Address—Bill Prost
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Could we begin by singing him 171?
171 He bids us come, his voice we know, and boldly on the waters go to him, our God and Lord.
171.
He bids us from his voice.
I'd like you to turn with me this morning to the book of First Samuel.
First Samuel, chapter 18.
And I'd like to do something this morning.
That, I hope will not be a problem to anyone.
I like, as it were, to skip a stone through some of the incidents in Davide life before he became king.
And in doing that, I'm going to have to assume a certain measure of.
Understanding and knowledge.
Of what David went through because time won't allow us to read in detail.
Every incident that we are going to refer to.
If you haven't read the story of David in his time of rejection and in his.
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Ascension to the Throne. I suggest that you read it.
And I might mention, although this address is not particularly for young people.
But let us remember that in all the occasions to which we will refer this morning, David was only in his 20s, probably his early 20s.
And let's.
Some of us that are older.
Off the hook, does it? No, it doesn't. It speaks to all of us, but it speaks particularly to young people because we are living in a day.
Of real difficulty.
And I know that it is a wonderful privilege to be able to gather together like this, to have the Ways and Means to do it, to do so in peace and quietness. And we're thankful for it. But the devil is attacking as never before, and our own poor hearts sometimes form only two ready material for him to work with, don't they?
And what I'd like to talk about this morning is discouragement and encouragement.
And we are going to find in Davide life that there were periods of real discouragement.
And we may say at the outset.
The discouragement ultimately stems.
From our expecting something from someone.
And not getting it.
Are expecting something from someone and not getting it is the ultimate root of discouragement.
Very often it's discouragement because I have expected something from man.
It might even be the world, it might be fellow Christians, my brethren, but sometimes discouragement results. And we have to be honest with our hearts and say that discouragement results from our expecting something from the Lord.
And when it doesn't happen, or at least not within our time frame and in the way that we expected it.
We can be discouraged.
Turning then to First Samuel, chapter 18.
Excuse me?
We find that David had killed Goliath in the previous chapter.
And had won a wonderful victory for the Lord and for Israel.
But because of that, and because of David's character.
Because of his ability in warfare.
We find that he excited one of the oldest, one of the most prevalent, one of the most devastating of sins in the human heart.
Envy.
Envy wanting someone, or rather wanting something that someone else has.
Something that God has not given me.
And we find Saul envies David and Isaac from that day forward.
But we notice at the end of the chapter it says in verse 28, First Samuel 18, and verse 28. And Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that Michael, Saul's daughter, loved him. And Saul was yet the more afraid of David, and Saul became David's enemy continually. Then the Princess of the Philistines went forth.
And it came to pass after they went forth that David behaved himself.
More wisely than all the servants of Saul.
So that his name was much set by.
I believe I'm looking at those who in their hearts have a real desire to please the Lord. I know you do. If you truly belong to Christ, you have a new life in Christ that wants to please Him. And I know that there are many today who really want to please the Lord.
But the devil, as we remarked a few moments ago, is using every means in his power in order to attack and to discourage. As we said in the prayer meeting, he's attacking those in some countries without right persecution, making life so difficult that in some cases dear believers are giving up and turning away from the name of Christ. In North America, he is using different tactics.
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And he is attacking us by prosperity, by liberal thinking, by secular humanism, by infidelity that is creeping up on us on every hand, and by challenging in every way the truth of the Word of God.
We find here that David not only was the enemy of the Philistines, who were from in that sense without, but God allowed Saul, who was the rightful king at that time. Although David had by this time been anointed king, God hadn't seen fit to remove Saul yet, and so Saul was God's rightful king. God suffered to allow Saul's envy to be directed against David to the point where.
David became Saul's enemy.
Do you know that can be very, very difficult because sometimes God allows you and me to be the envy of and the enemy of those who are right within the profession of Christianity. I don't personally believe that Saul was a born again soul, but we leave that for now. The point is that he was an Israelite and he took the place of being the Lords and on occasion he had prophesied and had used the name of the Lord.
But here we find he became David's enemy, and we find that the Princess of those Philistines.
Who at that time were the enemies of Israel, and continued to be so. They also had their eye on David.
And yet David's attitude is remarkable, and I commend it to each one here.
He behaved himself wisely.
And in the chapter it says more wisely, and here it says.
Or rather, very wisely. And here it says more wisely.
And it is a day when you and I need wisdom from the Lord, because there are ditches on both sides.
Excuse me?
There are ditches on both sides of the road, and if the devil cannot push me into the ditch of liberalism and looseness, he is quite happy to push me into the ditch of legality and sectarianism on the other side.
And in order to be able to walk before the Lord, we need to know how to behave ourselves wisely. And I say to your heart and to mind, this involves constant and steady dependence on the Lord.
Not walking according to a list of rules, not necessarily being dependent on the faith of others, but rather an individual relationship with the Lord.
While we go on here because we don't have time to consider all this in detail.
But as we go on here a little bit.
We find that David was compelled to flee. Chapter 22.
Chapter 22.
A lot had happened in the meanwhile.
Saul's son Jonathan had tried to support David and it became very clear that Saul was not going to relent, but was determined to kill David. And so it says in chapter 22 and verse one. David therefore departed thence and escaped to The Cave of Dalam.
Verse two. And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented, gathered themselves under him, and he became a captain over them, and there were with him about 400 men.
This was a very difficult thing for David. We didn't read the sentence, but it says all that all his brethren came down to him.
And that must have been a real encouragement. But at the same time, for a young man in his 20s, compelled to run away from his home, to run away from all that was near and dear to him, to take refuge in the wilderness and to be there never knowing when someone was going to seek his life, must have been a very, very difficult thing.
And more than this, look at the company of men that were gathered unto him. If we could use a common expression, were they the cream of the crop?
Not by any means, Not by any means. They were the misfits of society.
If I can say it, they were the kind of young men that probably would end up being in a gang today because they didn't fit where they were. They were in distress, they were in debt.
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Why do young men and sometimes even young women get into gangs? Because they don't feel accepted in society as it is. And they want to feel accepted. They want to feel part of something. They want to feel as if they can do something. And so they foreign themselves into gangs. And it would almost seem, although it wasn't that by any means, but it would almost seem that the people that came to David down there in the wilderness were the kind of material for a gang.
You know, if you and I look at ourselves as believers, I don't mean that that's the kind of people we are.
For making up a good gang.
But Paul tells us in First Corinthians one, that God didn't pick the noble people in this world. He didn't pick those that were particularly, as we said a moment ago, the cream of the crop. No, God is glorified in taking those that are nothing in this world and making them into something.
And it was David that made these men into the kind of people that could go out and accomplish tremendous feats in the military. It was David that made these men into a fighting force that was something to be reckoned with. It wasn't what they were naturally. And I say to you and to me, it's only what you and I are in Christ that really counts. It's not what we are naturally. We're nothing naturally. And if I can speak of my own heart without pointing the finger at others.
Most of us that the Lord is saved were not necessarily the nicest persons in this world know God picked the base things of this world and the things which are not. It says in Corinthians to bring the knot things that are. And so David had these misfits around him, but he was compelled to seek refuge in the wilderness.
And we might wonder why the Lord allowed that. We might wonder why the Lord brought that into David's life.
He'd been a tremendous man. He'd won victories out in the field fighting with a lion and a bear when he kept sheep out of the sight of the public eye. He'd won a tremendous victory for Israel with the Lords strength in killing Goliath. He had gone out on other occasions and defeated the Philistines, and so much so that the women sang about him, saw his slain his thousands and David his 10 thousands.
And now what? The king of all people turns against him, and he's compelled to flee for his life and go out and take refuge in the wilderness. And here he's surrounded by all this rabble of men.
That didn't fit into society. Why did the Lord allow it?
I would suggest at least one reason, and there may be more.
If David was going to be God's king, if David was going to rise to a position of authority and administration in Israel.
If he was going to be the one to lead his people to know the Lord in a better and fuller way.
He had to come to know the Lord.
By seeing everything else around him fail him.
And I say to your heart and mine, and if I may be so bold to address the young people today because David was a young man.
God is going to test you and me today, and he's going to test you.
Perhaps by taking away from you everything except the Lord in order to test you and have to say, as it were, am I enough? Am I enough? You and I in North America have enjoyed prosperity for many years, and we have enjoyed the privilege of coming together in conferences such as these. We have enjoyed the opportunities of wonderful fellowship. We have enjoyed many things that much of this world, that is the Christian world.
Does not have.
And sometimes I believe in these last days, God is testing you and me in order.
Not to make us miserable, but in order to bring us closer to the Lord.
By taking everything else away.
And so we find that David is driven out into the wilderness.
Was it fun? It was rough. It was rough.
Some of us here, and I'm one of them, have enjoyed going out wilderness camping.
But we always took enough food in our backpack to last for the time that we were out there.
And we always knew that at the end of that week we would be returning back home to civilization.
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But Can you imagine the logistics of trying to feed all these men, 400 of them, in the wilderness?
No small job and no doubt they looked to David as leader.
In order to provide for them and to look after them.
Quite a responsibility for a young man in his 20s. And they looked to David for spiritual leadership. Where do we go now, David? What do we do? How do we handle this? And David had to be much before the Lord.
There was a time down the road when the Lord allowed a difficulty where the Amalekites invaded Ziklag.
Burn the city with fire took all the families of these men captives and the basic.
Shall we say nature of these men came to the surface to the point where they spoke of stoning. David. David, you got us into this fix. You put us here. And now look, the enemies have burned our city and taken our families captive.
Very, very difficult.
And I say to your heart and mind, though, it's a wonderful thing to get to the point.
Not that I pretend to have gotten there, but it's a wonderful thing to get to the point.
Where we are only before the Lord, and we say, Lord, I have nothing but thee.
And I have to be dependent totally on you, because I have nothing, no one else.
Well, let's go on here. What happens?
As David forgotten his people, Israel, not by any means. Chapter 23.
I.
Verse one.
Then they told David saying behold the Philistines fight against Kila and they robbed the threshing floors. Kila was a city in Israel.
Therefore David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the Lord said unto David, Go and smite the Philistines, and save Keela. Verse five So David and his men went tequila and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle and smoked them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Kila.
Wonderful deliverance. David goes up on their behalf. Drives the Philistines out, delivers the city.
Saves them from having all the fruits of their harvest taken away by the Philistines.
By the way, the Philistines, they have a significance.
Spiritually, in our day, they were right in the land.
And as we find from time to time, they had some knowledge of the true God.
And we find that the king of the Philistines would even use the name of Jehovah on occasion.
But they were a thorn in the flesh of the Israelites.
From within the land, they weren't an attack from without, they were from within. And I believe it would speak a professing Christendom. It would speak of those who have a knowledge of the true God, but without the reality being there. Now you and I are part of Christendom, don't get me wrong.
But Christendom is composed of those that are real and those that are not. And I suggest the Philistines would speak of professing Christendom, and they were a thorn in the side of Israel.
Well, what do we find here? What kind of men were these people in Kila?
Verse 12.
Saul was going to come down to Kela, and what kind of thing was going to happen? Verse 12 Then said David, will the man of Keela deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said they will deliver the up.
Ouch.
That's gratitude for you, isn't it?
Here David and his men had risked their lives to defeat the Philistines, to save Kela from their hand. And now the Lord says to David, yes, Saul's going to come down. And David says, if he comes down, will the man of Keela deliver me up into Saul's hand? Lord says, yes, David, they will.
You know, sometimes you and I, it's a very humbling thing.
Brings tears to our eyes.
But sometimes the Lord allows it, that even the people of God, and maybe in cases sometimes those to whom you have done a favor.
Because of.
Well, the world has a term, pragmatism.
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What does that mean? Pragmatism means if it works, it must be all right.
And when Saul was king and he had the power, then the man of Keela. All right, David, you saved us. But now we'll save our own skins in another way by delivering you up to Saul, even though you risked your life to save us.
You can imagine how that felt to David.
But then let's go on verse 19.
Then came up the Zephytes to Saul to give you saying, doth not David hide himself with us in strongholds in the wood?
In the hill of Hakila, which is on the South of Jeshiman. Now therefore, O king, come down according to all the desire of thy soul to come down, and our part shall be to deliver him into the King's hand. The Zephytes men that dwelt close to this wilderness of zip.
They sent a message to Saul. Saul, come on down. We know where David is. You want you want him.
It'll be our privilege to deliver him up into your hand.
You know, David is a type of the Lord Jesus in all of this because the Lord Jesus went about doing good wherever he went.
And in many cases, it only excited the envy. In fact, it even uses that word concerning the chief priests and the scribes.
And when occasions served them, and when it seemed suitable, no doubt some of those very people for whom the Lord had done some of those mighty miracles.
Turned against him and were ready and willing to see him crucified.
And if you and I are going to follow the Lord in these last days.
I say it to your heart and mind.
We will be called upon to walk in the steps of the Master, and you may find that even those to whom you have sought to do something good.
Those to whom you have sought to be faithful, those to whom you have sought to be helpful when the occasion arises and it suits their ends will turn against you and it's very, very hard to take.
And I believe we see here, even though it doesn't say it particularly, that David became discouraged.
We find going on to chapter 24 and we won't read it there because time doesn't allow us, but we find in chapter 24 that the Lord allows an occasion that ought to have been an encouragement to David.
David and his men were hiding in a cave.
You young fellas here, you can just imagine that cave and it must have been a big one.
I don't know whether all of those 400 men were in there, but a good number of them evidently were.
And Saul goes into that cave.
Unwittingly not knowing that David news men were in there and when Saul was in there.
David was able to sneak up on him.
And cut off the skirt of his garment.
I guess as a boy I always used to think what fun that would have been to sneak up on Saul and see if I could pull that off without his being able to detect it.
David did it.
Not just to see if he could do it.
But it was no doubt to show saw as he did afterward by holding up the fringe of that garment and saying, Saul, see, I could have just as easily have used that knife that I cut the border of your garment off with. I could have used that knife to kill you if I'd wanted to take the opportunity. But I didn't. And it ought to have been an encouragement to David that the Lord was with him. The Lord was with him. And I say to your heart and mind, because we don't have time to read the incident.
I say whenever you and I are in difficult circumstances and we are on the brink of discouragement.
I don't want to say this about everyone, but I can't believe that the experience will be different with you.
Than with me but I can only talk about my own life. But I have heard similar stories from others.
The justice at the point came when they were on the brink of real discouragement. The Lord allowed an incident, maybe not a big one, but an incident in their life to show that he was with them, to give them just a little bit of a boost to say, don't worry, I'm over all of this. I am in it all. I have everything under my control. And this incident of David's cutting off the skirt of Saul's garment, I believe was like that.
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We use the expression of shot in the arm, and it ought to have been like that to David.
But David?
Was discouraged, and we find that there were two results in David's life of discouragement, one of them of which is in the next chapter, which I'd like to refer to chapter 25.
There were two results.
Moral content of which I believe can be transferred to your life and mine.
In chapter 25, what do we find?
David and his men, as we said a few minutes ago.
Must have had trouble providing for themselves in the wilderness.
And feeding 400 young men every day must have been a formidable job.
And here was a man by the name of Nabal, who was a wealthy man.
And he was shearing his sheep at that time.
So David and his men undertake to protect his flock of sheep, which evidently was a very necessary thing. There was a danger from wild animals, there was a danger from robbers from different directions, and David and his men protected everything he had so that nothing was ever missing.
And then David sends his messengers to Nabal to receive something.
Now remember who David was, the anointed king of Israel, the one who had killed Goliath and won that victory.
And that was no secret. Everyone knew about that David's name.
Was not unknown.
What happens?
I Samuel 25.
And verse.
Five verse verse five First Samuel 25 and David set out his ten young men.
And David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. And thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity. Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast.
And now I have heard that thou hast shearers now thy shepherds which were with us. We hurt them not, neither was their aught missing under them all the while they were in Carmel. Ask thy young men, and they will show thee. Wherefore let thy young men find favour in thine eyes, for we come in a good day. Give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David.
Verse 10 And Abel answered David's servants, and said, Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse?
There be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water, and my flesh, which I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence?
Baby.
Nabel didn't want to give anything to David said, as it were. There are lots of men that run away from their masters and go out and want to strike out on their own. Am I going to support this rabble group of men who I don't even know who they are?
Was that true? Was that honest? Of course not. He knew who David was. Of course he did. Everyone did.
It was very difficult.
But I see again remember.
If I can only emphasize this, and it's hard because I need it so much for my own soul.
So please don't think I'm pointing the finger at you.
It is very, very difficult not to react in the wrong way when we are on the receiving end of that which is totally unjust, totally unwarranted. David once again, had done Nabal a favor.
And Naval refuses to accept anything that David had done or to give him a thing.
But David's reaction betrays his discouragement. Notice verse 13.
And David said unto his men, Gird yon every man his sword.
Again, we don't have time to go into the rest of the story. We know how well it ended. We know how the Nabal's young men knew that evil was determined against neighbor and they went and told his wife, who was a woman who had real integrity and real wisdom, and how she interceded for Nabal and went out with a gift for David and prevented David's coming and doing harm to Naval's family.
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And to all those that worked with him.
But the point we want to make is that David was ready to go with his sword and with his young men.
And we find later on in the chapter that he said, I am going to go up there and there won't be one man left alive, not one male left alive in Nabel's household by the morning light.
He meant business.
I suggest, without wanting to be critical, that these things were written for our learning.
Because.
Excuse me?
There is a danger in our lives.
Of wanting to fight against the people of God. Did Nabal deserve it? Indeed he did, and the scripture records the kind of character that he was. And even his wife recognized it. So did his servants.
But that didn't give David the right to go and get him over and over again. David wouldn't let his men, nor would he himself lift up his hand against Saul because he said he's the Lords anointed.
But he was willing to go after Nabal.
And you know the devil can work in your heart and mind so that it sets believer against believer in some cases.
It reminds us of the well known story of how is the Battle of Trafalgar was about to begin back in 1805 between the naval forces of England and the French Navy.
That Nelson, who was the admirable, admirable Admiral of the fleet.
Saw two sailors on his flagship going at it with fists to settle a problem between themselves and how he went, and laid a hand on ye the shoulder of each one, and turned them to face the French fleet.
And, said men, the enemy is over there.
If only you and I could feel the hand of the Lord on our shoulders sometimes.
Pointing outward at Satan, who is the real enemy instead of fellow believers.
Did God deal with Naval? Indeed he did, and he will deal with those who are against us if they are in the wrong.
But let not discouragement.
Raise the flesh in my heart.
Let's go on.
This wasn't the end of things. Chapter 26.
Verse one.
The zip fights weren't finished with David. These Zephydes wanted to stay in Saul's good books.
First Samuel 26 and verse one and the Ziphites came unto Saul to give you saying, doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hakila which is before Jeshuman?
Once again, those effects are ready to betray David.
And once again we find.
That David is afraid of Saul.
And once again we find.
That God allows an incident.
That confirmed to David that the Lord was on his side. What happens?
Later on in the chapter.
Verse 6.
David answered and said to Aimeelech the hiptite, and to Abishai the son of Zerowaya, brother to Joab, saying, Who will go down with me? To Saul to the camp, And Abishai said, I will go down with thee.
And you know the story how that Abhishek and David went down to Saul's camp.
And how God allowed a deep sleep to fall on that whole camp.
And how Abishai and David and you can just imagine tiptoeing in.
There's Saul, fast asleep on the ground.
Glass of water beside him, spear stuck in the ground.
And Abishai says David, now is your chance. Get him. Let me get him.
Abishai knew how to do it. Let me thrust him just once.
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I'll get them just in the right place. You won't even let out a cry. Nobody else will know.
That'll be the end of them. David says no, take his spear and take his crews of water.
We'll go with that.
God encouraged David by once again letting him write to Saul to be able to take away those things that were most necessary.
A cruise of water speaks of refreshment. A sphere speaks of warfare.
David took both away from Saul.
Incidentally, it's something to meditate on.
Later on in the chapter, David says on the other side of the hill, referring to the sphere that Saul had.
That one of the men come over, the young men come over and get it, but there's no reference that he ever returned the crews of water.
No, the Lord restored Saul's spear to him to give him another chance, as it were, to say, Saul, Are you ready to give in now and quit chasing David? You can have your spear back.
But he never got the crews of water back. Saul never got that which refreshed his soul back again.
Morally speaking, and I say to you and to me, if we deliberately and willingly and willfully depart from the Lord, if we are found fighting against the Lord, we will find in our lives, there will come a point where the Lord will take away from us any refreshment in our soul. And right to the end, Saul never again had any refreshment in his soul.
But once again, poor David.
Finds himself at a place of discouragement.
The first time he was ready to go out and by force to take that which properly was his.
And when the Lord worked in a marvelous way to prevent that, David was most thankful, and even Abigail, the wife of Nabel.
Puts it in a nice way, but in a proper way. To David. David, you won't have this on your conscience the rest of your life.
That you went out and shed innocent blood because no doubt if David had gone up against Nabel.
Nabal would have died under David's hand and a number of others, but there would have been those who were just caught in the middle, so to speak, because they worked for Nabel, who would have been killed in the process.
Excuse me?
But we find once more that David becomes discouraged.
In spite of another evidence that the Lords Hand was with him, in spite of the fact that David.
Normally speaking, you'd say that would be unheard of.
No doubt they had the wagons all in a circle around them where Saul's camp was. People all sleeping around it, probably posted sentries must have all gone to sleep, Saul right in the middle, Abner there, and all those mighty men of Saul. And yet David and Abershire are able not only to sneak in there, but the hell the conversation among themselves, probably in whispered tones, as to whether it was the right thing for Abishai to kill Saul or not, and so on.
Unbelievable if the Lord hadn't allowed it.
But David got discouraged. And what did we find?
What do we find?
Chapter 27, verse one.
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 saw the despair of Maine to seek me anymore in any coast of Israel.
So shall I escape out of his hand?
Verse four. And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath, and he sought no more.
Again for him.
Could we spend a few minutes on this in closing?
David's first reaction to discouragement was to go out and take what he felt was due to him by force.
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And when the Lord in his wonderful ways prevented that.
Once again, discouragement came in.
And this time, David did something else, and it's the other result of discouragement.
And that was to defect.
That was to go over to the Philistines.
Oh, how sad. What a low point. We say it with all kindness because our hearts are the same.
What a sad place for David to be in.
Defecting to the Philistines, the very company.
From whom Goliath had come, the very company against whom David had wrought such wonderful victories in the past. Now he says, all right.
My own people don't appreciate me. I'll go to where they do.
I'll go somewhere where Saul won't come after me.
How many times have I heard that I want some peace and quiet?
I want to go somewhere where I'm appreciated.
Did he get it up to a point?
He certainly escaped out of Sauls hand and the scripture records that Saul didn't come after him anymore. Saul couldn't in that sense go and get him in the land of the Philistines. So that Saul for that at that point at least was out of the picture.
And without going into the detail, we find that the king of the Philistines, a man by the name of Akish, he is only too ready to have David.
Is only too ready to honor him. Keeps him in the royal city. Number problem there getting food for his man or a place to live.
And when David puts it to him and says, why should I stay here in the Royal City with you, Why don't you just give us a place kind of somewhere that we can call home and we'll be on our own?
And so he gives them the city of Ziklag, and David goes there, and they can dwell in safety and in peace.
And they have no problem with food. Why? Oh, because David secretly made raids on other people, on the Gesherites and the Amalekites and the enemies of Israel. And when he went out there, he took good care that he killed everybody. Not a soul was left alive so that there's no way that word would get back to Akash.
As to where David had been and when Akash asked him where he'd been, he lied.
And said, we made raids against Judah, we went into Israel and raided there. And Akash was so persuaded that he said all this man's.
This man's mind, now I've got him. This man that did so much damage to us, he's on our side. He's going to be my servant now. And he so turned against his own people that he even goes and makes raids against them and plunders his own people.
You know, when we do anything wrong, it always brings a compounding of the situation.
We seldom do a wrong thing in isolation. It always leads to other wrong things. Going down to the Philistines meant that he had to start telling lies and one thing led to another.
And the real low point comes down in verse 29.
When we find.
Verse one Now the Philistines gathered together all their armies to affect.
And the Israelites pitched by a fountain which is in Jezreel, and the Lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds and by thousands.
But David and his men passed on in their rearward with Akash.
What's going to happen now?
Moodier.
Philistines going to battle against Israel.
And David?
Ready, evidently and willing to go with.
David ready to take sides with the Philistines against the people of God.
As it happened before.
You know full well that it has. You know full well that there have been those, may I be very honest, who have sat in seats like this, who have been to Bible conferences, who have stood up for the truth of God, who have ministered the truth of God, who have been faithful to the Lord, and yet who, because of discouragement, have eventually gone to the point where they are now only too ready. And we say it, we trust with all humility. Because my heart could go the same way if the Lord didn't keep me.
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But they are only too willing to go on the attack with the people of God and to make fun of the truth of God.
And to say, as it were, I am accepted here. I am given a place that I ought to have. I am some place where I can have peace and quiet and where I am appreciated.
David was willing to go to Bath.
Oh, Can you imagine what that would have meant? Once again the Lord intervened. The Lords of the Philistines said no way this man will change his heart at the last minute.
No way.
Because if I read the scripture right, it seems that this battle into which David was prepared to go was the very battle in which Saul and Jonathan and many others of the Israelites died. Can you imagine what it would have been like for David to be petted there in the armies of the Philistines facing off?
With his friend Jonathan OH.
Yet that's what it would have meant.
The Lord prevented it.
But there's something very beautiful here that I'd like to draw to your attention.
Verse eight of chapter 29.
And David said unto Akish, What have but what have I done, and what hast thou found in thy servants, so long as I have been with thee under this day, that I may not go fight against the enemies of my Lord the King?
My Lord, the King, O David, had gotten to such a point.
That although he was anointed King of Israel, he is ready to acknowledge a Philistine as my Lord.
The King.
But what happens?
Verse 10. Akish speaking.
Wherefore now rise up early in the morning, with thy master's servants that are come with thee.
Thy master's servants.
And as soon as you be up early in the morning, have light and have light.
Depart.
Oh how beautiful that is if David on his side is willing to say My Lord the King to a Philistine.
God uses the mouth of that very Philistine to say to David.
Thy master's servants.
Oh, sometimes the Lord can use the mouth of those who have no love for the Lord or for the truth of God.
To remind us of whose we are and where we belong.
And David did get restored.
We don't have time to go into it, but I believe David was restored in the next chapter.
Because, as we referred to earlier, in the intervening time that David had gone up prepared to go to war, God allowed those Amalekites which would speak of the flesh.
More than the flesh. The flesh in its most hateful form, perhaps energized by Satan to come up.
To burn the city of Ziklag, to take all those women captives as if to say, David, you don't belong here, you don't belong here. And if you're not going to behave as you ought, I'm going to allow that city to be burned in order to make you realize where you belong.
And so the Lord restores David was a difficult thing.
David had to be threatened with stoning, but we find that.
The result of all that was that David encouraged himself in the Lord as God.
And once again he inquires of the Lord, and he gets guidance, He gets help.
And they say to your heart and mine, the Lord is ready to restore. Oh, it's never too late to be restored. But in these last and closing days, let us remember that all discouragement stems from expecting something from someone, even the Lord, and not getting it. And that ultimately the Lord is there, but he may take away from you and from me everything else, every human prop, in order that we may rest only on the Lord, but He is there over everything.
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Ready to guide and direct in every circumstance. Ready to encourage when we need it. Ready to restore. And he does restore David in a wonderful way. He prevents his going up and fighting against the armies of Israel. Now the Lord took care of that. Israel was defeated.
Jonathan and Saul were killed, but David had no hand in it. And the wonderful thing is.
That that very victory.
Was right around the corner. It paved the way for David to take his place as the rightful king.
Oh, I say, beloved brethren, in Christ, the victory is just around the corner. The Lord is coming.
We're right at the end, we're right on the eve of the Lords return.
Let's not let discouragement spoil.
These last days.
Let's pray.
Blessed.