Thank you, Joy. What an encouragement.
We've been praying for this weekend. We've been preparing for it. I want to thank all the work
that our folks have done and getting ready for this meeting.
And it's an honor to welcome our guests and to have brethren
from other churches here to worship with us. And very, very hopeful
the Lord's going to meet with us this weekend. Been praying
to that end, continue to. And if the past is any indication
of the present, before you know it, we'll be parting company
on Sunday afternoon. It'll go by in a whirlwind. So I just want to encourage each
of us to give our undivided attention to every moment we have together
because it's going to go by very quickly. Chris and Vicki, it's
so good to have you from College Grove, Tennessee. Most of you
all know Chris Cunningham. Chris will be bringing our first
message tonight. And Chris, you have the Order
of Service, so when it's time for you to preach, you just come
on up. I'm not going to say anything else, okay? Angus is another
dear, dear friend and faithful gospel preacher. Angus Fisher
is from Nowra, Australia. And Angus and I FaceTime from
Australia to Orlando at least once a week. And we've been doing
that for a year and a half or so. And I just love this brother
and enjoyed being with his fellowship and his members back in May of
last year. And the sign on the wall above
the door was on the pulpit of Angus' church when I went there
to preach. And it impressed me and it humbled
me. And so, man, that sign's up there
for me and for you all. we would see Jesus. That's our
hope and that's our prayer. Todd and Lynn are I guess landing
about now and should be here soon but Todd will be preaching
tomorrow morning. I want to read a passage of scripture
from Micah chapter 7. If you'd like to turn there you
may. If you want to just listen that would be good too. Micah
chapter 7 Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity? We use that word pardon very
loosely, don't we? We say pardon me, we bump into
somebody. But that word pardoneth is most often translated to bear
or to lift up. And the only way that God can
pardon our iniquity is that the Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins
in his body upon that tree when he was lifted up as our substitute. He passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. When I see the blood, I'll pass
by. That's the only reason God passed by. Only reason. He retaineth not his anger forever.
I've heard people say, well, God's not angry. Psalm 711 says
He's angry with the wicked every day, and Hebrew says it's a fearful
thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. But all the
anger of our God, all of His wrath, was poured out on Calvary's
cross. The Lord Jesus Christ took all
that punishment, all that wrath, all that anger, in order that
we might find encouragement when he says, he retaineth not his
anger forever. He delighteth in mercy. He will turn again. He will have
compassion upon us. He will subdue. I looked up that
word subdue and it means to bring into judgment. He will bring
into judgment our iniquities. That's exactly what he did. and thou shalt cast all their
sins," all their sins, who? The remnant, the elect, the chosen
of God. All their sins were cast into
the depths of the sea. God said, I'll separate them
from you as far as the east is from the west and I will remember
them no more, no more. Thou, thou wilt perform the truth
to Jacob. God made a covenant It's called
the covenant of grace, it's the eternal covenant. It was a promise
that God the Father made to God the Son to give him a bride.
And God the Son entered into that covenant promise with his
Father and promised to do everything necessary to redeem them. And
God the Holy Spirit entered into that covenant and promised the
Father and the Son that he would come in his power and make them
willing, giving them ears to hear, cause them to believe. thou wilt perform the covenant
of truth. And he has performed it. And
the mercy to Abraham which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from
the days of old. All the hope of our salvation
is based on the fulfillment that God makes of his promises. Salvation in religion is dependent
upon you keeping your promise to God. The hope of our salvation
is completely dependent upon the fact that he performed his
promises. Will you bow with me for a word
of prayer, please? Our merciful Heavenly Father, we're so very
thankful that you've brought us each to this place. Lord,
we ask that you would be pleased to rim the heavens. We pray that
you would come down Lord, we confess that we have no ability
to get to where you are unless you come to where we are. We
thank you that you came in the person of thy dear son and that
you satisfied the demands of your holy justice, pouring out
your wrath upon him on Calvary's cross and putting away the sins
of the remnant of his heritage once and for all by the sacrifice
of himself. We ask now that you would send
your spirit. Lord, you said that That if we be an evil, know how
to give good gifts unto our children, how much more will your heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. And Father,
we ask you now that you would send your spirit and power these
days. And in these messages and in these times of worship, in
our fellowship and in our conversations, that you would save us, that
you would open the eyes of our understanding, that you would
give us hearts to believe and that you would knit our hearts
together in the love of Christ. Lord, assure us of the accomplished
work of thy dear son, put in away our sins and give us rest
in him. For we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. If you look in your pew,
you'll see a small spiral hymnal. If you'll open that to number
six, this hymn was written inspired by that passage that we just
read from Micah chapter 7. So let's stand together. Tom's
going to come and lead us in this hymn. Who is a God like unto Thee,
that pardoneth iniquity? Jehovah God, the great I Am,
Who forgives our sins through Christ the Lamb? Who is a God like unto Thee,
that pardoneth iniquity? His anger he retains no more
His grace and mercy he shall endure The God of truth must
punish sin, but in His love He formed a plan to satisfy the
law's demands. ? For sinners numerous as the
saints ? ? Who is a God like unto thee? ? ? That pardoneth iniquity ?
? His anger He forgives ? retains no more, His grace and mercy
shall endure. Behold His love and compassion
in the death of Christ His Son. ? Precious in atoning blood ?
? Reveals the love and truth of God ? ? Who is a God like
unto thee ? ? That pardoneth iniquity ? His anger He retains
no more, His grace and mercy He shall endure. He passes by the transgressions
of all His loved and chosen ones. In mercy God delights we see. He casts our sins into the sea. Who is a God like unto Thee,
that pardoneth iniquity? His anger He retains no more,
His grace and mercy He shall endure. None can with our great
God compare. He gives His Son sinners to spare. His anger He retains no more. Christ died and God requires
no more. Who is a God like unto Thee,
That pardoneth iniquity? His anger He retains no more,
His grace and mercy He shall endure. Please be seated. We're going
to sing another congregational hymn now. Please open the hardback
modern hymns hymnal in front of you, number 212, 212, Nothing
But the Blood. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon, this I see, Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. For my cleansing, this my plea,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. O precious is the flow, That
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Nothing can for sin atone, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Not of good that I have done,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Okay. ? Whate'er my God ordains is right
? His holy will abideth ? I will be still whate'er he doth ? And
follow where he guideth He is my God, though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall. Wherefore to Him I leave
it all. ? Whatever my God ordains is
right ? His Son will not deceive me ? Christ is my all, my only
hope ? He promised not to leave me ? His life, His death His
perfect faith hath pleased the Father holy. So now I can come boldly. Whatever my God ordains is right. His loving thought attends me. The sin that kept me far from
Him, Christ bore it all at Calvary. My God is true, each morn anew. He gives me faith, the gift of
grace. Christ is my life unending. Whatever my God ordains is right. He is my friend and Savior. He suffers not to do me harm. ? Though many storms may gather
? Now I may know both joy and woe ? Someday I shall see clearly
? That he hath loved me dearly What e'er my God ordains is right,
Here shall my stand be taken. Though sorrow, need, or death
be mine, Yet I am not forsaken. My Savior's care is round me
there, He holds me that I shall not fall, And so to Him I leave
it all. Amen. Thank you for that, brother.
Thank you to all of you for having. Again, this weekend and. Congratulations on your recently
celebrating 20 years. The Lord has blessed. Bless this
church with a faithful pastor that. Preaches the gospel to
you and comfort you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's blessed
your pastor too. And I'm thankful for him and
y'all, and thank you to everyone that came up and hugged my neck
tonight and said you love me and you've been praying for me.
That means more than I can tell you. 1 Samuel chapter 30. I'm sure everyone knows that King David pictures
in the scriptures in his life, he pictures the Lord Jesus Christ
in many, many ways throughout his life and beautifully does
so. And in the various circumstances of his life, the gospel is pictured
so beautifully. But in the few previous chapters
to this text in chapter 30, and here in the first part of chapter
30, David's just David. And this is important, too, because
the Lord, He reveals Himself to us in His Word, but He also
reveals us to us. And in David, we see ourselves.
In verse 1, it came to pass when David and his men were come to
Ziklag on the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the
south in Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire. Now, the significance of that
is that Ziklag is where David, his wives, and all of the 600
men who were with David, their families and all of their goods
were in Ziklag. When David is fleeing the pursuit
of King Saul, who's trying to kill him, in chapter 27 is where
it starts to, we see God working to bring David to this place,
beginning there in chapter 27. where it says in verse one, and
David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand
of Saul. There is nothing better for me
than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines.
And as you know from David's story, the Philistines are the
enemies, the enemies of God and the enemies of his people. Goliath
was a Philistine. God had blessed David And again,
he pictures our Lord in so many ways. And God had blessed him
to face Goliath with these words, God will deliver you into my
hand. Gave him great boldness. But
then there in chapter 27, David says, Saul's gonna kill me. And
God had delivered Saul into David's hand twice to where David, all
he had to do was say the word. Saul's laying there asleep. David
just says the word and Saul's dead. So God had shown David
that this is not a struggle between him and Saul. Saul pictures,
of course, the will of the people, the rejection of God as king
of the people, Israel, the people's will, the people's way, the people's
work. And everything he did is a disaster,
everything Saul did. David, on the other hand, pictures
God's anointed. God's will, God's choice, God's
way, God's work through David. But here David in chapter 27,
he said in his heart, that's the beginning of the problem
right there. Before he had inquired of the Lord and gotten the word
from God and acted upon it, here he said in his heart, the world
loves to say follow your heart. Don't do that. Don't ever, ever
do that. And so Ziklag was the place when
he went to the land of the Philistines and sojourned there for a while
to escape from Saul, he went to King Achish who took David
in and treated him well. But when David says this in chapter
27, it's an ignoring of all of God's promises. When you start
reasoning in your heart and you depend upon the flesh, you're
ignoring what God says. And that's where David is now.
It's David in his flesh that decided to sojourn in the land
of the enemy and to have this unholy alliance with Achish,
the king of the Philistines. And so here he doesn't picture
Christ. He pictures, this is us. This
is us. David was a man after God's own
heart, but there was another law of warring in David's members. just as within all of us, bringing
him into captivity to the flesh. And that's where David is now.
Spirit and flesh. And the spirit was willing to
go against Goliath and to say, God will deliver you into my
hand. You come at me with a sword and spear. I come at you in the
name of the God of Israel. And the spirit was willing to
go back to the father's sheepfold after that and wait on God's
good time to put David on the throne. God had anointed David
king as a young man, but the people still recognized Saul
as king and were loyal to Saul. The spirit was willing to trust
the Lord instead of taking matters into his own hands when he could
have easily killed Saul twice. He was in his hand to kill him,
but he trusted the Lord and he waited. and didn't take matters
into his own hands. Always remember the words of
the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh, but the flesh. It was fleshly reasoning that
brought David to dwell with the Philistines to begin with. He
reasoned with his own heart. It was in spite of repeated assurances
from the Lord, the promises of God. But yet still David was
convinced that Saul one day would kill him. And so he said, I've
got to come up with a plan here. I've got to come, I've got to
figure out a way. It was fleshly alliances that brought David
to the brink of killing his own people because Achish to whom
he fled and Achish is the one that gave David and his men Ziklag
for their families to dwell in, which is where we began this
chapter. But it was fleshly alliances that brought David an alliance
with Achish, an evil, godless king, to the brink of killing his own
people because Achish was gonna go to war with Israel. And David
said, I'll go with you. God had made David king of these
people, Israel, protector, of them, provider for them, to preside
over them. But David had made himself the
enemy of God's people. It was fleshly concerns, David's
selfishness and fleshly concerns that made him lie to Achish,
the Philistine king, in order to form this ungodly alliance.
Achish was real nice to David. You know why? Because David lied
to him. It wouldn't reveal his true heart. Don't ever lie to
this world about who you are in order to be friends with them. You don't owe this world anything. We owe everything to the Lord. So David had been willing in
chapter 29 to go against his own people, and God providentially
stopped him from doing that. But God has brought him here
now in chapter 30, through the means of his own flesh and leaning
upon the flesh. And God brought him up short
of total disaster. He didn't allow him, not for
lack of David wanting to, he didn't allow him to go and fight
with Achish against his own people who he was already anointed king
over. He put mistrust in the hearts of the other Philistine
princes who wouldn't allow David to go to battle with them or
he'd have fought against his own brothers. But now God is
going to bring David all the way down to rock bottom. Ziklag
is where all of their families live, where David and his men,
all their families were. And everything that they had
was in Ziklag. And they came back from almost fighting against
Israel. God providentially stopped him.
But they traveled back three days to Ziklag to find everyone
they loved gone and everything they had gone, raided by the
Amalekites. So God brought David here through
the means of his own flesh, leaning upon the arm of the flesh, putting mistrust in the hearts
of those Philistine princes, but now here he comes back to
Ziklag. And it appears that God brought
him here to discover this disaster, this tragedy. All of their families
are taken captive by the godless Amalekites, and everything they
own is gone. I believe God brings us to rock
bottom for two reasons. I believe it's in all the scripture,
because it's from there that we cry to him for mercy. I don't
believe we will anywhere else, do you? Rock bottom, spiritually
speaking. And then David's gonna be made
to remember here where his flesh has brought him. Where the reasoning,
the religion, the will, the way of the flesh, all the works of
the flesh, all of his scheming, his best plan. David had a plan,
you know, I'm gonna go hide with the Philistines and Saul won't
pursue me anymore. All of the plans of men bring us to rock
bottom. eventually, either in mercy or
judgment. And he showed him that only God
can save him now. He's got really nowhere else
to look but up here. And unless God shows him this,
now David will go back to Ziklag and he's delivered from the worst
of it. And if he goes back and the families
are still there and everything's fine, you know, David will perhaps
go on in his imagined self-assurance and false self-sufficiency But
after this experience that we're about to read about, David has a powerful reminder
now of the miserable failure of everything that he knew, everything
that he thought, everything he did. He is a failure. And the Lord shows him that here.
And will remind him, I'm sure, from then on, how much, how badly,
how vitally he needs the guidance of God, the wisdom of God, a
word from God, faith in God, from God, the salvation of God. And then in verses 2 and 3, and
had taken the women captives that were therein, they slew not any, either great
or small, but carried them away and went on their way. So David
and his men came to the city, and behold, It was burned with
fire and their wives and their sons and their daughters were
taken captive. The fruits of the deeds of the
flesh, the reasoning of the flesh, the pursuits of the flesh, the
result of everything we do is disaster. And this is disaster
of epic proportions. Can you even imagine? Can you
even put yourself in this place? Be sure your sin will find you
out. Seeing what it is finished bringeth
forth death. And this is much worse than just
the death of the body. This is the death of hope. This
is the death of all that's good. And spiritually speaking, the
picture here, the spiritual picture, that's where the Lord brings
us, to where we have no other hope. He shuts us up to himself. That's what he's doing with David
here. Physical death is the least of it. I doubt if anybody here has ever
been as low as David is in this story in physical terms. But spiritually, the Lord brings
us here, doesn't he? He shuts us up and forces us
to look up. We're not going to otherwise.
Now, God was already blessing David here, and he didn't know
it. David had no idea where his family was, where the families
of his men and everything or what was going to happen, what
horrible things might be happening to them already. But God was
already preventing the Amalekites from touching one hair of their
head. David doesn't see that. David
doesn't see any good in this thing yet. And we usually don't
either, until the Lord shows it to us. But God had delivered
him from fighting with Achish against the people of Israel,
and now he's brought him here And David wouldn't dare hope
that there wouldn't be any harm come to the ones that they love.
The Lord's taking care of it. He's seeing to it. Verse 4, then
David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice
and wept until they had no more power to weep. This is when the consequences
of your sin come home to you. And this is a picture of that. This is a small thing compared
to when the Lord really all said, I was alive without the law once,
but then when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
Sin became exceeding sinful unto Him. What happened to these men
here is nothing compared to the true consequences of sin. When Simon Peter realized what
an utter failure he was, in betraying his Lord. He went out and wept
bitterly. And he's discovering the same
thing David discovers here. Simon had said, I'll die with
you, Lord. But he learned that rather than
the bold defender of the Lord that he imagined himself to be,
he was really a cowardly denier of the Lord. The Lord's got to
show us what we are, doesn't he? We're nothing. We're a failure. Everything we do is a failure.
Everything we think is wrong. Everything we say is foolish. Everything we know is false.
David had reason in his heart there, where we read in chapter
27, I've got this figured out. I've got a plan. God doesn't have plans. You know
that, right? God doesn't have plans. God just
promises and delivers. Men have plans, and they always
fail. Even when it looks like it wasn't
a failure, it was a failure, if you came up with it. So he said, I'll get myself out
of this situation, and he tried to do what seemed right to him,
and now he discovers what a spectacular failure that he is. And Simon
and David, they both trusted their flesh, and they learned
From God that in them that is in their flesh dwelleth no good
thing. Have we learned that? God's teaching
us that every day, isn't he? Every day. We're worse than nothing. If our flesh was nothing, the
world would be a better place, wouldn't it? May God bring us to the place
where we weep bitterly over our sin, and not just the consequences
of it, but our sin. Job said, I abhor myself. That's where the Lord brings
us. And I believe that's where David is. Blessed are they that
mourn. What are those blessed ones mourning?
That bad things have happened to them? That they've done some
bad things? No. We mourn over what we are. We mourn ourselves. Verse five,
and David's two wives were taken captive, Zahinuim and the Jezreelites,
and Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. And David was
greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him, because
the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons
and for his daughters. But David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. So the Israelites had nothing
to do with David. They're all still loyal to Saul. Saul wanted him dead, and the
people of Israel are loyal to Saul. The Philistines had rejected
David. They didn't trust him, and so
they sent him packing. Likely would have killed him
if it hadn't been for Achish. And now even the handful of faithful
ones who had come out and pledged their allegiance to David, they're
talking of stoning him too. They wanted him dead. That's
pretty shut up, isn't it? That's pretty low. Not many friends. Akish had been friendly to David,
but again, that whole relationship was based on a lie that David
told in order to have Akish's friendship. Jonathan loved David,
and they admitted David loved Jonathan. But where was Jonathan
now? I don't know why. We don't know
the reason. but for whatever reason, Jonathan didn't leave
everything and follow David. There was only one way for David
to look, and that's up. God must bring sinners to the
place where we see our sin, we see its consequences, and he
must shut us up to the only one who can take away our sin. and all of its consequences.
That's David's only, it's got to be taken away. John 1.29, the next day John
seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith, Behold the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sin of the world. That's our only hope. Hebrews 10.12, but this man after
that he had offered One sacrifice for sins forever sat down on
the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be
made his footstool, for by one offering he hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified." Paul wrote that right after saying,
the blood of bulls and goats can't take away sin, but this
man, this man. by his precious blood did exactly
that. He took away the sins of his
people. And so David encouraged himself in the Lord. Where else
would he have encouraged himself at this time? Where is he going
to find encouragement? And where will you and I? If
we find reason for encouragement anywhere else but in the Lord,
we're deceived. Think about that now. God strips
it all away for us here in this text. Now God uses means to encourage
us. He uses one another. He used
quite a few of you to encourage me before I stepped up here tonight.
It's a blessing in my heart. But what would any of us be without
him? Unless he uses us to be an encouragement. What would our family be in this
world? What would our church family
be without the Lord? We'd be bitter enemies without
him. We'd be a curse to one another. We'd be a discouragement. We'd
be the source of nothing but pain and misery and not joy,
except for the Lord. So our encouragement is all from
him, all of it. Thank God for all of the good
things in your life, but always remember that without him, there
are no good things in your life. One thing is needful. David remembered now though he
encouraged himself in the Lord. He remembered that it was the
Lord that had anointed him king to begin with. It was the Lord
that had promised him everything that mattered. It was the Lord
that had delivered Goliath into his hand. He confessed that as
he faced him. It was the Lord that had been
behind everything good that had ever happened to David and every
hope that he had. And he remembered You reckon
he remembered now? Why not before? And after, at
times. But now, here, he remembered
that nothing is too hard for God. Nothing's too hard for God. Listen to this Psalm, Psalm 57.
I'll read it to you for the sake of time, but I wonder if David
was thinking about this when he wrote this Psalm. or thinking about, I know what
he was thinking about, because it says in the beginning of the
psalm, to the chief musician, Altishith, victim of David, when
he fled from Saul in the cave, in the cave of Dolom, when those
men first came out, when he had been exiled from his own country
by Saul, for fear of Saul. But he wrote this, be merciful
unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in thee. In the shadow of thy wings will
I make my refuge until these calamities be overpassed. I will
cry unto God most high, unto God that performeth all things
for me. He shall send from heaven and
shall save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me
up. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth. So it seems
that David trusted the Lord before chapter 27 when he began to reason
in his own heart what to do. And now he looks to the Lord
here in chapter 30. The same thing happened to Simon. We mentioned Simon as sort of
an example of the same thing. Simon Peter in John 6, 68 said,
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ,
the son of the living God. And then in Acts chapter two,
Simon's the one that stood up and said, therefore, let all
the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same
Jesus whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. But in
between those two, he denied his Lord. What happened? Same thing that happens to you
if you know the Lord. Same thing that happens to me.
The spirit indeed is willing. But the flesh. But we have to
add another but to that. The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh, but turn with me to Matthew chapter 26. Matthew
2640. And he, the Lord Jesus, cometh
unto his disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter,
What? Could you not watch with me for
one hour? Watch, and pray that ye enter
not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak. And he went away again the second
time, and prayed, saying, O my father, if this cup may not pass
away from me, except I drink it, Thy will be done. And he
came again and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy.
And he left them and went away again and prayed the third time,
saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples
and saith to them, sleep on now and take your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand and
the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. So the Spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh, but. We say there's not another but
there, Chris, but there is. It's just not in that form. The
Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh, but the Lord. The Lord asks them, could you
not? Could you not? Have you ever thought about that?
Could you not? One hour. Could you not watch
with me? He asked that not because he needs an answer to that, because
we need an answer to that. And the answer is clear, no,
you cannot. You could not, you cannot, you
will not, you shall not. The Lord is saving his people
in that passage right there. He's actually saving them. He's not trying to save them.
He's bearing their sins in his own body. What else would make
him sorrowful unto death and cause him to sweat great drops
of blood? He's dealing with their sin in
that passage. He's bearing the awful load of
all of their guilt and shame and is in the process of bearing
the consequences of all of their sin and their sinfulness. And
he asked this, could you not? And the answer's no. That's what
he's teaching David. in our text. You cannot. We not only cannot have any part
in what the Lord was doing there in Gethsemane, we can't even
watch Him do it unless He enables us to do it. So what are we going to do then?
What's our part in it? Rest. Sleep on now. And take rest. You notice how he worded that?
Here's some rest. He got to give it to us, didn't
he? When you see your own failure
and you're greatly aware of what a miserable failure you are,
not just that you failed, you're a failure. I'm a failure. Salvation's of the Lord then. And when you boast and forget
and lean on the flesh and think that there's actually something
to you, salvation's of the Lord then too. You could not, you cannot, you
shall not, he could, he did, and he shall. And in verse seven, David inquires
of the Lord, bring hither the ephod, the priestly garment. We're going to honor Christ now.
And in verse 8, David's not David anymore. David's Christ in verse
8. See if you can hear the words
of the eternal covenant of God's grace in Christ in verse 8 of
our text. And David inquired at the Lord,
saying, Shall I pursue After this truth, shall I pursue? And
I understand this is a picture now. We don't know exactly the
details of that covenant, of what happened there, but picture
this. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Shall I pursue? Shall I save these people? Shall
I recover them? Shall I overtake them? And he
answered him, pursue. That's the title of this message.
Pursue. What a beautiful word. If you're
one of these lost ones, if you're one of these captured ones, if
you're one of these ones in bondage, pursue. I can't think of a more beautiful
word. Are you one of these hopeless ones? They didn't hear it spoken
at the time and we didn't either, but we've heard it now. We weren't there to hear it when
he said that, but we hear it now. And I know that he said
it, you know why? David knew it. David's testimony and ours
is the same. Surely his goodness and mercy
shall, what's the next word? Follow. You know what that word
is? It's the same word in our text.
Pursue. Surely his goodness and mercy
shall pursue me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell
in the house of the Lord forever. And that's why. Because he came
after me. That's the only reason. Pursue. Run after. God does not make salvation to
all sinners available and then sit back and hope that someone
will avail themselves of it. He runs after his family. his
loved ones and he saves them, and he brings them home. And think what this word means
to David. When David asked the Lord, shall I pursue? You know
what he wants to hear? What if God had said, don't bother? That's not what David wants to
hear. He doesn't ask him differently as though, well, shall I stay
or go? Either way, he's fine with me. Everything hangs upon that word,
doesn't it? Pursue. And David's son and David's
Lord and our Lord, he asks this in picture, knowing the cost,
knowing what it will cost him to pursue us. and yet wanting
nothing more. For the joy that was set before
him, he endured the cross, despising the shame. You know where it
says despising the shame? It means he counted it a small
thing to go to the cross for me. It wasn't a small thing, but he counted it as such for
our sakes. I know that this is just a picture
of something that we can't even fully understand, but it's a
beautiful picture, is it not? It's one thing for David, the
man, to abandon any thought of danger here. He got himself in
this situation. He's got nothing to lose. Shall
I go? Of course he's going to go. A
handful of men against an entire army, what difference does that
make? Those who are lost are too precious to lose. But does
God care? Does God Almighty care? Do we
mean anything to Him? And we have the answer again
in this one word. Pursue. We're not worth anything to God
because we're worth anything. You understand that, right? We're worth something to God
because He loves us. And because His love is infinite,
we are of infinite worth to Him. Are these ones so precious that
God can't let them go? Pursue. I'm not saved because
of anything I am, anything I have or have ever done or ever will
do. I'm saved because God loved me too much to let me go. And He ran to save me. And there was never any doubt
as to the outcome. Thou shalt surely recover all. And whither shall I flee from
His goodness and mercy? If I ascend up into heaven, He
is there. If I make my bed in hell, behold,
he is there. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall
his hand lead me, and his right hand shall hold me. Chris, thank you. I'm sure I'm
glad I was here for that. You've heard people say, God
won't put more on you than you can bear. You know that's true
for the people that say that. But for God's people, David said
in Psalm 61, when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock
that is higher than I. God only puts on his people more
than they can bear. The world bears their problems.
We can't bear ours. Christ bore them for us. What
a blessing, Chris. Thank you, brother. Thank the
Lord. If you need to take a break,
please do. We're not going to stop the service,
though. We're going to all stand now,
and Tom's going to come and lead us in number 224, I Know Whom
I Have Believed. After that, we'll have special
music, and then Angus, you come and preach after that. All right. I know not why God's will.