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Sermon by Josh Rice from 1 Samuel 29.
Proverbs 21 .1 says the king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of Yahweh. He turns it wherever he pleases. Do you believe that? Because as I look out in the world, I wonder how many of us believe that.
We sit on the on the precipice of an election in America, and I think what we've done is as we've fallen and swirled down into decay further and further, we have put all our chips on the king of the land, and we still call it a president.
But we know that with this king, he brings in or she brings in courtiers and wise men and magicians and all sorts of three-letter bureaucrats, and they chart the course of the country. And yet we sit and we go on.
And in Christendom, all we hear is a bunch of competing fighting over the scraps from the king's table. It's not supposed to be that way. And so I've titled this message this morning, Be Poised to Strike.
And the reason I've called it Be Poised to Strike is because I think that's what David is doing in this chapter. And I think what we see is the epitome of David's dangerousness in this chapter. He is a very, very dangerous man indeed.
And the king of the Philistines, in all of his wickedness and all of his pagan worship and maybe some syncretism thrown into it, does not see the danger that lurks right under his nose because his life is being held in the balance as he brings in this man to be his bodyguard for life.
He brings him in as a trophy on the wall to see, look, you puny King Saul. I've taken your great general, and he's mine now. What do you think about that? And all the while, David sits and plans and waits.
And we in the church, in my life, have done none of that. We have sat and done nothing and become drunk on wealth and ease and let politics be a thing for the dirty heathens out there. We don't stain our pulpits with politics because who would want power?
My kingdom's not of this world. So on, so forth, blah, blah, blah. And we wonder why the Republican Party has abandoned the pro-life position on abortion while all the while pastors get up endlessly, week after week, and say, we can't touch that here.
This is a pulpit of Christ. We have nothing to do with the law or politics. And then we wonder, how in the world could they betray us this way? We had no voice. We didn't talk. We were afraid, and we lost.
And now we have scraps. And the good news is this. The good news is, unlike Israel, who trusted in a man who was a head taller than everyone else, who looked handsome, who looked the part of a king, we know that time and time again what God does is he honors what looks dishonorable.
It's the small, weak-looking men, the boys, who God raises up because they carry the glory of God's truth in them and they carry faith that God has put there. And we have the faith of the gospel in our hearts.
And God uses the weakness of man to shame the wise and to topple down the glory and the power of the kings of this world. That's how it happens over and over again. Can the smallest person change the course of the future?
Well, yes and no. Because it is the small person that God chooses to use over and over again. But it's the greatest king of all who actually orders everything. And that's what I hope that we'll see this morning.
So we start. And I'm going to pick it up, pick up the story in verses 3 through 5 in 1 Samuel 29. The word of the Lord says,. Then the commanders of the Philistines said, What are these Hebrews doing here?
And Achish said to the commanders of the Philistines, Is this not David, the servant of Saul, the king of Israel, who has been with me these days, or rather these years? And I have found no fault in him from the day he deserted to me to this day.
But the commanders of the Philistines were angry with him. And the commanders of the Philistines said to him, Make the man return, that he may return to his place where you have assigned him. And do not let him go down to battle with us, or in the battle he may become an adversary to us.
For with what could this man make himself acceptable to his Lord? Would it not be with the heads of these men? Is this not David, of whom they sing in the dances, saying, Saul has struck his thousands, and David his ten thousands?
Man, Achish, I hate to say it. Achish, the Philistine king, he really stands in as a proxy. And the Old Testament is full of types and shadows, right? Sometimes they're not perfect, but we can see pieces and we can see what's going on.
And Achish to me in this chapter just screams out the fat, lazy Christian of America. He doesn't see anything that's going on around him. He is so blinded by the gifts that David has given him from lands that he never told him to plunder.
Because if you remember back to 27, before we went into the darkness last week, David was going out and he was killing all of the enemies of God from the old days. And he was leaving none alive so that there was no report.
And then he was going back and telling Achish, Oh yeah, I've been raiding Judah. I've been killing all the Israelites. And he's just flooding Achish in riches, bringing him spoils. And it makes Achish fat and blind.
But see, death and life is on the line when we get to chapter 29 because the battle is about to happen. And what Achish's men see in their wisdom is they see there is trouble brewing in the camp right now.
Because Achish, do you not remember? Do you not remember back in chapter 14 when the Israelites who were among us sprung up from among us and started killing us? Have you forgotten who this is that you have?
This man has not killed his thousands. He's killed his ten thousands. Are you insane, Achish? What are you doing? Are you really going to play footsie with the enemy here and bring him in right amidst, even next to you?
What do you think he's going to do? And Achish is like, he's been great to me for years. You have no idea how many sheep he's brought me. He has made me rich for years. For years, he's been faithful. And, and don't miss this.
What do you think Saul's going to think? I've got his man. He's right here with me. And David, I believe the whole time is thinking, yeah, you just wait till the battle starts. You want me right by your side, Achish.
Right where I want to be, right? The Philistine commanders are much more shrewd than Achish because they remember their history. And they don't trust this man who's in the midst of their camp, who's been a little sketchy.
There had to have been rumors from the plains, right? There had to have been rumors from Shur that villages are disappearing, right? And wouldn't you think that King Saul might've sent a parley or an excursion when towns were just being destroyed and livestock being led back to Gath to give to Achish.
But see, Achish doesn't care because he's comfortable. It's all good. And what he wants to do is proverbially, he thinks he's in the end zone and he wants to spike the ball and show Saul, hey, I've utterly demoralized you.
And we have echoes of this back several chapters ago with Nahash, right? Nahash, there we go. I almost messed it up. Remember Nahash, for Nahash, it was not good enough to just beat Israel. He had to demoralize them.
He had to shame them. And his hubris leads to his utter destruction. So it is again with Achish in this chapter. He's totally blind. And you have to look at the clues. Because listen, I'm out here kind of alone with this take.
I'll tell you. But I think as we've been reading through the scripture and we've seen what's going on here, I think there's a real clue that David is sitting here poised to strike. And that's because of the retelling of the song.
Because I think the generals are getting desperate because Achish is pushing back. He's the king. No, I'm gonna have him. This is gonna be great. We're gonna totally demoralize them. They'll never regroup again.
In fact, maybe David will just be my proxy king, right? He'll be my little vassal king over in Israel. And we'll put him there and he's my man for life. So we'll just take him over just like all the later empires learn later.
We'll just assimilate them. Israel will become the Philistines. Whoa, that could be a dream. Wouldn't that be great? Great Achish, the conqueror of Yahweh. Because make no mistake, that's what this is about.
And that's what it's always been about in 1 Samuel. Will you have a king like the other nations? Or is Yahweh your king? And he has his prince. Over and over we see it. And so his men plead with him. Do you not remember who this is?
David killed his 10 ,000s. Do you not know who those 10 ,000s were? That was us, Achish. We were the 10 ,000s. Do you think he's gonna cut us down? Yeah, I think he is. I think that's what he's gonna do.
And they really rebel. And Achish is made to listen because what he's gonna have is a splintering. And in the back of all this, with all these logical things, right? We can make sense of it. Achish is acting out of his own self-interest.
He's wealthy. David has made him wealthy. David is the fearsome general who makes him stronger. And so he trusts David because David brings him wealth and power. And his men, they're acting logically.
They don't trust this Hebrew. We've seen this happen before. And it's even worse now because this guy's so much more dangerous. And underneath the current of all this is God's providence. Because God has made a promise.
And that promise is that David will be raised up to be the king of Israel. And if we think that that's going to be through the vassal state of Philistine, we don't know the Lord Yahweh very well. The Yahweh who delivered the Israelites from the hand of Pharaoh, the most powerful empire on earth, and dazzled him with signs and wonders and hardened Pharaoh's heart so that God's glory would be shown time and time again as God systematically destroyed all the gods of Egypt.
And the people came out and they grumbled. And yet God, on his name's behalf, remember when the people grumbled and God said, I'm going to destroy them. And Moses interceded. And he said to God, don't destroy these people because your name would be diminished.
Because the people around would say, is this the God who takes people out of slavery in order to kill them in the wilderness? And that's just what God had ordained Moses to say. Did you know that? Because God tells us about his character.
That although Christian in America and Christian anywhere else, but I'm talking to my people, Christian in America, we have squandered our inheritance and we have grumbled in the desert and we have had the finest succulent steaks.
And we've said, you know what? We would really rather have more because our taxes are a little high. Remember when gasoline was less than a dollar a gallon? Man, we've got it rough. Man, wah, wah. And we think, how long?
We just sang the song and it could be turned on us, couldn't it? How long are you going to put up with us, God? How long? And the answer is, for his name's sake, he will not put up with us, but he will stir us to repentance.
And it cannot always be this way because those who have the gospel of Christ to those who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, we will not wander forever and we will be brought back into the loving embrace of our father.
It's inevitable. And God is going to work through evil men, good men, rational things, supernatural things. He's going to work through every means available to him to bring his people back and to know that most assuredly every knee will bow and every tongue will confess because the heart of a king is no problem to the God of the universe.
He directs it like an irrigation ditch. That's what that proverb means. He just digs out a new trench and the king doesn't know whether he's coming or going, but he is going down the channel that God has prepared for him and there's nothing he can do to stop it.
What is David's attitude now? I think we get a good window into it in Psalm 141. I want to read that really quick. David's attitude. I think this is his attitude when confronted with enemies. I'm going to read four verses.
Verse four, it says, Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds in wickedness with men who are workers of iniquity and do not let me eat of their delicacies. Doesn't that recall the men of Daniel, right?
That idea, don't let me be taken in by the wealth and the comfort of this pagan king, of this power structure. Keep me holy, Lord. And this is a huge reason why I take the interpretation of David that I do.
I don't think David is in a tight spot in chapter 29. I think Achish is in a tight spot. David was never going to be swayed by the delicacies of Achish's table because David knows who his God is and that's why he has gotten the prophecy in the first place.
He goes on, verses eight through 10,. For my eyes are toward you, O Yahweh, O Lord. In you I take refuge. Do not pour out my soul to death. Keep me from the jaws of the trap which they have set for me and from the snares of workers of iniquity.
Let the wicked fall into their own nets. As for myself, meanwhile, I am passing by. Has this not been the song of David over and over again as his enemies, his own countrymen, plan his demise and try to trap him and yet David keeps passing by and his enemies keep falling into the snares and the traps that they've set.
That's the story of David and that's how I know that this man of faith, this man that every modern commentator looks at chapter 29 and says, yeah, David lied. He's in a tough spot. He's getting all the fruits and the consequences of a deception back in 27 and I say, bunk, that is nonsense.
That's not what David's attitude is. That's not what's going on. David has worked and embedded himself as so many Christians, lily-livered cowards that we are have feared to do because we're afraid of what men are gonna say and David has gone into the enemy's camp and he has dazzled him and he has given him sweetmeats and he has owned the heart of Achish with his own delicacies and he sits waiting, poised to strike.
Do we know any men like that? This is King David and in many ways, this sermon is a sequel to chapter 27 because I think it gives us just another look at the same kind of thing. We need men who fear God and fear nothing else but the practical thing that we have to get to is how do we get men like that?
How do we get men like that? Let's sit with that question. That's where I wanna end this. Let's go on. Verses six through nine. Then Achish called David and said to him, as Yahweh lives, you have been upright and you're going out and you're coming in with me in the camp are pleasing in my sight for I have not found evil in you from the day of your coming to me to this day.
Nevertheless, you are not pleasing in the sight of the lords. So now return and go in peace that you may not do evil in the sight of the lords of the Philistines. And David said to Achish, but what have I done?
And what have you found in your servant from the day when I came before you to this day that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my Lord, the King? But Achish answered and said to David, I know that you are pleasing in my sight like an angel of God.
Nevertheless, the commanders of the Philistines have said, he must not go up with us to battle. Achish can't lose his battle. He can't lose his military. And he knows even though he has personal loyalty to David, that if David goes among them, that his generals are going to revolt and it's gonna splinter the whole thing.
And so we see a contrast right away. And it jumped out to me. We've seen this numerous times. The word that should have jumped out is when it says that you were like an angel of God. That's kind of a Hebrew proverb.
We see it several times in the Old Testament. And what it means is there was all truth in you. There's an idea that you brought me only what you said you would. You were a great messenger who gave me riches.
You prospered me. We can see that through the story of Joseph in Genesis where everything that he touches turns to gold because the favor of the Lord is on him. And that's what David looks like in Achish's sight.
But we start to see Achish's convictions falling away because Achish is a king of a nation and he has many practical considerations to think about. And one of them is his trust of this great man is going to be his undoing because he has to hold the coalition of generals together.
And so Achish is gonna figure this out. And guess what? Just as Saul was never able to find evil in David. We've seen it time and time again, right? Where Saul is confronted with David and Jonathan first says, what did he do, dad?
What is the sin that he did that you're about to spill innocent blood? And Saul says, I don't know. I don't like him, right? He's after me. David comes to, what have I sinned? Tell me the sin against you.
Oh, my son, you've not sinned against me. I've sinned against you. And we get the confusion of worldly sorrow that does not result in repentance time and time again from Saul. But here we see Achish, look, Achish has been deceived by David, right?
But at the same time, David's deception has made Achish's position better in his estimation. And so we see a type again, the type of David who no wrong is seen in his sight and that recalls to me a different political situation where another king was brought before the kings of this earth, King Herod and Pontius Pilate, the magistrate of the Roman empire.
And both of them said, we find no fault in this man. No fault. It's not because Achish had blindness. You have to understand this. God, for his reasons, is giving Achish blindness. He's hardened his heart.
He's dulled his vision. May that not be the case for us, but I think the church under judgment, we are still regenerate, but I think the church under judgment is blind and stupid. We fight each other.
We like to get nerf ball wars instead of live action because it's safe to fight brothers. You know why? Because brothers don't kill, but the enemy kills. We like to scrap and do this kind of thing with each other.
And then we think that we're mighty warriors for the truth. But see, in Jesus, the greater King, when he goes up before those magistrates, it's not that they're blinded. It's that God has given them the blinding truth.
They see clearly that Jesus is guilty of nothing, that he is the truth. And yet, you know what Pilate does? Coward that he is. Yellow-bellied, lily-livered coward. He says, you know what? I'm afraid of my power.
I'm just going to give him over anyway. And he's judged for that. There's no found evil in David. So Achish does a thing, right? Yeah, yeah, you're going to have to get out of here. We can't have it. And I think there's a lesson for us.
And it's a lesson about division, right? Because the army of the Philistines is going to be divided here one way or another. One way or another. Either David's going home or the whole thing's going to splinter.
And I think Achish makes the right call. Achish looks at the situation and he goes with his generals. And they have wisdom because they saw clearer than he did because they weren't getting the sheep and the goats, okay?
We have to understand that among the army and among the church, we're going to have to get this right. That there is right division and wrong division. And division serves the purposes of God and the church.
And what we do in our post-modern, weird, soft Christianity is go, oh, division. And anytime anybody argues with somebody, divisive, brother, you're being divisive. Listen, conflict is the spark of interesting conversation.
If you want somebody to just agree with everything you say, just talk in the mirror. Is that entertaining? Listen, I agree with everything I think. I really do. I've never found a thing yet that I disagree with myself about.
And so we have conversations because somewhere, even though I intrinsically think I'm right about everything, I have to know that I'm not, okay? I'm not. Surprising as that might be to some of you. Yeah.
So why do we divide? Well, in this case, we see it right away. It's to expose bad operators. The apostle Paul writes to us in 1 Corinthians 11. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you.
And in part, I believe it. For there must also be factions among you so that those who are approved may become evident among you. Did you know the church in conflict? And we have plenty of that today, especially in our camp, the reform camp.
We love conflict with each other because we fashion ourselves to be mighty men of battle who are shooting nerf guns at each other, all right? But what we have to understand is that what division does and what factions do is they expose bad operators.
And we've seen a documentary go out this week about David Platt to where conflict in a church is an ugly, ugly thing. Very ugly. And yet it exposes bad operators. And the church of Christ needs that. We need to expose bad operators because once again, we think that we are above the wiles of the enemy who has sent men in to deceive us.
Who has sent men in to take our courage away and to lull us to sleep with their soft words. Their soft words that hide vicious, ravenous appetite inside. See, Akish's general saw this and they threatened and caused factions because they exposed the bad operator in their midst.
Because from the Philistine point of view, David is a bad operator. There is no doubt in my mind that he was about to gut them from the inside. No question. And they see it. Someone wrote to me and I know that it's a proverb I've heard before that pressure reveals character.
I will tell you, you never know what you are until the fire happens. You never know what you are during Thanksgiving dinner when you're sitting at a feast. And that's the great hope I have for Haiti this morning, brother, is that in the midst of this kind of conflict where it seems hopeless, it's that that kind of condition by God's grace can lead to hard men, right?
It can lead to men who are battle tested who are not going to be cowed by the wiles of this world, by the riches and the sweet meats. But instead, when that faith is nourished and through discipleship, when a man comes to Christ in that situation where he's never had anything, there's no way that anyone can steer him away.
And how I pray for that in America, that in the midst of our comfort, that we would have men who are unable to be steered and that we would expose the bad guys and get them out of here. Number two, reason to have good division is to take on more territory.
Not surprisingly, we've messed this up in America too, because our goal is to get as big a single church as we can get. And then to be so afraid of splitting up that single church, that we have five different campuses, each of which have 3000 people themselves that are under the same Leviathan board of elders.
How in the world can a man pastor 13 ,000 people? I ask you. Is there blood on his hand? Is he gonna give an account for their righteousness? And yet we think, that's it. We're doing it for Jesus. And look, this is not a skewer against bigger churches.
In God's wisdom, he appoints some of those. But for that to be the goal, that's crazy, guys. It's crazy. And what it appeals to is a desire to get money, which is always the thing, right? So what does David do?
He uses a play on words. Notice what he says when he's appealing to Achish. Let me stay with you, that I want to fight against the enemies of my Lord, the King. Who's he talking about? I think I know who he's talking about.
You know, it's interesting that he uses the word melek here for King. For David to use that word is very interesting, because I think David only thinks of one melek. And he does not see anyone else as being a prince.
He sees God, Yahweh. That is the King of kings. That is the true melek. He's the one. And so, hey, Achish, what have I done wrong that you would take away this opportunity to fight against the enemies of my Lord, the King?
That's you. David's not appealing for his own skin. He's appealing for his people. He wants to go save Israel from within by putting himself in the most dangerous position of all. Because remember, as this chapter starts, hundreds and thousands of Philistines.
There's 600 men of David. 600 amidst these hundreds and thousands. And yet, the generals are afraid of David, right? And David is in the belly of the beast. David has to know that by rights, that if he turns on the Philistines, he's going to be in the middle of their camp and he's going to die.
But David trusts in the Lord, because I think that David learned the lesson big time in chapter 25. When Abigail spoke to him, and I know it cut his heart because of what he said. She talked about his kingship and how it was never going to fall and how he should not strike the foolish man.
And then he comes in repentance. He says, Yahweh is going to strike my enemies. And he repeats that in chapter 26. He says, however Saul's going to go, Yahweh will smite him. And I think David believes that here.
And I think David going into the most dangerous part of the battle is a man that men will follow. Because these 600, now they're not the deplorables. These are hard men now. They've been living in caves.
They've been living right under the eye of the enemy for 16 months now. And they are very dangerous, very dangerous indeed. And so to divide from this force is going to shore up the southern border of Israel.
And that's what happens. David builds allegiances among his countrymen by going back to Ziklag. And he saves the city that was given to them forever. That's what we're going to see. The third reason that we need to divide is to stay on mission.
And this is why Achish ultimately divides. That's why he sends David home is because he has a mission to destroy Israel. And he's going to do it in the north. And so what we know from reading is that God has delivered Saul to the Philistines.
It's already done. We've seen it. And last week when we see the witch and the witchcraft, we see how far Saul has fallen. He's at the very bottom. He's in the dark already. You could really say metaphorically that he's in hell already.
He's just consulting with his compatriots in hell. Increasing his own stupidity and blindness because God has decreed his end and he has made it sure. And so what we see in this chapter is that by Achish dividing, what God is really doing is ending Saul.
Do you understand that? This is not about Achish and it's really not about David. It's about God following through on his prophecy that Saul is done because David would have saved him. And God keeps David out of this thing that was such a conscience killer for David because over and over when David was in the cave, he regretted cutting the garment, right?
And David doesn't want to lift a hand when Abishai was going to put the spear in. One thrust, David, one thrust and this is over. And David says, we cannot touch the Lord's anointed. And so what would have happened is if David had been in this battle, he would have been in proximity to the destruction of Saul.
And I think that that would have broken David because I think David has a respect for Saul that Saul doesn't have for himself because David trusts the Lord and David knows that the Lord anointed Saul.
And even though Saul has spit in the face of God over and over again, David respects Yahweh above everyone else. And so David does not want to see that and God protects his servant. And he does that to us often, doesn't he?
He takes us out when we repent, he takes us away from the things that would burn our conscience. He saves us from those situations where we might fall because we don't often really believe that God is going to provide the way out of temptation.
Did you know he does that practically? It's not an ethereal in your head kind of quiet time sort of thing. God actually delivers the way out of temptation when we pray to him and we have faith. And he does it over and over again and he's always done it and he will do it again for you.
So when you don't see the way out, God will provide the way out. More on that later too. We're gonna tie all this up, okay? We also have wrong division. So the right division, just to retake, it exposes bad guys, it helps to take on more territory and it helps to stay on mission.
So a point on that, I would be remiss if I didn't say it. We are in the process of trying to divide right now, right? And this should be good division. Hopefully this division is not rooting out bad operators.
I have seen no evidence of that in the division that's going on right now. But what it is for is this Grace Covenant Reformed Baptist Church starts to take up off the ground and we start to have the pain that comes from losing people that we've sat with for so short a time and developed such good relationships with.
As we start to see they're not gonna be here every Sunday, that starts to cause us to look around. And in our wily little tempted human hearts, what we wanna do is we wanna draw hard lines of division because we love teams.
There'll be some for the olive tree and there'll be some for the little cross thing. I've looked at it. We must deny that urge. We must take those thoughts captive because it's intrinsic to the mission here.
How do we take on more territory? We take on more territory by having elder qualified men and men who are led to be dangerous under those elder qualified men who go from block to block in this place in Northwest Arkansas and they gravitate.
And we've seen it grow here, have we not? Look around. A year ago, there was less than half this many people in here, okay? And we still got room for more in here. But at the same time, churches cause people to come to churches and they're gonna hear the gospel and that's how we start to fight again.
As Getsley said, I appreciate it so much. In a culture that's so enamored with numbers of baptisms and numbers of converts, what we often lose is that one man who comes to Christ and cannot be steered brings tons of people with him and he has a ripple effect.
And every man that he disciples brings more. And that's how the kingdom progresses. It's not an explosive nuclear bomb, boom. It's a mustard seed that grows into a huge tree. And that doesn't happen in one year.
That happens over decades because God is playing the long game. Because guess what? When you're an infinite being, you can be patient. And we serve an infinite king and his throne is not under any challenge from anyone who can make a challenge to him.
So we have time but we be poised. Are we gonna stay on mission or not? There's gonna be pain but there's also gonna be glory. And there's gonna be another church that we have an intimate connection with that's gonna grow and then hopefully more.
And there's a body of believers who doesn't have 10 ,000 people spread over three campuses with me and Bart trying to run everything. That would be a disaster. But instead, churches of intertwined, spirit-filled people growing in fellowship who are reaching their neighbors, who are opening their homes and who are making discipleship differences in people.
That's the goal. But we can also divide wrongly. See, if Achish had lifted David above his generals as he surely wanted to do, right? Achish wanted to go with David. There would have been splintering and disaster.
This type of division has crippled the church in America. The type of division that is caused by partiality turf wars. And what we do in America is we constantly forget what the Bible says about elders.
They are firstly qualified by their character in their family. And what we do instead is we look at talent. We look at talent. And we raise up men who are talented and then we show them partiality. He must listen to him speak.
He must be great. And then when he's lying and gouging out the inside of the church, we raise him up and we become clans around this compromised, unqualified man. And then we wonder why the church does nothing.
The reason why is because you can't win with leadership like that. And Achish avoids this by listening to his generals. He does. He avoids the partiality turf war. He really likes David the best. And he saw the upside of David, but mostly he saw how to bring up his own grandeur through David.
Because Achish was about himself. And many in the church are about themselves. It can be an intoxicating elixir to stand in front of people and the enemy always wants you to think. They're here to listen to you.
And people come and they ask you questions. And they say, Pastor Josh, and it's a recipe for disaster when a man forgets. Why is he here in the first place? We know we're not rising above our Lord. Did you know the Lord, he could have come as any man, could he not?
And we, if we were fashioning the nature of God's condescension from the glory of heaven into the body of a man, we would have thought he would have been a seven foot tall, the man that looks somewhat like Goliath, I would imagine.
And yet Isaiah tells us that he had no form that recommended him. He probably looked like kind of a short, weak looking Jewish guy. And he had spent all of eternity past in the presence of the ancients of days.
And he had all the power. Colossians tells us that his mind holds together the molecules of the universe. And he came looking like that. Why? Because God's not about personal aggrandizing. And that kind of stuff will cause church destroying division.
We cannot let it be about personalities. And we cannot let elders be determined based on talent. Sure, there's an aptitude component, but it's mostly about character. We need to look closely. Is the man the same everywhere he is?
So the result of Achish's wisdom and listening to his counselors is a unified Philistine army that is fierce and ready and is completely dominated by Yahweh's decree. Even though they don't know him. Yahweh moves the pieces.
All right, last bit. Let's finish it out. I think this is striking. And I think this is really the thesis of the whole chapter. And it's easy to miss. So arise early in the morning with your servants of your Lord who have come with you.
And as soon as you have arisen early in the morning, have light, go. So David arose early. He and his men to go in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines. And the Philistines went up to Jezreel.
You can't miss it or you shouldn't miss it. In chapter 28, if you really had one word to describe chapter 28 with the witch, it would be darkness. Darkness. Dark, black magic, witchcraft, night. Saul leaves in the darkness at night.
Where does David leave? In the rising sun of the morning. It made me think immediately of a passage that I've thought about in Malachi over and over. Malachi 4 verses two through six. This is a picture of the dazzling light of Christ.
It says, but for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go forth and skip about like calves in the stall. And you will tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing, says Yahweh of hosts.
Remember the law of Moses, my servant, even the statutes and judgments, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of Yahweh.
And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land, devoting it to destruction. I mean, what have we done with the gospel of Christ?
Do, do we see any of this? Look, look, I want to, man, my time ran short, but I have to, I'm sorry. I have to do this. We have boiled down Christianity to having a feeling in your heart and a coffee with an open Bible next to it, so you can post it on Instagram.
But what does God promise? What's the son of righteousness going to bring? Well, first we see that he's going to bring healing. I think that healing is physical and spiritual. And do you know what? We were dead and God gave the greatest healing, healing the ghastly could only ever dream about.
And that's the healing of turning a dead cadaver into a living being. No doctor can do that except for the great doctor. And he did it. And he promised it. He turned everyone who was dead into living, regenerate people.
All of those who were dead in Christ were alive. And you know what we do? We don't go, oh, wow, that was nice. No, we jump around in the stall like a calf that just can't wait to be out. He's excited.
He's ready to go. And then what happens when they let him out? What does he do? The son of righteousness is going to do something. He's going to tread down the wicked. Boy, we've lost that. We've lost that.
Because American Christianity has no enemies. American Christianity has smoothed everything down into being nice to everybody. But instead, the word of God tells us that the enemies of Christ will be crushed.
We do not do that with the sword. But instead, we have the crushing weight of the gospel and the cross of Christ to tell sinful men, you are hopeless, but God has provided a way. Then he says something that just cuts me.
Remember the law of Moses. Do we remember the law of Moses in the church? Do we even care about the law? The law is not salvation, but the law is beautiful. And it's the way that we live. And David himself would tell us in Psalm 119 over and over again that the man of God loves God's law.
Then he tells us that he is going to turn the hearts of fathers toward their children and of children to their fathers. Gessell and I had a conversation this morning and I gotta tell you, if we saw just this one thing, it changes the culture.
That fathers would love their children again. First of all, we gotta have fathers having children. That would be nice. And then loving their children. And then God himself will turn the hearts of children to their fathers.
And what that is, is a molecular bond of the family that's not easily broken. And when you raise them up that way, God will order their steps. That's a promise. That's a promise. Do you hold the word of God highly in your home?
And I have to ask, as we try to be poised to strike, what are we afraid of? Because we're not acting like David. Do you see any fear in David? The only fear that David might show in this chapter is that Achish might send him home and he doesn't get to do the extremely dangerous thing that he wants to do.
What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of an evil magistrate ascending to the top of our nation? I know some are afraid of that. I know some are. Do we not think that God bends the hearts of kings like an irrigation channel?
Friends, we look at the heroes, and I say it proudly, David is a hero of mine. I hope someday that I get to meet him in heaven. And I hope someday that I get to tell King David, thank you so much. Thank you, you taught me so much.
What a witness you were. You pointed the light to your greater son. The son who gave all of us hope. But what we do is we try to turn Malachi on its head and we try to hate our fathers. And we try to look at David and go, oh, what a bad guy.
But instead, David, even through his sin and his destructive sin, shows the power of repentance that he is still God's man. And that should give us courage and confidence because what are we afraid of?
What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of uniting and taking over territory? Because here's the thing, when Jesus died on the cross, do you really believe that when you call on him in faith, do you really believe that your sins are gone?
Because they are. The prophets tell us that they are as far as the east is from the west. They tell us that they are wrapped up in a bag and thrown into the bottom part of the ocean, never to be found.
We still can't find them today in the bottom parts of the ocean. With all of our science. If you have no sin before God, because when God looks at you, he sees the righteousness of his son. If that's you, what on earth do you have to be afraid of?
If God is for you, who can be against you? If there is a clear conscience, and I pray for this, men, young men, throw away the sins that grapple at your heart and that tear your allegiance. It could be pornography.
It could be anger. It could be watching filthy stuff. It could be the words of your mouth, profane cursings. And they get a hold on you. And they steer you. And they think, I don't want to be too courageous because they might want to look into what I'm doing.
And if you can throw that away and leave it at the foot of the cross, then you will be a dangerous man. Because a man with a clear conscience is not steered. And we need those kind of men. And I'm going to tell you something else in a final charge.
The enemy's not going to like that. He's not going to like that. He is the accuser, first and foremost. He wants to bring your dirty old sins back in front of you and rub your face in them and say, oh no, you remember when you did that.
But guess what? Through the redemption of Christ, there is no shame anymore in those sins that have been paid for by the son of God. Do you think his blood is so impotent that it couldn't cover your sins?
It covered all of them. And he loves you today. And he calls out to you to have courage. Because the man with no courage will not inherit the kingdom of God because it looks at the cross and says, not good enough for me.
When we've cleaned our conscience, we will go forward. And friends, it's like the calf in the stall. You know how we go forward. We don't go forward as angry, bitter, afraid people. Instead, we go forward as I would imagine with a song on our lips.
That we sing and we smile and we laugh in the fight and the battle is on us. And as men of God, we love it because we don't fear death either. Just like David. That's the call. Friends, Christians, we have to put away that stuff that binds us and we have to trust in Christ who loves us.