Thank you, Brother Art. I'm actually going to try to preach exactly
what Brother Art just prayed. I mean, exactly. Let's turn to
1 Samuel 22. 1 Samuel 22. We'll just read the first two
verses. It says, David therefore departed
thence, and escaped to the cave of Dolom. And when his brethren
and all his father's house heard, they went down thither to him.
And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt,
and everyone that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him. And he became a captain over
them, and there were with him about 400 men. Now David here
is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a picture of Christ. Christ
was called the Son of David. He is the Son of David according
to the flesh. David was of the line of the
tribe of Judah. Christ is the line of the tribe
of Judah. David was of Bethlehem. Christ
was born in Bethlehem. He, according to the flesh, came
through the lineage of David. He's the son of David. He's a
picture, David here is a picture of Christ. One time the Lord
was speaking to some men and He said, what think ye of Christ?
Whose son is He? Now He wasn't asking those men,
do you think I'm the Christ? They didn't think He was. He
was wanting to know, what do you think of Christ? Whose son
will he be when he comes? And they said he'll be the son
of David. Blind Bartimaeus cried out, he said, Jesus, thou son
of David, have mercy on me. And the Lord stood still. He
said, call him to me. He knew he was the son of David.
David's a type here of Christ the Lord. David here at this
point is God's anointed king. He's already been anointed. He's
the King. The Lord Jesus Christ is the King. He's God's anointed
King. He's the King of kings and Lord
of lords. The sovereign King of heaven
and earth. But right now, at this time of
this scripture, Saul still appeared to the multitudes to be the King.
Saul appeared to be the King. David was in a disgraced position
in a cave. That's where he was, despised
and rejected of the multitudes. Now, Christ came into this world,
the king. He came into this world as the
king of his people. But when he walked this earth,
even though he is the righteousness of his people, even though he
is the sovereign savior of his people, the prince of his people,
yet he was despised and rejected of men. And he still is today. Men today still think that the
rulers in this world are ruling things and like Saul, people
look to Saul and thought he was ruling things and people think
of Christ right now what the people thought of David then.
He was despised, he was rejected, he was nobody to them. But this
400 men, that's just a remnant compared to all the people in
Israel. But these 400 came to David and David became captain
over them. It wouldn't have been a test
of their faith to identify with David once he was on the throne.
There's coming a day when this whole world is going to know
Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords. When he returns
and makes every knee bow and every tongue confess. It would
be too late for faith then. But we live in a time right now
just like these. They came to David when he was
despised and rejected. That's when they came to David.
And this time that we live in right now is the time to believe
on Christ while this whole world despises him and rejects him.
And that's what Christ is working in His people. They could have
been killed for identifying with David. Christ is the Lord's anointed
King. He is the Lord's anointed King.
He is the Prophet, Priest and King of His people. You know,
David was the Prophet, Priest and King. He is the only other
man in Scripture that held all three of those offices. Prophet,
Priest and King. He is an eminent type of Christ.
Most in our day have no discernment that Christ is King, that He
is the Savior. They don't have the discernment
to know that. When He walked this earth, He was despised and
rejected and He is still despised and rejected. And yet His people,
right now, are being drawn to Him. They are being brought to
Him and to trust Him. And He is teaching us to trust
Him no matter what happens. Because those that trust Him,
He has promised, we will be despised and rejected. We will be persecuted. It is going to get worse and
worse, brethren. As nations grow more hardened and more hardened
against the Lord, it is going to get worse in this world. But
while these multitudes rejected Christ, and while they reject
His people, Christ tries the faith that He gives. And by His
grace, what He is teaching us over and over, He's teaching
us to rally to Christ our Captain. He's teaching us to look to Him
only, to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
We're just not even here for the other stuff. We have to do
the other stuff, but the other stuff is for this purpose, to
seek Christ and His righteousness, to further His cause, to further
His Gospel. And Christ has promised us now,
He said, I'm not sending peace, I'm sending a sword. That's His
Word to us. But my people, he says, they
won't be ashamed to identify with me. They won't be ashamed
to stand with me. They won't be ashamed to confess
me. And he's going to make sure that's so in us. He's going to
make that so in his people, make us trust him. Now we see in this
400 people who came to David a picture of Christ and his believing
people. Our subject is the king and his
nothings. That's the subject, the king
and his nothings. Who comes to Christ? Who is it
willing to lose their life that Christ might have all the glory?
Who is it? Well, first here, it's our Lord's
brethren. It's His Father's house. It says,
David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave of Dullam.
And when his brethren and all his Father's house heard, they
went down to him. It's Christ's brethren who are
going to come to Christ. Christ's brethren. Isn't that
an amazing title to think about? That you who've been given faith
to believe on Christ, you're Christ's brethren. The Lord of
glory, God of glory, the God-man mediator, we're His brethren. Believe in Him, continue to believe
in Him, trust Christ to save us beginning to the end. That's
what His people are going to do because that's the Father's
will. Remember the time when He was preaching and they came
to Him And there was a congregation there, gathered there at His
feet, being taught of Him, hearing of Him, looking to Him, trusting
Him. And they said, your mother and
your brethren want you. And the Lord Jesus said, who's
my mother, who's my brethren? He looked round about and He
saw them that sat about Him, just like a congregation sitting.
They were sitting there listening to Christ speak. And he said,
Behold, my mother and my brethren, for whosoever should do the will
of God, the same as my brother and my sister and my mother.
And he told us in John 6, this is the will of Him that sent
me. Everyone that seeth the Son with spiritual eyes given by
Christ, everyone that believeth on Him with God-given faith given
by our Lord. That's the will of the Father.
He said, I'll give them everlasting life. They may have it. And I'll
raise Him up at the last day. This is His commandment. That
we should believe on Him whom He has sent. That's the answer
to our salvation eternally. That's the answer to our salvation
in every moment of this life. Believe on Him. That's what He's
teaching us in everything He brings us through. Believe Him.
He's working it. He's working it. He is the Savior.
He is accomplishing His will and He is teaching us. He is
everything to His people as He does it. Believe Him and love
one another. Love one another to Him. Help
one another to Him. Help one another look to Him.
You imagine now, you see these folks that come down to David.
And David is a wanted man. Saul is trying to kill David,
and Saul is ready to kill anybody that is associated with David. Now you imagine, this would be the equivalent
of the President of the United States putting a bounty on the
head of any church that gathers together to hear of Christ exalted. The same kind of terror to these
people. To come to David at this time
in this cave, Saul was willing to kill anybody associated with
David. He wanted David. Now you imagine
if the president did that. The visible church would look
drastically different than it does right now, if that happened.
Would it not? That would be a test. That's
how serious this was for David's brethren. Now those in whom the
Spirit of Christ abides by His Spirit, by His power, by His
grace, they come to Christ and they are not going to stop coming
to Christ. They are not going to be turned away from Christ.
They are going to be kept looking to Christ and trusting Christ
only. Rejection from this world is
not going to turn them away. Persecution from this world is
not going to turn them away, being despised and rejected,
and all of that is going to be, and we are going to be made to
see this, even as we have seen it so far, being called to Him
and in life so far, it is all by His sustaining grace, it is
by His keeping grace, it is by the power of our Lord that we
are kept. And they will be kept, we will
be kept through any trial, any trouble, we are going to be kept
looking to Christ. We read in Hebrews 11.36, in
time past, folks who had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings,
bonds and imprisonment, they were stoned, they were sewn asunder,
they were tempted, they were slain with the sword. They wandered
in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented. Of whom the world was not worthy,
the Spirit of God said. Talking about believers here.
They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and
caves of the earth. And they all obtained good report. How? Through faith. They believed
on Christ. They trusted Christ. That's the
only way they went through all of that. He kept them looking
to Him. And the point I'm saying is, if we ever have to face something
like that, it's only going to be by His grace that we don't
turn away. And He's going to keep us looking
to Him. We've had it mighty easy. We've had it mighty easy. I was
talking to a pastor just recently, and he said, do you remember,
we were talking about this past year, the pandemic and all that,
and he said, do you remember what we talked about two years
ago? I said, refresh my memory, and he said, we was on my back
porch, and we talked about how easy we've had it in this country,
and we're spoiled. And that was about three or four
months before all this started. It's beginning now, but it's
going to get worse and worse, brethren. It is going to get
worse and worse. The pandemic's the least of what's
coming. It's so. God speaks of a famine of the
Word. He speaks of a time when the two witnesses are going to
be falling in the street for a time. That's coming. We can
see it sort of coming. You look at these scriptures
and you see things, the Lord works things in cycles, and it's
coming again. but we're kept by the power of
God. We're kept by His power. The true worshippers are going
to continue to believe in Christ. They're going to continue gathering
to Christ and trusting Christ and looking to Christ only because
they're His brethren. They're ones He laid down His
life for. You're ones He shed His blood for. You think about
Christ saying, I engraved you on the palm of my hands. I wonder
You know our Lord, our Lord knew what He came to do. He knew what
He was coming to do in laying down His life for His people.
I wonder how many times as a child working in Joseph's carpenter
shop, I wonder how many times He looked at a spike and looked
at His hands and thought, I'm going to lay down my life. He
knew what He came to do. And He did that for His people.
And because He did it, He's not going to lose one of His people.
He's going to keep us looking to Him, come what may. Those
who come to Him are not only His brethren, they're all His
Father's house. It says there, those that came
were His brethren and all His Father's house. Those who come
to Christ belong to His Father. They're His Father's house. They're
His brethren and they're His Father's house. Beloved is the
title we carry in the Scriptures. Beloved. Be loved. Loved before. Loved before the
world was made by God the Father, who chose us in divine election.
The all that He's talking about, all His Father's house, we heard
Christ say in John 6, All that the Father giveth me shall come
to me, and him that cometh to me shall I in no wise cast out.
That's who's coming, all his brethren, all his father's house. Now secondly, they come because
we've heard. We've heard. Why are we here
tonight? We're here to hear Him and hear what He's going to do,
what He has done, what He is doing, what He's going to do.
Because this is the Word. This is the life right here.
The Word. He says there in verse 1, David
therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave of Dullam.
And when his brethren and all his father's house heard it,
they went. The Word of the Lord is the living
Word. Our Lord said in John 6, the
words I speak to you are spirit and life. That's what He meant
when He said the flesh profits nothing. The words I speak are
spirit. The words I speak are life. What
does that mean? Well, the first that we're going
to believe is because Christ speaks the word and quickens
us to life. But He doesn't stop that. He
keeps speaking the Word and it's life in us and He keeps renewing
us and reviving us and quickening us and keeping us stayed on Him. On Him alone. And the flesh profits
nothing. Nothing. It's the Spirit of God
that quickens. My words, he said, are spirit
and they're life. And so he continues to do this.
Remember when Paul was preaching in Acts 13.48 and he said, he
said, this word's sent to the Gentiles and he preached the
gospel to them. And the scripture says, and when
the Gentiles heard, they didn't just hear the outward voice of
Paul speaking, they heard. They really heard. Christ spoke
and it says, and they were glad and they glorified the Word of
the Lord. They didn't glorify, they were
thankful for the message and they rejoiced in the message,
but it wasn't just the preaching of the gospel in and of itself.
It was the Word of the Lord that they gloried in. Because He spoke
to them. And that's what they gloried
in. And it says, and as many as were ordained to eternal life
believed. Well look at this, those who
hear, those who are His brethren, those who are all in His Father's
house, they're going to hear and what do they do? They went
down to Him. It says there in verse 1, they
went down to Him. Now listen, when you read something
like this in Scripture, geographically it may have been south or down,
but that's on purpose. That's on purpose, because spiritually,
when we come to Christ, first to last moment, we're coming
down. We're coming down. That's who's
coming to Christ, those that come down. Now, we know this
doctrine. We know this doctrine. Psalm
51, 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken
and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. How can
that be a sacrifice to God? Because the only sacrifice God
is pleased with is the blood and righteousness of His precious
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the only time we'll come
with that sacrifice is when our heart is broken and we can't
come with anything else but Christ. The Lord is nigh to them that
are of a broken heart. He saveth us such that we have
a contrite spirit. Psalm 147.3, He healeth the broken
in heart. He bindeth up their wounds. But
our sinful flesh is pride. That's all it is. That's all
our sin nature is, is pride. It's pride. You know, it's pride. It's just, it's hard to be nothing
until God makes us nothing. to the Spirit makes us nothing.
How are we made humble? How are we kept humble to trust
Christ alone? Because this is, we read there,
the Lord says, seek ye first the Kingdom of God. How are we
going to be made to do that? We have to be humbled. We have
to be nothing. That's when we'll seek Him first,
preeminently, above all, is when we're nothing. It's going to
be by the mighty hand of God. By God continually reminding
us of our inability. And He does it through much affliction.
He does it through continually quickening... He afflicts us,
but He at the same time quickens us to behold Christ as everything. He's making us see constantly,
all our flesh is His grass, and He's making us at the same time
behold your God. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
That's what He's teaching us. As He's teaching us, in our flesh
is no good thing. It's a continual teaching. Deuteronomy
8.3, the Lord said, Moses said to Him, God humbled thee. How
did He humble? Now He didn't humble all the
children of Israel, but His elect among them He humbled. How did
He humble them? God humbled thee and He suffered
thee to hunger. and fed thee with manna, which
you didn't know, neither did your fathers know, that he might
make thee know." That man doesn't live by bread alone. These other
things that scripture, the Lord spoke there, brother Art read.
He said, seek ye first the kingdom of God, seek thee bread. These
other things will be added to you. Man doesn't live by this
bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth
of God does man live. That's what he's teaching us
constantly. To set our affection on Christ and follow Christ.
Manasseh, he was worshiping idols. How was he brought to worship
God? 2 Chronicles 33.11. The Lord brought upon them the
captains of the host of the king of Assyria. They took Manasseh
among the thorns and they bound him with fetters and they carried
him to Babylon. That would be humbling, wouldn't
it? If you were a king, and thought you had all this power which
is where we are most of the time in our pride thinking we are
the king and we are ruling things in our little sphere. And he
sent the Assyrians in there and they bound him and put him in
fetters and they carried him to Babylon and when he was in
affliction, when he was in affliction, he couldn't do anything. He was
bound. When he was in affliction, he
besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before
God, the God of his fathers, and he prayed to Him. And you
know what happened when that happened? All flesh is graft. That's the first thing he teaches.
That's what he taught Manasseh by taking him captive. Your flesh
is nothing, Manasseh. And he humbled him and he brought
him to cry to God. And you know what God did? He
was entreated of him. And he heard his supplication
and he brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. And then Manasseh
knew the Lord, he was God. Isn't that what he does? That's
what he did for us when he made us behold Christ for the first
time. He bound us. He showed us in
our flesh there is nothing good. And He showed us Christ. And
He heard us. And He answered us in mercy.
And He took us into the Kingdom of God in spirit and in faith.
And made us behold Him. And then we knew the Lord, He
is God. And He keeps doing that over
and over and over and over. You have to come down to Him.
Come down to Him. Look who went down to David.
Verse 2. Everyone that was in distress,
everyone that was in debt, everyone that was discontented, they gathered
themselves unto Him. God did this. He did this. He brings His child into distress. It means anguish. It means to
be straightened. To be straightened. To just be
squeezed. Can't do anything. He uses our
sins to do this. He straightens us in providential
circumstances. He uses the oppression of men.
He keeps doing it. He just keeps on doing it. And
what He's doing is He's bringing us down to Christ. And when you're
in this distress and you can't find any comfort in you, you
can't find any comfort in anybody else, nowhere else, that's when
He answers your supplication. And He makes you behold Christ
is all your peace. He is all your peace. He is your
acceptance with God. He is your righteousness. He
is your full completion with God. He is all your peace. Is
that not what the Lord told us? In this world you are going to
have tribulation, not just because The world's full of sinners,
although that's part of it. Not just because we're sinners,
that's part of it. But it's because the Lord's going
to make certain we have tribulation in this world. He's going to
make certain we can't find any comfort and peace and longevity
of anything, refuge in this world. He's going to make certain of
that. Because He's going to keep us trusting Christ only and knowing
He alone is our peace. He makes you behold we're in
debt. We're in debt. We're coming to this world in
debt to God's justice, and we can't pay it. We owe God righteousness. We can't give it to him. We owe
God holiness, and we can't give him that. He brings us into poverty, sometimes
immaterial things, but the lesson's the same. Christ alone is our
unsearchable riches. Christ alone is the full provision
of His grace, all sufficient for everything we need. Everything Christ is. But He's
got to bring us down to see we're debtors. We don't have anything
to pay. We're bankrupt. We can't provide
it. But Christ who was rich, Though he was rich, though he
possessed all things and needed nothing for his mercy and his
love and his grace to his people, he came down and became poor,
utterly poor, more so than any man's ever been in the history
of this world. He was forsaken of God with all
the sin of all the elect upon him and he bore that and laid
down his life for his people and was cut off by God which
his people deserve and he did that and came out of the tomb
and ascended back to the throne and by what he did, he's made
us unsearchably rich. If we need manifold temptations
to bring us, they were discontented. He is going to make us discontented. It means bitterness and heaviness. We have to be brought into bitterness
and heaviness at ourselves, at our ways, at our wisdom, at everything
we try to work it out and get through it. We must be continually
made to remember we are nothing. Absolutely nothing. We find then Christ is all. That's the only time we're going
to find Christ is all, when we're nothing. In direct proportion
to how much we see ourselves as nothing, that's how much we're
going to see Christ as all. And how we see Him to be all,
that's how much we're going to see ourselves to be nothing.
You see, the denying self, He said, deny yourself, take up
your cross, deny yourself, follow me. Denying self is more than
mere self-denial in things. Denying self is owning ourselves
to be nothing. Absolutely incapable of contributing
anything. Nothing. Nothing. At no point. Nothing. God works
this in us and He keeps working it and He keeps working it so
that Christ is everything to us. Looking at David as a man. I
wanted to, I thought about preaching on this. I've just been studying
David's life. But looking at David as a man.
This is what God was doing to David with all the affliction
he was going through. He's preparing David to be a
king. He's preparing him to write the Psalms. He's preparing him
to be his prophet, priest, and king. That's what he's preparing
him for. David knew God anointed him. He had sent Samuel to anoint
him. He knew God anointed him. He
knew he was going to be the king. He knew that. He slew bears. He slew lions by God's mighty
hand. He knew this. He went out and
slew that giant Goliath with a sling and a stone. God protected him from Saul multiple
times. God took his hand off of David to show David what he was in
his flesh. And David became fearful of Saul. And he ran from Saul
and Saul wasn't even chasing him. He went to Samuel and should
have stayed with Samuel. That's where the Word of God
was. But he left Samuel and he went and tried to work things
out himself to save himself from Saul. And he sinned over and
over and over in what he was doing. He went to Nob and went
to Elimelech and lied to Elimelech and in his scheming, Doeg was there and Doeg went
back and told Saul. And Saul told Doeg, go kill Elimelech
and all the priests. He killed 85 priests because
of what David did. And not only that, he went to
the town of Nob and killed everything living, women and children included. And David said, Abiathar, who
was Elimelech's son, he escaped and he came to David and he followed
David. And his father had been killed
because of David. And David said, I've occasioned
the death of your father and these priests. And not only that, this one who
killed Goliath with a sling and a stone, he's in his flesh so
much that he sees that sword of Goliath in the temple and
he says, give me that sword. And he takes that sword and you
know where it goes? He goes to the enemy. He goes
to Goliath's own people to try to get them to save him from
Saul. And while he was there, the enemy, Nobody knows David
is the anointed king right now. But while he is there, he comes
to Achish, the king of Gath, and Achish says, Is this not
David, the king of Israel? And David heard that. He said, Is this not David? Saul
slew his thousands, but David slew his ten thousands? And the
scripture says, And David, he held this in his heart. He heard
it. Not just that it made him, it
did make him afraid and he acted like he was a madman. But that's
the point where God began to subdue his flesh and teach him
what God was teaching him through all of that. And I'll show you
what he taught him. Turn over with me to Psalm 52. I want you to see this. This is when Doeg had come when he had gone and slain all
those priests and what have you. Now those first, I don't have
time, but those first seven verses, David is speaking about Doeg
and how he lied and his mischief and all of that. But that's exactly
what David did. That's exactly what David did. But look at the end here, verse
8. David's now speaking of what God did for him. He said, but
I'm like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in
the mercy of God forever. You know what he was saying by
that statement? I'm no different than dough egg. It's only God's
mercy. It's mercy. I trust in the mercy
of God forever. I will praise Thee forever because
Lord Thou has done it. You worked all this. God was
ruling everything that happened to David to bring David down
to teach him what he was, grass. bring him down to teach him Christ
is all. That's what he was doing. You've
done it Lord. I'll wait on thy name. I'll wait
on thy name for it's good before thy saints. God keeps us being
humble to nothing that we might trust his mercy and wait on his
name. It's in Christ alone that David
was a man after God's own heart. You read through the life of
David. David had far more sin than just what he had with Bathsheba
and Uriah. And you read that and you would
think, a king is supposed to be righteous. A king is supposed
to rule in righteousness. And you see everything but that
in David on many occasions. How was he a man after God's
own heart? The mercy of the Lord in Christ Jesus. But why did
God permit David to go through all that? The same reason He
brought this 400 people to be distressed and discontented and
in debt. To bring them down. To see they
are nothing. And to see Christ everything.
God was preparing David to be a real king. To be a faithful
king. They wanted a king, remember?
And so He gave them Saul. Saul had not experienced these
things. And God did put him through these things. And Saul wasn't
a good king. You know how he's going to make
us merciful and long-suffering and rejoicing and kind and gentle
and meek. He's going to make us experience
what He's teaching us in this book. He's going to make us experience
it in ourselves and what we are and how He's been merciful and
long-suffering and kind and gentle to us to make us nothing so we
see He's everything. That's how we're brought to seek
first the kingdom of God and His right preeminently. and not
set our affection on all these other things or on ourselves
and think that we're providing for ourselves. Brethren, we can't
take our next breath without Him. That's just so. That's just so. The Lord has
providentially brought me into a situation where I'm getting
to teach somebody and console somebody with what the Lord has
consoled me with over the past year. And And I hear myself speaking. And what I've heard from experience,
learned from experience by the Lord is, the Lord has to take
our finger from doing this and make us do this. And make us
come to the place where I'm the only one to blame. Lord, you're
just, you're right. I need mercy. That's where He,
I don't mean just say the word, I mean really bring us to nothing. To nothing. And that takes time. That takes time. We get puffed
up, we get to thinking we're going to take matters into our
own hands like David tried to do. And all it is is flesh. That's all it is, is flesh. It's
just our sin nature trying to affect something that only God
can affect. And he brings you to see, he
really is doing everything he's doing for us. He's doing it for
his people. It's good, everything. You got
cancer, Cheryl, because you needed it, and it was good for you,
and good for art, and good for your family, and good for this
whole congregation. That's why. And everything He sends our way,
it's for our good. It's for our good. It's how He's
teaching us He is everything. We pray, Lord, grow us in grace
and knowledge of You. This is how He's going to do
it. We're being taught to help We're going to continually come
into these trials. We're going to continually sin.
We're going to continually do things we shouldn't do. It's
all a part of how he's teaching us these things. It's all a part
of it. None of that condoned David's
sin and his lies and all that he did. None of it. But God used
every bit of that to teach him what he was. so that he would
learn something about mercy and grace and these things that God
is teaching us. And to know it is all of Christ
and in Christ. And the end of it all is to bring
us down to Christ who is despised and rejected of this world just
like he brought this 400 down to David. Look what happened. Verse 2 says, and he became captain
over them. That's the end. When He brings
you there to Him, down, you behold Christ as your captain. He's
your prince. He's your ruler. He's your governor. He's the
conqueror in whom you're more than conquerors. And that's what
He's showing us. Now let me ask you this question.
How come Saul's looking for David, he's got all his men, he sent
three assassins to Naoth where Samuel was, sent three assassins
there to kill David. And God put them in a... God
made them worship. He made them praise the Lord
as they were there in the worship service going on. And so Saul
said, well then I'll go kill him. Y'all hadn't killed him,
I'll go kill him. So Saul went there and God put him in a trance
too. So he couldn't lay a hand on
him. So how come Saul with all his men are looking for David
and they can't find David and this 400 remnant who are nobodies
went right to him in the cave of Dullin. Well, I'll tell you
what it pictures. Our Lord said one day to a host
of religious folks, He said, we've piped and you won't dance,
we've mourned and you won't cry. And He stopped. And He said,
in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in spirit. He rejoiced in spirit. And He said, I thank thee, O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hid these things
from the wise and prudent. Those still proud that think
they're wise and prudent. Thank you, Lord. You've hid these
things from them on purpose. Who'd you reveal them to? The
babes that you made humble, that you made to be nothings. That's
who you revealed it to. A ragtag remnant like these 400
that went down to David, he became captain over them. And our Lord
is telling us, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, crying to my people, and tell
them their warfare is accomplished. The Lord, our Captain, has rewarded
us, He's pardoned us for our iniquity, and we've received
at the Lord's hand double for all our sins. That's what they
said later. You know what they said later
in 2 Samuel 5 verse 1? After David is on the throne
now, It says, Then came all the tribes of Israel to David in
Hebron, and they spake, and they said, Behold, we're your bone
and your flesh. We're one with you. That's where
we're made to say we're one with Christ. And they said, In the
time past, when Saul was king over us, David, you were the
one that led us out. You were the one that brought
us into Israel. said to thee, David, he said
to thee, thou shalt feed my people Israel. Thou shalt be captain
over Israel. And all the elders of Israel
came to the king. You know what we're going to
do in the end? That's a picture when Christ comes and He's on
His throne and this thing's wound up. This is what's happening. Every single trial, everything
He's bringing us through, brethren. And this is what's going to happen
in the end. In that great day, we're going to sing this new
song and say, You're worthy. You were slain. You redeemed
us to God by Your blood out of every country, tongue, and people
and nation. You've made us under our God,
kings and priests, and we'll reign on this earth. And we're
going to say with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb. That's what
they were saying today. The Lord sent you, David. While
Saul appeared to be king, you led us the whole time. And you
brought us in. And we're going to sing, Worthy
is the Lamb that was slain. to receive power and riches and
wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And we're
going to all honor and sing blessing and honor and glory and power
be unto Him that sits on the throne and unto the Lamb forever
and ever. That's where He's going to bring
us, brethren. Every time. That's where He's going to keep
us until that day when we're around that throne with all our
brethren singing that song. We're going to sing it all along
the way. That's the peaceable fruit of righteousness. He works
through His chastening every single time. Every single time. That's why we're going to wait
on the Lord. And I trust Him. I do. I see what He's done to
me. I know what He's going to do
to my brethren. If there He is, I know what He's going to do
to them. He's going to bring us to seek Him preeminently.
and trust Him and be nothing. That's what He's going to do.
That's a good place. Amen.