The human condition, the sinful nature,
the selfishness that we all battle with
is similar with everyone,
even though we're creating the image of God.
And since Adam, we struggle with these sins in our life.
And I'm gonna tell you that the biggest issue
in the church today is not pornography,
it's not immorality, it's isolation.
I believe the absolute number one tactic of Satan
in the life of men and women is isolation.
If you can isolate someone, you can destroy their heart,
you can destroy their mind.
If they have no other objective truth
or even subjective relationships around them,
demons are gonna flock in there and destroy one's life.
And that might be true of you right now,
that you're living in isolation.
You feel like nobody can relate to your problems,
nobody understands you, nobody cares about you.
And I'm gonna tell you something
that you may not like to hear,
but that that is not only not true,
but there are dozens of people in your orbit right now,
wherever you live,
that can completely relate to what you're going through.
You're not that unique.
We all have and are all beset by similar sins
and similar temptations.
That's the reason things like pornography and fame
and the use of finances and materialism in our lives
has one commercial after another when you're on the internet
is because the social media executives know,
oh, everybody's struggling with this, let's go after that.
Everybody wants this, so we're gonna go after that.
And that's how they target you.
And so we're all unique, but not really.
In other words, the human condition, the sinful nature,
the selfishness that we all battle with
is similar with everyone,
even though we're creating the image of God.
And since Adam, we struggle with these sins in our life.
And I'm gonna tell you that the biggest issue
in the church today is not pornography,
it's not immorality, it's isolation.
It's not having community.
It's not having people in your life
that you truly believe love you.
So when I'm talking about bloodstained allies,
I'm hitting this straight on
that God has not made you for isolation.
God has made you to be in community.
I mean, there's a reason why Jesus said,
I will build my church
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
You see, a church is a community and assembly,
a worshiping community, a discipling community,
a teaching community, a missional community
that's an outpost of the kingdom of God here on earth
where we come together with others,
mutual vision and mission for their lives,
eating meals together, hanging out together,
taking communion together, praying together,
and ministering to the world together.
And that's why we call it communion
when we take the Lord's Supper, communion.
It's the idea of coming together in relationship.
We don't take, I mean, you can,
but Jesus did not design communion to be done alone.
We're supposed to do it with others.
And that's what the word community means.
And so when we look at the book of Acts,
when the church was first birthed,
it says they were all together house to house
because they were in community.
So we're made for community.
So when I speak of bloodstained allies,
I'm speaking directly to the issue of isolation
and how when we get isolated and independent
from the church, from other people,
from some close allies in our life,
man, it's a setup for big, big problems in our life.
I mean, I've done so much counseling
and so much both one-on-one
as well as some family counseling.
And in every case, the issue of a divorce
or an issue of an affair or adultery
is usually related to that man
or that woman being isolated,
sealing themselves off from other relationships,
and then not feeling any sense
of accountability in their life.
And so bloodstained allies are people in our life
that love us enough to tell us the truth,
that love us enough to hang out with us,
to have a relationship with us.
One of the best stories in the Bible
that illustrates this is David.
So David is in a battle with Goliath.
He wins, and suddenly he's the rock star of Israel.
He is escorted into,
The court of King Saul, he becomes the psalmist and the worship leader for Saul.
As he goes into battle with the Philistines for Saul, he's so successful and so effective as a warrior
that he becomes one of the most popular men in all of Israel.
Samuel, who's writing 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, makes note of the women in the crowds
when David would come through saying, Saul has killed his thousands, but David is ten thousands.
So this jealousy begins to erupt in the heart of Saul.
I believe he's demonized at this point.
At one point, he throws a spear at David.
And so this animosity, this jealousy toward David arises.
And as the story goes, David has to leave.
David has to flee Saul's court.
And we pick up the story, a very interesting part of the story, in 1 Samuel 22.
And it seems like just an obscure couple verses, but here we see what really saves David's life and what saves David's heart.
Let's pick it up at 1 Samuel 22. Look at 1 Samuel 22, verse 1.
David therefore departed from there, meaning he departed from Saul, and escaped to the cave of Adullam.
So when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him.
And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, everyone who was discontented gathered to him.
So he became captain over them, and there were about 400 men with him.
So what a ragtag army.
A bunch of malcontents, discontents, indebted people who, weeks before, would have had absolutely nothing in common with David.
David is the king's son-in-law.
David has victory every time he fights.
He's just had one glorious military campaign after another.
He has it made, but then suddenly he loses everything.
He even loses a relationship with his wife.
He's run out of town.
Here's what's interesting to me about David at this point, is the men that have fought with him, beside him, in the campaigns against the Philistines, knew who he was.
I mean, they saw the type of leader he was, the type of heart that he had, and they rallied behind him.
But as soon as Saul betrays David, turns on David, everybody goes with Saul.
And someone has said that you really know who your friends are when finances are involved.
In Proverbs 28, 21, we read, men will transgress for a piece of bread.
I mean, that's what happened to David.
All the men that had fought with him, alongside him, except for Jonathan, they betray him.
And so David now has this group of thieves, indebted, indentured servants who have nothing to lose and actually have nothing.
But why?
Why did they rally to David?
And I think this is really important.
They rallied David because they can relate to him.
They couldn't relate to him before, but now they can identify with David.
The allies of Abdullam, the cave of Abulam, are men who are in a desperate state.
And that's David.
So they see him.
They see what he's going through.
And then, you know, I know what that's like.
That's where I'm at.
And that's a key part of bloodstained allies, is that being bloodstained means that you've been bloodied by life.
You've been bloodied by shame and broken.
And others who are truly honest about their lives, who've had that happen, they can relate.
And that's the beginning.
That's a true beginning of a pure bloodstained ally is someone who, when you share what you've been through, they can relate.
They go, yeah, I know what that's like.
Now, they may not have literally had the exact same situation.
I don't even think that's even the norm.
But rather, they know what you're feeling.
They know what's going on in your life because, man, they've blown it, too.
Or they've been ashamed by things that they've done also, or they've been betrayed.
And some of you that are listening to me right now have been betrayed.
People you thought were close friends turn their back on you in a time of need.
Some of you that thought someone had your six and they had your back have gone through things, and suddenly everybody's turned their back on you.
Well, all of us.
have had that experience.
And the longer you live, the more of those experiences
you will have, where you thought you could trust someone,
and then you find out you really can't.
And so Bloodstained Allies begins there.
And at the Cave of Adulim, David discovered
that there were these men who could identify with his life.
And let me just tell you, men and women,
there are people out there that can identify with your life.
And they know what you're going through.
And so the challenge that I'm going to bring
is how to find such men and women for your life.
So let me give you a definition.
I want to give you a definition for allies.
So allies, I'm going to say Bloodstained Allies,
can be defined as men and women with a common purpose who
are formed and brought together because of common pain.
So there's Bloodstained.
And what I mean by Bloodstained is that they've
gone through pain also.
When I say allies, same purpose, same desire
to bring glory to God and that their lives would
be for the kingdom of God.
So I'm not just talking about someone who's, you know,
your deskmate in an office somewhere,
who you have some common things that you like,
or maybe common hobbies that you have.
I'm actually talking about someone
who's got a purpose for their life.
They got a mission for their life, but they've been broken.
They're in pain at different points in their life too.
And so when you share about the divorce,
or you share about some addiction,
they may not have had that particular exact situation
happen in their life.
But something like it has occurred in their life,
and they then have a heart for you.
They understand you, and they love you.
That's a Bloodstained Ally.
And that's what happens with David here.
He didn't know these men at all before this.
There's no way that there would have been any relationship
with David at this point.
But now they're going to become a mighty force.
The exciting thing about the 400 in the Cave of Adullam,
it's these very men in 1 Samuel 22,
who later become identified not as the Cave of Adullam men,
not as David's 400.
They become known as David's mighty men.
By fighting together, loving each other,
praying together, probably worshiping together,
each one of those men that was just a malcontent
becomes actually a masculine, mighty man of God.
So that's where Bloodstained Allies go.
It's not just about navel-gazing
and sitting in the bed of your shame.
It's rather identifying with our shame
and then getting up and going out and becoming the man
or the woman that God's created you to be.
So in my next episode, I want to talk a little bit more
about even some case studies that show
the importance of Bloodstained Allies in our life.