The Spirit of Doeg

0:00A word about revival

Amen. Hallelujah. Well, every day there seems to be another reason to distrust preachers. What you may not realize is there’s an ancient spirit that’s actively working to keep you from receiving the truth of God’s Word. And today I’m going to teach you about that very spirit, called the spirit of Doeg. Today we’re going to talk about the spirit of Doeg. So I want to invite you to join me in your Bible in 1 Samuel chapter 22. Before I get to that, I just want to mention a couple of things to you. Several years ago, I received what I really believe is a word from the Lord.

And, you know, I would say it’s prophetic. I try to be careful and not oversell it, but I genuinely went into a very out-of-the-norm spiritual place and I was just receiving revelation from heaven around an upcoming move of God that would happen over the next two to three years. In fact, I just found a video that I had posted about it. And so it had checked me on some of those times. And when I left Florida — so I got the word from the Lord, I started traveling and preaching again. I had not been doing that for a while. I was going to start traveling again in 2020.

Not prophetic, amen. And so I was going to start traveling again in 2020 and I did not. When I got this word from the Lord about a soon-coming revival, I thought, let me get on the road and start getting — and really the purpose was for me to get in altars and make sure that my peers had some exposure to what it looked like to do altar ministry. I am one of the few people in my peer group who were active in ministry when the last great move of God kind of fizzled out. And back in the late 90s, early 2000s, most of my friends were either children’s ministry, youth ministry, or they were in college.

And so I kind of had a front row seat as a music minister to that revival era. And it just helped me to know how to manage some of those things. I want to make sure that I was going out and, if nothing else, demonstrating for preachers how to manage a move of God in a service. Well, when I got here — and I’m going to say something, I need y’all to hang with me, okay? Just sign a verbal contract real quick and say yes. Okay, hang with me for a moment. When I got here, it was very easy for me to ascertain in the spirit that this church was not ready for a move of God.

When I showed up back in August — which if you’re here for the first time, I have been here less than a year — but when I got here in August, I went, we can’t hold it, we can’t manage it, we can’t handle it. Not so much in infrastructure, but I knew that there were some things active in our body here that it would be a problem. If a move of God broke out, I knew that we would mismanage it as a body. And so honestly, I’ve kind of had it in my spirit that if something comes, it’s coming, and that’ll be great, and y’all can go enjoy those meetings and then come back here, but it ain’t going to be happening here.

In the last two or three weeks, I’d say two weeks since I preached that series on “We Are Hopeful About Tomorrow” — how many of you know we’re hopeful about tomorrow? While I would still be frightened to have to sing and preach three-hour services all by myself, I am more comfortable right now with the idea that our church could potentially host a move of God. And I want y’all to hear this. I’m not trying to be insulting or anything by saying when I got here that I didn’t believe we could handle one. I’m trying to be forthright and honest with you. That’s not on anybody, that’s not directed at anybody, that’s just — there was something.

And so when y’all saw me come in and start taking a hatchet at things, there was a reason for it. We needed to tune up some things, because there is no move of God in acting up. There’s no move of God in playing along. There’s no move of God in pretending one thing is something and it’s not what it really is. There’s no move of God in that. But right now, I think y’all would all agree that if I started walking through this church and people started hitting the ground, that you wouldn’t be going, this is a regular Sunday. You’d be going, okay, this probably — this is out of his norm.

Amen? And I don’t know about you, I don’t know when we thought revival should have been the norm. Now I’m just in a little prophetic flow here for a moment. Everybody that tried to normalize revival off of the 90s is basically coming out and they’re being completely exposed now for how fraudulent everything is that they’ve done. For 20 years, they’ve been propping up a corpse. It’s been a Weekend at Bernie’s in a handful of churches all across — nobody on Weekend at Bernie’s, nobody going to give me that? Doesn’t matter how serious it is, you gotta laugh at the jokes, okay?

I take it personally, I’m personally offended if you don’t laugh. And so we’ve been propping up a corpse and it’s — but God is not the God of the dead, he’s the God of the living. Amen? And so I really believe that we’re kind of getting there now. I want to prepare you: I don’t think May 24th is going to be the day. So if y’all are trying to put your eyes on your Brownsville Father’s Day, May 24th probably ain’t it, okay? I think it’d be cool if it is. It’s going to ruin y’all’s summer, but it’d be great if it was, amen. I say, Lord, send the move of God, let me get that vacation in, if you don’t mind, and gee, we’ve got a cruise planned, in Jesus’ name, so the next week would be fine.

But I really believe in August, we could be stepping into something as a church that could be entirely different. Not just for this church, but entirely different for what we’ve been seeing over the last several years in the church at large. And I don’t know that we’ll lead that movement, but I had this prophetic word come several years ago, people are starting to talk about it, some major prophetic voices are starting to say something’s fixing to happen, and so I’m encouraged. I mean, look at your neighbor and say, it’s good, he’s encouraged, he’s encouraged.

That being said, this is not intentional, this is not a plan. Just my schedule is keeping me from getting into the eighth value. Our last value that we’re going to talk about is we are honoring of all people. I’m going to get into that this summer. We just have some things on the calendar and I want to make sure that I have a good window to preach that, and so this was not by design. I didn’t know what I was going to preach. I came into the office one day, 90 seconds later, I knew what the next three weeks was going to look like. Come on, somebody. And so the next three weeks, I’m going to be kind of centered around the anointing, and I’m going to preach some things you’ve probably never heard. I’m going to preach some things that — some of them might even be better for a closed-door round table with ministers, but I’m going to let you in on some of the backroom conversation.

Today, I specifically do want to preach something that I think is going to be helpful to you, called the spirit of Doeg, the spirit of Doeg. There is a chance I get a little heavy this morning. If I do that, just smile at me and maybe I’ll loosen up, I don’t know, you know, do your best. You participate in your own rescue, amen. All right. All right, here we go.

7:541 Samuel 22: an assault on the anointing

Go to 1 Samuel chapter 22, 1 Samuel chapter 22. It says, “And the king said to the guard who stood about him, ‘Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David. And they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me.’ But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord.”

Verse 18. “Then the king said to Doeg” — remember, we’re talking about the spirit of Doeg — “then the king said to Doeg, ‘You turn and strike the priests.’ And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man, woman, child, infant, ox, donkey, sheep, he put to the sword.” We’re talking about the spirit of Doeg today. And I want to tell you where this came from. The Lord gave me the insight from the scripture, but I had been tuned up to receive something of this nature.

When I went out and started traveling again, my ministry prior to that had pretty much been on YouTube for about six or seven years at that point. I had really gotten on the internet. God gave me some great fruit. I wasn’t huge, I wasn’t famous, but I do occasionally get recognized in the airport. I have gotten recognized in front of my family one time and it wasn’t nearly as good as when I get recognized by myself. So, but you never know. So most of my ministry was online and to people on the internet. And because of that, if you are into like Christian YouTube and you watch guys who specifically have a YouTube type of ministry, I’m probably tight with them guys.

I probably know them, at least have their phone numbers in my phone. We all kind of were doing this at the same time and coming up, and I just did not like the price that it was going to cost me to be famous on the internet. And so I pulled back. I’m not saying it’s immoral, but I was going to have to talk about ink gel pens every day to get views on the internet. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s a real story, folks. Laura and Todd were with us the other night at Outback and a girl came walking by and I said, hey, I like your pens. And she pulled it out. I thought it was a brown, she pulled it out.

It was a purple pen. I said, do you know that is the best color purple ink? And had a whole conversation with this girl about her pens. Anyway, tearupyourbible.com, amen. And so when I started traveling, I was going into these churches and basically the conversation I was having with pastors is they were pulling me aside, whether it be at dinner or after a church service or whatever that might be. And they would say, can you talk to some of your YouTube buddies? And I said, about what? And they said, could you just ask them to stop? Just stop what they’re doing.

And I said, what’s going on? And they would tell me that they would be preaching things in their church, shepherding their people, taking their people through something. And it was always, always a sure thing that someone was going to show up — and someone was going to usually be three to five people who were going to show up — and they were going to let that preacher know that they were wrong because YouTube guy said this. And what I started to see is that our ability to access information the way we do today started to actually cause a rift between people and the preached word in their church.

And it’s not always YouTube. This is what I noticed because it’s my world and it’s what I heard about. It’s not always YouTube. Sometimes it’s the news. Sometimes it’s certain personalities. Sometimes it’s just homespun theology. Sometimes it’s other preachers. Sometimes it’s just the comment section. There’s a church in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s a large Baptist church that the pastor just suddenly announced his resignation. He’s preaching this Sunday. So it makes me feel pretty good. Normally — I just want to let y’all know — normally if it’s real bad, he ain’t coming back.

Okay, that’s normally the way that goes. But he’s preaching this Sunday, but you should have seen the comment sections, every assumption that they threw at this. Well, what that is, is it is a spirit that is actively assaulting the anointing. Doeg had no problem in pulling out a sword and taking down eighty-five people who worked as priests. He took out their families, their children, and everything they own. He annihilated a city. It’s a spirit that targets not just the anointing, but also your ability to trust in the anointing. It’s a spirit. Now, the one that it attacks the most, the thing that the spirit of Doeg goes after the most, is the anointing around preaching.

The reason for that is when you read the anointing of Jesus Christ in Isaiah 61 — this is what Jesus stood up and read in the synagogue — when you read that, the first thing that it says is it says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” If you read the KJV or the NKJV, it says to preach the good news to the poor. The first anointing on Jesus’ life was to preach. The first anointing — his purpose, he even said, “I’ve come for this purpose, to preach the kingdom of God.” So the first anointing that the Doeg spirit attacks is the preaching anointing.

Now, before you think that this message is going to be all about do whatever your preacher tells you to do — because I know we’ve all heard somebody get up and preach that message before — that’s not what this is. This is not a me putting down my authority stake in the ground. I think by the time we’re done, you’re going to see I ain’t got no interest in that. Next week, just to keep everybody honest, I’m going to talk to you about what to do when a preacher falls. Next week, I’m preaching a message called “Help, the Preachers Are Falling.” And the subtext is, and they can’t get up, amen.

So we’re going to talk about that next week. I’m going to talk about fallen preachers and fallen ministers. I’m going to tell you how you can be protected from that. But the spirit of Doeg attacks the preaching ministry. And the reason for that is that preaching — if you’ll remember our series on getting a word from God, if you’ve read the book, Here to Hear, the first level of hearing from the Lord is the preached word of God. I wish you all were Bible scholars, but I know probably about 95% of you, I’m your Bible reading plan. And I’ll tell you, as a pastor, I’m just getting comfortable with that.

So if the spirit of Doeg can get in and create distance between you and me, it basically cuts off the whole thing. It cuts off your ability to hear from the Lord completely. Well, anybody can hear from the Lord. Well, what’d you hear from him, honey? I mean, I’m for that. How many days have you read the Bible? What’s your prayer life look like? Well, I can find a giving record if I run back there right now. I mean, I want to know the real stuff. We can talk about that. Well, God can talk to anybody. Okay, well, he does kind of have a protocol he goes through.

Amen? The Bible says in Hebrews chapter one that many times long ago and in many ways he spoke through his prophets to our fathers, but in these last days, he’s spoken to us by his Son. There’s a protocol on how the Lord speaks to people. You can engage that protocol at higher levels. But if you don’t, and preaching is your lifeline, the spirit of Doeg will get in and attack that thing so you can no longer receive from the Lord. And I’ll be honest with you, sometimes it’s not even about the preaching being good. It’s about you just giving him 30 minutes or so.

People are always trying to preach better and I want to preach better too, just so I can show off, amen. But I’d like to preach better too, but I’m going to be honest with you. I think if you’ll just sit in here, the Holy Ghost will take whatever I say and kind of just turn it into whatever you need to hear. I’ve had people walk out and tell me, man, it blessed me when you said that. And I thought, man, I didn’t say that. And frankly, I don’t know that I agree with it. You know, so the Holy Ghost will do what the Holy Ghost is going to do in these services. But preaching is the first level of hearing from God.

Let me hit you with a couple of scriptures here. Hebrews chapter three, verse 15 says, “As it is said, ‘Today, if you hear his voice’” — today, if you hear his voice. How do you hear his voice today? If you haven’t read the Bible, if you haven’t spent time in prayer, if you haven’t grown spiritually, how do you hear his voice today? You hear it through preaching. “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” Romans chapter 10, verse 14 says, “How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”

Faith actually begins with a preacher. It begins with a preacher. It begins with a preacher. Ephesians chapter four says, “Until we attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” You know what it’s talking about right there? It’s talking about the ministry of the apostles — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Preaching can get you to the full measure of the stature of Christ. Preaching is powerful. Somebody say preaching is powerful. Preaching is powerful.

For most people, their ability to receive from preaching, if it is compromised, they lose the whole ballgame of faith. For most people, if their ability to receive from preaching is compromised, that’s the whole ballgame of their faith. The enemy strategically places influence in the life of believers to keep people from receiving the full effect of God’s word. In fact, I’ll even bring you in on this. Satan’s most powerful tool is influence. His most powerful tool is influence. Ephesians chapter two, verse two says this: “In which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” The prince of the power of the air.

The enemy uses influence through atmosphere and influence through exposure. And what he’ll do is he’ll try to create a distrust between you and the word of God. Have you ever wondered why it seems like every movie star has an agenda against the Lord? And the only thing I worry about that — or worry more about than that — is when one of them gets saved and we prop him up like he’s the Messiah. Just so you know, I am not the good preacher to fact check on what Jelly Roll said last week. I’m glad he’s saved, but he’s about three seminary degrees away from me trusting anything he says, amen.

Okay, and so, you know, we were all real happy about Kanye there for about 15 minutes. Then he lost his ever-living mind, amen. Lord, touch Kanye and Jelly Roll today in Jesus’ name. If I’m going to mess with you, I’ll pray for you too. Back in the day, people who had started Christian television networks actually believed that Satan’s influence was so identified in this scripture that being the prince of the power of the air was talking about the satellites that were going up. That’s why channels like TBN were trying to buy up satellites back in the day, because they wanted to reclaim the influence that the enemy had.

There was some big deal one time about TBN. I think they bought a satellite from the Playboy channel. And they said, we’re going to put the gospel on a satellite that was carrying that nonsense, amen.

20:02Who is Doeg?

So who is Doeg? Well, a couple of things you need to know. Doeg, he’s an Edomite. That’s important to know, because Edomites and people of Edom, they were descendants of Esau. They were Semitic and could easily be confused for a Jewish person. They could be confused, if you were to look at them, talk to them, listen to their language, for people of Israel, but they were not.

They were like the people of God, but they were not of the people of God. They fit in real well with the people of God, but they were not of the people of God. And so he’s an Edomite who’s captured in one of King Saul’s military campaigns. He spends a lot of time around priests and officials. He’s also a brilliant scholar and he’s a counselor to King Saul. And so Doeg and the spirit of Doeg, what it does is it actively assaults the anointing. That would be the other title for the message I would give it: an active assault on the anointing. And now I want to talk to you about how it operates and some of the things that it does, so you’ll know to look out for it.

If you’re ready, say, I’m ready. Hallelujah.

21:09It outsmarts the word

The first thing it does is it attempts to outsmart the word. It outsmarts the word. There’s a story in First King — I’m sorry, First Samuel chapter 15 — where the prophet Samuel gives King Saul an instruction to go — and I’m not going to give you all the background here, and sometimes not giving the background makes the Bible sound totally crazy, but trust me, there’s reasons for all this stuff that we can get into, but we’re not going to do it this morning. But the prophet Samuel gives King Saul an instruction to go and destroy all of the Amalekites, to destroy all of the Amalekites and everything that belongs to them.

Destroy the herds, destroy their sheep, their cows, all of it. Get rid of everything. And so Saul goes and, instead of getting rid of all of the people and all of the herds and all of their livestock, he keeps the king alive — King Agag, he keeps him alive — and then he keeps the best of the herd alive for a sacrifice, for a sacrifice. Well, Samuel comes back and basically on his way to Saul receives a word from the Lord: I’ve taken the anointing off of Saul. I have removed the anointing from King Saul. He is no longer operating under the power of my Spirit.

The funny thing is that when Samuel gets back to Saul, Saul doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong. Saul actually believes he’s done everything he’s supposed to do, even though he violated the explicit instruction that he was given. Look at this, 1 Samuel chapter 15. This is what Saul says: “And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said, ‘Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.’” Doeg was a counselor to the king. He was a scholar. It is believed that Doeg was the one who got into Saul’s ear and told him to keep those specific parts of the herd alive, because there is a commandment in Leviticus chapter 22 that says you shall not slaughter a parent and a child animal on the same day.

And so what he did is he got into Saul’s ear and he said, hey, you don’t want to do that. There is a better way. There’s a better way. There’s a better way. First Corinthians chapter one, verse 18 — just want to read this to you real quick. “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs, Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” What the spirit of Doeg will do is it’ll get in there and it’ll start getting you to question the word of the Lord — but not just question it to learn it, trying to get you to outsmart it.

Well, this is how God says — let me give you a real good example of what happens in this age. So you’ll hear people say, hey, you don’t need to live together before you get married. Sorry, was that too close to home, amen? But this is godly wisdom: do not live together before you get married. But people make sense out of doing it. Why? Because they go, well, we gotta see if it works. We’ve gotta see if the relation — we gotta see if we get along. We gotta see if we can make it together. Let me just tell you something: no, you can’t. Nobody, no two people can go live in the same house and just get along. You gotta work through it.

So you might as well do it God’s way, where there’s an anointing on it, where there’s a blessing on it. It’s not to say that you’re cursed if you did something silly before you got married, but I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way. But if we try to outsmart the word of God, we’ll always find ourselves getting a lesser result. In fact, listen to this. If the spirit of Doeg can get you to try to outsmart the word, it’ll compromise your results and lead to a pervasive doubt. This is why people who sow seed without tithing are so discouraged. You can’t outsmart God and his process.

You can’t outsmart his word. No matter what the internet guy said, no matter what they said, I don’t care how much they talk about the church like it’s silly on Fox, CNN, or MSNBC. I don’t care what the comedian said. I don’t care what the talk show lady said. All I care about is Jesus Christ is faithful to perform his word and honor it. Somebody ought to say amen in this house. I know I’m a little heavy today, it’s all right. Just think about it. You’re going to get a nice slice of pie with lunch today. Cake, then. I don’t know what’ll make you happy, hallelujah.

So if the spirit of Doeg can get you to try to outsmart the word, it’ll compromise your results and lead to pervasive doubt.

27:06It inflames insecurities

Number two, the spirit of Doeg inflames insecurities. It inflames insecurities. If you’re familiar with the story of Saul and David, the Lord removes the anointing from Saul and he places it on a young boy named David who will be the king of Israel. And their relationship was tumultuous at best, where David was trying — or I’m sorry, Saul tried to kill David pretty aggressively multiple times, on and on. Kept trying to kill him. That relationship was based out of insecurity.

I’m going to show you something you may have never noticed in your scriptures before. Right here in 1 Samuel chapter 16, verse 14, it says, “Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. And Saul’s servants said to him, ‘Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he’ll play it and you’ll be well.’ So Saul said to his servants, ‘Provide me a man who can play well and bring him to me.’”

“Then one of the young men answered, ‘Behold, I have seen the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing’” — which, by the way, right there, that’s all he’s looking for. Bring me a guitar player. I’m dealing with something, I just need a guitar player. That’s all he’s looking for. But this is what he goes on and says: “who’s skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.” This problem is all because the Lord is no longer with Saul. So he bookends it with this. Well, guess what?

Scholars believe that that was Doeg who gave that advice, that Doeg was the young man. And so what happens is when you have an insecurity sitting in there — if you ever wondered why Saul got so upset when he came into town after David had killed Goliath and people said, they’re singing songs and saying, you know, Saul has killed his thousands of people and David has killed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands. That’s a song they sang. We’re going to sing it next week, amen. And it’s a good one, we’re going to start it. And you wonder why he gets so upset about that.

Well, obviously on the surface, that seems like that’d be a little bit of a zing, except why is it so bad? Because there’s already an existing insecurity in King Saul. King Saul started by hearing how great David was. I’m going through all this mess and somebody’s over here breathing down my neck, talking about this little kid and how great he is. And then that same little kid shows up and ends up being able to kill Goliath. And then they’re singing songs about him. And you wonder why. It was insecurity, folks. There was an insecurity that was preexisting.

And when your insecurity flares up, your defenses flare up. And your primary defense mechanism against insecurity is to prove your value. My God, every time insecurity comes upon me — because yes, it does, because I’m a preacher, but I’m not Jesus. And every time — well, don’t amen it too hard now. But when insecurity flares up, what do I do? I try to prove my value. I’ll work a little harder, do a little more, show out a little bit. I’m going to do something to show that I’m — you know, I’m going to mow the grass better than last week. Amen, y’all ain’t going to catch me mowing the grass.

We pay people for that, hallelujah. I’m not about to do that. But that insecurity, it’ll flare up in you and cause you to put your defenses up. And so listen, if the spirit of Doeg can inflame your insecurities, he could get you to start trusting the flesh. And ultimately that leads to condemnation. I don’t have it in my notes here, but I mean, if you look at your watch after I say that, you have to pray three Hail Marys before the end of the day, amen. But Romans chapter eight says — I got the former Catholics are laughing, I hear it, amen. Romans chapter eight says this: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of God might be fulfilled in us who believe in him.” And so you walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. When you start trusting in the flesh and your own ability to do things, you’re positioning yourself for condemnation to come back in. And I’m telling you, nothing will separate you from the Lord more than condemnation. Now the Bible goes on to say that nothing can separate us from God, but if you think you’re separated from God, that’s the ballgame.

Because if you deflect and run away from the Lord, well, it’s done. The number one thing that’s hurting some of y’all is you just think you aren’t good enough for the Lord, you think you aren’t good enough for the church, you think you’re not good enough for this, that, or the other. And I’m telling you, through Jesus Christ, not only are you enough, you’re more than enough. Not only are you a conqueror, you are — hallelujah — more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. Somebody give the Lord a praise right there.

32:38It undermines the covenant

Number three, the third thing that the Doeg spirit does is it undermines the covenant. It undermines the covenant.

1 Samuel chapter 25, verse 44 says, “Saul had given Michal, his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti, the son of Laish, who was of Gallim.” Saul — or David had married Saul’s wife. I’m sorry, David had married Saul’s daughter. I want to be real clear on that, make that correction for the internet, you know, before I get the ugly comments. That’s spirit of Doeg at work in the comment section. So I was actually just trying to make sure y’all were listening, but I’m a master preacher. So David had married Saul’s daughter, and when Saul had ultimately run David off, they treated David like he was a rebel.

David’s just trying to stay alive, because Saul keeps trying to kill him. And so he had run off and he had left, and Michal actually helped him escape, his wife. And during that time that David had left, Saul took Michal and gave her to another man as her husband. This violates the marriage covenant in the most profound way. And when Saul undermines that marriage covenant, who do you think was behind it? It was Doeg. Doeg reasoned that there was a legal right, that if David had rebelled against the king, he was as good as dead. So he found a back door to say that this would be okay according to the law of God.

There’s actually a hidden insight in here as well. Palti — this is not the same person, but Palti, the first time that name is used in the scripture, it is one of the 12 spies who goes and spies out the land and comes back with a bad report. Remember, it was only Joshua and Caleb who had a good report of the land. He’s one of the 10 who had a bad report of the land. There’s a lot there I’m not going to get into, but we’re just going to use the law of first mention a little out of hand. We normally wouldn’t use it just on names being mentioned. Bless you, by the way, in Jesus’ name.

But Palti is the first mention. The first mention, he’s one of the 12 spies. Well, listen to this. I told you, the spirit of Doeg wants to undermine the covenant. Galatians chapter two, verse four says this: “Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us back into slavery.” The spirit of Doeg wants to get in and undermine the covenant that you’re under. He wants to get you to stop trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ, stop trusting in the cross.

He wants you to start trusting in your works. He wants to get you where you don’t believe new covenant preaching, where you don’t believe finished work preaching, where you don’t believe Jesus is enough. He wants to get under you and say, yeah, well, I know you’re saved by grace, but — be careful of that but. It’s the most dangerous but that you’ll ever hear. The finished work is enough. Jesus is enough. The cross is enough. And so the spirit of Doeg wants to get in and he wants to make sure that you come back into slavery to what was. But there’s nothing for you back there.

There’s nothing for you in the old covenant. There’s nothing for you in your works. The only place you’re going to receive is through Jesus Christ and him crucified. Somebody say yes in this church. So the spirit of Doeg wants to undermine the covenant, which leads to a lack of power. There is no power under — this is 2 Corinthians chapter three, it says this, that the glory that was on the old covenant has faded in favor of a glory of the new covenant, the finished work of Jesus Christ. There is no more power through that system. And when it produces a lack of power, it produces from that idolatry or apostasy.

And this is when people walk away from the faith altogether. Most people do not walk away from the faith because they want to sin and not be bothered about it. Most people walk away from the faith because at some point the spirit of Doeg came in and separated them from the covenant. And they just said, I just can’t do what I think I’m supposed to do. I can’t live the way they keep telling me I’m supposed to live, so I might as well just run off. But my friends, I’m telling you, there’s no power under you trying to live right. I don’t think you should go sin.

I don’t think you should act a fool, but there ain’t no power in that effort. The only place that you’re going to find power is at the foot of the cross, the one who has sanctified you. He is your sanctifier. He is the one who makes you good enough. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14, that he has perfected those who are being sanctified. You get a credit while you’re in the process. It’s like when you’re an apprentice, you get to go practice while you’re still getting the certification, amen. So let me just review real quick what we talked about, and I’m going to tell you how to confront it.

The spirit of Doeg starts with a small influence, but it ends with a total assault. If the spirit of Doeg can get you to outsmart the word, it’ll compromise your results, and then it’ll bring pervasive doubt. Again, if you outsmart the word of God and get the results that you were so smart to get, and then you blame the Lord for it — even if you’re not doing this on purpose or out of a character area — you’re going to think, oh, well, this stuff don’t work. Well, why? Well, because it’ll inflame your insecurities, get you to trust the flesh, and when you trust the flesh, it’ll bring about condemnation.

And then if you undermine the covenant — yeah, if you undermine the covenant, it’ll lack power, because there’s no power in anything other than the finished work of Jesus Christ, and that’ll bring about idolatry, because you’ll start looking to other things that you need to work. So now I don’t just need Jesus. You might not walk away from Jesus. It might not be total apostasy. You might say, I need Jesus, and I need a little sage. I need Jesus, and I need a little crystal. We got into business — I thought idolatry was like Alabama football and War Eagle. You know what I mean?

I didn’t think it was. I thought that was, you know — we called that idolatry. Then we got into business, and we realized, no, everybody got Jesus and Buddha and Jesus and crystals and Jesus and this and Jesus and that. And I’m telling you, you don’t need to go see the psychic. My favorite — have y’all ever seen Ocean’s 12? Ocean’s 12, he’s getting his palm — the guy’s getting his palms read, and then a guy walks in behind him to kill him, and he looks there and he goes, you couldn’t see this? You don’t need your palm read, in Jesus’ name. You don’t need all of that stuff.

So it’ll produce idolatry, or it will produce apostasy, and you’ll just say, you know what? I’d just be happier left alone. And I’m telling you, your life will turn down in the tubes quick on that, folks. Life is better with Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus makes life incredible.

39:43Our response: David and the Amalekite

So how do we respond to the spirit of Doeg? Well, the real issue with the spirit of Doeg is about your ability to receive. It’s about your ability to receive. If the spirit of Doeg can get involved and get you cut off from your ability to receive, if you’ll start distrusting preachers, start distrusting the word, start distrusting what God has said, start distrusting the Lord’s processes —

If you start getting — if he can affect your ability to receive, that’s going to affect your ability to live life to the full, amen? And so Doeg attacks the means by which the preached word can have power in your life. Again, next week, I’m going to talk about the preachers are falling. Help, the preachers are falling. I’m going to help you to know how you can be protected when a preacher falls. If you’ve ever had church hurt, preacher hurt, deacon hurt, usher hurt, children’s ministry worker hurt, parking lot attendant hurt — if you’ve hit a pothole in a church and that stuck with you for some reason, I want you to be here next week.

I’m going to help you with that stuff. I’m going to help you get free. Because this really ain’t about preachers, it really ain’t about churches. This is really about you. It’s about you receiving and walking in power. You need power, amen? And so this is our response. This is our response to the spirit of Doeg. Go with me to 2 Samuel chapter one. 2 Samuel chapter one. 2 Samuel chapter one. I’m going to read quite a bit and then I am going to get us out of here. 2 Samuel chapter one, starting in verse one. It says, “After the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days at Ziklag.

And on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul’s camp with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell on the ground and paid homage. David said to him, ‘Where do you come from?’ And he said to him, ‘I’ve escaped from the camp of Israel.’ And David said to him, ‘How did it go? Tell me.’ And he answered, ‘The people fled from the battle, and also many of the people have fallen and are dead. And Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.’ Then David said to the young man who told him, ‘How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?’

And the young man who told him said, ‘By chance I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear, and behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him. And he looked behind him and he saw me and he called to me, and I answered, “Here I am.” And he said to me, “Who are you?” And I answered him, “I am an Amalekite.” And he said to me, “Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers.” So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure he could not live after he had fallen. And I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I’ve brought them here to you, my lord.’

Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them. And so did all the men who were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan, his son, and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. And David said to the young man who told him, ‘Where did you come from?’ And he answered, ‘I am the son of a sojourner, an Amalekite.’ David said to him, ‘How is it that you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?’ Then David called one of the young men and said, ‘Go, execute him.’

And he struck him down so that he died. And David said to him, ‘Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, “I’ve killed the Lord’s anointed.”’” I’ll be honest with you, when you read that at face value, it actually seems a little rough, seems unwarranted. And by the way, I mean, Saul had been pursuing David. Like, David should be very glad at this news. That Amalekite — there’s a lot here. That Amalekite is believed to be Doeg. In fact, the reason that they believe he was there is because it is Jewish tradition that Doeg’s son was Saul’s armor bearer, who refused to kill him earlier.

And so when Doeg — after all of the history that David has with Doeg, which is much deeper than what I’ve gone into today, but all of the history that David had with Doeg, he had saw what his counsel had done to the life of Saul and he knew what his counsel would do to him. He, right here, he had switched allegiances. And I didn’t get into this, but for years, Doeg was an enemy of David. He tried to get in the way of anything that David — he was the one that had told King Saul about him being in Nob with the priests. When they came out there and then killed all of the priests, they had a history.

So David knew, David knew what the influence of Doeg would do. He also knew what Doeg ultimately did to Saul. And so the way that he responded to it is he identified the spirit and acted accordingly.

45:04Psalm 52: no compromise

And David in his history had written this about Doeg. This is a psalm that is about Doeg the Edomite. In Psalm 52, verse two, it says, “Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.” David wrote that about Doeg.

And so David responds to this spirit with no compromise. He doesn’t entertain it. He doesn’t give it time. He doesn’t let it explain itself. He watched this spirit use up and spit out King Saul. And at the end of it, just like the priests at Nob, he had no problem grabbing Saul’s spear and putting it right through him and putting him to death. And I’m going to tell you right now, there’s a spirit at work in the age and it’s an ancient spirit. It’s the spirit of Doeg that has no problem in creating problems for you in a way where you can’t receive from the word of God.

And its only intention is to leave you dried up and a dead corpse. And it will snatch the last piece of value that you have right off your head and run over to somebody else and try to convince them to let him do the same to them that it did to you. I’m not talking about the lady you work with. I’m not talking about the guy on your job who gets under your skin. I’m talking about a spirit that is actively at work, trying to make sure that you do not receive from the word of God. It creates doubt, it creates distrust. You ever wonder why you never hear about a preacher doing anything good?

But if the guy miscounts the offering, he’s on NBC Nightly News. They never tell you what’s actually going on. Preacher indicted for fraud. Well, the guy just didn’t know. He wasn’t an accountant, man. He wasn’t stealing money. He was just an idiot. I am one, I know. The spirit’s pervasive. It’s rising in the culture. And we have to, at some point, say, we’re not going to entertain this nonsense of — we’re not going to question everything. Maybe if we just operate in trust. I used to teach guys this, and I’m going to close. There’s something powerful about faith, and I want you to hear me.

If you ever hear something that you go, man, that sounds extreme — you know, you’re right to maybe pull back. But let’s be honest. Most of y’all ain’t ever heard nothing super extreme from a preacher. You know, but if I get up here and go, hey, the Lord spoke to me, and for the next year, everybody’s supposed to give 75% of their income to the church — you know, you got the right to go, I think I’m just going to hit Google real quick and check that out, you know? But you ain’t hearing stuff like that from preachers very often. But if every time you hear something and you question it, and you never take a step of faith, you miss those opportunities for God to move in your life.

And so I used to teach guys this when it came to leading worship, that one of the most important things you do when you lead worship — which, by the way, I’m not doing great at, because I just got a lot happening on Sunday morning. Y’all pray, I’m believing for breakthrough, by the way. But one of the things I used to tell worshipers, the most important thing you do is give your people instruction. Lift your hands, clap, shout. You know, turn around in a circle, [worship], whatever. Because for most people, that moment is the first moment that they have an opportunity to operate in faith.

And I’ll tell you, the majority of my breakthrough — this is like, this is the insider stuff. The majority of my breakthrough is when I went from this in the first 15 minutes of service to this. And I’m telling you, the supernatural power of God started to move in my life in a powerful way. It’s a step of faith. But the spirit of Doeg gets in there and goes, well, this is what I’ve heard. I’ve heard preachers say this. I don’t like to lift my hands when the preacher tells me to. That’s the problem. You don’t like to do anything when somebody tells you to.

So you’re predisposed to not receive from the word of a preacher or a prophet everything that’s going to cause breakthrough in your life. But I’m going to tell you, if I needed God to touch my life and a worship leader — because one day it ain’t going to be me. One day it’s going to be a little 19-year-old kid that y’all ain’t got no respect for. And I’m going to have to tell y’all off when y’all are ugly to him, amen. And he’s going to get up here and he’s going to say, just all across the room, lift your hands. I’m not having no little 19-year-old kid tell me what to do. Honey, you need a breakthrough, so why don’t you lift your hands?

That’s the spirit of Doeg in operation, folks, that does that stuff. And it’s over the silliest stuff too. And so we start distrusting preachers because of something somebody else did. You know what the worst thing about preachers falling is? Is that it wasn’t me. You know, a guy does something stupid and then I gotta go in here and, like, defend myself for stuff I ain’t done. I just — all I’ve done is I built a stage. I don’t know, I ain’t had time to do anything else. You know, it’s — you know, I don’t know what to tell you. But it’s the spirit of Doeg that’ll get into you.

Lift your hands all across the room this morning. Heavenly Father, we make a decision today as a church family, we’re not going to let this doubt and nonsense and fear about what somebody’s preaching get into us. Father, we accept today that we might actually be able to bear up a certain amount of false teaching and still serve you with a good conscience. And so Lord, rather than trying to question everything that keeps us from change and breakthrough and freedom, Father, we’re going to make a commitment today that when we hear the word, we’re going to let the anointing flow into our life and we’re going to respond to it with diligence.

We’re going to respond to it and receive from it so we can walk in power. And God, we’ll make a commitment to you. Since I got everybody’s hands lifted right now, Father, we’ll take it to the next level and we’ll start reading our Bible and we’ll start praying and we’ll start seeking you outside of just the Sunday morning experience. But God, for now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to put the spirit of Doeg on notice, that it doesn’t have any business up in here. It’s not going to influence the way that we receive the word of God. But so Father, because we’ve made this decision, we ask you to honor our faith towards the word and our faith towards the anointing with power and breakthrough and sufficiency and miracles in Jesus’ name.

Hallelujah.