As the Lord may be pleased to
help us this evening, I'd like to invite your prayerful attention
to the chapters we read together, the account of David and his
successful action under God's deliverance for his people at
Ziklag. We'll take as our text The last
clause, those words in 1 Samuel chapter 30 and verse 6. But David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. 1 Samuel chapter 30 and the last
clause in verse 6. is well worth noticing the buts
in the Bible. We have a situation here that as far as mankind is concerned
would seem impossible. The city of Ziklag which was
given to David by Achish was where he and his army dwelt Those
600 faithful men which followed him and fought with him. And
David was remarkably delivered as we read in that chapter 29
from fighting in the battle where King Saul and Jonathan both lost
their lives. What a mercy that David was not
involved in that battle. but we come to a situation whereby
he went back to Ziklag on the third day he got there and the
Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag
and smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire this was a strategy
that was used in those days if they set fire to a town, a village,
a community. The people in the houses would
obviously evacuate quickly. They set fire to the dwellings
and of course they were easy prey for them to capture and
take all these people, the wives of the army, their sons and their
daughters, take them away and sell them for slaves or use them
as slaves. According to the law, they would
be gone for six years. On the seventh year, they could
be freed. But they knew not what their future held. The blessing
is, dear friends, the future is not in our hands. God knew
the future. It is safely in his hands. And
here we have a situation whereby David was greatly endangered. Then David and the people that
were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had
no more power to weep. And David's two wives were taken
captive, yes, and David was greatly distressed for the people spake
of stoning him. because the soul of the people
was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters, but
David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. And in looking
at this portion of God's scripture, I've got three headings. Firstly, that David was endangered,
and then he was encouraged, and then he was enriched. But he
was in great danger. All his men were quite quick
to blame him, no doubt. They were so distressed, we read
that they wept until they had no more power to weep. And here we see David very much like we read of in the book of Exodus when Moses was ready to be stoned because
there was no water and the message came to him by God to take the
rod and We'll look it up, Exodus chapter 17. And we read there
the account of how God directed Moses when he was in danger. The first part of the chapter
17 in Exodus. And all the congregation of the
children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin after
their journeys according to the commandment of the Lord. and
pitched in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to
drink. Wherefore the people did chide
with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink. And
Moses said unto them, why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt
the Lord? And the people thirsted there
for water, And the people murmured against Moses and said, wherefore
is this that thou hast brought us out of Egypt to kill us and
our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto
the Lord, saying, what shall I do unto this people? They be
almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Go on before the people, and take with thee the elders of
Israel, and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take
it in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee
there upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock,
and there shall come out water out of it, that the people may
drink, and Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. What a blessing it is that God
appears so often at a crucial time and God's intervening power
has an effect. All that was important and vitally
valued, the sons and daughters and wives Kidnapped. It was a desperate situation.
And what's more, David's army blamed him for the loss of their
families. And while they lifted up their
voices and wept, at the same time, they were angry. And David
was greatly distressed. But David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. And what a blessing it is that
in our times of great need, dear friends, there is a path of prayer. There is a gracious God who hears
prayer and answers prayer. He is sovereign. He's able to
permit things to come into our lives and cause us to be on our
knees in prayer and supplication and beseeching him and bring
us to our realization of our utter dependence upon him. So David, who was greatly endangered,
now was encouraging himself in the Lord his God. And David said
to Abiathar the priest, to Himalic's son, I pray thee bring me hither
the ephod. and Bartha brought thither the
ephod to David. The ephod was part of the priest's
garment. It had a containing area in it
and we read that there was the urim and the thummim and in some
remarkable way the priest was given an answer. Eurim I understand meant curses
and Thummim meant perfections. It must have been the perfection
that was highlighted and somehow God's will was made known to
the priest by this method. Shall we pursue, shall we overtake
them? What a question. How was David to do this? David
inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue,
for thou shalt surely overtake them, while without fail recover
all. Without fail recover all. What
an answer to such a big question. How could this thing work out?
How did they know where the people were who had kidnapped all these
wives and families? Where were they? How would they
find them? How would they find them? So David went, he and his
600 men that were with him, and came to the brook Besaw where
those that were left behind stayed But David pursued, he and 400
men, for 200 abode behind, which were so faint they could not
go over the brook Besaw. And they found an Egyptian. God's sovereign hand is at work.
This poor Egyptian young man had been abandoned by the army
that he was with, He was left in a field faint and weary and
he had the only prospect he had to look at was that he would
be dehydrated and starving. He would most likely faint and
die. He'd been neglected how hard
people are not knowing that he was a key feature in God's working
out of his purposes of grace. We never know. God can use the
most unlikely to work his work of power and mercy and favor
in the answering of prayer. God works according to his will
and purpose and none can say unto him, what doest thou? We're in no position to question,
are we? God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain. Now
here we see this Egyptian, they found him and brought him
to David and gave him bread and he did eat and they made him
drink water and they gave him a piece of cake of figs and a
cluster of raisins, some energy food and when he had eaten his
spirit came again to him. he had eaten no bread or drunk
any water three days and three nights. Now we think we've had
a spell of warm weather in the Middle East the temperature can
go up anything up to about 50 and that's normal 40 degrees
45 up to 50 you imagine no drink no food And he had no shelter. He might have had the shade of
a tree, but he'd been abandoned. David was
directed to this man. They found an Egyptian in the
field and brought him to David. And David said unto him, to whom
belongest thou, and whence art thou? And he said, I'm a young
man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite, And my master left me because
three days ago I fell sick. We made an invasion upon the
south of the Cherethites and upon the coast which belongs
to Judah and upon the south of Caleb. And we burned Ziklag with
fire. And David said to him, Canst
thou bring me down to this company It was a good question that David
asked him, wasn't it? This man might well have known
where these people were going. Obviously they had some strategy
whereby they could stow away all the goods that they'd taken. But what was to happen? This young man obviously knew
where they were bound for. He picked it up and He, by being
an informer, he could have been executed by his own army. But people are in God's hands.
And this young man, as frightened as he was, he said, swear unto
me by God. The fear of the Lord was in him,
no doubt. that thou wilt neither kill me
nor deliver me into the hands of my master and I will bring
thee down to this company. What a wonderful blessing that
God was directing David according to his will and purpose because
he said the word was given to him by God thou shalt surely
pursue and recover all. And when he had brought him down,
behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and
drinking and dancing because of all the great spoil that they
had taken out of the land of the Philistines. David was encouraged in the Lord
his God, and the Lord his God was encouraging him step by step
as the The strategy that David was so
skilled with was working out. But David was realising that
he needed to trust in God, remembering of course that while
David was trusting in God, the battle was going on that David
and his army were delivered from. And sadly, Saul, we read in the
scriptures, was trusting in sorcery, which was absolutely opposed
to the way of seeking the help and direction of God. Sadly,
Saul's life was taken, and David's loyal friend, Jonathan, his life
was taken. In the middle of that we read
that Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son who later David brought into
his company and restored to him all that his father had lost
and he even set his servants over him to care for him. Mephibosheth you remember was
lame on both of his feet. He was helpless to come to King
David as he was then. And how helpless we are to come to
God but for his wonderful grace. We read that King David sent
and fetched Mephibosheth. Sent and fetched him, yes. That
speaks to us surely of God's irresistible grace. But to get
back to the situation here with David, He was left with 400 men,
two were left behind, watching over the equipment and the supplies. They were obedient to what they
were doing. And as we saw, as we read, they
were equally rewarded, ultimately. But God's will is made known
and they were following God's direction, that David will recover all.
This surely speaks to us of the Redeemer, the one who brought
back all that was lost in the Adam fall. These people were
rejoicing. You can imagine them, it may
well be across a valley, they thought they could have a party
down there and they were drinking and dancing because of the great
spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines
and out of the land of Judah. And David, the soldier that he
was, smote them from twilight even unto the evening of the
next day. There escaped not a man of them save 400 young men which
rode upon camels and fled. They took fright, they went. Verse 18 says, and David recovered
all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two
wives. Everything that had been lost
was now regained. Having found that Egyptian man,
God's sovereign hand, was at work, God's ways are past finding
out, and that Egyptian man was an
instrument in God's purposes, enabling David under God's sovereign
mercy and favor to be enriched with recovering all that was
lost. And surely this points to us
quite clearly that in this situation David becomes a type of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus said, all that
the Father hath given me shall come to me, and him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. What a blessing it is, all All
those who were eternally designed to be saved will come to a saving
knowledge of their need of salvation. They will come, by God's wonderful
grace, to seek for salvation. God is a rewarder of those who
diligently seek him. And he knew them before the foundation
of the world. What a mystery. How can we think
like this? Well we can't. Because as God
says, as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. And so it is. Ours is to believe. And when we cannot see our way,
let us trust and still obey. He who bids us forward go will
not fail the way to show. It is of God's mercies that we're
not consumed. It is of God's mercies that we're
saved. Yes, when that prodigal son that we read of in Luke chapter
15, he took the portion of goods that were apportioned to him
and he went his way didn't he? Not many days after we read he
gathered all together and took his journey into a far country
and there wasted his substance with riotous living. What happened? His enjoyment was very carnal
and short-lived but there arose a great famine didn't there?
in that land and he went and joined himself to a citizen of
that far country. He used the prodigal son as a
servant, as a slave. I don't think I'm taking the
picture too far if we think of that citizen of the far country
as being a type of the devil because he thought he got the
prodigal son in his clutches and he kept him poor. so poor
that he was so hungry he sent him into the field to feed the
swine what little was growing remember everything was poverty
stricken and he was so hungry he said he would have fain have
filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat and no
man gave unto him and this was used wasn't it in
that parable because We read, and when he came to himself,
when God began to work in his heart and soul to show him his
real condition, his real need, and showed him his real savior, he said, how many hard servants
of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and there's me
here perishing with hunger. What a blessing it is. when the
heart, mind, and soul are enlightened and brought to a realization
of the way of salvation. Yes, he said, I will arise and
go unto my father and say unto him, father, I have sinned against
heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy
son. Make me as one of thy hired servants.
Yes, he was willing to go and work for his father as a little
servant boy. Yes, at least he would have a
roof over his head and food to eat. At the moment he was destitute. What happened? Yes, he did arise. He went to his father and he
got his speech all ready. Yes, he said, I will arise and
go to my father and say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven
and in thy sight am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me
as one of thy hired servants. What we read in Luke's gospel
is well worth noticing. Luke 15, and we read these words. And he arose and came to his
father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,
and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed
him. He was a great way off, yes. If there's one here this
evening, or one listening online, I know not what your circumstances
are. But you may be in the early stages
of the awakening of your soul. You may not really be aware of
what's happening to you, but God is at work. And if God is
at work, he which has begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. He won't leave it half done.
No, he will complete his work. And if you are looking to Jesus,
if you are in the state of repentance toward
God, God knows. Why? Well, because he's put that
spirit of repentance in your heart, in your mind, in your
soul. And although you may still feel
to be at a distance, God knows. Just as the picture that the
Lord Jesus shows in this parable. When he was yet a great way off,
his father saw him. and had compassion and ran and
fell on his neck and kissed him. God will come to you while you
come to him because it is he who is the author of salvation. It is he who has begun a good
work in you. And the son said to his father,
Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and
am no more worthy to be called thy son. The father doesn't let
him finish what he had rehearsed to say, does he? No. We read
abut there. The father intervened. No more
worthy to be called thy son. He didn't get as far as saying,
make me as one of thy hired servants. But the father said to his servant,
bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring
on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted
calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and be merry." It's a remarkable
parable. And Luke 15, I remember when
I was working in Sunday school, I had a class of young lads and
they came to know this chapter as the lost and found chapter.
I think they'd grasped the teaching of it. But here, that best robe is the robe of
perfect righteousness. the robe that covers our sin,
the finished work of the Lord Jesus. God sees his people through
the Lord Jesus. He doesn't see us in our sin
and shame and misery. He sees us through the finished
work and redeeming love of the Lord Jesus. To redeem is to buy
back that which is lost. put a ring on his hand, that
ring which tells people that he belongs to his father. And
shoes on his feet, if he was a slave he'd go barefooted. They'd
put shoes on his feet so that he might walk in the ways of
God's command, which is a delightful road. Yes, and have his feet
shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. and they
had to, their father's command was they should rejoice because
he says, this my son was lost and is found, he was dead and
is alive again. Yes, and here David recovered
all. And what a blessing this is,
the wives and the families They were saved from the misery of
the life which they might have had. And what a blessing it is
that when souls are saved by grace through faith, they're
saved from the wrath to come. These people that David was involved
with, they were rescued, they were
brought back, and in the glorious gospel of the salvation of souls,
people are rescued because they are eternally designed to be
saved. None can explain the, I was going
to say, oh well, the horror of being lost. Try to think about
it, we can't. Eternity forever and ever lost
without God and without hope. How sad. There's a poem somewhere that's
just come to my mind about eternity. It goes something like this. Came there a bird each thousandth
year. One sangrain from the hills to
bear. When all had vanished grain by grain, eternity would still
remain. You try and calculate that one.
How long is eternity? When nothing was left in this
world because each thousandth year one little speck had gone,
even after all that time, eternity would still remain. Our human
minds can have no conception of forever and ever. But the immensity and the endless
eternity is a truth which can be used to bring us to trust
in the eternal God as our refuge. And what a refuge this is, that
refuge for sinners which the gospel makes known. It is found
in the merits of Jesus alone. The weary, the tempted, and burdened
by sin were never exempted from entering their inn. So David
was helped to pursue, his mission was successful, and no mission
will ever be more successful than the mission of our Lord
Jesus Christ. This is a faithful saying we
read, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. And what a blessing it is. that
God has eternally designed to recover all that were lost in
the fall of mankind. Each soul God will bring to a
saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and they will be
included in that number which no man can number, that people
set apart for God from before the foundation of the world.
redeemed, brought back. And what we read in the Holy Scriptures is that,
of which David encouraged himself in the Lord his God, and may
we as we consider these scriptural truths, even this evening, encourage
ourselves In the Lord our God, to him be glory, honour and praise,
for ever and ever. Amen. We'll conclude our worship here
today in singing from Hymns for Worship number 32. Number 32. The day thou gavest, Lord, is
ended. The darkness falls at thy behest. To thee our morning hymns ascended. Thy praise shall sanctify our
rest. Hymns for worship, number 32,
June 813. The devil gave it to the sinners,
the darkness over by the ashes. To Thee our moral calling is
ascended, Thy praise shall sanctify our prayers. We proudly move, Thy church a
singing, Our land prospering, O watch his keeping, and ask
not how by day or night. Mountains and islands that only
dawn another day, the voice of prayer is never silent, nor dies
the strain of praise away. The sun appears as bright as
waking, A brethren in the western sky. And hour by hour fresh nymphs
are making Thy wondrous doings at the high. So be it, Lord, thy throne shall
never, like us, from thence pass away. Thy kingdom shall end and
grow forever, till all thy creatures way. In much mercy, O Lord, forgive
all that thy pure eyes have seen amiss. Own and bless thine own
word. And if we've gained anything
this day from the holy scriptures, O Lord, may these things remain
with us, abide with us to our soul's profit and to thy praise. Take us now to our homes in peace
and safety. Watch over us in the coming days
and we pray, O Lord, for Our dear brother the pastor here,
bring him home from his holiday refreshed and enable him to take
up his loved labours here in shepherding the flock. Bless
him and his family, each one as they return. And go before
us each in life's untrodden steps and help us day by day to encourage
ourselves in the Lord our God. Now the peace of God that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make us perfect in every good work to do His will, working
in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.