get on the bus and assault the stores in Gainesville. Some of the suggested that I make the announcement that there's a box in the lobby to collect everybody's credit cards. But I didn't know whether that was for so or not, so I won't make the announcement. And also, Jack, at breakfast this morning, we agreed that We hope we never meet in an airport because I'd have to go through the airport and say, hi Jack, hi Jack, hi Jack. I'd probably, you know. So we see him at breakfast down there in the hospitality suite and then we come here and here he is ready to do another job. Appreciate all this good effort. He mentioned we get older and we do and people very often say as we get older the time goes faster, doesn't it? My goodness, every other month is April fifteenth, you know. And time to get Christmas presents for the kids and the grandchildren and so forth. Someone said, well, once you get over the top of the mountain and start down the other side, you pick up speed. So that explains it. We try to help you with a little philosophy this week as well as we get the word. Now, all right. We want to talk about people this morning. Aren't you glad you're here? We can't talk about you, you see. But we come here to First Samuel chapter twenty-three, and there seems to be a lot of people involved. And so we want to talk about people this morning. First Samuel chapter twenty-three. Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Kiela, and they robbed the threshing floors. Therefore David inquired of the Lord saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the Lord said unto David, Go and smite the Philistines and save Kiela. And David's men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah. How much more than if we come to Kiela against the armies of the Philistines. Then David inquired of the Lord yet again. The Lord answered him and said, Arise, go down to Kiela, for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand. So David and his men went to Kiela and fought with the Philistines and brought away their cattle and smote them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Kiela. And it came to pass when Abbiathar, the son of Ahimelech, fled to David to Kiela, that he came down with an ephod in his hand. And it was told Saul that David was come to Kiela. And Saul said, God hath delivered him into my hand, for he is shut in. It was a fence city, you remember, a walled city, by entering into a town that had gates and bars. And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men. And David knew that Saul secretly practiced mischief against him. And he said to Abiatar the priest, Bring hither the ephod. Then said David, O Lord God of Israel, thy servant has certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah to destroy the city for my sake. Will the men of Keilah 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 Keilah 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, he's picked up two hundred more since last night, you remember. Now he's got about six hundred. They arose and departed out of Keilah and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah and he forbeared to go forth. And David abode in the wilderness in strongholds and remained in the mountain in the wilderness of Ziph. and Saul sought him every day, but God delivered him not into his hand. And David saw that Saul was come out to seek his life, and David was in the wilderness of Ziph in a wood. And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David into the wood and strengthened his hand in God. He said unto him, Fear not, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee, and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee, and that also Saul my father knoweth. And they too made a covenant before the Lord. And David abode in the wood, and Jonathan went to his house. Then came up the Ziphites to Saul, to Gibeah, saying, Thoth not David hide himself with us in strongholds in the wood in the hill of Haqqa, which is on the south of Jishimon. Now therefore, O king, come down according to all the desire of thy soul to come down, and our part shall be to deliver him into the king's hand. And Saul said, Blessed be ye of the Lord, for ye have compassion on me. Go, I pray you, prepare yet to know and see his place where his aunt is, and who has seen him there. For it has told me that he dealeth very subtly. See, therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideeth himself, and come ye again to me with the certainty. and I will go with you, and it shall come to pass if he be in the land, that I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah. They arose and went to Ziph before Saul, but David and his men were in the wilderness of Mayon, in the place on the south of Jashimon. Saul also and his men went to seek him, and they told David, wherefore he came down into a rock and abode in the wilderness of Mayon, and when Saul heard that, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Mayon. Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain. And David made haste to get away for fear of Saul, for Saul and his men compassed David and his men round about to take them. But there came a messenger unto Saul, saying, Haste thee and come, for the Philistines have invaded the land. Wherefore Saul returned from pursuing after David, and went against the Philistines. Therefore, they called that place, and bless your hearts, I've tried with this name. It's just a big long name. You can pronounce it any way you want to. Verse twenty-nine, David went up from Thence and dwelt in strongholds at Ngeti. Brother came to me a while back, and he said, I'm panic-stricken. I said, why? And he said, brethren have asked me to read passage of Scripture from the Old Testament, and it's filled with a lot of very long hard to pronounce Jewish names. And he said, you know, I don't have much education. And I said, I said, that doesn't make any difference at all, the education part. I said, I'll tell you this, you can pronounce those names any way you want, and nobody will argue with you. Is that so? I said, I found that to be true. And if you pronounce it differently than they would, they think that your education is better than theirs. Nobody will argue with you. And so he did, and he stumbled through the names, and afterwards he says, you were right. Nobody said I pronounced any of them incorrectly. And so you come to some of these long names, you say, now there's a long name, there it is. But anyway, things like David and Saul, I can handle. But that long name at the end of that chapter, I just couldn't get through it anyway at all. So we're talking about people this morning hour. You notice, first of all, there are people who rest. And all of these are ours, so that you can sort of latch onto them. There are people who arrest. And from our chapter this morning, First Samuel chapter twenty-three, in verse number three, David's men, now numbering six hundred, didn't want to do what David wanted them to do or what David thought that they should do. And we said, well, what business is it of David that he should go down and rescue these folks in this town of Kilauea? And David, I think, simply means there are people there who need our help. And David's men said, listen, we're in a tenuous situation enough as it is. We've got no business going down into a strange land where we don't know the lay of the land. And furthermore, to go into this town that is a walled city with gates. And if we find ourselves in it, Saul can just come and surround it. And we can't get away because we are walled in. But David says, there are people there who need our help. And that's what the church says today. The people that need our help are all around and about us. and we are surrounded by them. And Christians who tell me I can't find anything to do, they don't know what they're talking about. And you and I can't give up in our evangelistic trust until everybody in the world is saved. And chapels say there's nothing for us to do. Every time somebody walks by the chapel door in an unsaved condition, there's a ministry. And people are in our neighborhoods and they don't know the Lord or Savior or they're trusting in themselves for salvation. or they're trusting in their denomination for salvation or in their good works or some other sort of thing. These people need help. These people need help. Now I think what you and I need to learn to do is when we awaken in the morning, we need to say, Lord, there's people out there that need my help. Lead me to these people and may I be aware and sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit to be able to reach these people. How many times I've missed good chances to witness because I was more concerned with what I needed to do or where I needed to be, and the opportunity has slipped by, and then I realized I had the opportunity. Well, let me tell you this. Some people know this story already. But, you know, I've got a lot of stories because I've lived so long. You know, you accumulate stuff as you go through life. And my wife last year had bronchitis, and I was getting ready to go to the evening meeting, and I said, anything I can do for you before I go, and she said, I would like a great big roast beef sandwich. I said, do you want me to stop at Arby's on the way home after meeting? Yes. On those super deluxe sandwiches? Yes. Comes in the five-inch bun? Yes, I would like one of those. It's got lettuce on it, it's got tomato on it, and some mayonnaise. Yes, there may be a pickle or two. Oh, you want the deluxe one, you see. And yes, I'll offer it. I'll stop on the way home and get one of those super deluxe sandwiches. Well, I did that. And I went into Arby's and I said, now that sounds pretty good. So I ordered two of them, you see. Two of them. Offering had been good that night, so I got two of them. And there was a girl who was a cashier, and I guess she's probably a high school girl. And she rang up all the money I owed her, you know, and the register showed six, six, six. And she looked at it and she said, I don't like that. And I said, praise God. Now here's a girl that's received good Bible training somewhere. I said, I don't like the six, six, six either. And I just came from a meeting, you see. I said, you know, we can avoid the problem if you just give me the sandwiches. She said, I couldn't do that. I said, Mr. Harvey wouldn't like it. No, Mr. Harvey wouldn't like it. But I was thrilled with the fact. that here I discovered somebody, whether she was a believer or not, but it gave us an opportunity to start to. And if you're aware and sensitive to those things, you have a marvelous opportunity to say things to people, maybe just a sentence and maybe just a word. And you don't have enough time to preach to them for forty minutes, but very often Just a statement or just a verse from the Word of God. And if there's any sort of recognition, if the Holy Spirit has been plowing the ground at all, they're ready for the sowing of the seed. But you and I don't know the people in whom the Holy Spirit has been working, so you have to try it. To me, it's like casting for bass. You don't know if there's any bass in the water over there, but it looks like there ought to be. So what do you do? You cast a few times. If you don't get any strikes, you go on somewhere else. But you don't know unless you try. Unless you try, you see. And when I had my broken hip and the nurse came in and said, well, the doctor said, you can go home today. And I said, that's fine. And she said, but first I've got to take the dressing off your broken hip, off the incision that was made to fix your hip. And she said, let's see. Now, where's the hip? Let's see. The foot bones connected to the ankle bone. And she went through that recitation. Finally, she got to the hip bone. And she took the dressing off. And she says, well, Mr. Morgan, now with a broken wrist and a broken hip, you will know every time the weather is going to change. And I said, I've always been interested in prophecy, you know. And she did not, right over her head. I thought she is not a Bible person. And she'd had any kind of church training at all, you see. She could have, oh, what about, you know, there would have been some recognition, a little bit of light, come on, you know, but there wasn't. Well, you tried. Sometimes you don't. This sort of thing happens. But you see, that's what we have in chapter twenty-three this morning. These fellows say, listen, we're in a hazardous enough position here, and Saul's got his armies out for us, looking for us, and he's got spies all through the land, and there's guys like Doag, the Edomite, who is glad to report our whereabouts. And our lives are hazardous enough now without leaving this place with which we are familiar and going down to that particular place. And we just rather rest right here. And we noted this before earlier on in the week. Jesus, I am resting, resting. And sometimes you wonder what they rest from because they never seem to do anything. And usually these are the folks that come into your assembly, eleven o'clock Sunday morning. That's the only time they'll ever be there. And you can have any other sort of a special program. No, I've done my thing. God's given me a hundred and sixty-eight hours this week. I'm going to give one hour back to him, and that's all that's required of me. And it's this sort of a thing, and they never seem to get involved, and this is a problem. Now, you have those last two verses of Matthew chapter eleven. Remember, and it has to do with rest. Matthew chapter eleven, verse, well, the last three verses, Matthew twenty-eight, Matthew eleven, twenty-eight, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. and I will give you rest." And then he goes on with it, "'Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest.'" That's our very popular English word today, relaxation. People kill themselves relaxing, don't they? And we see them on the highway. They have these great humongous motor homes, and then they pull a trailer behind it. That's where the mother-in-law lives. And then they have a aluminum boat on the top, and they've got a motorbike on the front, and a big dog sticking his head out the back window. And someone has found one of these great caravans on the road and says, used to be on vacation, we went to get away from it all. Now we take it all with us, you see. And people literally kill themselves these days, relaxing. They go too far, too fast, and try to do too many things. And as someone said a week or so ago to me, I'm glad to come back off vacation and get back to work so I can get a rest. And that's the way it is. And the Lord says what? You want relaxation? You get involved in the work of the Lord. I see people don't believe that. People say, the doctor says, I'm working too hard. So I'm going to give up being an elder, I'm going to give up teaching my Sunday school class, I'm going to give up hospital visitation. The Lord says, no, it doesn't work that way. Relaxation is getting involved in the work of the Lord. Now that's not logical, it's not reasonable, but that's the way it works spiritually. And you shall find relaxation unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I tell you this, friends, there's no better way for you to expend energy than in the things of the Lord. because that has eternity in view. Anything and everything else that you and I work at down here, we have to say goodbye to at the grave. But the things that are done in and for the name of the Lord will meet us out in eternity. That's the best investment that you can have with your life, and that is getting totally involved in the things of the Lord. And that's what's told to us here in Matthew eleven. So we find these people... like to rest. And they're David's men. David's six hundred men. And they say, we think we ought to just stay right here. But then in verse number one of chapter twenty three of first Samuel, we find also there are people who like to rob. People who like to rob. Verse number one, the Philistines fight against Keilah and they rob the threshing floors. They rob the threshing floors. And I thought, well, there's Malachi chapter three where the Lord says, you have robbed me. in ties and offering. And they say, where have we robbed thee? And the Lord says, in ties and offering. I thought also recently that people rob the Lord in the use of Sunday, don't they? It's supposed to be the Lord's day. But yet they refer to the fact, well, that's my day of relaxation. And we see them with a boat behind their cars and they're going off here and going off there. We don't expect unsafe folks to follow very closely those teachings, but we do expect the Lord's people to want to be in the place where the Lord is honored and magnified. While back I was preaching down in Tampa and I went home with some folks for Sunday dinner and they had some folks from the Assembly and, of course, they were talking about people that I didn't know and situations that I didn't know. So I picked up the Tribune, Tampa Tribune, I think that's the name of it, and a Sunday paper, you know. It takes two men and a boys just to lift it, you know, big thing. But I was captivated by a great big picture that was on the front page. And it showed there a very beautiful, thin young woman with long blonde hair, and she was walking in the rain, so the long blonde hair was just hanging in strings. And she was carrying a little bundled up baby in her arms, and it was pouring down rain. And she was walking right down the middle street of one of the major thoroughfares of the city of Tampa. And there were people along the curb watching her and so forth. And then I noticed that behind her was a fire truck. And up on top of the fire truck was the casket of the one who had used to be her husband. He had been killed that week in a fire in Tampa. And now they were having this great parade to honor him. And here's this woman, his widow now, and she's carrying their little baby in the rain, down the middle of the street, being gawked at by people on the curb. And I thought, why should she want to do all that? Because they were honoring her loved one. And when we gather together at the table of the Lord, we ought to desire, we ought to run to the place because they're going to honor our loved one, you see. Met together in the name of the Lord. In the same way with all of our other services, it's so hard to get people to come out Sunday nights. A lot of places don't have Sunday night meetings anymore. A lot of places don't have midweek meetings. Because the Christians won't come. Christians won't come, you see. And we ought to desire to be there because we're going to sing about our loved one. Somebody's going to talk about our loved one. We're going to fellowship together in the name of our loved one. People ought not to be able to keep us away from a place like that. But we have to almost make it totally impossible for people not to come. You come, we'll let you out on time, we're going to have ice cream afterwards, we're going to, the person who's going to speak is going to be, you know, all these other sorts of things. And sometimes people say to me, you make the time go so quickly. As if that's our sole desire, you see, yeah, I'll go, but make it go as quick as you can. And if you can't speak very well, you do yo-yo tricks or something, you know, make it as palatable as possible. Make it as palatable as possible. And there are those who rob. Robbed the Lord of the glory due unto his name. Robbed the Lord of the service and of the strength that we owe unto him who has done everything for us. Robbed other people of the fact that we know how to get saved. We know how to have human sins forgiven. We know how to give a person eternal life by having them trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. We even rob others by not telling them these things. I'm going to leave that with you because you can think of a lot of other ways. So there are those who rob. Verse number one. And notice also you come down to verse three and verse four of chapter twenty three. And there are those who revolt. Verse three and verse four. David's men said unto him, Behold, we're afraid enough here in Judah. How much more than if we come to Kiela against the armies of the Philistines. So David in verse four went back and asked the Lord the same question again. And the Lord is a little bit more adamant this time. Gives him a few more details. The Lord answered David and said, Arise, go down to Kiela, for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hands. He hadn't told him that the first time. He said, yes, go down and fight against the Philistines. Now the Lord adds to it, and he said, not only will you fight against the Philistines, but you will be victorious in your fight against the Philistines. Yes, go down, do that thing again. The people who revolt, this is not the time to do it. We don't have the strength to do it. We don't have this to do it. We don't have that to do it. People who revolt against what God wants us to do. Back in the hippie culture, you remember, the hippie fella came along, told older man, he said, you know, I'm revolting, and the older man looked at him and said, you certainly are. But now, in this situation, verses three and four, you have what I would call reason. It's not logical force to go, it's not reasonable force to go. Our own mind says don't go down, and a lot of times Christians today don't follow faith, they follow reason. And it sounds very palatable. Yes, you're right. Yes, you're right. Yes, you're right. This is not right. This could be better. We could, all these other sorts of things, you know, but we walk by faith, not by sight, your Bible says. And very often the Lord will ask you to do something that to you will be totally unreasonable and totally, well, I almost said unethical. Lord never asked you to do that. but something that is not logical, something that's not reasonable, and sometimes you have to be like David and go before the Lord again. I said, Lord, would you spell that out for me again? And the Lord's always very patient. He'll do that. Remember, he did that with Gideon. He said, Gideon, now do you have any doubt that you can win against the Midianites and all the children of the East, innumerable by number? And Gideon said, yeah, I still have some doubts here. And you remember the Lord says, well, you go down into the camp of the Midianites, and you just listen, and you just hear. And I always like the fact that the Lord told him to take somebody with him. You remember whom the Lord told to take with him? Very difficult name. You might ask a man on the street and you say, well, who is Gideon? Can you tell me anything about Gideon? He'd probably say, yeah, he's the fellow who puts the Bibles in the motel rooms. I said, well, yeah, you're partly right, but I was thinking of the original Gideon. Oh, boy. And a man on the street might remember his Sunday school days and say, well, it seems like I remember lamps and pitchers and trumpets. That's good enough. That's good enough. Now, can you tell us who Fura or Pura was? And he'd probably say, well, that was probably Gideon's wife. No, I don't think so. No. But, see, nobody knows Pura or Fura. but he was the one that was sent with Gideon down to the camp of the Midianites. And if Gideon is captured and put to a very horrible and painful death, the same result is going to be that to Pura or Fura. But we never give him any credence at all. As far as I know, it's the only time he appears in the Word of God, but his fate is tied in with the fate also of Gideon. And those two fellows went down to the camp of the Midianites, and you remember how that turned out. And so, The Lord allows Gideon to have this second evidence of the fact that God is going to give the victory to them. And that's what we have also here. And the Lord says, well, all right, he says, not only will you fight against them, but I'll give you the victory of it. So sometimes reason has a tendency to make us revolt. That can't be the will of God because of, and then we inject our own thinking into it. because this is not right and that is wrong and so and so and so and so and this other sort of a thing. But following the reason, you see, comes the revelation. Not only will you fight against the Philistines, but I'll give you a victory over them. And following the revelation comes the reassurance to the fact that David says, come on, we're going. All six hundred of us, we're going down. So you have to overcome the reason, the logic, which very often seems to go counter to the will of God. You say, am I walking by faith or am I walking by sight? You make that decision and you go on in the things of the Lord. And it's amazing what individual Christians have done and what local congregations have done because they followed the pathway of faith. Impossible situations. That won't work here. But they try it, they try it, and it works, you see. And I talked to someone this week and they said, well, it didn't seem to be the way to go, but we tried it and the Lord marvelously blessed. Everything was wrong. Everything was against it. But the indication of the Lord was to go this way, and they went that way, and it was a great blessing. And people would say, you can't do that. But they did it, and the Lord honored, and the Lord gave him power and strength, and the Lord brought fruit forth from it. Here's usually where you put in the illustration of the bumblebee, you know. According to the laws of aerodynamics, a bumblebee can't fly because its wings aren't big enough to carry its body. But the bumblebee doesn't know that, so it just goes ahead and flies. And that's what we need to do. And rather than listening to folks telling us all the reasons why we can't do something, if you have the assurance that this is the revelation of God, that this is what God wants us to do, then you'd best do it. Commit yourself to the way of the Lord, and the Lord will bless. I guarantee it. So you have people who revolt, and David's men says, listen, we're bad enough off here. We're not going to go down there. And David says, come on, we're going. Now we have people also who remember, and that's in verse number six. People who remember, and it came to pass when Abbiathar, the son of a Himalek, fled to David to Kiela that he came down with an ephod and a sand. Now this takes us back several lessons, you remember. There's the priests, there's the priests, and David went to him and got Goliath sword. And then all those priests, eighty-five of them, were killed, you remember, under the direction of Saul and Doag, the Edomite, killed all those eighty-five priests. but one escapes. Now he adjoins with David. Now David has an advantage now. Now he has a priest with an ephod. And so that comes to us in verse number six. And then in verse number seven you have people who rejoice. Verse number seven it was told Saul that David was coming to Kiela and Saul said, God hath delivered him into my hand. And Saul's rejoicing over this because he has shut in into this walled city by entering into a town that hath gates and bars. S Psalm thirty-one and verse twenty-one. It gives us some help, I think, in this area. Psalm thirty-one and verse twenty-one. Psalm thirty-one and verse twenty-one. It says here in this word, Blessed be the Lord, for he has showed me his marvelous kindness in a strong city. That sounds a lot like Kiela. Blessed be the Lord, for he has showed me his marvelous kindness in a strong or in a fenced city, in a walled city. Now that was Keilah. And you remember David's men didn't want to go down there because they said that thing is going to become a trap to us. We're going to get inside and Saul simply surrounds it and we can't get away because of the walls. And the psalmist says, the Lord has showed me great kindness when I was in that sort of a situation. Have you ever been in that situation? Absolutely no way out. and the Lord has showed you a way. The Lord has opened up an exit for you. And you've rejoiced in the goodness of the Lord because this is what He has done. And you've been in this situation and someone has said when the devil builds wall around you, he can't ever put a roof over your head. So when the outlook is dark, try the uplook, you see. And the Lord delivers. And people will give their testimony. They said there was absolutely no way out of this situation. But then here's the situation. Remember, Remember the first time worship is mentioned in the Bible? There it is in Genesis chapter twenty-two. And here's a man, a father, who was told by the Lord to offer up his son, his only son Isaac, whom thou lovest. And recently I had sort of a debate with a fellow who said that, you know, God promoted human sacrifice. You know, that's the only thing they could see in it. And Abraham didn't have any precedent to go by, and yet the book of Hebrew says he believed that God would raise up Isaac from the dead because, and Isaac was the promise. And Isaac can't produce children if he has a dead body, can he? And so Abraham exhibits great faith. And then he says, don't slay him. Don't slay him, Abraham. And Abraham turned and saw a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Now, did the ram just miraculously appear there, or had it been there the whole time, the whole time. Maybe Abraham was so concerned about Isaac and preparing everything for the sacrifice, he didn't see the ramp, but that's the experience a lot of people have. I was in a boxed-in situation, and then the Lord showed me the escape route. The Lord showed me how to get out of it. So you have this, people who rejoice in this situation. Verse number nine, people who repent. David knew that Saul secretly practiced mischief against him, And he said to Abbiathar the priest, bring hither the ephod. Isn't that wonderful? He didn't have the ephod before. He didn't have the priest before. But now David says, the Lord has added. And so I'm going to use that which God has added, which he did. And that's what you and I need to do. The Lord has showed me this thing. So I'm going to use this thing that the Lord has showed me, whatever it may happen to be. And now that God has supplied me with this, I'm going to use that thing that God has supplied me with. We need to recognize that as God adds unto us. We use those things which God has added. So people who repent in this way, you remember Doag in the last part of chapter twenty-two. David said to Abaiathar, same man, I knew at that day when Doag the Edomite was there that he would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house. That's what David said in first Samuel twenty-two, twenty-two. and people who repent now. But then you come down to verse number twelve. Strange turn of events here. These people of Coliah, they certainly were ungrateful people. Verse twelve of our chapter then said, David, will the men of Kiela deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord says, yes, they will deliver thee up. And as I read through the chapter, I said, but we're still talking about the man after God's own heart. And you see, our human reasoning would say, but If you are the man after God's own heart, you shouldn't have any enemies. You shouldn't have any people that are trying to kill you. You shouldn't have any people that are going to be deceitful to you. You've rescued their material possessions and kept all of them from getting killed, and they don't appreciate a one iota. And it seems to me as if I'm a man after God's own heart, Everything ought to go well. I ought to be prosperous all the time. I ought to have no problems at all. And you see, that's what some segments of evangelicalism teach today. If you're living where God would have you to live and you know the right formula, you know you won't ever have any problems, you won't ever have any needs, you won't ever have any sicknesses, you won't have any heartaches, you won't have any crises or catastrophes in your life. But that's not what the Bible teaches, is it? That we have these things, and some of the things we have, just because we're still human beings. Your Christian friend coughs at you and you get the flu. I told somebody last night, well, Christians are supposed to share. So if you have a cold, give it to somebody else. Get rid of it. But you know, you're going to get colds and you're going to get the flu and some of the things are going to happen to you just because you're still a human being. And unless the Lord comes, somebody's going to take you in your final illness. or accident or whatever. Somebody said, AP gives one time, do you believe in divine healing? And he said, of course I do. Don't believe in divine healers. He said, but I believe in divine healing. Because since the time I was born, the Lord has healed me of every disease I've ever had. I believe in divine healing. And the Lord will heal me of every single one of them except the last one. And when I get the glory, I'll be healed of that one too. I like that sort of an answer. You know, you couldn't get around A.P. Gibbs. He always had an answer. Of course, I believe in divine healing. But sometimes people say, but I'm a Christian. I should never get a cold. I should never have a flat tire. I ought never to break a dish. You see, and that's not taught in the Word of God. Things happen to you, but now you've got the Lord. Now you've got his strength. Now you've got the reason that no good thing will he withhold from those that walk uprightly and the Lord doesn't allow things haphazardly into your life there's a reason for all of these things Lord help me to learn from this the thing that you want me to learn otherwise I'm apt to become very critical and maybe a little bit bitter how God could you allow this thing to happen to me and so we have this sort of a situation people who who renege in verse number twelve ungrateful people. Will the men of Kyla deliver me? Yes, they will. And will they deliver me to the hand of Saul? Yes, they will. They will deliver the up and so on and so forth. People who reneged, despite all the goodness that David had done for them, sounds like Nabal, doesn't it? And David, remember, sent to Nabal and said, My men are hungry. We need some of the stuff. And the only thing Nabal could see was that David was an escaped slave from somebody. And he missed the whole point of the thing. And that time David got mad. He said, we have protected Nabal in all of his possessions. And now we're going to go down. Now we're going to go down and kill him. See. And who interceded? Nabal's wife, lady named Abigail. And your Bible says she came before David and she knelt down with her face to the ground. Now that's not a good position. when you're at the feet of a fellow who's mad at you and he's got a sword in his hand. You could hear a whew through the air and the next thing you see is your head rolling down the road, you see. But she prostrated herself before him, you see. And it turned the heart of David, didn't it? Turned the heart of David. Ungrateful people, you may run into one once in a while. You may do something very nice for somebody and then you'll hear that they have become very critical to you. And the thing that keeps you going is, I did this as unto the Lord, as unto the Lord, and that keeps you going. People who renege, we have that in this situation. Also Matthew twenty-six and Luke seventeen and so forth. Verse sixteen, there are people who refresh. Jonathan, verse sixteen of our chapter, Jonathan, Saul, son of Rosa, went to David in the wood and strengthened his hand in God. Now you read something of the same thing in the life of the Lord Jesus, when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. And you read, and an angel appeared unto him, strengthening him. It doesn't say that the angel said anything to him. What could an angel say to the Son of God, you see? But the very presence of the angel apparently strengthened the Lord, as this angel apparently was an emissary from his father. An angel appeared unto him, strengthening him. strengthening him. Now, here you have Jonathan appearing to David, which strengthened him. And from that you turn over to chapter thirty. We won't get to chapter thirty in our study unless we all stay tomorrow. First Samuel chapter thirty and verse number six. Same book, First Samuel chapter thirty, verse number six. David is greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved or bitter. Every man for his sons and for his daughters. But David encouraged himself, and the Lord is God. So you get encouragement from God directly. You get encouragement from Christian friends who come by just at the right time, and the Lord directs them to do this. and they'll have prayer with you. Or they'll mention just the verse of Scripture that you have need of at the time. And that's the way you get your heart strengthened and the Lord provides for it all. So there are people who refresh and bless their hearts, may their tribe increase. Used to be one of our elders. He's with the Lord now, but when my wife and I would be going through a particularly stressful time, phone or drink would be this elder. And he said, I don't know why, and I don't need to know why, but I have been impressed to pray for you already this morning three different times, and I'm going to pray for you some more. He had a direction from the Lord that the Morgans needed some help of whatever kind it was, and he prayed for us, and he was going to keep, now that strengthens your heart in the Lord. That's a great encouragement. People who refresh and so forth. And this is the last thing. People who rely. Verse number fourteen, David abode in the wilderness in strongholds and remained in the mountain in the wilderness of Ziph, and Saul saw him every day, but God delivered him not into his hand. People who rely on the Lord. That's verse fourteen. Verse twenty-nine. David went up from fence and dwelt in strongholds in Getty. And it's interesting to remember that these strongholds are in the wilderness, in the hard place, where the men probably would just as soon not be. But that's where David was, and the Lord strengthened him in the wilderness as well as strengthening him perhaps in more pleasant places. You remember a group called the Sons of the Prophets once said to Elisha concerning Jericho, this is a pleasant place. This is a pleasant place, but the water is totally undrinkable. And you could go there to the Holy Land today, and they'd probably take you to Jericho and show you Elisha's spring. We were there, they had a little gasoline pump going, and they were pumping a tanker truck full of water out of Elisha's spring. Turned the water sweet, you see. And you may consider yourself in a stronghold. You may consider your family in some kind of a stronghold this morning. But the Lord can give you a stronghold in the wilderness as much as anything that he has ever done. Strongholds in the wilderness. Well, we could say more, but we won't. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father and our God, we give you thanks for all the joy that there is in being saved. We thank thee, Father, that thou hast taken us out of the shades of night and put us in the plains of light. And, Father, we thank thee for eternal life. We thank thee, Father, that the promises of God are in Christ, yea, and in him, amen. And, Father, we thank you for the confidence that this gives unto us. Blessed is day, Father, we pray thee, and the further service of the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep us, we pray, these safe from harm and accident and danger. And, Father, cause us to be rejoicing believers. We pray these things, Father, in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.