goes to him and he says this. He says, number one, because you had Uriah killed, you will not see the sword depart from your home. Your family's always going to be fighting one another. Secondly, your neighbor will take your wives and have sex with them in public. Seriously, it's in the Bible.

Third, the child that Bathsheba's carrying is going to die. You may think that your sin only affects you. Trust me, it affects everybody else. It affected his family. It affected the child that Bathsheba was carrying.

It affected the nation. Because something else happens if we skip forward to, I think, chapter 14. David has a son. His name's Absalom. Another character to our Lord of the Rings here.

Absalom. Absalom has a sister that's David's daughter named Tamar. Now they have the same mother, but David also has another son named Amnon. And Amnon was the son of David by a different mother. So he is the stepson or half-brother to Absalom and Tamar.

I get them all mixed up too. Now Amnon fell in love with his half-sister. And he loved her a lot. So much he wanted her as his own. But rather than ask his father David for permission to marry his sister Tamar, Amnon contrives a plot with a friend to pretend like he's sick.

And then when Tamar comes to bring in some foods, he asks David to have her bring food. She brings food. He forces himself on her and rapes her. And says, the Bible says this, after he finished with her, he hated her more than he ever loved her. If you're single this morning, don't give yourself away to people.

Because all you're doing is feeding lust, not fostering love. And so he sends her away. She says, don't do this. Please ask my father to give me to you in marriage. He will.

But if you send me away, I'll be disgraced. No one will ever want me. Because culture was different then. And so she moved in with her brother Absalom and lived with him. And the Bible says that Absalom hated Amnon and was waiting to get his revenge.

I know this is a lot. I'm going to bring it to an end soon. But there's a point in having to tell you all this. Because there's something inside of us today that God wants to deal with. And I'm going to tell you what it is.

It's the desire for revenge. It's bitterness. It's unforgiveness. It's anger. It's these small things that are in our lives that can explode into larger things.

But David, who did something really, really, really, really bad, fell on the mercy of God and wouldn't let bitterness and revenge and anger take hold in his heart. So after this happens, David finds out what's happened. He finds out that Amnon has raped Tamar, but he didn't do anything about it. The Bible says he was angry, but he didn't do anything about it. Why didn't he do anything about it?

A little hard to judge someone for doing what you just did. Isn't it? You know that whole thing Jesus said, if you're going to try to get the speck out of your brother's eye, get your plank out of your own eye? We read that because we always take Jesus serious. But actually, it's a very funny story.

The plank would not be going this way. It would be like this. So every time I try to get the speck out, the plank's hitting him in the head. It was actually a comical story that Jesus was telling. But he paralleled it to hypocrisy, saying you're trying to get that little speck out and the whole time you're hitting him with your plank because you've got this horrible sin in your life.

So Absalom decides that he's going to get revenge. He waits two years. He has a feast at his home and he invites Amnon and only Amnon, even though the people got it mixed up and they told David, all your sons are dead, and he kills Amnon at a feast. He gets him drunk and then kills him. Must have been a big guy, Amnon and Absalom, a little bitty guy.

And he takes him out. Then Absalom flees the country because he's afraid of what his dad might do. Well, his dad didn't do much about anything else, so why was he worried? But he left. He returns about ten years later and he's in Jerusalem, but the Bible says he doesn't see his dad for two years.

And the whole time he's going to the entrance to the city of Jerusalem, to the gates, and he's talking to people saying, if I were king, I would get you justice. I would take care of your lawsuit. You would have favor if I were king. And the Bible says the hearts of Israel were turned to Absalom. Why is this important?

I'm getting there. Absalom was determined that the way to get his father was to take what his father had. And if he could take over the kingdom, if he could get rid of his father, that would serve as vengeance for his sister. Bitterness, revenge, unforgiveness will destroy you. Do you remember earlier, like an hour ago when I started, I mentioned two people?

Uriah the Hittite, the daughter of Eliam. Where's Eliam in this whole story? Because, see, I got one little boy. You hurt him. I don't care how big you are.

I might die in the process, but I'm going to kill you. I'm coming after you. You hurt my wife. I am called to defend them. I am not a violent person by nature.

But if something happens to my wife and child, and you're trying to hurt them, and I can prevent it, I got a gun. That's only right, men, that we take care of our families. Oh, man, I'm going to preach another sermon, but I'm going to do it anyway. We are called to be the provider. We are called to be the protector.

And we are called to lead our families. Real men stand up for their families. And so Absalom decides to start putting an army together. Where's Eliam? Why is he upset about this?

You know, he's only mentioned three times in the Bible. He's mentioned in this passage, and he's mentioned twice in the genealogies. You know that part where your pastor tells you to read the Bible through in a year, and you get to, like, 1 Chronicles, and you're like, what is this all about? I don't need to know who's begetting everybody else. You know?

It's like beget, beget, beget. And Absalom beget, blah, blah, you know. It's like, I don't need to know this. Actually, it's really important because we find out more about Egypt. Now, as Absalom is assembling his army, there's one of David's mighty men, his name is Ahithophel.

Look at your neighbor and say Ahithophel, but be careful not to spit in their face when you say it. Ahithophel. Now, Ahithophel was one of David's mighty men, and he was an advisor. Now, Ahithophel, the Bible says, if you go through these passages I was talking about, 2 Samuel 11 through 17, Ahithophel, the advice he gave, David and Absalom said, it was as if you spoke to God himself. The advice that he gives is like God speaking.

This is how much they cherished his advice. Now, why would you think that Ahithophel would join Absalom against David? There's a key in Chronicles that you have to study the genealogies. Ahithophel beget Eliam, who beget Bathsheba. Ahithophel is Bathsheba's grandpa, his grandfather.

Now, where is Eliam in all this? I kind of imagine, I like my brother-in-law, I don't know if I'd die for him, but I like him, okay? But if they're in battle, they're probably in the same unit, and they were probably in that same surge forward, and David thought, I need to get rid of Eliam too. We don't hear about him, but probably Eliam was killed with Uriah because he does nothing. However, David didn't think about grandpa, and grandpa says, I'll take vengeance.

I will get revenge. So he joins Absalom in this quest to overthrow David. And so Absalom says to him, okay, Ahithophel, what do we do first? And he gives him the strangest advice. He says, what you need to do is your father has fled the city because he knows you're rising in power, and he's left ten of his concubines there at the house.

Now, we think of concubines as girlfriends, but they were kind of like wives, except they didn't have the same status as a wife. So it was like, you know, girlfriend number 1.A or something, you know, she was up there. Because Nathan said what? Your neighbor will take and have sex with your wives on top.

So Ahithophel says, set up a tent on top of the roof of the palace so that all of Israel would know that you abhor your father. Take those ten concubines and have sex with them so that all of Israel can see. Who tells people stuff like this? Absalom goes, hey, this sounds good. He's a boy.

This sounds good. He goes up there. He does it. And the prophecy of Nathan is fulfilled. Then he says, what should we do next?

Now, David had been praying that the advice of Ahithophel would fall flat because he knew how godly his advice was. That one, I think he blew it on. But everything else, you know, he was kind of straight up. And so here's the thing. Ahithophel gets this advice to Absalom, but David's praying and he sends a spy.

He sends a man named Hushai. And Hushai, that's the last name I want to give you. You go, thank God. Hushai. Because I can't keep them all straight.

Hushai goes and he says some advice to Absalom as well. Ahithophel says, let me put together an army of 12,000. I will go out and I will find David before he gets away and we will destroy him this night. Hushai says, no, David's already hiding in some caves. It's going to be difficult to find him.

We need to wait. And for the first time, Absalom ignored the advice of Ahithophel and he took Hushai's advice and he waited. Bad advice because David got away. Now here's where the story gets interesting. Ahithophel is so angry and so frustrated.

What time is it, please? I don't want to have a clock. 11, 25. We're supposed to be at 11, 30. Okay.

We're not going to get to part two. I got to 12. Do I get 12, 15? Do I have 12, 15? 12, 15?

12, 20? 12, 30? 12, 12? One o'clock. One o'clock.

The Bucks don't play. I'm a Tampa Bay fan, so they don't play to four. I'm good. No, I'll get you there. Seriously.

The next part's a little bit shorter. But I had to lay the story. Are y'all okay? You're enjoying this? All right.

So the Bible says that Ahithophel was so frustrated that his advice was not followed. He saddled his donkey, went to his home, put his affairs in order and hanged himself. He committed suicide because he knew he was not going to get a revenge on David. Why bother living? How do you think Bathsheba's feeling through all of this process?

Whether she had an affair or she was raped, she has now married herself to the man who was in her life. And there's some theologians that believe that she was around the temple courts and admired David her whole life and she seduced him by being on the roof. It kind of makes sense that, I mean, I don't take, I don't like even having a window in my bathroom. Y'all don't need to be seeing in my bathroom when I'm taking a shower. And so, Hushai's advice to follow, Ahithophel kills himself.

So Bathsheba's carrying this weight. We never hear her side of things. I would love to hear, did she go with David and say, hey, Psalm 51 prayer, I'll take it to Jesus. And so, this story ends this way. Absalom is out pursuing David.

And Absalom kind of looked like that guy Fabio. Y'all remember Fabio? Had all that hair. You know, he's all, if you don't know who Fabio is, go to the store where they sell the women's romance novels. He's the guy with his chest and the hair flowing, you know.

They asked me to do it, but I wasn't too good looking. So I had to say, no. Anyway, so he's riding his horse through this battle and he goes through low hanging branches. Everybody run into a low hanging branch? His hair gets tangled in the branch, yanks him off the horse and he's hanging there.

And then Joab comes along and puts three spears through his heart and kills him. You might think that I have a right not to forgive someone who's wronged me. You might think that I have a right to be bitter. I have a right to be angry because you don't know what's happened to me. Trust me, whatever happened to you, I know it was bad.

But it will destroy you. Revenge will destroy you. Vengeance will destroy you. Anger will destroy you. Unforgiveness.

That's why you have to have a change of mind. Who really was the bad guy in the story? It was David. But he didn't commit suicide. He didn't get his hair tangled in a tree and somebody stab him.

David didn't go through any of those punishments. I mean, he went through punishments. There was sword. There was war in between his family. As a matter of fact, the kingdom separates into two parts, Israel and Judah.

His whole family has destruction. The baby dies. He went through the pain, but he also knew where he needed to go. And at that moment, he didn't care about being an appearance of godliness. He didn't care about being king.

He said, I'm going to mercy. And the only place I can go to mercy, if you have a Bible, look at Psalm 51. I'm going to zip through this. I promise. Psalm 51, verse one.

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Remember that word I told you to remember? Blot out my transgressions. What I love about Psalm 51 is David does not shift blame. Remember when Adam and Eve were in the garden?

And Eve took the fruit and she bit into it the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Remember that story? And she offered some to Adam. What if Adam hadn't eaten? Maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now because he was her covering.

But Adam eats that fruit as well. And when God shows up and he says, Adam, did you eat? He didn't even call out Eve yet. Adam, did you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Adam said, well, well, well, this woman that you, that you, yeah, that's it.

It's your fault, God. You put this woman in here. Did I ask for a wife? No. Did I say I would give a rib for her?

No. No. You took it! That's what he's saying. This woman you put here.

Adam's blaming everybody but himself. He blamed his wife. He blamed God. When you look at this passage, and we're going to go through it just quickly, David never blames anyone but himself. He says, my transgressions, my iniquities, my sin, would you have mercy on me?

And here's the thing that's so amazing. If you go to the book of Acts, it says that David was a man after God's own heart. I don't know about you, but if I was God and someone pushes himself onto a woman, then has her husband killed, and thinks he can get away with it simply because he's king, I'm striking him dead. Or at least giving him a footage that will never go away. I mean, something of torment.

Now, he had consequences. And you will have consequences in your life. But here's the thing about it. There was something inside of David that said, I need mercy because he didn't realize something deeper was happening. I don't know what you were taught theologically.

I don't know biblically where you grew up. But the Bible does not teach that you are saved for eternity just because you prayed a little prayer. I believe in grace, but I don't believe in grace that you can continue to sin after you get saved. Because why would Jesus set you free and give your soul salvation and you still live the way you always lived? It makes no sense.

And David realized this. We'll see in just a moment. He says, wash me in verses 2 through 3. He says, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Sin.

What's the difference between iniquity and sin? Sin is this. Sin is when you make a mistake and you do something you knew you shouldn't do. Iniquity is when you become your sin. When it becomes your identity.

We have people all around us today that their identity is tied to their sexuality or their confusion over their gender or their identity is related to their political party or their citizenship or whatever it is. Their identity is attached to that. And that identity is when iniquity comes in is when you say, well, I'm an adulterer. I'm an adulterer. I'm going to be an adulterer all my life.

That's iniquity. Someone who committed adultery and asked for forgiveness and changed their mind and doesn't go back to doing that again is not iniquitous. They sinned. Do you understand? David is saying the sins that I've committed, I have become.

I am an adulterer. I am a murderer. Two horrible things. The guys who just wanted revenge are the ones that end up destroyed. But David gets mercy and forgiveness.

Why? Because he falls on the mercy of God. I love when it says this. It says that he says, cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me.

So he says, blot out my sins. Wash me. Judge me. You know what the most quoted verse out of the Bible is in America today? Matthew 7-1.

Judge not lest ye be judged. Don't read the next four verses. Don't read other parts. Let me tell you. You ever seen anybody that has that tattoo that says, only God can judge me?

I would whole lot rather y'all to judge me. Because God not only knows my actions, he knows what's in the ticker. He knows what's in the heart. The word heart is used over 800 times in the Bible. And never once does it refer to the ticker.

It refers to your soul. He knows who I am when nobody else is around. So I don't want him judging me. But David says, bring it on, God. Judge me.

Because I need your judgment in my life. Because when you judge me, it means that you will avenge. That you will contend for me. That you will defend me. And in that judgment, you will execute righteousness.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. And in sin, my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in inward parts. God is not going to punish you just for the actions you commit. But for what you allow to remain in your heart.

And he wants to remove it. He wants to do it like the surgeon did me. And rip you open. And take out that cancer so it doesn't destroy you. And send you to hell.

I know that's a subject we don't talk about in church a lot nowadays. We don't preach about hell. We don't talk about hell. But there is a reality coming. I don't know what you think of Charlie Kirk.

Or all the situations that have gone. We saw an assassination of two senators and her husband in Minnesota. And then we saw a public execution assassination of Charlie Kirk. And I'm not here to say I agree with him 100%. Nor do I disagree with him 100%.

But you know one question that I have not seen the church respond to. Or ask. Where are you going to spend eternity, people? Heaven or hell? And all I thought about in that moment was two things.

When I saw that happen. I thought about. Where are people going to spend eternity? And then I thought about his children. Will not have their daddy pray over them.

But you know there's other things that have happened. That Mormon church that was attacked and burned. And people were killed. There was a school shooting in a little small town. Evil is all around us folks.

And the only thing that's going to matter is where you spend eternity. Is it going to be the smoking or the non-smoking section? I'm going to spend eternity in heaven with Jesus. That is my goal. That is my desire.

So I am taking the emotions that I have. That caused me to want to sin in my body. And I'm letting my mind referee by the power of the Holy Spirit to remove these things. I've got to finish. Somebody say hurry up.

Oh y'all are nice. Look at you. Except for Miranda. Oh we'll pray for her at the end. Alright here we go.

Verse 7 he says purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Now this is interesting to me how these words all work. Because I went back in and I studied some of the Hebrew. When it says wash me.

They didn't have washing machines to wash their clothes ends like we do. They had to go down to a stream and wash them. And then they would take them and lay them on a clean piece of stone. Or a clean piece of wood. And they would stomp on them and trample them.

So when David says trample me that word can also be translated wash me. Subtle cue. The music is not going to help make me go faster. No I'm just teasing. I'm just teasing.

You can leave it on. I kind of like it. Purge me and wash me with hyssop. Now hyssop was a medicinal plant that was used to treat coughs and congestion. But it was also used to numb an infectious wound so that you could have it cleaned out because it hurt.

So it was kind of like an anesthesia for your arm or something if you got cut. But hyssop branches were also great paint brushes. And in the book of Exodus they painted the blood over the doors during the Passover when the death angel came through. And they used a hyssop branch. When Jesus was dying on the cross what did they do?

They offered him wine mixed with vinegar and they put it on a hyssop branch and held it up to him. Hyssop is always associated with cleansing. Jesus cleansing us on the cross. The angel passing over the homes that had the lamb's blood on it. And so David says purge me.

Get rid of these things. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be made whole. Then Psalm 51 verse 8. This is where it gets really good.

Say it's going to get good right now. To at least one person. It's going to get good. You ready? Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones you have broken may rejoice.

David is saying I know there's a way out of this. I tried to cover it up. I tried to hide it. I tried to do all the things that we do in the natural when we make mistakes and sin. And when we hurt other people.

But he says I can't do anything about it. You've broken me God. My son Absalom is dead. My son Amnon is dead. Because David allowed the spirit of sin to infiltrate his home.

He said my son's dead. My family's dead. I can imagine every time David went by the graves of Amnon or Absalom. Or he went by the grave of that baby. That died.

What did he feel? He's saying, blot it out, God. Can you imagine every time he went to make love to his wife Bathsheba, he has to remember his sin. How he got her. And he's saying, purge me of this, God.

Purge me of this. Take it from me. He says in verse 9, hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Verse 10, he says, create in me a clean heart. How many of you like to be free?

I told you earlier, I'm not a big fan of going into water. I can't see what's underneath. But I love living at the beach. Because I feel free. When I see the ocean, when I see the waves, when I see the Gulf of America, Mexico, whichever one you want to call it.

When I'm standing there and that breeze is blowing. In the sunshine, I'm free. You know what? I walk in that freedom all the time because I refer to it. I refuse to let unforgiveness, bitterness, pain, sin that's been done to me.

People talk about church hurt. Try being a pastor. You talk about church hurt. But here's the thing. There's freedom.

Because I don't care what you think about me. I have preached to crowds of 10,000. I preached to one person. It doesn't matter to me because I'm free. My status is not determined by the size of my ministry.

My status is determined by the righteousness of Christ in me. Restore me. This is the important part. We're almost done. Do not cast me away from your presence.

And do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. David's saying, God, take me back to the sheep field where I just had my harp and it was just me and you singing praises before I became king. Let me just have that joy again. Because he had lost his salvation.

His salvation had been taken from him. Because why? God will not dwell where darkness dwells. And David has stepped over into iniquities of adultery and murder. And this morning, if we harbor any sin that's mentioned in the 143 sins listed from Matthew to Revelation.

Now, this morning, if you go out and get some shrimp, you're not violating any law of God anymore because the Old Testament moral laws and ritual laws are done away with. The dietary laws. You go out and commit adultery, you're still in the same boat as the Old Testament because it's a sin. And salvation is given to us by God. Now, it's not something you can lose easy.

I grew up old school Pentecostal holiness where if you stub your toe and say a bad word and you didn't repent, you go to hell. I don't believe God's grace is that easy to lose. But I also don't believe I can go out and live however I want. And more importantly, because the actions come out of the heart, the heart is where I've got to deal with the really serious stuff. Unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, resentment, jealousy, envy.

You're like, can't we go back to talking about adultery? I don't do that. Why? Why you got to get so personal? Because usually in the church, we know Christ, but we've not submitted to his lordship for transformation.

And that's what God's after today. He's after a change of the mind, change of direction. He says, restore me. Do not cast me away from your presence. He knew it was possible.

He knew that the Holy Spirit could be taken from him. But he said, restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit. God has not ran out of mercy. You may have asked him to forgive you 490 times, 70 times 7. But God wasn't about a number.

He's about mercy. With every head bowed and every eye closed. This morning, he is knocking on your heart. And I want to pray a prayer of Psalm 139 over you before I do one last thing. Psalm 139, verses 23 through 24, King David wrote this.

He says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties. And see if there is any wicked way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting. Search me, O God.

And see if there is any wickedness inside of me. Are you willing, like Acts chapter 3, 19 says this morning, to repent so that times of refreshing can come? Are you willing to repent of bitterness so that the refreshing joy of the Holy Spirit can fill you? Are you willing to repent of unforgiveness so that a refreshing peace can fill your life? Are you willing to repent of anger so that refreshing kindness can fill you?

Are you willing to repent of pornography so that refreshing can be restored to your marriage? Are you willing to repent of substance abuse for a refreshing and a renewal of your mind? Are you ready to repent of gossiping and lying so that a refreshing of friendships can be restored? Lord, unrepentant sin will be judged by God. And you will be separated from Him for all eternity as well as experience the consequences in this life.

But this morning, Jesus is saying, I have mercy for you. I have forgiveness for you. It doesn't matter what you've done. There's only one sin that the Bible says that God will not forgive and it's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And you had to be a believer to blaspheme the Holy Spirit because before that you were ignorant of who God was.

But this morning, God is knocking on the door of your heart and He's saying to you like He did to David, I'm willing to restore. You can let vengeance, you can let revenge, you can let bitterness, you can let anger, you can let lust, all these things. I mean, this would make a great movie. Destroy you or you can fall on the mercy of God. And so if you're here this morning, whether you know Jesus or you've been coming to church for a little while or you've never experienced Jesus, today, God says, I love you.

And you can be a man or a woman after my own heart. And so I'm bold when I give an altar call. So if you mean business with God and God has shown you something, I'm asking Him to expose your heart to you right now. If there's something that God has told you you need to repent of, I don't care if you're the pastor, I don't care if you're a leader in here, I don't care if you're on the stage leading worship this morning. It's better to be right with God than to worry about what everybody else thinks of you.

And nobody's going to ask you what you're repenting of. But if you have something that you need to repent of this morning, I want you to stand to your feet right now. I want you to stand to your feet and say, God, have mercy on me, purge me, purge me and cleanse me, wash me that I might be made whiter than snow. So if that's you, you say, God showed me something this morning that I haven't dealt with and I'm willing to deal with it, I want you to stand right now. Stand right now.

Stand up. Be bold about it. Be bold about it. You were bold when you were sinning. You can be bold about forgiveness.

Jesus, Jesus, right now we depend on you to do the work of the only you can do. Holy Spirit, touch these hearts of those that are standing. And God, move in their lives. Right now, in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus.

Freedom. Joy is replacing your sin. Holy Spirit, breathe. Holy Spirit, breathe. Give us your glory.

In Jesus' name.