Alright, tonight we're going
to look at 1 Samuel chapter 27. 1 Samuel chapter 27. We're going
to consider, study, and hopefully God will open our minds and our
hearts to see the truth of His grace and His mercy in Christ. as we consider a sad time in
the life of David. I've entitled this message, When
Believers Fail to Believe. When Believers Fail to Believe. Now that may sound like a contradiction
to a lot of people because how can you be a believer who fails
to believe? But you see, the scripture tells
us and our experience tells us that the believer's life is certainly
and truly a life of faith. But it's a life of faith that
is a struggle. It's a life of faith that is
fraught with all the doubts and failings and misgivings and weaknesses
that the flesh can muster. And in our best moments, At our
best times, we have no recommendation of ourselves unto God except
what we sang in our first hymn, There's Power in the Blood, Christ
and Him Crucified. And our hope and our faith is
in Him. And I think about those moments
in our Lord's dealing with His disciples. One time as He was
asked by a father, to heal his child. It's recorded in the book
of Mark, chapter 9, verse 23. Let me just read it to you. It
says, Jesus said unto him, this father who was begging the Lord
to heal his child, and if you've ever had a sick child, you know
what that's like. You'd beg the Lord to heal that
sick child, wouldn't you? But here's what the master said
in verse 23. Jesus said unto him, if thou
canst believe, All things are possible to him that believeth.
That's so, isn't it? If you can believe, you know
the Bible teaches if you can believe, you will believe. And
you know why? Because that faith is the gift
of God. And yet, when it comes through weak vessels like us,
it is still imperfect faith, contaminated. And here's what
the Father replied in verse 24. Straightway, that means immediately,
the Father the father of the child cried out and said with
tears, and when you hear what he said, I think you might identify
with it. He said with tears, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Unbelief. I believe. Can you say that? Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Well,
David's coming to a time in his life like that. And then one
other, when the Lord was teaching his disciples about one of the
most difficult things that a believer is commanded to do. Now, what
would you imagine that to be? I mean, one of the most difficult. It shouldn't be one of the most
difficult, but it is. And you'll know exactly what
I'm talking about when I say it. He was teaching them on this
subject in Luke 17. One of the most difficult things
that a believer is commanded to do, should do, is responsible
to do, and has every reason to do, and you know what it is?
Forgive a sinning brother or sister. You thought, well, I
was going to say something like climb Mount Everest or something
like that. That's easy compared to forgiveness. It shouldn't be. And you know
what the disciples said? They said, how many times? They
said, there's no limit. Is there any limit to how much
God forgives you and me? There's no limit to that. And
we're to forgive others as Christ forgave us. And when he told
them there's no limit to it, you know what they said? Lord,
increase our faith. That takes faith to do that. God-given faith. It's not natural.
That's not natural to man. And that's one of the reasons
I had Brother Joe read Ecclesiastes 12 instead of reading through
1 Samuel 27, which I'll read through as we go through it.
But in those last two verses there, it says, let us hear the
conclusion of the whole matter. And literally, that's the conclusion
of every matter. It's the conclusion of this matter
when a believer fails to believe. And here it is, fear God and
keep his commandments. That's the conclusion. That's
a simple message. It's the most difficult message.
It's impossible for the natural man to receive. He won't receive
it. That's why you have to be born again to even fear God.
Now this fear here is not a legal fear. Everybody's got that. It's
not an ungodly fear. Everybody has that. This is a
fear of respect and worship and regard and it manifests itself
in faith towards God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And when
he says keep his commandments, he's not saying work your way
into God's favor and blessings. You keep his commandments, you
believe on Christ and you follow him out of love and grace and
gratitude. That's what he's talking about.
And that's the answer. There's a hymn we sing quite
often. And one of the lines says, Prone
to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.
Take my heart and seal it, seal it in thy courts above. When
believers fail to believe. Now, let's look back at 1 Samuel
27. Now, people who think of biblical heroes, I was up at
a religious bookstore back last summer, and they have these figurines
they call Bible heroes. And when I looked at them, I
thought, well, they've got them standing erect and strong and
looking, you know, like a he-man or a godly woman, you know, however
they muster that up in their mind. But you know, when people
think of biblical heroes, as we call them, as always being
models of excellence, If you read God's Word, you find out
pretty quickly that that's just not true. In fact, I've often
said it, that most, if not all, of the choice saints take the
men of the Old Testament and of the New Testament. If the truth were to be told
of them to congregations who were looking for a pastor, and
you just left their name out, The congregations of this modern
religious world would turn thumbs down on every one of them. I'm
telling you the truth. We wouldn't want that kind of
person being the pastor of our church. You see, that's just
not right. And yet we're talking about men
who, like David, whom God used to write, what, one third of
the Psalms or a little more? Men like Samson. Men like Abraham, men like Noah. There are times when God's children
are models of excellence, and that's by the grace of God, isn't
it? Because when we do that which is right, the Scripture tells
us that those deeds are wrought in God. That means they're the
work of God. John 3.21. So it's only by the
grace of God. It's not due to any power, any
goodness within ourselves. Paul put it this way in Galatians
2.20. Let me read this to you. He said, I'm crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, meaning this human body, I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. So what
Paul's teaching there, what he's saying there, is that what I
do by way of faith and obedience, I'm not the source of it. It's
Christ living in me. He lives in me by His Holy Spirit
and by His Word. That's how He motivates me. So don't attribute it to me.
And you see, our attempts to obey God in any area, That's
not our righteousness before God. Christ is. Christ is. The spiritual man, the regenerate
man, still has to deal with the flesh that contaminates everything,
thinks and says and does. There's no inward perfection
in us. Now we can speak of the Holy
Spirit himself who indwells us. He's perfect. But that's not
us. We're not the Holy Spirit. We're
not God. We don't have a divine nature
in us. God is divine. Only God is divine. You're human. I'm human. And you're either a regenerate
human, a redeemed human, or a lost and unregenerate human. Now that's
so. Don't fool yourself. Don't cross
your legs and look at your belly button and meditate and try to
find something that's not there. It will not work. That's unbelief. We read it in Hebrews 12, we
run the race of grace looking unto who? Jesus, God our Savior,
who's the author and finisher of our faith. When God saves
us, there's a great change. Oh, it's a great, miraculous,
marvelous change. But I'll tell you, that change
really doesn't even resemble what false, legalistic, self-righteous
religion describes. There was a time that I didn't
care anything for the things of the Spirit of God, the things
of His Word, the things of Christ. But now, that's my only hope. My hope is built on Him. That's
a change. There was a time I didn't care
to come and worship God in the fellowship of His people and
read His Word, study it, hear it preached. But now, that's
the water of life. That's the bread of life to me. Christ is our perfection. And
as I said, the only inward perfection we can claim is the indwelling
presence of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.
He's perfect. And those who claim to have sinless,
perfect, uncontaminated natures within are only fooling themselves,
and they're trying to fool everybody else. That's so. That's the issue, you see. of
grace, Christ, Christ, even the true believer has to fight the
influence and contamination of doubts and unbelief. You have
to do it, and I have to do it. And never forget that. Paul said,
this is a faithful saint and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And he used
the present tense here as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit,
of whom I am chief, not of whom I was chief. I am still chief. And that's how he viewed himself.
Now with that in mind, look at chapter 27 of 1 Samuel. In these
first four verses, here's what David does. He seeks protection
in a place called Gath. That doesn't even sound like
a place you'd want to go to, does it? Gath. Well, how do you
remember about Gath? Where was Goliath from? Goliath
of Gath. You remember when David came
before the king of Gath back earlier? Achish, he feigned madness,
running from Saul. Well, now here, in his state
of mind, here he is, he goes to Gath and seeks protection.
He's in a painful struggle here. He's in a struggle with King
Saul. He had two opportunities to kill Saul, and he didn't do
it by the grace of God. And he's struggling. He's been
anointed. He was anointed by God's prophet,
Samuel, to be the king of Israel. He's going to be on the throne,
but he knew it was going to happen in God's time, in God's way.
But yet he struggles. He fears. He's in a struggle
with his evil king, Saul, who's attempting to kill him at every
turn. And Saul has a moment of surface repentance, but it doesn't
last. And so it says in verse 1, look at it, and David said
in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There's nothing better for me
than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines. And Saul shall despair of me
to seek me anymore in any coast of Israel. So shall I escape
out of his hand. You hear that? Now here's a man
after God's own heart who's saying in his own heart, I'm going to
perish by the hand of Saul. And this is just after a statement
that he'd made over in chapter 26. Look at verse 10 of chapter
26. Listen to what he says here.
He says, and David said furthermore, he's talking to Abishai who wanted
to kill Saul. He says, as the Lord liveth,
the Lord shall smite him, or his days shall come to die, or
he shall descend into battle and perish. The Lord is going
to take care of Saul. Now, over here, he says in his heart, well,
I shall now perish by the hand of Saul. Doesn't sound like the
same man, does it? But it is. Now he's not Dr. Jekyll in chapter 26 and Mr. Hyde in chapter 27. He's not
the white dog in chapter 26 and the black dog in chapter 20.
He's the same guy. The same guy. He's a believer. And here he's failing to believe.
That's what he's doing. You can't cover it up. And notice
it said, he said in his heart. What does the Bible say about
our hearts? Jeremiah 17, the heart is deceitful, desperately
wicked. Who can know it? You see, you can't even trust
your own heart. I'm talking about a believer now. I can't trust
my own heart. It can deceive me. What can I
trust then? God's heart. The word of God. What did God tell David? He said, you're going to be on
the throne, and I'll take care of Saul. Trust God's heart. That's
God's heart. His word. A fellow told me before
he left this church, he said, I don't believe that you're preaching
from your heart. Well, you better hope that I'm
preaching from God's heart. The word of God. And I hope and
pray that my heart's in it, and He's in my heart. But you see,
this is the issue now. Jeremiah 17 there says that the
only honest and open and sure thing we can do is trust in the
Lord. We don't trust in man, we don't
trust in ourselves. 1 John 3 and verse 20 says this,
For if our hearts condemn us, and they will, have you ever
felt condemned by your own heart? Have you ever done that? Oh,
I'm not doing enough. Oh, I'm not giving enough. Well,
you probably aren't. But if that brings you under
condemnation, here's what he says to the redeemed, the regenerated. God is greater than our heart.
He knows all things. And you know where all things
are? They're in Christ. They're not in you or in me.
They're in Christ. Look at verse 2. He says, And
David arose, And he passed over the 600 men that were with him
unto Achish the son of Maok, king of Gath. There is where
he goes. Proves David's state of mind is out of harmony with
God here. He's thinking of his circumstances,
trusting his own power. You see, circumstances are not
the measure of anything in the kingdom of God. This is a mistrust
of God. Remember, this is the same man
who wrote in the Psalms, the Lord is my light and my salvation,
whom shall I fear? Same man wrote this. You say,
well, he's in a different state of mind. You're right. He's in
a different state of mind. Have you ever been there? I have. Somebody asked me one time, he
said, have you ever felt like giving up? Oh, yeah. A thousand times. But you see, circumstances in
my own heart, that's unbelief and mistrust of God. That's exactly
what it is. You better recognize it for what
it is. Here, David is afraid of King
Saul. And David had forgotten the past
deliverances. God delivered him from the hand
of Goliath. God had already delivered him
from Saul. David wrote, moreover, David said, the Lord who delivered
me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, he will
deliver me from the hand of the Philistines. And now he willingly
goes to the Philistines for protection. He's forgotten the promises of
God. He's forgotten the power of God. He's forgotten the faithfulness
of God. Back up there in verse one, he
said, there's nothing better for me than to go to Gath. And
in reality, that was the worst thing he could do. Nothing better
for me. Well, I'll tell you something.
The Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 1 to consider
Christ. He's always better. That's the
whole theme of the book of Hebrews. David said, there's nothing better
for me. Oh, yes, there is. Look to Christ. Rely, trust in
Him. Look down here in verse 3, he
says, And David dwelt with Achish, and Gath, he and his men, every
man with his household, even David, with his two wives, Ahinoam,
and the Jezreelites, and Abigail the Carmelites, Nabal's wife.
He says in verse 4, And it was told Saul that David was fled
to Gath, and he sought no more again for him. Saul said, Well,
I'll stop chasing him. Saul hadn't really changed, but
his reason for the hatred was out of his way now. David was
in another country. But when we're going to see later
on, when the opportunity comes again, Saul is going to return
to his old occupation, trying to catch and kill David. Well,
listen to David's words to Achish here, verse 5. He says, And David
said unto Achish, If I have now found grace in thine eyes, let
them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may
dwell there. For why should thy servant dwell
in the royal city with thee?" Now, this is how he's talking
to this unbelieving, ungodly, idolatrous king, trying to win
his favor. A lot of people, I think, they
call that putting on the dog. That's how he's talking to him.
And he says, and then Achish, verse 6, gave him ziklag that
day, wherefore ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto
this day. So we see a providential hand of God working there. Ziklag
was actually a part of Judah all the time. It was right on
the border. And then it says in verse 7, and the time that
David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was a full year
and four months. Think about that, a whole year
and four months. You see, David is acting in opposition
to his faith, to the Word of God, to the revealed Word of
God. We know God's in control here.
Now, don't ever think that God's not in control. He is absolutely,
sovereignly in control here. And he's letting David do all
this, you see. But David, in his state of mind,
you see, he's not following his true convictions, his true heart. And so he's in Philistia, where
he shouldn't be, in the godless Philistine country, with all
the pressures there, in that place, not to worship the Lord
God of Israel. And all the expediency and sin
has taken over, you see. It's just a quick answer, quick
answer to a problem. And nothing good about this.
Fellowship him with the enemies of God and his people. That's
why the Scripture is Often telling us that that we're not to have
fellowship with the ungodly The ungodly in their immorality and
rebelliousness or the ungodly in their false religion Paul
wrote to the Corinthians about in 2nd Corinthians 6 17 He says
wherefore come out from among them and be separate sayeth the
Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you
The book of James deals with this in chapter 4 and verse 4. He called those who professed
to be believers but were in harmony and fellowship with unbelievers,
he called them adulterers and adulteresses because they were
committing spiritual adultery. And so he says, know you not
that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, whosoever
therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
You can't have it both ways. When we as believers are in trouble,
and we're in trouble a lot, and we despair a lot, and we go through
trials, the world will not help us. The world will not help us. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 121
in verse 2, My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and
earth. So David here, he's in the wrong
place for the wrong reasons, and notice what happens. When
a person begins saying in his heart, moving out, getting his
guidance from himself, not from the Word of God, not trusting
in the Lord God, what happens? One sin always leads to another,
which leads still to another, and generally the path is just
downward. That's it. And look at it in
verse 8. He says, and David and his men went up and invaded the
Geshurites and the Gesrites and the Amalekites. Now, these were
all well-known enemies of Israel, these nations here, these tribes.
And David went up and he invaded them. He went on a raiding party. That's what happened here. And
it says, For those nations were of old the inhabitants of the
land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt,
covering all that territory. And listen to this in verse 9,
it says, And David smote the land, and left neither man nor
woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the
asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned, and came
to Achish. King Achish of Gath, and he said
in verse 10, and Achish said, Whither have you made a road
today? Where have you gone today? Where
have you been? And David said, Against the south
of Judah, and against the south of the Jeromelites, and against
the south of the Canaanites, covering all that territory.
And David saved neither man nor woman alive to bring tidings
to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us, saying, So did David. And so will be his manner all
the while he dwelleth in the country of the Philistines. And
Achish believed David, saying, He hath made his people Israel
utterly to abhor him. Therefore he shall be my servant
forever." Do you hear that? Let me tell you what's going
on here, what basically happened. David goes to Ziklag, he goes
on these raiding parties against the enemies of Israel, he wars
against the enemies of Israel, but he doesn't tell Achish what
he's actually doing. He just tells Achish, he says,
well I'm fighting here and there. I'm fighting in this particular
area, I'm fighting in this particular area, and he gives Achish the
impression that he's fighting for him. Not the enemies of Israel,
but he's fighting for King Achish. That's David's way. Not God's
command to him. And God didn't tell David to
go in there and kill every man and woman in these countries.
Now, sometimes he did give that command to the kings of Israel
as a point of his justice against their sin. And when God does
that, God is right. But when man takes it upon himself
to do it, What happens? Well, do you remember when David
wanted to build the temple for God? And God said, you're not
going to do it because you are a man of war. Right, here's it. You're a man
of bloods. He said, I'm going to let your
son Solomon do it. He's a man of, you remember what
he called him? Anybody remember? He's a man of rest. That's a
picture of Christ, our rest. Christ went to war against our
sin under the commandment of his Father. He said, I do the
will of my Father. And then he rested. It's finished.
And we rest in him. David couldn't claim that. He didn't go to war against these
regions. under the commandment of God's
justice. But he went for his own selfish purposes, and then
he lied to an idolatrous, unbelieving king to make him think, well,
I've been doing it for you. And here's what that king says.
Read it again in verse 12. Akish believed David, saying,
he hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him. He's not
an Israelite anymore. They hate him. And so he's going
to be my servant forever. Think about that. What a bad,
bad episode in David's life. David not only went against his
own faith, he misrepresented the God of his salvation. This
is what the Bible calls blaspheming the name of God amongst enemies. When we don't represent God right
as the God of all grace who saves us from all our sins in Christ,
And we see this so many times in the lives of the saved, mostly
in ourselves. You can go back and look at those
who are recorded in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11 and think
about Noah. Noah was a man of faith, wasn't
he? He was a believer. He was an elect, redeemed, justified,
regenerated sinner. He looked to Christ. And he stood
faithfully against the whole world during that 120 years building
the ark and preaching righteousness. And what? And his family was
safe. But then Noah fell. What was
his problem? Intemperance. Remember when he
got off the boat, he planted a vineyard. First of all, he
sacrificed. He worshipped God. But then he
planted a vineyard. And when it came to the fruit,
he got drunk. Think about that. Moses was a
great man of faith. He was a leader equipped by God. He was a writer of the Word of
God. The instrument God used to record the first five books
of the Old Testament. How did he fall? Temper. He lost his temper. Struck the
rock twice. You could talk about Hezekiah,
we could go all the way down through. In the New Testament
too, Simon Peter stood with confidence and said, Lord, I won't deny
you. The Lord knew Peter's heart better than he did. You see,
that's why we can't trust our heart. God knows our heart better
than we do. And he said, Peter, you're going
to deny me three times before the cock crows three times. And
he did. As far as we know, When you look
at this episode in David's life, as far as we know, not one of
David's psalms can be attributed to this period in his life, this
16-month period. Not one psalm. One old writer
said this, the old harp of worship and praise had been put away
and forgotten for a time. What does all this teach us?
Well, it teaches us exactly what God's Word says. And that's this,
Lamentations 3.22. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. Ours does, but His does not. They're new every morning. Great
is God's faithfulness. You see, our salvation is not
conditioned on or assured or secured by our faithfulness to
God. It's His faithfulness. He is
faithful that promised. He said, for I am the Lord, I
change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob,
you sinners saved by grace, are not consumed. David changed.
Can't you see a great change between chapter 26 and chapter
27? You sure can. And you'll see another change
in chapter 28 and 29. We change. One day we're up,
one day we're down. One day we're models of excellence
by the grace of God, and then another day we're wallowing in
the slough of despond, the mire of misfortune as we see it, looking
at our circumstances, trying to figure out things for ourselves,
when all we should do is just fear God and keep His commands. Trust in the Lord. In the most
mature and tested believers, unbelief still dwells there.
And if we follow the direction of our hearts or circumstances,
here's what's going to happen. We're going to stumble and fall.
What are we to do? Follow Christ. 2 Timothy 2 and
verse 13. I love this. It says, If we believe
not, yet he abided faithful. And you know why? Because he
cannot deny himself. When God saves a sinner, washes
us clean in the blood of Christ and clothes us with his righteousness. He cannot go back on his word. And that's our assurance. The
assurance of the promises of God in our whole salvation, our
whole salvation now, is not in us. And it is not in our performances. But it is in Jesus Christ, Ephesians
1 and verse 3, you read it in the study, blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 2 Corinthians
1 and verse 20, for all the promises of God are in you if you do right,
are in Him, yea, and in Him, amen, under the glory of God
by us. All those promises are sure and
certain in Christ. It's because of His obedience
unto death, His death, burial, and resurrection, His advocacy. We have an advocate with the
Father. Christ was David's advocate in
chapter 27 just as much as He was in chapter 26. And listen,
let me tell you this now. David was as much in need of
Christ as his advocate, the Lord his righteousness. in chapter
26 as he was in chapter 27. He lost sight of it for a while.
He lost the joy of salvation. He expressed that in his penitent
prayer, Psalm 51, after it was brought to his attention. He
was reminded of the great sins that he committed in that episode
with Bathsheba and Uriah. And he prayed, Lord, restore
unto me the joy of thy salvation. We can't lose our salvation in
Christ, but now we can lose the joy of it, the peace of it. Paul spoke of the salvation that
God freely provides this way in 2 Timothy 1, 9, speaking of
God who has saved us and called us with an holy calling, not
according to our works, at our best times or at our worst times,
but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began, before you were even born,
before this world was ever created, before Adam and Eve were set
in the garden, before Adam fell, before Christ even came to the
cross. It was given us. That's how sure
it is. Paul spoke of our confidence.
And here's how he put it in Philippians 1 and verse 6, being confident
of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. He who began
it will perform it, complete it. You won't complete it. I won't complete it. He will.
We'll cut bait and run at the drop of a hat. That's the way
we are. That's why we need Christ. That's
why you need Christ. He said in Philippians 2, verse
12, he says, Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not
as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Work it out. Work
hard. But realize this, for it is God
which worketh in you, both to will and to do his good pleasure. Jude 24 rather, he says, now
unto him that is able to keep you from falling. Now I'm not
able to keep you from falling. And you're not able to keep me
from falling. And I'm not even able to keep
myself from falling. But unto him who is able to keep
us from falling and to present us faultless before the presence
of his glory with exceeding joy. Hebrews 7.25, wherefore he is
able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing
he ever liveth to make intercession for us. He'll never stop. I want
you to turn to two verses, and I'm going to close this message,
and then we'll take the Lord's Supper. Turn, first of all, to
1 John chapter 3. Now, this passage has given a
lot of people problems, but I'm telling you, what I'm preaching
tonight about the certain assurance of our salvation, the security
of our salvation by the grace and mercy of God in Christ, by
His blood and righteousness alone, even when we fail, and we fail
a lot, even when we fail. That's exactly what this passage
is talking about in 1 John 3. Christ has borne away our sins.
He's borne them away. He's taken them away. We're washed
in His blood. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin. We have a complete, total, perfect
standing before a holy God in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
And that's an eternal, everlasting, unchangeable righteousness. You
see, our moments, we change. We get weaker. We get stronger.
We hope. If faith grows, we hope we're growing in grace and knowledge.
But I'll tell you what, now, the mainstay of that is learning
who we really are and what we are and how we're such failures,
and learning more and more about the glory and the power and the
greatness and the faithfulness of Christ. We have that. And He won't let us go. And that's
what He means here in verse 9 of 1 John 3. Whosoever is born of
God does not commit sin. Now, we know that's not talking
about just our performances. If that's true, then David was
born again in chapter 26, and then he lost in chapter 27, and
then got it back later. That's not what this is. The
sin here is what he was talking about over in 1 John 2, final
apostasy. We're believers. Help our unbelief. But God will not allow His people
to fall away unto damnation. He won't do it. And that's what
He means. He cannot sin. He cannot fall away unto damnation
for His seed, that is Christ's seed. That word seed there is
the word for offspring. Talking about the children of
God. The children of God remaineth in Him, in Christ. Listen, if
you're ever in Christ, you're going to remain in Christ no
matter what. He will not let you go. And it's
not your grip on Him that secures that. It's His grip on you. And
he cannot sin, he cannot fall away because he's born of God. And then one more, turn back
to the passage that I read at the beginning of the service,
Hebrews 12. And listen to this. Lord, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief. Now, I can identify with David
in chapter 27. David is certainly there, not
an example to be followed. That's not what that was put
there for. But I can certainly identify with him, and I believe
you can too, if you know yourself. But here's what he's saying.
Look at verse 1 of Hebrews 12. Wherefore, seeing we are surrounded,
compassed about, with so great a cloud of witnesses." Now, those
witnesses were listed in Hebrews 11, and the testimony of their
witness was the glory and the grace and the power of God in
Christ to save them and keep them through all their trials
and all their lives and bring them to glory. So, let us lay
aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us.
Now, what is that sin that so easily besets us? It's doubt
and unbelief. That's what it is. And let us
run with patience, endurance, the race that is set before us.
Now, how do we run the race? Now, here it is, verse 2. Looking
unto Jesus, God our Savior, the author, the beginner, and the
finisher, the completer of our faith, who for the joy that was
set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God. That's how you
run the race right there. Keep your eyes on Christ and
him crucified and risen again. Somebody said, well, shouldn't
we examine ourselves? Yes, we should. Examine yourselves
to see whether you be in the faith. What is the faith? Looking
unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. You can't
get away from a believer. You may have your moments. I
have mine too. Maybe like David, may last a year and four months.
I hope not. Pray not. Lord keep us from the
evil one. I'm going to tell you something. If you're in Christ,
by the grace of God, He will not let you go. He will not let
you go. Alright.