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Guest (Male): Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham.

Jack Graham: If we want to model our lives after a man pursuing God's heart, when we find ourselves in dark places, when we find ourselves in a tunnel and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, praise your way through the pain.

Guest (Male): On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about how even when you're in a dark place, you can trust God. Now here's Dr. Graham with his message, "The Fugitive."

Jack Graham: In 1 Samuel, if you would turn in your Bibles to chapter 22. David was a shepherd boy, just a teenager who was unknown, unheralded, unsung, overlooked, and yet God had a plan for his life. The prophet Samuel, a priestly prophet, went to the house of Jesse to find the king that God had directed him. As the brothers one by one came before the prophet, the sons of Jesse, not one met the standard of a man after God's heart.

He said, "Is there another?" And yes, there was another. There was a boy out in the shepherd's field. A boy whose heart for God was great, whose love for God was great, who spent long nights looking into the stars and worshipping God, who played on various instruments, experiencing the presence of God. So he was the one, and he was anointed and appointed the king. Then he went back to the shepherd's field because Saul was still king.

Saul had defaulted. Saul had forfeited his right to reign and rule over Israel, and God had a plan and a purpose in removing him. Until then, God was preparing His servant, David. So David goes back and keeps doing what he had always done, and that is to watch over the sheep. The Psalmist said that He brought him from the sheepfolds, and that David was a man of integrity, that he shepherded Israel with the integrity of his heart and the skillfulness of his hands. That's David.

Then David goes to the battlefield where the great giant, the Philistine giant, was mocking God and mocking the people of God. He's amazed that no one is doing anything about it, so he steps up with a slingshot and a stone, and he takes the giant down. If you know anything about the Bible, I'm sure you know the great story of David and Goliath, the shepherd boy who took down a mighty beast of a warrior like Goliath. David instantly became nationally known. He was a hero.

He went from zero to hero, and he was loved by everyone. He was almost worshipped. He was put into the army of Saul. Saul, at this point, honored David. He gave him provision, power, and a name. At this point, he honored him, but ultimately, Saul ended up hating him. At one point, David is just forced out, and he flees. That brings us then to 1 Samuel 22.

In verses one and two, it says, "David departed from there and escaped to the cave." That's a keyword. We're going to talk about the cave today, the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. He was alone, and he was afraid. Yet his family hears about it, and they go down to where he is at this cave.

Then also following these men there, everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him. David gathered this motley crew, and he became commander over them. There were with him about 400 men. Then if you'll skip over to chapter 24 of 1 Samuel, once again, we find David in a cave. There were many caves there.

Verses one and two say, "When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told, 'Behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi, the place of the wild goats.'" Now, I've been to En Gedi on numerous occasions. It is an oasis in the desert. There are streams, there's water there. It's a national park, actually, today. Then Saul took 3,000 chosen men, that is his best soldiers out of all of Israel, and went to seek David, why? To kill David.

He had a bounty on his head. Kill David and his men in front of the wild goat rocks. What a place, the wild goat rocks. So David is in a cave, literally in a cave, but he was also in a cave of a different kind. It was a spiritual dark place in David's life, a spiritually dark cave in his life when life was caving in on him. No doubt, on the run from Saul, Saul trying to kill him or his soldiers nearly every day. He's exhausted.

He seeks oasis at En Gedi, but Saul even finds him here. He's overwhelmed. He's despondent. Here's the thing that I love about David so much. We see in his story his honor. He was a great man. We see his humility, but we see his humanity. It's a raw and rugged story, the story of David. It's very real.

It was a long time coming from David's anointing and appointing as the king of Israel to when he precisely ascended to the throne. In fact, it was 13 years. In that 13 years, he must have wondered many times, "What is God doing? Is God's promise true? Am I really the king? Am I supposed to be the king?" In this episode of David's life, he wrote eight of the Psalms that we find in the Old Testament, the Psalms.

David was a worshipper, and he wrote these Psalms under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. There are eight of them, and three of the eight Psalms that were in this period when he was a fugitive were in the cave at En Gedi, the very place where he found himself hiding from Saul. He and a motley crew of 400 men against 3,000 trained soldiers and Saul the king. So what did he do, and what should we do?

If we want to model our lives after a man after God's heart, when we find ourselves in dark places, when we find ourselves haunted and hounded and mistreated, and sometimes misguided in ways that we don't quite understand, when we find ourselves in a tunnel and there's no light at the end of the tunnel, when we find ourselves there, it could be a brokenness. Your heart may be broken. It could be a bleeding soul, but you, like David, find yourself in a cave. What are you supposed to do in a cave?

Well, let me mention several things what David did. Number one, praise your way through the pain. Praise your way through the pain. I want to show you this from the very Psalms that David wrote from the cave. Let's go to the first one where we find David on his face before God, Psalm 142.

He says, "With my voice, I cry out to the Lord. With my voice, I plead for mercy to the Lord. I pour out my complaint before Him. I tell my trouble before Him." Tell your troubles. Talk to Jesus about what you're going through. He said, "When my spirit faints within me, You know my way." God, You know. "In the path where I walk, they have hidden a trap for me.

"Look to the right and see there is no one who takes notice of me. No refuge remains to me. No one cares for my soul." Am I speaking to someone that, if you were to be completely honest like David is being honest here, you're thinking, "Does anyone care for my soul? Does God care? Does anyone care?" That's how down David was.

So in verse five, what does he do? "I cry to You, O Lord. I say, 'You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.' Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low." Have you been there? Very low. Most all of us get there from time to time, and maybe some for even what seems like a lifetime.

He says, "Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. This is too big for me, God. I can't handle this. Bring me out of prison that I may give thanks to Your name. The righteous will surround me, for You will deal bountifully with me." Now you see in the midst of the fear, his faith is flickering a bit. As he's going through this depression, this despair in his life, he says, "I give thanks to Your name."

Gratitude. It becomes a hard-fought hallelujah as he's fighting through what he's going through. But he believes that God is going to deal mercifully and bountifully with him. God's going to bless him. So that's David. I just see him prostrate there on his face before God, crying out to God in the desert.

Guest (Male): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, "The Fugitive." We're excited to share that we have a new way for you to connect with us. It's our texting service designed to keep you connected with everything happening here at PowerPoint. You'll be the first to know about upcoming events, special announcements, and truly enriching content.

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That's why this month we want to say thanks for your gift of $10 or more by sending you Dr. Jack Graham's book, *Choices*. In this encouraging resource, Dr. Graham shares practical wisdom from God's Word to help you make decisions with confidence, clarity, and faith. To give your gift and request your copy, text "AUGUST" to 59789. Please limit to one per household. Again, text "AUGUST" to 59789. Now, let's get back to today's message, "The Fugitive."

Jack Graham: Then go to Psalm 57. The first verse that I'm about to read, and we're going to read the entire 57th Psalm, I don't know that I had ever heard it in my first 20 years of life. On August the 18th, 1970, my father was brutally injured by a shoplifter and died 10 days later. My pastor called me, and then he gave me the verse that God gave David at En Gedi in the cave. We were in a cave. It was a dark place. It was a dark time, obviously.

It's verse one of Psalm 57. "Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusts in You. In the shadow of Your wings, I will take my refuge till these calamities, till these storms of destruction pass by." Again, I think that was the first time I had heard this verse, but I took it in, and I've never forgotten it. Over the years now as a pastor, I must have shared these very words of David from the Lord with hundreds and hundreds of people in times of sorrow and grief and suffering. "Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me."

Then David went on to say, "I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me." I discovered even in that trial, even in that tragedy, that God had a purpose in it, and He does for you. Now David realizes that God is fulfilling His purpose. He's not hurting David. He's not harming David. He is helping David rise to leadership. In this cave, David is learning some things that he could not learn in other places.

So he said, "I cry out." In verse three, he says, "He will send from heaven and save me. He will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah." It means think about that. "God will send out His steadfast love and His faithfulness. My soul is in the midst of lions. I lie down among fiery beasts, the children of man whose teeth are like spears and arrows, whose tongues are like sharp swords."

Sounds like social media, doesn't it? "Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let Your glory be over all the earth. They set a net for my steps, and my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves. Selah." Think about that. "My heart," here's David's heart again. The great heart of David.

"My heart is steadfast, and I will sing and make melody." Because the battle is the Lord's. His word is a melody. His weapon is a melody. So he sings. He does what he's always done in his life, and that is to look up to the Lord. "Awake, my glory," he says, "Awake, O harp and lyre. Get the instrument. I will awake the dawn. I'll be up early. I'll stay up late.

"I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the peoples. I will sing praises to You among the nations. For You, for Your steadfast love is great to the heavens. Your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let Your glory be over all the earth." Say amen. So now David is off his face, and he's on his knees. His heart is standing up strong.

Then there's one more, and that's Psalm 34 written at En Gedi. Now he's up with his hands lifted high, praising the Lord. Verse one to mark and to make your own: "I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise will continually be in my mouth." Not my complaints, not my fears, not my worries, but His praise will continually be in my mouth. "My soul shall make its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear of it and be glad.

"O magnify the Lord with me, and come let us exalt His name together." Now David has praised his way through the pain. He says, "I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces are never ashamed." That's what happens, but it doesn't happen accidentally. It often happens through pain because He gives songs in the night.

In the dark nights and days of our lives. Then the angel of the Lord encamps, this is verse seven, around those who fear Him, and He delivers them. "O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. O fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him have no lack." God provides everything you need. Do you know that?

"The young lion suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." David said in another passage, "The Lord God is a sun and a shield. He gives grace and glory, and no good thing will He withhold from them who walk uprightly." Many, and this is verse 19, are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all.

So what are we to do when we find ourselves in a cave? Praise your way through the pain. Cry out to God. Pray. You say, "Well, doesn't God already know what I need? Doesn't God—why do I need to pray? God knows what I'm thinking, what I need from Him." Well, look, when you pray in communion with God, there's connection with God.

So the point of the prayer is communion and connection so that you experience God's presence. That's what we need in dark days and nights, the presence, the living presence of God, and prayer is the connector. Trust God's timing is the next thing. David, it would be 13 long years while he was in the desert, hunted like a wild goat. He later said to Saul, "What am I, a flea in the desert, that you would chase after me?"

He could have thought many times, "God, when are You ever going to come through?" Waiting is so difficult for all of us. I'm not good at waiting, but God puts a premium on patience and waiting. David, what was God doing? God was preparing David. He had to learn some things. He was just a youth.

God was working out His plan for Saul and removing him as king, and at the same time, He was preparing David to take command of the nation. He was learning all these things while a fugitive. So trust God's timing. Waiting takes determination and discipline, grit, and grace. You have to remember you've just got to trust the process. I want to try to fix it. I want to try to make it happen.

I want to try to do it myself, but sometimes God just puts us in a place like David where we can't do it, but we learn that He can. We trust His plan. Worry is a big problem for many of us. Worry changes nothing, but when you wait on God, it changes everything because He is reliable and He is faithful. So take a deep breath and be willing to wait to see what God is going to do.

Then finally, resist revenge. If you get back to our basic text in Samuel 24, I want you to see what happens next. This is when it gets rowdy. He came to the sheepfolds by the way where there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself. Don't you find it incredible that of all the hundreds of caves in the desert, Saul managed to find himself in the very cave where David and his men were hiding in the darkness?

So he goes in there, he takes off his robe, he hangs it somewhere. The men of David, verse four, it says David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave. The men of David said to him, "Aha! Here is what the Lord has said to you: 'Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.'" They said, "This is the day the Lord has made. We got him now."

He is, as you say, predisposed, and you can take him out just like that. So what did David do? David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe. Then he went back and afterward, you want to know the heart after God, you want to see David's heart? Afterward, David's heart struck him because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

Are you kidding me? This is the man who's been trying to kill him, who's got armies resisting him, and he cuts off a corner of the robe, and his heart, his conscience, is bothered by this? Then he said to his men, "The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed."

So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his own way. What a story. Here's the time for revenge, but David didn't take it because he was trusting God's timing. That God knew what He was doing. He was still under the authority, in his view, under the king's authority.

It's a principle of authority in life. You have to be willing to be under in order to be over. David had a humble heart, and he had a heart that was willing to trust God even when he could take his life in his own hands. Many times, we get ourselves in a lot of trouble by taking things into our own hands, including our enemies. We believe in justice, and God will enact justice.

God has set police and government authorities. Read Romans 13. Yes, we believe in judgment, but on a personal level, you have to learn to let this stuff go. Some of you, you're far enough in life these days that you've turned into a cynic, and there's a scowl on your face and there's sadness in your eyes because you haven't let go of some things that happened to you in a cave. Have the spirit of David, who resisted revenge and attack and waited on God. He trusted God's timing, and he turned his tears into telescopes that he might see God even more clearly.

Guest (Male): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, "The Fugitive." Let me remind you of an encouraging resource Dr. Jack Graham created to help you navigate life with biblical wisdom. It's his book, *Choices*, which comes as our thanks for your gift of $10 or more. This practical and insightful book explores how everyday decisions shape our lives and how God's truth provides the wisdom we need to choose faith over fear, truth over compromise, and obedience over convenience.

When you give today to support the outreach of PowerPoint Ministries, you'll help share biblical truth and the life-changing hope of Jesus with people around the world through broadcast, podcast, and digital ministry. To give your gift and request your copy, text "AUGUST" to 59789. Please limit to one per household. Again, text "AUGUST" to 59789. We're excited to share that we have a new way for you to connect with us.

It's our texting service designed to keep you connected with everything happening here at PowerPoint. You'll be the first to know about upcoming events, special announcements, and truly enriching content. To join, start a new text conversation by texting "CONNECT" to 59789. Again, text "CONNECT" to 59789.

Guest (Female): Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today?

Jack Graham: I want to speak to everyone here who's in a cave right now. You know who you are. You're the one who's barely making it through the day. You're the one who's fighting thoughts you don't want to admit you're having. You're the one who's wondering how much longer you can hold on. You're the one who feels forgotten, abandoned, left behind while everyone else moves forward.

Here's what I need you to hear: God has not forgotten you in that cave. In fact, He's meeting you there because the cave is not punishment. It's preparation. It's not abandonment. It's apprenticeship. God is teaching you things in the darkness that you could never learn in the light. David spent 13 years waiting for God's promise to come true.

13 years of running, hiding, wondering if he'd heard God wrong. 13 years of watching his enemy prosper while he suffered. 13 years in the cave. But what was God doing during those 13 years? He was building a king. Not just teaching David how to fight battles, but teaching him how to fight his own heart. Teaching him not to take revenge when he had the chance.

Teaching him to worship in the darkness. Teaching him to wait when everything in him wanted to force the outcome. Here's what I know: Whatever cave you're in right now, God is using it. He's not wasting your pain. He's not ignoring your tears. He's working out His purposes in you and through you, even when you can't see it.

So here's what you have to do: You have to praise your way through the pain. You have to worship in the darkness. You have to resist the temptation to take matters into your own hands, to get revenge, to force the door open before God's timing. You have to trust that God is working, even when you can't feel it. Because here's the promise: The cave is not forever.

David didn't stay in En Gedi. He walked out of that cave and onto a throne. The same God who brought David out will bring you out. But you have to trust His timing. You have to resist the shortcuts. You have to keep worshipping when worship is the hardest thing you could possibly do. So if you're in a cave today, don't give up.

Don't lose heart. Don't let bitterness poison you from the inside out. Instead, do what David did. Lift your hands, open your mouth, and praise your way through the pain. Because the God who met David in the cave is meeting you there too. And He's not just going to bring you out. He's going to bring you through stronger, wiser, and more dependent on Him than you've ever been.

Guest (Male): And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift of $10 or more, we will send you Dr. Graham's book, *Choices*. Just text "AUGUST" to 59789 and join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about what it means to have a great heart. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.