David's life demonstrates that God works with individuals through testing, trusting, and testimony, even when circumstances are difficult. The sermon explores David's personal reliance on God, drawing parallels to individual faith and the importance of a personal relationship with Christ, as seen in passages like 1 Samuel 24 and Psalms. The core lesson is that God's control extends to circumstances, others, and ultimately, ourselves, urging believers to trust His plan and allow Him to transform their attitudes. The message concludes by emphasizing that God's ultimate purpose is to change us, not necessarily the circumstances around us.
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They have all forsaken me and fled. Jim Dindy's ladies used to be called the bells of Park of the Palms. I thought, okay. I didn't know whether those original group had all retired and we had the second generation now or not. And anyway, it's always a delight to hear these bells. How do they keep them all straight? I don't know. I sit up here and I try to look over their shoulders trying to read the music. And it's about as complicated to me as the music for the guy who plays the bass drum. I can't ever figure it out, but then I'm not supposed to, I guess. I'm supposed to push Mr.
Comiker's book on the one that Jim just was holding up to you on the life of David or whatever the name of it was. And to defend myself, I said, I've been pushing this book. all week. Well, he said, that's good too. That's good too. But I went to a conference one time and a lady came bubbling up to me and she said, oh, I'm so glad to be here, Mr. Morgan. I've got every one of the books that you've ever written. I said, that's amazing because I never wrote any. Why, she said, yes, you have too. You've written twenty-eight or thirty of them, and I've gotten every one, and I just go and read them, read them, and reread them again.
I said, no, that's not me. I haven't written any books. And she said, aren't you G. Campbell Morgan? I said, no, I'm J. Philip Morgan. And then she said, oh, and I wish you could have heard the way she said, oh. There was volumes in that little utterance. utterance that says, I've wasted all this money. I've looked forward to this for so long, and he's an imposter, an interloper. Oh, she puts so much in that little word, oh. Well, I made the mistake of mentioning that one time at a men's conference in Bryson City.
I think our brother McNeil was there. Not that there's anything wrong with the story, but unfortunately David Adams was in the audience. From that time on, I've been G. Campbell. And I gave him a book a while back, and I signed it, G. Campbell. I couldn't sign G. Campbell Morgan. That would be terrible to write somebody else's name in there, but I wrote it, and he read it, and you know, he liked it. And I was surprised that his spirituality was such a height that he could understand most. You see, preachers save all these things for the last night because you're going home anyway, you know. Anyway, he calls me G.
Campbell and up there the chapel in Wainsville sometimes we come in and he said, well, look who just came in, G. Campbell Morgan. Of course, everybody turns around, you know. No, that's a dumb old Phil. That's not G. Campbell. Anyway, there's been some good books written about David and on David and there's been some good things written by David, haven't there? Some good things written by David. And I urge you to read those things again. Now, we want to thank you for all your warm welcome and good, happy fellowship that we have enjoyed while being in your midst this week. And we have enjoyed so much all your friendliness and your prayer requests that you've come to us with and other situations.
And we look forward to spending a good eternity together, don't we? You know, when you say goodbye to a Christian, you can say, I'll see you later. Now the Lord's rebuked me for saying that to everybody. And it used to be if I went in to pay my gas bill or whatever, I'd say, well, I'll see you later. And the Lord rebuked me for it. He said, don't lie to that person. You may not see that person later. So now if you're saying goodbye to a believer, you can say, I'll see you later. So we'll see you later. But we have something to do in the meantime here. Now here we are thus far. We've worked our way up to First Samuel chapter twenty-four. And I think it's a good place to end our study this week because as the chapter ends, Saul is sorry for all of the hurt and harm that he has done to David or tried to do to David, and it doesn't last too long.
But at any rate, I think it's a good way to end the book. If only the little book of Jonah had ended with three chapters, you and I would have been more pleased with it. But the little book of Jonah has four chapters, and the fourth chapter puts Jonah right back seemingly where he was before. He doesn't agree with what God is doing, and he doesn't like what God is doing, and he feels he has been betrayed, and his reputation as a prophet has been besmirched, and he doesn't like that. And if man had been writing the book, it would have ended with chapter number three, the little book of Jonah, because everything ends up nicely, and that's the way we like it in our culture and in our society. We like everything to end the way fairy tales end, and they all lived happily ever after, you know.
But then you have that one last chapter, chapter number four, in the book of Jonah. And Jonah's right behind the religious eight ball again, and he's a little bit peaked, and the book sort of ends in an open-ended fashion. You don't know whether Jonah got revived again or not. We hope he did. We trust he did. But anyway, I think as we finish First Samuel chapter four, this will be a nice way to end it because everything seems to be smoothed out towards the end, at least for this chapter anyway. Now we have a solo here. We want to study that. We have a solo and we have a duet, I think, in our study. And I think we have a trio in our study. And sometimes you read in the hymn books, you know, different songs.
And I always feel as if I'm leading the singing and I have to sing those Because up on the upper left-hand corner it says do it, you know. It's spelled D-U-E-T. And so we're going to have a duet or a duet here. But we start out with a solo, a single voice, you notice. A solo of sustenance. And David draws on the goodness and the mercy and the strength of the Lord. And it reminded me of something over in First Peter. First Peter chapter number one. has to be a solo of sustenance, even as much as you and I enjoy Christian fellowship and getting together and prayer ministries together and all this, basically every believer is an individual before God.
And you remember, Hagar said, thou God seeest me. And one of the surprises when you talk to somebody who's not saved or is not very well acquainted with God or the way he works, they're sort of amazed that they can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Now we've used that for decades, that a person saved can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and we've used it so much it's become almost archaic or old-fashioned or have lost its punch, but bless your hearts, it's still true today, it's when it was first devised. A personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And I think I've relayed the story a while back that young fellow came forward to be saved one Sunday noon at our chapel.
And we talked to him before, and he and I sat down at the front here, and some of the other brethren kind of hung around. And I said, why did you come forward, Eric? And he said, I want to get saved. I said, the Lord's been dealing with you, has he? Yes, he's been dealing with me. I need to get saved. I don't want to put it off any longer. I said, good for you, Eric. And I gave him a few gospel verses, and he said, I know all those. I said, all right, now it's time to ask the Lord to come into your heart and save you, you see. That may not be theologically correct, the first part, but anyway, I was talking to Eric. And I said, all right, let's do it. So I closed my eyes and bowed my head, and he did the same thing, and I didn't hear anything. And so I looked at Eric, and I said, you wanted to ask the Lord to save you, didn't you?
Yeah. I said, okay. And I still don't hear anything. Now, it's all right for preachers sometimes to open one eye to see what's going on. Nobody else has allowed that professional courtesy. So I looked at Eric, and he's looking at me. I said, Eric, do we have a problem that we haven't gone through yet or something? And he says, I want to get saved. And I said, I understand that, you see. And he says, you do it. I said, Eric, I can't ask the Lord to save you. That's something you have to do. He said, but I don't know what to say. Eric, I said you could say the same thing to the Lord that you and I have just been talking about here on this front view. Tell the Lord, you know you're a sinner, tell the Lord you believe Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for your sin and that you want to be saved and you believe the promises of God.
And he says, I don't know when to say thee, thou, and thy. I said, we've been talking about this sort of thing, you see. I said, put it in your own words. Don't worry about the phraseology. Sometimes we get so wrapped up with phraseology, we miss the sincerity of the prayer. And so Eric said, well, all right. And he said, dear Lord, You know I wanted to get saved a long time before, but I've always chickened out. And I glanced over at the brethren, and they were horrified that you talked that way to God. Chickened out. I said, I believe God knows exactly what Eric was talking about because it came from his heart. And that Eric, you see, he had to recognize that he was an individual before God, and there was only one person that could save him.
and that he was the one who had to ask the Lord to save him. Nobody else could do that for him. And every person that you and I will see in glory in that eternal day will be people who somewhere in their existence have said, Lord, I want to be saved. Every single one of them. We don't get saved as a married couple. We don't get saved as a congregation. We don't get saved as a family. Every individual is there because he or she somewhere along the line has made the decision to get saved. And friend, if you're here tonight and you're not saved, you have to make that decision and you're the one that has to ask the Lord to save you. Nobody else can do it for you. So everybody is an individual before God.
And we meet together as families. We meet together as congregations. We meet together as conferences. But we're just a group of individuals before God. Sometimes we ask some of our young men to speak, maybe for the first time. One fellow while back got up in prayer meeting and prayed audibly for the first time. And afterwards I said, now I'd like to hear that. That was a good prayer and as the Holy Spirit moves you and motivates you, we want to hear some more of that. He said, how long did I pray? I said, I timed you the minute you started with one eye, of course, you see. And I said, you prayed twenty seconds. He said, I thought I prayed twenty minutes.
He said, my knees began to shake, and I said, I better sit down before I fall down. But bless his heart, it was a start, wasn't it? His prayer was fine, very wonderful. Not a thing he had to correct in it. But he said, I thought I was up there for the fear of hearing one's own voice, you know. And our young men stand up, and they say, I'm frightened of death up there. If I go into the chapel on Saturday in practice, I do wonderfully well. Dwight L. Moody should take lessons from me, you know. It says we get there and there's all these people. And some of them are right with you. And others look like they wish they were somewhere else.
And they're intimidated by us. And I tell them, are you afraid to talk to any of the people in our congregation on a one-to-one basis? Well, no. I say, well, that's all a congregation is. It's a group of individuals. Yeah, I know what you tell me, but I get frightened just the same. But we're all individuals before the Lord, and David had to learn this. Now we finally come over here to First Peter chapter one, verse number five. First Peter one five, who are kept, the word is garrisoned. We've heard a lot about the Philistines and about the armies and all the rest of those sorts of things. Verse five, who are garrisoned or kept by the power of God through faith, under salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. Verse number six gives you two restrictions that you and I need to remember when we're under great pressure. Number one, for a season. It's only temporary. It's only temporary. And you remember the word that went to the Ninevites, yet forty days. And then the Lord will destroy this whole area unless you repent. The Lord has restrictions on these sorts of things. We don't know how many days we have left until the rapture occurs. But in the mind of God, there is a restriction upon us. At this particular time, you see, the rapture is going to occur.
And the Word of God says, and at the appointed time or in the due course of time, God sent forth his son to be born under a woman. There was a special time for it, you see. These sorts of things. So the first restriction is, according to verse number six, it's going to be for a season, a temporary time. The second restriction is, if need be, we don't always need it. But if God sees that we need it, then we suffer that particular chastisement, whatever it may be, but it's not a permanent sort of a thing. So you have those two wonderful restrictions therein, And it says the manifold, the manifold temptations, the many colored temptations, the word is, many colored temptations.
Temptations don't always come the same way and from the same source and with the same sort of a background associated with them. Many colored temptations. It says in verse number six, verse number seven, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Now this is for the individual. And the Lord, by the Holy Spirit, I believe, is dealing with each and every one of us in this way. Periodically we go through these times of testing. And the idea here is your faith is tested and approved.
That is, you say, this works. I trusted the Lord when this pressure was great. I trusted the Lord when it seemed to be a terrible sort of an experience to go through. I trusted the Lord when I didn't see any end to it, and the Lord has always safely delivered me. And that's true, isn't it? The Lord has safely brought me through them all. Now, that's part of the terminology that David uses in the Psalms, too. So, there is a solo, solo of sustenance for training, according to First Peter chapter one. Then you go back to the book of the Psalms, and we find that there's a solo also for trusting. And that's back in Psalm chapter two and verse number six. We know that Psalm quite well.
Psalm chapter number two or Psalm number two and verse number six. This is a word given to us here. Psalm two six. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. Now we compare that with Psalm number forty, Psalm number forty in verse number two. Remember now we're talking about David. Psalm number forty and verse number two. Oh, my old loose leaf Bible. Boy, I could really arrange the books in the Bible if I wanted to. Psalm forty in verse number two and verse number three.
He brought me up also out of a horrible pit. out of the mirey clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings, and every believer would say amen to that. Verse three, He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. That's supposed to be your outward testimony, because you have a close, loving, tender relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and He fills your life. And it's easy to talk about those things with which your heart is totally filled. David says in Psalm twenty-three, My cup runneth over. And bless your heart, your cup doesn't run over until it gets full. And if you have trouble with a half-empty cup, you need to pray that you get more of the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart.
So it'd be easy to talk about Him. I've given this illustration not of how many times, but every time I fly, I seem to encounter this sort of a thing, so it's an up-to-date illustration. But I always like to get a window seat in the airplane, so if I get the feeling a little poorly, I can always open the window and get some fresh air. But I usually get in the window, strapped in, I can't get out, and then somebody sits down next to me who always seems to be a grandmother or a grandfather. And I've never met this person before, and says, have I ever showed you pictures of my grandchildren? No, I don't think we've ever met before. I haven't had the privilege of seeing pictures of your progeny.
And of course, they always have pictures, don't they? This is a baby when it was first born, and this is the father who went into the delivery room, and this is a picture of him stretched out on the delivery room floor, and this is the baby's first Christmas, this is the baby's first Easter, this is the baby's first time it burped up, and this is all the... I have to look through all these sorts of things. And when I think, finally, that the ordeal is over and I'm mentally praying for the pilot to really go faster, they flip the cards over and there's another whole row of pictures, you know. What makes them do that? What makes people enthused about a golf game or about fishing or whatever? It's the fact that their hearts are filled with that subject. And so the Christian that says, Dear Lord, I ought to tell people about the Lord Jesus, but it's so hard for me.
Maybe you need to get a little closer to the Lord. Sort of spill right out of your experience. Spill out of your heart because He fills your heart. And you'll be surprised how many times there'll be opportunities for you to talk about the Lord. It seems as if opportunities just open up. Perfect for you to introduce the Lord Jesus Christ to this person and vice versa. My brother's father-in-law had a long-lingering illness like my brother Bill. And I used to go by and and visit with him so his wife could do other things around about the house and so forth. And I'd hang on to our friend's hand and he'd have spasms of pain and it'd be so great I thought he'd going to break every bone in my hand.
And then the spasm would pass and he'd say, what's the name of that fellow who built a sign out in front of the bill? I said, oh dear, that was twenty years ago. I don't know. He came from Georgia. Yeah, yeah, that's right. He came from Georgia. He's a tall fellow. Yeah, I was a tall fellow. And when you get the guy's last name, Then after a while we'll get the guy's first name. And my friend posed difficult questions like that to keep his mind active and to keep his mind off the pain. And another one he asked, what was the name of that kid we had in Sunday school that was such a terror? I said, I'd give you fifty names there. He said, no, no, no. There was one kid who pulled a knife on another kid and we told his mother about it and she said, son, did you do that?
And the son said, no. But fortunately they went somewhere else. So let somebody else worry about it. But he would say this sort of thing, and these spasms of pain would come. And then I remember one time the phone rang, and his wife answered the phone, and she talked for twenty minutes on the phone. And when she finished, she said, Mama, who was that? She said, I don't know, it was a wrong number. He said, Phil, can you believe that? She'll talk for twenty minutes to somebody she doesn't even know. Imagine when one of her friends calls up here. But, you know, I found this out that it wasn't very long that she talked to this person she'd never met before, didn't know what the person looked like, didn't know the name of the person, and it wasn't very long before she found a nice way to introduce the Lord Jesus into the conversation.
She had the easiest way of doing it. It just flowed. She didn't have to take a pry bar and cram it in, you know. It just flowed. She'd quote verse of Scripture, tell about the Lord Jesus, or some tract that she was going to send the person or some other sort. And she was excellent in that. Why? Because the Lord Jesus filled her life. And it was easy for her to talk about Him. And so we have that. A solo, because the Lord works with us as individuals for training. We had that in First Peter one. For trusting. Psalm number two and verse number six, the coming of the Lord. And Psalm number forty. And also, I think for testing. And we come to that in First Samuel twenty-four.
For testing, First Samuel twenty-four, verse number four, The men of David said unto him, Behold, the day of which the Lord said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thy hand, that thou mayest do to him, as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose and cut off the skirt of Saul's road privily. Now, you remember the situation here. Saul had gone into a cave. And David and his men were already in the cave, hiding back in those dark recesses. And Saul came in, you see. And they said, David, here's your chance. This is a fellow that's been trying to kill you all this time. Now this is a providential revelation, David. God has purposely sent Saul into the cave here for you now to take your vengeance upon him.
And for a little while, David is tempted. He goes up and cuts apart of the skirt off of Saul's robe, you see. And then he's immediately filled with remorse. It's for testing. You have that in First Samuel twenty-four, verse four. Verse number five came to pass afterward that David's heart smote him because he had cut off Saul's skirt. And then verse number six. And he said unto his men, The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master. The Lord's anointed. That's a favorite phrase of David. The Lord's anointed to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord. Twice in that one verse you have that expression.
Verse number seven. So David stayed his servants with these words and suffered them not to rise against Saul, but Saul rose up out of the cave and went on his way. He come down to verse number fourteen. And he says, After whom is the king of Israel come out? After whom does thou pursue? After a dead dog, after a flee. Now he's repeated that again in verse number ten. I will not put forth my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed. Three times in that short passage of Scripture, David says, I will not raise my hand against this man, because the Lord put him where he is, and the Lord is going to take him away, and the Lord can do it by himself, and I'm not going to be tempted to hurry up the process.
Now, that takes great faith, doesn't it? Sometimes we think the Lord moves more slowly than we want him to move, But David is almost talked in to slaying Saul, and then he backs off and he's filled with remorse, and he says, this is not the will of God for me. This is not the will of God. This is all in the hands of the Lord. And three times, he tells his men, God anointed Saul, and when his time is up upon the throne, God will depose him, and that's not my responsibility. And sometimes I think God allows these testing times in our lives as individuals. It seems like almost every day we go through some kind of a testing time as individuals because God wants to see how we will react.
He wants to see, bless your hearts, I think he wants to give us a test concerning our faith. How strong is the methyl of our faith, you see? And I believe that when I was in school, that the teacher would say, now, are there any questions about this that we've been studying? No, no, no, no question, no question. All right, take out a piece of paper and your pencil. She's going to check us to see whether or not we really have that down. Then we have all kinds of questions. Go through that again. Go through that again, please, you see. And I think God is that way as our teacher. God shows us something, or we read something in the Word, and God seems to say to us, do you understand that? We would say, yes, I understand that.
Then God will give you a testing time to see whether or not you really have gotten the thing down fast. And if not, he recycles us. We go through the thing again, you see. So that's the solo, and it deals with David, God working with one individual. Now we go on to the duet. This is a duet of devotion. And Psalm number twenty-five. Psalm number twenty-five, we have this duet of devotion, which first of all has to do with experience. Psalm twenty-five. And these are twins, you see, as it were. We're going to try to put them together. Psalm twenty-five, verses one through five. Under thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee.
Let me not be ashamed. Let not my enemies triumph over me. Ye let none that wait on thee be ashamed. Let them be ashamed which transgress without cause. Show me thy ways, O Lord. Teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation. On thee do I wait all the day. That's what he says here. Lead me in thy truth, O Lord, for thou art the God of my salvation. On thee do I wait. So sometimes we wait on. That's the first one. Now you remember that and you turn over to Psalm number forty and verse number one. Psalm number forty and verse number one.
Here it says, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He stooped to hear my cry. I remember when my mother was in the hospital in her final illness, and she couldn't speak very loudly. She could just whisper, but my brother and I didn't want to miss a word that mother was saying. And we got our ear almost right down against mother's lips because we don't want to miss a thing that mother was telling us. And friends, that's the picture you have here of the Lord. When we cry unto him, he's so anxious to hear what we're going to say, he stoops down. He inclines his ear. down to where he won't miss a word. That's the kind of God that loves us and whom we serve.
But what do we say? Well, we're fine that here in Psalm twenty-five, I shall wait on the Lord. Psalm number forty says I will wait for the Lord. Not only just waiting for him, but waiting patiently for him. That's the hard part, isn't it? Very often I have to wait on the Lord because I can't do anything about the situation. But the higher realm, you see, is to wait patiently for the Lord. Not to get agitated and irritated, but to wait patiently. He said, Lord, in your own time and in your own hands, I'm waiting patiently for you to do it. Now, the Lord may not do it as long as you and I are upon the face of this earth. We may be praying for unsaved children.
We may be praying for some other thing, and the Lord may take us home before we see the realization of that plan. But I wait patiently for him. And that's hard for us because we don't live in a patient world. We have instant everything, don't we? We have instant coffee, we have instant tea. The world speaks about instant gratification. Sometimes I think somebody's going to invent instant water. You just add water with it and you'll have instant water. But we live in an impatient world. If you don't believe that, wait a split second too long down here at the corner when the traffic light turns from red to green. And there's always some impatient person behind you that will blow his horn, get out of the way, so we can go home and watch a basketball game on TV for three hours, you see.
And it's hard for us in this culture and in this world today to wait patiently on the Lord. So here's then the duet. I wait on the Lord and I also wait patiently for the Lord. Now that's experience. Coming back here to First Samuel chapter twenty-three this time, verse Samuel twenty-three and verse number seventeen. 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, Jonathan says. And then also Saul, my father knoweth. And then in chapter twenty-four, and verse number twenty, here's our duet, verse number twenty, David swear unto Saul, and Saul went home, but David and his men got them up unto the whole.
Here's the expression of this. When Jonathan says, Don't forget me when my father's deposed and when you become a king of Israel, and I want to be next unto you, which unfortunately never worked out, because Jonathan got killed, remember, on the slopes of Gilboa with his father and with his other brothers. Never had it because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there it is, this sort of a situation should be developing. Also while we're right here in First Samuel chapter twenty-four, verse number seventeen. Chapter twenty-four, verse seventeen. He said to David, Thou art more righteous than I. Saul says, For thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil.
And then you turn over to Second Samuel, chapter sixteen, and verses seven and eight. Second Samuel, chapter sixteen, verses seven and eight. Remembering the words there of Saul. Second Samuel, sixteen, verses seven and eight. Thus said, Shemii, when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial. The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul. How could he say that to David? That wasn't true. That wasn't true, but that's what he thought was true. He said, In whose stead thou hast reigned, as if you have usurped the throne. And the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son, and behold, thou art taken in thy mischief.
because thou art a bloody man. Then said, Abashai, the son of Zeru-Uriah, unto the king, why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head. That would have solved the problem, wouldn't it? He wouldn't have spoken nearly so loudly with his head rolling down the road. And the king said, What a humble man. He said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeru-Uriah? So let him curse, because the Lord has said unto him, Curse David. Who then shall say, wherefore hast thou done so? Now you remember also David when he talked to Saul and said, I haven't intended any harm at you at all. My men wanted me to kill you, but I haven't intended ever any harm to you.
And he says, why should you be chasing me because I am, you remember, I'm a dead dog, he said. And then he thought that was too grand. He said, I'm but a flea. I'm but a flea. Now here the same expression comes up when Shimei is cursing David. Let me take the head off this dead dog, you see, that sort of a thing. And David, you see, has the enjoyment of the Lord, so apparently none of these things really bother him. They must have affected him, but not really bothered him. And his enjoyment is in the will of God, saying, God allows these things to happen to me, and when Shemi-I gets through cursing, or when God wants them to stop cursing, then God will cause Shemi-I to quit cursing.
Now, that's a marvelous thing. avenue of faith to pursue, but it's very, very difficult. Lord, you have allowed this into my life. Very often we say, Lord, why have you allowed this into my life? But you see, the person of faith says, My times are in His hands. The Lord has allowed this to be. Therefore, I take it as from the hand of the Lord. And we've looked at two or three of these instances during this week. That the person, the Christian, who is totally immersed in the will and in the way of God, seems to an unsaved world not to care about things. Don't you care that this has happened? Yes, don't you care that that has happened? Yes, I do. But my times are in his hands.
And friends, you and I usually get into trouble when we take ourselves out of the hand of God and think we can streamline it and do better than God can. That's one of the big problems we have of winning people to the Lord. They think they can conduct their life better than God can conduct their life. Sometimes when you deal with people, they say, well, if I do get saved, what will God do with my life? And I say, I don't have any idea what God will do with you. Why? What difference does it make? Well, I wouldn't like to be a missionary to Africa. Why wouldn't you want to be a missionary? Oh, they have terrible sorts of things. There's the Johnson's serving in Burundi yet, and they're up in their eighties, and they ought to be retired here at Park of the Pounds, and all these other sorts of things, you see. And people want to know the blueprint before they get saved, before they get saved.
I went to work for General Motors, and I was just glad enough to have a job. And I didn't ask the personnel director, when will I be the CEO of this company? I was glad to have a job, you know. And maybe if I'd stayed longer, I could have been, no, I wouldn't have wanted to be CEO. I like to drive Ford's too much, and they probably wouldn't want me driving a Ford at General Motors. So you have a duet of devotion, and I hope you've seen these scriptures. This has to do with this, and this has to compare with that. And this is the way David thinks he calls himself a dead dog, and then Shemi and I are referred to as a dead dog. And there is a duality here, a duet, as it were. Last thing is this, and that is we have a trio, and this is a trio of testimony.
Back here in First Samuel chapter twenty-four, first Samuel chapter twenty-four, and that is a trio of testimony. And the first one is that God controls circumstances. First Samuel twenty-four and verse number ten, the last part of verse ten, I said, I will not put forth my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed. God controls circumstances. Now, don't we like to quote, the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. He turns it whithersoever he will. We like to quote that, but maybe we really don't deep down believe it. We see and hear a lot of things are going on in Washington, ad infinitum.
And I might say ad nauseum, you know. And we say, what's the answer? Can you imagine if all the evangelical Bible-believing prayer, praying Christians would get together and say, Lord, straighten out this mess and claim that verse. The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. He will turn it with us whoever he will. I think we would see answers to prayer that would astound us. that we would say, the Lord, Lord, thank you for answering prayer. You went above and beyond all that we could ask or think if we all got together to pray that, you see. And we have that sort of a situation here, that God controls circumstances. We have that in chapter twenty-four.
We had it back in chapter twenty-three and verse number twenty-seven. Chapter twenty-three, verse number twenty-seven. There came a messenger unto Saul, saying, Hastie and come, for the Philistines have invaded the land. You remember what a ticklish spot David and the six hundred men were in? It says they went around this way, and Saul went around that way, and surrounded them with the whole Israeli army. And they are in an untenable position. And there's no way they could fight their way out. There's no way they could beat the army. And it looks like the end of David. And then God allows a messenger to come to say, you, Saul, you better bring the army and come back home again. Because the Philistines knew that you were out here chasing one man, and they have invaded the land.
So King Saul has to gather up all his men and go back home again. The Lord knows how to do that, doesn't he? The Lord knows how to do that. I have to tell you a story. I have to tell you a story. Friend of ours, he's with the Lord now, and we only talk about people who are with the Lord because then they can't lay a lawsuit on you. Friend of ours with the Lord, out fishing one Saturday afternoon in the boat, motor, and... I almost said trailer. He didn't have the trailer with him, but they were out. And he said, the fishing was no good. He said, so I thought, well, we'll crank up the motor and we'll move to a better place. And he says the outboard motor wouldn't start. And he says, I took the carburation all apart. I took the ignition all apart. And this fellow's job was doing tune-up work on Buick's and Cadillac's.
So he knows ignition. He knows carburation, all the rest of it. He says, I couldn't find anything wrong with it. Nothing wrong with the gas. And he said, I worked on it, worked on it, worked it, tried to start the motor, it wouldn't start. I took it all apart again, tried to find out what the problem was. There wasn't any problem, but the motor wouldn't start. And his little boy, who then was about six or seven years of old, said, Daddy, you know what we didn't do? And he said, what didn't we do? And the boy said, we didn't pray about it. The father says, now I'm in a dilemma. There's no reason why this motor won't start, but I can't find why it won't start. And we're going to pray about it. Lord, let the engine start.
And of course, the engine won't start because I couldn't fix anything on it. And the engine's not going to start. And I'm going to have to try to explain to my little boy, sometimes when you pray, God says no. And he said, I'm in a theological dilemma here. So he said, okay, daddy, go ahead, start the motor. And the little boy turned around and sat in the seat. He's ready to go. Father said, well, rather reluctantly, I got a hold of the string and I pulled on it and the motor sprang to life and off we went. Father had the theological problem, not the little kid. And he said, Phil, to this day, I don't know why that motor didn't start. Maybe God wanted to show me a lesson that my son was going to teach me that you can pray about anything.
Pray about anything. So when David is totally surrounded, he's going to be annihilated, God injects. this sort of a thing. And he does this over and over and over again, doesn't he, in the Old Testament. Well, we won't get into that. Trio of testimony. God controls circumstances. Secondly, God controls others, doesn't he? Have that in verse twelve and verse thirteen. Lord, judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee. Verse twelve, verse thirteen, verse number fifteen of our chapter tonight. God controls others. And lastly, God controls me. God controls me. Verse five, verse six, verse seven, verse number eleven, God controls me.
You know, we've seen a lot of these wall models. God answers prayer. And once I saw, no, more than once I saw a motto that says, God controls circumstances. And just once, just once have I seen the sign, God controls me. It's a lot easier for me to want God to control circumstances or other people than it is for God to control me. You can read through the first five chapters of the book of Isaiah, and Isaiah complains about one thing after another, all the way through those five chapters. He doesn't like the people who are his contemporaries. He says they're only interested in making money. They're only interested in pleasures.
They're only interested in this, that, and the other thing. It sounds like that. All the way through the first five chapters of Isaiah. And then he gets to Isaiah chapter number six. In the year the king of Zion died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. And Isaiah was changed, wasn't he? The Lord didn't do a thing about all the problems that Isaiah didn't like, but he changed Isaiah. Maybe the Lord needs to do that with us. Rather than saying, this is not right and that's not right and this circumstances are bad and all the rest of it, maybe the Lord wants to change our attitudes. Maybe the Lord wants to change us. Maybe the Lord wants to change us. Well, our time is gone, but you don't have service tomorrow morning anyway, so I used up some of that time.
Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father and our God, we thank you again for all your love and care and mercy and compassion to us and for us. And we pray, Father, that the Holy Spirit might be able to take the things in the Word of God that we have read and apply them to our hearts. And Father, may we be anxious and ready for Him so to do. We pray, Father, blessing upon all these gathered here and the various families that they represent, Pray our Father that the Lord Jesus Christ might always have the preeminence in all things and that we might find it easy to talk about him. We pray these things, Father, with much thanksgiving in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.