Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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Have a few thoughts on my heart, brethren. In connection with David, could we turn to First Samuel chapter 17, First Samuel chapter 17, the 32nd verse. And David said to solve. Let no man's heart fail because of him, because of Goliath, Thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine.
And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him.
For thou art body youth, and he a man of war from his youth. And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, And there came a lion and a bear, and took a lamb out of the block. And I went after him, and mowed him, and delivered it out of his mouth. And when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and flew him.
Thy servants flew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them.
Seeing he hath deflied the armies of the living God, David said, Moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw the lion, and out of the paw the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee.
How should we turn over to the 26th chapter, First Samuel, Chapter 26?
25.
Then it's all said to David. Blessed be thou, my son David.
Thou shalt both do great things, and also shall still prevail.
So David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place. And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines, and sorrow will despair of me and seek to seek me anymore in any coast of Israel.
So shall I escape out of his hands?
Until we turn over to First Chronicles.
First Chronicles, chapter 29.
Verse 10.
We're born David blessed the Lord before all the congregations, and David said, blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our fathers, forever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the Kingdom our Lord, and thou art exalted his head above all.
Well, rich, is an honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all, and in thine hand is power and might, and in thine hand that is to make great and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort?
For all things that come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.
For we are strangers before thee, and sod earners, as were all our fathers. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. Oh Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build the in house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own.
While I was particularly thinking, dear friends, of these two passages, At the first, especially in first Samuel and one, we see David counting upon God, leaning upon him in the face of a great difficulty. In the second we see him.
The very same man, but all how weak he was when he was not depending upon the Lord. And so surely the Lord teaches us the necessity of constant dependence upon Him. He teaches us the lesson that we must all learn. As it was remarked in the meeting, the Bible is the history of two men. The 1St man an utter failure in anything and everything that he puts his hand to.
But the second man, the last Adam triumphant, and you and I through grace are in him. And as we count upon him and lean upon Him, or how he can in some little way use us for his own honor and glory here we're so slow to learn that Christ is all and in all. But it's God's purpose that we should learn this. And we know He's all for salvation, not one of us. Who?
00:05:10
This afternoon, with doubt for one moment that there is no salvation through ourselves.
That, as it says in Ephesians chapter 2 by graces are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, either by our work, nor even by any faith that we could produce, but all of Himself. But isn't it strange that we are often slow to learn, and that He is also the only one who can supply the strength that we need?
For every step of our Christian pathway and all our blessed two, to know that He is All in all as our gathering center, that He and He alone is the one around whom we gathered. Well, in this first instance we find David, and he has been sent by his Father to bring these things down to his brothers who are in the army, and he sees this great giant Goliath.
Now of course, we know that this represents Satan, and the chapter brings before us undoubtedly that they created the Lord Jesus has won over all the power of Satan and brought deliverance for us. But I would like to apply it in a practical way. David had learned some things in his own false experience. When had he learned these things?
Well, as it tells us, it was when he was little in his own eyes.
When he seemed to be an almost unnoticed member of the family. Because you'll remember that when Samuel came to the House of Jesse to choose the one who would be God's king, it is rather noticeable that Jesse, his father, didn't even call David in.
We called in the other members of the family and when when Samuel had looked over all the others, he said, is there no other? Yes, he said. There's one other. He's out minding the sheep. He was perhaps unnoticed. You and I sometimes feel unnoticed, unimportant, that nobody cares, perhaps even sort of left out in the family.
Or perhaps God allows the circumstance like this in order to make us learn to lean upon Him.
To realize that he is everything. And so David, when he was left to perhaps out in the family life, when he was perhaps considered so unimportant, he was learning in the ways of God to lean and count upon God. And when the lion came, why there we find that in the strength of the Lord.
He slays that lion and delivers one of the sheep that had about was about to be taken.
Then there comes a bear, and again there is that confidence in God, and God is teaching him to lean upon him.
Over grace to accept the circumstances that God allows in our lives as the means by which He is teaching us dependence upon Him. I wondered if the lion would bring before us that mighty strength that would tear in pieces. But I understand the way a bear kills a person is by hugging him, that is kind of squeezing him to death.
And so you get all the enemy uses different tactics. He may come to seemingly destroy, but sometimes the world too may try and bring us into friendships and things that would also be harmful. But dependence upon the Lord enables us to be victorious.
We find, as I said, he is sent down by his father, down into the army of Israel. And even at this point his father didn't seem to consider it necessary to send him as one to be a soldier in the army. He wasn't important enough for that. But he's learning in the school of God and he comes down.
And he's slighted even on this occasion by his brothers who falsely accused him. And say, what did you come down for? Just to see the battle if this pride? No, he had been sent of his father's. And through these things I say he must learn. And he is learning.
That confidence in God. And then Paul says to him, you're about a youth, you cannot do anything. But we find that there was a quiet peace in David's heart. And what was the cause of this? Well, because as it tells us here in the 36th verse 5, servants flew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised suicide shall be as one of them.
00:10:14
Being he has defied.
The armies of the living God didn't look upon this giant merely as one who has been stronger and was stronger than the armies of Israel, but he rather looked upon him as defying the armies of the living God. Were God's people in the state that they should be? No, they weren't. They had asked for a king, and God had given them a king according to their own choice.
Could he still recognize them as those who were God's people, knew those armies as the armies of the living God?
Oh, isn't it lovely how faith always identifies itself with the people of God? And so here we find David identifying himself with the people of God. God owned them and he sought to own them too. And he said in the 37th verse, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw the lion, and out of the paws a bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.
And so said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee.
Where was his confidence? It wasn't in himself, certainly. He didn't say I was able to do this, but the Lord delivered me out of the paw of the lion. The Lord delivered me out of the paw, the bear. He didn't allow the feeling that his brothers had to him and what they had said to sour his heart. And we have to be careful, you know, when things are said to us, that we don't allow any bitterness to arise in our hearts.
Because the Lord loves his people, and having loved his own which were in the world, He loved them under the end.
He sought the deliverance of the people of God. This was a great desire of his heart and he overcame his personal thoughts and he was willing to go out counting upon God. What for? To gain some notoriety for himself now that God's people might be delivered. He loved them. He wanted them to be blessed. He couldn't see them.
Brought into subjection under this Philistine because he saw bad people from God's viewpoint, and here he was fishing their blessing and deliverance.
Well, we ought to know the story very well, and how he first of all put on Saul's armor, and then he said no. So I haven't proved this. In other words, it hadn't been the custom of his life to lean upon an arm of flesh. And good for us if in some measure we have learned that it's no use to lean upon an arm of flesh, and that when an occasion arises where it seems that there's a good.
Upon some person that really we can trust and count upon, we say, well, I think I can lean upon that person all. Let us learn, He that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. And we see this with David. Now he said, I don't care, I'm not going to wear Saul's armor. But he said he goes down to the brook. He chooses those stones of the brook. He goes in dependence upon the Lord.
And the Lord brought a great victory. Well, this was a marvelous experience. There were wonderful points of progress, shall I say, in the life of David. But you know, of your friends, we can't lean on past experience. We can't say, well, because I learned certain things, I, I now wouldn't think of leaning on an arm of flesh again.
No matter how many times the Lord seems to teach us things, we have to keep learning them over and over and over again.
The tendency of our natural heart is always, in a time that arises of trouble, to go back and lean upon some arm of flesh instead of upon the living God.
And so we would think, I would say that David had learned something through all this. But when we come over to the end of the 26th chapter, after all those experiences that God had granted to him, ways that he had delivered him from Saul, everything at last he says, as it were. Well, this is just about all I can stand. I just can't take it any longer.
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Perhaps that you might have come to that point too.
And perhaps you might say, well, I tried to follow the Lord. I really did feel that I was leaning upon him. But it just seems that every time and something goes wrong and it just seems that nothing seems to straighten around and get right. And all this time we find such beautiful instances in the life of David.
Is counting upon God as we have noticed His kindness shown the soul when He haunted him. Cut off the piece of his garment.
And showed him that he had spared his life. He took his sword from beside him, the sword with which one of his friends suggested that he kill him. And he brought it and said, here, it's all, here's your sword. I didn't kill you when I had the opportunity. All this is most admirable. All this was surely the spirit of Christ manifesting itself in David.
But, as the mother has said, when difficulties arise.
It seems that experience is of little value if we're not leaning on God. And I believe that's something for us to remember, experiences of little value if we're not leaning upon God, For there is no circumstance in life that is exactly the same even the second time.
David learned this on a later occasion. He went out against the Philistines and the Lord told him how to do it, and there was a great victory. The fellow signs came back the second time, but he didn't say, well, I know how to meet the situation, I'll just follow a person and this is what I did before, this is what I'm going to do again now, he asked the Lord, and the Lord gave him fresh direction for a new situation.
There are no two situations in life that are exactly the same. We need fresh direction. We need the Lord.
We need dependence upon him in every situation. And so if I had read the 26th chapter, you would have noticed this kindness that was shown by a David to Saul, and how Saul actually himself had to say in the 21St verse of the 26th chapter, Behold, I have played the fool. I have earned exceedingly.
David is all recognized that he was wrong in the things that he had done to David.
He told David that he was right and that he was going to prevail, but this was only an assurance of man. And after all this, after these experiences, now notice the way the 27th chapter begins.
And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day.
By the hand of Saul, that is. After all this, he didn't turn and lean upon the Lord and count upon him, he says. I just can't stand up under this pressure any longer. All we can in our own strength.
We can't meet the circumstances of tomorrow, and many of us know when we come to an occasion like this and we sit under the sound of God's word for three days, there is perhaps a tendency in us to say, well, I think I can handle a situation tomorrow.
But we can handle them tomorrow without the Lord. The one who has the minister to our heart here in these meetings is the only one who can give us the strength. Experiences, even the happy occasions in life are not enough to supply the strength. As the Lord said after they came down from the mountains and couldn't cast out the demons, He said this kind.
Doors not out, but by prayer and fasting.
And so here we find David. He said there is nothing better. I'll have to go and escape and run to the country of the Philistines. I'll just have to get away from all this pressure. Where did he go to get away from it? Oh, he didn't get on his knees. He didn't go down to the brook like he did when he was going to meet the giant Goliath. No, he went down to the Philistines. He went down to those who were God's enemies in the land.
And so it often is that in order to escape pressure, the world says, oh, there's an easy way out. You don't have to face up to these things all the time. And so there's the blurring of the world to draw the hearts of the people of God into what seems like an easier path.
00:20:04
But oh, what a denial it was of all of David stood for. And isn't it true that when we depart from the path of faith, it's a denial of all that we properly stand for? As Christians, we have acknowledged the fact that salvation is by grace through faith. We have acknowledged to the world that we have no strength of our own. And yet when we.
Turn to them or lean upon some arm of flesh. We are forgetting that we have that fresh need of Himself. And perhaps there is one more thing too, that I could stay in connection with this. It was part of the school of God with David. And sometimes, if we're not watchful, the Lord has to pass us through certain things.
That we have to learn through experience what we could have learned in communion with him.
Isn't it true that we so often have to learn some lessons through a hard experience, and that we should have learned in communion, but God allows it so that no flesh with glory in his presence. You know, David had been faithful for so long that if God had given him the throne without this little indication of failure.
David might have looked back on his past life and said, well, you know, I was so faithful.
I put the Lord first, I honored him, and now see what He's done for me. He's delivered me and He's given me the throne. But as David looked back on his past life, he'd have to say when the time came that the Lord was going to give me the throne of Israel, I had lost heart and I was down among the Philistines.
No credit to myself that I got it. All the glory must go to Him.
Because if He hadn't intervened, I would have just ended my days there, down among the Philistines. But God had his eye upon him. No flesh shall glory in His presence. He will always allow something in our most momentous and happy times in life to make us realize that we're nothing, that we have no strength of our own.
And that if it wasn't for His goodness and grace, we would never get to the end of the journey.
As we were, as it was brought before us last night, it's that work that's going to carry us through, that priestly work, as it tells us in Peters epistle, where we have the wilderness brought before us. If the righteous with difficulty be saved, why does it say with difficulty? All because we're so prone to lean upon the flesh that if it wasn't for that one whose arms are stretched for us.
In sympathy and love, interceding, supplying grace to help, and then that other hand of advocacy that restores us when we have failed.
Never get through, we never could, we never would. But it's nice to see here at the end where we turned in First Chronicles.
First Chronicles, chapter 29.
Isn't it lovely here to see the spirit that David displays? Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregations? And David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power, and the glory, and the victory and the majesty.
For all that is in heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the Kingdom, oh Lord.
And thou art exalted us head above all. Here is the same man, the one who when faced with the giant Goliath, was able to say, though this man has defied the armies of the living God, he's not going to be able to win because the Lord is going to give the victory. The same man who in a time of weakness said, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul, there's nothing better for me.
But to go down to the Philistines, God is passing him through things that he's passing us through things, brethren in our souls experience. What is it for? That Christ might be all that we might give him the rightful place, the place that is his and his alone and is most beautiful as I read these things to see the response at the end of David's life.
That he is now recognizing that everything comes from the Lord.
00:25:03
And he wants to give everything back to him. Oh, I think this is so lovely. He had grown out in so many battles. He had won so much. He takes absolutely no credit to himself now, either for the victories he won or for the exceeding amount of wealth that he had gathered to present to the Lord to be used for the building of the temple. He takes absolutely no credit to himself at all.
Everything if he was able to give. Notice what he says in the 13th verse. Now therefore our God, we thank Thee and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able so willingly to offer so willingly after this sword, For all things come of these.
And of thine own have we given these? Isn't this the most lovely expression?
Of thine arms have we given thee. What can we return to the Lord? Only what He gave to us all. Let us never look back upon our lives to congratulate ourselves, to think that anything that we have done has been of ourselves, or anything which for which we should take glory for ourselves. But let us trace in all His ways with us that He is seeking to teach us this, this most important.
This lesson that none of us could say we have learned, but I hope we can say we're learning and that is that we are nothing and that we need the Lord in every situation, whatever it may be. Whether it's the power from without like Goliath, Goliath, or whether it's fall from within, whether it's his own family situation, whether it's the enemies around, whatever it might be, it was all of the Lord. And if he had.
Something through his life and had a desire to give it to the Lord. He said even that he said, I, I'm just thankful that I'm able to give it to the Lord. He gave it to me and he gives me now the privilege of returning it to him.
We are strangers before the insurgenters, as were all our fathers. Our days on the earth are as a shadow and there is none abiding. May we not forget this. As one mentioned before, all that we have is the rest of our time. Our days on earth are as a shadow. There is nothing abiding in your sleep. Perhaps look forward to years to come.
But as we get older, we begin to realize how short time really is.
But with the Lord's coming so near, whether you are young or whether we are older, it's still true. I believe the rest of our time is short. I believe the rest of our time is soon to pass. And it says there is none abiding. Oh Lord our God, always store that we have prepared to build the in house that I holy name cometh of thee, cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own.
Lord, give us grace to realize this in some measure, and then there will be that which will abide in the coming day. There's nothing abides down here. The things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. But it tells us the world passes away, and the luster of and he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
Well and brother, may the Lord help us in these experiences that He passes us through to see His purpose in them, and that we may be able to count upon Him for great for every situation.
Sometimes situations that we wonder why they're allowed, they seem so impossible and sometimes they just seem so prolonged that we say, oh, there's just no end to it. And I'm sure that was the point that David felt when he decided to go to the Philistines. And it might be that there is some some young people perhaps have come here and who have been disappointed or discouraged by things that.
Things have been done. Oh, may the Lord give you grace to see that He's working out His own purpose in your life. And that purpose is that you might learn that all things come of Him, and that all we can do is return to Him. And that which He gives of Himself to us, we can return to Him and praise and worship and Thanksgiving. May it be so as we think of the nearness of our Lord's return.