In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: God never tests you to find out whether you're strong enough. So why in the world does He put these tests to us? Not to find out whether we're strong or weak, He already knows that. He does it to show us how weak we are and that we would respond properly to say, "Lord, I need You. Oh God, I need You."

My soul waiteth only upon God, for my strength is to be found in Him. My salvation is to be found in Him.

Guest (Male): Oh God, I need You. My soul waiteth only upon God, for my strength is to be found in Him. My salvation is to be found in Him.

Guest (Male): Are you trying to wade through some confusion or chaos right now? Or maybe for you, it seems like there's nothing going on, nothing at all. Well, we have the tendency to wonder what is God up to in my life? To answer that question, today's edition of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, focuses on David from the Old Testament as our series on 1st and 2nd Samuel continues. Let's listen to Dr. Stanley's message.

Dr. Charles Stanley: I want to talk about the question of what is God up to in your life? And I'm sure all of us have asked that question many times. And sometime when the bottom drops out, we really want to know what He's up to. So let me tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the 19th through the 30th chapters of 1st Samuel.

But what I want you to see is what's happening in David's life right now. Let me just give you a bird's eye capsule view of what's happened here. You'll recall the people of Israel said, "We want a king." Samuel anointed a king by the name of Saul. Saul continually disobeyed God until Samuel said to Saul, "God is taking the kingdom from you."

He anointed one of Jesse's sons, the one who was the least likely to be anointed, David, who was the shepherd. And then, of course, he goes to meet Goliath and slays Goliath. He comes back a hero. The women are dancing in the streets. They said, "Saul killed his thousands, but David has killed his ten thousands," which started the jealousy streak in Saul that began to be exposed.

And then, of course, Jonathan and David began a beautiful loving friendship with each other that also made Saul's jealousy a little stronger. And so, having played for Saul and quieted his nerves and gotten him out of depression and living in his household, finally because of having been attacked several times by Saul throwing the javelin at him, David has to leave. He's being forced to leave.

So in this 19th chapter here, what I want us to see happens is this. For the next ten years, David knows that he's been anointed the king of Israel. He knows that. And in spite of that, for the next ten long years of David's life, he's not going to be king. For the next ten years of his life, he's going to run like an outlaw.

He's going to act like a traitor. He's going to act like a crazy man. He's going to do things that mighty strong David, who killed a bear and a lion and who took on Goliath, you would never expect him to do. But it's like God said to him, "I'm going to make you king." Having anointed him in his own household as king, then it's as if God put David in the furnace of affliction for ten long years of his life.

And in these ten years, as David, knowing in his heart that he was to be king, everywhere he turned, Satan must have said to him, "No way. Look, Saul is the king. Saul has the army. The people are still allegiance to Saul. There is no way for you to be the king of Israel." And yet God had anointed him king and through all of these things He protected him.

Now, what was God up to in his life? Well, maybe not a whole lot more than He's up to in your life and my life. You may not be in a valley. You may not be running from anything from God. You may feel that right now everything is just right. And what is just right? Whatever God has made as a recipe for your life for that moment, that's what's just right.

But as we ask the question what is God up to, let me just give you a list of things that God could be up to in your life. Maybe up to in your life in the future, or when you're looking and trying to find out what in the world He's doing, it may be one of these several things. The first thing is this. Whatever God's up to in your life, remember this: it is for your good and His glory. He's not ever up to anything that doesn't fit with that point.

Whatever He's up to is for your good and His glory. Now you could ask David, "David, you think whatever you're going through is for your good?" No way. How could it be for my good? David certainly didn't need any new training. He had already proven his strategy as a soldier and as a fighter. He certainly didn't need any more courage.

He certainly didn't need anything that he could think of. What in the world could be good out of all of this? But you see, God in His omniscience knew that David, this fellow who is now a renegade and an outlaw and an outcast, this young man God knew had already been chosen to be the greatest king in the history of the nation of Israel.

What do we say? The Son of David. What do we say? The City of David. David was to be the greatest king in the history of Israel. And God knew that it was for his good to put him in the valley and prepare him for his kingship. It didn't seem to be what David needed. You see, we might say, "Well, it looks like to me David's education should have been in the household of Saul learning the courtesies of being a king."

But God was training him to be a mighty man of God that you and I thousands of years later would say, "There was a man the Bible speaks of as being a man after God's own heart, and his name was David." Well, that's the first thing. The second thing I want you to notice here is this. God may be up to something else in your life and that is He may be sifting you for future service.

I believe this is exactly what He was doing in David's life at this point. Now, you and I know we need sifting. We don't like to be sifted. Nobody likes to be sifted. We may like to be cuddled a little bit, but we don't want to be sifted, just keep rubbing it and rubbing it and rubbing it till it rubs all the grain out. What was God doing in David's life? He was building character.

Sifting out of his life those things that God knew should not be there if he was going to be king. You and I could skip all over to 2nd Samuel, which we'll come to later on, and here is this mighty man of valor whom God is out here in the wilderness training, who falls again. He never was perfect. He never could be perfect because he was a sinner saved by the grace of God. Anointed to be king, but never perfect.

God drove him into the valley, put him through the fire to do what? Sifting in his life. And watch this. Whenever God sifted David, He always was preparing him for a blessing to someone else. When God is sifting your life, don't look back and see your tears and count your sorrows and your heartaches and your burdens and get all wrapped up in that. When God is sifting, you know what God's doing? While He's sifting you, He's blessing somebody else.

Now, we don't always see that. If we could just see how someone else is being blessed, we'd think, "Well, I can take it." But God is in the blessing business while He's in the sifting business. The third thing, and here is a very important lesson I think that God often times would have us to remember. And that is one of the things He may be up to is that He may be up to teaching us that His promises are not always fulfilled according to our expectations.

God said to David, "You're going to be king." Well, I could imagine, what would you have thought if God had anointed you as a young man to be king? You'd say, "Well, I'm ready." A few weeks go by and "I'm ready." A few months go by and think, "Well, I'm really getting ready." Two years go by and you think, "Lord, I've been ready." Sometime we get discouraged when God makes us wait.

What do we do? Here's what we do. God gives us a promise. We say, "Praise the Lord, I'm ready." And God doesn't do anything. "Praise the Lord, I'm standing on the promise." And God doesn't do anything. "Praise the Lord, hallelujah, I'm standing on the promise," and everything is silent from God. After we've shouted and praised and jumped up and down hallelujah all we can, we say, "Lord, what in the world is going on? Why don't You do something?"

And you see, God's silence always has a very specific divine design in it. He's silent in order to do what? To teach us to trust Him when we can't see one iota of reason for doing so. Well, there's something else I want you to see here and that's this. I believe one of the things He's often times doing in our life, He's teaching us to persevere under pressure. Because you see, it is pressure that drains and sifts and burns and shatters and breaks. It is the pressure that builds quality.

It is the pressure that brings out quality. And you see, God kept David under pressure for ten long years. I mean, in ten years there was never a time when Saul sent him a telegram and said, "David, relax for six months, I don't want to fight no more." But he was continuously having to hide. Jesus Christ living within us is our buoyancy anytime we think we're going to sink. You can't sink if you'll just remember who's on the inside.

Look in Psalm 91. Beautiful psalm, you probably know the first verse by heart for sure. He says in Psalm 91, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." Listen, you and I have the privilege of living under the shadow of Almighty God because what did He say in His word? He says, "I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee." That means He's close by. If He's close by, we're living in His shadow, living under His wings.

Whatever pressure Almighty God allows to get to us while we're living under His wings and under the shadow of the Almighty, it is only there temporarily for our good and God will use the pressure for our good. He wants us to learn to persevere. Not to weep and moan and give up and just say, "Oh God, what in the world's happened?" Because you see, if pressure is there to build character, God's going to keep it there until we do what? Until we are willing and able to be able to see that we are to be sustained by Him.

As long as we crumble under pressure, He's going to recycle us through. Now, some of you probably feel like you've been recycled and recycled and recycled. He's going to keep on cycling us through a similar pressure until we learn to bear up under it. And we're to bear up in His strength, not our own. All right, let's move on down, if you will. Sometimes the purpose is to reveal our weaknesses.

Now, if someone had asked David before he went out to fight Goliath, or two or three days afterwards, "David, would you ever stoop, anytime in your life, would you ever even think about stooping before your enemies to act like a crazy man, slobbering from the mouth, scribbling on the floor, rolling on the floor in your clothes, acting like a crazy man because you're afraid of your enemies?" Imagine the possibility of that. No way.

Any man who'd walk out with a sling and five stones and kill a giant and cut off his head and make one of the most beautiful speeches a man ever made to his enemy, why would he ever scrabble on the floor? But my friend, let me tell you something. There's not a one of us in this place tonight who knows what we're really like until the pressure gets on. And the temptation stares us in the face and the burden comes rolling down upon us and we see it coming.

We don't know what we're like. So what does God do? Oftentimes in the process of what's happening in our lives and whatever He's up to, sometimes the purpose is to reveal our weaknesses. And you see, we're not going to live and work and walk and worship from our point of weakness until we recognize that we are. And if you'll read through the details of these ten chapters, you'll find out how often God revealed David's weakness to him.

Sometimes he was scared. Now, here he was, frightened of a man, of course, he knew him well, but he wasn't even anywhere close by. The same David had stood face to face, could see the eyeballs of Goliath and killed him right in sight. And here he was running. You'll discover that David became a frightened man, became an untruthful man—that is, let me put it this way: you know what was in David in these chapters?

He was a liar. He was treacherous. He was murderous. He was a killer. He was hard. At times when he was cold, but there are times which you'll see in this chapter where he says, "No, let's don't do that. Let's..." In other words, he could have killed a whole bunch of folks on one occasion here, but he said, "No, that's not necessary. No point in doing that." But you see, none of us are consistent at all times.

All of us have our highs and lows, our ups and downs, our ins and outs. Strong one day, weak the next. Wouldn't think about it, think about it the next day. You see, one of the things that God has to continually do is to continually keep us recognizing the fact, brother, we're dependent on Him. Lest we really fall, we must ever be conscious of how absolutely weak we are. And one of the things that God is up to in our lives at different times is to expose us to our weakness.

You ask Him to forgive you, you fret and fume, can't forgive yourself. God forgives you just like that. You know why? He knew you were weak to begin with. You see, here's listen. God never tests you to find out whether you're strong enough. So why in the world does He put these tests to us? Not to find out whether we're strong or weak, He already knows that. He does it to show us how weak we are and that we would respond properly to say, "Lord, I need You. Oh God, I need You."

My soul waiteth only upon God, for my strength is to be found in Him. My salvation is to be found in Him. David learned what kind of character he had on the inside. None of us like that. All of us want everybody to think we're just super. But we are not. The real truth is we're a bunch of sinners saved by the grace of God, aren't worth anything apart from Jesus Christ. But when He gets inside of you, He says the countenance of Jesus Christ Himself can radiate upon our faces and in our hearts.

Well, the next thing, and this is a super point here, listen to this. What is He up to in our life? Get this. Sometimes what He's doing in our life, He's trying to teach us: don't you remove the obstacle between what I promised you and where you are at this point. David came upon Saul, he could have taken his life. David said, "No, I can't do that. I'm not going to touch God's anointed."

And I believe here's a real principle for us. That sometimes we see the promise that God's given us and then we see something that stands between that and we see how we could remove that. So we say, "Well, I can take care of that." God says, "Don't touch that." Say, "Oh, but, you know, after all, God, here's what You promised and I believe I can handle that." There's some things God does not want us tampering with.

When He makes us a promise, there may be twenty-five obstacles between you and what you believe God wants you to have. When you start trying to eliminate the obstacles and remove all the hindrances in your own strength, in your own time, in your own wisdom, you're going to get yourself in trouble every time. You see, this is why we have to learn to say, "Lord, if that's what You want, then I'm willing to wait until You provide it in Your own time."

And God, in His own time, will remove the obstacle. And friend, when you and I have what God wants us to have, when God wants us to have it, you always enjoy it most. But when you get it before God wants you to have it, you're headed for trouble. All right, let me just close with this last one. And that is I believe one of the things God's up to in our life and all the difficulties, He is in the process of demonstrating to us His faithfulness.

I believe of all the qualities of God that He wants us to see and to be able to perceive and to be able to understand and experience and enjoy and reap the benefits of is His faithfulness. Ten long years David ran. And then the Scripture says in that 30th chapter that Saul and his sons lost their life. And of course, when we come to 2nd Samuel, he's made the king. But listen to Psalm 40, look in verse 1. Look at this Psalm. God's faithfulness.

Listen: "I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. He's put a new song in my heart, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust and respecteth not the proud nor such as turn aside to lies."

"Many, oh Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done and Thy thoughts which are to usward. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire. Mine ears hast Thou opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings Thou hast not required. Then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, oh my God. Yea, Thy law is written in my heart."

And you could go on through the passage. Here's a song of praise and adoration. God had proved Himself faithful. What did David say? He said, "Great is Thy faithfulness." And you see, it's not where you and I have been that matters. It's where we're headed. And the one thing you and I can do tonight, it doesn't make any difference where we're going, at what point you are in God's plan for your life, here's one thing you and I ought to carry with us every single day.

Wherever God leads us, we know that our faithful God is already there. And He has plotted our path every step of the way from where we're going to end up, all the way back to this very night, this very moment, this very place. Our faithful God has made this promise: He will go with us every single step and moment of the way.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. No matter what you encounter, if you're a believer, you can be assured of this: God is with you in it and will sustain you through it. To listen again, click the link to Today on Radio at intouch.org. And that's where you can learn more about how to know God as your perfect heavenly Father through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

If you'd like a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message today, "What Is God Up to in Your Life?" or the entire teaching set, Pursuing God's Heart: A Study of 1st and 2nd Samuel, just open our online bookstore to place your order. Our web address again is intouch.org. Or call or text us at 1-800-IN-TOUCH. You can also write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357.

The specifics of what God is doing in a person's life can be complicated, but they all have one singular goal. And we'll hear about that just ahead in today's Moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Let your time and your schedule and everything about you revolve around this: that you and I are to develop and continue to develop this ongoing, intimate, wonderful, exciting, satisfying, indescribable, wonderful, incomparable relationship with a personal God.

Guest (Male): Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus, as we all want to do. You can learn how at charlesstanleyinstitute.org.

Guest (Male): In Touch Plus is streaming on Local Now featuring all the best of Dr. Charles Stanley. We need to have strong convictions based on the word of God. He's working out things that you and I would never know about in our future. In Touch Plus, your streaming network for quality Christian programming 24/7. Now watch this. In Touch Plus, streaming free on Local Now.

From the Pastor's Heart is an in-depth teaching letter inspired by the teachings of Dr. Charles Stanley. To receive In Touch's From the Pastor's Heart letter, call 1-800-IN-TOUCH or visit intouch.org/pastorsheart.

Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch. Good times, bad times. For believers, they all have one purpose. Here's our Moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: When God created you, He created you with a purpose in mind so that listen, there is never a time in your life or mine where God isn't doing something. Now you know once in a while somebody says, "Well, you know, I haven't had any spiritual experiences lately. I don't know what's going on." You may not have felt anything, but God was doing something in your life.

You see, He says He predestinated us to be conformed to His likeness. And God isn't ever going to let up on His purpose. Now, that doesn't mean that our experience will be the same. There may be times when you and I will go through valleys or have mountain peaks. And so what we feel and the types of experiences we're having will change. But that doesn't mean that God isn't doing anything. He's always doing something in your life and mine.

So that, when we come to times of great difficulty and it seems that the whole bottom's dropped out and we don't know what to do next, then we often times ask, "Lord, what are You up to in my life?" And it doesn't mean He's just started doing something. It just means He's either tightened up the vice, or put the pressure on, or got our attention, or He's taken us into another stage or a different level of where He's had us going all the time.

Guest (Male): Learn more about trusting God through every season of your life at intouch.org. And if you have a story about what you've learned through this program, please don't hesitate to share it with us. Next week on In Touch, we'll continue our study of 1st and 2nd Samuel and learn the basics of how to encourage yourself. That's next week on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley.

This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.