DEAD DOG
(II Sam. 16:5-14)
An older couple were on a trip when they stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. As they got up to leave, the woman forgot her glasses on the table. They were several miles down the road before she realized that she didn’t have them, and to make matters worse, her husband had to drive a while before they could find a place to turn around.
The old man fussed and complained…and fussed and complained all the way back to the restaurant. He brow beat her for her foolishness and forgetfulness. How could she be so thoughtless as to leave her glasses! So…when they finally arrived, as the old woman got out of the car to retrieve her glasses the old man said, "Well, as long as you’re going back in there, you may as well get my hat, too."
Now, I have a little quiz for you: Tell me what personality trait comes into your mind when you hear the following biblical names: Thomas (Doubt), Jezebel (wickedness adultery), Judas (betrayal), Shimei…Shimei? Yes Shimei. When you leave this worship service I want you to remember his name. And I want you to remember what trait should be identified with him.
Shimei suffered from a spiritual illness that unfortunately strikes both Christian and non-Christian alike…and can destroy the very spiritual fiber of the strongest person of faith. Shimei suffered from a disease called DEAD DOG SYNDROME.
But before we read our text I want give you a little background on the narrative here: Several years before the events of II Sam. 16, King Saul was the ruler of Israel. But he’d grown disobedient to God...SO God anointed David to eventually replace him. The only problem was that Saul hadn’t died yet… and he hadn’t given up his throne to David…and he had NO INTENTION of giving up his throne to anybody just yet. So once Saul realized that David was God’s next choice for the throne, he sought on several occasions to KILL David.
By contrast…David had several opportunities to kill Saul – but refused to do so. He repeatedly told his men, his friends, and his relatives he would not lay a hand on the “Lord’s Anointed” King Saul (and he never did). David remained a fugitive and an outcast from the land of his birth…until the day King Saul took his own life on the field of battle.
Now, in time, David became king over all Israel, just as God had intended. But about 30 years into his reign, David’s own son Absalom attempted a coup (a rebellion against David to take the throne) and during this attempted overthrow, David was forced to flee Jerusalem. Now that brings us to our text: II Samuel 16:5-14-----READ-----
I. THE DEAD DOG
What would cause Shimei to behave like such a jerk? Well… he had a disease, a spiritual disease. He suffered from Dead Dog syndrome. What is that? The main sign of Dead Dog Syndrome is a critical spirit. What does that mean? Well…people with a critical spirit always focus on the negative. They look for and dwell on the faults of others. And they’re very vocal in their unhappiness with how others live or talk or dress or act, etc. etc…
Critical people not only focus on the negative…their language and behavior is geared to put down and criticize those around them. However, most of the time, the person they’re upset with usually hasn’t even intended to cause them any harm. The people that suffer from this sickness are usually oblivious to it until it they cause strife.
Now - notice how Shimei conducts himself: He’s extremely negative toward David. He’s VERY vocal in his dislike of David - curses at David…throws dirt and stones at him. Critical people (particularly Christians) often don’t curse at you, but the things they say about you may as well be cursing with all the anger they unleash in their conversation about the people they are frustrated with. David had never done a thing to harm Shimei…but Shimei did everything in his power to belittle and embarrass David. And Abishai takes offense at how David is treated, and ask David if he can shut Shimei up by cutting off his head.
Now there are some people who think that to be critical is a good thing, but it’s not. ILLUS: After a preacher had given a sermon on spiritual gifts, a woman from the congregation came up to him and said, "That was a great sermon… but I believe I only have one talent." The preacher smiled and asked, "What’s your talent?” The woman replied, "I have the gift of criticism." To which the preacher wisely said, "The Bible says that the guy who had only one talent went out and buried it. Maybe that’s what you ought to do with yours."
Shimei had the gift of criticism and he showed it. He was a man suffering from dead dog syndrome, and he had all the signs to prove it.
II. DAVID AND THE DEAD DOG
Now, by contrast, I want you to take a close look at David here. He had reason to be infected with this disease too. He had a very good reason to become infected with a critical spirit. He had been stripped of his throne, betrayed by his son, rejected by his people, no longer a young man capable of handling life on the run... this was one of his darkest hours. And THEN – along comes this mean spirited, insignificant excuse for a man throwing dirt and rocks at him?!
Now, I don’t know about you… but, I know what I would do. You catch me on a day when everything’s going wrong. A day when I’m tired… a little grouchy… and then someone says just the wrong thing... I might be inclined to take say to Abishai, “That sounds like a good idea….go on over there and take his head off.
So, I can understand Abishai’s anger, and his want to kill this excuse of a man with the edge of his sword. And I can imagine (if I were David) telling Abishai: "Here… go ahead. Use my sword! But don’t kill him quickly….let him suffer a little for what he said."
Now, my point is this: Sometimes the only thing that’s necessary for us to become infected with the Dead Dog Syndrome is for life to become REALLY unfair (to us). At times when everything and anything goes wrong it’s almost like someone’s lit a match in a warehouse full of fireworks. When that happens, you better stand back… because that baby’s gonna blow! We’ve all been in situations like that!
But David didn’t explode when he heard all those negative comments. He didn’t run over with his sword and say, “How dare you!” David could have responded to Shimei in anger and frustration… but he didn’t. How come? It all has to do with attitude.
III. ATTITUDE
One time after church, a father griped and griped to his son the whole way home. He’d found fault with everything in the service. He criticized the preacher, the sermon, the singing, and everything in general. The boy, who had noticed what his father put in the offering plate, said, “Well, Dad, what can you expect for a dollar.”
Christians are to be characteristically positive. We’re called by God to share the “Good News” of the gospel, are we not? You can’t do that with a critical tone. Sure, everyone has problems. We all have our issues. There will be sins to confront…troubles like David…issues to address. But our spirit doesn’t have to be negative when enduring these things.
Next to obeying the gospel of Christ, nothing is more important than having a good positive attitude. Your attitude can make you or break you. It can make friends or make enemies. It can make you happy or make you miserable. It can make you successful or a big failure.
Some people think that the whole world we live in stinks! 9 times out of 10, when we begin to feel that everything in life stinks, the problem is not with the world or with others, but with ourselves. The problem is that our attitude has become negative. Change you negative attitudes to positive ones, and you can change your world.
Attitude: this topic applies to everyone here, because we all have attitudes; sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re not so good, and other times they’re just plain nasty. There are 3 facts about our attitude I want to try to discuss tonight...
FACT #1: YOUR ATTITUDE - REVEALS THE REAL YOU
How important is your attitude? Your attitude is more important than your circumstances - what others say - it’s more important than your past - your education or how much money you have. Your attitude is more important than anything you can physically have in this life. And understand that your attitude is much deeper than just a few thoughts you may or may not think. Your attitude comes out of the core of your being…your attitude represents your disposition, your outlook, your character...it represents who you are to other people.
The Bible says in Pr 23:7; "For as a man thinks in his heart, so he is..." (NKJV). To illustrate this point, I have a bottle of water with a loose lid on top. I begin to shake this bottle, what’s going to happen? Water sloshes out. WHY DID THE WATER COME OUT? Because the lid was loose? Because the bottle was shaken? Because of gravity? Nope….the reason the water came out was because the bottle was filled with water, and what’s on the inside (when shaken) will always come out!
Jesus said, in Matthew 5:17-20 that our attitudes always become actions or reactions. How you think becomes how you act. Look at it: “Whatever goes into your mouth passes through the stomach and is expelled. But what comes out of the mouth proceeds out of what? THE HEART!”
Let’s visualize it this way... The attitudes inside you are like a jack-in-the box. You turn the little handle (all around the mulberry..) and the when you least expect it - he pops out. Now that’s a vivid picture of our attitude, when we least expect it, what you have been holding in on the inside POPS OUT and causes other people to like or dis-like you. What you have in your heart WILL COME OUT!
You see, much louder than the words you speak is your attitude. Your attitude tells people what you are really like. Personally, knowing that my attitude reveals the real me…this is quite a sobering thought. I like to say, like many others do, when I do or say something that obviously wasn’t the right thing, "I didn’t mean it, where did that come from," but Jesus knew where those things came from….they come from inside me. They come from my heart….my REAL PERSON. When I have a negative, nasty, critical attitude that’s the real me…and when you have one that’s critical and negative towards someone or something, then that’s the real you.
Understand this, we don’t have an attitude just because we had a bad day, or because we had a bad hair day, or because we were late for work (all that a bad day can do is shake our bottle of water). The reason we have bad attitudes toward things is because we have an attitude problem on our inside. FACT #1; YOUR ATTITUDE REVEALS THE REAL YOU.
FACT #2 YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES THE SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF EVERY RELATIONSHIP IN YOUR LIFE.
What a difference your attitude makes! Your attitude affects every relationship in your life. And sometimes relationships and friendships will never get started in the first place -- because many times your attitude has built up walls... making it difficult for people to want to be around you. Bad attitudes affect your marriage relationships/your relationship with your family/at work/at church/friends, everywhere.
And the thing that makes a bad attitude so destructive is that like the bottle of water with the loose lid on it, a bad attitude is eventually going to spill out into some negative actions - destructive words and less than Christ-like deeds.
See, you can never trust people with a bad attitude. I don’t care who they are or what position they hold….if they have a bad attitude they cannot be trusted. And the reason you can never trust anyone who has a bad attitude is because they will do things you never thought they would do. Their bad attitude gets the best of them.
Often times the things that we criticize or look on with negativity and get all stirred up about are not the problem at all. The problem is our own sour, sick, bad attitude. You know of people whose marriages have suffered due to bad attitudes. You’ve seen people that can’t get along at work because of bad attitudes. AND EVEN IN THE CHURCH we have seen how bad attitudes can tear the Lord’s body apart. Whenever you have an individual (or a group of people) filled with a bad attitude and wearing a loose lid, trouble is bound to happen, and things will rapidly get negative.
FACT#3 YOUR ATTITUDE IS ALWAYS YOUR CHOICE
I wasn’t always the smartest pea in the pod….I wasn’t the ‘A’ student. I didn’t make the honor roll. I wasn’t really in the top half of my class, but I can say that I was in the group that made the top half possible..." See, I can either be bitter about that or be positive.
Two men are in prison. One looks out through the bars and sees the mud on the ground outside. The other looks out through the same bars and sees the moon & stars. They’re both in the same place. What’s the difference? It’s the attitude of choice.
Without a doubt, the human mind is the most awesome creation of God. With it, God has given us the ability to think, to reason and to choose whether we focus on positive thoughts or negative thoughts. It’s a choice! In every one of our lives there is the positive and there is the negative. But we have the CHOICE as to which one we will focus on and feed, and dwell upon.
We all understand, we can’t choose what will happen to us today (it’s beyond our control). You can’t choose the weather, the hailstorm, the tornado, the lay-offs, the price cuts, the gas prices that are out of this world. -- but you can choose your own attitude - we each have the power to decide how we will respond to what happens to us. We can dwell on the bad, which makes our attitude sour in a hurry, or we can dwell on the good, which will give our attitude a boost of energy.
Maybe right now you’re feeling pretty broken (like David), your life has taken way too many turns for the worse. A lot of things have gone wrong. It seems like everything has fallen right down on top of you. You’re weary, overwhelmed and your hopes are fading fast. I don’t know what problems you have, and this lesson isn’t gonna solve them, but you have the choice of how you handle those problems.
I know from personal experience that it is not easy when the stuff of life hits you on the head, knocks you down and then kicks you in the stomach. But when it does, you have to remember that there is something that your situational problems can never take away from you - that there is something that nothing can take away from you….the power to choose your own attitude. No matter what has happened to you (some of you have had tough times; bad marriages, health...etc), the CHOICE of your attitude is still yours NO MATTER WHAT! And realize that Christ wants to help you choose and cultivate your positive attitude through His word.
I find it both interesting and tragic that the one thing that no person or circumstance can ever take away from us (the awesome power to choose our own attitude) is usually the first thing we give away. We have the power to turn a bad situation into good for us and others, but when something bitter and negative strikes, the first thing we do is choose to be bitter about it.
And to blame our bad attitudes on another person or on difficult circumstances is simply a cop-out. To blame your attitude on what has happened to you isn’t an excuse…it’s a lie. You choose how you handle things…you choose whether to be negative or positive. And if we allow events and mean people to cause our attitudes to be negative…we’re only hurting ourselves more because in addition to everything else we are now forced to live with the effects and misery our bad attitudes will bring on others. YOUR ATTITUDE REVEALS THE REAL YOU. YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES THE SUCCESS OF EVERY RELATIONSHIP. YOUR ATTITUDE IS ALWAYS YOUR CHOICE. You can be like David when it comes to the dead dogs of this world or you can be infected by the Shimei’s of your life and be negative right along with them.
IV. HOW TO GET RID OF A DEAD DOG
I want to give you four steps that you can take home with you that will help you be more positive. 1). STEP ONE: START SPEAKING POSITIVE WORDS The first step in becoming a more positive person is to work at learning to speak positive words. Notice, I said learning to speak positive words. And the reason we have to learn these things is because speaking positively is something you have to learn by practice. It doesn’t come naturally. The natural thing….the easier thing is always to talk negatively, and to criticize. I mean most of us can do that without even thinking about it: the negative words, comments and phrases just flow effortlessly from our lips. We can easily find the bad in every situation, but what about the good.
The reality is that you have to learn to create an atmosphere that is positive by the words that you speak (to yourself and others). When your words are positive, you produce a loving, caring, positive environment. On the other hand when you speak negative words you create suspicion, mistrust and ‘a can’t do anything right’ atmosphere.
Therefore, the task of the Christian life is to TRY OUR BEST TO eliminate those negative, beat you down into the ground, I don’t like this person because, kind of words. We have to do away with words that hurt and tear down, replacing them with positive words, words that build up, edify and encourage other people.
Beginning today, I dare you to try a little experiment. To everyone you meet (and it’s easy to do here for starters) to everyone you meet try to say something positive and uplifting. And I want you to do this for one week, and see what happens. You’ll probably have great days that week. Why? because positive words create a loving, caring and positive environment. STEP ONE: LEARN TO SPEAK POSITIVE WORDS.
STEP TWO: NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS LOOK FOR GOOD AND YOU WILL FIND IT
A positive person (and that’s the kind of person I want to be, and that’s the kind of person we’re all to try to be) is not a person that refuses to recognize the negative. We know there are plenty of negative things out there. But a positive person refuses to dwell on those negative things ALL THE TIME! There is always the negative and the positive in every person or situation. YOU can choose to see the good.
And what a positive person does is develop the habit of looking for the best results even from the worst conditions... It’s always possible to look for something good, even when things look bad. It is always possible (notice I said possible…I didn’t say we do it all the time)! And the remarkable fact is that when you look for and seek good….guess what? You’re gonna find it! PEOPLE TEND TO FIND WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR. The question is: What are you looking for? Negative or positive things?
We’ve all had bad times in our lives…we’ve all had tough things to go through (and some have it worse than others), but I can choose to dwell on the bad, the pain, the loss….OR I can try my best to focus on the good. We can look at the land and always see giants (like the 10 spies) IF that’s what we’re looking for…..or we can look at the same land and see a land flowing with milk and honey that God has promised to give us. It’s a matter of focus…it’s a matter of choosing what you look for.
Let’s apply this principle to a marriage. In your marriage if you always looking for the faults of your spouse, what’s wrong with your spouse, centering just on the negative…you’re going to be very happy with your spouse? NO….you ARE going to be very dissatisfied with your marriage if you continually find fault. In addition, by looking for the faults and the problems in the one that you love….you’ll NOT bring out the best but rather the worst in your mate (and that ain’t good no matter who you are). Consequently your whole marriage is going to fall into a nit-picking; negative, destructive cycle of “you’re never good enough for me.” How do you break this kind of cycle? Start looking for what is good and focus on that.
If you want things to work out in life…if we want to be positive….if we want to be Christ-like….if we want a good attitude, then we need to focus on the positive and look for the good in every situation and every person…and eventually we will find it. STEP ONE: LEARN TO SPEAK POSITIVE WORDS. STEP TWO: LOOK FOR THE GOOD AND YOU WILL FIND IT.
STEP THREE: TO TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR THOUGHT LIFE
Let me share with YOU 3 F’s of taking charge of your thought life:
#1 FIX; "Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and lovely. Dwell on the fine and good things in others." (Phil 4:6,7) We can’t let our mind wander all over the place, but rather we have to take command of it and choose positive thoughts over negative ones. FIX your thoughts on good things!
#2 FILTER; Would you eat out of a garbage can that had maggots, worms, bugs, and beetles in it? NO! Similarly, in order to really take control of your thought life you need to filter the garbage out of your heart. Garbage in = garbage out.
#3 FEED; Question: what are you feeding your mind? It matters what we feed our physical body, doesn’t it? Many diseases we have today, from cancer, heart disease to no energy are the result from an improper diet. It’s a fact that eating the wrong things can hurt your body and your way of life. But it’s not enough to just stop eating the bad….we need to start eating the good! In the same way it’s not enough to only filter out the garbage from our minds, we also have to feed on the good. We have to learn the word of God and have it in our hearts that we might not sin against God! We have to learn to look at the world with the eyes of Christ…NOT with the eyes of negativity and bitterness. Good in = good out. Put God into your mind, and watch God come out of your words.
STEP FOUR: NEVER SURRENDER LEADERSHIP TO THE NEGATIVE -- ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE POSITIVE
Question: when you feel the onslaught of negative emotions, how do you handle them? Do you simply fly off the handle? “Honey, this steak isn’t quite done and the beans are burnt!” FINE, I’ll NEVER COOK FOR YOU AGAIN!
Here’s what we need to do when it comes to negativity: Admit it. Face it. But don’t give in to it. One way to destroy a negative emotion is to replace it. Replace anger with love, fear with faith, complaining with gratitude, bitterness with forgiveness.
Above all your attitude will reflect your Christianity…people will see how you react to things, and by that they will see if you are of Christ or not. There are many…MANY Shimeis in the world today…there are many, MANY things in this life that can drag us down into a critical and negative spirit, but you have the power to choose. You can choose to let your Abishai out, and you can take somebody’s head off, or you can choose to answer like David, “Maybe the Lord will repay me with good for the cursing of this day.” Perhaps your attitude in life hasn’t been Christ-like, and maybe your example has suffered. The Lord can strengthen you, help you, and forgive you. He can totally change your outlook on things. Won’t you let Him change your life tonight? If you need to repent, if you need the blood of Christ to wash away your sins in baptism…