FBC Morning Light – May 13, 2023

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:15

Good Saturday morning, people of faith. We're in 1 Samuel, and we're going to be looking at chapters 27 through 30 today.

00:24

Last week, we talked about Saul and his descent as a king, and we're going to look a little bit at that, and we're also going to look today at how

00:36

David had a similar descent. And it starts in chapter 27, verse 1.

00:43

And David said in his heart, Now I shall perish some day by the hand of Saul.

00:49

There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines, and Saul will despair of me, to seek me any more in any part of Israel.

01:01

So I shall escape out of his hand. All right, so back story here,

01:07

Saul has been pursuing David all throughout the land. And so here,

01:13

David kind of throws up his hands in frustration, despair, and decides to leave the promised land.

01:21

So you should ask yourself a question, if David is the anointed king, should he be leaving the promised land?

01:28

And I believe the answer to that would be no, he should not. However, the

01:34

Lord is going to use this situation in a mighty way. So David is now in a situation where he's likely not walking very close with the

01:47

Lord, walking in known sin. In chapter 28, Saul, after the death of Samuel, is seeing the pressures and the stresses around him with the

02:00

Philistines, and Saul, it kind of to the bottom of the barrel of his descent into darkness, he consults a medium.

02:12

He had at one point banned the practice throughout the land, and it was punishable by death.

02:19

And here he is going to a medium, and where he finds out that he will be dying very shortly.

02:29

Chapter 29, chapter 29, David continues this, he has been going on these raids throughout the area, and not raiding the

02:43

Israelites, but raiding other peoples, and kind of making it look like he was raiding the

02:49

Israelites and reporting back to Achish, the leader of the Philistines in his area.

02:55

And so in chapter 29, the

03:01

Philistines are gathering together to attack the Israelites, or the

03:07

Hebrews. And well, David gets in line to go on the attack, and it says, and the lords of the

03:17

Philistines passed in review by hundreds and by thousands, but David and his men passed in review at the rear with Achish.

03:27

That's in verse 2 of chapter 29, says, then the princes of the Philistines said, what are these

03:34

Hebrews doing here? I mean, if you could think about it, you have your, the people you're going to attack are going to be in front of you, and you're going to put a band of the people you're going to attack at your rear, so they can cut you down from behind.

03:50

That's not good thinking. Achish tries to defend David, saying, hey, he's been right there with me ever since he defected from Saul, so David is in not a good situation.

04:07

And he goes out on another raid, and he comes back to the place where they were staying in Ziklag in chapter 30.

04:15

And it says, now when it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day that the

04:23

Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag, and burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great, they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way.

04:40

So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire, and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive.

04:48

Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep.

04:57

And David's two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the widow of Nabal, the

05:03

Carmelite, had been taken captive. And now for kind of the key verses, this is actually one of my favorite verses in all of the

05:13

Bible, it's verse six. Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters.

05:30

But David strengthened himself in the

05:35

Lord his God. Now, David had been, had left the place he was supposed to be.

05:45

He had been deceiving the people and serving the archenemy of the people.

05:52

And here he is, in a moment of distress, the Lord has brought upon him, he immediately turns back to the

06:01

Lord. And that is a valuable lesson for all of us.

06:06

First of all, that no matter how far gone you are, you can't say that the

06:13

Spirit of God cannot work in you, as long as you have breath. And when the

06:18

Lord does call you back in repentance, by all means, repent, repent.

06:25

Now, the story continues, David does go out and he and his men are able to rescue his

06:36

And so there is the happy ending in that regard. But let me encourage you with this.

06:44

There was a book written by Jonathan Edwards when he was a very young man. And it's called

06:51

Resolutions. And it's all of these times where he says, I'm resolved to.

06:57

And I'm going to read to you the third one. It's just a sentence long.

07:02

It says, Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these resolutions, to repent of all

07:16

I can remember when I come to myself again. Do you get the picture of that's just kind of what happened with David?

07:25

He's living in such a way that is not pleasing to God.

07:31

And this awful circumstance happens. And immediately, it's like his eyes are opened.

07:37

This is what I need to do. I need to strengthen myself in the Lord. And he repents.

07:43

Isn't that the way we should be? And let it be so that we can commit just like Jonathan Edwards did several hundred years ago.

07:53

That when the Lord reveals to us where we have become dull or have walked away or not doing what we need to do, that we would quickly repent and like David, find our strength in the

08:12

Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word.

08:19

Thank you for the example of David. Thank you for the encouragement of Jonathan Edwards.

08:25

May we apply these truths to our lives moment by moment and day by day.

08:30

Help us to be faithful in our walk to you, knowing that it's only in you that we have the strength to walk with you.

08:38

It's in your son's name, Jesus, we pray. Amen. Have an excellent day, people of faith.