Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Next on Abounding Grace.

Pastor Ed Taylor: If you're here today, you add, I'm not facing anything impossible, then for goodness sake, you better praise God for this season in your life, because it's coming around the corner, man. The life is difficult and life is hard and life can be, you know, filled with impossibilities, but the Lord, he wants to lead and guide you. You know, he wants to take you and use you for his glory. He wants you to see the the immensity of his power on the earth today and he wants you to remember that you have been bought with a price.

The precious blood of Jesus Christ. You are not your own. You belong to him now.

Guest (Male): Life is hard and full of impossibilities. If you're not facing an impossibility today, you can be sure it's on the horizon, but it's good to be reminded that God can do things that we can't. He specializes in doing the impossible. And maybe that's a message you need to hear today. Turn if you would to 1 Samuel 22 as we find God working behind the scenes. Here is Pastor Ed Taylor on Abounding Grace.

Pastor Ed Taylor: When you're starting to make these decisions away from the Lord, they often talk about the illustration is made of a pilot, you know, if it's off course just one degree, the farther you go off course, the far, you know, you're not one degree off, you're way off in the middle of nowhere. Well, I find it's the same way in the life of the believer. You make one little decision off course and then you make your next decision a little bit off course, but you are already off course to begin with, so you're a little bit farther and now you're out here.

Your destination's over here, but you're going over here, over here, you make another one, you make another one. Those decisions, they they get you farther and farther away from where God intends you to go. And if not corrected, if not caught, if not responded by the patient, loving conviction of God in our lives, you find yourself like Saul going after the very people of God, turning on this priest, believing lies and even suspiciously making them up in his own mind. What he should have been doing was repenting and seeking God's forgiveness and direction. And Saul, when you look at it from a very practical perspective, I mean in reality he's conducting a an illegal trial here with four separate charges.

He's charging at a a Himelec, the priest gave David bread as if that was a crime, that he gave David a weapon against the kingdom, that he saw God's help for him and that he was a part of David's conspiracy to kill Saul. And I think this is never a point in time where David's paranoia thus far has been more evident or dangerous. And in response, verse 14, the priest defends David, defends what he knows. He defends the honor and faithfulness of David and said, Saul, you don't have it. You don't you don't that's not what happened.

You don't have it right. And he denies using the E Fod for David, thus declaring his allegiance to David and not God's anointed king. He didn't, he's basically saying in a strong way you you you've got it wrong about David, you've got it wrong about me. Notice verse 16. And the king said, you shall surely die, a Himelec and all your father's house. Then the king said to the guards who stood about him, turn and kill the priests of the Lord because their hand is also with David. And because they knew when he fled and didn't tell it to me, but the servants of the king would not lift their hands to strike the priests of the Lord.

You might want to mark that in your Bibles, you circle it. You know, I have it highlighted in mine with a little note next to it, but the servants of the king would not lift their hands to strike the priests of the Lord. Submission to leadership ends when leadership tells you to do something stupid or sinful. Does that make sense to you? Especially in the church. There there is that sense of wanting to be loyal, wanting to serve the Lord. I think that's great. I admire that in you. I want to see more of it in you, but it ends when someone in leadership, a pastor, a leader tells you to do something stupid or sinful.

Even as Peter was confronted by the spiritual leaders of the day in the New Testament in the book of Acts and he was told specifically, don't preach in Jesus' name. And Peter's like, hey, look look. What what you guys want to do you choose, but I'll tell you what. We're going to choose God and not man. We're going to choose to obey God. We're going to preach the gospel. You do to us whatever you want to do with us, but we will not follow through with that command. And there are those times where in our loyalty, in our desire to serve the Lord, you may, and prayerfully it won't happen here, but you know, people are people, but you may be asked to do something.

It's like, you know, I don't know about that. I'm not sure that's from the Lord. I I I don't I don't know. You know, at that point you need to wait, maybe get some clarification, but don't ascend against your conscience. There's probably a reason why you're pausing. There's probably, I mean this one's so obvious, right? Hey guys, I don't like those people over there. Would you please go kill them? That's obvious. Uh no, I don't think that's a good idea. But the problem is is it's not always so obvious. These guys are under intense pressure here.

Don't I mean this is this is the king with all of his majesty and glory. This is all of his power and authority. This is no small thing like within a church fellowship or this is there is a lot of pressure, a lot of tension what by saying no to the king they're saying they're giving themselves a death sentence. By rebelling against the king they're saying but you know, to in order to do the right thing it may just cost you. It may just cost you. And that often is the dilemma that is rises up when you're called to do the right thing, isn't it?

Often the dilemma that it rises up when you and I and again maybe in the context of of spiritual leader or maybe your boss or or perhaps even somebody close to you says, hey, why don't you come and do this or why don't you do this or or a a direct command, you must do this. And and there you are having to, you know, it's not right, but maybe you can do it and while you know, it's my boss and I might lose my job and you start measuring what's there to lose instead of measuring what's there to gain by your obedience to the Lord.

You want to be this person, but the servants of the king would not lift their hands to strike the priests of the Lord. This is courage in the face of pressure. And they're doing the right thing. I love the integrity of the servants that refused to comply. They would not slay the priests. You can jot it down but back in chapter 8 verses 10 through 18 Samuel warned the nation what it would be like if they had a king. And we're reading of the very things coming to pass. Israel received their king like all the other nations and also the consequences of choosing man and not God.

But there is a group that is men of integrity and if integrity should ever if integrity should ever be found, it should be found in the people of God. And if true integrity should ever be found, it should be found in the men and women entrusted with the ministry of God. And if integrity should ever be found, it should be among us that name the name of Jesus Christ and it will be tested and it will be put to the test and you will be tried and people will push buttons and situations will come and you will find out after the test what the level of your integrity really is.

And I mean they could have complied with this command and said, well, we did it because the king told us to do it. But you know what? You're going to have to answer to the Lord for things that you do that you blame on someone else that they told you to do it. It's they're they're going to stand for their responsibility and we'll stand for ours. I love this. So Saul was given another graceful chance here at the end of verse 17, a chance to avoid all this. The king said in verse 18 to Doeg, you turn and kill the priests.

So Doeg the Edomite Edomite turned and struck the priests and killed on that day 85 men who wore a linen E Fod. And also knob the city of the priests, he struck at the edge of the sword both men and women, children and nursing infants, oxen, donkeys and sheep with the edge of the sword. A liar and murderer at heart, Doeg went beyond Saul's orders, took things into his own hands and went to knob and destroyed the whole town. Now consider the providence of God in all this as God has allowed this as this has happened under God's watchful eye, you could say.

One commentator puts it this way. While the unjust trial and illegal sentence disturbs us, we must keep in mind that it was all part of God plan. The slaughter of the priests was partial fulfillment of the ominous prophecy that had been given to unfaithful Eli in both 1 Samuel chapter 2 and chapter 4. For God promised to replace the house of Eli with the house of Zadok, which is also promised in chapter 2 and chapter 4. So even with the weakness of man and even with all you know the the age-old difficulty of reconciling the sovereignty of God and the free will of man.

It's sometimes couched in the terms of of how do you bring Calvinism, the doctrine of Calvinism emphasizes the providence of of God and reconcile with the doctrine of Arminius or Arminianism that emphasizes the free will of man. How do you bring them together and and there's just a mysterious gap of the providence of God and the free will of man, but they both exist and we see nothing is wasted by God. His will will be performed and his prophetic word will come to pass. You keep that in mind as we come to some of these troubling passages you go, man, what is going on Doeg?

But again from Doeg's perspective he just wants favor with the king. He sees an open door and and he'll take out the priest. He has no shame in his life. He he has and you know, you want the priest, I'll take the city. And so he does in verse 29. Now one of the sons of A Himelec, the son of A Hitub named Abiathar Abiathar escaped and fled after David. And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the Lord's priests. So David said to Abiathar, I knew that that day when Doeg the Edomite was there that he would surely tell Saul, I've caused the death of all the persons of your father's house.

Stay with me and do not fear for he who seeks my life seeks your life, but with me you shall be safe. So all the priests but Abiathar died. He escaped and makes it to David to report all that had taken place. And no doubt this was a very difficult conversation to have. We miss the emotion here, but we've got to understand that Abiathar just watched his whole family die viciously and cruelly. And he comes to David only to find out that David honestly tells him the truth. He humbles himself almost immediately, says it, it's my fault.

It's my fault that this happened. He takes responsibility not for Doeg, but for himself. I was the one that ran away over there. I'm the one on the run. And he recognizes and tells the truth face to face and eye to eye to the person that's suffering greatly because of his sin. It's a very difficult conversation to have. And yet David's integrity is shining through here as he's willing to do it. You would think that David was the last person that would want he would want to see. You would think that David's the last person he would even expect to hear this from.

And yet David's sensitive conscience at this time takes the blame even though he was doing what he believed was right to save his own life. He invites Abiathar to stay with him. And this is amazing because God is doing something that's virtually humanly impossible. And that is David says, I'm responsible for your great loss, but if you stay with me I'll protect you. Now I think in a human realm if the last person I would want to stay with after this situation it would happen in my life or the last person Abiathar would want to stay with is the very person that he sees as responsible for and admits that he's responsible for such a great tragedy.

And maybe and and yet that's exactly what God does is he closes up the chapter. He brings a humanly impossible situation to a spiritually solved situation. He intervenes in here and ministers to both of these men. Maybe that's you tonight. Maybe a relationship has been cut off to such a degree that it makes no sense to even think or see how it could ever be put back together. With David and Abiathar there you can use those names as a way to remember to trust God, pray and wait. God can do things that men can't. God can do things that men can't.

Turn over to Luke's gospel with me in Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18. God can do things that men and women can't. I'll draw your attention in to verse 24 of Luke's gospel chapter 18. Not only is David being gracious to Abiathar and not as not only is Abiathar being gracious with David to say yes, we will come together. I see God's anointing on you and whatever other kind of conversations they may have had, but as we'll learn later having a priest with an E Fod, a man that can speak with God will help him and be a tremendous help to David in the future.

Abiathar is going to be a great addition to David as we see the impossible being done by the possible God. Notice and when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, he was this is after the rich young ruler has loved his money more than following Jesus. He said, how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God for it's easier for a camel to go through the needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And those who heard it said, well, then who can be saved?

Jesus describing an impossibility in verse 25. I mean if that's the case, then we don't see any way out. And in here you can mark these words. Things that are impossible with men are what possible with God. We see that right here in the context of a relationship, but I believe it's applicable in many areas of our lives. God's redeeming even the failures of King Saul. God's redeeming even the failures of David and God's redeeming even the failures in your life and mine. And so often the in our lives our decisions will bring us to or the decisions of others will bring us to impossible situations.

And it 's right there where we're tempted again to run to the cave. We're tempted again to to give up. We're tempted again. One is very common to take things in our own hands and we'll fix this. Really, will you? You fix that? You're that good of a fixer? You're you'll fix it all right. And so often we find that that we can't fix impossible situations, can we? What's impossible with man is that God brings us to that extremity in our life where it's the extreme of the extreme. I mean it's right there. What can we do and we conclude we can't do anything and it's where God then shows up and shows his his possibilities in the impossibilities of our lives and you just begin to see.

You just begin to see it. You know, we had a brother here recently and just had the testimony that came through that that had an impossible report from his doctor. Impossible impossible report. I mean we had the same thing with the sister. Impossible. Just what we don't know what this is. And for his report uh he came back and his his cancer number in his blood was just through the roof. It was just astronomically high. Um it was just you it was the kind of report that you would see and it would just your heart would sink and your stomach would fall.

And and as he's praying and as he's processing it in between doctor appointments it just so happened that we had our our afterglow service Sunday night. And and he obeyed the scriptures. He came up and I I wasn't able to be there that night, but from the reports I have from there there's maybe some indication of of the Holy Spirit saying somebody here needs to be healed and he comes up and they anoint him with oil and they pray with him and then I I just listened to the voicemail today on my on my phone that was forwarded to me as Hank was sharing with us that that when he went back to the doctor and they redid the tests, the tests, you know, were were up in the triple digits for his prostate number, which those of you know that's super crazy high.

It's just impossible high. It's just beyond high. It's like high is here and it was way over, but when he gets the report from the doctor in the second time his number is under one under one where it's supposed to be. It's impossible. It's impossible. Under one. It's what God did under one. And I was talking with the staff today because I got the report and I rejoiced and I was very happy, but but you know what what what God is drawing out of me that I'm also a very rational person. And so for a brief moment as I was processing the work in hand of God for a brief moment I started thinking, you know, maybe the first test was a little too high cuz the number was like astronomically high.

For for a prostate for a prostate test it was cuz my dad went through that and he would he be cancer through treatment and everything and I remember the numbers and I remember walking with them and the triple digit numbers just like, what? That indicates that indicates it's all over the place. That indicates that, you know, where you start hearing the doctors be hopeless and you know, when you start hearing the doctors be hopeless, you got to cling to the Lord cuz the doctors don't have the final word. God has the final word of your life.

And so that's the kind of numbers that's hopeless and it's like so in between it's not by coincidence, that's the day we have the afterglow. The brother comes, anoints him. So I got to greet him. I happened to greet him uh Sunday morning. I had already heard by Sunday, but I got to greet him on Sunday and and I'm like, hey hey brother, I heard about the I heard about the tests and and his wife goes, oh yeah and the doctors go, what did you do? And he's like, I don't know. I didn't I I they prayed for me.

That's what I did. God healed my body. But I was thinking just for a brief moment, you know, Lord that number is so high. I mean that number is so high and and the Lord was just saying, you know what Ed and he was speaking to me about me trusting him. You know, I was using someone else's crisis to build faith in my life to trust him when I'm faithless, when I have you know, I've got things in my life that are just impossible. They're just impossible. There isn't one person in this room can can solve it.

Only God can solve it. And I'm I'm the God's saying, well, you know what? You know, that brother has faith. You can follow him because he has faith. He trusts me. Ed, do you trust me? And I'm like, well, Lord I do. I do trust you. Forgive me for being so rational cuz I'm not as smart as I think I am. You know, if those numbers that number could have been 10,000 and it wouldn't have mattered because God already had in the plan of life for Hank to heal him. He already had it. God was already working.

And I wonder what you bring to the table in the impossibility. I wonder what you bring where God is showing you, you know, he's showing you the supernatural. He's showing you his presence. He's you know, we get we get spoken to by the Lord so much that we forget that the Lord is speaking. Your God of all universe has a word for you. He has a calling upon your life. He has a plan and purpose for your family. He has an answer to your prayer. He has a possibility in the midst of your impossibility and you and I am just questioning a number that came up on a test.

I need to trust in the Lord and you do too. Remember Abiathar and David because from a human perspective these are not two guys that would be hanging out. These are not two guys that you would think, you know, I pick you and you to be on my team and then they don't want to be on the team together. I'm not sitting by him. I 'm not sitting by him. But when there's humility, when there's repentance, when there's deep godly sorrow, where there's trust in the Lord, possibilities come through the impossible. And as I close today I just want you to pray and lay before the Lord specifically the impossibility by your own lips, by your own lips.

And maybe because someone's sitting next to you you didn't want to speak it out loud. God can hear you when you pray in your head, you know, so don't worry about it. Speak in your head between you and the Lord and just lay before it. And if you're here today you go, Ed I'm not facing anything impossible, then for goodness sake you better praise God for this season in your life because it's coming around the corner, man. The life is difficult and life is hard and life can be, you know, filled with impossibilities, but the Lord he wants to lead and guide you.

You know, he wants to take you and use you for his glory. He wants you to see the the immensity of his power on the earth today and he wants you to remember that you have been bought with a price. The precious blood of Jesus Christ. You are not your own. You belong to him now. And God takes good care of his kids, promises us an eternal future. He gives us strength for today, hope for tomorrow. And just give let him fill you fresh with your his spirit tonight. If you've never given your life to Jesus, you've never surrendered the question really is what are you waiting for?

God he sent his son Jesus to die for you. He's he's sent his son Jesus to draw you into a relationship so that you could be right with the creator of the universe. That you could have your life on track, that you can see purpose in seemingly purposeless situations, that you can truly have strength for today and hope for tomorrow. And you can live in that. And the greatest way the greatest way the greatest way to get out of the cave is surround yourself with 400 people in debt, distressed, discontented, discouraged. The greatest way you begin to see the power of God looking through your life is to get your eyes off yourself and find some people that need the hope of Jesus Christ and go give it to them.

Guest (Male): Today on Abounding Grace we've been in 1 Samuel as Pastor Ed Taylor is leading us verse by verse through this marvelous Old Testament book. Now if you joined us late or we just like to hear the message again, drop by abounding graceradio.com. Another way to take in a steady dose of God's word is through our app. It's free. Just search for Calvary Church. We're also on oneplace.com. Abounding Grace is made possible through the support of our listeners and when you give a donation of $25 or more to Abounding Grace, you're invited to request a copy of Jim Symbolas book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.

In it he shares unforgettable stories including from his own daughter. You'll see how the church has grown and how God has helped people through difficult changes, challenges and encounters. Jim also reveals how God continues to reshape the lives of so many people who come to Jesus through the power of the gospel. Request a copy of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire when you give a donation of $25 or more today. We genuinely appreciate the generosity of our listeners. It helps us provide the teaching of God's word on stations all across the nation. So thank you for standing with us.

Call 877-30 Grace 877-30 Grace. You can also get the book online at Calvaryco.store. And then be sure to join Pastor Ed next time for more teaching from the book of 1 Samuel right here on Abounding Grace.

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