1 Samuel chapter 30. Now I want to speak to you this
morning. I pray that I can give you some
encouragement. There's no encouragement for
those out of Christ. There's not one promise in this
whole book that's made to those outside of Christ. This is talking
about God's people. There's nothing but cursing,
damnation, condemnation for those out of Christ. There's only one prayer. People come up to me all the
time, pray for me. The only thing I know to pray
is, God, be merciful to you, sinner. What else can you say
for me? For God's people, though this
is God's It's his love letter to his people. Christ's love
letter to his spouse. All written to God's people.
Every promise, every hope, every blessing. Read who the blessed
are. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imbued not iniquity. Does not charge with iniquity. So I hope I have a word of encouragement
for you this morning. David's in a mess. That sweet singer of Israel,
that man who's after God's own heart is in a mess. David is so far removed from
that place where the Lord God of heaven has chosen to meet
with his people. He separated himself from God's
people, and he's gone down to live with a bunch of Philistines.
Gone down to God. Became dear friend with old King
Achish, and he's in a mess. But when
I read this, when I read about all God's men in the Scriptures,
it's a blessing to me. to have the accounts of God's
people in the scriptures. I find myself there time and
time and time again. When they're down, that's where
I find myself. When they fall, that's when I
find myself. And I'm glad to have this story
of the life of God's servant David. It was a great life. A great life to read about. A
man who always was doing something. It was a life that was spent
in many positions, all the way down from a shepherd. That was about the lowest job that an Israelite could hold. He was given to the children,
given to the young ones. You go watch the sheep. And we know that even when Samuel
came to his house, Came to the house of Jesse. He knew God's
King was going to come out. Jesse paraded all of his other
sons, didn't he? Before Samuel. Samuel said, not
him. Nope. Not him either. Nope. Not
him either. He said, is that all of them?
There's another, but you don't want to even talk to him. Where
is he? He's down there tending the sheep. Samuel said, go get him. Go get
him. That was low down, but we see
him sitting on the throne of Israel, commanding the most powerful
army in the world, because God was with him. He wasn't alive
without thought, and that's the reason I like to read it. You
know, if we find these stories in the scriptures, the biographies
of these men and women, But you know, I've noticed something
that every time we find one of these in the Scriptures, it's
not long before their faults are brought out. We're showing
their faults. And if not, you know what we'd
do? We'd start worshiping them, wouldn't
we? We'd start making gods out of them. We'd start making images
of them and idols of them. We'd start worshiping them. But
when the Lord God of heaven raises up someone, the first thing He
does, it seems, is showing us, don't forget, this is just a
man. It's just a man. So don't ever be disappointed
when you see in these preachers a fault. The Lord's reminding
us we're just men. That's all we are. But even that's a great encouragement
to us. It's the life of a man that's
after God's own heart, but still it's the life of one who went
astray. But it's the life of one who
was brought back. That's how he can more relate
to us as poor, sinful men and women. He was a great man. He had his faults. He went astray,
but he was brought back. And I want to say something to
you this morning, and I want to make it very, very clear. They go out from us because they
are not of us. God's people never forsake God's
people. God's people never forsake God's
gospel. And God's people never forsake
God's worship. They never do. You know how God's
people stray? In heart. They don't stray in
the flesh. They stray in the heart. We go
away in the heart. We see our heart wandering way
off down there when God's people are meeting right here. Don't
you see it in your own heart this morning just sitting here
no longer than we've been here this morning? You've already
found your heart straying way off to this afternoon. What's
going to go on? Some of you, you may already be wondering
what the ladies are fixing for lunch. We do things like that. That's
what I'm talking about. That's the way the believer strays. Well, what about old so-and-so? Grandkids, they moved off and
they just had to be near those grandkids, so they went off up
there. I've already answered that question. God's people don't
leave God's worship. I was telling the men the other
day, a lady told me a while back, she said, She said, the Lord has given
me a great job. And she told it publicly to everybody. And she was so happy about it. And so I felt, I need to answer
this lady publicly. Comment on what she just said.
Because she went on to say, the Lord had given her this great
job. There was a downside to it. And
she said, I will never, and that's the word she used, I will never
be able to come to church again on Sunday. And I tell you, I held it just
as long as I could. I tried my best. Just don't say
anything, but I thought, I have to deal with this. If she had
said it publicly, I wouldn't have said what I said publicly.
But I said, I'll tell you what I think about this. I said, if
the Lord God of heaven gave me a job, or really gave me anything,
that was going to take me away from the worship, from meeting
together with God's people to worship, I said, I'd think He
turned His back on me and cast me away. reprobate. She said, do you really
believe that? I said, yes, ma'am, I really
believe that. Well, I don't know how long ago
that was. It's been several months ago, and she's still there every
Sunday morning. I told David, I said, I think
that's the first person to ever listen to what I had to say. Most folks don't. What does a
preacher know? Nothing. All he does is preach. Gets up and preaches for about
an hour on Sunday morning. What does he do the rest of the
week? Nothing. Nothing. That lady got real upset because
this coming Sunday morning I canceled service Sunday morning. I put
in a bulletin, y'all have a happy 4th of July. We're not having
services at church Sunday. Oh, this lady got upset. She
has never gotten upset when we've canceled Sunday school or Sunday
night or Wednesday night. Did you know that? But I touched
her idol. I touched her God. But I kind
of have a tendency to do those things every once in a while,
just on purpose. God's people. I don't know how
I got off way over there, but God's people don't walk off in
the flesh. God's people walk off in the
heart. That's what disturbs me when I see my heart wandering.
You know, there's a lot of things we can learn when we look at
David's life. Among those is the fact that When you walk with Christ, there's
going to be trials. Brother Don dealt so well with
that last night. I don't want to repeat, but I
still want to tell you what I got to say this morning. David was that man after God's
own heart, yet he was tried time and time again. Why'd he try?
Why'd he try? So God could find out what kind
of faith he had? No, so that we'll know what kind
of people we are. So we know what our heart's like
if the Lord God of heaven ever left us to ourselves. The worst trials that David suffered
arose because he did not trust God. What he did to avoid trouble
brought more distress on him than ordinary providences ever
caused him. People say, and I've heard of
it, I just get so tired of all the bickering and the fighting
that's going on. Why can't people in churches
be pleasant? Because you always got a mixed
multitude, that's why. You always got a mixed multitude,
and I tell you what, you're faithful to preach Christ. This world
is going to hate you. I don't care who you are. I don't
care where you are. The worst battles are going to
be fought where Christ is lifted up the most. So, David, what
do you do about that trouble? And David had trouble. What you
read about David being persecuted, hunted, hunted like a rabbit
continuously in the mountains by Saul. David had trouble. So he left the country. He just
turned his back on it and walked off. He left the country where
he had so much trouble. Where'd he go? He went down to
the land of the Philistines. He said, I'm going to get away
from all this trouble. But when he did that, he sinned. New troubles came. worse troubles
than David ever had from Saul. You know, if you're in Christ,
you're going to be tried. You're going to be tried. And
if you fall, you're going to be raised up and you're going
to be tried again. You're going to be tried again. Always remember
this. There's no discharge in this
world, in this war. There's no R&R. You know, it's
kind of like a sword fight. You either keep swinging that
sword or you're going to get cut. If you can't stop, hang on a
second, let me sit down and rest. There's no R&R here. It's a battle
that goes on. I see old people and they say,
well, I've done enough. It's going to stop. They die. Spiritually, they die. There's not any discharge. It's the day of battle. And it's
going to be a battle for us until we breathe that last breath. You're going to rain, you're
going to fight. You're going to have to fight. You're either going to swim or
you're going to drown. There's nothing in between. Why should
we expect peace when our Lord had none? He had none. No matter how rough
the king's highway gets, how rough it may seem, just remember
that the side roads and the detours are worse. There's a road in
Mexico. I know David. As long as it's
been David, it's probably as fresh in your memory as it is
in mine, but it runs from Tampico in the state of Tamaulipas down
to Tuxpan in the state of Veracruz. Only 130, 140, 150 miles, something
like that. The highway, the main highway,
is so bad that I spent the night on both ends of that 150 miles. It'd take you a solid 8, 9, 10
hours to drive it. Well, one time I came through
there. They were working on the road,
sort of a joke, but they were working on it. And they did tourists. We had
to take a secondary road. Paid. It was not unpaid. I never thought that there could
be a road. I always considered that road to have to be the worst
highway in this whole wide world. And still you have that name
on it, highway. But you should have seen the
bypass. I can never describe it to you.
If maybe one of these days you'll get on one, you're going to think,
maybe this is what Brother Milton was talking about. It's bad.
And what I'm trying to say to us, no matter how rough the king's
highway may seem, the alternative is so bad you don't want to even
try it. You don't want to get off the
king's highway. That's the reason David said in Psalm 42, as the
heart pineth after the water brooks. And you just build that
picture there in your mind of this small deer that's being
pursued by the dogs, being chased by the hunters. And he's running
and running. What's he trying to do? Just
get to that water brook. He's in this desert. He's dying
of thirst. His tongue's hanging out. And
just get to that water every time I've hunted deer, and you
lost one, you knew where you could look for him. You knew
where you were going to find him. He's going to be down at
the bottom of one of these canyons somewhere where there's some
water running. Because if he gets down, that's where he wants
to be, down where that water is. David said, I'm tired. It's been a long chase. I'm thirsty. So thirsty, my tongue's hanging
out. And I'm, I've just, and as the
heart panicked after the water broke, that's how my soul pans
after Thee, O Lord. My hope. And even when your trouble's
brought on you by your own fault, there's still hope for us. When it's a correction, an affliction,
when it's a correction for even a serious transgression, there's
still hope. Trust Him. He's done what's right. Reading your study on Job the
other day, Brother Don, and I liked, we got down to the end of it,
and you said, when God's through with that gold in the furnace,
He takes it out of the furnace, but it's going to be in that
furnace. He purifies it. It just gets better, better and
better. But when He's done, He takes
it out of the fire. And to destroy that gold, that'd
be foolish. Everybody knows that's the reason
they use that analogy. to purify him. The Lord Jesus
Christ prayed for Peter. He prayed that his faith fail
not. Look here. Look where David came
to. You read this passage through
here and you see David's troubles. How David thought he was going
to get rid of all of his troubles. I'll just leave this place. I'll
go down to Achish. Go down to Gath. Go down and see old King
Achish. I'll get some peace down there."
So he did. He did. And it came to pass. It always will. Trust it. You
can run, you can hide, but it's going to come to pass. When David
and his men were come to Ziklag, on the third day that the Amalekites
had invaded the south and Ziklag and Smit and Ziklag. Ziklag was
the town that King Achish, he thought a lot of David. He said,
I'm going to give you Ziklag. It's going to be your town. That's
where David settled, his men settled. It was quite a place, known as the City of Kings. Ziklag Not only did they invade
it, but they smote it, burned it with fire. Taking the women captives that
were therein, they slew not even either great or small, but carried
them away. Carried them away and went on
their way. So David and his men came to
the city, and behold, it was burned with fire. their wives,
their sons, their daughters, were taken captives. And David
and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and
wept until they had no more power to weep." You been there? David's two wives were taken
captive. Canaan, the Jezreelites. Abigail,
the wife of Nabal, the widow of Nabal, the Carmelite. And
David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning
him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every
man for his sons and for his daughters. David was greatly
distressed, cities burned, wives gone, families of his friends
taken captive. ashes. His men have mutinied
against him. They're ready to stone him. David's
lost most of what he has in this world. He was in distress. David's biggest distress was
that he had been acting without consulting his God. He just took
it upon himself to head off down there. You pray about it? No, I didn't pray about it, you
know. I told the Lord what I was going to do, and the door just
swung open. I tell you, when the door swings open for you
to walk off from the worship, it's like I said, watch out.
It's a dangerous sign. She was tired. Tired of the persecution
of Saul. And in his tiredness, his heart
failed him. And he said back over in 1 Samuel
27, the first verse, he said, I shall surely fall one day by
the hand of Saul. God said, no way. Didn't He? He gave him a throne. You're
my king. You're going to sit on the throne
of Israel. And David said, I don't believe
it. Everything's pointing the other way. Surely. I shall surely fall one day by
the hand of Saul. That's dangerous. Dangerous mood
to be in, isn't it? Dangerous thoughts. Always be
afraid of being afraid. Fear will cause you to do some
things that you ought not do. Distress. It'll not only cause you to lose
your joy, it'll drain away your spiritual life. If you don't comfortably trust the
Lord God of heaven, you're going to soon start seeking after comfort
somewhere else, and that's what David did. Without asking any
directions, he fled down there to that Philistine king, Achish,
hoping to find some peace there. Peace. Got some peace. There
he was, standing among the ashes of Ziklag. Is this the peace
that I looked for? Is this the peace that I so desired? Did I turn my back on God's people
for this? He began to understand what an
evil thing it is to lean to our own understanding. to forget
God who guides us to become a Lord ourselves. Have you been there?
While he was among these Philistines, it went well for him. My, you
read what took place there. Oh, Achish, he loved David. They'll receive you with open
arms out there. Yeah, look at him. They think they're so high
and mighty up there. They think they're the only ones
who got the truth in this whole area. Look at them. Yeah, come
on in. We'll take you. Why, they just set you up as
a trophy to their hatred for God. And old King Achish, he
took David in, made him the commander of his bodyguard. First David lived in the royal
city, and then the king gave him this whole town. Sure. David and his men, they warred
with the different tribes of the Canaanites who lived in the
southern part of Palestine and took great, great spoil from
them. And he took it back and he gave
it to Achish. But he made a big mistake when,
back over in the end of chapter twenty-seven, because all that
he did, he tried to deceive Achish in making him think he was fighting
against Israel all this time. But that little misleading of
David, it just brought on greater troubles. Because then they said,
OK, we're going to go up against these Israelites. Come on, David.
You come help us. You've been doing this all this
time. Come lend us a hand. You're good at this. But he raised up those princes,
the King Achish. And they said, what in the world
are these Hebrews doing in our army? Get rid of them. Get rid
of them. We don't want them. He was going
to have to go out and fight against Israel, but God protected him.
Divine providence kept him from committing a greater sin. But
he had to pay for his deception, because he went back and his
town was destroyed. His wives were gone. He was forsaken by
those that followed him. Keep reading with me here, because
David encouraged himself. The last part of verse six. People
turned against him, his friends turned against him, they're talking
about killing him. People were grieving, but David
encouraged himself in the Lord. You notice he didn't try to encourage
anybody else until he encouraged himself. How can I preach to
you till I've been preached to? That's what I enjoy about coming
here. I get to hear these men stand
and preach. I tell you, you know, sometimes
I feel like I sort of preach myself down into a dry well. I've got to hear it. I have to
be preached to. Tape players are fine, but I
remember Brother Henry said, from this very pulpit, they make
poor pastors. You go lay your head on your
tape player next time when your heart's broke and you want to
cry on something, go lay it on your tape player. You'll find
out real quickly it makes a mighty poor pastor. Mighty poor pastor. I enjoy sitting here and listening
to these men. I preach many times a week myself. I need to be preached
to. And David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. This is a good time for David
to say to himself, Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art
thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I will
yet praise him. David encouraged himself, but
he encouraged himself in the Lord his God. It's the only place
we're going to find encouragement. But a lot of people are finding
encouragement in religion, but the only reason they do is because
they have not learned the distress of sin. And religion will comfort
you if you know nothing about sin. But if you ever come to
find out something about sin, you can only find comfort and
encouragement in the Lord your God, Jehovah, the Merciful One,
Christ Jesus Himself. There's no hope for us in religion. It's only when we're brought
to the end of ourselves that we look and cry to Jehovah. Let me ask you something. I know you pray. Most of us were taught to do
that from an early age. But how long has it been since
you've cried out? God be merciful to me, a sinner. I know we pray. I know you pray
for me. I know you pray for your pastor
and his wife. Pray for this work here. But
how long has it been since you just prayed for yourself this
way? God be merciful to me. David's not now standing before
Goliath. He's not standing before all
the people and making this grave decoration. Oh, the Lord that
delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of
the bear, He's going to deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.
No. He's not touching David's person
here. He's touching his possessions. He's touched David's family.
We can take it when it's us, can't we? I tell you what, and
I've been there, and I'm sure you have been there also as a
pastor. People can hate my guts. I can't
understand it. I'm so lovable. But I tell you what, I can keep
my cool. They had better not say anything
about my wife. They just think I've been mad
before. They just think I had a hot temper once before. They
really don't know me as well as they think they do. And it's
what happened here. It's not David fighting the lion
now. It's not David fighting that bear now. It's not David
standing before that giant, Goliath, with just a sling, couple of
rocks, five smooth stones, I know of it anyway. They've taken his
family. I wonder how we respond then,
when he touches our family. When he touches our possessions,
how do we... Now he's going to have to start
relying on those psalms that he wrote before. Now that's where
he's going to have to find comfort. That's how he's going to encourage
himself in the Lord, his God. He had to be encouraged to know
that the Lord will not change His eternal appointment or cause
His word to fail. He does not change. That's the
reason we haven't been consumed. God's people will never be overcome. You say, well, it looks like
the world's winning this battle. You know why? Because our circle
is so small. You know, when we're a child,
our circle is real small. I mean, it's right now. Don't
talk to me about tomorrow, because tomorrow, it's just a figment
of our imagination as a child. Don't talk to me about yesterday,
because I can't even remember. One of my grandsons, he always
called it yesterweek. I thought, boy, that's just about
as good as what we call it. We continue to mature. We start
learning a few things, and we think our circle enlarges. But
it's still limited. Oh, we see. It's just so far
we can see. And then we get old, and it starts
shrinking again. Go preach in some of these old
folks' homes. I do it. And I'm telling you, it's back
down to me and right now. Like that one lady said, Sonny
boy, I don't even buy green bananas anymore. I mean, because it's right now. That's all I have is just right
now. And David looked around, and
we think, now we're losing this battle. That's because we can't
see good. We have no idea. Wouldn't you
like to just control everybody? Can you imagine how many you'd
have to control to control everybody? All the details to work, we get
everything to work, but yet we try, every morning we get up,
we try to take charge of this day and run this thing like we
want it going. And before long, we're popping pills to overcome
the problems that we've caused ourselves. You know, the hardest
blow that our God could ever deliver us is to put us right.
The hardest blow that he could ever deliver to
us, whatever it is, ever how far down he brings us, whatever
he does, ever how he touches us, touches us, touches our possessions,
whatever it is, if it separates us from self
and from sin, it's a stroke of mercy, a coup de grâce. Stroke of mercy if it ends our
life as selfishness and brings us back into the life of trust
Oh, what a blessing it is. I don't care what it is Now the
servant of God begins to see the wonderful hand of God and
now he's gonna say before I was afflicted I went astray But now
I've kept our word before I was afflicted. Oh, look what I did
and David inquires of God verse 8 He inquired of the Lord, saying,
Shall I pursue? Shall I go up? Shall I overtake? As soon as David's heart was
ripe with God, he desired to know the Lord's mind now concerning
his next step. And he says, he calls for the
priest. Said there in verse seven, he
called for Abithar, the priest, Emelech's son, he said, Bring
thee forth! We've got some serious praying
to do right now. We're going to go before the
Lord and find out the Lord's mind. It's the only way you're going
to commune with God through that priest. He's not going to march anymore
until the Lord gives command. Now what we were talking about,
now we're going to sit still until the Lord tells us to move
forward. I think, David, you said that this morning. You and
Brother Don were talking. Our greatest strength is not
to lean to our own understanding, but trust Him. David knows the
Lord's going to help him. He just wants to know how it's
going to be done. He uses that word, shall, there. Shall I?
Shall I? But he's not going to sit back
and expect God to help him without him doing his best in the matter,
because he said, Shall I? Shall I? Shall I pursue? Shall
I overtake? How people get in trouble and
they expect an angel from heaven to come down and just yank them
out of it. People say, well, God made me
this way. No, He didn't either. Don't rest on that. He didn't
make you like you are. The question is, Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do? David got an answer of peace.
And the Lord answered him. He said, get after them. Pursue. For thou shalt surely overtake
them. And without fail, they recover
all. Without fail. Deliverance came. There was another trial. David
took off. He counted up. Man, I got 600
men. 600 men I can take on this whole
wide world. The Lord said, you think so,
huh? So there's the forced march they made, and they got to that
little old Brook Bezor. It's normally just a little brook,
a little stream, but probably, I guess it was in flood. I don't
know what day, but they were so weak when they got there,
200 of them couldn't cross over. Had to stay back. Wow, now what
am I going to do? I'm down to 400 now. I thought
it was all right with 600, and now we got 400. You know what?
The Lord God of heaven is going to get the glory. And he's going
to strip everything away until he gets to glory. He gets all
the glory. David takes off. Why? Because he will have the victory.
The Lord's already told him. Thou shalt surely overtake him. Look what he raised up. Took
away 200 soldiers. Boy, they had to have been hand-picked. Don't you think? They had to
have been the best of the best. It takes 200 of them. Look what
he used to replace those 200 soldiers. An Egyptian slave. An Egyptian slave. He said, I
know where they are. And he was sick at that. He was
so bad they left him behind because he couldn't keep up with the
march. But he said, I know where they were. And he brought them
down. Verse 16. And there they were. Behold.
I love that word, behold. There they were, just like he
said. Spread abroad upon all the earth, eating, drinking,
dancing. Caused all the grapes to fall. David went in. He won
the victory. And I think my favorite phrase
here in this whole passage is in verse 19, the last three words,
David recovered all. You know what the Lord said?
He said, without fail, Thou shalt overtake them, he did, and without
fail, recover all. David recovered all. The people were so happy, they
said, this is David's fault. David said, okay, let's split
it up equal parts to everybody. Those that stayed behind, those
that went. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that to this. He
said, it's my fault. But I tell you, it became a law,
a statute, he says, an ordinance in Israel. And to this day, David
recovered all. Oh, don't try to run from it. Seek the face of the Lord. God's
people never turn their backs on God's worship, God's gospel,
God's preacher. Told Samuel, didn't he? Samuel, he got down, the Lord
told him, he said, The people haven't rejected you, they've
rejected me. And I bet you, I quote that verse
of scripture to myself probably on the average of once a day.
They've not rejected you, they've rejected God. I hope somehow
or another the Lord will bless this to your heart and it will
be an encouragement to you. Thank you Brother Junior.