Ministry on David

… Let us turn to the same book of Samuel, 1st Samuel, to chapter 7, 1st Samuel 7 And the men of Kirgeth-Jerim came, and fetched up the ark of the LORD, and brought it into the house of Abinadab in the hill, and sanctified Eliezer his son to keep the ark of the LORD. And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirgeth-Jerim, that the time was long, for it was twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD. And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the LORD, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. Then the children of Israel did put away Balaam and Ashtaroth, and served the LORD only. And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray for you unto the LORD. And they gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before the LORD, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the LORD. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah. And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the children of Israel said unto Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the LORD our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the LORD. And Samuel cried unto the LORD for Israel, and the LORD heard him. And as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomforted them, and they were smitten before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, and smote them until they came unto Bethkar. Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpah and Shem, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us. Now here we have, historically, something that took place some little time before the chapter that our brother has just referred to. And what we have here, of course, follows what is recorded in the previous chapters. We know that in the days of Eli, the Philistines came to fight against Israel, and the people of Israel had grievously departed from the LORD. And the LORD allowed their enemies to come and fight them as a kind of, we might say, as a chastisement upon them. And they thought, well, if we can take the ark out into the battle, the ark would be, apparently they regarded the ark as it would be a kind of a symbol of victory for Israel. So they took the ark out into the battle. And we know what happened, the LORD allowed the ark to be taken, allowed the Philistines to take the ark. And Samuel's sons were killed, these men who were the priests and who were acting very wickedly, he allowed them to be killed in the battle. When old Eli got the news, he fell back and broke his neck, and he died, and so Israel was in a very troubled state. Well, but the Philistines, they set up the ark, they put the ark in the house of their god. And while the LORD allowed the ark to be taken, because Israel were just trusting in an outward symbol and not in the one whom it represented, that is in the LORD himself, yet the LORD was not going to allow his name to be sullied before the Philistines. So he causes this idol the Philistines were working, this fish god, Dagon, which was part man and part fish, he caused this idol to fall over. They set it up again and it fell down again. This was a lesson to the Philistines that the LORD was superior to their god. And then he plagued the Philistines, as we know, they apparently got a kind of a bubonic plague among them, and in the end they send the ark back to the land of Israel. And it's very interesting to read there how they put this ark with an offering that they made, a trespass offering to the LORD, they put this ark on a cart with two cows that had calves, two milk cows that had calves, and they said, now we'll shut up the calves at home. And if these cows will take this thing back to the land of the Philistines, we'll know that this is of God. Because that would be absolutely contrary to nature, for those cows to go away. If any of you have had anything to do with cattle, you'll know that a cow with a calf will never go away, the opposite way, and leave its calf. And so, but these two cows, they actually went right back into the land of Israel with that cart. And they came to Kirgis-Jerim, the men of Kirgis-Jerim were reaping their harvest in the valley when they saw these cows drawing this cart. And it says, they went down the road, lowing as they went. That is, they were lowing, they were bellowing for their calves, and yet they were forced by the Spirit of God to take that cart back to the land of Israel. And this was a lesson to the Philistines, of course, that this was the ark of the God of Israel, the ark of Jehovah. And then, the men of, without going into the details there, I'll just say that the Lord finally caused the ark to come to rest there in the house of Minadab. And there the ark is kept there, I think it is, doesn't it say? Oh, it was in the field of Joshua there. And there the ark stays. And it was taken up later to the house of Minadab. But in the meantime, the ark is not in its place in Israel. And it says, the people, the men of Kurgis-Jerim came and fetched the ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Minadab in the hill and sanctified Eliezer, his son, to keep the ark of the Lord. It's finally brought up there, and this man sanctifies his son to look after it. But it says, the people mourned after the Lord. It's a long time, it's 20 years. The symbol of God's presence is not in the place where it should be. Why did God allow the symbol of His presence with His people not to be there? Well, it was because of the departure in the hearts of the people. And here we have a very important lesson for us, beloved brethren. That is, the Lord will not bless us with the realization of His presence among us as His people unless we're in the spiritual state that He can act among us. That was the lesson that He had to teach Israel. Just to have a symbol of His presence, such as the ark was, without the reality, would just be a formalism and nothing else. So the Lord allows them to have their place of worship there with no ark to remind them that the Lord has a lesson to teach them. And it's really good to see that it does say that the men of Israel, it came to pass that the House of Israel lamented after the Lord. It says in the second verse. They lamented. They knew that the ark was out of its place. They knew that the Lord had something to say to them, that there was not the manifestation of His presence. So they began to get exercise. And what I see in this portion is that we have certain steps in restoration that the Lord gives His people in this portion. There's certain steps in restoration. And the first thing is that they lamented. The first thing is that there was a spirit of repentance on the part of the people of Israel. They realized that they'd made a mistake. Well, you know, sometimes we come to the point where we wonder, why is the Lord not working among us? Why don't we see the manifestation of His presence like we should? Why do we not see more exercise among the Lord's people? I think this is even true sometimes with regard to taking part in meetings. Sometimes, why is it that there's not more exercise to take part? We should ask ourselves the question why it is. Am I not free to take part in the meeting because of something wrong that's hindering me, that's holding me back from taking part? Or is it because there's some bad state in the meeting that the Spirit isn't free to use us, whether it be in worship or whether it be in service? These things should exercise us. This was something that exercised Israel. The Lord was not manifestly in their presence as He used to be. And the real reason was that the people in heart had departed from the Lord. So this is the first step in recovery. They lamented. They said, well, now what's wrong? There's some reason for this. And so we should ask ourselves the question, is there some reason for something that's happening? They lamented after the Lord. Then Samuel spake to them. Now this is the first recorded public ministry of Samuel. We have Samuel's birth given us in the beginning of this book. We have how Samuel was asked for by his mother, Hannah, who had no children. And the Lord gave her this boy. And Samuel means asked of the Lord. And she gave Samuel back to the Lord. And we know the story how Samuel was there with Eli and how the Lord revealed certain things to Samuel. But this is the first time that Samuel's ministry publicly is mentioned. Now as we go further on in the chapter that our brother Gary read, then we have some further ministry of Samuel. And he had a long and useful life because he not only was the one that was chosen of the Lord to point out Saul as the king of the people's choice, but he was afterwards sent to anoint David as the man of God's choice. And so Samuel comes here and he speaks to them. Verse 3. Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. You see, the Philistines had won a victory. When the ark was taken, the Philistines really won the battle. They conquered the people of Israel on that particular day. And they were subservient to them. And the Lord allowed that to teach them a lesson. So now Samuel comes and he says, Well, if you really are lamenting after the Lord, if this sorrow that you're professing to have because the ark isn't in your midst as it used to be, if this is real, well, now there's something you've got to do. You've got to prove by your acts that it is real. You've allowed the idols to be set up in your homes. And so he says, Put away the strange gods. If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth. Ashtaroth was a goddess. They worshipped gods and they worshipped goddesses. And this was all of these various idol systems that they had in those days were all part of the Babylonian worship that was set up by Nimrod and that still exists in many parts of the world. It's sad to say it even came into Christendom. And the worship of the god and the goddess. And this had come in in Israel. They had copied the habits of the nations around them. You know, this is always something that we notice in the Old Testament time and again that the people of Israel were not satisfied to have the Lord as their god. They got their eyes on the nations round about them and they wanted to be like them. They wanted to have a king like them as we've seen. And as they saw these people worshipping these various idols, they wanted to worship the idols. Because if they really weren't, if they didn't have their hearts set to worship the Lord, then they had to worship something else and they had to worship an idol. And in those days, idolatry was the popular thing. And you know, beloved, we might say today, we might say, well, of course, we wouldn't do that. We wouldn't leave the Lord and go and worship idols like those idols that they worshipped. Well, we might do exactly the same thing in another way. They worshipped, when they turned away in their hearts from the Lord, they turned to idolatry because idolatry was the popular thing in the world of that day. And if we turn away from the Lord, what are we going to do? We're going to take up with what's the popular thing in the world of our day. And that's what we find so many people doing. People are turning away from the Lord today. You take so many people in the world today that are turning away from Christianity altogether. What are they taking up with? They're taking up with materialism. They're taking up with these Eastern religions and all that kind of thing. People are taking up with the things that are becoming popular with the world. That's what they take up with. And so we've got to be careful. We must have our hearts set on the Lord. The Lord must be the one that's before us. And what he tells us in his precious word that we should do, that's what we've got to do. The Lord has revealed much precious truth to us. He's shown us the truth of gathering to his precious name. He's shown us the truth of the assembly. How much do we value the assembly of God's people? How much do we value the meetings of the assembly? Are we always exercised to be at the meeting? I believe it's through the assembly and the assembly meetings that the Lord ministers his precious word to us. In fact, we could take up a study on this, and I have had this on my mind sometimes to take up, but the Lord doesn't seem to be leading that way this afternoon. But I'll just mention this. This has been pointed out before, that in the Acts, we have three definite assembly meetings mentioned. In the 11th chapter, we have Paul and Barnabas assembling, gathering themselves together. And if you look it up in Mr. Darby's translation, it's even plainer than it is in the authorized version. They gathered themselves with the assembly and taught much people. So we would expect that in the meeting of the assembly for the ministry of the word, that there the Lord would be pleased to minister. And he ministered there through Barnabas and Saul. And we learned from the 13th chapter that there were three others that the Lord also ministered his word through. In that assembly, there were five brothers, apparently, that are called prophets and teachers, through whom he ministered the word. And when the Lord ministers through those in that way that he's gifted to give ministry, that doesn't rule out either ministry that the Lord gives through others. Because Paul even says that he'd even rather speak five words with his understanding that others could receive edification. And we should be willing to receive ministry that the Lord might give us through whosoever he will when we come together. And I believe that the Bible readings also fit into this category. That there, as we study the word together, and as each one contributes, whether it be in statements or in questions, his part, that the Lord brings out his precious truth. But it's the thought is we are gathered together in the assembly. You know, we talk about an assembly. We thank God for the assembly. But the assembly must convene as an assembly. Now, everyone's not able to be at every meeting of the assembly. There are many different circumstances that come in to hinder this one and that one from being there. But I believe that if we can be there, we should be there. And I don't believe that any other service that we might have for the Lord should take the precedence over a meeting of the assembly. If I'm doing some other work for the Lord and I find that that clashes with my being present at the regular assembly meeting, I should say no. The meeting of the saints together comes first. Because the Lord expects me to be there and my brethren look for me to be there. Supposing now that I'm very busy sending out books in the publishing work, which is the Lord's work, and I thank God for the privilege of being in it. But if I allowed myself to be so occupied with that, and even though it's the Lord's work, that I could not come along to the assembly meeting, I think I'd be doing wrong. There'll be plenty of time to do that work. But not to let it clash with being present at the prayer meeting, or the Bible reading, or the breaking of bread, or whatever other meeting. Now when we come to the 12th chapter of Acts, we have there an assembly prayer meeting. Brother Fiedler read that portion out to us Wednesday night, because we were feeling in need of very special prayer for our dear brother Abe. And so there we have a meeting of the saints, and a meeting of the assembly for prayer. They were gathered together praying in the house of John Mark's mother, Mary, the mother of Mark. And so it uses the same expression, that the assembly, prayer was made of the assembly for him, and there in that house they were gathered together praying. You know, they didn't even believe when the Lord answered their prayer, but he answered it. And so it shows the importance of the saints gathering for prayer. Then when we come to the 20th chapter, we have a similar expression used. On the first day of the week, the saints came together, when we came together to break bread, they were assembled as an assembly to break bread. So there we have the meeting for the breaking of bread. The assembly gathered together to remember the Lord. So these are, we might say, three important scriptures, that let us see the importance of the saints assembling, and putting the Lord first. Suppose we neglect these things. Here we are, the Lord has saved our souls, he's shown us the precious truth of gathering together, and we say, well, after all, you know, I don't like brother so-and-so. When he gets up and ministers he talks too long, or they say somebody else talks too short, or we start finding some fault with our brethren. We say, well, I'm not going to go along to the meeting. Is that the right attitude for us to show? No. What does the Lord think about that? That we are staying away from the meeting just because we have some personal reason for it. Or maybe we're feeling tired. You know what I've noticed, that even after busy days work, and I might feel well, if it wasn't meeting night, I think I'd stay home and go to bed because I feel so tired. And you make an effort to go to the meeting, you feel refreshed afterwards, you feel afterwards, well, now, if I hadn't gone to the meeting tonight, I'd have missed something. We just had some special portion before us tonight that was really helpful. And when you get home, you find as if your tiredness is gone. At least that's been my experience, that it seems that the Lord makes it up to one sometimes when we might think we have a legitimate excuse not to go. And sometimes there are legitimate excuses and one doesn't want to find fault with anyone who for legitimate and real reasons cannot attend the meetings. One's not talking about that. But there are many things that perhaps that might come in to hinder us. And if we put those things on one side and don't let them hinder us, I'm sure that the Lord always makes it up to us. Now supposing, no, we start deciding that we're not going to the meetings and we're going to stay away. What's going to happen? Something else has got to come in to take the place. We cannot neglect the Lord's things, brethren, and not find that something else comes in. Well, that's what happened with Israel. So the prophet says here, he says, now, if you're really returning to the Lord, if you really want to return to the Lord and return to the Lord with all your heart, put away the strange gods and Ashtoreth. Put these things out of your life. God is saying something to you. You've neglected the Lord. The Lord has allowed the Philistines to take the Ark because you didn't give the Lord His place as your center. And He allowed the visible sign of Him as the center to go. Now He's let the Ark come back into your land again. But the Ark still isn't in its right place. David finally took it up to its right place. He tried to take it up in the Philistine way, and the Lord had to speak to him about that. He tried to take it up on a cart. It was all right for the Philistines to send it back on a cart. They didn't know any better, but David should have known that the priests had to carry the Ark. And so David tries to take it up on a cart, and a man loses his life over this. And David is very, very greatly humbled over the whole matter. But finally he gets before the Lord, and the Ark is taken up in the right way and put into the place there in Jerusalem where the temple was afterwards built, where the Ark was put as God's center for Israel. So the Ark eventually got back. But this is the beginning, as it were, of the restoration and of the right conditions that needed to come into Israel for the Ark to be set up in its proper place. And then it says, and serve him only, and serve him only, at the end of verse 2, and he will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines. It's just that the Lord says, well now, you put me first, and I'll see that you get delivered out of the hands of the Philistines. But you've got to do that. You've got to put the idols away. The Lord, in that sense, the Lord says he's a jealous God. The Lord will not have any other thing to take the place in the hearts of his people that he should have. The Lord must have the first place. The Lord must have the preeminent place in our lives. And it says in verse 4, then the children of Israel did put away Balaam and Ashtaroth and served the Lord only. They put away these idols. They destroyed these idols. Very possible that they broke them up and they had quite an idol-breaking celebration. They got rid of all these idols. They said, that's right, we've got to get rid of these idols. They put the idols away and they served the Lord alone. Now we come to the next step. The first step was that they lamented after the Lord. The second step was to put away the strange gods. The third says in verse 5, then Samuel said, and Samuel said, gather all Israel to Mishpe and I will pray for you unto the Lord. Gather all Israel to Mishpe and I will pray for you unto the Lord. Now here I think we have the next step. The next step is prayer. Mishpe, the word Mishpe means the watchtower. And we know from the New Testament that watching and praying go together. The Lord said to Peter and James and John when they were not able to watch with him one hour in the garden of Gethsemane, he says, watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation. Watch and pray. So Samuel says, gather together to Mishpe and I'll pray for you. They needed Samuel's prayer for them. But I think that Samuel here in a certain sense is a picture of the Lord Jesus. When the Lord sees that the hearts of his people are toward him, then we realize the value of the Lord's work for us. He is there in the glory as our great high priest. He's the one who is there too as our advocate. He's the one who represents us in the presence of the Father. You know what the Lord said to Peter? He says, Peter, Simon he says, Satan's desire to have you that he may sift you as wheat. Now when the Lord says that to Peter, Satan's desire to have you, he means all of you. Because you know in the Bible, the old English distinguishes between you which is plural and thou and thee which is singular. He says, Satan's desire to have you apostles that he might sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee. I prayed for you, Peter. I prayed for thee, he said. That is, he signaled out Peter as the one he prayed for. Satan's desire to sift all the apostles. But Peter came in for special attention of Satan and because no doubt he was the prominent one. Wherever you get the list of the apostles, Peter heads the list. And he was, as it were, the one who spoke out. He was the spokesman. So he was the object of a special attack of Satan. Satan thought, if I can only get Peter to deny him, I'm going to get Judas to betray him. But of course, Judas never did belong to the Lord. Judas was a hypocrite from the beginning. He was allowed to be an apostle because the Lord had to be betrayed by one of his own. But the Lord knew who he was all along. The Lord says, we get that in the Lord's prayer. He says, none of them is lost but the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled. But Peter was the Lord's real servant. But Satan desired to sift the apostles. But the Lord says, Peter, I prayed for thee. And when thou had converted, strengthen my brethren. Peter denied the Lord. But he got converted. That is, he got restored. That's what the word means. And he was able to strengthen his brethren. So the Lord prayed for Peter. And beloved, the Lord prays for us. And especially when the Lord sees his people going astray, when they turn back to him, we have the consciousness of the Lord's work for us. He's the one who is our advocate. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father. And also is our great high priest who's able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. But on our part also, we need to pray. Watch and pray. So not only is we find Samuel praying, but we find that there was prayer needed on their part also. Now the next step is, it says, he gathered together a misper in verse 6 and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said, we have sinned against the Lord. Samuel judged the children of Israel in misper. And you say, well, now what does this mean that he drew water? What was the pouring the water out before the Lord? Well, you know, the pouring out of the water is really a picture of abject weakness. I just forget what the connection was, but there's a mention there where it says, we are as water spilled upon the ground that cannot be gathered up. You pour some water out on the ground and then try and gather it up again. It's an impossible thing. And that water poured out on the ground, it's gone. It's just the picture of complete weakness. That's what we are before God. And this was for Israel, a recognition of what they were. Samuel poured the water out. And then it says that they, they poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day. They poured the water out, they fasted, which goes along with prayer and repentance and abstaining from necessary things. And they said, we've sinned against the Lord. And it says Samuel judged them. Now, I think that means when it says Samuel judged them, it means that they came to Samuel and they came to Samuel recognizing their faults. They told, when Samuel judged them, this is, as it were, a recognition on their part of the wrongs that they've done. They say, yes, we've done wrong. This man would come up and say, Samuel, I publicly own before the Lord this day that I set up that idol in my house and that I led my whole household astray. And now I see the wrong of what I've done. This was, as it were, a public repentance on the part of the people of Israel as a whole as to the way that they departed from the Lord. A very lovely thing to see it. And it's good for us if we've been, if we've made mistakes or we've done wrong or we realize we've been in error to recognize it. And if we've done wrong to some brother, to go and tell him and tell him that we've done him wrong or that we've had wrong thoughts about him or something like that. If there's anything that's wrong and the Lord speaks to us about it, we'll never really be right until we put the thing right. When we put the thing right, then we get the joy of the Lord back in our souls. So that's what they did. They said, we've sinned against the Lord. So that's the fourth step. Then the last is that we find that when the Philistines heard that they were all gathered together at Mizpah, they thought, this is our chance. There they are all together. They've forsaken their place. They don't have any arms to defend themselves with. We'll go along there and we'll finish them off altogether. So the Philistines gather themselves all around them and they're going to annihilate the children of Israel. And it says, they gathered themselves. Verse 7, when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the children of Israel said to Samuel, cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. You think these Philistines would have learned a lesson when the Lord sent the plague among them because they had the ark in their midst and they'd seen the hand of the Lord and realized who the Lord was. The Lord had to teach them a lesson. Well, but he had to teach his people a lesson too. And his people are in a condition now for the Lord to manifest himself. They're humble. They're repenting of their sins. They put away the strange gods. And finally, Samuel, when they asked Samuel to pray for them that the Philistines won't take them, what does Samuel do? Does he say, well, run and get your gun, run and get your arms, and we'll beat them in battle? No. It says, Samuel took a sucking lamb and offered it for a bird offering, holy unto the Lord. And Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel, and the Lord heard him. What weaker thing could Samuel take to offer up than a sucking lamb? A little lamb that wasn't yet weaned from its mother. Just a frail... Why, the sheep itself is a very frail animal. And to take just a little lamb, a still unweaned lamb, it was a picture of weakness. But it also speaks of bringing in, I believe, the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, there's a hymn we sing sometimes, by all that seem defeat, he won the Medan crown, trod all our foes beneath his feet by being trodden down. Christianity, in Christianity, strength is in weakness. It's when we realize that we're nothing, when we realize our weakness, that's where the strength. Because the Lord gained his great victory through weakness. He was crucified in weakness, and yet he liveth by the power of God. The Lord's great victory was won, not by resisting, but by submitting. He submitted himself to the will of God, and went down into death, and it's in the resurrection that is the great triumph. And so I think that's the thought here. Samuel offers the sucking lamb. This is the recognition of utter weakness. It's really saying to the Lord, Lord, we have no strength at all of our own, but we're trusting in thee. And in offering the lamb, it brings in, we might say, the value of the work of Christ. We're identifying ourselves with the one who took the low place, and whom God exalted in his own time, and we're looking to the Lord to exalt us in his own time. The victory will be his, and then the victory won't be ours. That's exactly what happened here. The Lord came in. The Lord thundered on the Philistines. The Lord sent a great thunderstorm on them, and they realized this was the hand of the Lord. It says that, as verse 10, as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a great thunder upon, that day upon the Philistines, and discomforted them, and they were smitten before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of mischief, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them until they came to Beth-kar. So the Lord brought the victory. The Lord thundered on the Philistines, and they saw the hand of God, and they fled, and the children of Israel after them, and it was a great victory. But it was the Lord's victory. The Lord came in and gave the victory, because they gave the Lord the right place. And this is the lesson for us, for each of us individually, and as a gathering of his people, that if we give the Lord the place in our lives that we should, then we can count on the Lord's blessing. And it says in verse 12, Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpah and Shem, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. Yes, up till now, he says, hitherto the Lord has helped us. And if they were trusting the Lord to have helped them now, he was going to help them in the future. And it says to close, in verse 13, So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. So as long as Samuel was there, the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines. And so the Lord shows his hand in victory over the enemy when his people sought to give him the right place. The Lord had to, the idols had to go out that the Lord might have his place in the hearts of his people, and then the Lord could manifest his presence with them. And that's the principle of this whole thing is just as true for us today as it was for Israel in. Thank you. …

… The first book of Samuel, chapter 22, David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brethren at all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him. And he became a captain over them, and there were with him about 400 men. And David went thence to Mizpah of Moab, and he said unto the king of Moab, Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth and be with you till I know what God will do for me. And he brought them before the king of Moab, and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the hold. And the prophet Gad said unto David, Abide not in the hold, depart and get thee into the land of Judah. Then David departed and came into the forest of Harath. We turn over to to the read verse 12, verse 11. The king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, this is king Saul of course, the son of Ahitab, and all his father's house, the priests that were in Moab. And they came all of them to the king. And Saul said, Hear now thou son of Ahitab. And he answered, Here I am my lord. And Saul said unto him, Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, in that thou hast given him bread and a sword, and hast inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me to lie in wait as at this day? Then Ahimelech answered the king and said, And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king's son-in-law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honorable in thine house? Did I then begin to inquire of God for him? Be it far from me. Let not the king impute anything unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father, for thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more. And the king said, Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou and all thy father's house. And going over to verse 19. And one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitab, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. And Abiathar showed David that Saul had slain the Lord's priests. And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul that I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house. Abide thou with me, fear not, for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life, but with me thou shalt be in safeguard. And reading a verse in the next chapter, verse 6. And it came to pass when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, that he came down with an ephod in his hand. When David was anointed king, back in the previous chapter, it tells us that he was in the midst of his brethren when the Lord anointed him. And we know that the Lord sent Samuel to anoint David because Saul, who was the man that the people had chosen, or the man that the people wanted and that God had allowed to be king, that he had been unfaithful. And so the Lord sent Samuel to anoint Saul. We have that back in the 16th chapter. And I just want to read a verse there. In the 11th verse of chapter 16, after Samuel has had Jesse's sons brought before him, he says to Samuel, said to Jesse, verse 11, Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither. And if you notice, the margin of the Bible says, for we will not sit round till he come hither. And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and with all of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward, from that day forward. So here we find that David is anointed in the midst of his brethren. In fact, Samuel says to Jesse, We won't sit round, he said, until he come hither. So they were going to sit around there, and the one who was to be the Lord's anointed would be in their midst. I'm sure that they didn't have any understanding or realization at that time of the great significance of this. But this is a thing of very great significance, of very great importance. God was anointing a man that we're told elsewhere he was the man after God's own heart. He was the king that God had appointed to take the place of Saul. Saul was the man of the people's choice. David was the man of God's choice. David was the man that God was placing there as king. And he was there anointed in the midst of his brethren. And they would not even sit around to the feast that had been called for until the one that was to be the Lord's anointed was in the midst. So David here is a lovely type of the Lord Jesus, the one whom God has put in the midst. Now beloved brethren, we have learned, we who gather together to the name of the Lord Jesus, we've learned something of the preciousness of this truth, of what it is to be gathered to the name, to gather together to the name of the Lord Jesus. Not to be gathered to a denomination, not to be gathered to a sect, not to be a sect we trust, although we could become that if we weren't careful, but to be gathered to the name of the Lord, to recognize him as the one who's in our midst and to whom we gather, and to recognize him in that sense as the Lord's anointed. It's a very precious thought. So David is the chosen anointed of the Lord, the chosen king. But there's another king on the throne. Saul is the king. God has rejected him. It says in the very next verse after where it says that the spirit of the Lord came upon David, it says that the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit came upon him. And even though Saul doesn't know that David has been anointed king, it very, very soon became evident that David was the one that God had chosen, and the people could recognize this too. And so Saul got very jealous and envious of David. Of course, in the meantime, there comes in the incident of David and Goliath. David goes down, this just shepherd boy who's been faithful in caring for his father's sheep, and he is able to slay the giant. And you know, Saul should have been the one as the king who could have killed the giant. Jonathan should have been the one who could killed him as Saul's elder son. Or David's three elder brothers who'd gone to the war and whose names are mentioned, they all should have been able to kill the giant. None of them could. Saul has been rejected as king, and his house was set aside in that sense. Even David's older brothers, that God has set them aside. David goes down, and with the ability that the Lord has given him, he's able to slay the giant. Goliath was no more the David than a lion and a bear. The people of Israel were God's sheep. And just the same as the Lord had helped him by using his sling and stone to deliver his father's sheep out of the paw of the lion and the bear, he trusted that the Lord would enable him to deliver his sheep out of this Goliath who defied the armies of the living God. And so David goes forth with his stone and his sling to slay Goliath, to lay him low and cut off his head with his own sword. It's a lovely picture, and it's a great spiritual, there's a great spiritual significance to it. Because Goliath represents the power of Satan. And as David slays Goliath with his own sword, we know that it was, that the Lord Jesus laid low the power of sin and Satan through death. And he goes down into death, as it says in Hebrews 2, that through death, he slew him who had the power of death, that is the devil, that he might deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. The Lord, as it were, took Satan's own sword, his own weapon, which was death. Death was in the power of Satan, as it were. And the Lord uses that very weapon to conquer him. He goes down into it. And someone has said that when the Lord silenced Satan at the temptation, that was the slinging of the stone. He only needs one stone, he only quoted from one book, the book of Deuteronomy. He had five. He had the whole of the five books of the Pentateuch that he could have quoted from, and even more for that matter. He had the Old Testament. But if we just take the five books of Moses, he only took one. He quoted three times from the book of Deuteronomy. There he, as it were, lays him low. And at the cross, through his death and resurrection, that's where he cuts off his head. Satan now is a defeated foe. He has no more power. The Lord is the triumphant one. He's the Lord's anointed. And David comes forth with the trophy in his hand. Well, now when we come to this chapter that we read this afternoon, Saul has made it very, very evident that he is going to kill David if he can. Of course, he can't kill him. David is the Lord's anointed. And God was going to allow him to be on the throne, and no one was going to be able to stop David being king. And so in that sense, he was immortal until his work was done. And so David is hunted. He's out in the desert. He's in the wilderness of Judea. And it says that a company gathered themselves to it. He goes to the cave of Adullam. It's a lovely picture. We see David there in the cave. And as we read this portion, we get a little idea of the hardships that they had living out there in the country, sleeping in caves, living on what they could. It was not a very cozy kind of life. Yet, there were those who gathered themselves to David. They were loyal to David. They knew. They recognized David. They owned David as the rightful king. And it says there in the first verse, when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. It's good to see that. David's older brothers reproached him when he went to the battle. Oh, they said, we know what you've come down here for. You were just a naughty little boy that wanted to come down and see what the war was like. That's what they thought. And they didn't realize that David was there because his father had sent him. David didn't come down there out of curiosity to see the battle. They were a little bit ashamed of themselves that their brother should come down there and find that they weren't able to overcome Goliath. But here, apparently, they have come to the point where they have recognized who David is, because it says his brothers and his father's house gathered themselves to him. It's like the Lord's own brothers, Mary's other sons, when the Lord was here on earth. It says his brethren, in the seventh of John, it says, neither did his brethren believe on him. They said, oh, if you're who you are, you go up and show yourself. Go up to the feast. The Lord didn't go up publicly to the Feast of Tabernacles. He did go up privately, but he wasn't going to make himself known. The time for the Feast of Tabernacles hadn't come yet. The other feasts had to be fulfilled. The Passover, the Lord had to die first, but he did go after it. But his brothers didn't believe on him. But we find, after the Lord's resurrection, that his brothers and Mary are there in the upper room. It says with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brethren. When were his brethren converted? I believe it must have been there at the time of his death, when they saw the evidence of his death and resurrection. They realized who the Lord was, and they were faithful to him. And James the Apostle is recognized as one of the Lord's brothers. His brother of Mary's other sons. And so we find it here, David's own brothers now own him as the Lord's anointed, and they gather themselves to him in the cave. And also it says, everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented, gather themselves unto him. Why were they in distress, and in debt, and discontented? I believe it was because of the policies of Saul. Saul was running the country into trouble, and they were not happy. You know, we know that in countries, when there's a good government, when there's a good administration, when there are good, when there are men at the head of affairs that know how to handle the business, things are going well, and the people are contented, and are happy. You get people at the head of affairs that are not responsible, they run the country into debt, and they put high taxes on, and they make people discontented. People are in debt, people are distressed, and people are discontented. That's the picture of this world today. That's what we find in this world. We find this world full of people that are discontented, and distressed, and in debt. And not only in the physical sense, which is true, but also spiritually. People are spiritually unhappy until they find Christ. And so if we were having a gospel meeting, we could take up these three points, and make a great deal out of the fact that there are precious souls who are in debt, because they haven't had their sins forgiven, they're discontented, and they're in distress. This shouldn't be true of a Christian. A Christian should not be one who is discontented, and who is in distress, and who's in debt. The only debt that there is, a debt that we never finish paying, of course, that is to show love one to another. But these things should all be settled when we come to the Lord. But they gathered themselves to David. So we have that word again here in the second verse. They gathered themselves unto him. They gathered themselves to him. They recognized David as the Lord's anointed, even though he's in rejection, and they're willing to share his rejection. And it says that there were about 400, a little later on we find there's another couple of hundred added, and that David had 600 men with him, that are willing to go out into the wilderness, and share the hardships of the wilderness, just because the one that they're loyal to has been rejected, and they want to be with him. And this is a picture for us, beloved brethren. The one that we profess loyalty to today is rejected. He's refused. The world doesn't have him. The world won't have him. And we have to do, as it says in the 13th chapter of Hebrews, go forth unto him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach. There's always a reproach connected with faithfulness to Christ. And the measure, in the measure in which we're faithful to Christ, and let people know where we stand, we have to bear reproach. This world does not want the Lord today any more than it wanted him when he was here. Perhaps in some ways less so. They want to leave him out of all their plans. And we are those who professed loyalty and faithfulness to him. So they gathered themselves to David. Now I want to notice two things in connection with David's being there. The one is, in verse 5 it says, And the prophet Gad said unto David, Abide not in the hole, depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. David departed and came into the forest of Herod. David had a prophet with him, the prophet Gad. Now Gad is a very faithful man. We find that it's Gad later on who has to speak faithfully to David. And so he's one that God uses. And he's there with David. David's in rejection. But the prophet Gad isn't with Saul. He has gone out with those who are loyal to David. He's not ashamed to go out into the wilderness and be with David. So David has the prophet Gad with him. Later on, in the chapter where we find, as we read it there, that Saul slays Abiathar, or rather he slays Ahimelech, the priest, and all his family. Only one escapes and that's Abiathar. And what does he do? He flees to David. So now David not only has the prophet, he has a priest with him. So he is David, the king in rejection. He's the king, the rightful king, and he's in rejection. And with him is the prophet and the priest. Of course, I've no doubt that God allowed this slaying of Ahimelech's house in fulfillment of the word that was spoken to Eli. Ahimelech was of the light of Eli. And we find that even Abiathar, who's faithful to David at this time, when Solomon becomes king, he sets him aside as priest. He doesn't kill him because he's the Lord's anointed and because he's been afflicted in all that David was afflicted in, in the wilderness here, and Zadok is appointed instead. This is another line. So Eli's house disappears in connection with the priesthood altogether. But that's not the point we want to make this afternoon. I just mentioned that. The point I want to bring out here is that here we find David in rejection, but he has with him a prophet and a priest. Now, I think the prophet and the priest give us two different lines of thought. The prophet is one who speaks the mind of God to the people. So that when David's in danger here, the prophet comes to him, Gad says, comes to him and he says, abide not in the hole, depart and get thee into the land of Judah. Don't stay here, he says. He makes known to David the mind of God. Don't stay here. You're in danger. So David does that. Does that. Now, today God has given prophecy too. And in the scriptures, the word prophet is used in two ways. It's been said, we have foretelling prophets and we have foretelling prophets. You say, well, what's the difference? Well, the difference is this, a foretelling prophet is a prophet who prophesied the future. Now we have Daniel, the prophet. God through Daniel gave prophecies as to the future. Isaiah is a prophet who prophesied things as to the future. He prophesied things concerning the Lord's birth and the Lord's death and things that are yet to come. And so we find the apostle John was a prophet in that sense. God gave us the revelation through him. But then in the 14th chapter of 1 Corinthians, it says there, it speaks there about prophecy and it says, he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, to exhortation and to comfort. Now we don't have foretelling prophets anymore. Their message is what's given us in the scriptures. God has given us a word, given us the foretellings of things that are yet to take place in the scriptures. But we do have, God still raises up men to make known his mind, to speak, to edification, exhortation and comfort. And a meeting like this, in a sense, is a prophetic meeting, or it should be. I think sometimes it isn't. But I think if we rightly understand when we have what we speak of as an open meeting for ministry, that should be a meeting at which God is able to use whom he will, to give a word that will meet our present needs. Or any kind of a meeting that is open in this way. That is that the Lord can lay it on the heart of a brother to give the message that is God's word for us for the time. In that sense, there are prophets today who make known the mind of God for the time. I think if we look back in history, we can see that there were special men raised up in the history of the church who made known the will of God for their day. A man like that was Martin Luther. He was a man raised up of God with a special message for his day. He, in that sense, was a foretelling prophet. He made known God's mind for his day. Mr. Darby was in his day. Some people think that Billy Graham's a prophet in the sense that he has a voice of God for this nation in this day. Although we don't agree with a lot of things he's doing, sad to say, and that he's departed a great deal. But it could be that as far as the nation's concerned, that God doesn't allow a man like that in a public place to give a certain message to the nation that they don't heed. Because God can work where he will and even use men that we, in obedience to his word, would not be free to be associated with. He can still use them in his service and he does. We find that even in the division of Israel that there were those who were faithful to the Lord and who stayed in the southern kingdom. And yet God raised up certain men with a message to the northern kingdom. That didn't say that those who were faithful in Judah should have gone and joined themselves to Jeroboam's system. But God did raise up faithful men there to give his message. So God, in that sense, is sovereign. He can use whom he will. But that is the sense of prophecy. It's God making known his mind. And I'd like to say this, brethren, in connection with our afternoon meeting like we have it, that I believe that we should be exercised, when we come to this meeting, as to what part the Lord would have us take in it. You know, we can get into the habit of going along to the meeting, or even the breaking of bread for that matter, without any exercise as to whether the Lord would use us in that meeting. That we go along just thinking, well, we have quite a number of brothers there, and of course there'll be a number of brothers that take part in the meeting, and I don't have to be exercised about taking any part in the meeting. That's not the attitude we should take. We should be exercised as to what part the Lord would have us take to contribute to the meeting. Every one of us be before the Lord. And the Lord sometimes uses a brother even to give five words in a meeting. I remember a meeting many, many years ago when I was a young man, and a brother got up who was not a ministering brother at all, had to be right at the beginning of the meeting, and he read a portion of scripture and sat down. I think he said about five words on it. That's all he said. But you know, that set the key for that meeting. He gave what the Lord had given him, and others followed on from there. And so, if the Lord's given us very little, if that's God's word that he would use us in that sense to give, we should give it. Of course, the other extreme is for someone who doesn't have anything to give to get up and act in self-will and try and give something when the Lord hasn't given them anything. That would be wrong too. But we should be exercised before the Lord and seek to be subject to the guidance of his Spirit as to the part we should take. So, here we have the prophet. He makes known to David the mind of God. So, this is a great privilege for us, I think. Our Lord is the rejected one, as David was rejected. We are gathered to him in his rejection, and yet he's made provision for us. He is able to minister to us. He's able to give us a prophetic ministry, and he does give it to us, and we should avail ourselves of it. And we should thank God for the liberty that we have of gathering to his precious name, and of the precious truth that the Holy Spirit is the one that should guide and lead us in our meetings, not to have everything cut and dried, but to seek to be guided by the Holy Spirit. But now we come to the other thought, and that is that not only did David have the prophet with him, he had the priest. Of course, in a certain sense, through the priest, the Lord made known his mind too, because it says in verse 6 of chapter 23, that when Abiathar came down to David, he came down with an ephod in his hand. And it says there in verse 9, David knew that Saul secretly practiced mischief against him, and he said to Abiathar the priest, bring hither the ephod. Then said David, O Lord God of Israel, thy servant hath certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Calah, to destroy the city for my sake. Will the men of Calah deliver me up into his hand? Will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the Lord said, He will come down. Then said David, Will the men of Calah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, They will deliver thee up. Then David and his men, which were about six hundred, you see they've increased now by another couple of hundred, rose and departed out of Calah, and went with us wherever they could go. David has the priest with him, and the priest has the ephod. You know, the ephod was the robe that the high priest wore, and it had the breastplate on it. And then the breastplate was made like a kind of a pocket. And in the breastplate, there was the urim and the thummim. And the urim and thummim, we don't know exactly what it was, but it was something by which the Lord made known his mind. Some have thought that this idea of the crystal ball that is used by spiritist mediums, that that was something to do with something like that, only that that's become completely in the hands of Satan. And that's why anything like that's forbidden. But the Lord made known his mind somehow through the urim and the thummim in those days. I believe the urim and thummim now, what they correspond for us to know the mind of the Lord is the Word and the Holy Spirit. We have the Word and we have the Spirit. Someone asked the brother what he thought the urim and thummim meant, and he held up his Bible. He says, use him and thumb him. Well, that's good too, that we learn what the Lord's mind through his Word. But I think it's the Word, but it's the Word applied by the Spirit of God, the Word in the power of the Spirit. But in those days, when they brought the ephod that had the urim and the thummim in, the Lord answered. He definitely gave them an answer of yes or no when they asked his mind through the ephod. So you see, this was priestly work. They approached God in prayer. David inquires of the Lord, and that's a precious privilege that we have, beloved. We are priests. We're not only prophets. The Lord would use us to make his mind known to us through prophecy. But the Lord has given us the privilege of being priests. We're holy priests and we're royal priests. And when we come to the Lord in prayer, we're exercising our priesthood. When we come to the Lord to give him our praise and worship, as we did this morning, we're exercising our priesthood. When we're living for Christ before the world, we're to do that as holy priests. I don't think when we think of priesthood, even the royal priesthood, as we have it in 1 Peter 2 and chapter 9, I don't think there it's a question of gift. When it comes to prophecy, perhaps that more comes in the question of gift. But when it's a question of priesthood, it's not a question of gift at all. Every believer is equally a priest. And with holy priests, it says we're holy priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices. That is our praise and our worship. And as we come together on the Lord's day, every brother and sister has the privilege of offering up their praise and their worship to the Lord. The sisters are all contributing to it. They're giving their praise and worship. The brother who gives thanks or asks for a hymn, he is the mouthpiece of the gathering. And if we all come to the meeting in the spirit, as we find the apostle John, it says he was in the spirit on the Lord's day. And I think that's a lovely thought. John wasn't able to be with the saints. He'd been sent away and put on an island. I understand that they had tin mines there, and John was sent there, this old brother was sent there to work in the tin mines. And this was his punishment for being a Christian. Something like some of our dear brethren in Siberia that are sent away over there in Russia. They don't have to work hard until they just have, they just about kill them off by making them work so hard, to crush their spirit. And I've no doubt there must be many of the dear saints in these countries today who, when the Lord's day comes, even though they're deprived of the fellowship of the Lord's people, they're in the spirit on the Lord's day. They're thinking of their brethren gathered together elsewhere. And we should not forget them when we gather, and with all the liberty that we have, to remember that we have our dear brethren in many parts who do not have this precious privilege because of circumstances. But we should also be in the spirit on the Lord's day. When we come together, let us see that we respect the Lord's day as the Lord's day, and realize what a precious privilege it is to be gathered, to be in the spirit, and to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as to what part we should take. And we all have some part to take. And the brothers, of course, to take audible part as the Lord leads them in praise and worship and thanksgiving. And then when we think of our royal priesthood, it says also in 1 Peter 2 and verse 9, it says, we're royal priests to show forth the excellencies of him who's called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. As we said before, that's not so much a question of gift. It's a question of our testimony, the kind of life that we live, what the people see in us. Do they see by the way we act that we're showing forth the virtues of him? How do we react under difficulties when someone does something to us that they have no right to do? How do we react in our daily life? These are the tests as to whether we're really living as priests. We might be able to speak very well or talk very well, but the royal priesthood is at the whole demeanor of our life as to whether we really act as those who belong to the Lord and in that way seek to give a right testimony for him. Well, I just have these thoughts on my mind, the thought of David as the rejected one, and we faithful to the Lord, our Lord who's the rejected one, and then as the Lord sent there to be with him not only this company of 400 and later on 600 men who were faithful, but he had with him the prophet and the priest. So the Lord has made provision for us in this the day of his rejection, the provision of prophecy and the provision of priesthood, and may we endeavor and seek daily to be faithful to him and miss the scene of his rejection while we're waiting for his return to take us to be with himself. …

… Let us turn to 1st Samuel, chapter 30, the 30th chapter of 1st Samuel. And it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziklag, on the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire. And had taken the women captives that were therein. They slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went their way. And we read down verse 6, David was greatly distressed for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters. But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. And David said to Abiath the priest, the Amalekite son, I pray thee bring me hither the ephod. And Abiath brought hither the ephod to David. And David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them. And without fail recover all. So David went, he and six hundred men that were with him, and came to the brook Besor, where those that were left behind stayed. But David pursued he and four hundred men, for two hundred abode behind, which were so faint they could not go over the brook Besor. And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David. And gave him bread, and he did eat. And they made him drink water. And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins. And when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him. For he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water three days and three nights. And David said unto him, To whom belongest thou? And when start thou? And he said, I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite. And my master left me, because three days ago I fell sick. We made an invasion upon the south of the Cherubites, and upon the coast which belongeth to Judah, and upon the south of Caleb, and we burned Ziklak with fire. And David said to him, Canst thou bring me down to this company? And he said, Swear unto me by God that thou wilt neither kill me, nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will bring thee down to this company. And when he had brought them down, behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking and dancing, because of the great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines and out of the land of Judah. And David smoked them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day. And there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men which rode upon camels and fled. And David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away. And David rescued his two wives, and there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil nor anything that they had taken to them. David recovered all. And David took all the flocks and the herds which they draved before those other cattle, and said, This is David's spoil. Down to verse 20. This, of course, is a very interesting incident in the life of David. David, as you know, had been anointed king over Israel, but at that time Saul was the king. And when Saul found out that David was the one who was God's anointed one to be king, he persecuted David. And David was in great distress, living in the mountains, living in caves, and having to hide from Saul and from Saul's soldiers who continually pursued them and tried to take them. Twice we find that God allowed David to have Saul in his hand to be able to kill him, but David refused to do so. He said, No, as long as Saul's the king, he's the Lord's anointed, I'm not going to touch him. And finally, in his distress, David went right out of the land of Israel and came and lived in this town of Ziklag. And at this particular time, David and his men had been out making an incursion into other places. And while they were away, these Amalekites, they came and invaded this place and they took away everything that belonged to David. They took away their wives and their children and their cattle and everything that they had. Because in those days, these people were a pastoral people and they lived by their cattle and by their flocks that they had. And everything that David had that he left behind in Ziklag, these Amalekites took. And when David and his men, his 600 men came back, the men were so discouraged at what had happened that they were even going to turn around and stone their leader. They were going to stone David. They were so discouraged. And you can quite imagine how discouraged they'd be. Here they were, they'd given up everything that they had to go out into that wilderness place to throw in their lot with David because they believed that David was God's man. And now they found that they'd lost everything as they thought. They were going to turn around and stone David. It was a very great test for David. And it's a lovely thing to see that when this happened, David did not allow himself to be discouraged. But it says there in verse, at the end of verse 6, well we'll read the whole verse again. David was greatly distressed for the people spake of stoning him because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters. But it says, but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. And I believe, beloved, that this should be an encouragement to us. You know, we as the Lord's people from time to time are called upon to go through distressing circumstances. Nobody gets through life without trials. And we have our share of them from time to time. And we have difficulties that come upon us and trials that come upon us. How wonderful it is when we can do what David did. We can encourage ourselves in the Lord. You know, in order to encourage ourselves in the Lord, we need to know the Lord. And I hope that everyone here tonight knows the Lord. My beloved friend, if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, if you don't know Him as your friend, you don't have the right one to turn to when the troubles came. Now David was in a great distress and a great trial. But David knew the Lord. David had known the Lord for many years. I believe that David came to know the Lord when he was just a boy, when he was a shepherd boy, caring for his father's sheep. And his father and mother had taught him the truth of the Lord. And David came to know the Lord when he was very young. And you know, youth is the time to come to know the Lord. That's why we like to encourage the children and the young people to seek the Lord when they're young. Because if you take the Lord when you're young, you have the Lord with you all through your life. And what greater life can one live than to live their life for the Lord, to live for Him. Satan is seeking young people also today. He wants them to live their lives in his service. And you know the devil's service, it seems to pay off dividends for a little while and promises people a great deal. But it's a very, very sad end. It's the end of the devil's service. And as you know, and as we know all that goes on around us, how many go the wrong way and how they end up the wrong way too. And they not only end up the wrong way in this life, but they end up the wrong way for all eternity. Because to pass out of this life without Christ is to spend an eternity without Christ. And that's a terrible thing. But David knew the Lord. So in spite of this great trial, it says, David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. And then David did something else. He sought the Lord's guidance. He sought the Lord's guidance. It says that he inquired, in verse 8, David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop and shall I overtake them? And he answered, Pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. David had the abiot of the priest there, and they had the ephod, which was part of the high priest's garment that the Urim and Thummim was connected with. And by that means the Lord at that time used to make known his mind. And it would correspond to us today that if we were in a trial and we didn't know what to do, we made this a matter of special prayer. We prayed specially about it and sought the Lord's guidance and asked the Lord to show us what we should do. And you know, beloved friends, there's no one that ever seeks the Lord's guidance in trial that does not get an answer. You know, there's a hymn that we sing sometimes, a well-known hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. And it says, Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. That's a great privilege we Christians have, when difficulties and trials come, of taking them to the Lord in prayer. Of course, we don't all only want to come to the Lord in prayer when we have trials. You know, you meet people sometimes and they say, you ask them, they say, well, they're in some trouble, and you say, well, do you pray? Have you ever prayed about that thing? Well, you know, they say, I prayed about a number of things, but God never answers my prayers, so I stopped praying. Well, you know, they think that the answer to prayer means that God gives them what they ask for. Well, you know, God doesn't always give us what we ask for, but the answer to our prayer is all the same. You know, a mother doesn't always give her little child what the child asks for. If a little two-year-old girl comes up to her mother with a pair of scissors and says, Mommy, give me these scissors, is the mother going to give the child those scissors to play with? Of course not. Why, she'd poke her eye out with them or cut her finger or something or other. So the mother says, well, no, honey, you just can't have that now. When you get a bit older, you can play with that. The mother says no in that instance because it's not good. And sometimes God answers no to us when we ask Him things. There are times when He answers yes, and sometimes He tells us to wait too, just like sometimes we tell our children to wait when they ask us for something and say, no, you can't have that now, but you can have it later. But you see, if you're going to come to the Lord when you're in trouble, you need to know the Lord when you're not in trouble. We need to get to know the Lord. And if we know the Lord as our Savior and as our friend, when things are going well, well, then we'll know Him as the one who stands with us and gives us the answer and gives us the right answer to when we're in trouble. David knew the Lord and he asked the Lord what to do. David says, shall I go after these people and overtake them? And the answer came, yes, pursue them, you'll recover everything. So David set out with his men to pursue this company. It says in verse 10, David pursued, and he and four hundred men, for two hundred abode behind, which were so faint they could not go over the brook Besor. He was a brook, he was a stream there, and of David's six hundred men, two hundred of them were so weary they just couldn't go any further. And so they left them behind and they stayed there, but the others went over. And it says when they got over there, now this, we have a wonderful lesson here that we're going to seek as if we can't see what the lesson is in these verses that follow. And verse 11, And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David, and gave him bread, and he did eat. And they made him drink water, and they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins. And when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him, for he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water three days and three nights. So they crossed over this brook Besor. By the way, the word Besor means the good news, the good news. And it turned out to be a place of good news to this young man. And I'm going to explain in a few minutes what good news also that God has for us. Here was this young man. Now they ask him about himself. We'll read that before we speak about it. Verse 13, David said to him, To whom belongest thou, and whensart thou? He says, I'm a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite, and my master left me because three days ago I fell sick. Well, now here we have this young man. He's an Egyptian to start off with. He's a young man of Egypt. He's a servant or a slave to an Amalekite, because a servant in those days in this sense was just a person who had been taken to be made a slave of. And one of these Amalekites, who was part of this company that had come and had sacked Siklag and had taken away the wives and the children and all the goods of David and his men, one of these Amalekites was the master of this Egyptian. He was the servant of this Amalekite. And he says, and three days ago my master left me because I fell sick. You see, this young man had been taken by this Amalekite and he'd been made a slave. And no doubt as long as he worked for his master, his master thought it was worthwhile keeping him. But as soon as he got sick, what does he do to him? He just throws him off. He just leaves him there to die in the desert. He didn't care that much for that poor Egyptian. He just left him there. And he was sick and he'd had nothing to eat and he had nothing to drink. And if it hadn't been that David and his men came along just at that time, that young man would have died right there. So they find him in the field, this unconscious young man, and they bring him to David and they nurse him back to health. They gradually give him something to eat, something to drink, and something to eat. And little by little his spirit revives until he's able to talk. His spirit came again, it says. And then David asks him the questions. So the first thing that David says to him is, he says, to whom do you belong? To whom belongest thou? Whose are you? And then he says, from where, whence art thou? From where are you, he said. Where do you come from and who do you belong to? Well, he says, I'm an Egyptian. Now in the Bible, in the Old Testament, Egypt is a type of this world in its departure from God. And this young Egyptian represents every one of us in our natural state in our departure from God. Because the Bible distinctly tells us that we're all born with a sinful nature. We're born in sin. Man has sinned. Our first parents sinned and we've inherited this sinful nature from them. And there's not one of us that is not born with a sinful nature. This young man says, I'm an Egyptian. I'm a young man of Egypt. And each one of us can say, I'm a sinner. I'm born into this world a sinner. I'm a sinner by nature and I'm a sinner by practice. You know, we're sinners by nature because we've inherited a sinful nature. But as soon as we are old enough to know what's right and don't do it, or we know what's wrong and we do what's wrong, then we're sinners by practice. And that's true of every one of us. We're sinners by nature and we're sinners by practice. And we're accountable to God because God says we've got to give an account to Him for our sins. That's another thing in the Word of God. So this young man, Egyptian, really represents what we are. Then he says, I'm a servant to an Amalekite. Now in the scripture, the Amalekites represent the lust of the flesh. And this Egyptian was a servant to Amalekite. And isn't that true of us in our natural state? In our natural state, beloved friends, we're sinners and we're servants to the lust of the flesh. We get carried away by the things that just please us naturally. The lust of the flesh. And that's what constitutes us, or makes us, we might say by practice, sinners before God. Just being carried away by our mere natural desires. That's how the enemy seeks to deceive us and make us think that it's alright to do all these things just because they give us pleasure. But we've got to remember that it says in the book of Ecclesiastes these words, Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the ways of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes. But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Why you say, is God going to judge us just because we do the things that come natural to us? If those things are opposed to the will of God, God will judge us. Just because a thing comes natural to us doesn't say it's right because we're born in sin. And perhaps the things that come natural to us are easier than the right things. The wrong things come natural to us. And the right things sometimes are the things that don't come so easy to us. Have you ever thought why it is that we always have to be pulling weeds out of the garden? If you have a garden or if you have a lawn at your place, you know that the greatest thing in keeping a garden nice or in keeping a nice lawn is the fight that you have against the weeds. You never have to sow weeds. Weeds come up of their own. If you want a vegetable garden and you want to get some vegetables, you've got to sow the seed for those vegetables. If you want to get some roses in your garden, you've got to plant the roses. If you want to get some nice flowers in your garden, you have to plant them. And you have to care for them. But the weeds, why you're everlastingly making a war on them. I got talking to a man one day who was pulling weeds out of his lawn. And I said, you know, that reminds us of our life. I said, the weeds come up in our lives of themselves. The bad things, they just seem to spring up. And we've got to pull them out. But if you want something good in your garden, you've got to sow it. And that's why God's got to sow so he's got to plant something in us if something good's got to come out. And he says, well, you know, I wonder sometimes whether we should be pulling the weeds out because nature puts them there. I said, yes, nature puts them there, but remember it's the fallen nature. We've got a fallen nature. That's why the weeds come up in our lives. It's because we have a fallen nature. And the only remedy for the fallen nature is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, this young man had a fallen nature. He was an Egyptian and he was a servant to an Amalekite. Well, and he died right there in that desert. His master left him. That's what the service of Satan is. You know, dear friends, Satan offers to pay great dividends in his service. But do you know what he does with those who serve him? When he's got all out of them he can, he casts them off. He throws them off. And if you have anything to do with all people in some of these all folks' homes, you'll find a lot of derelicts there. People who live their lives for themselves and for the devil, and then the devil casts them off and leaves them there. And they're the most unhappy people on the face of the earth. With one foot in the grave, the devil's cast off. Some of them even get saved at the eleventh hour, thank God, but not a great many. Do you know that the biggest percentage of the Christians in the world today are those who've been saved while they're young? The older people get, the more hardening effect sin has on them, and the more difficult it is for them to leave Satan and come to the Lord. The majority that are saved are saved when they're young. And while you're young, dear friends, is the time to accept the Lord. As our little hymn says, we were singing, be in time while the voice of Jesus calls you, be in time. Now David's men found that young man, and it was through David that that young man was saved. He was saved from death in the wilderness because David rescued him at the place of the brook Besor, which means the good news. And what is the good news today? The good news, beloved friends, is that God saves our souls through faith in the Lord Jesus. God sent his son down to this world to be the Savior. The Lord Jesus came and was born in Bethlehem, and he died on Calvary's cross. Thirty-three odd years later, he was nailed to the cross, and there he shed his precious blood for our salvation. I was over in New York a few years back and happened to be visiting some of the Puerto Ricans over there, and we were in a home speaking Spanish to a dear Puerto Rican lady. And so I said to her, I said, why do you think it was that the Lord Jesus died on the cross? And he cried out on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Well, she says, I don't know, but she says, I think it was a terrible thing. She says that Jesus allowed the people to nail him on that cross and that he didn't escape. When he could have escaped from the cross because he was God, he didn't escape and allow himself to come down off the cross. I says, lady, I says, did you, do you realize that Jesus could have done that? He could have come down off the cross, but if he'd done it, not one of us could have been saved. Not a single one of us could have been saved. He stayed there out of love for us. He allowed them to nail him on the cross because he loved you and me, because he loved us that he allowed him to stay there. Well, she says, I never understood that before. She says, thank you so much for coming around and telling me that. She says, I never understood that before. And yet that woman had, that woman had grown up with at least an outward knowledge of Christianity. She had known since her childhood that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that Jesus had died on the cross and all that, but she didn't realize that the reason why he stayed there on that cross and suffered that he did was that was the only way that we could be saved. And I believe that right there and then she accepted the Lord Jesus as his savior and that's what you, as her savior. And that's what you can do tonight, beloved friend, if you've never done it, to realize that this is good news for you. The good news is that God gives you salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus who died as your substitute and who took your place. You see, God is not going to punish the same two persons for the same thing. And if the Lord Jesus Christ bore your punishment on the cross and you accept that for yourself, you won't have to bear it. You say, well, why is it there are many people that are lost then that are going to go down to hell and to a lost eternity? It's because they refuse to take him as their savior. You must accept it. It's one thing for God to make an offer, but it's another thing for us to accept it. Each one of us individually must accept this precious thing for ourselves. That young man who was a Malachite there, servant to an Egyptian, a slave of an Egyptian, there within the field, David's men rescued him at the place of the good news. They did everything for him and so he was saved. And the Lord Jesus is the one who on Calvary's cross did everything for you. He couldn't do anything to save himself. It was what David and David's men did for him. And you and I can do nothing to save ourselves. The best life we could live could never atone for our sins. If we could turn over a new leaf right now and live a perfect life in the future, that would never take away the black pages that we have in the past. Thank God, the precious blood that the Lord Jesus shed is of such value that it blocks out everything that God has against us and God then gives us the power of a new life to live for Christ from now on when we take him as our savior. Now it says that he tells David what happened. So David says, can you bring me down to this troop? Can you bring me down to where they are? He says, yes I can. But he says, you make a promise to me. He says, promise me you won't kill me, verse 15, nor deliver me into the hands of my master. He didn't want to go back to, he didn't want to go back to be the slave of that man again who just cast him off and left him there. And David promised him that he wouldn't deliver him. He had a new master. Who was his master now? David. And David wasn't going to be a slave driver. David was going to be his master, but he was going to serve David now out of the love of his heart because of what David had done for him. And that's what it is with us, beloved friends. When the Lord saves our souls, we have a new master. We're going to serve the Lord now. The Lord is the one, the one who saved us is the one that we have as our master. And we say, I want to please him and I want to serve him. And certainly David was not going to deliver him back into the hands of his master. And that's what the Lord says to us, you know. When the Lord saves us, he says, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. The Lord is not going to let us be handed back over to Satan again once he rescues us from the power of Satan. He keeps us as his own and gives us the strength to go on in the Christian life for him. So now he's David's servant and he's going to faithfully serve David. He says to David, yes, I'll bring you down. So he told David where they'd be and he brought them along and they come down there. What did David and his men find when they get there? These Amalekites are spread abroad on the face of the earth, it says. There in verse 16, when he had brought them down, behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking and dancing because of all the great spoil that they'd taken out of the land of the Philistines and out of the land of Judah. Here they are, this great company that had come and taken away all that was David's. They were having a regular feast. It says they were eating and drinking and dancing. Have you ever heard of those three things put together before? Isn't that what the world goes in for, to enjoy itself even today? These men were just having a celebration. They said, now we've taken everything out of all those places. We don't have anything to fear now. We don't have to fear either God nor man, so we'll just have a celebration. Here they were eating and drinking and you can be pretty sure that they weren't just drinking milk and water. They were no doubt drinking things that were a good bit higher than that and dancing. They were really having what the world calls a good time. But you know, this is really a little warning we might say what we have here. These people represent the people of the world living their lives without the Lord and not realizing that the judgment is just about to fall on them. Those people had no idea that they were just about to be put to death, every one of them. Here they were having a great celebration. David and his men come and fall on them and the whole company of them are slaughtered, except it says 200 men who escaped on camels. The rest of them were all killed there and then. And David recovered. David and his men recovered their wives and their children and all of their cattle. Everything that they had taken away, they recovered and a lot more beside because these people had a lot of other things that they'd taken from other places too and David was able to get it all. So actually David got back a lot more than he lost in the first place. Actually David and his men were better off afterwards than they were before. And those people that were there, judgment fell upon them. That's the sad thing. And you see, that young man, that Egyptian, had he been with them, he'd have died with them. He'd have died with them. Now what happened to those people is a picture of the judgment of God that's about to fall upon this world. The day of judgment's coming for this world. People are just getting further away from God. They're living their lives without God. The majority of people today are just eating and drinking and dancing and enjoying themselves and God's outside. God is not in all their thoughts as scripture says. And just as sure as we stand here with the word of God in our hands, the judgment of God is going to fall upon this wicked scene. Man is leaving God out of his life and is going on in wickedness and this is going to bring the judgment of God upon this world. And beloved friends, every one of us here tonight should be warned to learn the lesson from this young man. Thank God that young man's master forsook him and he would be very grateful after that he had to, that he would fall into the hands of David and be spared instead of being among those that were judged. And so this is a lovely picture of God's good news that Brook Besaw was where he finally came into blessing. And this is where each one of us can come into blessing tonight. And my beloved friends tonight, if there's one of you here tonight, and I don't know the hearts of everybody here, many of you I know, but I don't know all. If there's one soul here tonight that's still unsaved, that as yet has not taken the Lord Jesus as your savior, may you be tonight like this young Egyptian. May you come to the Lord Jesus. David represents here the Lord Jesus Christ. Through David, this young man was saved from a terrible fate and he found a new master, one whom he served no doubt faithfully the rest of his life. And if you up till now, beloved friend, have been in the service of Satan, no matter how young or how old you might be, turn away from the service of the devil tonight. Turn to the Lord Jesus. Take the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, the one who died for you, the one who shed his precious blood for your salvation, the one who now lives for you in heaven and who's able to save you. He died to save us and he lives to keep us. And you say, oh, I'd like to be a Christian, but I'm afraid that I won't, I won't have the strength to hold on. The Lord's the one who gives you the strength. Do you believe that the Lord Jesus died on the cross to save you and yet he doesn't have, that he's able to save you and he won't be able to keep you? No. If you can trust the Lord Jesus to save your soul, you can trust him to give you the strength day by day in the Christian life and he'll give you the strength. He'll enable you to witness a good confession for him and to live for him. And then you'll have a new master and that will be the Lord, the one who will tell you what to do in his precious word and he will give you the strength to do it. And when God's judgment falls upon this world, that it's very soon to fall, instead of being those upon whom the judgment falls, you will be with the Lord and with the Lord's people, you'll be with the Lord, the one who's going to execute the judgment, not the one be with those on whom the judgment falls. Oh, how important it is to be on the right side. You know, we have to make choices in life. Every one of us makes choices all along our life. We're making choices from day to day. How important tonight that you should choose for Christ to take the Lord Jesus as your savior, accept him and he will give you the strength to live for him and to serve him until he comes to take us home to be with himself. Let us close with prayer. Gracious God, our father, we thank thee for the lesson that we see here of this young man of Egypt who was delivered from this terrible fate and found a new master in David and was able, our gracious God and father, to serve him and thus to escape from the terrible judgment that fell upon those who there were feasting and just enjoying themselves in the things of this life. We pray that tonight, our gracious God and father, that precious souls may be found who realize their need of a savior and who turn to trust in him who died that they might live. So we thank thee now, our father, for this day that thou hast given us and we just commit us each one into thy loving care as we give thanks in the precious name of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Amen. …

… Let us turn to the 21st chapter of 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel 21, Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year, and David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered, It is for Saul, and for his house of blood, because he slew the Gibeonites. And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them, Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the children of Israel have sworn unto them, and Saul sought to slay them in his deal to the children of Israel in Judah. Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? And the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house, neither for us shall thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, What he shall say, that will I do for you. But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. But the king took the two sons of Rishba, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Ammoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Micah, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Abriel, the son of Barziliad and the Holophites. And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord, and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the days of the beginning of barley harvest. And Rishba, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of the harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. And it was told David what Rishba, the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son. And they gathered the bones of them that were hanged, and the bones of Saul and Jonathan, his son, buried they. It should be buried they with them in the country of Benjamin, in Zelzar, in Zelar, in the sepulchre of Kish's father. And they performed all that the king commanded, and after that God was entreated for the land. You might perhaps think this is a rather strange scripture to read for a gospel meeting, but I believe we have some very good lessons to bring out from this portion of the word of God. It says, first of all, that there was a famine in the land three years. And you notice that it says year after year, three consecutive years there was a famine. And it stresses it year after year. And I think that the reason why it's put like that is that what God is saying, he sent a famine the first year, and he expected the king and the people of Israel to ask the question, why has this famine come? They didn't ask any question the first year. They weren't exercised. So God sends a famine the second year, and they are still not exercised. So he sends a famine the third year. And by the time the third year comes, David wakes up, and it says, and David inquired of the Lord. Now the Lord expects him to inquire the first year. He sends it the second year. Finally, David inquires of the Lord, Lord, what's this famine for? There must be a reason for the famine. Now I think there's a lesson here for us, beloved brethren, and that is that when God speaks, we should heed his voice. Often we don't heed the Lord's voice. The famine might correspond to a spiritual famine, a spiritual death among the people of God, and when God allows that, he wants us to inquire the reason why. Now we know in the book of Ruth that there was a famine in the land, and he and his wife Naomi, instead of being exercised before the Lord as to why the famine was, they go off and leave the country altogether and go to the land of Moab. And we know the story very well what happened. Boaz stayed in Bethlehem through the famine, and he subsists all right, and when Naomi finally comes back, Boaz is a wealthy man. The Lord has blessed him because he stayed in the right place, and poor Naomi comes back, she's lost her husband and her sons and left them behind in the land of Moab, and she does come back and gets restored, and God is pleased to use her daughter-in-law Ruth for great blessing. But God speaks through these things. I have no doubt that the calamities that come upon the nations are voices from God. If God allows a literal famine to come into a country, if he allows disasters to come, wars to come, these should be his voice, and the leaders of the nations should turn to God. The sad thing is that there's very little turning to God. I'm sure that if there was a true national repentance in the United States, as we think of all these disasters that have happened over the last few years, and men and women really turn to the Lord and sought the Lord's faith as to what these things were for, God would make plain what they were for, and there'd be blessing. The city of Nineveh repented, and the Lord withheld back the judgment that was going to come upon that land, and it didn't come until many, many years later, when another generation altogether had come and forgotten what God did. So here, there's a famine. God is speaking through this famine. And finally the Lord says, it's for Saul, and his house of blood, because he slew the Gibeonites. Well, you know, the Gibeonites, they were a section of the Amorites who, in a rather deceitful manner, had made peace with the children of Israel. We have the story in the early chapters of the book of Joshua. They came with their old moldy bread and their old wine bottles, pretending that they came from a far country, and they made peace with Israel. And Joshua promised them before God that he wouldn't fight against them when he got to their country. And two or three days afterwards, they found that they were right alongside of them there. They'd used deceit. But because Joshua and the children of Israel had made a promise before God that they wouldn't destroy them, God held them to the promise. It says they became hewers of wood and drawers of water. They became the slaves of the children of Israel. But they'd been promised that they would not, the promise had been made, and God held them to the promise. This had taken place about 400 years before. And even you might say, well, that was a long time ago. What did Saul's generation have to do with that? Well, time doesn't alter things. And that promise that had been given 400 years before still held good. They had to hold to it. And even what Saul had done must have taken place from 30 to 40 years before this famine came, because David is now reigning and has been reigning a good many years. And this apparently had taken place in the early days of Saul's reign. And he became so zealous for the children of Israel that he thought that it would be a right thing to do to kill off these Gibeonites. And apparently he set out to exterminate them. And he killed quite a few of them apparently. But the Lord was very displeased with this, because this was something that Saul had done absolutely in the flesh. It wasn't of God at all that he should exterminate the Gibeonites. Saul is the man after the flesh, and he acted after the flesh. He didn't seek God's mind. There were some of the enemies of the children of Israel, because it was God's will that they should fight against them and destroy them. But the Gibeonites weren't enemies. They were recognized as having a right to live in the nation. God had made a solemn promise to them. The promise had to be held to. And this is a very important principle, beloved brethren, that we find right through scripture, is that God requires what's past. God requires that which is past. And he held the people to what Joshua had done 400 years before. And he was holding the nation of Israel in David's day responsible for what Saul had done 30 or 40 years before. So when the Lord says to David, it's for Saul and for what he did, then David did the right thing. He called the Gibeonites. He says, now you're the people that have been offended. You're the ones that have suffered over this. Saul had no right to do this, but he did it. And we as a nation are responsible. We're responsible. David could have said, well, I'm not responsible for what Saul did. But David was the king that followed Saul, and God held the people of Israel responsible for what had been done. And so he says to the Gibeonites, what are your terms? Can't we do something? Can't we pay you off for this? And so the Gibeonites answer, or David says, what shall I do for you? Wherewith shall I make the atonement that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? David uses the word atonement. How can we make atonement? How can we atone for this? I'm sure that David thought that it would be a question of money, that by paying them a certain sum, that that would be a satisfaction. And we know that in the Old Testament at times there was a satisfaction made by the payment of money. And he thought that that's what would really meet the need. Now, the word atonement is used a great deal in the Old Testament. It's not used in the New Testament very much, but the New Testament uses the word propitiation, which really is setting forth the same general thought as atonement in the Old Testament. But the thought in atonement is the meeting, the satisfying of the claims of God. I know that our word atonement is really a made-up word in the English language. It's a word that is composed of three words, at-one-meant. At-one-meant. That's where we get our word atonement in English. It's a composite word we might say. But the thought of the word at-one-meant does not fully express what the word atonement is in scriptural terms, in scriptural language. Of course, it is true that the sinner is reconciled to God and therefore made at-one with him. But I think the thought, the word itself, atonement, really conveys more the thought of reconciliation. But in scripture, the words in the Hebrew and Greek that are translated atonement in our Bible, they really convey the thought of meeting the claims of a holy God. Meeting the claims of a God who has been outraged by man's sin. And that's the thought that we have here. How can we make the atonement? How can we satisfy you for what has been done? You have been wronged. What satisfaction can be made? And, beloved, that's exactly how it is with the sinner and God. God has been wronged through man's sin. God is a holy God and he placed man in this world in innocence. And he sinned against the holy God. And how could an atonement be made? How can God be satisfied after the sin question? We know that God had one way by which his righteous and holy claims could be met, and that was through the work of his beloved Son. Well, David raises the question, what shall I do for you? And wherewith shall I make the atonement that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? We get atonement mentioned in the 16th of Leviticus on how the goat had to be taken and killed and the blood had to be sprinkled on and before the mercy seat, and also the bullock. It's a lovely picture of the work of the Lord Jesus, meeting the claims of God. The Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house. Neither for us shall thou kill any man in Israel. Doesn't this remind us of what we read in the first chapter of Peter, where it says, We are not redeemed with corruptible things of silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. We won't be satisfied, said the Gibeonites, with silver and gold. We won't be satisfied that any man of Israel should be put to death for us. We have in our minds what we want, but silver and gold won't satisfy us. How many people there are who think that God is going to be satisfied with silver and gold, with payments, and even with what they do and their works and so forth and so on? There are many, many people who think that they can buy their way to heaven. They used to have, before they got a siren for the fire station, they used to have a bell that used to be rung when there was a fire. You could hear it all over the town. Well, anyhow, the fire station installed a siren so this bell was for sale. He was going to get a great deal of merit in heaven because he paid out this money to buy the bell to put in the church. I suppose every time the bell rang he was going to get a certain indulgence. I think he was going to get so many years out of purgatory because he bought this bell. But you see, he was buying his way by paying the money. He thought that God was going to be satisfied with the payment. And, of course, people think a great deal of these things religiously, and this is written up in the paper, and this person is looked upon as having done a wonderful thing for the church and for himself too. But we know that as far as himself, poor man, is concerned, when we look into the word of God, it didn't do him any good at all. We're not redeemed with corruptible things of silver and gold. Atonement isn't made by what we do. How many people there are who think that by doing the best they can, and doing good works and all that, that they're going to merit salvation, that God's going to be satisfied. No. As the Gibeonites said, we will have no silver nor gold. How true that is, as it says in 1 Peter 1.18. Nor, neither for us shall thou kill any man in Israel. What are we going to do? He goes on and says, The King says, What ye say, that will I do. And they answered the King, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the King said, I will give them. He said, We don't want anybody to suffer over this except the man that harmed us. You say, Well, he's dead. Well, then it was his family. Let seven men of Saul's sons, let seven of Saul's descendants, they're the ones that still belong to the guilty family. Let them be delivered to us, and we'll deal with them, and that will make the atonement. We'll be satisfied. But that's not the point, and after all, what we need to see, and this is a spiritual lesson, that Saul was the one who had offended the Gibeonites. Here the Gibeonites are the offended party, and they have to be satisfied. And in the case of our sin, God is the offended party. He's the one who's been offended by man's sin. And just the same as it had to be one of the family that had done the harm, that had to be slain, so seeing it was man who had offended God through his sin, it had to be a man who could make the atonement for sin. In this case, it's seven men of Saul's sons who had to be hanged, and they were hung up before the Lord. He gives us the names of them there, they're Saul's descendants. And it says, verse 7, the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. And we get the picture of grace there. But the king took two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bared to Saul, Ammoniah and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michael, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the holophite, and delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites. I think that in this, Saul's house was really blotted out, except for Mephibosheth. And we know the story of Mephibosheth, how David showed kindness to Mephibosheth because of the love between him and Jonathan. And I think this lets us see that had it not been for David's grace to Mephibosheth, that by this act, Saul's whole house would have perished. Saul would not have left any descendants behind. And the only reason why there were some of Saul's descendants left behind at all was because David, in his grace, in showing the kindness of God, had spared Mephibosheth. And so the line of Saul was preserved through Mephibosheth. But there, it wasn't the old Saul, the man after the flesh anymore. It was a new generation that had come in through grace. It was God's grace. But here we find that all of the rest of Saul's house, these seven sons, are the descendants of Saul. They're all slain. And beloved, you might say, well now, how does this fit in with the gospel? It was Adam that sinned, and it's we of Adam's race that have sinned against God. That's true. But it was not possible, as it was here, it wasn't possible with regard to man's sin, that one of Adam's descendants according to the flesh, or even seven of them, could make an atonement for the rest of the human race. That was not possible. No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him. So that's why God had to send his son. There was no one to take the place of these men, but God did provide one to take our place, to make an atonement. When it was a question of satisfying the Gibeonites, seven of Saul's sons were sufficient, and they were satisfied. But beloved, when it was a question of satisfying the claims of a holy God, even if the whole of Adam's race had been offered up in sacrifice, that would not have met the claims of God. It had to be one who had no sin of his own, yet it had to be one who was a man. And there I believe we have a point of contact. These had to be of the family that had done the wrong. The Redeemer had to be, in a certain sense, connected with the family that had sinned. I believe that's the thought that we have in Hebrews 2. I'll just read the verse there, in the 2nd chapter of Hebrews. It says in verse 14, For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy or annul him that hath the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. He also himself took part of the same. Seeing that children are partakers of flesh and blood, it says, he also himself likewise took part of the same. This is a great mystery. The mystery of the incarnation. Something that can never fully be understood or explained, but we accept it, beloved, that the Lord Jesus Christ was God over all, blessed forever, yet he became a man. God used the Virgin Mary to give him his humanity. He comes into this world a true man, a perfect man, without ceasing to be God. Because he was God, he could offer up a perfect sacrifice. Because he was man, he could make an atonement for sin. He became a man that he might die. He couldn't have died had he become an angel, because angels don't die. Because he was God, he never died. But as the man Christ Jesus, he died, he offered up himself on Calvary's cross and shed his precious blood, and he made a complete atonement. God has been satisfied. A man had to offer. So it says in Paul writing to Timothy, he says, there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus the man. That's why he became a man, in order that he might die for the sons and daughters of Adam's race. So God has found one. David found these seven sons, and he handed them over to the Gibeonites, and they offered them up. And the Gibeonites were satisfied, because an atonement had been made. And so beloved, God's beloved son comes down from the glory and becomes a man, and goes to Calvary's cross, and there offers up himself without spot to God, and fully meets all the claims of a holy God as to the question of sin. That sinners might be saved, and that we might be able to come to God, having the whole question of sin, realizing that that whole question of sin was settled when the Lord Jesus offered up himself on the cross. That work was finished. And now God is offering a full and free salvation. Salvation to everyone who comes in recognition of his need. And we must stress that, that it's coming in recognition of one's need. You know, there's a great many people think that the gospel is just a question of giving a mental assent to the truth of what the Lord Jesus did. But it's much more than that. It is because a man recognizes, or a woman, because a person recognizes that he's a sinner, or that she's a sinner. That's why scripture stresses repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There must be the recognition of need. It's not just giving a mental assent and saying, oh yes, I believe that Jesus died on the cross. The devils believe and tremble. They don't get anything out of it. James says, thou believest as one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. They believe there's one God. It's because I'm a lost sinner. Because I know I'm a lost sinner. I'm a lost sinner on the road to hell. Lost and undone. And then I see that there was one who died for me, and that there's hope for me, because the Lord Jesus made the atonement. He met the claims of God. He fully satisfied God. Suppose there had been one other of Saul's sons after this. Scripture doesn't tell us if there were. But supposing there had been one that had come along after this atonement had been made. Would the Gibeonites have asked for him, too? No. They said seven. They said, we want seven. And there had been one more. He would not have been hanged because the atonement had been made, and he would have gone free. And Mephibosheth, he went free because as far as he was concerned, God's grace had already come in. That's why David spared him. David had made a promise to him. David had pardoned him for Jonathan's sake. And so God has pardoned us for the sake of his beloved son. They, the kings, spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan. Then it says in verse 9, he delivered them up to the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them there in the hill before the Lord. And they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest. In the first days of the beginning of barley harvest. Now, we notice two things here. One is, we have the number seven. You know, in Scripture, there's a great deal of instruction in numbers. I don't think it's good for us to get over-occupied with numbers. Some people have become so over-occupied with the numerical structure of Scripture that they have failed to see the spiritual beauties in it. But up to a point, there's a great deal of instruction in the numerics of Scripture. And as anyone who has read F. W. Grant's numerical Bible will see that there's a wealth of instruction there. And a great deal of blessing has come out of it. And seven is one of the cardinal numbers of Scripture. It's the perfect number. We have seven days in the week. And that can't be improved on. I understand that during the French Revolution, they were going to decimalize everything. Well, we know that the decimal system has a great deal in its favor in money and things like that. And it's very good. It makes it much easier reckoning. But they weren't able to decimalize the week. They tried to bring in a week of ten days. Ten days in the week. They had to go back to seven days in the week. God established the week of seven days in the first chapter of Genesis. And man cannot improve on it. And it has been proved that to work six days and then have one day of rest from that work and then go back to the work again, that that's the perfect cycle to maintain good health. I remember during the First World War, they started making people work seven days a week. And they say for a little while, this was the munitions, for a little while, the output increased. And then the output started to decrease. Why? Because the people weren't doing their best. Man is made that he cannot keep on working seven days a week, except only for a short period. God has established. Six days shut down labor and do all my work and the Sabbath days is the rest for the Lord in Israel. And we have the same principle, even though we know that we don't have the seventh, but the first day and the first day is connected with our Christian position at the beginning of the week as the Sabbath day was at the end of the week for Israel. But the principle of one in seven still exists for us in the New Testament. We have six days in which to attend to our affairs and one day in which we should especially give to the Lord. And the very fact that we come to meetings and we're occupied with the Lord's things and we're giving the Lord his portion, the Lord is pleased with that. And what's more than that, beloved, we're having a complete change from our regular occupation. And that in itself is healthy for our bodies as well as being a great spiritual blessing. It's one of the things that helps to keep us in good health. And I believe the Lord sees to it that it is so. Man cannot improve on what God has established. And so God established the number seven. And we find that it's a number that speaks of perfection. And so there were seven of these that were given. Saul's sons handed over to the Gibeonites. And it speaks to us, as we look at the type, it speaks to us of the fact that the work of the Lord Jesus Christ was a perfect work. You remember that on the Day of Atonement the blood had to be sprinkled once on the mercy seat and seven times before the mercy seat. Once someone has said, once on the mercy seat for the eye of God, seven times before the mercy seat for the high priest to see it, for us to see it. Seven times for the perfect standing of the high priest before God. So it speaks of perfection again. The perfect work of Christ, fully satisfied. This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down at the right hand of God, for henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. Christ has done a perfect work and nothing can be added to it. All we have to do is to see our need and accept that work. Then another thing that we notice here was that at the time they were put together it says it was the beginning of barley harvest. But there was a famine in the land. How come there was a barley harvest when there was a famine in the land? Well, it lets us see that the moment that God is obeyed and there's a recognition of how he has been dishonored, he begins to give the harvest. The famine, I believe, was over from the moment that David got exercised about it and sought the means of remedying this. And I suppose it took some time from the time that David made this decision until these men were actually hanged there before the Lord. And right at that time, there's the beginning of the harvest. And the barley harvest in Israel came first and then the wheat harvest came after. And you could imagine that after the barley harvest, there would be the wheat harvest. That is, God came in for blessing. God's claims had been met because it wasn't only the question of meeting the claims of the Gibeonites. It was the question of meeting the claims of God. God was speaking to them. God was not pleased with what had been done. They had made a promise to God that hadn't been fulfilled. And so God held them responsible for it. Here's the days of barley harvest when this happened. Now there's another thought here. We have the action of this Rispa. Very lovely. What a grief this must have been to her, poor woman. And these carcasses are left there. Apparently they're hung up on the tree and left there. And all this time. And she won't let the birds come near. The carrion birds come near. And she takes an interest in this. It shows what grief there must have been. David's told about it. And he sends and gets these bones of these seven men. And he also takes the bones of Saul and Jonathan that had been killed all these years before. And brought them, it says, in verse 14, and the bones of Saul and Jonathan, his son, buried they with them. If you have the new translation you'll notice it says, with them. In the country of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish's father. And they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was entreated for the land. So even though the barley harvest has come, it's just, we might say, the beginning of the promise. But God is not fully entreated for the land until everything that speaks of Saul, the man after the flesh, is put out of sight. Here's the bones of these men still hanging there on the tree where they were hanged. And here's the bones of Saul and Jonathan have not been properly taken care of. So David gathers them all up. And he buries them. They're put out of sight. What speaks of the first man has been put out of sight. And then God's entreated for the land. And beloved, this is a further lesson that we learn, I believe, after we are converted. When we are converted, when we come to know the Lord Jesus as our Saviour, the thing that we learn about is that we were sinners. We committed sins. And because of the sins that we committed, God has to bring judgment upon the human race. And we learn that the Lord Jesus died for our sins. And he shed his precious blood to wash our sins away. Then we have to learn something else. After we are saved, we learn that not only has God forgiven us our sins, but we learn that God has condemned this evil nature. And we still have an evil nature. And because we are saved, we don't lose this evil nature. It's with us to the end of the journey until the Lord takes us to be with himself. But he does show us how we can overcome it. And we have that brought out in the 6th of Romans where it says, Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And we learn the lesson that our standing in Adam was ended at the cross. That not only did the Lord die for our sins, but in him God judged sin as a principle. He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. They saw the end of Saul. Everything that spoke of Saul was put away. It was buried. And all that was left of Saul's house, as we said before, was the family of Mephibosheth. And they were only there on the ground of pure grace. So it wasn't the old Saul. God saw the end of Adam's race in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God's judgment is eventually going to be poured out upon it. And the only ones who are going to escape it are those who by grace have been saved and have come to the Lord Jesus. And every poor lost sinner who owns his or her need of a saviour and takes the Lord Jesus will be those that will be found in the glory with the Lord. Not now connected with the old Adam, but connected with the second Adam. The first man is of the earth earthy, the second man is the Lord from heaven. We are now not linked up with the old Adam. We are, we still have a link with Adam, the first Adam according to the flesh. But when we receive our glorified bodies we'll have our final link with the first man severed. And even now it's our privilege to reckon that we're dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And to recognize that God has linked us up with the second man, his beloved son. The atonement has been made. God has been satisfied. May we know what it is to have the Lord Jesus as our saviour. To know the value of the atonement for the forgiveness of our sins. And to know what it is to see too that God has seen the end of the flesh in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his death on the cross. And then it says the Lord was entreated for the land. That's when we really begin to experience true blessing and make progress in our Christian life. Let us close with prayer. And we pray that we thy children may know more of what it is to see ourselves linked up now with the second man. And that we see that the cross was the end of the first man in thy sight. We just commit us now to thee as we thank thee for another day that thou hast given us. Pray for those not with us tonight. Some our God have not been able to come. Some who are with us this afternoon because of family not with us. We commit each one into thy loving care. We do pray for each family represented. And we think especially of those that need our prayers in a special way. We commit them each one to thee. We commit us now to thee as we give thanks in the precious and worthy name of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. …

… Let us turn to the first book of Chronicles, 1st Chronicles 12. Now these be they that came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish. And they were among the mighty men, helpers of the war. They were armed with bows and could use both the right hand and the left, in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow, even of Saul's brethren of Benjamin. Now verse 8, And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David into the halls of the wilderness, men of might, and men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the rose upon the mountains. Verse 14, These were the sons of Gad, captains of the host. One of the least was over a hundred, and the greatest over a thousand. These are they that went over Jordan in the first month, when it had overflowed all his banks. And they put to flight all them of the valleys, both toward the east and toward the west. And there came of the children of Benjamin and Judah to the hall to David. And David went out to meet them, and answered and said unto them, If ye become peaceably unto me to help me, mine heart shall be knit unto you. But if ye come to betray me to mine enemies, seeing there is no wrong in mine hands, the God of our fathers look thereon and rebuke it. Then the Spirit came upon Amassii, who was chief of the captains, and he said, Thine are we, David, and on thy side thou, son of Jesse. Peace be unto thee, and peace be to thine helpers, for thy God helpeth thee. Then David received them, and made them captains of the band. And we may read a little more as we go on. In this chapter we have two different times mentioned. We have in the beginning these who came to David to Ziklag. Then we have in the 23rd verse those who came to David to Hebron. Now the second that took place quite a few years after I take it, is in the first. When David is in Ziklag, Saul is on the throne, and David is persecuted. And there he is in Ziklag. When the second thing takes place, Saul has been slain by the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, and David is now recognized as the king. But the whole nation, as it were, has not yet recognized him. But he is going to take his place, and he starts to reign in Hebron. And later on he reigns in Jerusalem. I see a sister reminding me I'm not speaking loud enough, so I'll have to try to speak a little louder. Excuse me. If anybody doesn't hear, just put your hand up. We have the thought before us of the Lord's coming, and I believe that we should never have before us the thought of the Lord's coming, just merely as it were, to hold the truth of the Lord's coming as a doctrine that we hold in our minds. We could do that, and without it having an effect on our lives, then it would just be that we give a mental assent to the thought of the Lord's coming, and I don't think that's what the Lord wants. I believe, brethren, that if the thought of the Lord's coming means anything to us, it means that it's going to have an effect on our lives, that we're going to be living like those that were looking for the Lord's coming. I'll never forget when I was a young man that in our town there was an old brother, I believe he was a brother in the Lord, and every time you met him and spoke to him, he'd turn his eyes upwards and, oh, he was just waiting for the Lord to come, and I thought, well, what a godly old man that is. Every time you meet him, he's just talking about the Lord's coming, but someone told me afterwards that he didn't get along with his wife, and that he and his wife were always having quarrels with one another. Well, it took the edge off it, you know, that he was really looking for the Lord's coming. The thought of the Lord's coming apparently was not having such a practical effect on his life that he was able to get along with others that he should have got along with, he should have been able to get along with his wife, at least, I think. You see, this comes down to something very practical, and I believe we have a little picture of that here. We're in the twelfth chapter of 1 Chronicles. We have David, he's really the rightful king. The Lord rejected Saul, Saul, it seems, never got into the Lord's presence. The most remarkable thing is that the very day that Saul is anointed king, he's told by Samuel that he's to wait a certain time, and that he would meet some men who were going up to God to battle. Well, it turned out to be that. But if they were going up to God to battle and Saul met them, what was Saul doing? He was going away from God from battle, and battle means the house of God. And as we trace Saul's life, as a brother who wrote a book on the life of Saul said once, he titled the book, King Saul, The Man After The Flesh, Saul represents the best that man can produce. He was a head and shoulders above the others, he was the man of the people's choice, but he was not the man of God's choice. He represents man acting in the flesh, but man not acting for God. God rejected him, and he sends Samuel to anoint David to be king. And David is so little thought of, even in his own family, that he's out looking after the sheep, and his father doesn't even call him in to the feast that they're having when Saul came. Of course, Jesse, David's son, didn't know what Samuel had come for. He thought he'd just come to offer a sacrifice, and he did that because if he'd said openly he was going to anoint a king, Saul perhaps would have made it difficult for him. So he goes there to offer a sacrifice, but the real reason for the visit was to anoint a king from one of Jesse's sons. And Samuel has them all pass before him, and the Lord rejects them all. So he has to turn around to Jesse and say, well, are all your children here? Well, he says, the youngest is out there keeping the sheep. Well, you send and bring him in. And as soon as David came in, the Lord said to Samuel, arise, anoint him, for this is he. Saul, the man that the people thought such a lot of, he's not God's man. The shepherd boy that nobody thinks anything of, he's the one that's to be God's man. And David eventually, it eventually becomes very clear that David is to be the king. It becomes clear to Saul, and it was very clear to Jonathan, I believe, from the very moment that David slew Goliath, Jonathan realized this is the one who has the right to be king and not me, because Jonathan was the one who would have been king after Saul if things had continued in the ordinary course of events. And that's when Jonathan strips himself of his bow and his girdle and everything he gives him to David. So Jonathan says, this robe doesn't belong to me, David, it belongs to you. You're the one that has the right to be the king. You should wear the insignia of the king's firstborn. This sword and this bow and this girdle, what good are they to me? You're the one that got the victory over the Philistines, my father should have won the victory, and after him I should have won it, and none of us could, and you got the victory, you're the king. I believe that's what Saul's action signified, and the heart of Jonathan, I mean Jonathan's action, and the heart of Jonathan was knit to the heart of David. The sad thing is that Jonathan didn't go all the way. He was faithful to David, but he wouldn't share his trials out in the cave and in the woods, and so he perished on Mount Gilboa with his father. But here we have those who, when David is being persecuted by Saul, and he's there in Ziklag, and he's dwelling under difficulties, there were loyal men who stood by David. You know, it's one thing to be loyal when everything's going outwardly well. It's another thing to be loyal when circumstances are against us. And the Lord looks, beloved, for us to be loyal to him in the day of his rejection. This is the day of Christ's rejection, and this is the day when if we're loyal to Christ, we have to share his reproach in some measure or other. We don't know a great deal about it in a country like we live in, but it's there all the same, and people will let us know, sooner or later, if we are faithful to Christ, that they don't want to have anything to do with him. And so we have to share his reproach. Now I think we have a few lessons here in the attitude of these men who were loyal to David in his rejection. They came to David, it says, to Ziklag, while he had kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish. And they were among the mighty men, helpers in the war. They were armed with bows and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow. Even of Saul's brethren of Benjamin. That's a wonderful statement, isn't it? There are several things here. First of all, the last statement says, they were Saul's brethren. Saul was the king, Saul was persecuting David, Saul was hunting David. And yet of Saul's brethren out of Benjamin, there were a number there who recognized David as God's man. They recognized David as the true king, and they were loyal to David. And it's not as if they were nobodies. They were fighting men. They were no doubt the best men in Saul's army. It says they could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow. And you know, you don't get to do things like that without practice. We know today when we use rifles and guns that if you want to hit the target with a rifle, you've got to practice it. When I was a young fellow and we had to have shooting practice, we had to go out certain half days a week when I was a young fellow, and we had to learn to shoot the bullseye with a rifle. And that takes practice. You have to learn how to do it. And for these men to learn to sling stones with the right hand or with the left. And if you're right-handed, it's not an easy thing to learn to sling things with your left hand. They practiced, and they were using all the ability that they had, they were willing to dedicate it to David, because they recognized that David was God's man. What a lesson for us, to use what the Lord has given us for him. God has given us all something to do, given us all some ability, some in some way and some in another. How important, beloved, that we should dedicate what we have to the Lord. And it mentions their names. I'm not going to go into all the names, but that's another thing, their names are mentioned in scripture. And we can take, we can be sure that if we're seeking to be faithful to the Lord, the Lord doesn't forget our names. Then it goes on and says further down, in verse 8, that the Gadites separated themselves unto David of the Gadites, that's of the tribe of Gad, into the hold in the wilderness, men of might, men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler. He was also some good warriors, out of the tribe of Gad. They said, well, we can see that Saul's not the rightful king, he's not God's man. David is. We'll be faithful to David. And it says they were men of might and men of war fit for the battle. They say, well, why is it talking in the Bible so much about battles? Well, in the Old Testament, they were real literal battles. We are not fighting literal battles, in that sense. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but we have a battle. And the Christian life is a warfare. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, though, the apostle Paul says in writing to the Ephesians, but against principalities, against powers, against wicked spirits in the heavenly places. We're told that we're to resist the devil and he'll flee from us. We have, as we've been reminded in our Sunday morning Bible study, the enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. We're in the enemy's land, and it's a warfare. These were men of war, and the Lord looks for us to be men of war in that sense. Their faces were like the faces of lions. What does it mean when it says their faces were like the faces of lions? You know, the lion has a fearless face. If you see a picture of a lion and you look at that, you can see the lion doesn't turn back for anybody. The lion is the animal that's unafraid. He doesn't turn back. When these men were the faces of lions, it meant that they weren't going to turn back, and we shouldn't be those who turn back. Someone has said a Christian might get pushed back, but he should never turn back, and a real Christian never does. The enemy might push us back, but you know, when the Lord gives the armor in the last chapter of Ephesians, there's no armor for the back. All the armor's for the front. There's no armor for the back. A true believer is never in Scripture looked at as turning his back to the enemy. If he gets pushed back, he faces the enemy, and he's eventually able to rout the enemy with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. God doesn't give us armor for the back, and that's how we have to face the enemy. Our faces must be as the faces of lions. We should not be afraid. David could say, I will trust and not be afraid. I've no doubt there were times when David was afraid, but he trusted the Lord, and the Lord enabled him to go forward and took his fear away. There are times when we are afraid, when we are fearful. What do we do then? Well, we put it in the Lord's hands. We do what the Apostle Paul says in writing to the Philippians, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall garrison your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And then it says, they were swift as the rose upon the mountains. You know the rose, that's the deer on the mountains, how swift it is. It just seems to hop from one point to another, and it's very, very swift. And so they not only had the faces of lions, they were bold and unafraid. They were swift, and the Lord looks for those whose feet are swift, that our feet are swift to run the Lord's messages and to do his service. Then it mentions their names, too. See, they are recorded in scripture. Then we have the sons of Gad, and they were captains of the host. You know, everybody is not a captain. There were those in those days who were captains of the host. They were, one of the least was over a hundred, and the greatest over a thousand. But it's a big responsibility to be a captain in an army. Even to be captain of a hundred, no doubt, would be a big responsibility. To be captain over a thousand would be a very great responsibility. Maybe we'd hardly say that was a captain today. That would almost be like a lieutenant general or something like that, had a big responsibility. But even in the Lord's things, there are those whom the Lord calls to have places of responsibility. And so we have to serve under the one who is our captain, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, each one has a work to do according to his ability. These were faithful men. And it tells us about them something rather interesting in verse 15. It says, they went over Jordan in the first month, where it had overflown all his banks, and they put to flight all them of the valleys both toward the east and toward the west. That is, they were willing to do something difficult. From what we read and the pictures we've seen of the Jordan River, it's not a very big river. The Jordan is a rather small river. We know how that Naaman really despised it. He says, aren't Abana and Farpa, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? That little bit of a creek, he says, aren't the rivers in my country better than that? And anyhow, he finally ate humble pie and went down and bathed himself in the Jordan as the prophet had told him to do, and received the blessings through it. But I understand that when the Jordan overflows its banks, it's a little difficult to get over, because it fills up and flows right over on either side. And it would be an easy thing to cross over the Jordan River at the time when the river's low. But to go across the river when it's in flood and a raging torrent, it would be a rather dangerous thing to do. If any of you have anything to do with seeing rivers in flood, flowing their banks and water rushing along, it's very, very dangerous. Because not only is the danger in a swift current, but these rivers, when they're in flood, they usually carry down trunks of trees and all kinds of things with them. And it's really very dangerous. So these men, because of their faithfulness to David, were willing to do dangerous things. They were willing to risk their lives, because a battle had to be fought. They had to go across, it says, and fight those that were in the valleys, both toward the east and toward the west. And the Lord used them. They went across. They risked their lives in difficult times. They weren't just dry-weather Christians. They were rainy day. They would be a picture, we might say, of rainy day Christians as well, as those who are willing to stand for the Lord when the difficult times come. So it is, beloved. We have, in our Christian life, times when things go along smoothly. We have times when things are not going smoothly. But if the Lord is really occupying the place in our hearts that he should, he'll give us the grace to serve him no matter what the circumstances. Then we have those who came to David. It says, the children of Benjamin and the children of Judah. Perhaps a lot of them came. And David goes out to meet them. And he says, now, if you've come peaceably, that's all right. But if you've come to betray me to my enemies, the Lord will look upon it, because I haven't done anything wrong to Saul. I'm innocent of the things he charges me of, and that was true. David is not speaking self-righteously here. He's speaking the truth. He was being chased around by Saul for no reason. Saul should have recognized that he was God's anointed king, and he wouldn't recognize it. He was too proud to own it. And so David says, if you've come to betray me to my enemies, the Lord will see to that. No, they weren't going to do that. They were loyal to David. And Amaziah says, who's the chief of the captains, he says, thine we are, David. And on thy side, thou son of Jesse, peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thy helpers. For thy God helpeth thee. Then David received them and made them captains of the band. That was a lovely statement. Thine we are, David. We are yours, David, they said. And we're going to stand for you, and may the Lord give you peace. And David was so pleased that they received their reward. David made them captains. And you know, we have, if we had time to go into it, it's very interesting, we have David's mighty men listed twice in the scriptures. And the list of mighty men that David recognized, these men who were faithful to him in his rejection. And when he became king, he didn't forget them. And beloved, if we as the Lord's people are faithful to him in his rejection, the Lord won't forget it in the day when he's reigning. May we seek to be faithful. Now, I want to say a little bit more. It mentions further down there in verse 23, about those who came to David when they came to make him king in Hebrew. After Saul is dead, they came to David in Hebrew. And it gives a great list of all these men. And I don't want to go into all this, but it mentions them, different ones. But I want to refer to just two or three. In the 32nd verse it says, And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do. The heads of them were two hundred, and all their brethren were at their commandment. Now here we have the children of Issachar. They came to make David king in Hebrew. But it says, they were men who had understanding of the times. To know what Israel ought to do. Now, at that time it meant this. They were men of spiritual discernment. And they discerned that the time had come in God's plan for David to take the throne. God had allowed Saul to be killed. In his overruling providence, Saul had died on Mount Gilboa. And it tells us in, I think it's the 10th chapter of this same book, that Saul died because he consulted the woman that had a familiar spirit. Saul meddled in spiritism. And that was the end of God's patience with him. And it distinctly says he died because he consulted the woman that had a familiar spirit. Very, very solemn. And these men of Issachar, they had understanding, they discerned the signs of the times, the day that they live in. And beloved, this is something that should be true of us. We should have understanding of the times. We should discern the day in which we live. And I believe if we read the scriptures and we attend to the things of God as we should, the Lord will give us understanding of the times. We as Christians should realize that we live in a very, very important day. We live at the very close of the present period of God's grace. Very soon the day of God's grace is going to close. The Lord Jesus is coming again as we were singing in our hymns. And he's coming again to take his own to be with himself. And who is he going to take to be with himself? Every blood-bought redeemed one. Everyone who's saved through faith in the blood of Christ. And as a consequence has received the Spirit of God, will be caught up to be with the Lord in the air. We're getting very near that day. Therefore, we should keep ourselves separated from the entanglements of the world and we should live for Christ. We should be looking for him. The men of Issachar had understanding of the times. May the Lord give us an enablement to have understanding of the day in which we live and to discern what the Lord would have us to do in seeking to be faithful to him and attest to those around us. I'm sure there are many souls around us that don't know where to turn and they just want someone to say something to them. It's true that there are a great many that are completely indifferent and they're determined to go their own way and just live their lives for the world, the flesh and the devil and leave God out. It's sad to say there are many like that. But there are still souls seeking souls. And we have the truth. I don't say that boastfully. I mean that we have the truth of God and God has revealed much to us and we can be a help to these dear souls. And so if we have understanding of the times, the Lord will give us wisdom to know what to say to them. Then it says something else which I think is important that goes along with it. It says their brethren were at their commandment. They had an understanding of the times and they had the confidence of their brethren and their brethren were willing to do what they said. And that's important. We should have the confidence of our brethren. And this fits in with what it says of the men of Zebulun. It says in verse 33, Of Zebulun, such as went forth to battle, expert in war, with all instruments of war, fifty thousand which could keep rank. They were not of double half. We've heard the story about the lady who is watching the troops marching by and her son John is in the troop, is marching along with them. Why? She says, John is the only one that's in step. Well, you know, these men of Zebulun weren't like that. It says they could keep rank. They could keep step with their brethren. It's a terrible thing, you know, to get out of step with your brethren. And that happens sometimes among the Lord's people. We get out of step with one another. We're not marching together. You know, it's very, very lovely to see some soldiers marching along and they're all in step. They're marching along together. Well, the Lord wants to see his army marching all in step, keeping rank, not breaking rank. And only the Lord can give us grace to do that. You know, it's a wonderful thing when there's a company of Christians and there's harmony. The Lord so works in our hearts that we're in a spirit of harmony. The Holy Spirit can work. God can use us. And there's nothing so sad as to have a group of Christians, an assembly of the Lord's people, where there's disharmony. And you feel when you come in, there's something wrong here. And I believe the outsiders feel. People coming from outside, they very quickly discern if we have a spirit of harmony among us or not. And that is a wonderful testimony when there's a group of Christians who are harmonious. They're not only an individual. Each one is not only a testimony individually, but the company is a collective testimony. And so these men of Zebulun can set us a lesson in that. They could keep rank. And they were not of double heart. That's why they could keep rank. They had a single heart. Their heart was set on David. They thought, we're here to serve David. We want to be good soldiers for David. We want to do the will of David. And of course, no doubt, they recognized that David was under God and they were doing God's will. But with us, we don't have any man on earth that we could do the will of. But for us it is, we should be those who want to do the will of our blessed Lord and to do what pleases Him and to work together for Him and to keep rank, not to be out of step or thinking that we are the only ones that are in step because when people get out of step, you know, that's what they think. They think everyone else is out of step when they're out of step themselves. And so we have a wonderful lesson in the men of Zebulun who could keep rank and were not of double heart. And of all these men, it says again in verse 38 of others from the Jordan, Reubenites and Gadites and the half of Manasseh in verse 37, all these men of war that could keep rank, mentions again, those who could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron to make David king over all Israel and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king. They came with one heart. They could keep rank. David was to be king, David was the king and they were going to make him king. You know, we sing of him sometimes, this king of my heart, I crown thee now. The Lord has the first place in our heart. Everything else will fall in its place. The reason why so many things go wrong sometimes among us is because the Lord doesn't have the first place. If we give the Lord the first place, beloved, everything else falls in place. Well, just a few thoughts from the history of these men of David. And then they were with David three days eating and drinking and then it mentions to close, there were those of Issachar, Zebulun and Naphtali in verse 40 brought bread on asses and on camels and on mules and on oxen and meat and meal and cakes of figs and bunches of raisins, wine and oil and oxen and cheap abundantly for there was joy in Israel. They didn't forget the people had to eat. And so they brought, they willingly brought the food. There's no question of how much they were going to be paid for it. No, they brought it willingly because they wanted to make David king. And so they were provided with what they needed. And the Lord will enable us, if we're faithful, to bring the spiritual food that God can use for blessing to his people and to those around him. …