From Distress to Deliverance: David’s Journey of Recovery

Coming through the deals tonight.

So I don't know that we probably didn't change a thing.

They just actually started working.

We had this discussion this morning.

They're not working.

Anyway, it's good to have brother Nick Perfecti with us tonight.

Brother Nick is on the staff of the West Coast Baptist College out in Lancaster, California, and I appreciate him.

He's helped us with some educational opportunities.

And I took two courses and then about three or four years ago and haven't taken one since.

Come on, brother, and preach for us tonight.

Thanks, Pastor.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Take your Bibles and turn to First.

Samuel, chapter number 30, First Samuel.

Thank you, Pastor Crawford.

I appreciate you allowing me to come in.

And even though I was here, of course, to see my new niece and nephew, I am very excited to be with you tonight to preach the word of God.

It is always a blessing to me to be able to be in this church where my brother and sister and of course my brother in law and sister in law serve here.

And, you know, you've got the better of the two siblings.

Okay, so you guys are very blessed.

Unfortunately, Pastor Chapel got the worst of the three, so.

But I do work at West Coast Baptist College.

I have a table in the back tonight.

We do offer on campus and online.

Opportunities in both our undergrad and our master's program.

If you are interested in taking a.

Class or two and can't make it.

Out to California, that's okay.

I can help you out as I.

Did with Pastor Crawford.

We got him set up for a couple classes and I'm sure he's going.

To take more in the future.

But, you know, if you'd like to take some classes, let me know.

I'd be glad to help you.

If you'd like to know about our.

College, I'd be glad to help you as well.

But for right now, let's take a look at First Samuel, chapter number 31 Samuel, chapter number 30.

The Bible says in verse number one.

And it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag and smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire.

And had taken the women captives that were therein.

They slew not any either great or small, but carried them away and went on their way.

So David and his men came to the city and behold, it was burned with fire.

And their wives and their sons and.

Their daughters were taken captives.

Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no power to weep.

And David's two wives were taken captives, Anoam and the Jezreelites, and Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

And David was greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him because the soul of all the people was grieved.

Every man, for his sons and for his daughters.

And if we were to stop there, we'd understand that David would be in.

A pretty tragic situation.

In fact, we're going to kind of study this passage tonight, looking back at the first couple chapters.

But when you look at David's life at this point, we realize that David is in quite a bind.

Not only is his wives taken, but the wives of the men that are following him and risking their lives for him, they've been taken as well.

And this place that they found comfort in over the past year and a half is now burnt to the ground.

And all of their possessions are completely gone.

And you could say, at the very least, that David was in a crisis.

David was caught up in a moment where he looked in and said, I have no idea what to do, but.

Take a look at the rest of the verse.

But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.

Let's have a word of prayer.

Lord, thank you so much for the time that we have tonight.

And, Lord, I ask that tonight would.

Be a great blessing to those who have heavy burdens, to those that are.

Sitting in the middle of a crisis of their own, whether it's a crisis of faith or whether it's a crisis of situation or the journey that they're on in this life.

Lord, I hope that this can be.

A revealer of how you've made a way of escape for even one of your servants in the Old Testament.

Lord, thank you so much for your word.

Thank you for all that you've given to us.

God, you are so good.

And in the moments where we don't think so, or the moments where we don't realize your goodness, remind us time.

And time and time again just how good you are.

Lord, thank you for all that you've done for us.

In your name, pray, Amen.

How many of you can remember a point in time, maybe a Christmas in the past, where you asked and asked and asked for something for Christmas and you actually got what you asked for?

How many of you can remember a time or a Christmas like that in the past?

I remember when I was a kid, we were living with my grandfather at the time for the space of about three to four months.

And for whatever reason, I got it in my head that it would be really neat to have a magic kit.

You guys know those, like, magic kits where you get the hat and a little like, you know, different.

You get the little magic wand or whatever it is.

And I'm talking about like an illusionist.

You know, not like a wizard or anything like that.

I'm talking about like, you know, a magic kit where you get the little, you know, flowers that they pull out of the hat and things like that.

And I remember asking my mom and dad for that for about three months span and thinking, man, I could be a magician.

I could be one of those guys pulling rabbits out of a hat or something like that, you know, I thought that could be me.

I could be a performer, you know.

Boy, was I wrong.

When I woke up that Christmas morning and I saw that gift there sitting under the tree.

It was this big old box.

I knew exactly what it was.

And I can't remember if it was my grandfather that bought it or my parents that bought it.

I didn't care.

I was grateful.

It was the magic kid that I had asked for for about three months.

It was a great day until I opened the box and realized I had no idea what I was doing.

This box had hundreds and thousands of little tiny pieces.

And I'm pretty sure I didn't perform a single magic trick with anything that was in that box.

I think I just threw around the hat or the wand at my brother.

Or sister at the time.

And, you know, it's interesting, as I think about illusionists or those that perform these types of tricks, they say that there are three parts to a magic trick.

They say there's the pledge, where you see an ordinary object.

Something that might not be extraordinary, just is.

It might be, you know, just a hat.

And then they've got the turn where the magician says, here's what I'm going to do with this ordinary object.

And then you've got the prestige where out of nowhere, here comes the rabbit out of the hat.

It's really interesting to watch these guys do these things.

I think of the great illusionist of the past.

I think of even one.

I'm not sure if he would be considered a magician.

Maybe he was Harry Houdini, who could really lock himself into any kind of case or chest or whatever it is and free himself until he actually couldn't.

But I think about him and how great he was at getting out of these spaces.

When I look at David's life, I look at someone who is here in this place in a bind.

If we were to go back a couple chapters, we'd find that David made a decision while running from Saul, who was jealous of the giant killer, the giant slayer.

He was jealous of this one, who was ultimately to take his place at King.

And Saul started running after him.

And it's interesting that as he's running after him, David time and time again had the opportunity to actually kill Saul, but would not lay his hand on God's anointed.

And in chapter 27 of First Samuel, if you study it out, David finally comes to a place where there's nowhere left to hide.

And so he makes league with Achish of the Philistines.

And he says, listen, if you'll just give me a spot to take me and my men and I can just stay here, I will help you and your army out.

In fact, Achish says, this guy killed one of my giants.

This guy is the giant slayer.

This is the great David.

Why not?

You know, it's like, you know, if you're.

If you're a hockey fan, it's like getting Sidney Crosby to come and play for your team.

You know, it's like, man, this guy's unbelievable, right?

When I think about David, though, he really kind of fools Achesh into a false sense of security.

And he tells him that, hey, listen, I'll take my men and my men will go about and they'll kind of attack the outside edges of Judah.

And really what he does, he makes his own plan, and he attacks the Jerichites and the Gezirites and even the Amalekites in chapter number 27.

And he tells Achash, hey, I've been, you know, attacking the outskirts of Judah.

I'm really with you.

To the point where he kind of lulls this king of the Philistines into a false sense of security about his own loyalty to now the Philistines.

It's interesting.

Even in chapter number 28, we see on the opposite side of the spectrum, Saul.

This king who was chasing after David is now kind of really in a bad spot.

He knows his days are numbered, and he goes and he seeks after really, a witch to give him advice and counsel.

And really, at the same time, the Philistines are gathering their army together to attack the Israelites and to really take over and kill Saul.

It's interesting, as 29, chapter 29, we get into it, we see that some of the Philistine men start to tell Achesh, achesh, I don't really think David is with you.

I Don't really think David is actually who he says he is.

And aches gets kind of a funny feeling about David.

And David, who had kind of set up headquarters with he and his men and their families at the city of Ziklag.

And they stayed there for about a year and a half.

The Bible says they were secure, they felt security, they felt kindness even from the Philistines at times.

They felt like, man, we could really kind of hide out here and be okay and be safe from Saul, because, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But when Achesh hears his men saying, hey, I don't really think you can trust David here.

I don't really think you can trust David to go to battle with you and really attack the Israelites.

And finally, in chapter number 29, Achish actually dismisses David and he sends he and his men on a three day journey back to Ziklag.

But they don't know what's waiting for them when they get back.

They don't realize after this long, really discouraging time all the way back to Ziklag, they're going to find the wives and their children and all their possession taken from them.

It'd almost be better at this time to find everything but to find them dead because you don't even know what's happening with these Amalekites and what they're going to do with the wives and children.

And I'll leave it right there because I really don't want to say too much more into that.

But when it comes right down to it, you find these men and they are distraught and they're to a place where they have no more power to weep.

That's how much they are distraught over the situation.

I mean, think about your own lives and think about tonight.

If you were to travel home and you realize that your house was burnt to the ground and man, you had nothing left, at least maybe you would have the immediate family that you have here.

But these men didn't even have that.

And David, who's now lost, of course, his two wives and now all of his possessions.

And he's looking at his men feeling responsible for the very fact that their wives and children are gone and all the possessions are missing.

Like I said earlier, he's going through quite a situational crisis.

My friends, you might be sitting here in this moment and I don't know your life and I don't know your background and I don't know what's going on right now in your life and you might be Thinking, man, it's not as bad as David had it.

But man, I'm going through something right now and honestly, I've come to a place where I don't even know how to cope with it anymore.

I'm so distressed.

The Bible uses this word, distress, but what that word really means is bound up, tied up.

And literally the Hebrew word means strangled.

To the point where David is so distressed he can't even almost feeling like he can't get those grasps of air.

Have you been stressed to that point where it's almost like you've got to take deep breaths because you can't feel the air coming into your lungs?

That's where David is in this moment.

And you think to yourself, how can you escape so great a tribulation?

How could you escape so great a pressure to where even his men who are so loyal to him over these past years and years of David's existence, they could have gone with Saul and had the pleasures of being at home in Israel.

And yet they were the followers of David.

And here they are now and they're thinking, let's stone him.

Let's stone him.

Look what he's led us into.

Look what happened to our family.

Look what happened to our wealth, what little we had.

Look what happened to our comfort.

Let's stone him.

And David is in a mess.

My friends, again, I don't know what you've been through, I don't know what you're going through, but there is a way of escape.

And today, just like a magician who reveals the backgrounds of his tricks, just like a magician who reveals that, hey, it's not actually magic, there is a method to the madness.

There is a step by step process to where I get from the pledge to the prestige.

Today I find a step by step process by which David goes from distressed to recovering all.

Let's take a look at the step by step process here in the Word of God tonight.

First of all, I see the object of David's faith.

The object of David's faith, verse number six.

But David encouraged himself in what's next to words?

The Lord, he encouraged himself in the Lord his God.

I want to talk to you a little bit about the Lord his God and what that meant to David.

In the 23rd Psalm, he says, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

We know he had a sweet relationship with his God.

In the 27th Psalm, he says, the Lord is my light and My salvation.

In the 34th Psalm, he says, o taste and see that the Lord he is good.

Psalm 46, he says, God is our refuge and our strength.

Psalm 51.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in me.

Cast not me, not away from thy presence, and take not the Holy Spirit from me.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.

David had a sweet relationship with God.

And in my counseling training that I've had in my postgrad degree, one of the things that they like to say is that healthy spiritual and emotional health comes from great relationships.

And I've got to tell you that David had the greatest relationship because he had a great relationship in his God.

And I'm going to ask you tonight.

You might be going through the fire tonight.

But my friends, I've got a God who stands in the fire with you.

I've got a God who stands in the fire and goes through it day by day by day with you.

And he said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

So, my friends, when I look at the relationship that David had, it was the first step in the great escape of his life, in this moment of distress, in this moment where he felt like, everything is done for me and everything's bottled up and I'm about to get stoned by the men who love me and who were so loyal to me.

But David said, I can look to my God because my God is my shepherd, and he'll never leave me and he'll never forsake me, and he'll walk through the valley and he'll walk through the mountains with me.

I know he's with me through the fire.

My friend, the first step in this great escape is the object of faith.

When's the last time?

Instead of looking around you, you looked up.

When's the last time?

Instead of looking at the problem, you looked at the preeminent one.

When's the last time that you really just bowed down?

Said jesus, I need encouragement.

Jesus, I can't do it on my own.

Jesus, I need you.

Jesus, I can't breathe.

Jesus, I can't handle it.

Jesus, I need you as my good shepherd.

My good shepherd.

The object I want to see, number two.

That David finds counsel from the Father.

We find the object of his faith, but we also see the counsel of his Father.

Take a look at verse number eight.

The Bible says, and David inquired at the Lord, saying, shall I pursue after this troop?

Shall I overtake them?

And he answered him, pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them.

And without fail shall recover all.

You know, there's a funny little background that we find here.

You see, when David went to camp out in Ziglag with the Philistines, you won't find in preceding verses really any counsel that he grabbed from the Father.

You won't find him going to God.

The Father saying, God, should I go to the enemy of my enemy?

Really kind of my own enemy too.

Should I go and kind of camp out there and dwell there?

You won't find it.

You won't find any counsel that David got to go and dwell in the land of the Philistines.

But here, when he's facing his most difficult trial, when his decisions had led him to this point, David says, I can't go my own way anymore.

I can't take my own route anymore.

There's a roadblock that I just simply can't get around.

But I know my father can.

But I know my father has a way.

Job would say, and I'm going to paraphrase, he knoweth the way that I take.

He knows the way that I take.

And he would ultimately say, and again, I'm paraphrasing, that when he's done with me, I shall come forth as gold.

When's the last time that instead of looking at your own agenda, you looked at God's?

Instead of mapping out your own way, instead of mapping out the next step by step process in your life.

And by the way, I like to plan things out.

I want to know what's coming up.

I want to know what I'm doing over the next couple days.

Sometimes, of course, I have to sit around like we did yesterday.

We just enjoyed some time together.

But when I think about even the day by day by day, I can't do that forever.

I like to map things out.

But sometimes we get so busy mapping things out that we forget about the map that God has given us in His Word.

Sometimes we get so busy doing our own thing that we forget that God has a special plan intact for us.

And when I think about this crisis that David was going through, the only way out of it was going to be going back to the plan that God had intended for him.

He grabbed counsel from the Father.

You know what's so ironic?

That chronologically, David going to seek counsel from God the Father is the same day that Saul sought counsel from the witch.

Those two turned out very differently.

We see one life that was blessed and preserved, and we see one life that literally was set up as a foundation of really kind of this lineage of Jesus Christ, he was going to have as throne set up forever.

And another one, his throne was going to be completely taken away.

His family really wiped out from the.

Face of this planet.

One sought counsel from the Father and one did not.

When's the last time in a moment.

Of crisis, you bowed the knee and said, God, I don't know what you want here, but you've got a plan.

And I'll run exactly to where your plan is, the very foundations of your word.

And finally tonight, just trying to be.

Quick, I'm sorry if I've taken long.

I see the object of David's faith.

I see the counsel of the Father.

But there can be no great escape.

Without obedience from the follower.

Obedience from the follower.

Verse number nine.

So David went, he and the 600 men that were with him and came to the Burk of Bezor, where those that were left behind stayed.

But David pursued, he and the 400 men.

Take a look at verse number 18.

And David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away.

And David rescued his two wives.

And there was nothing lacking to them, nothing neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil nor anything that they had taken to them.

David recovered all.

And David took all the flocks and the herds which they drave before those their cattle and said, this is David's spoil.

This is a powerful passage.

Not because of who David is, not because of how great David was, not because of the triumph of David, but because of the escape that God allowed in David's life, because of the recovery that God gave into David's hand.

And frankly, we don't have time tonight to go through the entire passage.

But it is amazing, really, kind of the process that you find in chapter number 30.

You'll find that literally an Egyptian on the side of the road is basically like, yeah, my master was an Amalekite.

And they went that way.

You know, it's crazy.

God just allowed things to happen and to fall into place so that now, because David was on the same page with the Father, of course now David is going to be able to recover all that was taken from him because he and the Father are now in sync.

And I found so many times that in the middle of my crisis or in the middle of my tribulation, when I start looking at me and what I can do and what I can accomplish and trying to find all the answers in this dumb big brain of mine to get out of what I've got myself into, I find nothing.

I find no answers.

I find no response.

I find a lack of wisdom.

I find challenges.

I find that people come against me, and I have no idea what to do.

Pastor, frankly, it's trying.

It's maddening.

It's really kind of just one of those moments in your life that you're just like, I want to dig myself into a hole and just let me stay there for a while.

Okay.

You ever feel like that?

Sometimes.

But when I rely on what God can do in my life, allowing God to live through me and allowing God's.

Word and God's plan to set the.

Agenda, and I just simply obey.

Just obey.

We sing that little song in Sunday school.

You know, Obedience is the very best way to show that you.

I was weak.

Congregation.

To show that you what?

Believe.

And my friends, don't you remember that Bible verse is a pretty important one in the book of Hebrews.

Without faith, it's impossible to please God.

Literally, when we think of substance, we think of material.

But when God thinks of substance, he thinks of faith.

And the best way to demonstrate faith is through obedience.

That's the way that Abraham demonstrated faith.

That's the way that David demonstrated faith.

That's the way even that Jesus, the Son of God, who did the will of the Father, demonstrated his obedience to the Father.

It's amazing the example that even Christ set to us in obedience to the Father.

Obedience is just such a small thing sometimes.

But don't you know, even as adults now, when you think back on your life, it's the small things that get us in the biggest trouble.

It's the small things that get us off track.

It's the small things that we forget about.

It's the small things that we lose along the way.

But it's the biggest thing that David did to escape from the situational crisis that he was in.

He just decided and determined.

God, whatever you say, I'll do, you counsel me, I'll go.

And I wonder tonight if you're in a situation where you just don't know what to do.

When you don't know what to do, bow the knee and obey.

When I was first starting out in.

Lancaster Baptist, and I had a couple friends there, and sometimes in a ministry like Lancaster Beth, where you have a.

College, a church, a Christian school, and then a publication ministry, you see a lot of turnover.

And I asked one of my friends who had been there for a long time, and his name is Isai, and he is really overseeing the choir on the Spanish side of the ministry.

I really love Isaiah.

One of the best pieces of advice that he ever gave me.

It was in a situation where we were setting up for something and we were just having a good time.

We were college students together and a man, he had been there for about 10 years by this point.

And I said, isaiah, you've been here for a long time and you've seen a lot of people come and go.

And I want to know what the biggest objective is to staying, to being faithful.

And maybe not even Esai being faithful here at Lancaster Baptist.

Because I realize that God can take somewhere, someone, wherever he wants them to go.

I realized that he can have someone start out one place and really take them to the mission field or take them to church planting or take them to a different area altogether of ministry.

And I said, issa, what is the biggest objective when it comes to being faithful?

He said, you know, Nick, I was in the military before I came to.

College.

And you want to know the.

The biggest thing that I learned from the military?

And he kind of had a chuckle at it.

And I was like, do I want to know?

He said, it's one word.

Obey.

Obey.

I found the greatest peace in my life in the military when I just simply obeyed.

You know what I found here at Lancaster Baptist?

He said, when I just simply.

And I don't always understand, and frankly, I don't always come to a place where I see eye to eye.

But when I just obey, that's where I find the greatest success in ministry.

So obey the leaders that God has placed over me.

Obey the word of God that God has placed in my hand.

I want to obey my Jesus when.

He tells me to follow him.

The greatest objective in being faithful in the ministry is just to obey.

And I thought about that for a long time.

I thought about that moment because frankly.

I thought that he was going to come up with some great explanation, some dynamic exposition on staying faithful in the ministry.

But when he just simply said obey, it kind of crushed me.

Because we've.

All been put in a place where we have just simply disobeyed, where we know what God is telling us and we've said no.

My good friend who has been here.

Many, many times, I think Pastor Dr.

R.

Dr.

Rasmussen has been here a couple times.

And, you know, one of the things that he says that impacts my life on an everyday basis is today is the first day of the rest of your life.

And when I realize that God's mercies are new every single morning, and when I realize that God simply just wants me to obey, when I realize that every day I have an opportunity to say yes to Jesus and to say no to self.

Those are the days where I don't find myself caught up in a trap that I can't escape from.

Those are the days where I feel as though God is in the fire with me.

He's walking alongside of me.

And he's got this.

In fact, he doesn't just have this today.

He's got my tomorrow, he's got my next month.

It doesn't matter who the president is in a month or so, because he's got it.

It's God's.

It's not mine, It's God's.

Doesn't matter where God takes us as a nation, because I know God as.

Me, and I've got faith just to obey him regardless of the situation.

So there it is, Church.

There it is.

You see the.

The pledge.

You see David, he's in distress.

The turn.

He feels like nothing is going his way, nothing is going to happen that's good for him.

He's going to get stoned.

He's never going to recover anything.

And then the prestige.

Bam.

David recovers all.

But now you see behind the curtains, you see the step by step, you.

See the object of his faith, and you see the counsel from the Father, and you see the obedience from the follower.

And so now the magic trick.

The magic trick, quote, unquote, that seems so impossible for someone to be so in the middle of their crisis and now recovering all that they had.

It doesn't seem so far away.

It doesn't seem so out of touch.

It seems right at our fingertips just to simply love and have a relationship with our Father and to get counsel from the Father and obey what the Father tells us to do.

My friends, that is the way of escape from the greatest challenges of our life today.

Let's have a word of prayer.

Lord God, just thank you so much for what you've given to us.

Thank you for the opportunity to come and hear from your word this evening.

Lord, I want to thank you for these dear people here at Heritage Baptist Church.

Thank you for their pastor, thank you for their faithfulness to come on a Sunday night.

And, Lord, I don't take for granted the lives that are here and the situations that are going on, Lord, some of them greater in capacity than I could ever fathom or understand.

But, God, you know, case by case, individual by individual, heart by heart, every single person in this room, you know what they're going through.

You know what they'll go through tomorrow.

And the next day and 10 years from today, if you tarry.

Lord, you know exactly what's going on in their life.

Lord, I ask that today instead of looking around them, they would look up.

They would see you as their father.

They'd find that loving and tender relationship with you and know that you are ever present.

And, Lord, that they'd find counsel in your word.

And, Lord, that they be guided to obey you completely.

Lord, I ask that tonight, and this invitation will be a turning point in someone's life.

A turning point back to you with all heads bowed and all eyes closed.