Now, let's turn in our Bibles
to 1 Samuel, chapter 30. 1 Samuel, chapter 30. There's a
lot of information in this chapter, but this history, this reality
that's been recorded in the Word of God for our growth and our
encouragement, our learning, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians,
all things written in the Scripture inspired by the Spirit are for
our learning. And we also know that we, in
these passages, we've seen the glory of the person and finished
work of Christ, and I pray that that's what we'll do tonight.
I've entitled the message, Christ Recovered All. Christ Recovered
All. And I took that title from over
here in verse 19, where it talks about David recovered all. David recovered all. Well, David
is a type of Christ, and we're going to see what this recovery
is. As you know, David had been in a time of unbelief and disobedience
when he had lost the joy of fellowship, lost the joy of his salvation. He didn't lose his salvation.
And technically speaking, I know a lot of people say, well, he
lost fellowship. You never lose fellowship with God. If you're
in Christ, you're in fellowship with God. Now, you may lose the
joy of it. You may not realize the peace
of it and the glory of it and moments of time in your life.
But that fellowship is unbroken. You can't break this. And you
may have a child who gets a little rebellious sometimes, but I'll
tell you what, he's still your child. That can't be broken. And we're sons of God, children
of God by Christ. And that's what he accomplished
for us. And that can't be broken. But David was in a time of disobedience. He's in a time of rebellion.
He'd gotten away from the Word of God, gotten away from the
worship of God, and he was consorting with the enemies of God and the
enemies of Israel. And these are some of the, just
some of the many problems of life that we go through. You
know, we don't know the answers to a lot, many of the problems
of life. We, as Paul wrote, we see through
a glass darkly, don't we? But the facts are this, and that's
this, that trusting and knowing that our lives, our whole lives,
physical life, spiritual life, eternal life, is totally in the
hands of God. That's always the best thing
to realize. Trust in the Lord and lean not
to your own understanding in any area. And it's God preserving
us by His gracious hand in dealing with us day by day. He never
stops, even though sometimes we might lose sight of it and
may not admit to it. But He never stops. David was
a recipient of that kind of grace. That's why I chose that hymn
that we sung, Grace Greater Than Our Sins. My friend, if grace
was not greater than our sins, then our sins would do the same
to us that it does to Saul in chapter 31, which makes an end
of him. And I hear these people talking
about, well, God will save you if you'll do this. God will bless
you if you'll do this. Or you'll stay saint. Listen,
that's not grace that's greater than our sins. But true grace
is greater than our sins. And that's what David's experiencing
here in chapter 30. You see, the things that happen
to us are things that happen within the realm of the sovereign
will and good pleasure of God. And true happiness, now and later,
comes through submission to the revealed will of God. We read
it last week in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 12, where it says the
preacher there, Solomon the preacher, inspired by the Spirit, he said,
let's hear the conclusion of the whole matter. He said, fear
God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of
man. Worship God. It's certainly true in David's
life. It's true in our life. But here in 1 Samuel 30, we see
David's recovery from this time of unbelief and disobedience.
David was recovered by the sovereign, merciful, gracious hand of God.
But also we see David here as a type of Christ. Recovering
all for His people. Recovering not only all for them,
but recovering them. He recovered His people, and
He recovered all for them. The Bible says, moreover, the
law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. And that's what we see here in
chapter 30, abounding grace. Now, in the first few verses
of this chapter, let's look at it. We see the fall of Ziklag. Now, you remember Ziklag. At
this point in time, or right before this, it was David's place
of residence, his personal residence, the southern part of Judah. And,
you know, he'd gotten away from it. He went to live with Achish
in the Philistines, and he followed up on the army until God, by
His gracious providence, turned the enemies of God against David
and got him out of there. And now he's on his way back
to Ziklag, and this place, Ziklag, fell. Now, here's what we see
in these first few verses. The fall of Ziklag, and what
we see there is a picture of our own fall into sin and death
and captivity in Adam. Ziklag has fallen. The place
of man's residence. And that's what happened when
Adam fell. Just look at it, verse 1. It says, And it came to pass,
when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that
the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten
Ziklag, and burned it with fire, these infamous enemies of Israel. And they had taken the women
captives that were therein, they slew not any. Now the indication
here is they slew all the men. They killed all the men. But they didn't slay any of the
women, and they took them captive, and the children, either great
or small, that's the children, but carried them away and went
on their way. So David and his men came to
the city, and behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives
and their sons and their daughters were taken captive. And then
David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice
and wept until they had no more power to weep." Have you ever
done that? Wept until you can't cry anymore. That's what David
did and his people. Verse 5, And David's two wives
were taken captive, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the
wife of Nabal the Carmelite. So David's two wives were taken
into captivity. Now here's the theme of this
poem. It's destruction, it's death, and it's captivity. And
these Amalekites, you know, they were long enemies of Israel.
They were the first ones, these Amalekites were the first ones
to attack Israel. You can read about it in Exodus,
I believe it's chapter 17. You remember when Moses stood
there, and I believe it was Aaron and a man named Hur, H-U-R, who
held his arms up. And when they held his arms up,
Israel won the fight. And when his arms went down,
Israel was losing. And, of course, that was a picture
of Christ. We win the battle not by our own power, but by
the power of Christ. Well, those were the Amalekites
who attacked the people of God in the wilderness. And here they
are. attacking at Ziklag and overthrowing
the city. And you know, the Amalekites,
that was the, God commanded Saul as his, one of his first acts
as king of Israel when he became king, to go and carry out God's
justice, judgment against the Amalekites. And you remember
Saul didn't do what God told him. That was Saul's first act
of disobedience there, as king. Well, you see it, destruction.
death, captivity. That's just like our fallen Adam
that resulted in our spiritual destruction, our spiritual death,
our spiritual captivity. For all sin in Adam, we fell
in Adam. We identified with our father
Adam in the flesh. And when he fell, we fell. God
told him, in the day that ye eat thereof, of that tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, you shalt surely die. Literally,
dying thou shalt die. And Adam did die. Somebody said,
well, he didn't die immediately. Well, the process of physical
death began then. The deterioration of this body.
Because this body is dead, the Scripture says in Romans 8, because
of sin. And so the only way we can have
life is righteousness be established, is what that verse says in Romans
chapter 8, and that's by Christ. The Spirit is life because of
righteousness, and it's not yours and it's not mine. It's Christ
who is my righteousness. But here's the destroyed city
of Zikline, representing the sinner fallen in Adam, deserving
of death, and captive to sin, captive to Satan, under the curse
of the law. What a place to be. But now,
beginning at verse 6, we're going to see David's restoration to
the Lord. Now, this is David himself first
being restored to the Lord. Look at verse 6. It says, "...and
David was greatly distressed, for the people spake astoning
him, because the soul of all the people was grieved," that's
bitter, "...every man for his sons and for his daughters. But
David encouraged himself in the Lord his God." David, the Anointed
One. He was despised by the people.
They blamed Him. And it reminds me of our Savior,
David being a type of Christ. What was He? He was the Anointed
One who was despised and rejected of men. But it says here, David
encouraged himself in the Lord. And our Savior did the same.
Christ always encouraged Himself in His Father. He said, I always
do the will of my Father. But did you notice this? When
David was in disobedience and unbelief, consorting with the
enemies of God and the enemies of Israel, straying from the
Lord, there was trouble and despair in his life. But now this same
trouble and despair which culminated in the destruction of Ziklag,
his own residence, what did he do? He brought about his recovery,
brought about his own recovery back into the Lord. And it says,
David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. Back in the last
two chapters, where we saw David in disobedience, we don't read
anywhere of David praying. There were no Psalms written.
We don't read of anything of David being encouraged or encouraging
himself in the Lord. But look at verse 7. It says,
And David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech's son, I pray
thee, bring me hither the ephod, bring the ephod. And Abiathar
brought there the ephod to David. You know what David's doing here?
He's calling for the high priest and the ephod. You know that
ephod was that breastplate that the priest wore over his tunic,
and it had on it the thumen and the urim, I'll get it right.
And you remember, that's what he did to know what God's judgment,
God's Word. What David is saying is, I need
the high priest. You can't come to God. You can't
go to God. You can't pray to God without
a high priest. That's what the Scripture teaches
us. That's why we need Christ, our high priest. Therefore, having
a high priest over the house of God, Let us come boldly to
the throne of grace. This high priest who's passed
through into the heavens, he's already been there. He's there,
seated at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession
for us. And David's acknowledging that,
you see. He's encouraging himself in the Lord. Now he's seeking
the Lord's will in this matter. What should I do? Bring the ephod. Let's look at the thumam and
the urim, and let's see what God wants me to do. going to
God's Word. So you see, this is David's recovery.
He'd been brought to godly sorrow over his sin. He cried, not just
over Ziklag, but over his own failures. And he cried until
he couldn't cry anymore. And they weren't legal tears
of natural conscience conviction. They were godly tears, godly
sorrow over sin. And we know that because he was
led to things, to encourage himself in the Lord and to seek the Lord's
priest and the Lord's Word. You see, that's how we know the
difference between Holy Spirit conviction and legal conviction.
It's not how much you cry. You can cry all night until you
can't cry anymore. It's where do you end up? Where do you find
peace? Where do you find rest? Where
do you find forgiveness? Where do you find freedom from
guilt? Where do you find salvation? If you find it anywhere but in
Christ and His truth, it's not the Holy Spirit. Because the
Spirit leads sinners to Christ. He goes on, he says in verse
8, And David inquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue
after this troop? Shall I overtake them, this band
of Amalekites? And he answered him, Pursue.
God said, Go get them. For thou shalt surely overtake
them. Without fail, recover all. That was David's commission.
Without fail, recover all. My friend, that was our Lord's
commission from the Father. in the everlasting covenant of
grace. That's why he came to this earth, not to fail. You all have heard that before
in false religion. Preachers talking about how Christ
failed to save certain people if they don't do their part.
Oh, no. Oh, no. Christ did not fail. He was successful. The pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand, the scripture says, and he will recover all. And so this is the Lord's will,
this is the Lord's command. Verse 9, so David went, he and
the 600 men that were with him, and they came to the brook Besor,
where those that were left behind stayed. But David pursued he
and 400 men. Now there were 200 that stayed
behind. We'll talk about them in just a minute. It says for
200 abode behind which were so faint, so weak, They may have
been sick, but they were weak that they could not go over the
Brook Besor. And what they did is they stayed
behind and protected the provisions, but they were so weak they couldn't
go. We don't know why they were weak or faint, but they were.
But here's David's restoration to the Lord. Isn't that a blessing?
That's grace abounding. I love that title of one of John
Bunyan's treatises. We call them essays, and it's
called, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. And of course,
he was talking about the Apostle Paul there, when he said, this
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus
Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And that's the way it is, grace
abounding. Well, beginning at verse 11,
we see here God's providence to bring David to victory. Now,
it's not like God said, well, David, you go down there and
get them and call me when you get back. No, God was actively
involved in every step that David took, every direction he took,
every move that he made. And it's the same way with our
Savior when He came to this earth. Every step He took was according
to the sovereign will of the Father, headed towards that one
goal to save His people from their sin by way of the cross.
shedding of his precious blood unto death to establish righteousness
whereby God can be just and justify the ungodly. But look how it
happened here. Look at verse 11. This is God's prophecy. It
says, They found an Egyptian in the field and brought him
to David, gave him bread, and he did eat, and they made him
drink water. They gave him a piece of a cake of figs. Ron said that
he believed that David gave him a fig noose. I don't know. You
must like thick noodles. There's a cake of figs. All right.
It says, two clusters of raisins. And when he'd eaten, his spirit
came again to him, for he'd eaten no bread nor drunk any water
three days and three nights. And David said unto him, To whom
belongest thou? Whence art thou? Who do you belong
to and where are you from? And he said, I'm a young man
of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite, and my master left me, because
three days have gone, I fell sick. We made an invasion upon
the south of the Charithites, and upon the coast which belonged
to Judah, and upon the south of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag
with fire." He didn't really know who he was talking to there.
But look at verse 15, it says, "...and David said to him, Canst
thou bring me down to this country?" Now David had lost the trade.
He really didn't know where they were. But look how God directs
him. This sick Egyptian slave, and
it says, and he said, verse 15, Swear unto me by God, that thou
wilt neither kill me, nor deliver me into the hands of my master,
and I will bring thee down to this company. And then it says,
this Egyptian says, I'm going to show you where I'll bring
you to. That's God's promise. One sick Egyptian in the desert. That's how David finds them.
Now, how many times have these little or what we call small
things being used of God to direct our path, direct our way. You
know, that Scripture says, despise not the day of small things.
But the Lord worked providentially in the life of David. Well, He
certainly worked providentially in the life of our Savior, God
the Son incarnate, so as to bring about redemption and recovery
for His people. You know, the way of the cross,
just like David's way to go to battle with these Amalekites.
The way of the cross for our Lord was mapped out by the covenant
of grace before the foundation of the world. And nothing could
stop Him. His enemies couldn't stop Him
and His friends couldn't stop Him. You remember Peter tried
to one time. Remember that? After Christ made that great
declaration, upon this rock I will build my church and I'll give
you the keys heaven and hell, talking about the gospel message,
which is an issue of life and death. Do you remember? He told
them how he must go to Jerusalem, how he must be arrested, and
how he must be crucified and be raised again the third day.
And they, in their weak, faint humanity, Peter speaking for
them said, Not so, Lord God forbid that you should go. Do you remember
what the Lord said? Get thee behind me, Satan. In
other words, Peter was speaking by an evil spirit. Because nothing
could stop him from going to the cross and redeeming us from
our sins. That was his whole purpose. He
said, this is the reason I came into this world. David is fulfilling
the reason that God put him in this world, to be king of Israel,
to be the mighty conqueror. He'd already conquered by the
power of God. Goliath, he'd already won other
battles. Now he's going to win this battle
against Israel's infamous enemy, the Malachi. Also, let all of
us who believe, Rejoice in God's providential care and perseverance
in our behalf. The Bible says, we read it to
you last week, if we believe not, he abides faithful, he cannot
deny himself. If whatsoever he determines,
he'll carry out. He'll be sure in his power to
bring us to Christ and to keep us there. We're confident of
this very thing. That God who has begun a good
work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. He will
not let us go. He didn't let David go. And these
little small details, they may seem strange. They may seem like
coincidences or chance or luck to some people, but we know what
it is. It's the providence of God. Here's this lone, sick Egyptian. God kept him alive. brought David
to him, and now he's going to do battle with the enemies of
Israel. Well, look here, beginning in verse 16, we see David's victory
in the power of God. It says in verse 16, And when
he had brought him down, behold, they were spread abroad upon
all the earth, eating and drinking and dancing. Here, this Egyptian
brought David and his men, these four hundred, down to the Amalekites,
and there they were having a wild party because of their victory
and their spoil. It says, "...because of all the
great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines
and out of the land of Judah." And listen to this, verse 17.
It says, "...and David smote them from the twilight even unto
the evening of the next day." That's something here. Slaughter. "...But there escaped not a man
of them, save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels and
flicks." David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried
away. And David rescued his two wives. And there was nothing
lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters,
neither spoil nor anything that they had taken to them. In other
words, there was nothing that these Amalekites had taken that
was missing. Not one thing. David recovered
all. David took all the flocks and
the herds which they draved before those other cattle and said this
is David spoiled and you know what that means not only did
David recover all but he got more than he first started out
with he recovered all and more now
you can see what a great glorious picture of our Savior and the
salvation that He Himself obtained for us. Not only did Christ,
by His obedience unto death on the cross for our sins, in His
blood shedding, in His death, burial, and resurrection, not
only did He recover all that we lost in Adam, we lost spiritual
life, He recovered that. We lost fellowship with God. He recovered that. We lost anything
that would bring us to God and make us acceptable to God. He
recovered that, but He recovered more. He came back with us poor. You see, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. You see, now, in Christ, we have
something Adam didn't have. Adam had a perfect righteousness
before he fell in the garden. Did you know that? He was a just
man in his original state. He was righteous. No sin. But the righteousness that he
had in the garden was a human righteousness. Even though it
was a perfect righteousness, without any sin, without any
blemish, it was a human righteousness. But what we have is not just
a human righteousness, it's the righteousness of the God-man. And so we, you see, anything
human is changeable. Anything human is liable to be
lost. But we have an everlasting righteousness. That cannot be lost and cannot
change and cannot diminish. It's forever and ever and ever.
It's Jehovah Sid Canoe, the Lord our righteous. It can never change. We can never fall. We can never
lose what Christ has recovered and brought us forth. We have
all the blessedness of eternal life and glory. The Bible says
we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. Adam was blessed in the garden,
but not like we're blessed in Christ. Adam was happy in the garden,
but not like we're happy in Christ. Now, I'm not saying we're happy
24-7. We're not. But what happiness that we have
that will last, it's in Christ and it'll be forever. He recovered all. Christ recovered
all. And what we have, by virtue of
our union with Him, by the grace of God, is His spoil. And you notice there it says
this is David's spoil? You know who's getting all the
credit here? David. Now, why? David was a failure.
Like two chapters before, a chapter before, and two chapters, he
was a failure. Well, David was acting in the power of God. So ultimately, when David gets
the credit here, it's God who gets the credit. Just like when
David slew Goliath. It really, ultimately, was not
David who did it. It was God. And David said so.
And David is going to say the same thing here. I'll show you.
You know, one other point here. You know, David, he destroyed
these Amalekites. And that shows two things. Number
one, that God is a just God. He will punish sin. Back over
in the book of Deuteronomy, God pronounced a curse on the Amalekites. Because as I said, they were
the first ones to attack his people in the wilderness. They
were a doomed race. Even down through this day. And
when Saul failed to destroy them, he acted according to his own
selfish desires, and not according to the justice of God. So it
shows that Saul was not the kind of king to lead God's people,
but David was. And that's the second thing.
David was the kind of king God planned for Israel, not Saul. But God is a just God. But I'll
tell you what, we see this nowhere more clearly than we do at the
cross. Why did our Savior have to go to the cross to save us?
I know a lot of people will tell you and say, well, this thing
about a substitute, a sacrifice, that's Old Testament. We don't
need that today. I read an article by a Baptist
preacher. In Lexington, who said that.
He said this thing about sacrifice. Someone to die as a sacrifice. He said, that's not right. He
said, God's not like that. He didn't have to have a blood
sacrifice. My friend, you don't know God. God must be just when
he justifies. That's right. God, the true living
God, must punish sin. Somebody said, well, Christ didn't
have to come and die. All God had to do was snap His
fingers and He could have redeemed us. Oh, no, my friend. Blood,
without the shedding of blood, there is what? No remission of
sin. There must be the death of a
suitable God-appointed substitute. And that's what's pictured in
David's acting in God's justice to kill these Amalekites. David
recovered all. This is David's spoil. Let us
rejoice in grace greater than our sin, as the Lord himself
recovered all for us, and gave us not only all, but his spoil,
our eternal salvation. Christ has recovered all his
people. He didn't lose a one of them,
just like David. He got everything they took, he got back. Christ
recovered all His people. He said, "...all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." He's recovered all our righteousness and more.
Not just man, but His. Eternally. He's recovered all
our salvation and all our blessings. Everything. But now look at verse
21. Now here we see God's grace equally
to all. It says in verse 21, And David
came to the two hundred men, which were so faint that they
could not follow David, whom they had made also to abide at
the brook Besor. And they went forth to meet David,
and to meet the people that were with him. And when David came
near to the people, he saluted them. He gave them a salutation,
is what that means. So he comes back, and he comes
to those who are faint, That's the kind of people that need
salvation. Those who are faint. Those who
are dead spiritually. Those who are so weak that they
couldn't follow David. That's what we are by nature.
We're so dead and weak, we can't follow Christ. But He comes to
us like David came to me. And this salutation is like a
greeting. And it's a picture, I believe, of how Christ calls
His people by the power of the Holy Spirit into the Kingdom.
He calls us, He brings us. No man can come to God except
the Lord draws. And that's what He does. And
He came to these 200 saints. But now look at verse 22. It
says, Then answered all the wicked men and men of Belial of those
that went with David. So apparently in all this company
here, there are some unbelievers. Men of Belial, that's idolatry.
And they went with David and they said, now listen to what
they said. This is the natural man talking right here. Because
they went not with us, we will not give them all of the spoil
that we have recovered. Save to every man his wife and
his children, that they may lead them away and depart. Now we'll
give them back their wives and their kids, but they're not getting
the spoil that we earned and that we deserve. Now do you see
that? That's the natural man right
there. That's the legal, self-righteous, proud, unbelieving. He assumes
that the spoil is His to divide as He pleases. And they make
it clear they're refusing to share any of their spoils with
these 200 weak ones. It's kind of like the Pharisees
when they looked at the Lord and told His disciples, Your
Master receives publicans and sinners. That kind of people
we just can't consort with. They don't deserve what we've
got. They haven't earned what we've earned. Secondly, they
assume that the 200 men have had no part in this battle or
victory just because they were not with the 400 when they fought
and won the battle with the Americans. They're not with us. Next, they
assume that the victory was indeed their victory, something that
they're going to take credit for, a victory which they should
expect reward. I've done more than they. Reward
me. Now, what does that sound like?
Huh? What kind of doctrine is that?
You do more, you'll get a bigger mansion in heaven. You'll have
more than these faint, weak ones. You went and fought the battle.
That's talking like a man of Belial. And then these men are
not asking for a bigger share of the spoils. They're demanding
it. They're not coming as mercy beggars. We earned it. We deserved
it. Well, look at verse 23. Then
said David, you shall not do so. Oh no, that's not the way
it is. My brethren, with that which
the Lord hath given us. David said, the Lord gave this
to us. It wasn't by our power. We didn't
earn it and we didn't deserve it. This is something that we
all got by the grace and power and mercy of the Lord. He's not
talking about economics here or business practices or politics.
He's talking about what the Lord has given me. This is grace. And he says the Lord has given
us the Lord who has preserved us and delivered the company
that came against us into our hands. God did it all. He gave
it to us. He preserved us. He delivered
them to us. Verse 24, "...for who will hearken
unto you in this matter? But as his part is that goeth
down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarryeth by
the stuff. They shall part alike." And this
thing about what God's given and what God's preserved and
what God led us to, this matter of grace and mercy, gets given
to all of God's children alike. You know who it was given to?
Everybody that was associated with David, the anointed King. You know who salvation is given
to? Everyone that is associated with the King of Kings, Christ. Christ. And there's nothing in
this thing that we've earned, there's nothing in it that we've
deserved, and whether we're gifted and given energy And even power
from God to run in front of the group, and be at the front of
the battle, or be behind the pulpit, or if we're faint and
weak, salvation is of the Lord. It's by grace. My friend, me
standing behind this pulpit, I am no more righteous than you. I am no more holy than you. I'm
no more graced than you. We're all one in Christ. What
I have is by virtue of His mercy and grace. I didn't earn it.
I didn't deserve it. If I have the gift to preach
the Scriptures, it's not because Bill Parker worked hard to get
it and earned it and deserve it. That's right. Who made us to differ? Who made
us to differ? We've not earned these spoils.
The victory is not ours, it was David's. The victory is not ours,
it's Christ's. And when David employs the word,
us, here, he's talking about all 600 of us. God gave the victory
to us, he says. And he says, my brethren, Christ
is not ashamed to call us his brethren. Now, who does that
include? Just me, the preacher? No, that's
all who are in him, even the weak and the faint. He's not ashamed. The victory
belonged to the whole camp of David. Well, this victory and
salvation belongs to the whole camp in Christ. And as we look
at this part, it'll help us to remember the kinds of people
who followed David in the first place. Go back and read about
them in chapter 22. They were the downtrodden, the
indebted. David didn't cast them out. He
didn't say, you people are not worth my protection and leadership.
Get out of here. Christ said, all who come to
me, I will in no wise cast out." And yet these men were proud
and self-righteous and discontented, but David divides the spoils
all equally. My friend, that shows that we're
all equal in Christ. We're all one in Christ. Salvation,
with all its blessings, will never exalt the flesh or our
names. Let us exalt the name of our
Captain, for we have all things good in and by Him. And just
as David recovered all and all the spoils belonged to David,
Christ recovered all and all the spoils belonged to him. He
gives it freely to all his children equally. He that spared not his
own son, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? If you have Christ, you have
all things in him. And look at verse 25. He says,
And it was so from that day forward that he made it a statute and
an ordinance for Israel unto this day. This is the way it's
going to be in Israel. You say, well, that's not fair.
My friend, if we got what was fair according to what we've
earned and deserve, we'd all get hell. That's right. From the best of us to the worst
of us. From the strongest of us to the weakest of us. If we
got what we deserved and what was fair based upon what we've
earned, we would all get help. But that statue is a picture
of the gospel. He said, Come unto me all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest, equal
rest. The blessings of grace because
of His blood and righteousness. These last verses here, it just
shows how the battle, how David went on. It says in verse 26,
When David came to Zechariah, he sent of the spoil unto the
elders of Judah, even to his friends, saying, Behold, a present
for you of the spoil of the enemies of the Lord. This is a gift from
God, like salvation. To them which were in Bethel,
to them which were in the south, Ramah, to them which were in
Jeter, and to them which were at Arora, and to them which are
in Shipmoth, and to them which are in Eshtemelah, and you can
go on to the end of the chapter, unless you just want to hear
me pronounce those names, but I don't think you do. But let
me conclude by reading this. Galatians 3. Here's the theme
of it in Christ. For you are all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There's neither Jew
nor Greek. There's neither bond nor free.
There's neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if you belong to Christ,
then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. And that means equal heirs according
to the promise. All right. Let's sing as our
closing hymn. Oh, four thousand tongues to
sing.