Ziklag

Q: What does the Bible say about God's mercy?

The Bible emphasizes that God's mercy is everlasting and covers our sins as far as the East is from the West. God's mercy is a recurring theme in scripture, vividly illustrated in Psalm 103, where it expresses that the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. His mercy is extended to all who fear Him, indicating that God does not deal with us according to our sins but instead extends grace to His children. This mercy was exemplified in the lives of biblical figures like David, who, despite their failures, continually sought reconciliation with God and received His mercy anew each time, demonstrating the depths of God's love towards His people.

Q: How do we know God will not forsake His people?

Scripture reassures us that God will not forsake His people, as He is faithful to His promises and gracious in His mercy. The assurance of God's faithfulness is grounded in His unchanging nature and the history of salvation narrating His interactions with humankind. Throughout the Bible, from Abraham to David, we see evidence of God's enduring commitment to His covenant people. Though they fall into sin and face various trials, God's mercy prevails, and He extends grace to restore them. For instance, David's life illustrates that despite his failures, God's faithfulness leads to repentance and restoration. The essence of God's promise is that He will always love, uphold, and sustain those whom He has chosen, as seen in passages like 1 Peter 5:10.

Q: Why is repentance important for Christians?

Repentance is crucial for Christians as it restores our relationship with God and reaffirms our reliance on His mercy. Repentance is a fundamental aspect of the Christian faith, acting as the means by which believers turn back to God after straying in sin. The act of repentance is rooted in acknowledging our failures and recognizing the need for God's grace. It is essential because it not only brings about forgiveness but also strengthens our walk with God, prompting deeper faith and reliance on His mercy. For example, David's repentance after his sin with Bathsheba exemplifies how turning back to God leads to renewal and restoration of relationship. Thus, repentance serves as a continuous call for believers to depend on God's grace to navigate their spiritual journeys.

Q: What lessons can we learn from David's life?

David's life teaches us about the importance of seeking God's guidance and the reality of His mercy in our failures. David's narrative is filled with various lessons, particularly the necessity of seeking God's guidance in all aspects of life. His decline into despair when he attempted to take matters into his own hands illustrates how critical it is to consult God rather than rely solely on human reasoning. Furthermore, David's story is a testament to the unending nature of God's mercy. Despite grave mistakes, including adultery and murder, David's sincere repentance led to restoration, demonstrating that no sin is beyond the reach of God's grace. This invites believers to understand that even in our weaknesses and failures, God's mercy offers hope and a means for healing and renewal.

Q: How does God respond to our distresses?

God responds to our distresses with mercy and provides a way for restoration and encouragement. When we encounter distress, God's response is characterized by His compassion and faithfulness. He listens to our cries for help and is continually eager to restore us during our most challenging times. David's experience while mourning the loss of his family in Ziklag and his subsequent encouragement in the Lord serves as a biblical example of how God reorients our focus from despair to hope. God's merciful intervention provides not only comfort but also the strength to overcome difficulties. The promise of God's unfailing support reassures us that He is always there to guide us back when we feel lost, indicating His deep commitment to our spiritual welfare.

Turn to the book of 1 Samuel.
1 Samuel. And we'll look in a moment at
chapter 27. 1 Samuel 27. I'm so thankful that the Lord
recorded the lives of men like Abraham and Moses and Jacob and
David and Peter and others and their lives, because I take great
comfort in reading of the Lord's mercies to these men. And there's a lot written. There's
very much written about their faith and their conquests, yet
there's more written about their failures and their sin. And I take great courage and
comfort from what God as recorded concerning these people. Over
and over again, they failed. All of them, they failed. Yet
the Lord in mercy picked them up again and again and again. And it's no different with you
and me. Not a bit different. Now, some people may excuse their
sinfulness by by looking at what has happened
to some of these men, such as David, his fall with Bathsheba,
and so forth. And some men, I'll give this
illustration. I didn't have it written down,
but I just thought of it. This man, he was a preacher,
and he had a beautiful family. And one day he just up and left
his wife and his children and ran off with some other woman.
And everyone begged him not to do so, but he just wouldn't listen. He wouldn't listen to reason,
wouldn't listen to scripture, wouldn't listen to reason or
anybody. And I was talking to someone, another preacher that
was talking to him, and asked him if he had no conscience. If his conscience didn't bother
him concerning medicine. He said, no, I'm just going to
get in line with David. He ain't going to be in David's
line. David repented of that sin, and
we're not to take, we're not to make excuses for our sin and
take encouragement that way, encourage ourselves to sin. But
the sin and the failures of others will encourage us in that God
will not utterly forsake his people, no matter what they do.
No matter what they do. And that he'll grant repentance. Now, I want you to consider briefly
with me, first of all, some of these men that I just mentioned.
Abraham. Abraham is called the father
of the faithful. He was strong. He was wise. He was mighty. In
valor, he was a bold man, bold before man and God. He believed
God. Abraham did, man. He's called
the father of the faithful. Yet, a couple of different times,
we find Abraham just like a fearful child at the hands of his enemy. He begs his wife, Sarah, because
she's a beautiful woman, and he's sojourning through the lands,
and he goes through some enemy's lands, and he begs his wife to
play the part of his sister for fear that they'll kill him and
take his wife from him. So he lets them have his wife,
Stan, his wife. He lets them have her to do what
they will with her. And he did that back to back.
He did that once and just not long after they did it again.
The father of the faithful. He was over a hundred years old
when it happened to him. Over a hundred years old. Just
save his neck. Then there's Noah. The scripture
said he was the meekest man on earth. He was faithful, he was
diligent, he was bold, he was hard-working, he was zealous
for the truth. Had to be. To build that boat on dry land,
in the middle of his generation, with no rain in sight, he had
to believe his God, and he had to be zealous for the truth,
and he had to be courageous at the taunts of people going by,
Judgment coming, and he's a preacher of righteousness, a true servant
of God. Yet, right after that miraculous deliverance,
now he was one of eight people upon the whole face of the earth
to be saved by God. You talk about an object of God's
grace, you talk about no refining grace, one of only eight on the
whole face of the earth. And just as soon as he got off
that boat, he got drunk. And laying in his tent, naked,
slobbering drunk. My, my. Noah. You know
how old he was? Six hundred years old. Won't anybody ever learn? We
only got seventy years. Forget it. You can't learn. You won't learn. Moses. Moses
was a fearful or fearless leader of the people, a servant of God,
Moses. He's called the friend of God. God called him a meek man. There's none more meek than Moses
on the face of the earth. Meek and mild, yet a fearless
leader, bold, zealous for his God, following the voice of his
God, following the leadership of his God. fearlessly. Yet,
though he was called a meek man, yet he became incensed with the
people. After a while, he became indignant
with them. They rose up in rebellion and
anger against God. It was against God, not Moses.
God told him something. But Moses got furious at the
people and acted like He took credit for something that God
had done, the water out of the rock, you know. God gave those
people the water out of the rock. And Moses took credit for that
after a while. He got so mad at them because
they wanted water, some more water to drink. Must I fetch
water for you out of that rock again? And he hit that rock. And God was wroth with him and
told him he was going to kill him from that shortly thereafter. But he acted in haste, he abused
his power, he became angry at the people, he acted as the part
of God Almighty. And he was a hundred years old
when that happened. A hundred years old. And then
there's Peter. Peter. He was a man among men. He was. He was a rugged fisherman, he
was a mighty preacher, a preacher God used at Pentecost to save
all those people. He was a spokesman of the apostles,
the leader of the apostles, as it were. Yet, you remember how
that he was standing around that fire, and that woman, or that
young girl, said, you're one of them, aren't you? And he began
to curse, like the old fisherman that he was, began to curse.
And he was my age or older, in his mid-thirties. And I say to
us, at the back of all these illustrations, I say to us, it
could be that in spite of our wicked, sinful behavior in the
past up to this point, we've been foolish, we've been wicked,
haven't we, and sinful. rebelled against our God in ways
such as they have, and worse, and worse. But it could be, in
spite of how wicked we've been up to this point, it could be
our worst failure is coming. Some of you are 50 and 60 years
old. Like I said, some of these people
are over 100, 600 years old. It could be. It could be your
worst failure yet to come. It could be that you'll fail
miserably here very shortly. God forbid it, but it could be. It happened because the heart
is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. Who can know
it? Who can know it? And Peter said, Lord, thou knowest.
Thou knowest. And John, but John said this
over in 1 John, he said, if our heart condemns us, God's greater
than our hearts. He knows all things. If our hearts
condemn us, God sees us. God knows us. He knows all things. So where does our hope lie? Even though we've been so sinful
and wicked up to this point, and yet we may be even worse
still after this, up till now, we may be worse. Where does our
hope lie? Where does our hope lie? Same place Abraham, and Jacob,
and Joseph, and Peter, Moses, Noah. Same place there in the
mercies of our kind, heavenly Father, in His mercy. Then, there's
David. I'm so thankful for the life
of David. So thankful. He's called the
sweet psalmist of Israel. I'd like to have known David.
Now, I feel like I do know some Davids. There's some men on this
earth and some ladies that, and I don't refer to men, but there's
some men I know that I feel like have the character of this man. A sweet song called The Man After
God's Own Heart. I know some men like that, I
believe. I know God loves them and has his hand upon them and
highly favors them. They had the character of Christ
indelibly printed upon their hearts and lives. But David, mighty David, mighty king of
Israel, greatest man of God on earth in his time, greatest man
of God on earth. Yet in our story here that we're
about to look at, we're going to see him in an entirely different
light. We're going to see David, we're going to see him as being
no different. Mighty David, man after God's
own heart, the king of Israel, the sweet psalmist of Israel,
God's friend. We're going to see David, Joe,
as a man no different than old Joe Parks in Rocky Mountain,
Virginia. No different. Not a bit. Not one whit better.
Not one with that. So I want you to look with me
here in 1 Samuel 27. I want you to notice, first of
all, David's terrible distress that he gets into. He gets himself
in trouble. And most of our troubles we get
ourselves into. No doubt about it. No doubt about
it. Now, so, you know the story. David is a man of about 40 years
old, I believe. No, mid-thirties. I'm not sure
exactly how old he is, somewhere around there. And Saul, you know,
had been pursuing him, and pursued him for quite a while, and wanted
him dead. Saul realized that David was
the rightful king, and Saul wanted him dead. And an evil spirit
from the Lord went into Saul, and Saul pursued after David.
Yet, although this man, this great, powerful king, pursues
after David, yet the Lord spares David time and time again. miraculously
spares him, delivers him out of Saul's hand continually. And
David thanks the Lord, and he wrote several psalms concerning
his deliverances from Saul's hand. But now, for some reason,
up to this point, he'd been calling on his God. He'd been seeking
his Lord's face. He'd been seeking his guidance
and his leadership up to this point. All of a sudden, God knowing,
he just opened reasons within himself. Well, look at it here. 1 Samuel 27, verse 1. He takes
matters into his own hands. And that's always where our problems
start. Always. David's head in his heart. Now,
Saul, the Lord had just delivered David out of Saul's hand, just
delivered him, and Saul said up in verse 25, he said, You'll
bless my son, David. You'll do great things and you'll
prevail. And David went his way and Saul
returned to his place. There's no indication that Saul's
going to continue to pursue him, but yet David's fearful and unbelieving. He says, You know, I'm going
to perish one day at that man's hand. What do you have in you?
Well, I will. He keeps running. There's nothing
better for me, there's nothing left to do, he says, than that
I should escape. Now, he'd been hanging around,
I believe, hanging around Judah and around Israel there, waiting
for his Lord to deliver him and set him on the throne. Now, the
Lord had promised him, had anointed him, and he was kind of just
roaming around waiting for Saul to be taken off the throne and him
replaced. But now, all of a sudden, he says, the only thing for me
to do is just to leave, to escape. I'm going to go into the land
of the Philistines, and Saul shall despair of me. He'll quit
looking for me. He'll quit seeking me anymore
in the coast of Israel, and I'll escape out of his hands. So a
David arose, and he passed over with six hundred men that were
with him under Achish. This is a Philistine king, the
son of Maok. King of Gath, the town called
Gath. And David dwelt with Achish at
Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David. And he had two wives. And Arthur
Pink shows that a lot of David's problems stemmed right here.
He had two wives. The Lord never condoned this,
never. Never did the Lord condone this
in the scripture, a man having more than one wife. But David
had two wives, Noahenohem, the Jezreelitess, and Abigail, the
Carmelitess, Nabal's wife. And it was told Saul that David
was fled to this town in Philistine, to Gath, and Saul quit looking
for him. So David takes matters into his
own hands and he runs out of Israel and runs into the land
of his enemies and joins up with his enemies, with his world,
and with the heathens, joins up with the heathens to get away
from his pursuit. And what he's done is he's gotten
out of the frying pan into the fire, so to speak. And his problem
stemmed, like I said to begin with, he didn't seek and ask
for God's leadership. He just stuck and reasoned this
in his own head. And somebody said, he that does
not trust and seek after God is going to seek and trust somewhere
else. And it will generally be with
himself or others. But it will always be wrong.
Whoever it is you consult with, and it's not with the Lord, you'll
be wrong. And you'll get yourself in a
heap of trouble. And David sought refuge with
an enemy. And it appeared, though, it appeared
that his troubles were lessening, or maybe over. His troubles would
end. But he was soon to find out,
he was soon to find out that it's an awful and a bitter thing
to forget God and to become a law to yourself. Now, this Achish,
this king of Gath, He likes David. He liked David. David was a likable
man, a lovely man, sweet psalmist. He must have been just a real
pleasant, pleasant man to be around. He found favor in the
eyes of his enemy. Everybody heard of David. You'll
see that here in a minute. But this king Achish favored
David, and he gave him a little town to live in. And all these
600 men and his family and so forth. A little town called Ziklag. Look at it in verse 5. And David
said unto Achish, If I have now found... I don't know when he
said this. It had to have been after he'd been there a while.
He said, If I have now found grace in your eyes, let them
give me a place in some town in the country but I may dwell
there. Why should thy servant dwell
in the royal city with thee?" We don't want to get in your
way here. We realize that you've been feeding us and helping us
out. Give us a little place to live
on our own, and we'll get out of your hair. And Achish, verse
6, gave him Ziklag that day, a whole town. And wherefore Ziklag
pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day. And the
time that David grew up in the country of the Philistines was
a full year. and four months, a year and four
months, a year and four months. Well, David, now bear with me
here, I've got to build up the picture here. David was following
his own reasoning. He was not living by faith, but
just, Scripture says, shall live by faith. seeking after their
God, trusting in Him, seeking His Word. We read over there
in Psalm 56 where it said, He trusted My Word. When he first
got to God, it said he trusted in His Word. Now he's taking
matters in his own hands and he's following his own reasoning
and his own carnal way of thinking. And things seem to be going pretty
good. But he finds himself here in an awkward position. He's
living. Now this is God's man. Man after God's own heart. And
you're going to have to apply all this to yourself. Because
we get in these positions. We get in the midst of idolatry
and the heathens and so forth and become just like them. And
this is what David does. And he finds himself in this
awkward, shameful position of being in an idolatrous town where
he didn't need to be, being in a place where he didn't need
to be. You ever been somewhere you weren't supposed to be? He
resorted, after a while, to being just like these people. And he
began to live by his wits. He found himself in this awful
position, and instead of calling on God to deliver him from this,
he begins to live by his wits. By his wits. And he became worse
and worse. You ever been there? Maybe somebody's
there now. Begin to live by your wits. He
became worse and worse, and if he's God's child, If you're God's
child, and you get yourself in one of these predicaments, God's
going to show you now. And it's going to be painful.
He's going to have to show you the Father. Just like a little
child now, chasing, you know, talking to somebody, chasing
your child many times. Scripture says, don't let your
soul spare for his crime. And this is what the Lord does
to David here. And it could be he needs to do this to you or
me. Well, after a while, David appears to be just like one of
these Philistines. You've been there. Are you there
now? Just like the heathen. And David
now, believe it or not, David living here among his enemies,
David now was fighting against his friends, against God's people.
Before, like I said, he was hanging around Israel, hanging around
Jerusalem, waiting to get back in. And now he's living and he's
finding favor with his enemy. He had to be compromising, didn't
he? To find favor at the hands of
this wicked king. He had to be compromising. He had to have
forgotten his testimony and all. He had to be living a lie for
this man to think highly of him. Scripture says, Woe is unto you
if men speak well of you. Well, this wicked king who hated
God, he spoke well of David and gave him everything he wanted.
And David now, not only that, but he was sided against God's
people. And surely at night he couldn't sleep. His conscience
had to be smitten. Have you ever lost any sleep
over your conscience? Well, look over here at chapter
28, verse 1. Look at this. Look at the way
David becomes. Verse 1. It came to pass in those
days that the Philistines gathered their armies together to warfare.
They were going to fight against Israel. Now, here's the future
king of Israel. And in a welfare fight against
Israel, Achish said unto David, Know thou assuredly that thou
shalt go out with me to battle, thou and thy men. And David said
to Achish, Surely, you're going to know what your servant will
do. I'm going to help you. And Achish said to David, Therefore,
if you help me, and I'll make you keeper of my house, I'll
promise you many things. I'll give you many things. If you think about what mercy
it was that the Lord kept David from going out to battle. The Lord delivered David from
this terrible predicament. He kept him from going out to
battle. It may be killing his own grandson. If Jonathan was
killed in the battle, Jonathan, the one he sold to love, what
if he'd have met him on the battlefield? And the Lord miraculously, and
how many times, what has the Lord kept you from doing? What has he kept you from doing
to your brother or sister? The Lord delivered him, David,
from this awful predicament, yet he did it in a way, you're
going to see, he did it in a way that David would never forgive.
Painful chastisement. Painful. And a trial, if it's
a trial from God, it's got to be a heavy one. It's got to be
a trial. If your child, some of us have
learned this lesson, if you're going to discipline your child,
they're going to have to know you discipline them, not just whack. Now, don't
do that anymore. Wham! And they go on and do it
again. Whack them! Let them know that if they're
going to rebel against you, they're going to suffer the consequences.
Now, nobody in here loves their, why am I getting off on that?
Nobody in here loves their child more than I do. I challenge you. Nobody. But when I spank my daughter,
she knows she's been spanked. It kills me. It kills me to watch my wife
do it. It kills me even worse to watch her do it. But we love
her dearly. The scripture said if you don't
chase them many times, you hate them. You love yourself. You
love yourself more than you love them. You don't want to see yourself
hurting because they're crying. You see what I mean? That's what
the Proverbs say. Whack them! That's what the Lord
does. Bury the rod and spoil the child.
So much for raising children. But this is what the Lord does
to his child, David. Oh, it hurts him bad, Henry.
But he deserves it. He deserves it. Hurts him bad. He gets David out of predicament,
yet he does it in a way that he's never going to forget. He'll
never forget it. He says, if I get back into that
again, I'll remember what the Lord did to me. He said, well,
I want you to picture David's predicament with me. His distress,
his shame. Now Saul had driven him out of
his land. He was a rightful king, but Saul
drove him out and pursued him. That was hard enough. Hard enough. David was a man who had a tender
conscience, a tender spirit. And some of you are like that.
If somebody has something against you or is out to get you, it
hurts. You can't understand. It hurts
you. And David was a man after God's
own heart. He had a tender spirit. And Saul had driven him out for
no apparent reason. David hadn't done anything wrong.
And it hurt him. It was a terrible trial. And
then he up and became one of his, became like the heathen. Resorted to wicked ways and became
like one of the heathen. And that had to bother him at
night when he laid down on his bed. That may have been when
he penned the psalm that said, I prevent my sleep with my tears. I water my bed with my tears. Why? Why? You ever been there? Why? Now, even these people start
mocking him and driving him away. Look at 1 Samuel 29. 1 Samuel
29, verse 1. Now the Philistines gathered
together all their armies to Aphek, and the Israelites pitched
by a fountain which is in Jezreel. Now here they're about to do
battle, and David and his men are with these Philistines. They're
going to go out and do battle against Israel, against his friends.
And the lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds and by
thousands, but David and his men passed on in a reward with
Achish. They came on behind. Then said
the princes of the Philistines. Now here's the picture. David
and all of them are gathered together, and here come in these
rough, marauding Philistines. Rough, rugged fellows, been out
on the battlefield for days. And they come in to report to
Achish, because they were coming up behind. They come in to report
to Achish what was about to take place, and all of a sudden, They
see David, and they see all these Hebrews, and look what they say,
What are these Hebrews here? Where are they here? And Achish said unto the princes
of the Philistines, Is not this David, the servant of Saul, the
king of Israel, which hath been with me these days, for these
years? I find no fault in him, since he fell unto me unto that
day. But the princes of the Philistines
were wrathful of Achish. Get him out of here! Where else
is God around here? Well, and they said, uh, make
this fellow return. Go to his place. Let him not
go down with us, lest in the battle he be an adversary to
us. Verse 5, Isn't this David, whom they sang one to another
in a dance, saying, Thou slewest not? They remember. Who this
was? What's he doing here? Get him
out of here! And David, you know, When he walked with
God, when he walked with God under the counsel of his Lord,
nobody talked his way to David. Nobody. Nobody spoke. Nobody mocked David. Nobody. Nobody dared sneer at David.
But now, he's a nobody. I mean a nobody. A worthless,
pitiful little coward. And even his enemies begin to
taunt him. taunted by his uncircumcised felicity, and he's made to crawl
back to his little town called Ziglar. Get out of here! And they walk. They get out.
This was the mercy of God, though, to keep him from going to fighting
against his friends and maybe killing his brother Jonathan.
This was the mercy of God. Yet it was under shame and ridicule
and taunting by his enemies. It's terrible. And let me apply
this to you and I. It's terrible when people of
this world spot the inconsistencies of believers. What are these neighbors doing
here? My brother's rich. I thought you was rich. Well,
you have to like that though. And you're made to crawl back
to the table. You know what I mean? You ever
been there? Are you there now? Look, he's acting just like we
are. He ain't no better than we are.
He calls himself one of God's people. And on top of this shame that
David experiences, Saul drives him out, and he sees Such as nobody in here has ever
experienced. And I pray to God you won't experience it. Look
at it with me in chapter 30. And this is where it worked well.
Chapter 30. So David goes crawling back to
this town of Ziggalack. just crawling back like a whipped
puppy, a nobody, spared by God, but yet brought low, brought
low. And he comes crawling back. And
it came to pass when David and his men would come to Ziklag
on the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag,
and smitten Ziklag, burned it with fire and taken the women
captives that were therein and slew not any, neither great nor
small, but carried them away. and went on their way, kidnapped
David's family, and burned their town, burned their houses down,
took all their cattle and sheep, all their belongings. 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. Then David
and the people that were with him lifted up their voices and
wept until they Can you picture this? I mean,
David, God's man, now just a low, down snake in the grass. Comes
back home, everything's gone, his family, driven out by his
friends, driven out by his enemies, his heart and his conscience
smiting him, and now he's His house burned down. Can you picture
him standing there by his burned-down house? Totally broken by now. And look at verse 5. And David's
two wives were taken captive, a hen of him the Jesuit Elitist,
and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. And David was
greatly distressed, greatly distressed. And then on top of that, The
people said, let's kill David. How low can you go? Anybody ever
been this low? No way. But could be you're pretty
low right now, or have been. Well, how low can a man go? What's David going to do now?
What's he going to do? Where's he going to turn, Terry?
Where will he turn? Now, you ought to give up. Give
up, David. It's useless. It's hopeless.
It's hopeless. Look at the predicament you've
got yourself in. It's hope. Quit. Why don't you just quit? Oh, look at verse 6 again. David
was greatly distressed, and the people spake of stoning him,
because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his
sons and his daughters. David, now I'm sure he wept a
while. I'm sure he stood there a while
and wept and sat down in the ashes of his home with his head
in his hands. What have I done? What have I
done? I've brought this on myself. I don't know how long he may
have mourned and wept over his predicament, but it says eventually
that David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. He encouraged. Now, I can hear him now. I can
hear him pen in this psalm, why art thou cast down within me? Why art thou cast down, O my
soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in the Lord. For I'll yet praise him." David
encouraged himself, and this was his encouragement, that the
Lord was his God, his God. And then I think I see him breathe
deeply. I mean, he'd been laying there
just weeping uncontrollably, says that they wept until they
couldn't weep anymore. And all the people probably got
up in rocks and were huddling together against him, and David
just was probably maybe laying prostrate on the ground, and
then the Word of the Lord came into his mind, telling God, I think I see Him rise off the
ground and breathe deeply. Have you
ever been there? Have you ever cried until you
can't cry anymore, folks? Have you? Anybody? I am. And then the gospel comes to
you, and you come to the assembly and hear God's Word, and the
gospel speaks peace to your old sinful heart. The only place
to turn, the only thing to do is to look. The Lord has to bring
us there sometime. So low that the only place to
look is up. look to him. I lift up my, I
think I hear him start kidding me, I lift up my eyes and look
to him, from which comeeth my help. My help has to come from
the Lord. Absolutely. Nobody can get me
out of this but him. Well, as I said, David deserved
all of this chastening. He got himself in this mess.
He deserved all this chastening. Somebody gave this illustration.
But you know an old dog, like a dog gets in the garbage, it
gets in your way, a dog messes things up, and you have to whip
the dog. Have you ever had one to come
up next to you, get as close to you as you can, just kind
of get up to your feet and crawl up next to you where you can't
really get a good blow at it? Huh? Have you? Or a child? Well, that's what we really need
to do. We get ourselves in His message,
and we deserve the chastening rod of God Almighty. What we
need to do is cling to Him, like this is what David does. I've
got myself in this mess, but he clings to God by faith and
says, in essence, I will not let you go until you bless me. I ain't going to do it. You're
my only hope now. You're my only hope. I wish I'd
have listened before. I wish I had trusted my own self,
but I'm trusting you now. Help me. Help me." You know something? God's a lot more merciful than
you are sinful. Yes, he is. You think, you think,
I'm so sinful. I'm so sinful. Well, that's the
way you were when you first came to him. He saved you, didn't
he? Huh? Yeah. Now picture old David standing
here amidst these ruins, and he's got a little smile on his face. Tears running down
his eyes, a smile on his face. He'd been there. He thought,
you know, the Lord does love me. He does. He's borne witness
to my spirit over and over again, and I'm His. And he begins to
look back, and he encourages himself by remembering the Lord's
past mercies and faithfulness in his life. And he says, surely,
surely God would have been away with me, but now I've responded. Surely, surely God wouldn't have
preserved me all these years if I wasn't his child. You ought
to be saying that too. And he begins to think of God's
promises. Didn't God choose me as his king? Didn't he come down
by the hand of his servant Samuel and say, this is him, and make
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things sure? And
said, I'll make your kingdom as a star, I'll make your seed
and your kingdom be an everlasting kingdom. Didn't God say that
to me? Didn't God promise you things
in his word? Haven't he? And David said, Didn't He exalt
me before that Philistine John? He saved me once before before
the John. Saved me before a bear? Saved me before a lion? And hadn't He spared me at the
hands of Saul all these years? Surely He hadn't chosen me and
ordained me just to mock me and lose me in the end. Surely! How
about you? Huh? Didn't God call you by His
grace, by His gospel one day? Didn't He? Didn't He bring you out of the
world and you out of the woods? You say, not completely. Well,
He did, though, in principle, didn't He? Why don't you plumb
out of the things you used to just be immersed in? And hadn't
He borne witness with your spirit by the preaching of the gospel?
Hadn't He done it? Well, trust in the Lord, then! How about your past life? How
many times has the Lord delivered you miraculously? How many times? Will He bring you this far just
to dump you? His mercy endures forever. How
many times have you been spared like old David? How often have
you fallen in sin and wickedness? Just yesterday. And He picked you back up again. How many times? How many times? And you're going to do it again.
Bobby, you're going to do it right again, maybe in the morning. trusting your merciful Father. If he called you by his sovereign
mercy and grace without merit, without respect of your person,
not taking notice of anything he's done, he called you by his
sovereign grace, you weren't worthy to be saved. If he called
you by his sovereign mercy and grace and spoke peace to you
and served you in that manner, he'll keep you the same way.
Folks, now here's some comfort here, if you want some comfort.
If He calls you by grace, He's going to keep you by grace. It
ain't up to you to keep yourself. And no matter what you do, He'll
call me, answer, and know me anyway. But no matter what you
do, if you're merciful God, if you're His, He's going to keep
you. That's where I'm resting. I'm not going out looking for
excuses to sit down. It's like saying, because my
wife said, said she'd be faithful to me all my life, and I said,
good, now I can go out and commit adultery. Oh, no. Oh, if she's
going to be that faithful to me, if she could love me, well,
I'd love her a lot more. Well, listen to David now thank
God for his trials and his temptations. Yeah, he does. Thanks God for
his trials. He says, he says, And Psalm 119 said,
Before I was afflicted, I went astray. Before I was afflicted,
I went astray. But now, I've kept your word. Now, I'm thinking like I ought
to think. I'm looking where I ought to
be looking. Trusting who I ought to be trusting. And look at David's
prayer and the Lord's answer to it. Instead of rising in haste,
in anger and impulsiveness when he came down on this town, And
these enemies that had taken his family and burned his town,
instead of rising up in haste, he sits down in calm, quiet,
and prays. There, that's what he should
have done in the first place. Instead of running off to Gath in the
first place, he should have sat down and calmed himself. Now,
didn't the Lord, didn't He, hasn't He delivered me up to this town
from Saul's hand? Why should I start mistrusting
Him now? Here I am 50 years old, and the
Lord has miraculously, the Lord has delivered me, the Lord has
bountifully supplied all my needs. Why should I start worrying now? Huh? Man, see, I ought to be
the one worried. I'm only 34. You've got 16 more
years than I have. Yeah, 16. Don't start worrying
now. But I bet you when I get 50,
I'll worry too. David calmly calls on his God what he should
have done in the first place. We sung that song. Take your
burdens to the Lord and leave it there. Leave it there. Look
at verse 7, chapter 30. David said to Abiathar, look
at this very closely. He said to the priest, a Himalayan
son, I pray thee bring the ephod. Now he was calmly thinking about
what he was doing. Bring the ephod. And a by far
brought thither the ephod, David. And David inquired of the Lord,
saying, Shall I pursue after this truth? Now this ephod represents
the priesthood. This is the priesthood. It represents
the priesthood with all its sacrifices and the worship of God. They
had to have this linen ephod and all the sacrifices. some
of the things that were involved in worshiping God back then.
But this is representative of the gospel to me. This is what
I see. This represents the gospel. And
perhaps up to this time, Henry, David hadn't been practicing
much religion. Perhaps he had been neglecting
worshiping his God. He ain't had. And to us, Anybody who neglects
the hearing of the gospel. I say this over and over again.
I don't say this for my sake, so you'll come and hear my messages.
Sure, there's an ulterior motive. Everybody, like a woman preparing
a meal, wants more people to taste of it. But I say this for
your own good. If you stay away from hearing
the gospel, all manner of trials and troubles and sorrows come
upon you. It just happens. I wrote a lady
yesterday who said she missed the gospel so much and she feels
like she's in such a drought. I thought, Mom, she don't hear
anything. You become spiritually sick and
emaciated and your understanding leaves you. You begin to resort
like David. Resort to your own thoughts and
your own self and other people. When you get out from under the
sound of God's Word, that's what you do. There are not very many
people, when they're not coming to worship God, with the assembly
of the saints, not coming to hear the gospel, very, very,
very, very few people in here sitting at home reading the scriptures
or listening to the tablets. Oh, no. They're out there somewhere
doing something, whatever they want to be doing. This is what
God has been pleased to save His people, to keep them safe,
too. I thank God that He has restrained
you people and constrained most of you to come and hear the gospel.
It's your bread. It's your bread, it's your peace,
it's your comfort. Here we are in the middle of
the week, and I'm trying to give you something to encourage you to go on. It
could be somebody's in a predicament like David here, And I hope God
will make this a blessing to you, to go on if you haven't
been here. What you might have missed. John, he was in the Spirit on
the Lord's Day, what did he say? Wow! On the Isle of Patmos. If we
neglect the hearing of the gospel, we'll bring all manner of sorrow
and trouble upon ourselves. So David cries unto his God. He cries unto his God. And I
see this in another psalm. He says, In my distress I cried
unto the Lord, and he heard me. And he heard me. Now you pray. You're like that importunate
widow, that persistent widow. You pray. Some of you do. You pray. And you pray. And you pray. And you don't seem to get any
answers. Sometimes. But let me ask you, hasn't he
answered your prayers in the past? Has he ever failed to really,
somewhere down the road, to answer you? Maybe not in the way you
wanted him to, but he will answer. Shall not the God of heaven avenge
his elect, though they cry unto him over and over again? Look
at the promise. David cries unto his God. In
verse 8, David inquired, Shall I pursue after this truth? How
do I run? I want to be hasty this time.
Lord, I have got myself into so many messes. What am I? What about that? Shall I go?
Shall I stay? Huh? What do I do? OK, David. Go. I'll show you. You want to know the Lord's will? You'll know it. I asked every
man that I could before. Well, when I was thinking about
going to another church somewhere one time, I asked every man I
knew. I felt like I had some wisdom. How do you know when the Lord
has called you? How do you know? This is something
every young preacher struggles with, and we all struggle with
this, knowing the will of the Lord. How do you know? And they all, every one of them,
without fail, said, uh, you'll know. And when I got here, I
knew. I knew. Yeah, I knew. He said,
well, you can't trust me. Well, no, but it's worked out,
hasn't it? Yeah, it look at God's promise
to him. You look to God's word, and then
you look to his providence. Verse 8, God said, Go. And he
answered him, Pursue. Go. You'll surely overtake him. Yeah, you will. And without fail,
you'll cover it up. Now, what do you think David
would do? Come on, boy. Chow your horses. He don't have
a horse. Get on your feet. Let's go. And they ran, and they
probably got tired of it. Well, they did. They came to
that brook, Besor, and they all got to some of them and said,
we can't go any further. And half of them fell out, couldn't
go any further. But David, boy, they didn't stop
going. We're going. The Lord promised
us. We're going. We're going to recover
it all. And I tell you what, the promises of God are so sweet.
The only source of a sinner's comfort says, the psalm says,
sure. goodness and mercy will follow
me all the days of my life. They haven't until now. Well,
surely they'll keep on doing so. Danny Burr called them God's
watchdogs on our heels, on the heels of his sheep. Get back
there. Get away from there. God's watchdogs, goodness and
mercy, keeping us from trouble, keeping us from falling. Surely
they'll follow me all the days of my life. And I'll dwell in
the house of the Lord forever. I'll make it. Yeah, I'm not going
to make it." Yeah, you will. Not because you keep on keeping
on, but because He keeps on keeping on. There is therefore now no
condemnation of them who are in Christ Jesus. Oh boy, I'm going to rest right
there. I don't know about you, but I'm going to rest right there
and take my comfort. What should we then say to these
things? All your troubles and your trials and afflictions.
What are you going to say to these things? Well, if God's
got a purpose, if God's before me, it's got to work out for
good. Who can be against me? What can
be against me? Well, look at verse 17, down here in verse
17. So David went. He flew out after
these fellows. And David smote them. He found
them. Just a little handful of fellows
found these this vast multitude, and smoked them from twilight
evening into the evening into the next day. And there escaped
not a man of them, say, four hundred young men, who rode on
camels and fled. And David recovered all that
the Malachites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives."
What a reunion that must have been. And there was nothing lacking
to them, neither small nor great, nor sons nor daughters, not hiding
their hair, they hadn't lost a thing. You think about the
God's promise at the hands of these heathens. My, my. Neither sons nor daughters nor
anything they had taken to them, David recovered it all. And David
took all the flocks. Besides that, he took everything
that the Amalekites had, flocks and herds, those that they drove
before his cattle, and said, This is David's spoil. David's
spoil. Well, I don't know if that's
for anybody or not. It's for me. I'm glad I was here. Psalm 103. Turn over to Psalm
103 with me. And I think I see this man pen
this Psalm now. You know, great sinners. I don't
know what you've been like in the past. I don't know what you're
like now, really. We fool one another, don't we? But great
sinners. You know, Mary Magdalene I just
imagine, and she showed it, she gave proof of her undying love
to her master that had rescued her from such a pit of woe. But
great sinners love the Savior. For whom much is forgiven, they'll
love much. And I don't know how much God's
forgiven you or what God's brought you out of. Great trials appreciate his deliverance. Great trials. The scripture says
they that go down into ships and do business in deep waters. I've been out to sea before.
I was out about 150 miles out to sea on a little boat with
seven other men, a little sailboat. Waves were crashing over that
bow and tossing to and fro. The sky was black. I've never
been so frightened in my entire life. The boat was over like
this. And when we got back to land,
I'm telling you, I'm a land lover. I am. Yes, I am. I'd have done
like the Pope if nobody had been watching. Kiss the soil. But
the Scripture says those that do business in deep waters are
those that go down in ships, do business in deep waters. And
I tell you, if you want a He is, He's going to take you down
in deep waters. And you'll appreciate, it'll make you appreciate the
land that much. Makes you appreciate standing on the rock, Christ
Jesus, when he brings you back and sets you down and makes you
see. Now look at this. I just imagined
later on in the quiet of his tent after all the celebration
had passed and his, oh, what a joyous reunion had been with
his family and his sons and daughters. And after all the hullabaloo
had died down, the emotion, the tears, and the laughter, and
the partying that had gone on had died down, now David's alone,
sitting in his tent. And the sun's going down. After
everything had died down, I think I see him penning these words.
Psalm 103. And all that is within may bless
his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
don't forget all these benefits. Don't ever forget. Well, he would. He would. He forgives all your
iniquities, heals all your diseases, redeems your life from destruction,
crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy, satisfies your
mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed, you've
got fresh vigor again, a new man. The Lord executes righteousness,
new rights, and judgment for all those that are oppressed,
all his people. He did it unto Moses and unto the children of
Israel because the Lord is merciful. He's gracious. He's slow to anger. Oh, there's plenty of mercy.
He'll not always try. It seems like he will, but he'll
not keep his anger forever. Besides, he hadn't dealt with
us after our sin. He hadn't rewarded us for our
iniquities. He didn't give us what we had
come to. It was a heaven higher above the earth. So are the Lord's
mercies above the earth. So great is His mercy toward
them that fear Him. As far as the East is from the
West, He's removed our transgressions from us, just like a father,
like a kind father that pities his children. So the Lord pities
them with fear. He knows what we are. He knows
you are. He remembers. He remembers. Thank God He remembers you. And it doesn't hold me accountable.
Sometimes I forget that Hannah's just five years old. I forget
and expect her to act like she's twenty-five. But every now and
then, but I remember. And he remembers. He's just a
man. He's just, she's just a woman.
She's just a sinful, foaling creature. Thank God he remembers. He remembers with dust. As for
man, his days are grass and flower of the field he flourishes, the
wind comes and it's gone, the place, he's no more and nobody
remembers him but the mercy of the Lord. He says, I'll remember
you. From everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children of
children, to such as keep his covenant, those that remember
his commandments to do Father, Lord, prepare this throne in
the heaven, this kingdom rule over all. Bless the Lord, ye
his angels of excelling strength, and do his commandments, hearkening
unto the voice of his Word, and talking to preachers there. Bless
you, the Lord, all his hosts, ministers of his, and do his
pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works in all places. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul, bless
the Lord. You've got reason to bless the Lord. Ah boy, we've got all kinds of
reasons, don't we? I've got thirty-four reasons. You've got sixty-some? Fifty-some. That's a lot of reasons. A lot of reasons. Multiply that
by three hundred and sixty-five, and then multiply that by twenty-four
hours in the day, and sixty minutes in every hour. Multiply how many
blessings you have. Count your blessings. That's
all I'm saying. one by one. Is that in this book? Is it? Yeah, 370. You know that, Sherry?
370. Let's sing that. I don't know if I know it. I know the chorus. Stand with me. We'll try to sing
this. Play the first part again, I'm
not sure. On this world, who are tempest-tossed? Many loudest throats, taking
all his part. Counting many blessings, naming
one by one. And it will decide you what the
Lord hath done. Count your blessings, name them
one by one. Count your blessings, see what
God hath done. Count your blessings, name them
one by one. Count your many blessings, see
what God hath done. You're dismissed.

Ziklag

What does the Bible say about God's mercy?

How do we know God will not forsake His people?

Why is repentance important for Christians?

What lessons can we learn from David's life?

How does God respond to our distresses?

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Ziklag

What does the Bible say about God's mercy?

How do we know God will not forsake His people?

Why is repentance important for Christians?

What lessons can we learn from David's life?

How does God respond to our distresses?

Sermon Transcript

About Paul Mahan

Comments

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