1 Samuel chapter 29. I hope you have been enjoying
this study through 1 Samuel half as much as I have. I thoroughly
enjoyed it. It's about over. It's been a
great blessing. And a great revelation to me,
has it been to you? It should be, whenever we study
a new book, or an old one for that matter, or one we've studied
before for that matter. We should see things old and
new, shouldn't we? The account here, as you remember,
those of you who were here, David has got himself into a bad place. I hope some of you read this
ahead of time. Back in chapter 27, David has
gotten himself into a bad situation that he can't get himself out
of. And what this story is about, we're
going to look at in chapter 29, is God's wonderful restraining
grace, keeping David from doing what he is capable of doing. We do not realize, none of us
in here realize what we are capable of doing apart from the restraining
grace of God. None of us. And every now and
then, the Lord gives us a little glimpse of that old man in us.
He lets that old man just rise to the surface every now and
then, and it scares us. And it shames us. David, when
this is all over, he's ashamed of himself, as he should be. David cried over in Psalm 16. He said, Preserve me, O God. Preserve me, O God, for in Thee
do I put my trust." He's saying, I can't keep myself. I can't
preserve myself. As we said of old Simon Peter,
you know, he boasted of how he would never deny the Lord. Well,
it wasn't long after that, just a short time that he did. And
then after it was all over, Peter, one of the first things out of
his mouth or on paper, was he said, we're kept by the power
of God. But David cried, preserve me,
O God. I bet he wishes he had cried
that before all this started. And later on, I believe he wrote
afterward, after this story, he wrote in Psalm 145, the Lord
preserveth all them that love Him. Paul wrote this, Apostle Paul
wrote this, the Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep
you from evil. He's the only one that can. Arthur Pink, one of my favorite
writers, he lived in the early part of the 1900s. Born in the 1800s, I believe.
And one of my favorite writers. I read nearly everything he wrote
when I was a young man. And he said this, most believers
are quick to point out God's deliverance from physical dangers. They see that, they acknowledge
God's hand, when they ought to be just as quick to see His deliverance
from moral evil, which is far worse. To fall into moral evil
is far worse. And God, we're surrounded. The
fact is, we're surrounded by many evils. We're surrounded by them. And
then we've got evil within, that old man that we spoke of, evils
within and evils without. And these things, this old man
and the evil one out there in the present evil world is the
cause of all our misery. And our Lord said, of Satan,
he's a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He's called the
tempter, he's called the accuser, the devourer, and his workers,
he has many workers which are called demons, who have transformed
themselves into ministers of righteousness, wolves in sheep's
clothing. This present evil world is against
God's people, not a friend to us, but an enemy of us. And it's
no wonder that the Apostle Paul cried for all of us. Who shall
deliver us? Who shall deliver us? Well, I'll
tell you who. the Deliverer. That's his name. That's his name, our Lord and
our God. Now, remember, as we said, David's dilemma. It all
started here in chapter 27. As long as he was looking to
the Lord, he was fine. As long as David was looking
to the Lord, believing God's word and calling upon the Lord
and communing with the Lord, he was fine. But when he began
to look within and began to look without and began to look at
all the things that were against him, look at chapter 27, verse
1. David said in his heart, he said this within himself,
in other words, he consulted with himself. That's a bad person
to take counsel with, isn't it? He said, I shall now perish one
day by the hand of Saul. Saul's going to kill me. I've
got to run. I've got to run. I've got to do something. What
am I going to do? What am I going to do? Where
can I go? Where can I turn? And he ended up, see he didn't,
Margaret he didn't, he's not calling on the Lord here. Lord
preserve me. Lord help me. Lord show me. Lord,
deliver me. I believe, but help my unbelief."
He's not crying, Lord, I'm scared, help me. Let me stand firm. Let me stand faithful. He's not
crying that at all here. He said, what can I do? Well,
here's what I think I'll do. And he went to the wrong place.
He sought refuge. He sought help in the wrong place
with the wrong people. He wasn't thinking. Anybody else guilty? He wasn't
thinking. He wasn't thinking on God's what
he wasn't thinking. We're never in our right mind
if we're not thinking as God thinks, as God says. He wasn't
thinking on God. But now here's his salvation.
Ron, this is going to be his salvation. It is his salvation. He wasn't thinking on God, but
God never quit thinking on him. God wasn't in all his thoughts.
But he was in God's. He wasn't in his right mind.
He wasn't in his right mind. And now he's with the wrong people.
Can you imagine how David... Now, for those of you who weren't
here, David, he said, I'm going to run to the Philistines. Now,
this is the David who stood in front of these Philistines, these
godless, idol-worshipping, worldling people who hated his God. who
defied his God, who cursed his God, Goliath. As a young man,
he stood before them all, only once, and is there not a cause? Fearless, strong in the Lord.
He said, The Lord shall deliver thee unto me, you uncircumcised
Philistine, The Lord delivered me out of the bear and the lion. The Lord delivered me and the
Lord will deliver me in this too. Whom shall I fear and of
what shall I be afraid? The Lord is my salvation. Unafraid. As long as you look to the Lord. But then he began to look at
things around him. He quit looking above. He looked down. He quit looking
up. He looked in. Quit looking without. He said, what am I going to do?
And he ran to the Philistines of all the world. He ran into
the world is what he did. He went among unbelievers, godless
people. And he stayed there a long time.
A long time. Akish here in our story says
he's been there for years. Can a believer get in a real
bad way? Ask David. How long can it last? A long
time. As long as it doesn't last forever. As long as the Lord brings them
out. If they can get in a bad way, ask David. Now, can you
imagine? Now, he's down here in this godless
country. in a bad way. In chapter 28,
it looked like that he was going to have to fight against his
own people to show his allegiance to this
king. It looked like he was in such
a mess that it looked like he was going to do something he
had It'd never get over. Can you imagine how David must
have thought with his head in his hands? And you've done it
too. What am I doing here? How have I got myself in this? Have you ever done that? How
am I going to get out of this? What's going to become of me
now? I know he thought, Irene, I know
he thought, how can I be a child of God and be where I am with
who I am doing what I'm about to do? How? They said that of him. Look at
1 Samuel 29. I meant to read the whole chapter
with you, but we don't have time, actually. the lords of the Philistines
had gathered together. And they want to go to battle.
And verse 3, the princes, the military leaders of the Philistines,
they saw David and his men. He had 600 men with him at this
time. And you know, here's a lesson
to learn. There are other people to think
of. In other words, our actions and
all involve a lot of other people. And the consequences of our actions
don't just involve us. The ramifications may go a long
way and reach a lot of people. David drove 600 people down in
the gutter with him, didn't he? Well, the princes, the leaders
of the Philistines, they saw David and his men, verse 3, and
they said, what are these Hebrews doing here? What are they doing
here? And that's what David was thinking
himself. And they said, look at verse
3, Is not this David? Isn't this David? Is that David? What's he doing here? Simon Peter. We're getting ready
to look at that story. Wednesday night. For your information,
we're going to look at that Wednesday night. Matthew 26. where Simon Peter denied the
Lord, where he warmed himself at the fire with a bunch of people
who were just gathered around to watch this killing. That's
what they gathered to do. And Peter found himself warming
himself at the fire with a bunch of unbelievers. And they started
saying, Hey, you're one of them. You're one of his disciples,
aren't you? He's not this one? What's he
doing here? That's what they said of David.
Isn't this David? Now, as I said, how is David
going to get out of this? He's got himself into it. It's
all his fault. How's he going to get out of
this? He's not. somebody is going to
get him out. The title of this lesson is The
Wonderful Restraining Grace of God. God's not going to let him
do what he's capable of doing. God is not going to let him,
God's going to let him go so far to see what he's capable
of. And these things are written
for our learning that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures,
might have hope that when we get in a bad, and we're going
to, we will, We will. We're going to get in a bad way. If we haven't already. If we have already, we'll do
it again. Yes, we will. And these things are written
for our learning. And somebody, somebody, you see, is the Savior. We can't save ourselves. We don't
save ourselves the first time, nor all times in between. We don't keep ourselves. We never
have. As I told you young fathers,
you don't protect your children. You really don't. You never have.
You don't protect yourself. The Lord is our Savior, our Keeper. It's always the case with God's
people, we do the sinning and He does the saving. He gets all
the glory that way, you see. It's always the case with God's
people, we get ourselves in trouble, and he gets us out. Don't you love Psalm 107? All
sinners love Romans 7 and Psalm 107, don't they? It says in Psalm
107, David wrote this, He said, because they rebelled
against the words of God, they rejected the counsel of God,
the Word of God, didn't listen to God, weren't paying attention
to His Word. Why do we get ourselves in trouble? We're not listening. Just like our parents, when our
parents told us things growing up, if we'd only listen. Mac,
if we'd only listen. Dad, Mom, they love us. They're
telling us what's good for us. They really are, weren't they?
They really were. If only we had just listened and done what
they said, we'd have been delivered from a lot of trouble. But we
didn't. We'd say, to appease them, we'd
say, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, okay, are you through? And then run
off and get smack dab in trouble. It says in Psalm 107, so he brought
them down. with hard labor. They fell down.
There was none to help them. They cried unto the Lord, and
He saved them out of their trouble. Well, then they learned their
lesson, didn't they? Yeah, it'll never happen again.
I'll never get into that again, they said. Well, it wasn't long
after that that it says that because of their transgressions,
their iniquities, their afflicted, then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and it says, and He saved them. And on and
on it went. And the moral of that story by
John is, he said it four times, Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness and his wonderful works, his wonderful
restraining grace to the sons of men. Now, as we said in the beginning,
David was with the wrong companions. David was with the wrong people.
Scripture says evil communications corrupt good manners. Evil communications
corrupt good manners. I preached a little while and
I'm going to tell you something. All right? A dog is a dog is a dog. You know that? He can clean it up. He can do
a lot of things for it. But there's still that old nature
in that dog. You train it, but it's still
a dog. And the way that you know, more
than any other way, the way you know it's a dog, you may lose
sight of the fact that it's a dog until it gets in a pack. There's a pack of dogs that have
been running in my neighborhood. And their neighborhood dogs are
owned by various neighbors. They have collars on them. Well,
there's a couple of dogs, pit bulls, what they are. No collars
on them. Hey, you think pit bulls are
worse than chitsas? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no. You'd say they're bred to do
that. Folks, all dogs. Dogs are dogs. This pack of dogs
has been running around the neighborhood. Okay, they all get together.
I see my neighbor's dog. Nice dog. Seemed like a nice
dog. Well, he gets in with them. Another dog gets in with them.
Before long, you've got this pack of dogs. When you've got
a pack of dogs, you've got trouble. You've got trouble. Well, lo
and behold, the other morning, I went out, and there they were,
and I looked. And there was Abner, right in the middle of them. My dog. My beloved dog. My well-trained
dog, who wouldn't hurt a flea. Or would he? And you know, he's an old dog,
Henry. If he becomes an old dog, then
he won't get in trouble, right? Old dogs don't get in trouble.
Old men don't. They don't have any trouble with
the flesh, do they? Old men, not so. Not so. Evil communications corrupt
good manners. How often does Scripture tell
us, and young people listen carefully, be not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. Come ye out from among them,
be ye separate, saith the Lord. And I'll be a father unto you."
Listen to him, he said. We will not influence this evil
world for good. No, sir. There's only one thing
that will influence people. It's what influence does. There's
only one thing that will change us. It's what changed us, the Word
of God. One thing, it's not our being
the friends with and so forth. What happens is they begin to
influence you. This is the case with David.
David didn't influence Achish, but David became just like them. Maybe Lot thought, well, I can
do something about Sodom. No, you can't. There's only one
who can. You either change it or destroy it. Well, the ways,
and listen to this, here's some of the ways in which God preserves
his saints. They're wonderful, wonderful
restraining, full of wonder. These are not our ways. This
is not the way we would do it. The way God preserves his saints,
and we didn't see it at the time. David doesn't see what's going
on here. David doesn't see what's going on. Many have failed at
some business venture. Many believers have failed at
some business venture. They get into a business venture,
and the Lord makes them fail at that to keep their hearts
from being taken by these riches, by the world. When Job had many
things, Abraham was a rich man, but Paul wrote, he said, If riches
increase, set not your heart upon them. Remember, it's just deceitful,
the deceitfulness of Richard. It's just wood, hay and stubble.
It's just, you know, just stuff. Remember that. An old preacher
named John Warburton years ago, he was a young, struggling preacher,
pastor. He had 14 children. Pastoring a little country church.
He didn't have enough money to feed all his people, all his
family. So he thought, well, I'll do
something to supplement my income, and he went into pig farming. Now they that preach the gospel
are supposed to live by the gospel. They're supposed to be supported
by what God gives them through God's people. That's what. Not
sidelines. But he said, I'll go into pig
farming to supplement my income. Well, he did. He borrowed money
and bought all these pigs. Every one of them died. And Mary, he tried several things
and it all failed. In my own illustration, well,
I don't have time to give it. But anyway, the Lord has caused
many to fail at various things to keep their hearts from being
taken with these things. Many people, listen to this,
many have failed in relationships. Believers have sought to have
relationships with a woman or a man or a girl or a boy or whatever,
and if they're one of God's own, and he kept that from blossoming. Kept them from being unequally
yoked together with an unbeliever. Many have done that. The Lord
has caused many to keep them from that mercifully. To keep
them from having this, being equally yoked to this unbeliever
and having this That's the greatest trial a believer would have to
go through. The greatest trial a believer would have to go through
would be to be married to somebody that hates God. Ask someone that's
had it happen. Now, I remember as a young man,
Davis, when I was a little older than you, out of high school. And it starts getting serious
then. When you start dating people then, it starts getting serious,
doesn't it? In other words, it could happen. You could run off and marry and
so forth. Nobody would stop you. And I
was living, about 18, 19 years old, living on my own. And there
was a young girl that I was smitten with. She was Catholic. And I was smitten with her. And
she with me. I thought. I thought. And my parents, were grieved
about it. But anyway, to make a long story
short, that girl dumped me. And Ron, I wasn't used to that.
Honestly. There was a young daughter of
Abraham waiting on me. A young daughter of Abraham waiting
on me. Not a daughter of Belial. Oh, how I thank God that that
girl dumped me. I didn't at the time. Boy, was
I mad, ashamed, humiliated and everything. Tried to get her
back. No way. I don't want her back
now. The Lord had these princes of
the Philistines, these fellows, turn on David. These Philistine
princes said, get him out of here. I'm just paraphrasing the
whole story. I'm telling you the whole story.
They said, get him out of here. Verse 4, they said, what's he
doing here? Make him go home. Send him back where he belongs. And Kelly really didn't go back
where he belonged. He went back where the Lord brought
him, where his troubles started. But the Lord is going to bring
him where he belongs. He's going to bring him back
to Judah, among God's people. He's never where he belongs until
he gets among God's people. And they said, get him out of
here. What's he doing here? He's nothing but trouble to us.
And many, many have had family and friends get put out with
them, turn on them. That's a good thing. Oh, how
blessed are they that suffer persecution. Our Lord said, persecuted.
Someone said this, how often has the Lord been working something
for us by turning the world against us? Did you hear that? How often?
This is the Lord's way. How often has the Lord been working
for us by turning this evil world against us? Our Lord said in this world you
shall have tribulation. Why? To keep us from loving it. to keep us from desiring it,
to keep us from perishing in it. David doesn't realize what God's
doing here. Oh, but the Lord's being good to him. Having everybody turn on him.
Who are you? What are you doing here? Get
out of here! Like a dog. And all David sees, verse 8,
he just has his feelings hurt. In verse 8, He just feels like
he's been unfairly treated, and he begins to defend himself.
Bad thing. Like old Job. We're going to
look at Job this morning. Job was alright until he started
defending himself. There's nothing to defend. If
you defend yourself, there's nothing to defend. You're defending
the wrong person. David begins to defend himself,
and he begins to say, oh, the wrong thing. Did you read this? Well, David appealed to Achish,
what have I done? I haven't done anything wrong.
Verse 8, I haven't done anything wrong. And Achish agreed. He
said in verse 6, I haven't found evil in you. And that's what
God's people... Paul did say this when you're
out among the world, in Titus 2, he said that they may have
nothing evil to say against you. He said, let not your good be
evil spoken of. When they falsely accuse you,
that's one thing. Peter said. They all said the
same thing. So David pleaded with him, but
he said no. Achish said no. Verse 10, he
said, leave it, son, up. I'm sorry, you're just not one
of us. Get out. So David, now imagine
him leaving and 600 men with him. They're packing up all their
belongings and they're leaving. Humbled, aren't they? Humiliated. Ashamed. They're going home.
Going back to Ziklag. And you know what it's going
to take to really get him out of all this real bad trouble?
The greatest trial he's ever been through. The next chapter. The greatest trial. And the greatest
trial he had ever been through up to this point was the greatest
picture of the gospel you'll see. It's a picture of Christ. He lost everything. He thought. I told you about old Abner in
the middle of that. What happened? What happened to old Abner? And
that old dog, that pack of dogs, what happened? I want to do something
about that pack. Got to. I got to. Even Charlie was out
there. Boy, you talking about somebody
panicking. Mindy, you know, saw Charlie in the midst of that
pack. But anyway, what happened to
old Abner? Well, when I saw him, in that pack. And I'm going to
do something about that pack. They're all going to end up in
prison, bad or good, one way or another. It's them or me,
isn't it? That's the way it is with God.
It's God or man. Uh-huh. Abner? Oh, man, you thought I shot him. One dog in the middle of that
pack heard my voice. One dog belonged to me. One dog
is a dog is a dog is a dog. I called him. Sovereignly. He heard my voice
and Mary, his ears dropping. He doesn't have a tail, but he
tucked it between his legs. And he came just slinking back,
ashamed, embarrassed. I said, what are you doing with
that pack of dogs? Get over it. I didn't talk kindly
to him. He needs to learn a lesson. One dog, I spoke rough to him,
but one dog's out of One dog is ashamed and humiliated
and embarrassed, but he's out of harm's way. Huh? David said, it's a good
thing that I've been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.
I just wasn't listening, was I? I don't belong over there.
Thank you for calling me back. And we'll all say that. At some
point. Okay.