[0:00] 1 Samuel 13. Up to this point, things have been going fairly well in the life of Saul. He has been anointed to kingship, which he did not seek out on his own.
[0:12] Rather, he had been sought of the Lord. He has led an army against the Ammonites in victorious defeat. And he has been rededicated, recommitted publicly in the 12th chapter as Samuel gives his final word to the nation of Israel and points them to the reality of Saul.
[0:31] Unfortunately, those things will come to an end starting in chapter 13 because not too long after things go well, things start to go south. For the majority of Saul's ministry, or not ministry, for the majority of Saul's reign, we realize that it is not all well and good.
[0:53] Chapter 13 is about two years into the reign of Saul. I will tell you as we get ready to read it, in the first verse, there is some questioning on the years.
[1:05] The New American Standard has it written that when Saul was 30 years old, he began to reign, and he reigned 42 years. Some translations will say that Saul reigned a year, and after the second year, he did this.
[1:19] The confusion, don't let it be disruptive to you, but we understand it, we are two years into his reign. The confusion comes in the ancient manuscripts, the numbers are missing.
[1:34] They seem to be absent. So we have to go by scrabble, at least understanding, as we come to our English scripture. So in the oldest of manuscripts, when we go back to study 1 Samuel, those numbers aren't there, so we're kind of trying to determine.
[1:51] But that's just really, I know that when I read that, because the ESV, for instance, has it one way, New American Standard has another way, I think King James, New King James, tend to go along with the New American Standard on that counting.
[2:02] But if you have a different interpretation, I didn't want it to be a flag, and you think, oh, what am I reading? I'm not reading the same thing he is. But that's the reason behind it. We can answer that later. So let's read the 13th chapter.
[2:14] We'll read it in its entirety, and we'll get into it together. Saul was 30 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 42 years over Israel. Now Saul chose for himself 3,000 men of Israel, of which 2,000 were with Saul and Michmash in the hill country of Bethel, while 1,000 were with Jonathan at Gebeah of Benjamin.
[2:35] But he sent away the rest of the people, each to his tent. And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was at Gebeah. And the Philistines heard of it. Then Saul blew the trumpet throughout the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.
[2:49] And all Israel heard the news that Saul had smitten the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become odious to the Philistines. And the people were then summoned to Saul at Gilgal.
[3:01] Now the Philistines assembled to fight with Israel, 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen, and people like the sand which is on the seashore in abundance.
[3:12] And they came up and camped in Michmash, east of Beth-Avon, where the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, for the people were hard-pressed. Then the people hid themselves in caves and thickets and cliffs, in cellars and in pits.
[3:25] Also some of the Hebrews crossed the Jordan into the land of Gad and Galit. But as for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and the people followed him trembling. Now he waited seven days, according to the appointed time set by Samuel.
[3:41] But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, Bring to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.
[3:52] As soon as he finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and to greet him. But Samuel said, What have you done?
[4:02] And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the appointed days, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash.
[4:12] Therefore I said, Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not asked the favor of the Lord. So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering. Samuel said to Saul, You have acted foolishly.
[4:25] You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not endure.
[4:36] The Lord has sought out for himself a man after his own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.
[4:46] Then Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal to Gebeah of Benjamin, and Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men. Now Saul and his son Jonathan and the people who were present with him were staying in Gebeah of Benjamin, while the Philistines camped at Michmash.
[5:05] And the raiders came from the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned towards Orphara, to the land of Shul, and another company turned towards Beth Horon, and another company turned toward the border, which overlooks the valley of Zeboim, toward the wilderness.
[5:20] Now no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears. So all Israel went down to the Philistines, each to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, and his hoe.
[5:34] And the charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the plowshares, the mattocks, and the forks, and the axes, and to fix the hoes. So it came about on the day of battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, but they were found with Saul and his son Jonathan.
[5:51] And the garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmash. 1 Samuel 13. We're now coming to that really instrumental time.
[6:03] If you remember, it has been God's plan and God's desire to deliver his people from the hand of the Philistines ever since raising up that final judge, Samson.
[6:16] Samson would begin to deliver his people from the hand of the Philistines. We know that the full deliverance is not accomplished until the king, David, a man after God's own heart, comes and fully delivers the people of God from the hand of the Philistines.
[6:31] It is this that God is calling Saul to now, and things do not look well. We're reading it. It doesn't look well at all, honestly. And it is here that we encounter the very first failure of the man Saul.
[6:43] Now, this will not be his last failure. It is here that he loses his dynasty, if you will, or the future rule. Later on, when he fails to walk in complete obedience, he loses his position.
[6:58] He loses the right to rule. And it ends, eventually, in the taking of his own life in the midst of a battle. Things begin to go downward very quickly following this episode until we encounter the man, David.
[7:12] We see Saul's partial obedience, and then later on we will see David's faithfulness. But I want you to see this evening. Really, there's a comparison in this chapter and the next, and I was tempted to bring that comparison out, but I don't really want to yet.
[7:28] The comparison will be between Saul and his son, Jonathan. We'll see a little bit of it, but as we move into the 14th chapter, we begin to see even more of it, and we'll have to remind ourselves of what we have just read at the end of the 13th chapter, because in light of how bad things were, Jonathan still moves forward courageously, and it is Jonathan who really is victorious, not Saul.
[7:51] Saul is just kind of on the heels of his son, Jonathan's faith, at that point moving forward in spite of the detrimental condition in which they find themselves in.
[8:02] So we're not really going to focus a lot on the comparison, but I want you to see a man of unsettled heart. And this really doesn't just pertain to men. This pertains to all individuals.
[8:14] What it means to live with an unsettled heart. And that is what we find Saul doing here, because Saul has been anointed king.
[8:24] He's been chosen as king. He's been ordained as king. He's been promoted and placed as king. He has even served as king, but his heart is not settled on the things of the Lord.
[8:35] Remember, there were red flags at the very beginning, and those red flags were that he did not know that there was a man of God living just five miles away from his own home, that he was not sure that it was his servant who said, there's a man of God who lives here.
[8:48] He did not understand those things. There was this mocking that is Saul also among the prophets, that even his friend said this thing's odd, because Saul is the last man we would ever think that would be among the prophets, that Saul would not be prophesying.
[9:03] So there seems to be these matters that are kind of red flags at the first that show us that maybe even though Saul looked good, he had the right pedigree, he had the right ancestry, that he had the right appearance, he was head and shoulders above everyone else.
[9:17] He could really motivate a crowd. You know, he could cut an oxen in half and send it throughout and say, if you don't follow me, I'll cut your oxen in half. And that was motivating. He could raise an army, but he had not settled his heart.
[9:30] Because eventually, the reality is, is that the heart of the issue would begin to manifest itself on the outside. No matter how good we look, or how many deeds we do, no matter how successful we are temporarily, the matters of the heart begin to manifest themselves.
[9:46] God has a way of bringing us to a place of crisis, or sometimes difficulty, that manifests what's going on internally. And if the heart isn't settled on the things of the Lord, then our actions will soon reflect that unsettled nature, and then there will be a series of things that go on in our life.
[10:07] Because trials and circumstances and struggles come to each individual. The Bible tells us that from the overflow of the heart, does a man speak? It is one thing that I have found very common, that if you get someone very, very, very upset, quite often they said, I said things, I regret it.
[10:27] Which most of the times, the truth is, is you said things that were embedded. And those are matters that we have to repent of. I found myself only doing it.
[10:38] That when I lost control of the circumstances and the situation, that from the overflow of the heart, things began to come out. And we come to those realities.
[10:49] And we see this transpiring in the man saw. The first thing that we see is that a man or an individual of unsettled heart fails to lead effectively.
[11:02] They fail to lead effectively. Every one of us have called to be leaders in some aspect, in some realm of our world, even as young individuals are called to lead.
[11:17] We are called to be examples of Christ. We are called to fulfill some type of leadership role. The Bible says that pastors are held accountable for every word that comes out of their mouth.
[11:29] But the Bible also tells us that every one of us, even non-pastors, are held accountable for how we will proclaim Christ to a watching world around us too. That that is not just an admonition or a charge against pastors, but that we are all held accountable for everything that we would say or every flippant word that we would express, that we all have a leadership aspect towards us.
[11:51] And when the heart is not settled, then leadership begins to fail. And we notice the very first thing it says that after two years of reigning, Saul chose for himself 3,000 men of Israel, of which 2,000 were with him, and he put 1,000 with his son Jonathan, and then he sent everyone else home.
[12:08] Again, this seems ironic to us because if we just go back a couple of chapters when they are fighting for their own countrymen and they're fighting against the Ammonites, 330,000 soldiers were raised to go defeat the Ammonites.
[12:25] 330,000. 330,000 individuals volunteered. Well, because most of them felt that if they didn't volunteer, their animals were going to get cut in half, but still they volunteered because inactivity was not an option.
[12:40] You had to do something. Indecision resulted in consequences. So you had to do something. But 330,000 people showed up, 30,000 from Judah, 300,000 from the rest of the nation of Israel, and they come and they defeat the Ammonites.
[12:52] Remember that? Nahash, the king of the Ammonites. They push him out and they defeat him and they rise victorious and they celebrate together and they worship together. And in following that, Saul determines that, hey, things are going well enough.
[13:05] We don't need but 3,000. Now this seems to me to be poor leadership because he does that in light of the reality that there is a garrison of the Philistines in Gebeah, which was right next to where Saul prophesied.
[13:21] And the Philistines were a large army. So in spite of the army that was around him, of which he was supposed to be delivering the people of God from, he decided he needed fewer people.
[13:33] Now I'm not saying he should have kept all 330,000. He can't keep the whole nation. I'm not saying that, but it seems almost dismissive to me that he would only raise 3,000. All we need is 3,000. We know the army is strong enough, but all we know that all I need is 3,000.
[13:46] That seems to be a poor display of self-confidence that I can handle this with just a few. Just because God has given victory in the past does not mean we should take the battle presently in front of us lightly.
[14:00] And so he diminishes his army and he has 3,000 and that's fine. God is not, as we will find in the next chapter, Jonathan declares, God is not constrained to deliver by a few or by many.
[14:11] God can deliver however he wants to. But we even begin to see this ineffective leadership in that while Saul keeps 2,000, he sends 1,000 with Jonathan. Do you notice that Jonathan defeats the garrison of the Philistines at Gebeah?
[14:25] So what Saul could not do with twice as many men, Jonathan did. If we really pay attention, it seems that the son has the greater leadership potential than the father, especially in the following chapter.
[14:42] But since Saul's heart was not settled on deliverance because Saul's heart was not settled on the things of the Lord, Jonathan initiated the battle with less men than his father had following him.
[14:57] But Saul takes the credit. They sound the alarm. Some scholars kind of raise a flag here. I guess it bears at least acknowledging that Saul sounds an alarm and says, listen, all Hebrews.
[15:14] Up to this time, the nation of Israel were referred to as Hebrews only by outsiders. Or when they are referring to themselves to outsiders.
[15:25] Hebrews, the word Hebrew literally means they who cross over. And it was a reference to Abram coming out of the land of the Ur of the Chaldeans, crossing over the desert into that region.
[15:40] Quite often when they talk amongst themselves, they refer to one another as the Israelite nation, the nation of Israel. But here he refers to them as an outsider because his heart is not settled on the God of Israel.
[15:58] And he calls them and says, hear what, hear, O Hebrews. And you notice it says, so all heard what Saul had done. Now I'll tell you what Saul did. Saul hung out with 2,000 men and did nothing while his son, Jonathan, defeated the Philistines with 1,000.
[16:14] But Saul gets the credit. So a battle is raging. Now we understand that Saul did not do right in sending so many home because the Philistines raised their own army.
[16:26] It says they have soldiers like the sand on the seashore. They have 30,000 chariots. Some think that number could be 3,000. If it's 30,000 or 3,000, it really doesn't matter. Okay, it's a grand number.
[16:37] They have 6,000 horsemen. They have people beyond number. And here Saul only had 3,000 people. But in his leadership, notice that when they saw the enemy, people began to flee.
[16:48] Because men and women of unsettled heart have a hard time motivating others. Gideon delivered with 300.
[16:58] In the end, Saul ends up with twice as many men as Gideon did. But the difference is, is before Gideon went to battle, his heart was settled and he knew God was going to bring deliverance. Saul's heart is unsettled and people are running from him.
[17:12] They're hiding in caves. They're fleeing. And then we read this one line, but as for Saul, he was still in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling. Friend, you have a problem when the people you're leading are trembling.
[17:28] Because leadership is a matter of the heart. Until the heart is settled, until the heart is operating in convictions, no matter what area you're leading, leading in home, leading with children, leading, no matter what area you have influence in, until the heart is settled on the things of God, leadership fails.
[17:49] There's a failure to lead effectively. Because leadership is settled first and foremost in matters of the heart. The second thing we notice about individuals of unsettled heart is they forget the importance of obedience.
[18:06] They forget the importance of obedience. So Saul is at Gilgal. Two years prior to this, at his private anointing, when he is first anointed by Samuel, Samuel made a declaration to him, when you get to Gilgal, wait seven days for me.
[18:26] We are almost certain that over the span of those two years, Samuel had reminded him of that admonition. When you get there, wait. When you get there, wait. When you get there, wait. So Samuel has told him, and now Saul is at Gilgal.
[18:40] It says, And he waited seven days, according to the time appointed, or the appointed time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal. Now be careful. We would love to say, well, it's Samuel's fault.
[18:51] He drug his feet. He didn't do it. But just stay with me. So Saul is there, and he's waiting, and he's waiting, and he's waiting. And he said, Samuel said, I will come offer the sacrifice. Now, Samuel has relinquished political rulership, but he has not relinquished spiritual leadership.
[19:11] Okay? He's no longer a judge. Saul is king, but Samuel is still prophet. So the king has no right to offer the sacrifices.
[19:24] And he waits. But then there's a problem, because it says he did not come when he expected him, and the people were scattering from him.
[19:34] So Saul, because his heart was unsettled on the things of the Lord, began to look at the people leaving him more than the God watching him. He began to notice the people's fear, and he began to notice their trembling, and he began to notice how big the army of the Philistines were, and he began to look at everything externally rather than dealing with things internally.
[19:54] He began to look at what was going on outwardly. Some would say he was walking by sight and not by faith, right? He was operating based on what he was observing, not based on what he was convicted of.
[20:06] Friend, if the heart is not settled on the matter, before we come to the place of temptation, we will forget the importance of obedience. Because Satan has a way of creating things to such an extent externally that we want to give up on what we should be doing and dealing with internally, that we want to focus more on what's going on around us, and focusing on he who is leading over us.
[20:34] But his heart was not settled. So he began to just see what was going on, and said, well, I have to appease this situation. So it made more sense to him to compromise than to look foolish.
[20:47] He didn't want to stand out. Everybody was looking at him. It sounds a whole lot like what the sons of Eli did, right? We're going to go to battle.
[20:59] We need to make sure to take the Ark of the Covenant with us. Saul said, we're going to go to battle. We need to make sure we offer the right sacrifices. He forgot the admonition of Scripture. He had not yet heard that God desires obedience rather than sacrifice.
[21:14] God is not a God of legalism. He's a God of relationship. So it says, notice that he never offers the peace offering because there is no peace.
[21:27] He said, bring to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And the moment he offered the burnt offering, Samuel shows up. Right when he decided to take matters into his own hands, Samuel's got impeccable timing.
[21:43] He shows up. Because God's right on time all the time. And we know that. And we notice about this failure or this forgetfulness of the importance of obedience.
[21:56] And it happens twice in Saul's life that when Samuel shows up right after he disobeys, the second time is when he has the king and he fails to kill the king.
[22:07] He fails to fully obey God. But this time is the first instance where he knows he should not have offered that. But then he goes to greet Samuel as if nothing is wrong.
[22:20] Because in the heart, there's no really place of conviction. It's just, well, I just had to do what I had to do. And he goes out and he greets Samuel. Samuel says, what are you doing? And we also notice about this that he begins to blame shift.
[22:34] Well, I had to do it. The people were leaving. I had to do it. The Philistines are about to attack. I had to do it because Samuel, you weren't here. That is, we can always give an argument for compromise.
[22:51] But the reality is, is there's no good argument for sin. No matter how much we want to claim that this is something we needed to do, that we had to do, that someone says that he began to practice situational ethics, that the situation determined what was right and what was wrong.
[23:09] Friend, listen to me. situations never determine right and wrong. Truth determines right and wrong. And truth has to be settled in the heart. Because right is right and wrong is wrong at all times, in spite of, and sometimes even in light of the circumstances.
[23:27] situations do not determine how we obey or disobey. It would have been better to look at the people leaving and saying, well, as for me and myself, I'm waiting on Samuel because that's the right thing to do.
[23:42] To have stood with an individual of conviction rather than to have stood as an individual of compromise. And then we wonder why his leadership fails. It is better to look at others and say, I know the situation and circumstance don't look good, but I would rather be obedient than to be compromising and disobedience.
[24:00] I would rather trust and know that what the Lord has to do is right. And I would rather do this. And I would rather do what I know is right as opposed to compromise for the moment.
[24:12] Because the moment we compromise, we lose control and we forget the importance of obedience. Obedience is tantamount.
[24:23] And the only way we will ever do that is because we have settled the matter first and foremost in our heart. If we're not, if we don't have it settled in our heart as a conviction, then every situation will dictate how we respond.
[24:40] And that's really what the book of James says, being tossed to and fro like the waves of the sea. Right? We need to be that that cuts across the waves, not that flows with it.
[24:51] So we understand. It forgets the importance of obedience. The third and final thing that we see and probably the scariest of them all, and we will be through early this evening, is that an individual of unsettled heart fails to lead effectively.
[25:06] They forget the importance of obedience. Number three, they forfeit the Lord's blessings. They forfeit the Lord's blessings.
[25:17] Samuel says to Saul, in verse 13, Samuel said to Saul, you have acted foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you.
[25:29] Now look at this. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. The Lord would have. Now I know immediately the question should come to your mind.
[25:41] How could his kingdom be established forever? Because he's not even of the right tribe, right? He is supposed to be a king from the tribe of Judah. He is not from the tribe of Judah. He's from the tribe of Benjamin.
[25:52] He, God already has his man picked out in David, and it is the Davidic throne that is going to be an everlasting, eternal throne, because we know that Jesus is a descendant of David. We know that he's from the tribe of Judah.
[26:04] So we ask ourselves this question, how could God have established the throne of Saul forever when the scripture very clearly says that it would be a throne from Judah?
[26:14] Well, we're beginning to wrestle with the what ifs of scripture, and we need to understand the omniscience power of God, and we need to also understand the divine, really just the superior knowledge that God has.
[26:28] Did God know he was going to fail? Yes. Did God know these things were going to transpire? Yes. Did he know that even when he declared it would be a king from the tribe of Judah? Yes. Could God have established both thrones?
[26:40] Yes. I believe it was Warren Wearsby who said that if you read the text correctly, that Jonathan and David later on, Jonathan and David seemed to be making a pact where they would rule together.
[26:57] David would reign as king, but Jonathan would reign with him, and therefore the dynasty could have continued. Would it have been the Davidic kingdom and the Davidic dynasty that is the lineage of Christ?
[27:09] No. But could it have been established on this earth? Yes. It is the blessing of the Lord. There are things that God could have done.
[27:21] Could he have overruled Saul's disobedience? Well, yes. Did he choose not to? No. Because he does not create robots. And I know it makes our heads spin, and we look at those things, and we say, well, God, if God knows these things, why doesn't he stop these things?
[27:34] Because it's about relationships, not about robotic obedience, right? And we understand this, that there are wages of sin. Sin has consequences. It costs something. And one of the greatest consequences that sin has is it removes the blessings that would have come our way in the favor of the Lord that would have been our way if we had walked in obedience.
[27:56] It forfeits that blessing. It gives it up so that when we make that decision, when the heart is unsettled, and we come to the place where we decide to either walk in obedience or to walk in compromise, the moment we begin to walk in compromise, essentially what we are saying is, is God, I don't want what you have in store for me because I think there's a better way.
[28:19] We are forfeiting the Lord's blessing because obedience, now I know it seems cliche, and we can argue it from the book of Job, but you can't argue it very long. Obedience does bring the blessing of the Lord.
[28:32] Now, is our blessings a sure sign of God's faithfulness and therefore curses a sign of your sinfulness? No, but Job is a case study for that, right?
[28:43] Just because things were going bad in Job's life does not mean that Job is walking in sin, but read the rest of the book. By the time the book is over, Job is also enriched twofold, right?
[28:55] He is doubly blessed. Now, he had to go through great periods of suffering to get there, but he is doubly blessed in the end because obedience leads to the blessings of the Lord.
[29:08] And when we walk in compromise or disobedience as a result of an uncivilized heart, we are forfeiting that and giving that up. We are saying, God, I have a better way. I have a better plan. Saul said, it would be better for me to do this because the people are leaving and I'm about to have to fight a battle than it would be for me to wait on Samuel to get here.
[29:25] And the moment Saul decided his way was better than what he had clearly been commanded to do, he forfeited what God could have done. I've often thought in my own mind and my own understanding that one of the greatest tragedies when I get to glory, after standing on just the grand presence of my Lord and Savior, one of the greatest tragedies I believe that what my eyes will see are the things that God could have done for me.
[29:55] You say, well, is there going to be sorrow in heaven? Yes, I believe I will weep over those matters. I know every tear is wiped away and I also know when we read the book of Revelations that the wiping away of every tear is after a period of years.
[30:09] So I believe that I will feel remorse. That's just my personal beliefs and my personal beliefs, okay? This is a small rock issue. We don't have to, you know, we don't have to break fellowship over this, okay?
[30:19] We just don't. This is a, maybe God gave me this as a motivating factor for my own life. I believe that I will feel a sense of remorse for the things that could have happened.
[30:32] Now that sense of remorse will be overcome by the sense of wonder at his grace. But I think this is where Paul says that in those days when we would be tested as if by fire and all things will pass through the fire and the wood, hay, straw, and stubble will be consumed but the things that are built of stone and precious, those things that are precious, they will endure to the end and we will go with those things that endure.
[30:57] I think that there will come a time in our life where we stand before our Savior and he brings everything before us and we see burn up before our eyes things that we thought were of tantamount importance and we will take with us those things that endure the flames.
[31:15] and on the other side of that we see what God could have done but yet time and time again I decided to compromise and think my way was better.
[31:30] An unsettled heart leads to a forfeiture of God's blessings because we will not walk in full obedience until we've settled the matter in our heart.
[31:42] Even in the days of the Roman rule and prior to that in biblical times the heart was always the seat of emotions and the seat of discernment.
[31:57] This is where you made your decisions in the bowels of your your bowels and your heart all those things are right here and we kind of laugh now because we know that the brain has such an impact on that but the reality is is you can be convinced of a number of things in your minds but until it's settled in your hearts it won't change what you do.
[32:22] This is why when Saul disobeys Samuel makes this declaration God has sought out for himself a man after his own heart. He wants a man whose heart communes heart to heart with the heart of God and the matters are settled finally and firmly.
[32:42] Does David fall? Yes. Does David I mean if you want to look at it in reality Saul's children are better than David's children. Right?
[32:54] Jonathan's not killing his brothers. David's did. David has a lot of problems in his own life but his heart is settled.
[33:05] He still fails still falters but his heart is settled. So we're not looking for perfection what we're looking for is one with a settled heart and one with understanding of this is what God's called me to do and I'm going to walk in that conviction.
[33:20] And we see what happens when the individual doesn't have that in 1 Samuel chapter 13. Now before we pray and dismiss because I know we'll be through I'll ask if there one more time is there any matters that need to be prayed over anything we can pray for you for as you move through this week.
[33:41] Any matters at all? We'll pray for the Simmons family. You guys are brother y'all are leaving Wednesday. Correct? Leaving Wednesday. Anything else? Yes ma'am.
[33:56] Okay. Alright. Yes ma'am. Okay. Okay. Okay. Anything else?
[34:14] Alright. Let's join our hearts and minds together. Lord we come before you Lord with thanksgiving that you are a God who's in control and a God who knows all things.
[34:26] Lord we admit our own weaknesses and our own failures at times or times of stumbling and times of compromise when we should not. So God we pray that you would make us people of settled heart.
[34:42] Lord I know that in this week before us there's great opportunity. Lord you've called us to do things for your glory and your honor. You have things worked out for each and every one of us.
[34:53] Lord I pray for Brother Jamie Simmons and his family as they get ready to travel. I pray for them in the days ahead as they walk through the funeral services of his father.
[35:08] I pray that you be glorified in the peace and the comfort that you give. I pray you walk with him. Give him wisdom, understanding.
[35:19] Lord also give him your nearness. Lord I pray that for his entire family and ask that you watch over them throughout this week and the days ahead. We pray that you be glorified through what you do there.
[35:33] Pray for Ms. Myrtle's family member that has COVID asking God that you would just touch her body or that you would heal the discomfort.
[35:45] We know that sickness is such a rampant thing in our fallen world. At times it gets so difficult on people so we pray you watch over them. I pray for June as she's attempting to sell her car.
[35:58] Lord we know that you tell us to bring all matters before you that we're to pray without ceasing. So God we come before you and ask that you just give wisdom and leadership and guidance there.
[36:10] Lord for the things that are going to face each one of us throughout the week we just ask that we would walk with discernment, confidence, Lord comfort in your leading.
[36:22] We pray that we as your people would be lights for your glory that how we respond in circumstances how we react to the people around us that they would be glorifying and praising to you.
[36:35] Lord and if we fail you and when we fail you we ask for your mercy and your forgiveness for it. Thank you for this day. Thank you for an opportunity of gathering together. Thank you for the privilege of praising with your people.
[36:48] Thank you for the privilege of studying your word with one another. We pray that the truths which we have heard today would have a lasting impact. Lord may they not be stolen away by the cares and concerns of this life but may they be embedded within us to bear fruit to glory.
[37:09] May we be changed as a result of your word and would that change bring glory to your lordship. Lord be with us as we leave here. Keep your hand upon us and be magnified through all we do and we ask it in Christ's name.
[37:24] Amen. Thank you guys. Thank you.
[38:17] Thank you. Thank you.
[38:49] Thank you.