(The Life of David) 06 a Man After God's Own Heart — Denny Kenaston

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Preparing Young People for Their Calling

This afternoon, I'm a bit overwhelmed again at the opportunity that I have to share the Word of God with you dear young people. I was thinking about you today, thinking about how many years I've been standing up here and doing this year by year at Bible school time.

And some of you were about three years old when I started doing this. So, welcome aboard. We've been at it for a while. I was telling young people at our house last evening some of the reasons why we have Bible school for you.

Some of the reasons that are in our hearts. And I know you probably have some reasons why you're here, and those are good reasons too, but you're the church of tomorrow. You young men, in ten years, many of you will be leading a church somewhere, out on a mission field somewhere, raising a family, taking your place in a brotherhood.

And you girls, you sisters, you're going to be in places of importance also. That's not a little responsibility as I look at it. But we want you to be prepared so that when you do stand in that place, you'll know what to do.

And the battle is raging, and we're looking for soldiers to join us on the front lines. Death be prepared, soldiers. Thus, Bible schools and other things like that. I don't know why you're here, but that's some of the reason why I'm here.

Why I'm standing up here today, and why I take my responsibility very seriously. But I do consider it a privilege, and it is a joy to be able to share my heart with you young people. So let's have a prayer, and we'll get into the subject here for the week.

God our Father, we are all here because You're here. And we're taking these things seriously because they're very near to Your heart. Thank You for these dear young people, God. You've been watching over their lives.

You were watching when they were born. You've been watching them as they've been growing. Some of them have been counting the years, Lord. Now they're 16, and they're here in this Bible school. You've been watching them, and You've been watching them with a purpose, Father.

God, I pray You'll help me this day to somehow fit into that purpose that You have for these young people's lives. Lord, what is in Your heart, put it in my heart, and let it come out of my mouth. Fill me, Lord, with Your Spirit, so that Your purposes can be done on earth.

I pray this in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. You can open your Bibles to begin with in Psalm 71. The title of my series this week is David, A Man After God's Own Heart. That's quite a title, and it'll take us all week to explain that.

It comes from the words that God said about David. I wonder what God says about me. I wonder what God says about you. But the title, the message comes from the words that God said about David. I have found me a man after my own heart, who shall fulfill all my will.

That's what God said about David. Now, we don't always give you an assignment, but I will be giving you assignments. Some reading that I want you to do in preparation for the rest of these sessions. It's not too difficult, and you can take two days to do it.

But I want you to read 1 Samuel 16 -26. 1 Samuel 16 -26. That does not cover all of the chapters on the life of David. But it covers the ones that we will basically be looking at as we look at David's younger life.

We want to look at his younger life because you are young people. And there are many relating points that we can draw out of the life of David for your own lives. So, you know, you can break those 11 chapters in two and have half of them read by tomorrow's session.

And the other half of them read by Wednesday's session. We want to begin by reading a prayer that David wrote. And a prayer that David prayed, I believe, toward the end of his life. I don't know how old he was when he prayed this prayer.

But in Psalm 71, David prayed these words. O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth. Did you get those words? Thou hast taught me. Thou, God, Thou, God, hast personally taught me, David, from my youth.

And hitherto, since then, I have declared Thy wondrous works. Now also, when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not, until I have showed Thy strength unto this generation and Thy power to everyone that is to come.

Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high. Who has done great things, O God? Who is like unto Thee? Now, that's a powerful prayer that David prayed. And I must say that as I get older, it's a prayer that I pray.

It might surprise you, you know. You might think as you're young that when you get older, you just kind of forget about all those things. And I've done my work, and now it's time for somebody else to do their work.

But it's not that way when you get older. So that's my prayer also, that God would grant me that kind of grace. That when I am old and I am gray-headed, I will be able to show forth God's strength and God's ways and God's power to the generation that follows on after me.

Think about this prayer. My, how God answered David's prayer. I wonder if David had any idea when he prayed that prayer, how God would answer that prayer through the Psalms that he wrote, through the life that he lived, through the biographical sketch that's in the Word of God about him, through all the things that were spoken by other men about him, through all the testimony of David in the New Testament.

Surely God answered David's prayer that he prayed that day. And I imagine he prayed it more than one time. So, we want to see from David's life how this strength and how this power was manifested in David's young life.

Four Reasons to Study David's Life

Why should we study David's life? This is a good question. It will probably take me thirty minutes to answer it. Why should we study David's life? Number one, because according to the Word of God, he was a man after God's own heart.

And when you find a man or you find a woman who is after God's own heart, ye do wisely if you study that man or that woman's life and find out what makes them tick. He was a man after God's own heart.

Number two, we want to study his life because he was a godly youth. And I like that. I like what God did. I like how God has taken a man like David, and a man like Joseph, and a young man like Daniel, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and a few others like that, how God has taken their young lives and breathed out holy rich so that all the young people, all the millions of young people who will open up the Bible and read will look in there and see young people just like them.

And see how God's grace was manifested in their young lives. David was a godly youth. And he was just like you. Don't doubt it. He was just like you. His life flowed out of his walk with God. Young people, so does yours.

Your life is flowing out of your walk with God. It only may be for your lack of a walk with God. Number three, why should we study David's life? Because his name appears one thousand times in the Bible.

Now I've learned as I've studied the Bible that when God mentions something more than once, He's mentioning it so that He can get our attention. And if I find a verse once in the old and once in the new, I take note of it.

But here we see that God, God the Holy Ghost, breathed out the name of David one thousand times in the Bible. Do you suppose, young people, that God is trying to get our attention? He wants us to study this young man's life.

One thousand times His name appears in the Bible. And I think that we should focus on what God focuses on. And I believe you could spend a year and not get done studying into the glorious, mysterious, grace-filled life of David.

One year would not be enough. Number four, David is one of God's heroes. And by the way, he's one of my heroes also. And I hope that he'll be one of your heroes by the time I get done. But he's one of God's heroes.

There are fifty chapters in the Bible about David. I don't know of anyone except Christ who has more chapters written about him than David. There are ninety psalms in the Bible written by David. There are a multitude of New Testament references about David.

And lastly, he's one of the types of Christ in the Bible. God chose David, a man after his own heart, to live out a life in such a way that his life would typify Christ all the way through. And by the way, that'll take you another two or three months.

Take the life of Christ, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the life of David, those fifty chapters, and read the two of them together and see how many places you can find them connecting. That'd be a good study for you, young men.

You want something to do in your personal Bible study time? There you go. Why should we study the life of David? Because biographical study is good for us. It's healthy for us. It gives us insights that you do not get just simply by reading the precepts and the principles of the Word of God.

Zion, God's People, and Learning from the Past

Over in Psalm 48, if you want to turn over there. We will park there for a few minutes as we work on the introduction for this week's sessions. Psalm chapter 48, verse 12 through 14, I'm sorry, verse 11 through 14, tells us to study Zion.

And to study the life of David is to study Zion, or God's people. Reading in Psalm 48 and verse 11, we find these words. Let Mount Zion rejoice. Let the daughters of Judah be glad because of thy judgments.

Walk about Zion, the scripture says. Now, Zion in the Bible is the people of God. Zion in the Old Testament was the people of God. Zion in the New Testament is the people of God. The writer of Hebrews says, ye are come to Mount Zion, Hebrews chapter 12.

And to the city of the living God and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And on and on the writer goes there. Ye are come to Mount Zion. Zion is the people of God. God tells us here to walk about Zion.

Go round about her. Tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks. Consider her palaces. Now, what is God saying when He says these words? He's not just talking about a city with walls around it.

Even the Jerusalem in the Old Testament was simply a type and a shadow of the new Jerusalem which is to come. Which is the people of God. God is not telling us to walk around the building and see what nice building it is.

And see how tall the towers are. No, God is telling us to walk around Zion. Go around the city of the living God which is made up of the people of the living God. And look at it. And study it. And look at it from this angle.

And walk over here and see what it looks like over here. And see what the towers look like. And mark the bulwarks. And study the palaces thereof. Why? That ye may tell it to the generation following. Now, that gives you a little insight there.

That tells me that God is not wanting me to find some building that I can look at. But rather, He wants me to study how God worked in the lives of His people in the past. So that I may be able to tell it to the generation that is coming.

Why? For this God is our God. Forever and ever He will be our guide, even unto death. The whole of Psalm 48 is a psalm about Zion, the city of the great King. Zion is the church. Zion is the people of God.

And it is the place where God dwells. And by the way, any place where God dwells makes that a powerful, radiant place. In any place where God dwells, beautiful things happen. Amen? And as God dwells in this Bible school, you will also see beautiful things happening.

In these scriptures we are told to study the historical records of God's people. If there was ever a life that God wants us to study, it is the life of David. Why? Because this God is our God. The God of David is my God.

The God who stood beside David as David faced Goliath is also my God and your God. And that God who strengthened David when he stood there before Goliath will also strengthen you when you stand before Goliath.

That is, if you've got the courage to trust God enough to do that, God will be with you. Tell the next generation about the God who stood with David when David stood before Goliath. So the next generation will know that this God is also our God.

Now, you see, young people, that's my responsibility this week. This very verse is my responsibility this week for you. You are the generation that follows. And I want to convince you that God has not changed.

He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is immutable. He never changes. May God raise our hearts and the faith of our hearts that we could begin to believe in the God of David. Why should we study biographies?

Because God tells us to. Right here in these verses, a biography is a written account of a life. That's what the word literally means. Bio is life and graphy is written. A written life. God wants us to study the written accounts of the people of God who lived before we, who walked on this earth, who stood the test of time and trial and proved God to be the very mighty God that He is.

Christian Biography as Philosophy by Example

These verses convince us to study the life of David, but I also believe that they convince us to go beyond that and study the lives of those who have lived before us. It was about thirty years ago that I got my hands on my first biography.

Thirty years ago. It was in Bible school. I didn't know there was such a thing as a biography before I went to Bible school. But in Bible school, I got my hands on a biography and I started to read. And I saw in that written record of another man's life, I saw the grace of God manifested in such powerful ways that it challenged me to the depths of my heart.

I looked there and I thought, God is not working in my life like this. Then I thought, He doesn't work in my life just like this. He doesn't change. Then I started praying, God works in me. That was a blessed day when I got my hands on my first biography.

I'm not sure how many I've read in these thirty years, but it's probably a couple hundred. I believe this scriptural principle that we find here in Psalm 48 goes beyond the biblical accounts to other biographies.

My heart began to cry for more and my heart cries for more today. And I trust that your heart will also rise up and cry for more. The God of David is the God of the Bible. And the God of the Bible is your God and my God and He hasn't changed.

I read those biographies and my heart said, this God is my God. The God of Hudson Taylor stirred my heart. The God of the early Anabaptists began to challenge my life. And many, many others besides them.

And it came to dawn on my heart that He will also work through me in like manner. I want to read you a statement that I got out of an old book, out of a biography. It's a statement written by A .T. Pearson about a hundred years ago.

He was a great missionary statesman. But it explains to us his view of Christian biographies. And why he felt they were so important. He says, because history is a record of facts. And that's all. Just a record of facts.

These facts demand a personal factor. The key to history is biography. The study of a life. Biography is the most suggestive and instructive of all studies. In other words, you can learn way more out of the study of a life than you can just studying a list of historical records of things that happened.

That's what he's saying. A biography is most suggestive and instructive of all studies. He goes on to say, To portray the lives of men is to teach philosophy by example. To teach philosophy by example.

Now there's a big difference between me standing up here and giving you some philosophical idea out of the Bible, or giving you an example of somebody who lived it. You will learn much faster from the one than from the other.

We could stand up here all week long and tell you about all the principles that David lived in his life. But I'm afraid you'd probably be yawning and you'd get bored. But as soon as we bring a life into those principles that David lived, then it becomes interesting, challenging, inspiring to every one of our hearts.

To portray the lives of men and women is to teach philosophy by example. This is exactly what happened when God sent His Son into the world. Amen? God incarnate went everywhere teaching philosophies by example.

And the disciples said, We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God. That's what Jesus did. God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son into the world to teach philosophies and principles and precepts by example and word.

There have been a lot of godly saints that have come marching down through the old gospel road since Jesus rose from the dead 2 ,000 years ago. And I believe we need to learn from their godly examples how to live the Christian life.

Virtue and Vice in Concrete Examples

A .T. Pearson goes on to say these words, By the analysis of character we detect the elements of success and the causes of failure in a life. By analyzing the character, the life that someone lives, we can detect the elements of success and the causes of failure.

But guess what? We don't have to do all the failures to learn. Neither do we have to just run down the road and learn by trial and error what does work and what doesn't work. We can look at a life and analyze the character of that life and detect what makes success and what makes failure.

He goes on to say, Principles and precepts are abstract statements of truth. And praise God for abstract statements of truth. Principles and precepts. I believe in them. I believe in preaching them. I believe we need to memorize them.

I believe we need to learn them. But, virtue and vice teach best through concrete forms. Or, give me something to look at. Amen? Give me something to look at. You know, you can read a scripture that says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.

Lean not on divine understanding. But, what does that mean? Then you come to a little biography. And some time ago I was reading a little bit about John Wesley. And I came to a place in his autobiography where he was describing what happened to him when he was overcome by a mob of angry people.

How would you like to take his place, fellas? They rushed on him in anger. They gnashed their teeth. They grabbed him. They picked him up in the air and started throwing him from one to the next. He was bouncing around like a ball on top of all of these people.

And finally they carried him a certain distance and threw him into a river. Would you like to take his place? Wesley writes in his testimony,. All the while all this was happening, my heart was trusting in the Lord and a calm and a peace was so settled upon me, I felt like I was laying in my bed.

Hallelujah! How you trust the Lord, young people! But if you never stand before an angry mob or get stretched out of your limits, you'll never know what that's all about. You know, the Bible tells us to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Amen? That's a precept. That's a command. God tells us that. But what does it mean? Well, you come along and you find a biography of D .L. Moody and you realize that God wrought such a work in that man's life when He brought him to the place where he realized, I am not filled with the Holy Ghost.

And he began to seek God. And he began to travail. And he began to allow God to examine his heart. He began to pray, God, I need something. There's something missing in my life. Then the Chicago Fire came.

And it was a Sunday night when the Chicago Fire broke out. And Moody was preaching. And he didn't give an invitation that Sunday evening. And he let the people go. And the fire broke out a half an hour after the service was over.

And most of Chicago burned down. And Moody, in the despair of his heart, he went to New York City to seek the face of God. Why? Because he wasn't filled with the Holy Ghost. And thereafter, two or three days of walking the streets of New York City, God began to overwhelm his heart with His presence.

So much so that Moody had to find a place where he could get alone with God. And there, in the quiet of a room, he fell on his face before God. And God began to deal with him and anoint him in a powerful way.

And he said, from that day to this, when I used to preach and two or three people would get saved, I preached the same sermons and now a hundred people get saved. Now that's precept with meat on it, young people.

When we read into a life, we see philosophies by example. You know, you can read that Scripture, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. You can read that a hundred times.

But what does it mean? You come along and you find a Hudson Taylor biography, The Growth of the Soul, and you see a man in there walking by faith and trusting God for his finances and not knowing how he's going to pay his rent at the end of the week because he has no money, and walking up to the very last minute and he has no money.

And there he's sitting and he doesn't know what to do, and somebody knocks on the door and gives him an envelope and there's exactly enough money in there for him to pay the rent for another week. And you look at that and you say, that's what God meant when He said, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.

Precepts taught by example. That's what biographies are, young people. So why should we study the life of David? Because virtue and vice teach best through concrete forms. Give me something to look at.

Amen? I call it this, principles with meat on them. And you look at them and you look at their lives and you say, It was there in them and it can also be here in my life. How God worked in them, God can also work in me.

Do you believe that? Let me see your hands. Do you believe that? Do you? How God worked in them, God will also work in me. He will. If David had the strength by the grace of God to stand before Goliath, then I should be able to stand before an angry mob and have the strength of God in my heart also.

Or walk through some difficult situation on a mission field. If God stood beside David, then God will stand beside me. If God protected David, then God will protect me when I'm out on the mission field.

And my little girl is about ready to die and I don't know what to do. When I've got malaria so bad that I'm delirious, God's going to take care of me. God took care of David and God will take care of me.

Why? For this God is our God. He hasn't changed, young people. Why should we study the life of David? One last point here. Because of his powerful devotional writings, we should want to look into this man's life when we read what he wrote.

David's Psalms Were Born from Trials

All of us know those 90 plus psalms that David wrote. We know. He didn't just sit down one day with a piece of paper and a pen and say, I think I'll write a song. You know, there's no songs on suffering today.

I think I'll write a song on suffering today. Let's see now, what rhymes with this word? And what rhymes with this word? How many of you think that's how David wrote the psalms? Let me see your hands.

Do you know that's how lots of songs are being written today? That's why they're so shallow. We just put a little ditty together that matched and rhymed and sounded nice. That's not how David wrote the psalms.

When you look into those psalms, you look deep into the heart of a man who walked with God. And when you read those psalms, your heart has to say, I'm going to go find out more about this man. Look at the depth of what's inside of him.

And thus, we go and study the man who wrote the psalms. You know, we've been going through the Bible at our house, and we just happen to be in the life of David for the last two months. And as we read, you know, it's a couple chapters in Samuel, and then we find ourselves in a psalm, and then a couple, three chapters in 1 Samuel, then back into another psalm.

When you do those together, you realize this psalm flowed out of this trial that David went through. David wrote this psalm because he found himself laying on his back out underneath the open heavens all night trying to go to sleep at night for fear that Saul will kill him in the middle of the night.

Would you like to go to sleep like that? Not knowing if you'll lose your head in the middle of the night? Would you go to sleep? David wrestled his way through that and found himself in such a place that he could, in fact, just lean back, fold his arms and sleep the night through, trusting in the living God.

And some of the psalms were written in that context when he ran like a dog for his life from Saul. That's where psalms are born, young people. That's where they're born. And some of you know what I'm talking about.

And some of you, maybe you've written a song or two like that, or a poem or two like that. Those are the kind that I like. Those psalms flowed out of his life and the experience of his life. Let's look at David's heritage a bit here.

David's Godly Heritage

As introduction, his heritage is worthy to consider. And you know, when you read biographies, a lot of the biographies, they go back to the individual's heritage. If they had a goodly heritage, you'll find it in the biography.

There will be a chapter on that. I've learned to find them. I go there searching for them all the time so that I can write another hymn history or a home history. I'm always looking. Find a biography.

Go and see if there's any heritage. Go see what kind of a life the generation before and the generation before and the generation before had. It's an interesting study. Not all biographies are that way because, bless God and thank God, sometimes the grace of God appears under some lost sinner out there stumbling around in sin and despair and gets a hold of their life and turns them upside down and inside out and sets them on fire for God.

But they don't have any heritage back there. But David had a heritage. David's biography starts years before he was born. In fact, he said it this way in Psalm 16 .6. The lines are fallen under me in pleasant places.

Yea, I have a goodly heritage. David was looking back at his dad, at his grandpa, at his great-grandpa. He was looking back. David's great-grandfather was Boaz. We know Boaz. We know the life and character, the godly character of Boaz because we've read the book of Ruth.

Well, that was David's great-grandfather, Boaz. He was a godly man. You know, I often wondered, how did Boaz find the grace to marry Ruth of Moabite? But you know, if you look a little bit deeper, you'll find out why.

It's because Boaz's father, Solomon, married Rahab the harlot. So Boaz knew what it was like and he had a bit more of an open heart towards somebody from the outside. And it wasn't hard for Boaz when he saw this godly woman named Ruth.

It wasn't hard for him to take Ruth to be his wife. Turn with me over to the book of Ruth. Just a couple of verses there that are sweet to me and I think you'll find them sweet to you also. In the last chapter of the book of Ruth, the scene is out at the city gates.

Boaz has made his plea to be the kinsman redeemer and redeem a piece of land and also to take unto him Ruth to be his wife. And there they are at the city gate and they've already completed the transaction and the witnesses are all there and everything's clear and everyone is happy that Boaz is going to take Ruth, this godly Moabite woman, to be his wife.

But as they are there, they followed a very customary practice in their culture of giving a blessing to that man who is going to get married. But I believe when they gave a blessing this time, it seems to me that the Spirit of God came upon those people and they spoke out a prophetic blessing upon Boaz and Ruth.

Read the blessing there in chapter 4, verse 11 and 12. And all the people that were in the gate and the elders said, We are witnesses. The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which too did build the house of Israel and do thou worthily in Ephrata and be famous in Bethlehem and let thy house be like the house of Pharaoh, whom Tamar bear unto Judah of the seed which the Lord shall give thee in this young woman.

Do you know what they were doing there? They were pronouncing such a blessing and making a plea that God would send a David through Boaz and Ruth. A man who will bless the house of Israel. Oh, God answered their prophetic blessing that day, didn't He?

So Boaz and Ruth came together in holy matrimony and there was born unto them a son named Obed. And Obed was trained in godliness by a godly mother named Ruth and a godly father named Boaz. In process of time, Obed became old enough to marry and he chose himself a wife and from their union another son was born.

Obed beget Jesse. And Jesse, as a little boy, he was trained in a godly home by a godly father and a godly mother who taught him the statutes and precepts in Israel. This is the way it was for Jesse. That's the way he grew up.

And in process of time, he also took himself a wife. And there was born unto him a man named David who was a man after God's own heart. David's mother. We don't know a lot about David's mother. The Bible doesn't say anything about her except David says something about her.

He says she is the handmaiden of the Lord. I thought that was interesting. Those were the same words that Mary, the mother of Jesus, said. Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it unto Me according to Thy will.

I thought that was interesting that the mother of David who was the type of Christ and the mother of Mary who bore Christ were both handmaidens of the Lord. I would say, sisters, that would be a good goal for you.

You be a handmaiden of the Lord like that. David's mother. Now, David was the youngest of eight sons. He also had two sisters who were older than he. He was the tenth born. He was what we call today the baby of the family.

How many baby of the family do we have here today? Do you dare to stick your arm up? Let me see. You're the last born in your house. Put it up there real high so I can see it. A lot. A lot. He was the tenth born.

Aren't you glad that Jesse didn't believe in Planned Parenthood? Five's enough! Aren't you glad? But David was the last born. He was the tag-along. He was the one who was in the way pretty much of the time.

He was the one who got the least jobs around the house. He probably was given what the others didn't want. And all the last born said, Amen. And you know there's something that isn't right about that, but you know there's something that is just natural about that.

Somebody has to be the last born. David was the last born. And it appears he must have, you know, he must have had to work through a few things. We have to read between the lines to see that. But it seems to me that oh, there was a bit of tension between him and his brothers at times by some of the things that they said to him later on in the historical record.

But reading between the lines, I believe that David had to work through some things, but I believe that David worked through his lot in life. And I don't believe that God would lay His hand upon a young man who had bitterness in his heart about his lot in life.