How is everybody today? Did you all wake up singing Neil Diamonds September Morn this morning? I had that running through my head a couple times this week. We sang All Hail the Power of Jesus Name, and I thought, Now thats a great way to start every day. Then I realized that the week before Neil had snuck Just as I Am in there for one of the songs; and I thought, Now thats the song you sing when you wake up in the morning and you work at home, Just as I Am, right? On this beautiful September morning, I want you to turn in your Bibles to James 4 (page 1198 of pew Bibles). Were continuing the series of The Gospel According to Jim. Were talking about when you judge. James 4:11-12: we can read together, and it will also be put up here on the screen. Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. Theres only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy, but you-who are you to judge your neighbor? Just before we jump into the message, why dont you bow and ask God to teach you this, to challenge you, and to help you grow. Father, thank You so much for this time to come and hear Your Word and share our faith and worship You. I pray that You would speak to us, challenge us, and help us grow this morning. Thank You for the opportunity to be in Your house, and I thank You that we can pray because of Jesus, Amen. Lets take a judgment test, shall we? This Passage talks about judging. Let me throw a couple scenarios out there. Lets say youre driving down I90 here. You see a car in front of you weaving all over the road. Its later at night, and you watch as he cant stay in one lane. What are you thinking? Drunk driver or maybe its somebody texting, right? Hopefully its not that. By the way, texting is about equivalent to driving drunk, so I hope you dont do that either. It may be that youre wrong. Maybe the person is having a heart attack; maybe he is having an asthma attack. Probably, yes, the majority of the time, you would be right to say, Hey, that person is drunk, and I need to call the state patrol; but youre not always sure. Thats why Solomon said, Make sure that you get all the facts before you make a decision or make a judgment. Lets say this: youre walking through the supermarket over here at Woodmans. Youre buying groceries for the week. You turn the corner, and there is someone in the middle of the aisle who weighs somewhere between 350 and 400 pounds. You look at his shopping cart, and it has a big decorated cake. It has three or four dozen donuts and three or four gallons of ice cream. You look at her, and what are you tempted to think in your head? Its no wonder shes that big. Its no wonder she weighs so much. Well, what if youre wrong? What if she used to weigh 650 pounds, and in the last year and a half, he/she has gotten into an exercise program. She has gone on a diet, and with medical supervision, she has lost 250 pounds and is feeling better than she has in a long time. Her life is really coming together. Maybe she has the cake, the donuts, and the ice cream because her brother asked her to buy all that stuff for her nephews birthday party. Shes trying to help somebody out. See, we would be absolutely wrong for having those thoughts, wouldnt we? Its those types of attitudes and that type of critical destructive thinking that James is talking about here. Hes not talking about deciding if something is right or wrong. Hes talking about our underlying attitudes, our hurtful thinking that criticizes other people, and how we are quick to say condemning, critical things of others. In fact, as you look at that phrase in James 4:11, thats really what he has in mind. Lets look at that again together. He says, Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. Notice to begin with a couple words, it says, Do not slander one another, and it talks twice about speaking against someone else. That phrase slander and also speaking against others is very close to something that we have in our own culture and our own vernacular today when we talk about cutting someone down, putting someone down, or tearing someone done. In fact, its that same exact Greek word. This is the Greek word kata-laleo. Kata, which means down, and laleo, which means to speak. We do that in our own culture, dont we? To cut somebody down, to tear somebody down, to put someone down, we know what that is: saying unkind things, being sarcastic, being critical when maybe its deserving, but maybe its undeserving. So often our intent is to hurt people. Its the opposite of what Paul said about how we were supposed to speak the truth and love. This Passage doesnt mean that you never tell people the truth. James does it a few verses before. He says, You adulterers and adulteresses, dont you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? James is pretty straight forward. He says some tough things, so whatever judging may mean, it doesnt mean that you tell people the truth. I always chuckle because in our culture, if theres one verse that everybody universally seems to know from the Bible, its dont judge me. They rip that verse out of context, and they misjudge that verse and use it to say things that Jesus never said. Jesus says, Dont judge lest you be judged because with the judgment that you judge others, it will be measured to you again. What Hes saying is apply the same yardstick to yourself that you do to others. We often interpret that to mean, I should never determine if anythings right or wrong. Well, James is evidently not in that ball park because he spends from James 1 to James 5 telling you about whats right and wrong. When hes talking about judgment, hes not here addressing truth or lies, right or wrong, or good or evil. Hes talking about those underlying attitudes of attacking people, cutting people down, critical attitudes rather than one of building people up, encouraging, and lifting people up. Its interesting as well that there is another phrase in this verse that is synonymous with cutting someone down. If you look at the end of Verse 12, it says, Who are you to judge your neighbor? Now if you want to know what a book is like without reading the whole thing, what two chapters do you read? The first one and the last one. You say, I dont really want to read this book, but I kind of want to get an understanding of what its about, so you read the first chapter and the last chapter. Its the same in this Passage. He says, Dont slander other people. Dont speak against other people. Dont cut them down. At the end, he says, Who are you to judge your brother? What two phrases are essentially the same? Cutting someone down or slandering someone and judging them. Does that make sense? Is everybody still with me? I cant actually see if you are or not. I should have brought a baseball hat or I could preach in sunglasses because it is bright. Those two terms are synonymous, and that's what James is saying, Dont cut people down. Dont stab people. Dont hurt people with your mouths, and dont be critical in that way when you tell people the truth. Again, God calls us to speak the truth and love. Its obvious that whats determining whats good and evil, right and wrong, is not what James has in mind. Later on in the Book of Hebrews 5:14 (page 1187), look what the writer of Hebrews actually says. He says, Solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. So he says really mature people are able to determine right and wrong. When there is a really terrible event going on at the Church of Corinth about a man having an affair with his step-mother, Paul writes to the Church of Corinth and says, Why havent you judged that man? Im not even there, and Ive judged him already. So, again, whatever judgment is, its not saying, Im not going to talk about whats right and wrong or good and evil, but it is our whole underlying attitude of criticism and criticalness. There are two basic reasons in our personal experience, in our background, in our natures that cause us to attack other people with our mouths. I think those two things are this-were going to look at a specific example in just a minute-but number one is for our own personal advancement. What do you feel like when you put somebody else down? Why are we tempted to do that? Were tempted to put other people down because it makes us look…good. We say, That was a terrible thing they did, or they shouldnt have acted that way, or look at that person. They did that! Were trying to make ourselves look better. Were trying to raise ourselves up, lift ourselves up, by putting other people down. The second motive-which well look at from this individual in just a second-is that of personal vengeance, bitterness, animosity, hatred, and retaliation. Youve been hurt by other people. We know that we cant fight back; we cant pull out the 44 Magnum and say, Go ahead! Make my day, so we attack people with our mouths rather than with guns or our fists because thats not good. Ill go to jail if I do that. Or, especially, in a Christian culture, you know, Man, I cant attack somebody like that; so instead we tear them apart or are tempted to tear them apart with our mouths. Those are the two basic reasons. Lets look at an individual who did this, somebody who is rather obscure, and hopefully some of you have read about this guy in the Old Testament; but 3,000 years after he lived, its a name like Franklin Roosevelt talked about December 7th after the attack on Pearl Harbor-a day that will live in infamy. This guys name lives in infamy. No one names their children this guys name anymore. This is an individual named Doeg or if you were Hebrew, it might say Doy-egg. I always thought it was such a strange name. It always made me think of my mother in the kitchen baking and rolling out dough to make biscuits and rolls, cracking eggs and putting them in there where youd get this sticky, gooey, icky mess as youre rolling it out. It was like that struck me; thats kind of like what Doeg was like. He was a sticky, messy kind of guy, and everything he touched became sticky and messy. Lets read about Doeg and his mouth, his thoughts and the things that propelled him to do [the things he did] in 1 Samuel 21. Were going to read Verses 1-7 and then a little bit of Chapter 22 as well (page 284 in pew Bibles). The background is Saul is extremely jealous of David. He has chased David out of his home. David lost his family. He had been the kings personal bodyguard, the kings musician, the national hero, the guy whose song was on the top ten on the charts of Israel. He got to marry the princess. He quickly grew from obscurity to wealth, prestige, power, honor, and everything under the sun. To the guys, he was the toughest guy in Israel. His name was on everybodys lips, and David, in a heartbeat, lost it all. Saul is trying to kill him now. Hes on the FBI of Israels ten most wanted list. In fact, his poster is at the top of the list, and his picture is in all the post offices in Israel (if they had post offices). With that scene, David is running for his life, and he goes to the city of Nob where the priests of Israel live. Well pick it up in 1 Samuel 21 (page 284). David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met him… He knew that something wasnt quite right. Why are you alone? Why is no one with you? David answered Ahimelech the priest, The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, No one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions. As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find. But the priest answered David, I dont have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here-provided the men have kept themselves from women. David replied, Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The mens things are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today! So the priest gave him the consecrated bread since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away. Here is where we find Doeg. One of Sauls servants was there that day, detained before the Lord… If you were watching an old melodrama, you would hear Bum, bum, bum, bummmm. …he was Doeg the Edomite, Sauls head shepherd. Lets skip over to 1 Samuel 22. Were in Sauls camp. He is pursuing David and trying to catch him and kill him, but he cant find him. Hes having a hard time hunting him down. In Verse 7 (page 285), Saul turns to his men. You can almost hear the whining in his voice. Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards? Will he make all of you commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds? Is that why you have all consipired against me? He is definitely whining. No one tells me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is concerned about me or tells me that my son has incited my servant to lie in wait for me, as he does today. And here is the infamous Doeg. It says, But Doeg the Edomite, who was standing with Sauls officials, said, I saw the son of Jesse come to Ahimelech son of Ahitub at Nob. Ahimelech inquired of the Lord for him; he also gave him provisions and the sword of Goliath the Philistine. Then the king sent for the priest Ahimelech son of Ahitub and the fathers whole family, who were the priests at Nob, and they all came to the king. Saul said, Listen now, son of Ahitub. Yes, my lord, he answered. Saul said to him, Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, giving him bread and a sword and inquiring of God for him, so that he has rebelled against me and lies in wait for me, as he does today? Ahimelech answered the king, Who of all your servants is as loyal as David, the kings son-in-law, captain of your bodyguard and highly respected in your household? Was that the day the first time I inquired of God for him? Of course not! Let not the king accuse your servant or any of his fathers family, for your servant knows nothing at all about this whole affair. But the king said, You will surely die, Ahimelech, you and your fathers whole family. Then the king ordered the guards at his side: Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because they too have sided with David. They knew he was fleeing, yet they did not tell me. But the kings officials were not willing to raise a hand to strike the priests of the Lord. The king then ordered Doeg, You turn and strike down the priests. So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck them down. That day he killed eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod. He also put to the sword Nob, the town of the priests, with its men and women, its children and infants, and its cattle, donkeys and sheep. How awful! How terrible. There was a point at which Doeg could have kept his mouth shut. Nothing made it mandatory for him to speak. He wouldnt have been punished or hurt, but he opened his mouth, told lies, and put people in danger. Later, he carried out the evil and the murder in his heart. Why does he do that? Well, well get a glimpse of why he does it later on in the Book of Psalms. I dont know if you realize it, but did you know there is an entire Psalm dedicated to Doeg the Edomite? You might be shocked to find that out. Were going to turn to Psalm 52 to see if we can understand a little bit more of why Doeg did what he did and learn a few lessons. Why dont you turn to Psalm 52 (page 563)? The heading, of course, says When Doeg the Edomite had gone to Saul and told him: David has gone to the house of Ahimelech. Its interesting in poetry, sometimes there is use of analogies whereas David literally pictures Doeg as this gigantic evil tongue, this awful big mouth. It will be interesting to see what he says God is going to do to that later on, but lets look at this Psalm. David says, Why do you boast of evil, you mighty man? Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God? Your tongue plots destruction; it is like a sharpened razor, you who practice deceit. You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth. You love every harmful word, O you deceitful tongue! I hope none of you take pride in having a sharp tongue or attacking other people with your mouth. I always think its sad when people pride themselves on Well, I speak my mind. I tell it the way it is. Very rarely do people tell everything the way it is. Most of the people who pride themselves on Well, I tell it the way it is; I call a spade a spade, are often those people who have incredibly critical attitudes. They fail to see the goodness or the kindness thats around them every day. I think of that in Wisconsin. You and I see this all the time. Its the middle of summer-its July or August-its 90, 95 degrees. We had some of those days, right? Everywhere you go when its 90, 95, what do you hear people doing? Its so hot! I dont know why its so hot! Its humid! Its muggy! I wish it were cooler! Then, you get a beautiful September morning a la Neil Diamond like today, and what do we have? Oh, its rainy! Its cloudy! I wish there was sunshine. How come we have so much rain? Then when its the middle of winter and its 25 degrees, what do we do? Oh, its too cold! I wish it were warmer! Brrr! Why do we go outside? I hate shoveling snow! I think Im going to move south. It doesnt matter what the temperature or the weather. We can find something so wrong with it rather than waking up and [taking it as a blessing]. One of my favorite things: youre like, How are you doing today? Well, I had a pulse this morning when I got up. Thats always a good thing. Any day that I wake up and I dont have a pulse, its all over. There is always something to be thankful for. Yet, some people are always looking for something to be negative about, to be critical about, to find fault. Thats Doeg. Thats what God warns us against here. Speaking of, when it passes over to our general attitudes of life towards others, it brings terrible problems and terrible destruction. Verse 5 of Psalm 52, look at what God says, …God will bring you down to everlasting ruin: He will snatch you up and tear you from your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living. Again, David pictures God literally ripping Doegs tongue out of his mouth and chucking it away. Its a very picturesque thing. Sometimes we might be tempted to wish God would do that with our mouths. James, later on, says, The tongue-no man can tame, although Jesus Christ can do amazing things. Well talk about that a little later. Look what happens in Verse 6. David says, The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at him, saying, here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others! Well stop there and come back to the end of the verse later on. I want to point out two things. There is the first of the reasons why we are so desperately tempted to cut others down and tear others down. What does he say? He says, Doeg, you grew strong by destroying others. Thats the temptation-to lift ourselves up, to try to rise above by tearing other people down. Its interesting that this is what makes us most like Satan. What do we find Satan doing? Trying to elevate himself by tearing other people down and destroying other people. Its interesting that the name Satan connotes the idea of accusing. You find this way back in the beginning of the Bible. Job is probably-most Biblical scholars believe-the oldest Book in the Bible, written before any others, even though it isnt that way chronologically. What do we find Satan doing in the Book of Job way back at the beginning of time? What is he doing? He comes before God, and he sees the best guy on the planet earth; and what does he do? He accuses him; he condemns him; he points out flaws and failures; he makes accusations; hes critical of Job. He says, God, Job just serves You for what he can get out of You. Take away all the good stuff. Take away the land. Take away the Mercedes; take away the Bentley Chariot. Take away the mansion, and he will curse You to Your face. God says, Be my guest. He wont. Satan attacks Job, why? Because he wants to prove his point, lift himself up. The Book of Isaiah gives us a hint of that, I will exalt myself. I will rise above. I will be like the Most High are the words of Satan. Doeg is the example here, the person that steps on other people in order to get to the top. In fact in the Book of James, this Passage that were talking about, there is a phrase that you may not comprehend or that may not make sense to you. James says, Who are you that when you speak against your neighbor, you are judging the law and speaking against the Lawgiver? What does that mean? Whats he talking about? What he means there is that every single one of us in our own context are tempted to make ourselves the chief justice of the Supreme Court. If you look at John Jay-whether he did it correctly or not, John Jay was one of the most memorable chief justices the Supreme Court ever had. He took it upon himself to instill in the American judicial system constitutional review. Whether the Constitution allowed for that or not is still debated. John Jay took power into his own hands. Congress passed laws, and John Jay said, We, the justices sitting on the Supreme Court, can say, Oh, that was a bad law. That was unconstitutional. Even though Congress passed it and the President stamped it, were going to say, No, it doesnt matter, and were going to chuck it bad law. What James is saying-when you speaking against your neighbor-is youre speaking against the laws that every single one of us is tempted to be the chief justice of the Supreme Court in our own existence and our own sphere. You see, God, the eternal Lawgiver in James 2:8, says, There is a royal law, and the royal law says you should love your neighbor as yourself. But when we speak, slander, criticize, and cut our neighbor down, what are we saying? Were saying, Im the Supreme Court justice. I dont like that law. Lets chuck that law. Lets get rid of it so that I can say whatever I want to about my neighbor. Im bringing the gavel down. Im exalting myself. Im putting myself in charge. Thats what James warns against. When you cut other people down, youre saying, I dont like that law that God made. I think this law is better, and it puts us on the throne. Thats the foundation of every false religion that exists. Way back in the Book of Genesis, Satan comes to Eve and says, You eat from this tree, youll be like… gods. Satan has that eternal appeal, that perpetual come-on, the bait and switch, Do this, and it will exalt you. Cut other people down; it will lift you up. Yet when we do that, we become most like him (Satan). Doeg is the prime example of one who should have shut his mouth, but he saw an opportunity. He saw an opening. I can raise my position. I can rise to the top. I can advance myself in the kings court if I give him some information. Then he goes beyond that, and he uses that opportunity to do something that none of the other guards would dare to do. He slaughters, massacres, an entire city of the priests that everybody else is afraid to touch. Why would he do that? That brings us to the second reason for attacking people with our mouths. We get a glimpse of it. Though the Scripture doesnt say specifically, we get a hint of it in his very name. He is Doeg the Edomite. There is debate among scholars whether he was actually a descendent of the nation of Edom or an Israelite that grew up and had lived in Edom. Whichever it is, there are implications from that in two ways. Number one, I would challenge you, friends, be very, very careful of your friends and the people you hang around with. If you hang around with and spend a lot of time with negative, critical people, what will it do to you? Criticism, cutting people down, is like a virus. Its very catching. Gossip is easily transferred. The Edomites were descendants of Esau. There was a hostility that went back with the Edomites for hundreds and hundreds of years. You see, Esau was a brother of Jacob; and what had Jacob done to his brother hundreds and hundreds of years before? He had stolen his birthright and stolen his blessing. Esau hated his brother so much, he wanted to kill him. Later on, they reconcile somewhat, but its evident as history goes on that there was animosity, a hatred, and a bitterness between these two nations that never ended. In fact, several of the major Prophets in Scripture and several of the minor Prophets talk about how when God takes Israel into captivity, guess who is standing on the boarders cheering? All of the people from the nation of Edom. They were like, Yeah! God, give them what they deserve! Take those people into captivity! Punish Israel! Trash them! Hammer them! They deserve it! They were rejoicing because Israel was having a bad day. That's where Doeg grew up, an environment of animosity, an environment of hatred, an environment of vengeance. Its interesting that when the opportunity presents itself and all the other great warriors in Sauls council in court are afraid to touch the priests of God, Doeg says, Ill do it. The priest of Israel represents the centrality of Israels religion, the centrality of its government, and these are the people that Doeg has hated for and learned hatred from for years; so when the opportunity presents itself, he attacks. He slaughters Ahimelech, his family, the entire city, and everything they own. Friends, beware of that. God says He is the judge, Vengeance is Mine. I will repay. People hurt us; people stab us; people abuse us, and what are we tempted to do? Well, I cant pull out my 44 Magnum and blow them away, so Im going to do it with my mouth. Ill rip them to shreds with my tongue. When we do that, its when we become most like Satan. In the Book of Revelation, one of things later on says that Satan comes down to earth and loses his status in Heaven full of anger and rage because he knows his time is short. Dont be like that. Its interesting that rabbinical teachings tell us that Doeg died at the ripe old age of…34. He received what he had coming to him. There was payback. Those who wish other people ill often reap it themselves. I want to close with one last illustration. We talked about the negative. [Now], I want to focus on the good. As you look at the end of Psalm 52, its a fascinating picture of what God calls us to. What is the opposite of cutting someone down, attacking people? Its the pinnacle of what God calls us to. He says, You should bless, build up, say good about people who curse you or say evil against you. Return good for evil; love your enemies. Where do you learn that? Again, you get a hint of that at the end of Psalm 52. Lets look at those last two verses. David says (in Psalm 52:8), But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in Gods unfailing love for ever and ever. I will praise You forever for what you have done; in Your name I will hope, for Your name is good. I will praise You in the presence of Your saints. Look at what David says. He said, I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God. Can I ask you a question? Where was David when he wrote this? David was out in the middle of the wilderness, dry, parched, and alone. He had lost his job; he lost his wife; he lost his status. People were trying to kill him. He was number one on the top ten most wanted list. He said, I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God. He didnt even know if hed ever see the house of God again. He didnt know if hed ever step foot in the house of God again, and he says this? All he had to go on was Gods promise that someday it would all work out for good. Friends, I submit to you that the attitude of blessing people who curse you-the ability to speak well of people who speak ill of you-is formed in the presence of God between you and Him alone as you go through adversity. Some of you here have lost people you love. Your heart is breaking. Some of you face serious illness and pain. Some of you face losing your job. Some of you have had homes foreclosed on. You may have lost everything this world holds dear. What do you do? If, like Job of old, when you lose everything, your words are, The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord, [then] youre a man after Gods own heart. Youre a woman after Gods own heart. Youre learning the lessons that God has for you, and that will come out in the way you treat other people as well. You see, if in the middle of the worst times, you can find things to be thankful to God for, in the middle of the greatest adversity, you find something good for which to bless God and you bless the name of God, honor Him, and praise Him in your darkest times-in the times of greatest pain and the greatest agony-if in those times you can bless, praise, and rejoice in God, then that carries over into the way you treat other people. Jesus said if youve done it under one of the least of these, my brother, then you did it to Me. How do you learn how to bless people when they curse you? You learn to bless God when He allows adversity into your life. When you do that, its a short step to be able to do that to other people. Its no wonder that in the Gospel According to Jim, he begins the very first Passage by saying, Count it all joy when you fall into various trials. So David in this Book, on the run for his life, outcast-having lost a wife, family, job, status-everything-never knowing if he was going to see the daylight of tomorrow-says, I will praise God. I will bless God. Its no wonder God calls him a man after His own heart. Friends, the greatest example of this in human history is our Lord, Jesus Christ. Hes the reason were here. Let me ask you a question: in the middle of losing everything-maybe you had cancer; maybe you have some horrible disease; maybe youve lost your home, your friends, your job, and everything else-if in the middle of that time you turned to God; you turned to His people; you turned to the church; you called the pastors, but they wouldnt return your phone calls; you called Christian friends but they wouldnt come over to see you; no one would help you, you look and say, Well, theyve gathered money. Theyve helped other people in need, but nobody will help me. They wont give you a dime. You turned to every Christian you know, but they ignored you; they wont listen to you. In fact, they say things like, You know what? The whole reason that theyre going through all those problems is probably because they had sin in their lives. I think Gods probably judging them. How long would that take you to get over that? How long would that take you to forgive those people? How long would that take you to learn to bless them and praise God for those situations? I run into people all the time who are scarred for life. I dont want to go to church. Those people are a bunch of hypocrites. They didnt help me when I needed it. Let me ask you a question: the God of the universe comes down to give His life, His riches, and His glory away to us as human beings. We despise Him, reject Him. In His greatest hour of need on the cross, in the Garden of Gethsemane, just a few hours before He went to the cross, Jesus asked His best friends in the world, Please pray with me, and what did they do? They fell asleep. Fast forward, He was tried, convicted, hauled out to Golgotha to hang and die, to pay the most excruciating death for my sins and for your sins, what do His Disciples do? Matthew 26:56; lets look at this verse and see what His friends do in His greatest hour of need (page 986). It says, …this has all taken place that the writings of the Prophets might be fulfilled. Then all of the Disciples deserted Him and fled. They all forsook Him and fled. When He needed them most, they deserted Him. When He looked for someone to be there for Him, they were all gone-not to be found, not anywhere. How long did it take Him to get over that? A month later, He stood on a seashore cooking them breakfast. He spoke a word, and they hauled in the biggest catch of fish theyd ever caught in their lives. Peter was so stunned he said, Its the Lord. Forty days later, forty days after being absolutely rejected… In fact, Peter called down curses of himself, May God do to me if I know Him, with curses and oaths, Peter denied that he even knew Him! Forty days later, do you know what the last thing Jesus did before He left planet earth was? He lifted His hands to bless. Its the Greek word eulogeitos; we get our word eulogize from that. Jesus lifted his hands when He led them out to the vicinity of Bethany; He lifted up His hands and blessed them. He lifted up His hands and eulogized these people who had forsook Him, stabbed Him in the back, and with their mouths cursed Him and said they didnt even know Him. He lifted up His hands and opened His mouth to eulogize them. Its incredible the things that He actually said. Listen to what He said in Matthew 28:18-20 (page 989). Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make Disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Now, dont miss this; what is the very last thing that Jesus says to His Disciples? And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Friends, you can bank on it. You, who 40 days ago, deserted Me; you, who 40 days ago when I needed your prayers the most fell asleep; you who 40 days ago when I could use an encouraging word from you cursed Me and said you didnt even know Me, I just want you to know Ill be with you always. Ill never leave you. Ill never forsake you. I will never do to you what you did to Me. Never, never, ever, ever. As the writer of Hebrews says emphatically in the Greek, I will never, no, I will never, no, I will never leave you or forsake you. Can you believe it? The very thing deserting Him that we and His Disciples did, He uses that very thing to assure them that He will never leave them and will be more to them than they ever hoped or dreamt. Friends, thats turning cursing into blessing. Thats what God calls us to do. Thats the highest pinnacle of Christianity-to use our mouths to build up, bless, and encourage others. I would challenge you-some of you are sitting here today and maybe youre thinking, I cant do that, my response is if youre a child of God, if you trusted Jesus to pay for your sins, God says He put His Spirit in your heart. He says, You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. He says, Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. God says you can do more than you could ever possibly ask or think. He said, Greater things than I do, you will do, because I go to My Father. He says, You have the mind of Christ, and you are a partaker of the Divine Nature. He says, The love of God is shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto you. Paul writes to the Romans and says, I am absolutely convinced that you are full of goodness, able also to admonish, to encourage each other. Friends, its in there. Dont say, Well, I cant do that. Thats the very thing that Gods called you to do in the hardest times, the roughest times, to bless God, to lift up His name, to praise Him and turn around and bless other people when they curse you, hurt you, or say unkind things against you. Yes, sometimes you may speak the truth to them, but you may also share blessing and goodness with them. Thats the attitude underlying it all-that you wish them their best, that you hope the best for them, that you turn cursing into blessing. Thats what Gods called you to do. That is the Spirit of Christ. Jesus said, The Father has committed all judgment into My hands. At His greatest hour when He could have judged His Disciples for forsaking Him, He instead blesses them and promised that Hed never leave them. God put that same Spirit in you if you name His name. When you touch the lives of other people in that way, people see an incredible difference. That attitude that doesnt join in with the people in your neighborhood-the criticism, the judgment of others in the office of the job-makes you stand out. When other people are finding everything bad, you turn around and find something good and bless people and thank God. People notice that. That opens doors to share your faith because youre not like everybody else. Thats what Gods called us to, so I hope you remember the words of James: not to judge, not to stab, not to tear and hurt, but to bless, build up and encourage. That's what makes us like Jesus Christ. Father, thank You so much for Your Word. I pray that You would challenge us, lift us up, help us to go our ways this day and this week, to use our mouths to bring good and blessing instead of cursing and tearing in destruction. Help us remember the example of Doeg and also the example of Jesus Christ. I thank You that we can pray. Thank you that Jesus left such blessing for us. We honor Him by praying in His name, Amen.