Verse 15 2nd Samuel 16 15 We're going to cover quite a
bit of quite a bit of scripture tonight And Absalom and all the
people the men of Israel came to Jerusalem and a hidden fell
With him. I'll just remind you as we go
kind of who of course Absalom is David's son who has mannered
a rebellion against David in his throne exiled David from
Jerusalem. Ahithophel was David's very close
and good counselor who has now abandoned David and we find out
in the scripture that Ahithophel was Bathsheba's grandfather and
of course that may have something to do with why he wasn't real
happy with David at the time. But then in verse 16 it came
to pass when Hushai the archite, David's friend Was come unto
Absalom that Hushai said unto Absalom, God save the king God
save the king Now Hushai still is David's friend and if you'll
remember in chapter 15 verses 32 through 37 David conspired
with Hushai. He said you go back to Jerusalem
and you befriend yourself to Absalom and and see what you
can find out and send word to me so I'll know what's going
on so I can make the moves I need to make. Sounds like just common
sense. So Hushai does go back to Jerusalem
and that's where he's at now. And Hushai says God saved the
king, God saved the king. He didn't say save king Absalom. He says God saved the king. He
may have been thinking David. Pretty sure he was. And Absalom
said to Hushah, is this thy kindness to thy friend? Why wentest thou
not with thy friend? He knows that he's friends with
David and he's suspicious about his intentions here. Verse 18,
and Hushah said unto Absalom, Nay, but whom the Lord and this
people and all the men of Israel choose, his will I be. And with
him will I abide. And again, whom should I serve?
Should I not serve in the presence of his son as I have served in
thy father's presence? So will I be in thy presence."
So here we have Hushah again having conspired with David to
deceive Absalom. He's ingratiating himself to
Absalom for the purpose of undermining Absalom's rebellion against David
and also to report back to David what was happening in Jerusalem.
So Absalom, think about this now. He had gotten where he is
now, and I'm sure he's feeling pretty good about himself. His
father David has had to leave Jerusalem. He's got a good army
of men with him. He probably feels pretty good
about the rebellion that he's been able to mount at this point. He feels pretty good about being
king from then on. But he had gotten there by deceit. by dishonesty, by treachery,
and now he's the victim of the same tactics that he used against
David in stealing the hearts of the people. Remember he told
David he was going down to Hebron to keep a vow that he had vowed
unto the Lord. He put religious pretense on
it. When he was actually going to
Hebron to plant the seeds of this rebellion that's now in
full effect and seems, to him at least, to be succeeding. But
now, also by lies and false intentions and treachery, the same way in
which Absalom had been successful in his evil purposes so far,
now he's the one being deceived. He's the one playing the fool.
He's going to look like an idiot for trusting Hushai. He doesn't
know that yet, but he's going to look like an idiot. He's being betrayed, and this
is the Lord's promise. Listen to it in Proverbs 129.
For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of
the Lord, Absalom chose to rebel against God's king and God's
authority. They would none of my counsel,
they despised all of my reproof, therefore shall they eat of the
fruit of their own way. and be filled with their own
devices. You live by the sword. You die
by the sword. You live by lies and deceit and
treachery and dishonesty and betrayal. It comes back. This is what the world calls
karma, or at least a lot of people do. I've heard that a lot. What
goes around comes around. It's not karma. It's God. Now is Hushai, is it wrong for
him to be dishonest here? I would say yes. Is it sneaky
and you know even though he's doing it for a good cause does
the end justify the means? No. They could have just waited
on God. David often had done that just
let the the most horrible things happen and we'll just see what
God does anyway. But this is what God used in this case to
accomplish his purposes. So 2 Samuel Let's look at verse 20 where
we left off. And then said Absalom to Ahithophel,
give counsel among you what we shall do. So here's the counselor
that had betrayed David. And Absalom is saying, of course,
as we've seen, Ahitophel's counsel was highly, highly valued. And so he's saying now, okay,
here we are. David's running, he's got a few ragtag followers
with him, but we've got the army, we've got the people of Israel
with us. What's our next step? And he asks Ahitophel what to
do next. And Ahitophel said unto Absalom, go in unto thy father's
concubines, which he hath left to keep the house, and all Israel
shall hear that thou art abhorred of thy father. Then shall the
hands of all that are with thee be strong. So they spread Absalom
a tent upon the top of the house, and Absalom went in unto his
father's concubines in the sight of all Israel. And the counsel
of Ahithophel, which he counseled in those days, was as if a man
had inquired at the oracle of God. So was all the counsel of
Ahithophel, both with David and with Absalom. And this is, of
course, the Lord bringing the shame upon David that he promised
he would. In 2 Samuel 12, 11, he said,
your own household will rise up against you, and your neighbor will lay with your wives in the
sight of this son, is the way he put it. Absalom did this thing
in the sight of all Israel we also have in verse 23 here This
is a setting up of the fact that even the wisest counsel of men
The wisest this is somebody that people Whatever he said was like
gold. It was it was like God himself
was speaking and But God turns even the wisest counsel of men
to his own purpose. He'll turn it into foolishness
if that's what he's pleased to do. And think about this for
a second. What's gonna be the result of
all of this scheming and counseling and advice and conflicting wills
and the workings of men? How's it all gonna shake up? Well, David as David is gonna
be saved. It looks bad for him now. It
looks like he's going to be killed. Not going to happen. David's
going to be saved. And David as Christ is going
to be exalted. That's what's going to happen
in the end of everything. That's the point. God manipulates
all of the wills, the counsels, the schemes, the purposes, the
actions, the circumstances of men. And in the end of it all,
that's going to be the result. His people are going to be saved
and his son is going to be exalted. And so that's what we see here.
This is what's God doing in this whole world all of the time,
saving his elect and exalting his son. How does he do that? How does God do that? Listen,
here in this text, the way God accomplished that was by turning
wise counsel into foolishness. How is he going to spiritually
accomplish that in this world in a spiritual sense now? First
Corinthians 118, for the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the
power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise. In our text, God saved his child
and exalted his king by turning the wisdom of the wise into foolishness. And that's how he's going to
accomplish it in this whole world, throughout all the history and
future of time. By destroying the wisdom of the
wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So now we've
come to the beginning of chapter 17, and we'll read the first
14 verses of chapter 17. And we'll see this, what we just
said, played out in more detail. Moreover, Ahithophel said unto
Absalom, let me now choose out 12,000 men, and I will arise
and pursue after David this night. Let's just get this over with.
Let's strike while the iron is hot. And I will come upon him
while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid. And
all the people that are with him shall flee, and I will smite
the king only. And I will bring back all the
people unto thee. The man whom thou seekest is
as if all returned. So all the people. shall be in
peace. And the same pleased Absalom
well. That sounds like good advice.
And all the elders of Israel, they're all nodding and saying,
yeah, I mean, let's do this. He's on the run. And he's, you
know, he don't have that many with him anyway. And they're
discouraged. And David is down. He's been like a zombie for a
while anyway. You know, we've seen that in
the study. He's so depressed and so just
heartbroken over everything that's happened and over his own sinfulness
and bringing all this upon himself. And they know that. They know
that now is the time, you know. So they all agree. And then Absalom
said, Call now Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear likewise
what he saith. Why did he do that? Nobody ever
said Hushai the Archite was as the counsel of God. They already
had advice from the guy that everybody looked up to and everybody
respected. And they all agreed with it.
And yet, Something in Absalom's mind and heart said, let's hear
what Hushai has to say. And there's the beginning of
it right there. Has anything ever happened in
your life and you wonder why in the world did they do that?
And then you found out later it was because of God. Whether you found
out it was or not it was anyway. But sometimes it's just obvious,
isn't it? When you look back on it, God did that. They didn't
even know what they were doing. He don't even know. You ask him,
why did you ask? Who shot? I don't know. Not sure. Just seemed like a
good idea at the time. Yeah. Let's hear what he says. And
when Hushai was come to Absalom, Absalom spake unto him, saying,
Ahithophel hath spoken after this manner. Shall we do after
his say? If not, speak thou. And Hushai said unto Absalom,
the counsel that Ahithophel hath given is not good at this time. He said that because it was good
counsel. And he don't want David in trouble.
He knows this is going to work. And so I'm not going to say this
is good. For said Hushai, thou knowest
thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they
be chafed in their minds as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field.
And thy father is a man of war and will not lodge with the people.
See, he's blowing all kinds of holes. He said, you know, it
looks like you may think David's discouraged and beaten and tired
and whooped. And, you know, Ahithophel said
he's weary handed and now's the time. Hushai said, he's mad. That's what he is. This is, you
don't want to mess with him right now. So, and then also, they
were saying, he's saying here, he's not going to lodge with
you. You're not even going to know where he's at. You're going to come up on
the people. What are you going to do, kill all them? You're
not, they're not going to tell you where David is. Behold, he is hid now in
some pit, verse nine, or in some other place. And it will come
to pass when some of them be overthrown at the first, that
whosoever heareth it will say, there is a slaughter among the
people that follow Absalom. And he also that is valiant,
whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt. For
all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they which
be with him are valiant men. Therefore I counsel that all
Israel be generally gathered unto thee from Dan even to Beersheba
as the sand is by the sea for multitude and That thou go to
battle in thine own person So shall we come upon him in some
place where he shall be found. Let's wait till we know where
he's at Let's let's gather a bigger wait till we have such an overwhelming
army gathered that there's no way we need to be sure about
this Be careful. Don't don't be hasty And all
of this is given David time. And we will light upon him as
the dew falleth on the ground, last part of verse 12, and of
him and of all the men that are with him there shall not be left
so much as one. Moreover, if he be gotten into
a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city and
we will draw it into the river until there be not one small
stone found there. You see, right now you don't
have a, you haven't had a time to organize all of the army that
you could have. And what if he's gone into a
city? What if he's got some help? We're going to need those extra
men. So all of this kind of made sense too, but he's just buying
time for David. That's all he's doing. If they
go after him now, there's a good chance they'll be successful.
And Hushai knows that. And Absalom and all the men of
Israel said, the counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the
counsel of Ahithophel. Well, wait a minute. Here's why.
For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel. There wasn't nothing wrong with
Ahithophel's counsel. The only thing wrong with it is God was
against it. If God be for you, who's going
to be against you? And let me ask you this too.
If God be against you, where are you going to find some help? To the intent that the Lord might
bring evil upon Absalom. God is going to defeat all of
our enemies. He does it as we just read by defeating the counsel
of this world and giving better counsel. Counsel that will accomplish
his purposes. It may not have made sense in
the affairs of men. It might have been smarter to
do what Ahitophel said as far as the affairs of men are concerned.
But in the purpose of God now, this is the counsel that shall
stand. What he has ordained. The first thing that's evident
here is the absolute sovereignty of God. He runs everybody and
He runs everything. Now that's comforting if you
love God. If you don't love God, that's the most horrible thing
I could have said. If you've got a problem with God, you don't
want Him running everything. And most people don't. That's
the problem they have with Him. They don't mind Him saving them
and blessing them. They just don't want Him running
things. The problem is He does. He always has and He always will.
The absolute sovereignty of God. Listen to some Scripture. Proverbs
19, 20. And listen, you might notice that I'm not even going
to read the Scripture that I normally would go to in talking about
the sovereignty of God. And I did this deliberately because
there's Scripture all over. The whole book teaches this.
In the stories, in the parables, In everything, Proverbs 19, 20,
listen to this. Hear counsel and receive instruction,
that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. It's good to hear
good counsel, counsel from God, counsel from somebody that loves
you and loves God. Hear counsel, that's good, that's
wise. But listen to this, verse 21, the next verse. There are
many devices in a man's heart. Nevertheless, the counsel of
the Lord, that shall stand. You see that in our text? There
are many devices. You know, Husha had an agenda.
Absalom had an agenda. Ziba had an agenda. Everybody
had an agenda. But what God says is gonna go.
Is that all right with you? Proverbs 20, 24, man's goings
are of the Lord. Man's goings are of the Lord. How can a man then understand
his own way? Whoosh, I wouldn't have even
understood why he did that if you confronted him with it. Why
did I do that? Why in the world have I done
all the things that I've done throughout my life? Because the
Lord was bringing me right here. Right here. Right now. And this, now, is him bringing
us to himself. Listen to Proverbs 16.1. The
preparations of the heart in man. My heart, I'm thinking about
something. I'm making some plans. I'm determining
some things. I've got some goals. And the
answer of the tongue is from the Lord. It's from the Lord. Proverbs 16.9. We have seen this one, I think,
not too long ago. A man's heart deviseth his way,
but the Lord directeth his steps. I'm gonna go over there. Well,
we'll see, won't we? Are my steps gonna go there?
I don't know, they may go there. Depends on what the Lord has
determined, what's gonna glorify him. Listen is I gotta have you
turn to Isaiah 14 you got to look at this with me. This is
such a blessing Isaiah 14 24 Isaiah 14 24 look at this scripture
man. I don't think I've ever It's
been a long time so of course we've studied through this I
guess I It's been a while. We've been in Isaiah a long time,
haven't we? We're in Isaiah 53 now. That was a lot of chapters
ago. But listen to Isaiah 14, 24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn,
saying, Surely I have thought, so shall it come to pass. Remember
what Job said about him? I know now that thou canst do
anything and that no thought of thine can be hindered. No thought of thine. As I have
thought, so shall it come to pass. And as I have purposed,
so shall it stand. Here's what I'm going to do.
That I will break the Assyrian in my land and upon my mountains
tread him underfoot. Those Assyrians are walking on
my mountains. And here's what I'm going to
do to them. Then shall his yoke depart from
off them and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This
is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth. God ain't
just gonna do this to the Assyrians. He's gonna do this to you too.
He's going to determine everything you do, and everything you say,
and every step you take, and every thought you think. He's
going to determine it, and He's going to bring it to pass. Boy,
it sounds like puppet. We're just puppets, it sounds
like, in your way of thinking. It ain't my way of thinking,
it's the Word of God. And it ain't a matter of whether you're
a puppet or not, it's just a matter of whose puppet you are. If you're
not God's, then the scripture says the devil You're held captive
by him at his will, not your will. Your will is not free. The question is, whose puppet
are you? This is the purpose that is purposed
upon the whole earth, and this is the hand, that omnipotent,
almighty, sovereign hand that's stretched out upon all the nations,
not just the Assyrians. Every one of them, for the Lord
of hosts hath purposed. And who's going to disannul it?
And his hand is stretched out, and who's going to turn it back?
None can stay thy hand, or even say unto you, what are you doing?
You don't have the right to even question God. You're not going
to change his mind. He is of one mind, and who can
turn him? who in their right mind would
turn Him, would change the purpose of Him, who knows everything,
and is all wise, and is good. He doeth all things well. Well, there's a lot to that,
isn't there? People say, we talk about prayer. Prayer doesn't
change God's mind. And people say, well what's the
point of praying if it don't? Why in the world would you want to
change God's mind? Do you realize who He is? Absalom is going to learn this
the hard way. Have we learned this? Whatever way. I want to learn
this. Whatever way. It takes. God is God and we're not. That seems real simple, doesn't
it? Not very many people know that. Very, very few. Also in this passage we see the
spiritual picture again of God's salvation. God saved you just
like he saved David by turning that which was wisdom to men,
to you, into foolishness. Ahithophel's counsel was as the
oracles of God to people. And that was the way it was with
you. The enemies of God seemed to be speaking for God. It sounds
like it, don't they? They say they are. They use the word God in heaven
and hell and Jesus and all the... They preach from the same Bible
we do, some of them. But then God conspired to save
you. And what did he do? That counsel
has got to be overturned, doesn't it? How did he save you? He sent another counselor. He
sent Hushai. What comes out of Hushai's mouth
is the purpose of God. The truth of God. This is what's
going to happen. It's not going to happen the
way Ahithophel said it should. That might have been success
for Absalom. But God had already purposed
to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel that he might bring evil upon
Absalom. So God sent you a counselor with
different counsel. And you said, this is better. That's how he saved you if he
did. You said, this is better. And you don't even know why you
said that, do you? Yeah, you do now. Because God had purposed
to the intent. Did you notice that word intent?
That's the title of our message. The intent of the Lord. Whatever
the intent of the Lord is, that's what's going to happen. That's
what's gonna happen. It didn't have anything to do
with human reasoning, really. Not that the truth isn't reasonable,
it is. But it's not to the lost. 1 Corinthians
1.18, the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
But unto us which are saved is the power of God. The preaching
that Christ actually accomplished salvation on Calvary. That's
what we preach. He didn't come to try to save
anybody. He came to save. His name shall be called Jesus
for he shall save. And the way he did that was by
shedding his precious blood for their sins. That preaching is
foolishness to the lost because it makes man hopelessly sinful
and helplessly hanging on the mercy of God. It shows, the preaching
of the cross shows that salvation is not up to you. It's up to
Him. And He accomplished it for all
He purposed to save and came to save. That's what the preaching
of the cross declares and that's foolishness to people. They're willfully ignorant of
it because they despise that sovereign Christ. The preaching
of the cross quite simply declares with great clarity and power
that salvation is of the Lord. And one day, God turned the counsel
of Ahithophel, the counsel of his enemies, the counsel of false
religion, into foolishness for you and by the counsel of God. Not as the counsel of God. Remember where it said there,
about Ahithophel that his counsel was as if, it was as though he
was an oracle of God. False religion is as the oracle
of God. It's kind of like it. Paul wrote
in 2 Timothy 3.5, they have a form of godliness, but deny the power,
they deny the authority thereof, they deny the sovereignty of
God from such turn away. You need better counsel and you're
going to get it if God's going to save you. It says in Matthew
24, 24, there shall arise false Christ and false prophets and
shall show great signs and wonders in so much that if it were possible,
they shall deceive the very elect. His counsel was against the purpose
of God, but it was as, as if he was the Oracle of God. That's
how it is with false religion. A lot of people mistake it for
that, for the word of God. But it's not. It's kind of like
it. But we need to hear from God
himself. That's what we need. Accept no substitutes for the
gospel of Christ. Paul said, let him be a curse
which preaches another gospel, which is not another. There is
no other. They just are passing it off
as another gospel, as a gospel. It's not good news to sinners
to say, you know, God's taken most of the steps and you just
need to take one. That's not too much good news for a lame
man, is it? You just got to take one step.
Wow, I'm lame. He'll meet you halfway, but I'm
dead. That's a problem for me. That's
not good news for me. I need somebody as the Good Samaritan
says, he came where he was. That's what my Savior did for
me. How about you? Paul said, though we are an angel
from heaven preaching any other gospel unto you, than that which
we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. It doesn't matter
how close it is. So God overrules the counsel
of this world. And what a wonderful thing, how
he does it. We read it a while ago, how he
does this. Listen to it. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? He's
overturned the counsel of Ahithophel for his people. For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world, by wisdom, knew not God. By their wise counsel
and counselors, they didn't know God. That's what Paul said. They
have a form of godliness, but it's not according to knowledge. They don't know God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching. to save them that believe. And what's the result? Just like
in the picture in our text. His elect is saved and his king
is on the throne. His son is exalted. David as
God's sheep is saved from death. Just like God said it. He said
you're not going to die. You think David thought about that
promise as he's fleeing for his life? God said, you won't die. Well, he knew he was going to
have to die sometime, right? God was talking about a whole
lot more than dying on the battlefield. He that liveth and believeth
in me shall never die, the Lord said. Never die. I believe he thought about that
a little bit. and took comfort in that, because he kept saying,
whatever the Lord does, didn't he? All along the way, whatever
the Lord does, if he's pleased to bring me back, then I'll come
back. When you know, when you know
where you are and you know who God is, you can, you can cast
yourself upon his mercy, can't you? Without reservation. Without
reservation. As God's sheep, he is saved from
death. And as God's Christ, as he pictures God's Christ, he
is enthroned again and honored as King of God's people. That's
what's going to happen in the end of this world. And in closing,
I want us to see the importance of this in David's prayer. We've
kind of forgotten about this. Let me call it to our attention
again. God making what used to be as
the Word of God to us to be foolish. We used to think, you know, that
when they said, oh, God's trying to save you and God loves everybody
and he wants to save, we used to think, well, you know, that's
the word of God. We didn't know any better. But God turned that
into foolishness and gave us better counsel. And him doing
that is paramount. It's vital. That's what's got
to happen. He didn't pray. David prayed
for one thing in this, you remember? Oh Lord, turn the counsel of
Ahithophel into foolishness. When he heard that Ahithophel
had abandoned him, that Ahithophel had betrayed him, and now he's
counseling Absalom, he said, Oh Lord, turn the counsel of Ahithophel
into foolishness. Everything hinged upon that. That's how David gets his throne
back. That's how David is saved from
sure death. That's how everything succeeds.
By God saying yes to that one prayer, right there. Isn't that
amazing? And you think about that. I believe
we see this in the scriptures. It was there in 2 Samuel 15,
31. David didn't pray, Lord, kill Absalom. He didn't say,
kill Ahithophel. Here's what he said, and I believe
this is significant, this is gospel, beautiful gospel truth
here. And one told David, saying, Ahithophel
is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O Lord,
I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. That was what victory depended
on right there. You might think, well, of all
the things he could have prayed, you know, that seems like kind
of a strange, That was what that was what wanted
for him right there So turn with me to John 17 and let's see this
in the scripture Listen to the way that our Lord
prayed for us John 17 6 look at we'll start
with verse 6. I have manifested thy name Unto
the men which thou gave this is the Lord Jesus Christ praying
to his father interceding for his people I've manifested thy
name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world, thine
they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word."
I want you to notice the word word in this text. They've kept
your word. I've manifested thy name. How
did he do that? By the word. He didn't give them visions in
the night. He spoke. He spoke for God. And they've
kept your word. Verse seven, now they have known
that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee, for
I have given unto them the words. That's how they know what they
know. Do we know that tonight? Do we know that the Lord Jesus
Christ is all to the Father and all to the sinner? Because I've
manifested, I gave them the words that you gave me. And they have received them,
and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have
believed that thou didst send me. They believe I'm the Christ
of God. That's what Simon said, you're
the Christ, you're the son of the living God. How did he get
that? Flesh and blood didn't reveal it. My father revealed
it unto you. How did God reveal it to him?
Through the words of Christ. Thou hast the words of eternal
life. Verse 9, I pray for them, I pray
not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for
they are thine, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine,
and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world,
but these are in the world, and I come to thee. I come to thee, Holy Father,
keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me that
they may be one as we are. Keep them. How's he gonna do
that? Keep reading. While I was with
them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou
gavest me I have kept and none of them is lost but the son of
perdition that the scriptures might be fulfilled. And now come
I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might
have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word, and
the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world." That's why we're here right now. but that thou shouldest keep
them from the evil. How's he gonna keep us now? They
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify
them, set them apart. Through thy truth, thy word is
truth. So in the context of that passage,
Thy word. I gave them your word. They believed
your word. They received your word. Keep them by your word.
Sanctify them by your word. So when he says, keep them from
the evil, what do you think he's talking about? You think Satan
is going to swoop down here with a flaming pitchfork or something
and attack you? No. He's talking about lies. He's talking about a false gospel.
He's talking about the counsel of Ahitophel. He's talking about
the word that's kind of like the oracle of God, but not. Keep them from the evil. Isn't
that clear in the context of what he's saying right there?
Keep them from the evil. How did evil come in the garden?
You doubt what I'm saying? How did evil come? In what form
did evil come in the garden? Hath God said? Did God say that? Here's what he meant. Keep them from the evil. Well,
I'm glad he prayed that, aren't you? I'm glad he prayed that. How precious to us is the counsel
of God concerning his son. And listen to Colossians 121,
and you that were at one time alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body
of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable
and unreprovable in his sight, if you continue in the faith. Grounded and settled and be not
moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard Is
that what our Lord was praying in John's don't be moved. Don't
be moved away from the gospel. You've heard Which was preached to every creature
which is under heaven whereof I Paul and made a minister And if we continue If we do continue
in the faith and are not removed from the hope of the gospel which
we've heard, why won't we be? Keep them from the evil. Keep
them from the evil. Sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth. Thank God for the gospel of Christ. And so we're kept. He prayed
it now. If you're his, you're kept. Kept
by the power of God through faith. What's faith? Abraham believed
God. Faith is just believing God.
Not believing in God, it's believing God. Through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. It's good to be kept, isn't
it? Let's pray. Thank you, Lord,
for your precious, precious word. Again, Lord,