Abounding Grace

Larry: Today on Abounding Grace, we'll be encouraged that God can protect his children and intervene in our lives.

Pastor Ed Taylor: In David's life, the course of his life was changed because God did not Saul spend every day going after David. And why didn't he get him? Because God did not deliver him. I mean, you look at the evil, you go, man, things could be so much worse. You know why? Because God did not let it get worse but God.

Larry: Well, whether we realize it or not, God is merciful to us and often protects us from harm. Maybe it's seen in him saving us from getting into a car accident or preventing someone from maliciously hurting us. That's the picture before us as we open 1 Samuel 23. Saul is hot on the heels of David wanting to do him harm, but God would not allow it. Pastor Ed Taylor doesn't want us to miss the two very powerful words in this chapter of David's life, but God. You'll see how it relates to your life too here on Abounding Grace.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles, 1 Samuel chapter 23 is where we left off last time. We studied the first few verses of the chapter and we saw how David's good. You recall he protected the city of Keilah when he didn't need to. That was King Saul's responsibility. David's good was met with evil. And the men those that he rescued from the city of Keilah decided that they were going to sell him out to King Saul. When you would expect when you do good, good would come. Uh when you help somebody, they'd help you back. Yet when when you support someone and save their life, you would expect their response would be to save your life, but that's not what happened.

And so we ask the question. It's an important question to ask in our lives cuz this happens to every single one of us. It may not be to the magnitude of saving a life and then turning around and they sell you out and they they sell your life out. It may not be to that level of magnitude, although I'm sure that some of you have experienced life and death issues that have been uh unjust and unfair. It's usually not that high, but we ask the general question if doing good is only going to lead to people turning on you or why do good if only bad is going to to come from it?

I mean, if we just see the difficulty and we we we enter in and you know, put our life on the line and we're repaid with a lack of appreciation or a lack of care. Why do good? And I think it's a good question to ask. Why do good? And we spent some time answering that question. In 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 18 it says, you who are slaves must accept the authority of your masters. Do whatever they tell you. Not only if they're kind and reasonable, but even if they're harsh. Now today the application of that would be employment.

You know, Peter's talking to those that that are enslaved. There a lot of the slaves of the 1st century were like indentured servants where they were working off a debt. Our application today would be more along the lines of our relationship in employment where we have a boss and we work for someone. And and he says, look, do what's right. Not even not just because uh or when they're kind and helpful to you, but especially when they're not. When they're harsh. Verse 19, for God is pleased with you when for the sake of your conscience you patiently endure unfair treatment.

Now I'm reading from the New Living Translation. If you have the New King James open, uh that's not what it says. It says, when you endure unfair treatment, of course, you get no credit for being patient if you're beaten for doing wrong, but if you suffer for doing right and are patient beneath the blows, God is pleased with you. This suffering is all a part of what God has called you to. Christ who suffered for you is your example. Follow in his steps. He never sinned. He never deceived anyone. He didn't retaliate when he was insulted.

When he suffered, he didn't threaten to get even. He left his case in the hands of God who always judges fairly. I mean, that alone is reason enough to do good no matter what the outcome is. I mean, if the followers of Jesus Christ, if we decide to abandon doing what good doing good on the earth today because of how we're treated for it, then the earth is going to be a sadder, sick place than it is already. The Bible declares that we're the salt and the light of the earth. There is something about followers of Jesus and dwell with the power of the Holy Spirit that makes a significant difference.

And one of the differences you're going to experience is that when you do good, it will be repaid with evil. Jesus spoke of such things himself. We listed out a few good practical reasons too. Why do good? Not just biblical reasons, but what about practical reasons? Well, number one, our Savior modeled it. He did good no matter how he was treated. Secondly, our world needs it. Our world needs good to be done. Thirdly, our lives personally are better for it. And lastly, God commands it. And it's so encouraging. If you weren't here, we had developed this uh in our last study together and we spent considerable amount of time developing this and and really accepting it as God's will for our lives.

So with that in mind, pick up in verse 13 where we left off last time in 1 Samuel chapter 23 it says, so David and his men, about 600 arose and departed from Keilah and went wherever they could go. Then it was told Saul that David had escaped from Keilah, so he halted the expedition. And David stayed in the strongholds in the wilderness and remained in the mountains of the wilderness of Ziph. Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hands. If you like to write in your Bibles, we're going to pause here for a second.

Just circle the words but God. We'll get back to them in a second. All of this is happening in David 's life day after day, week after week, but God did not deliver him into his hand. That's a very encouraging passage. Verse 15, so David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life and David was in the wilderness of Ziph in a forest. Then Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David in the woods and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, do not fear for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you.

You shall be king over Israel and I shall be next to you. Even my father Saul knows that. So the two of them made a covenant before the Lord and David stayed in the woods. Jonathan went to his own house. So after the saving the people of Keilah and being forced to forced to run away again, we see a great contrast. You notice in verse 14, David stayed, but also then Saul sought. Two very very important distinctions. There there is much spiritual symbolism in that where one David, he stayed, speaks of that abiding relationship that you and I have.

No matter what's happening around you, you you have that that place that that mental decision that you're going to stay where you're at. That's what the word abide means. David becomes a great picture of abiding here while Saul becomes it has been really and even is now a picture of the flesh. David a picture of the spirit. Saul, King Saul picture of the flesh who's moving and taking things into his own hand and sought him every day. David stayed, but Saul sought. And then verse 14, but God did not. God did not deliver him. And then notice in verse 16, you have the verb or you have the work of Jonathan that Jonathan strengthened his hand in God.

It's a beautiful interaction. Saul is after David. We can't forget that. He he's he he has decided and he he's really just completely gone over the edge King Saul has. When God has made it very clear that David is the next king and yet at the same time didn't take him off the throne, that season of staying as a king was God ordained even though God would replace him soon enough with David. God took his hand upon hand off of King Saul and yet still allowed him to be in that place of authority. And Saul is after David.

It was a daily personal battle for him. It it was something that he that that he woke up with intense anger and murderous thoughts to take care of David. It was an internal struggle. I mean, you think of some of the things going on in people's lives outside of you right now and and of course we're so grateful that we don't have someone like King Saul chasing us, but there there could be that sense of someone in your life where you just know they have an internal daily struggle where they try to overcompensate of of it with all sorts of things.

Some people like to use power trips, some people like to use their money, some people like to be you know, just completely checked out of reality. There's there's this sense of trying to deal with this internal conflict. For King Saul, you know, the way he tried to deal with his internal conflict is he used the power that he had and now he's trying to use it to kill David. Now David on the other hand, he's also in a daily trial. I I don't think it's uh an entirely good thing to be chased for your life every day through the wilderness uh through the Judean wilderness.

I mean, he is in a daily trial. Th- this is happening to him. This is happening outside of him. He it's the kind of trial. You know, a lot of times in life we go through some trials and and it has a beginning and an end and we're grateful for those. You know, we we we kind of sense well well this is where it began and then the Lord brought it to an end and we're like okay, we can speak of many of us. We can speak of trials as being in the past where there's actually a date or a time period you know, this is when it ended.

This is when it stopped. I mean, I think of how many trials ended the day that you were born again, how how your life was radically changed and you can use that date to you go, you know, before that date I was dealing with all this stuff and then after that day when I was born again, I became a new creation in Christ and and and while I I took a lot of things into my walk with the Lord, there were some things that I left behind. Or you thinking as a believer, you have trials that you know, that was through a you know, you had a situation with your kids and you look back and you go, man, that was a difficult season, but the season ended, didn't it?

It's a lot like the seasons that we have here in Colorado. Just so beautiful. Something you didn't get in California where you just get to see every season and very distinctly where there's a beginning and an end and sometimes they overlap a little bit, but for the most part you can tell you know, you get just about you get enough snow like from the first snow you're already waiting for spring. You're like, man, spring come. I am sick of the snow and then the snow comes and the snow comes, but you know, you know, if you've been here on here long enough, it will end.

And you're like, yes. And then the grass starts to turn green and the trees start to blossom again and the lilies come up and the tubes or whatever they are. I don't know. They're beautiful flowers in our backyard. I don't know what they are. I don't really care what they are. They bloom and then they go away, but they're beautiful nonetheless. And then you go through and you see all that and you start to mow the lawn and then oh no, you know, the season's changing. And even though the snow left, you know, it's coming again.

Did you know it's coming again? It's coming again. No no no. I didn't ask for like any encouragement. There could be that one season where it doesn't come back and yet there's a distinction and you get just enough of one season then the next one comes and the next. It's just a beautiful thing. I love that. I I'm not so I'm not so appreciative of the snow, but it's it's still you know, it's all right snow. You know, it is what it is. Trials can be like that. Trials can be like that. And and how we pray that some of the trials that we're in right now will just end.

I mean, some of you came today. Some of you are listening in right now and you're just like, man, every day I wake up and I ask the Lord, has it has it ended? The very first thought I have when I wake up, is it over? And the very next thought is, no, it's not over. And I go through the day and I wait on the Lord and I seek his face and I go to bed and ask for a good night's rest because the Bible promises that he gives his beloved rest. So I take what God promises and I go back to sleep and I sleep and pray for dreams and visions that the Lord promises us in his word.

And then you wake up and the first thought is, Lord, now it's still here. This is David's life. He's not in a trial that has ended. He doesn't know. You have to remember as we're reading through the scriptures, although we've read ahead and we have the privilege of reading ahead, the men and women of the scriptures are experiencing what we're reading of them in real time. They don't know that chapter 24 is up ahead. They don't know how it 's going to end. They wake up in the morning. Is King Saul still after me? Yes.

Well, I need to commit myself to a faithful God. What about tomorrow? I don't even know if tomorrow comes. It's the same trial and a different day. Saul Saul is still after David and it's not a dream. Yet yet and I believe this is a word of the Lord for those of you in a long-term trial or in the trial at all. You can't miss those words but God. Those are so powerful. This phrase is used some 45 times in the New King James, but God. A powerful trade change of events. They're often times it's used to describe one direction that requires God's intervention.

And when God intervenes, everything changes. You're praying for that right now. You're praying for God to intervene and change things. And here in David's life, Saul seeks him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hand. Turn over to Ephesians chapter 2 with me, would you? Ephesians chapter 2. We pray for these words in our lives, but God. Really if you look back in your life, these words describe so many episodes in your life. God is alive and he's moving. So many things have been interrupted and changed and the whole course of your life but because of God.

Because you were going in one direction, but God. You notice verse 1 in Ephesians chapter 2 says and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience among among whom also verse 3, we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of our flesh. Can you think back? Can Can you say an amen to that in your life?

Can you look at that in your life? You're like, yeah, that was my life. I was a fleshly person. I satisfied myself. I did my own thing. I mean, even those of you that might have been raised and had the privilege of being raised in a godly home, there were those seasons of just rebellion. Those were seasons of doing your own thing. Those were seasons of crushing your parents' authority or questioning you know, for some of us it's a deeper, darker verse 3, but it's still the same nonetheless. We all conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of our flesh and our mind and we're by nature children of wrath just as the others.

If Ephesians chapter 2 ended there, that's bad news. Like what are we going to do? Like we're just fleshly people living in the flesh, doing our own thing. Anything we would think up, any sin we'd invent, we just go do it. Any desire that we want, we wouldn't think of anyone else. We wouldn't think of the consequences. We wouldn't think like this is just our life. We're dead spiritually and we're walking dead men physically. In verse 4, but God. And in your condition, but God who's rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you've been saved. He raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come you might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you've been saved through faith that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God created beforehand or which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

God dealt with your past, your present, and your future. And nothing after verse 4 could happen if it wasn't but God. Change the whole course of your life. Every day as you wake up just considering your day and what's going on in your life should be a day of thanksgiving that God intervened in your life. God intervened in your life and everything following. No longer are we fulfilling the lusts of our flesh. No longer are we inventing evil things. I mean, you you watch the news and you see evil there and you just shake your head at how how is that possible?

And maybe even some of you you're watching the news and you're looking at and your phrase is, what were they thinking? They were inventing evil in their minds. They were living in the first few verses of Ephesians chapter 2. That's what they were thinking. And and if you ever think that, if you kind of watch the news and you see some weird thing or some simple thing and your response is what were they thinking, thank God for that cuz you don't think evil anymore. Doesn't even cross your mind anymore. You don't sit around inventing evil things.

You don't sit around inventing how to evil you know, evil in your mind to hurt somebody or take advantage of someone or manipulate someone or or you know, damage yourself. You're not thinking of well, you know what? I think I'll just go out and party. You know, how can I party harder this time and what kind of new alcohol can I have and what kind of bong you know, big old joint can I have and what kind of fresh cocaine is there and I wonder if there's a new fresh uh you know, hit of heroin.

You're not doing that anymore. Why? But God. But God. Thank God for that. It's but God. And even here in David's life, the course of his life was changed because God did not Saul spend every day going after David. And why didn't he get him? Because God did not deliver him. I mean, you look at the evil, you go, man, things could be so much worse. You know why? Because God did not let it get worse. But God. So powerful. I need to I I believe we need to hear these words today to be reminded of God who's rich in mercy.

You know, drilling it you know, bringing it down here even to some more basic things. It's just simple things. You know, you're having a hard time finding a job. You're having a hard time making ends meet, but God. You trust him. I'm struggling in my marriage right now. It just is not what it needs to be and not what it could be and I really don't even have much control over it. You pray that but God. You pray for him to intervene. You pray for him to act. You know, my kids aren't walking with the Lord right now, but God.

Uh the dreams that I had of my life just don't seem to be but God. I'm waiting on God to answer me, but God. I can't overcome this, but God. I have this overwhelming addiction, but God. The Bible says in Isaiah 55 verse 6, seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he's near. But then the next verse says, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he'll have mercy on him. And to our God he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts nor my way nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as high as the heavens are as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts your thoughts. We love the end of that verse, but we often forget, let the wicked forsake his way. Let him return to the Lord. Come back to the God that's ready to act on your behalf. And so in bringing us life, God intervenes. He loved us. The power of love to break even the hearts of rebellious sinners.

Bring them to a place of submission that God loves you and he loves me and it hasn't ended. This is what the world needs to hear.

Larry: Thanks for hanging out with us today here on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. Are you interested in hearing this again? If so, drop by aboundinggraceradio.com. Another way to listen to Pastor Ed's teachings is through the Calvary Church app. We're also on oneplace.com. Pastor Ed, today we learned of a time when God protected David from harm and uh no doubt he's done that more times than we can count in our own lives. So here's a question for you about guardian angels. What do we know about them from scripture and how does God use them to protect us?

Does each Christian actually have an assigned guardian angel to them?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Well, it is clear that Jesus taught us that angels do connect with people uh and there is an indication Larry that individuals have guardian angels. Uh we don't know for sure, but you could infer it from the teachings of Jesus, but the spiritual realm you know, let me put it this way. The the demonic realm gets all the attention, spiritual warfare and difficulties and hardships. But you know, there's two thirds of the angels stayed loyal to the Lord. They served God at his beckoning and direction. They are his ministers and they serve us not as much as they serve him at his direction.

And so I I think it's very possible that there have been angelic encounters in our lives like it says in the scriptures that we're not to uh neglect like entertaining strangers. It might be an angel unaware. And I believe there are several times whether we can pinpoint it or not. That's probably one of one going to be one of the surprises in heaven of how many times the angelic realm intervene on our behalf just to accomplish the sovereign will of God. Isn't that amazing? I don't know all the ins and out of it cuz the Bible doesn't say much about it, but the teachings of Jesus certainly infer that there are guardian angels.

And that's exciting to think about.

Larry: Very interesting. Thanks Ed. What happens when God's spirit invades the heart of his people? Author Jim Symbola sets out to answer that very question in his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. With over a million copies sold, this book will show you what the Holy Spirit can do when believers get serious about prayer and the gospel. When you give a donation of $25 or more to Abounding Grace, you're invited to request a copy of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. Give us a call at 877-30 Grace. That's 877-30 Grace. You can also order the book online at calvaryco.store.

You can also make a donation to the ministry online at aboundinggraceradio.com. And thank you in advance for helping us reach people with the love and truth of Jesus Christ here on the radio and online. Glad you've taken time out for our study in 1 Samuel. Join Pastor Ed each day on this station as we continue to learn how to live by God's Abounding Grace.

Guest (Male): Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado and online at aboundinggraceradio.com.