Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 125. In your heart back, Tim
Noll, 125. Let's all stand together. I hear the Savior say, thy strength
indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and
pray. Find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Lord, now indeed I find thy power
and thine alone. can change the leper's spots
and melt the heart of stone. Jesus paid it all, all to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. For nothing good have I whereby
thy grace to claim. I'll wash my garments white in
the blood of Calvary's lamb. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow. And when before the throne I
stand in Him complete, Jesus died my soul to save, my lips
shall still repeat, Jesus paid it all All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Please be seated. Love that hymn. Let's bow our
heads together. and ask the Lord's blessings.
Our Heavenly Father, thank you for the truth of that
hymn that we're able to lift to Thee. Thank you for the hope
of knowing that Thy dear Son, our successful Savior, paid it
all. All that you require for our
righteousness and for our justification he accomplished. Father, we pray
that you would send your spirit and power. You bless your word,
open our hearts, reveal to us the glory of Christ, enable us
to rest all our hope in him. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. The first line of that hymn we
just sang, I hear the Savior say, thy strength
indeed is small, child of weakness, watch and pray, and find in me
thine all in all. I believe the Lord has given
us a message this morning from 1 Samuel chapter 30 that will
give hope to that child of weakness, those who are faint of heart, those who are weak and without
strength. That's the qualification for
our salvation. Lord, I have nothing. nothing
to bring thee, completely dependent upon thee. And when we are yet
without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. So here's the
prerequisite for salvation to be made without strength. We were talking this morning
in the men's prayer time about those who want to argue the doctrine
of particular redemption, limited atonement, for whom did Christ
die? Did he die for everybody? Is there a sense in which he
offered his life for all men? And we know that that's not true. He successfully redeemed those
that he came to save, and he died particularly for his elect
and for his sheep. And we came to the conclusion
this morning that the real problem that men have is not with particular
redemption. It's with total depravity. It's with being made a sinner.
And that's a work of grace that God has to do. And when he does
it, When the Lord causes you to see that you have absolutely
no righteousness whatsoever before God and you have no means whereby
to justify yourself before God, then you look in faith and cling
to the one who is your successful Savior and everything else, everything
else you believe. You don't contend with it once
God makes you to be a sinner. And their passage this morning
is as is all of God's Word for sinners. It is a story that gives
hope, as I said, to the weak and to the faint and for those
who find themselves without strength. You'll find it in 1 Samuel chapter
30 if you'll turn with me there in your Bibles. And we'll begin
reading in verse 21. Now those of you that have been
with us in the previous messages concerning David recovering all, You remember that it was the
Amalekites while David was off with his 600 men in battle. The Amalekites came and attacked
the city of Ziklag where David and his men had left their wives
and children and had taken captive all of the wives and all of the
children that belonged to David and to his men. And David asked
the Lord what he should do. And the Lord said, pursue them
and you shall recover all. And that's what David did. David
went after the Amalekites and what a glorious picture of the
success that the Lord Jesus Christ had in recovering all. That's what he did. He recovered
everything. He didn't lose anything. And
the scripture says that there was no harm done to the wives
and to the children by the Amalekites. And David destroyed the Amalekites
and three times in the verses previous to verse 21, the scripture
says, and David recovered all. We know the Lord Jesus Christ
is the son of David and that he pursued our enemy and delivered
us from sin, from Satan, from the grave, from death, from hell,
and that he was successful in recovering all. Well, as the
story goes in the first part of chapter 30, 200 of David's 600 men were so faint
as a result of them just being in battle and as a result of
them being so overcome by the fact that their wives and children
had been taken. They were so faint that they
could not go in battle against the Amalekites. And so the scripture
says that David left 200 of his 600 men behind with the stuff. And they guarded the things that
belonged to the army of David and 400 men went in battle against
the Amalekites. Now beginning in verse 21, We
have the record of those 400 men coming back with their commander,
David, and the way that they treated the 200 that were left
behind. In verse 21, and David came to
the 200 men, which were so faint that they could not follow David,
whom they had made also to abide at the Brook Beezer. And they
went forth to meet David and to meet the people that were
with him. And when David came near to the
people, he saluted them. Then answered all the wicked
men of the men of Belial, And that word belial means wickedness. So these were out of the 400
men that were with David, they did not have a heart of grace,
they were thinking wickedly. And Those that were with David
be said, because they went not with us, we will not give them
aught of the spoil that we have recovered, save to every man
his wife and his children that they may lead them away and depart. Give the 200 men their wives
and children and let's be done with them. They didn't go to
battle with us. Then said David, You shall not
do so, my brethren, with that which the Lord hath given us,
who hath preserved us and delivered the company that came against
us into our hand. This is not right, David said. It wasn't because of our strength
or our ability that we defeated the Amalekites. It was the Lord
that gave the Amalekites to us. For who will hearken unto you
in this matter? Now that's a rhetorical question.
David is saying to the rest of the men, don't listen to these
men. But as his part is that goeth
down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by
the stuff, they shall part alike. 200 men that were left behind
with the stuff are going to receive the same amount of spoils as
did the 400 that went with David. And it was so from that day forward
that he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel unto
this day. The first thing that strikes
me in this story is the contrast between the way David greeted
these 200 men that were left behind and the way the sons of
Belial had such contempt and self-righteousness toward those
200 men. And I see that in the word saluted
in verse 21. That word saluted means that
David asked them of their health, of their safety, of their peace,
and of their state of affair. He's not just saying hi to them
and greeting them as he returns. David's first concern was for
the health and welfare of those 200 men that were left behind. And what a glorious picture of
our Lord who is filled with compassion towards the weak and the faint
of heart, towards those who struggle, those who are not able to go
to battle. He has such tender mercies toward
them. It is our Lord that treats His
special needs children with special attention. And what a blessing
it is to be a special needs child of God. What a blessing it is
to be dependent upon Him, to be weak and faint of heart, and
to see the compassion that He has He lifts up the hands of
those who are downcast and fallen. He resists the proud. And that's what we see here.
David rebuking these proud sons of Belial and showing compassion
towards those who were so weak and faint that they couldn't
go into battle. And God, the scripture says,
resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble. This is why when we talk about
the order of grace in the five points, this is why total depravity,
the very first point that we make, is so essential to all
the rest of it. God makes you to be a sinner.
You're weak. You're without strength. You're
faint of heart. And those are the ones that our David shows
mercy toward. Turn back with me to 1 Samuel
chapter 22. 1 Samuel chapter 22. When David first fled from
Saul, The scripture tells us the condition
of all the men that followed David, not just the 200 that
were left behind with the stuff, but all 600 men are defined here
in 1 Samuel chapter 22 at verse two. And everyone that was in
distress and everyone that was in debt and everyone that was discontented
gathered themselves unto him. Did 400 of these 600 men forget
that they were in distress, that they were in debt, that they
were discontented when they joined ranks with David? Oh, how our self-righteousness can rear
its ugly head. and forgetting our condition
before God and speaking like these sons of Belial and saying,
well, they haven't done what I've done. And the Lord immediately rebukes
us for that, reminding us that we were the ones in distress
We were the ones who had no place else to go. That's what that
word distress means. We were the ones who had debt
that we could not pay. We were the ones that were discontented
with all the things of this world and all that we had and we could
not find satisfaction for the salvation of our souls apart
from David. And it's a, It's a wonderful,
wonderful reminder of how our Lord has compassion on his sheep
because they were, as those without a shepherd, scattered and vulnerable. We are. David saluted them. He asked them how they were.
His heart was for them when he left them. He understood that
they were too faint to pursue in another battle and left them
behind with the stuff. And the first thing he does is
he greets them with a concern for their state. How merciful
our Lord is when he comes to us and reminds us that all of
our salvation is of him. We didn't make any contribution
whatsoever to any part of our salvation. All of our salvation
in election was all of grace. We didn't have anything to do
with the Lord choosing us and Christ becoming our surety in
that covenant of grace before time ever was. He reminds us
that our redemption, what the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary's
cross was all of grace. We didn't make any contribution
to that. When he bowed his head and said, it is finished, everything
required for the salvation of his people was accomplished.
We made no, We had no participation in that. When he came in the power of
his spirit and opened the eyes of our understanding and called
us by his grace and made us willing in the day of his power, he arrested
us on the road to Damascus in a self-destructive life and made
us, he turned us and caused us to believe upon him. We didn't
have anything to do with that. When he keeps us faithfully all
throughout our walk of faith, if he didn't keep us, if he didn't
put us on a leash, if he didn't cause us to keep coming and keep
coming to him, we would deny him and fall away. To be successfully
brought into his glorious presence in heaven is all of grace. He's going to do that. all by
his power. And this is what the Lord is
reminding us here, that he gets all the glory. He gets all the
glory. Now, in man-made freewill works
religion, you've heard it, they believe in a degree of rewards
in heaven. It is nothing more than false
prophets way of trying to shame and motivate church members to
be more faithful. The more you give, the more you
get. And the size of your mansion
and the amount of your rewards and glory will be dependent upon
your faithfulness here in this life. That's exactly what this passage
of scripture is teaching us against. That's a works gospel. The Lord Jesus said to the thief
on the cross, who had wasted his entire life and only in the
last moments of his life, thou shalt be with me in paradise. Could the rewards for Moses be
any better than that? Could the reward for the apostle
Paul be any better than that? Could the reward for Mary that
had found grace in the eyes of the Lord and faithfully raised
the Lord Jesus in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and
could it be any better than that? Thou shalt be with me in paradise.
Could the sacrifice that any believer makes in this life improve
what the Lord Jesus said to Abraham when he said to him, I am thy
shield, and I am thine exceeding great reward. You see, to teach
a gospel of rewards versus reward is to deny Christ his glory and
salvation. And it's to deny Christ his glory
in heaven. that there's something to look
forward to in heaven other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans chapter four, verse four,
now to him that worketh is reward not reckoned of grace, but of
debt. In other words, if our reward
is based on our works, then our reward is not by grace, we have
indebted God to do something for us. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith shall
be counted for righteousness. Said, I know what some people
are thinking, you're gonna take away my motivation for service. Oh no, no, no, no, no. If you believe that, then you
don't know Christ. Because the fact that our salvation
is all of grace is the motivation for service. It is the thing
that moves the heart of God's people to love him. It is the love of Christ that
constraineth us. It is the sacrifice that he made
that causes us to want to serve him. And in whatever service
we perform, we reckon ourselves to be but unprofitable servants. What a message. Can the man who spends his life
and effort in prayer and preparation of the gospel and faithfully
preach Christ expect any greater reward than the unassuming child
of God who quietly prays for that man? Or that works with
the babies in the nursery? Is there any? No, no, why? Because Christ is our reward,
that's why. He is our reward. It's the same
message that the Lord told in Matthew chapter 20 when he said
that there was a man who owed a vineyard and he went to the
day laborers, they had day laborers back then, a man that would stand
around on the street corner and wait for somebody to come get
him and put him to work. And he went early in the morning
with day laborers and he put them out in the field. And then
in the middle of the day, he hired some more. And in the end
of the day, at the last hour of the day, as the sun is setting,
he hired some more. And at the end, when they all
lined up to be paid, he paid them all exactly the same. And those who had worked all
day, They complained. They said exactly what the sons
of Belial said. They said, this is not fair.
They stayed back with the stuff. We've worked through the heat
of the day. We've served all day long, and you're going to
pay us the same that you pay them? That's the gospel. That's the gospel, that the Lord
Jesus Christ himself is our reward. And if he's not sufficient reward,
then we've not really heard. And if this message doesn't convict
us for our own self-righteousness, I mean, I'm convicted by this
because, you know, you have those thoughts of the ones who served
all during the day. Oh Lord, rebuke us and cause
us to know. We've made no contribution to
our salvation. The Lord Jesus gets all the glory
and he himself is all the reward. He's all the reward. Now, the real application of
this story is not one believer serving God longer and more faithfully
than another, or one believer having a more apparent ministry
than another, the real application of this story is who exactly
do these 400 men represent who went to battle? And who exactly
did the 200 men represent that stayed back with the stuff? The 400 that went to battle,
that's Christ. That's Christ. Who fought and defeated Satan?
The Lord Jesus Christ. Who paid the full ransom for
his church. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. Who conquered death? Who opened the grave? Who by himself put away all the
sins of all of God's people by the sacrifice of himself? Who
went to battle? Oh, death. Where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God through
Jesus Christ, our Lord, we have the victory. You see, The church is the 200 left behind
with the stuff. Isn't that what consumes our
time and our efforts and our energy more than anything else?
Just taking care of stuff. And we look to our David who
said to that giant one-on-one, One-on-one. And Goliath, if you
defeat David, then Israel will become the servants of the Philistines.
David, if you defeat Goliath, then the Philistines will all
be servants of the Israelites. And all of Israel will profit
and benefit from the success that one man has. Oh, what a glorious, look at
verse 23. Then said David, you shall not
so do, you shall not do so my brethren, with that which the
Lord has given us. The Lord preserved us, the Lord
delivered that company against, that came against us into our
hands. The Lord did this. Why would you take credit for
something that the Lord did? Why would you expect reward for
something that he did? Who make it thee to differ? What
do you have that you've not received? A man can receive nothing except
to be given to him from heaven. There's our salvation. That's
what this story is all about. the reward versus the natural
man. And in this world, yeah, generally
speaking, unless you're given it to you by somebody else, generally
speaking, in this world, you're going to get rewarded for what
you do. And the harder you work, the more you're going to achieve. Not so. Not so when it comes to our salvation. The Lord said if you take credit
for anything, you have your reward. The praise and the approval of
men. You know, it's right for us to show appreciation to one
another when when someone does something for us, it's not right
to be presumptuous when it comes to other people doing something
for us. But on the other hand, it's wrong
for us to expect appreciation for what we do or to become angry
if we're not appreciated for what we do. Let not the right hand know what
the left hand's doing. Do what you do with all of your
heart as unto the Lord, not as unto men. How oftentimes we act
like the sons of Belial. How oftentimes we act like those
men that were hired in the morning and worked through the heat of
the day. And we have this expectation, whether it be from God or whether
it be from man. We deserve something for what
we've done. We don't deserve anything. Whatever gifts one has and whatever
faithfulness they demonstrate in exercising those gifts was
given to them. You say, well I worked hard all
my life and who gave you the wherewithal to do that? How come you were born in a country
with opportunities versus being born in North Korea? How come
you were born with enough sense to know how to do something and
enough ability to do it? How come a man can receive nothing
except to be given to him from God? You see, our thanksgiving,
our gratitude to God is not just for our salvation, it's for everything.
It's for everything. Whatever we have and whatever
we're able to do, God gave it to us. What do we have to take? What
do you have that you've not received? And if you received it, why do
you boast in it as if you didn't receive it? It all belongs to
him. Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights.
With whom? There is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning. In other words, the gifts of
God are always good. There's no variableness. He doesn't,
you know, sometimes we want to do good things for people, for
our children particularly, and in an attempt to do something
good for them, it may end up not being good for them. That's
not the way our Heavenly Father is. He knows exactly what we
need He knows exactly when we need it. He measures it exactly
perfectly. Every good gift comes from our
Father above with whom there is no variableness. In other
words, we're variable in the way in which we gift one another.
He's not. Every gift he gives is good.
Regardless of how hard it is, regardless how difficult it is,
it is good. Why? Because our Heavenly Father
is leading us to that one who is good, Christ. The only good thing there is. And there's no shadow of turning. There's no, you know, the world's
going to experience an eclipse tomorrow. And that's, there's no eclipse
to God's love or to his light. There's no cloudiness, there's
no shadows. His light is perfect and clear
and true. Turn with me to Revelation chapter
21. Here's what. Here's what no shadow of turning
means. And this is what we have to look
forward to. In verse 23 of Revelation 21,
and the city, the new Jerusalem describing heaven, had no need
of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory
of God did lighten it. And the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which
are saved shall walk in the light of it. And the kings of the earth
do bring their glory and honor into it." Christ is their glory. Christ
is their honor. We come into heaven. The Lord said, Walk now in the
light, the light of the gospel. What is the gospel? It's the
free and sovereign grace of God in the glorious person and accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. A gospel of
salvation that excludes us from having any contribution or participation
in it. He gets all the glory. And if
you walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of
all sin. There's no shadow of turning
with him. Notice in our text in verse 25,
and it was so from that day forward that he made it a statute and
an ordinance for Israel unto this day, a law, a king's law, a command,
an inflexible law. This grace, this mercy that God
gives to all of his children in Christ and revealing Christ
in them and making Christ to be their reward, regardless of
what place they have in the body of Christ. And despite the fact that they
had no participation in the battle that the Lord Jesus fought on
their behalf, it's all of grace. It's become a decree. God has
determined it. He's purposed it. He's established
it. It's a law. and the law of God
can't be changed. There's no flexibility here. And so David said in Psalm 119
verse 124, deal with thy servant according to thy mercy and teach
me thy statutes. Mercy of God. It's what we are. Always dependent upon His mercy.
David further in Psalm 148 verse 6 says, He hath established them
for ever and ever. He hath made a decree which shall
not come, which shall not pass. It shall not be changed. It's
God's decree. Salvation is of the Lord. He gets all the glory. Amen?
All right. Let's take a break.