Alright, brethren, let's go to
1 Samuel 24. I want to read this whole chapter,
so let's just take our time with it. I may make a few comments
as we go. It says in verse 1, And it came
to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines,
It was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness in
Gedi. Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men
out of all Israel and went to seek David and his men upon the
rocks of the wild goats. Saul and 3,000 men. And he came
to the sheep coats, by the way, where was a cave. And Saul went
in to cover his feet And David and his men remained in the sides
of the cave. And the men of David said unto
him, Behold the day which the Lord said unto thee. Behold,
I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest
do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. And then David arose,
and he cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privately. And it came to
pass afterward that David's heart smote him because he had cut
off Saul's skirt. And he said unto his men, the
Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the
Lord's anointed, to stretch forth my hand against him, seeing he
is the anointed of the Lord. David had to have known that
God had rejected Saul from being king. because of his sin. But Saul was still the king at
this time. And God had anointed Saul king. And David loved Saul. That was his father-in-law. And
he loved him. And he would not kill him when
God delivered him into his hand. He had mercy on him. And so David
stayed his servants with these words and suffered them not to
rise against Saul. But Saul rose up out of the cave
and went on his way. David has no idea. I mean, Saul
has no idea that David had him. David had him and spared him.
David also arose afterward and he went out of the cave and he
cried after Saul, saying, My Lord, the King. And when Saul
looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth and
bowed himself. And David said to Saul, Wherefore,
hearest thou men's words, saying, Behold, David seeketh thy herd."
Oh, the rumor mill. That treacherous grapevine. And
then we have this thing in us that Saul did too. Saul just
imagined David was speaking evil against him. He just imagined
David was after him. You ever done that where you
just sit and get to thinking about something and somebody
and think? It's called evil surmising. We just surmise that they're
saying something or doing something and they're not even doing it.
David said to Saul, Wherefore hearest thou men's word saying,
Behold, David, seeketh thou her? Behold, this day thine eyes have
seen how that the Lord had delivered thee today into my hand in the
cave, and some made me kill thee. But mine eye spared thee, and
I said, I will not put forth mine hand against my Lord, for
he is the Lord's anointed. Moreover, my father, see, yea,
see the skirt of thy robe in my hand. For in that I cut off
the skirt of thy robe and killed thee not, know thou, and see
that there is neither evil nor transgression in my hand. I have
not sinned against thee, yet thou huntest my soul. to take
it. The Lord judged between me and
thee, and the Lord avenged me of thee, but my hand shall not
be upon thee. That's right there is where we
need to stay. The Lord is the master of his
children. He's the master of our brethren. We're not. I'm not. He is. And the Lord's the judge. There's
one lawgiver and he's able to save. He's able to destroy. I'm
nobody. I can't judge. I can't discern
the heart. He knows everything. David left
it with the Lord. And vengeance is not mine. It's not ours, brother. Vengeance
belongs to the Lord. We shouldn't even want vengeance.
That's the Lord's business. As sayeth the proverb, verse
13, as sayeth the proverb of the ancients, wickedness proceedeth
from the wicked, but my hand shall not be upon thee. After
whom is the king of Israel come out? After whom dost thou pursue?
After a dead dog, after a flea. The Lord therefore be judged
and judge between me and thee. and see and plead my cause and
deliver me out of thy hand. The Lord plead my cause. I trust
the Lord to plead my cause. I trust him to be my prophet,
priest, and king, my judge, my defender. It's all in his hand. And it came to pass, when David
had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said,
is this thy voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice
and wept. And he said to David, Thou art
more righteous than I, for Thou hast rewarded me good, whereas
I have rewarded thee evil. And Thou hast showed this day
how that Thou hast dealt well with me, for as much as when
the Lord had delivered me into Thy hand, Thou killest me not.
For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away?
Wherefore, the Lord reward thee good for that thou hast done
unto me this day. And now behold, I know well that
thou shalt surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel shall
be established in thine hand. Swear now therefore unto me by
the Lord, enter covenant with me, he said, that thou will not
cut off my seed after me, that thou will not destroy my name
out of my father's house. And David swear unto Saul. You remember, it was for this
covenant right here that David said, is there any more left
in Saul's hand? And he went and called Mephibosheth. Remember that? For that covenant
right there. And Saul went home, but David
and his men got them up into the hole. David had done nothing to Saul
but serve him. That's all. David had just served
Saul. He'd been faithful to Saul. He'd
served Saul. That's what he'd done. And all
Saul had done is seek to kill David. He'd done nothing but
evil to David. There are numerous times up to
this point he had tried to kill David. He could be off doing
something else, and if he heard where David was, he'd drop whatever
he was doing and gather his men and go after David, just like
he did right here. He just was hunting him, just
wanting to slay him, wanting to kill him. And then when God
delivers Saul to David's hand, there they are in this giant
cave, and Saul comes in there, and there's David and all his
men, I picture them pressed up against the side of the cave,
and there Saul comes in and lays down, David had him. The Lord had said, I'm going
to deliver him into your hand. I mean, David knows God has ordained
him King of Israel and anointed him King of Israel. And he's
going to be the king. And he said, I'm going to deliver
Saul into your hand. This is by providence. If you just judge by providence,
you just discern by providence alone. This looks like this is
it. That's what the man said. Lord has brought him to you now.
Kill him. And David stayed him. He stopped
him. He cut the skirt off Saul's garment. Just doing that, it smote his
heart. This is the Lord's anointing. This is what I love. How can I smite the Lord's anointing? How could I do anything to the
Lord's anointing? This is my King, he said. And
he had mercy on him. He had mercy on him. When will
a sinner rejoice to show mercy like David did? When will you
and I rejoice, be happy, to be merciful to somebody, even when
they've been an enemy to us like Saul had been to David? When
will we be merciful and forgive rather than seek vengeance and
have hard, bitter thoughts and all of those things? When will
we be delighted to be merciful? When God makes us see what great
mercy God has shown us for Christ's sake, that's when we will be
merciful and that's when we will love much. In direct proportion,
you know, we would never say anything like this. We would
never say, well, God didn't have to forgive me too much. We would
never say anything like that. But now listen to me. In direct
proportion to how unforgiving we are, and unmerciful we are,
and unloving we are, We're showing we really believe God didn't
have to forgive us too much. That's really true. Now, where
do you get that, Clay? Because you remember that harlot? That harlot, it was her trade. Sin was her trade. And she came
into the Pharisee's house, and there's all these self-righteous
people around. The Pharisee hadn't even given
Christ, hadn't even washed his feet. He hadn't even given a
kiss. He hadn't done anything. This
woman comes in and breaks open that box of ointment and washed
our Lord's feet. The woman's glory is her hair.
She bent down at his feet. and dried his feet with her hair,
she gave her glory, laid it down at Christ's feet. And the Pharisee said if he knew
what kind of sinner this is, he wouldn't have a thing to do
with her. That Pharisee, he wouldn't have let her near him. And the
Lord said, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. And because of that, she loved
much. That's what he's saying. But
to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. In direct
proportion to how God shows us how much God has forgiven us
for Christ's sake, and continually for Christ's sake. In direct
proportion as He shows us this, That's how much we will love
and forgive one another. You can just bank on that. You
can just bank on that. When we see ourselves as being
the wicked sinner, as we see ourselves as being wicked Saul,
and yet God, for Christ's sake, forgiving us, that's when we'll
do what David did right here. There's going to be times you
won't do that. There's going to be times we got this old man in
us. There's going to be times rear up and hurl something you
shouldn't say and act just ugly. But you know that's why God put
us together. And when somebody does that to
us, you know what that's for? That's for our good. That's to
give us the opportunity to be merciful and to forgive and to
love them. You know, the Lord said the Pharisees
loved those that loved them. What's that? What kind of grace
is that? He said, but love those that
are your enemies. Forgive those that are your enemies. You know what it takes? It takes
God showing us when we're all puffed up like that and thinking
we're somebody. It takes God coming and showing
us again what wicked sinners we are. And how much our Lord
has forgiven us for Christ's sake. That's the stuff of humility. That's what breaks your heart
and makes you say, what a proud ignoramus I am. Brings you to
his feet. We need that too, don't we? We
need that too. When that brother was forgiving
and merciful to us when we were in that state, we needed that
too, because he only did that by God's grace. And the Lord
used that to show us. That adorned the gospel. That
adorned Christ. And we saw Christ in that. This
is what my Lord did for me. Why? What business do I have
being proud of anything? And He brings you down again.
You know, you think about the word long-suffering. The Lord
tells us to be long-suffering. Why? If you're going to be long-suffering,
you're not going to be long-suffering with somebody who's treating
you nicely. You have to be long-suffering with your brethren who are walking
as they ought to and honoring the Lord and being obedient to
the Lord as they ought to. You have to be long-suffering
with them. Who are you long-suffering with? Brethren who sin and fall
and act ugly and do things they shouldn't say and do things they
shouldn't do. Why does he say forgive? Because we're sinners
and we're going to need to be forgiven and we're going to need
to forgive one another. Why does he say be merciful?
We're sinners, we need mercy. We're going to have to show mercy.
All these things the Lord works in are patience, tenderheartedness,
All these things he works in us, he's not just in reciprocation
of somebody that's being good and kind to it, it's when somebody's
not. So, I want to show you first
of all, every sinner has to be made to see we're Saul by nature. We're Saul by nature. Saul was
a wicked sinner and so is every sinner fallen in Adam. We're
all wicked sinners. Get so tired of hearing people
use this old, worn out, the devil don't have any new objections.
He's using the same old objections he's been using from day one.
And men still, you hear folks, well, how could such a good God
let such evil come to pass? The evil's us. The sin's us. The wickedness is us. If it wasn't
for God, if God took his hand off this, we would be in hell. Just let us do what we will.
That's hell. We're the wickedness. We're the
wickedness. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. But now let me show you something
in Romans 7. Go there with me real quick.
Romans 7. Brethren, that's not just what we are. before God
saves us. That's what we are in our sin
nature after God saves us. Romans 7. And this is what we
got to remember here, brethren. Romans 7, verse 18. This is not
to excuse sin. This is not to condone sin. None of this right here is to
give us any reason to say, well, I'm just going to sin that grace
may abound. If God's working in our heart, we don't feel that
way. If God is in your heart, you hate your sin, you want to
be free from your sin, you're longing for that day that you
will be free from your sin. But you're also honest that you
do sin, because you still have a sin nature. And now look at
what Paul said. Here's a regenerated believer,
verse 18. I know that in me, that is in
my flesh, in that part of me that came from Adam, dwelleth
no good thing." That sums it up. For to wills present with
me in the new man, but how to perform that which is good, I
find not. For the good that I would, I
do not. But the evil, the evil which
I would not, that evil I don't want to do, that I do. That I
do. So I had somebody tell me this.
Now Paul didn't mean he actually does that. What other meaning
does it mean, that I do? What else does that mean, that
I do? He says, now if I do that, I
would not. It's no more how they do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me. It's not the new me. It's this
sin nature that dwells in me. And I found in a law, when I
would do good, evil is present with me. In my best works, right
here today, evil, what I'm doing right here, evil's present with
me. What you're doing, evil's present.
We just sing wonderful songs. Evil's present. Not to mention
in the evil things. But listen to this. I delight
in the law of God after the inward man. I want to do everything
God says do. But I see another law of my members
warring against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin, which is in my members. Oh, wretched man
that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. Not
that I was, that I am. I thank God So who's going to
deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus
Christ, our Lord. So in my new man, I serve the
law of God, but this whole sin nature is just going to be a
sinner. That's what it is. If Lord makes
me know that about myself and shows me what mercy He's shown
me, that's what's going to make me be merciful to my brethren.
In this next chapter, You know the story of Nabal. Nabal was
an evil man. David has shown him favor. He
showed him favor. And then when David needed Nabal
to show favor to him, Nabal wouldn't do it. And David took his men
and took off going after Nabal. And he said, I'm going to kill
Nabal and all his people. And he did in his heart. And
now here he is with somebody who's a far worse enemy to him,
and he's being merciful to him. What's the difference there? Right here in our text, this
is the grace of God, restraining David's sin nature and renewing
him inwardly to see what God's done for him, so he's merciful.
Over there with Nabal, that's just the old David. And that's
in you and me, brother. That's you and me. If we do anything
that we ought to do, we have to say we're just a profitable
servant. The glory goes to God. He gets the grace. The sin's
my fault. The sin's your fault. Any good
that God works, God gets the glory. So he has to show us this
and show us that we're sinners. But then, let's see Christ's
mercy toward his people. Let's see this in David. Let's
see mercy in Christ by looking at what David did here. Let's
see a picture of Christ. In verse 4, the men of David
said, Now this is the day the Lord said to thee, Behold, I
will deliver thine enemy into thy hand, that thou may do to
him what shall seem good unto thee. Now, brethren, in eternity,
that's exactly what God the Father did with his elect. He delivered us into the hand
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And our Lord Our
Lord, if you look at everything God did, He blessed us with all
spiritual blessings, He predestinated us unto the adoption of children,
promised to send forth the Spirit of God and regenerate us. All
that presupposes that God knew we was going to fall. Christ
knew we were going to become enemies in our minds by wicked
works and hate Him in our hearts. So you could say God delivered
the enemy into Christ's hand in eternity because Christ knew
what we was going to do. And to do with us what He would.
To do with us what He would. And our Lord Jesus Christ has
done nothing but show us mercy. Love. Not because of anything
in us. He entered into covenant with
the Father to lay down His life for His people. Knowing what
he'd have to suffer, knowing that he'd have to go to that
cross, knowing he'd have to shed his blood for without the remission
of sin there, without the shedding of blood, there's no remission
of sin. He knew he'd have to do that. And he did it. He entered
into covenant. He entered into covenant. The
Father judges no man. He's committed all judgment to
the Son to do with us what he would. When we fell in Adam,
Christ all-knowing eye knew the whole thing. He saw the sin.
He saw our sin. He saw Adam's entire race plunged
into sin and death. He saw it, including all those
he entered covenant to save. Our Lord knew it. And that's our Lord Jesus, the
mediator, the one mediator between the fallen sinner and man. That's
him that came in that garden and said, Adam, where are you?
He didn't come to kill Him. He didn't come to slay Him. He came to have mercy on Him.
He came to have mercy on Him. God, when He chose Christ, and
He chose His people in Christ, from the foundation of the world,
He anointed the Lord Jesus as the prophet, priest, and king.
And by choosing us in Him, He anointed us, His people. Now in time, He predestinated
us to be anointed by the Spirit of God and gave us that option.
But from eternity, we've been anointed in Christ. And our Lord
Jesus, when He saw us fallen, when He saw us in our sin, all
the days in our rebellion when we came forth unregenerate sinners
and we were cussing God and hating God in our hearts, even now that
we're believers and we still sin against our Lord, Our Lord
does just what David did right here. He stays the whole heavenly
host. He stays the wrath. He stays
every enemy. He stays the good angels and
the wicked angels and says, touch not mine anointing. Do them no
harm. They're mine. Don't touch them. They're mine. How can I touch
these? They're my anointing. Our Lord is constantly keeping
His people, constantly protecting us, constantly showing us mercy,
even when we didn't know He was showing us mercy. Even now, we
don't see the mercy, and He's still showing us mercy, showing
us mercy. But instead of Him saying, here
they are, here they are, They're delivered into your hand. Do
with them what you will. Think of how many times when
he walked this earth, and men opposed him. He stood there after
that Feast of Tabernacles in John 8, and he said, you seek
to kill me. He looked the men in the face
and said, I know your heart. You're seeking to kill me. My
word has no place in you. He could have done with them
what he would. He didn't even stretch his hand against them,
and they weren't his. But to his people, he didn't
do that. Instead, you know what he did?
He went to Calvary's cross. He took all the sin. Oh, my brother sinned against
me so much. He took all that sin. Oh, I've sinned against the Lord.
So he took all that sin. Well, I can't believe they did
that to me. I can't believe they did that. They shouldn't have
treated me that way. I'm going to do this to them.
I don't care. This is right to do to them.
They shouldn't have done me that way. He took all that sin. All our bitterness, all our wrath,
all our malice, all our envy, all our jealousy, all our sins
of commission, all our sins of omission, all our sin. He took them all. And instead
of saying, reaching forth his hand and smiting us, he said
to the Father, stretch forth thy hand and smite me. Stretch
forth thy hand and smite me. Smite the shepherd. God plunged
the sword of justice into his son in place of his people. Well, how are we going to find
out about this? And what's it going to make us
do? Well, verse 4 says, then David arose and cut off the skirt
of Saul's robe. Did it very privately. Now, David
cut the skirt off of Saul's garment. Because he's going to show Saul
that he could have killed him. That's what he's going to do.
And in time, our Lord's going to come reveal himself to us,
and he's going to make us know we're in his hand. He's going
to make you know he could have done with you whatever he would.
Whatever he would. And he's going to come to us
the way he came to sinners when he walked this earth. Now, we
get this notion, especially self-righteous religious folks get this notion
that the way you effect obedience to people is to just be real
hard and stern and just let them have it. That's not how the Lord
brought you to repentance. That's not how the Lord brings
his people to repentance. It's the goodness of God that
brings you to repentance. You think about every place our
Lord walked in this earth, Sinners were scared to death to go around
the Pharisees. They were scared to death to
do the wrong thing around the Pharisees. That mother and that
father whose son had been born blind, who Christ gave sight,
when they brought their own son to them and said, is this your
son? Has he received his sight? They
said, he's of age. Let him answer for himself. Why?
They were afraid of the Pharisees. But sinners, real sinners, harlots
and publicans and sinners, you know what they did? They came
to our Lord Jesus Christ because He made them comfortable to come
to Him. He was meek and lowly and received
them and didn't act like... He's righteousness. He's God
of glory. Why do men act so holy and pious? They're trying to prove to you
they're holy and pious. If you're holy and righteous,
you don't have to act like it. In fact, if you're holy and righteous,
you won't act like it. Because that's just, humility
is a paradox to a proud man. He don't know what it is. Self-righteousness,
the very nature of self-righteousness is not to examine itself. And
our Lord, though, he's meek and lowly, and he came, David comes
to Saul. How'd he come to him? He came
and bowed down to Saul. Now I'm not saying our Lord Jesus
comes and bows down to us. He doesn't do that. But He comes
to us in that spirit. He comes meek and lowly and kind
and gracious to us and lets you know He's not coming to chop
your head off. He's coming to have mercy on
you. And when He makes you see that in spite of you, you know
what grace is? Barnard said grace is God saving
us in spite of us. Despite us. That's what grace
is. And when He comes and makes you
see all your sin and all that you've done and yet He has laid
down His life for you and He's come to you in this kind and
gentle merciful spirit to let you know about it and show you
what He's done for you. I'm going to tell you something. That will break your heart. Saul
here is a proud, hard, unregenerate sinner. And when David came to
him that way, it broke Saul's heart. Saul didn't repent now.
I'm not saying he did. But just in a natural way, he
still wept. It broke his heart. Our Savior
does that to us, and He comes to us that way, and He shows
you, I didn't kill you. You've been imagining that I'm
your enemy. You've been hearing voices and thinking I'm against
you, and hearing your friends and your comrades say that God's
against us. And He comes to you and He says,
I'm not against you. I come to save you. I come to
have mercy on you. And yet all you've ever done
is hunt my soul to kill it. That's what David said to Saul. I'm just being good to you and
you just hunt me to kill me. Christ's going to make us know
that. He's going to make you know that. And He's going to
show you all this great mercy He's having upon you in perfect
harmony with His justice. Justice is satisfying. He took
care of that. So he doesn't come to us in justice.
He doesn't come to us. Yes, he does come to us in justice
because it's the just thing to have mercy on us. Justice is
the friend of his people. He comes to save you because
he has satisfied his justice. And if we could just get that
about one another. You know what the just thing
to do is? For if that one just has any glimmer of repentance. If there's just a flash of repentance
and a broken heartedness and they've said, please have mercy
on me. I need forgiveness. Do you know
what the just thing to do is? The only just thing to do is
be merciful and forgive. A soft answer turns away wrath.
When our Lord When our Lord comes to you this way, you see what,
you say, Saul said, Saul was saying, well, you've been right,
more righteous than me this time. That's what Saul was saying.
But when he comes to you, Christ comes to you, he makes you say,
you are my righteousness. I am the sinner. I'm the dead
dog. I'm the flea. And you've been
so merciful to me. You are indeed the King. And
just like Saul said, will you enter a covenant with me? Our
Lord comes to us and says, I'm making with you an everlasting
covenant. I'm never going to do you harm.
I'm going to save you. And I'm going to tell you something
that makes you fall down and worship him. That makes you worship
him. That's how he turns you when
you're sinning. That's how he, he breaks some
some power of the canceled sin that he's conquered. That's how
he breaks it. He's showing you his mercy towards
you. And that's how he works this amongst us. He's going to
use you to be merciful and loving to a brother, and that's what's
going to break their heart. We can be hard, and we preach
against works. We preach against self-righteous
works and legalism. But that's exactly what we're
doing when we're trying to force somebody into compliance and
constrain them to do something we won't think they ought to
do. And you know why we're doing that? Paul said it in Galatians.
He said, so we can glory in what we made them do. That's what
the Pharisees did. They constrain you to be circumcised
so they can glory in your flesh. But the thing to do is glory
in the cross of Christ. What do we speak to one another? Come alongside of one another.
You know what it means when the scripture says, confess your faults to
one another? James, I'm going to tell you
about this epistle of James. If you read the first verse and
the last verse, the first verse starts talking about trials.
The last verse talks about if you convert a believer from the
error of his way, you cover much sin. From the beginning to the
end, that's what he's talking about all the way through. The
trial of a brother that has sinned and what you to do to help that
brother be converted from his sin. How did he save us? He begat us with the word of
truth. Speak the gospel. Be swift to hear, slow to speak,
slow to rap. Visit the widow and the orphan,
the most helpless, that helpless brother in need. Visit them with
the gospel. He said, don't have a respective
person. Don't think, well, I'm righteous. They've sinned. This
brother's righteous. They've sinned. I'm going to
be with him, but I'm not going to have nothing to do with this
one that's sinned. That's no different than a rich man coming in, and
you're telling him to sit here, and the poor man to sit back
there. Faith has works with it. What
are they? They're works that believe, like Abraham, that God's
able to raise my brother from the dead. Be not many masters. Don't speak blessing and cursing
with the same tongue. What's that? That's getting up
here and reading a scripture that we know in our heart we're
trying to condemn somebody with it, but it's all true. It's the Lord's Word. That's
blessing and cursing with the same tongue. He said, when we're
not merciful to one another, we're not doers of the law. Christ's law is love one another. Believe me and love one another.
We're not doing that when we're not merciful to one another.
We're being judges of that law. We're saying, we don't really
think that's a really good law, Lord. We think we should really
take this in our own hands and do this or that. One lawgiver, that's Christ. All through that epistle, that's
what he's showing us, brethren. All through that epistle, he's
showing us. It's the Lord's mercy. It's his grace to us. It's the
gospel that saved us in the first hour. Oh, we make it so difficult. We make it so complicated. All
we need to speak to one another is just remind each other what
Christ has done for us. And you know, before we can ever
do that for somebody else, we have to be taught what David
was shown here. I'm Saul. I'm the sinner. Christ is the Savior who showed
me mercy. And when he's brought your flesh
down and strengthened your inner man to rejoice in mercy, that's
the only time we're spiritual. That's the only time that we
can walk in the spirit and really be edifying to our brethren and
help one another. If you're not in that spirit,
You can't help them. You're going to hurt them. Because
that flesh is going to come out. We have to be broken. We have
to be brought down. And it's only by His mercy. We've
got to have this gospel. I'm the sinner. I am the sinner. I'm Saul. That's me. That's all my flesh is. But by
grace, there's a new man, but I need the Lord's mercy, keeping
me, keeping that new man strengthened constantly and subduing that
wicked soul, keeping him down. And I'll say this, brethren,
if I fall away, I got enemies in this world.
There's people who think that I'm just a wicked sinner and
a reprobate, whatever. Well, let me say this. If I fall
away, Knowing what I know about myself, I'll be less surprised
than my enemies will be. My enemies will say, oh, we knew
he'd fall. I'd be less surprised about it than they would. Because
if God don't keep me, I'll fall away. And I got one hope, one
hope. He's shown me just enough of
what I am to know this. I got one hope. That's Christ. God help us to remember that
about each other. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired of trouble. I'm tired of strife, division. It's life short. It's too short
for that. Too short for that. I want to
love my brethren. And I need to be loved. In spite
of me, I need to be loved. And I want to love my brethren
in spite of my brethren. I say, my brethren are a whole
lot more lovable than I am. I want to love. Don't you? Lord,
help us to love one another. Amen.