How we praise Thee, Lord Jesus, Thou art equal to every need. Thou art our sufficiency. We come once again, fully aware this morning that we are to be occupied with Thee.
We choose to dwell, to behold, to inquire—just of that which will please Thy heart. Wherein there might be hidden back in our own mind or our own thinking any way by which we might build, by which we might meet the needs of people, we do claim even in this moment Thou wilt do a shattering work.
And once again, keep us all fully alive to this: only Thou dost have the shaft of life that can pierce through and give the answers. Only Thou canst take a portion of Thyself and feed that need, that area of need.
All of our manipulating, all of our maneuvering, all of our attempts somehow to reach out and take care of the needs that we have seen have always left us empty. But all this morning, we claim Thy sovereign working. We thank Thee, Lord Jesus.
Thou hast never left Thy people. Thou wilt never let them go away, as it were, without Thy word to their heart. This is again what we pray.
Help us to look beyond and through the vessel, Lord, just to keep our faith fixed upon Him who is altogether lovely and worthy. We ask it in Your wonderful, precious name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Amen.
Since we began in our particular portion of sharing, we have been sort of opening our hearts to consider the man after God’s own heart—David.
And I must confess, we have sort of been pulled and propelled along. I did not come, an awful confession to make really, knowing where we were going. I just wanted to fill ourselves with all that was involved in this man in whom God found delight, as he reflects the One in whom our Father finds such delight—His lovely Son.
I did say in the very beginning that, as you look through the Scripture at various lives, there is often something quite unique and distinctive that God works out through a life.
We were saying in the very first evening, as we began with the founding fathers—with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the particular place that they fulfilled in the divine economy.
Then, looking at Moses, we saw the work of deliverance: the bringing them out of Egypt, and the unique thing in the place that he fulfilled. We went on to Joshua and the leadership, the captaincy, by which they were moving out to possess more and more of the inheritance, that they might realize the purpose.
Then came that waning period of the judges, in which there were incidental awakenings and revivings; and finally Samuel the prophet, who is the voice of God. Then we went through that which I believe is a parenthesis, when King Saul is introduced—the head of a different economy and purpose.
But finally David comes as the unifier, the great unifier of the people.
Now, it is interesting as you look back through all of this array of men that in each life there has been a uniting factor. There has been something that united the people.
You notice this especially when you come to Moses. The people were quite united about getting out of Egypt. They were quite ready to be delivered from the taskmasters, the slave masters.
The emphasis, of course, was Moses taking them out from. But, oh, how hard, how difficult, to bring them on to the larger thing. They were so content to get out, and of course that was immediately their need.
Finally, when they got out of the wilderness and began to move in and possess, you sensed something of a unifying campaign that Joshua was leading them along. But pretty soon they got about as much land as they needed to settle down and enjoy. They failed to move on to the large, overshadowing thing that God had.
We go through that period of declension. Samuel comes along. Well, today we want to pick up the unique thing that I think we can see in David: the unifying factor.
What it was in these past men is not sufficient for now. What is it that is going to bring about a people, unify them, that they might come to the fullness of the thing that the Lord Himself has?
I have noticed through the years how people go through these different phases. Something that immediately fulfills them is unifying. But when you get to David, you almost run into this: here is the need for unity, so we will be unified around the need for it. Is that sufficient?
I would like to believe it, but I have never found it works—not very long. Just the need for it does not seem to be a sufficient factor.
It may have seemed yesterday, as we have been moving along in the sense of the man whom God has been preparing, considering the sovereignty of God in his life, the anointing of God, and the way that God brought him into cooperation with the anointing work.
Yesterday it may have seemed as though we got into something of a bypath, and we were talking about how David learned to dwell. But I want to point us to one verse. Before you can have an outward unity, before there can be something of an outward working of unity, God’s great need is to get us unified right down in here.
James seems to put it in these words:
Whence come wars and fightings among you?
Have you ever seen two fellows trying to settle world war out here, and they end up with pretty well manifested war right in here? Excuse me. Whence come these wars and fightings—all this external? Do they not issue out of this inward war?
I think maybe you get a glimpse of the longing of David’s heart when he says, “One thing have I desired: to dwell, to behold, to inquire, to see.” But he says over in Psalm 86:11:
Unite my heart to fear Thy name.
I am reminded of the little girl who was taken into a shoe store by her mother to buy a pair of shoes. After trying on, I suppose, eight or ten pairs, the mother turned to the little girl and said, “Now, sweetheart, Mary, you must make up your mind. Hurry, which one do you want?”
Little Mary looked up at her mother and said, “Oh, it is easy for you to make up your mind, Mother, but I have got so many minds.”
Can you think of what those minds would be? Here is the mind that says, “Ah, I like that red pair. Everybody will notice me when I walk down the hall in school.” Then she thinks, “Dear old Dad back home—Dad would sure like those. They are really practical. They will last for several years.”
Here is another mind. You know, I do not need to go on. Oh, how much turmoil there is deep within, all the time.
And if God can bring us to something of an inward kind of unity—would it be amiss to say that I realize this is the thing God is having such a time doing, bringing some of these arguings and concepts and things that roll around in the realm of the soul to an end?
Finally, you give up, as we said yesterday, and you come to dwell. You say, “Lord, You do not call me to solve all of it, nor will I ever be able to unify out in this realm right here. I choose to dwell.”
This is not a state, necessarily. This is the first sensible thing you have ever done, if you have found this as a priority: “Lord, I just turn it all over to You. Far greater men than I have tried to solve all of these wars and fightings, theological and otherwise, but I choose to dwell.”
And the thing that I think is quite wonderful is that God then takes us into His own schoolroom, and the life that begins to move—the quickening from within—begins to do some enlightening. Strangely, some of the awful frustrations begin to take on different colors.
Well, let us look this morning now at this man David. We will assume immediately that God has begun to do something of unifying in him. We are going to see for a little bit how we have a people who come, who begin to offer themselves to something of the vision that is before them.
You want to look with me first of all this morning at 1 Samuel 22, this first group that came to bring themselves to David.
Now, if you have designs for unifying someplace, or somebody, or some church, or some group, here is some real good help. First Samuel 22:1:
David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave of Adullam:
and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it,
they went down thither to him.
And every one that was in distress,
and every one that was in debt,
and every one that was discontented,
gathered themselves unto him;
and he became a captain over them:
and there were with him about four hundred men.
One would like to unify that group of people.
I have to say it. I was not going to, but I will get out on a limb. The more I move around among the halls here, the more I listen and fellowship, the more I see this second verse walking around all the time.
All the distresses that have literally driven us. How many are in distress? I mean, I will not ask how many are in debt. How many are discontented?
Well, this is the impossibility of it. Do you see what is involved? Oh, how the staggering impossibility of this thing hit us right in the face at the beginning. “Lord, who is equal to such a task?”
I look back through at least twenty years of traveling in different places among churches. And I learned a long time ago, when I would be advised to some independent Bible church—it almost did not matter; forgive me now, if that happens to be your heritage.
But, oh, what it is like to move in where all the discontent from the city has finally congregated in one mess. Oh, you know what I mean.
I think there is something that we have to get a hold of right here very quickly, and it is this: there is an awful lot of discontent that is raging through religious circles today.
But God will never be able to take some of those stones that are coming unless we get certain things very clear in the building, the unifying, and the bringing about of what He is after.
There is some material that is—well, we are going to see in a little bit when the tribe of Gad comes. I like to call them the “gadabouts.” When they get about, they have been here, then discontented. Of course, there has been a deep hunger and a longing.
The next fellow who moves to town, they join him for a while, sit at his table until he has all that he has to share—the new thing he brought. Then another man moves to town, and they gather by his side, going over there to absorb all that he has.
I want us to see this morning that, I believe, the thing God is doing in those who have come to David, and that which must be dealt with, is to lay the cross right at the root of this kind of appetite for some new thing.
It is very difficult to deal with. Or—and I am on dangerous ground again—this part of the thing that says, “Well, I was not getting fed over there, so I decided I would go over to this trough for a while.”
A lot of reasons for discontentment. Lots of reasons. I have found quite often that the trough I was eating at had food, but my appetite—my taste bud—you know what I mean? My taste bud.
This manna, unchanged all the time; and the onions and the leeks and the garlic, and especially the watermelon. You have to know the background of all of that.
Oh, the appetite that we have. God has to do a thorough renovating of some appetites.
And apart from this, no group of people will ever be able to meet together very long, because there is no one man who can seek to continually fill the cost with that which you see. It is impossible—absolutely beyond. It is not God’s way; it is not His way.
And I think we will discover, and I know we will discover before we go on very far, that all these motives—discontent, this and that, all of it—God has to deal very carefully with the motive and all that is involved in why we are really coming to Adullam’s cave.
People get quite alarmed with me when I go into cities or go into places and I do not really build their little group too much, because folks who come like to somehow pull all the folk over. But there is God’s timing.
You get people into a group before the timing of the Lord, and you have a greater problem on your hands. There is the timing of God: God’s releasing, a God-changing of appetite, God bringing to death some of the things that have been ruling in the life.
And in His own time, they will find their way thoroughly discontented, thoroughly in debt. I think it is all right in some ways, if you understand it the right way. And they will join themselves to David.
So we ask the question: What is it that is in the life of David that we can get a hold of, that seems to be a unifying factor? What is it that caused all of these? Was it their expediency, so that they were merely running from one foundation? Or was there something of the young David that was alive in their vision?
Now you can move a little bit further. Go over to 1 Chronicles 12. I think you get a lovely picture here of all of these who came to David. I marvel at this portion.
It ought to cause our hearts to rejoice this morning. Scattered throughout all of the tribes, God is working, is preparing, bringing hearts into that proper preparation, so that when there is the coming together, the unity, these have got something of history, something of background, something wrought out in the life.
First Chronicles 12 speaks of the companies that came to David at Ziklag:
Now these are they that came to David to Ziklag,
while he yet kept himself close because of Saul the son of Kish;
and they were among the mighty men, his helpers in war.
They were armed with bows,
and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones
and shooting arrows with the bow;
they were of Saul’s brethren of Benjamin.
Let me stop to say that if I see anything in this, let us consider the different groups that are coming now—coming with something that has been wrought within them, not so much bringing something as just themselves, but there is something of content, something wrought within their lives. This is important. This is important in what God is doing here.
You read down in 1 Chronicles 12:8:
And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David
to the stronghold in the wilderness,
mighty men of valor, men trained for war,
that could handle shield and buckler,
whose faces were like the faces of lions,
and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains.
And in 1 Chronicles 12:17, we read:
And David went out to meet them,
and answered and said unto them,
If ye be come peaceably unto me to help me,
my heart shall be knit unto you:
but if ye be come to betray me to mine adversaries,
seeing there is no wrong in my hands,
the God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke it.
Then the Spirit came upon Amasai, who was chief of the thirty, and he said:
Thine are we, David,
and on thy side, thou son of Jesse:
peace, peace be unto thee,
and peace be to thy helpers;
for thy God helpeth thee.
Then David received them and made them captains of the band.
One word stands out to remind me that there is no real entering into a unity apart from the cross—through the blood of the cross.
You get further inference in all of this, I believe, that these who are coming, recognizing David in the position of leadership that God is using, are coming as it were vowing. There is something of drawing through death to lay down their sovereignty, to lay down their own rights—that which was involved in each tribe laying down to accept another sovereignty. The way of the cross: this is the only way by which there can be peace wrought out.
I think I have seen across the country in the last two or three years a few places where people got hold of the New Testament church concept. They thought, “Oh, what we need to do is gather in this city on the ground of locality, and there to be unified.”
According to what vision they had, what light and understanding, one pastor would bring a group of his people. Here is another over here with a group of his people. Another with his people. They come and form a wonderful democracy—three leaders who are going to be unified.
I can show you a city where this happened—a couple of them. But it only took a little while to discover that God’s way of blending is not that of mutual agreement, necessarily.
God’s way of accomplishing peace is always to take the factors down through the cross. There, in death, every last thing that we have that has seemed good—all that we have been, all that has been involved—is laid in the tomb.
And when we come up on resurrection ground, Jew and Gentile, and all of the other separating things that our brother spoke of yesterday—bond or free, the cultural, the racial, the religious—all of these, on resurrection ground up here, there is one new man.
Thesis and antithesis come into death, as it were, and the synthesis must be a totally new thing. And that is not easy.
The particular city that I have been thinking of—it was just three months. The brother told me that each leader took his people back.
But it works in this way also. I think we have been finding it quite true, and you have also. When a group of people begin to come, as it were, that come to give themselves in peace under the thing that God is working out, there is this awful death of leaving back here on the other side every last thing, no matter how good it is.
There can be no importing over resurrection ground anything that does not have in it the content, or that which is wrought in the life. That which is merely mental, merely a doctrine, or that which I am going to import—it will not go through the grave.
But these men of valor—there is something wrought in them. The bow that they can draw, the arrow they can shoot—here is something of quality wrought in them. You can take it through the grave over resurrection ground, you see.
But if you have got a book on archery, it will not go through. All about how to do it.
All the religious world today is so filled with, “Man, everybody has got this theory, the idea. This is what ought to be done. This is how it ought to be done. This is it.” We get together to tell all that we read about how it was done someplace else, and so on.
God keeps shutting my own heart up to the fact that unless there has been something wrought out in experience, and it becomes something really wrought, it has to be left back here at the door when you are coming to David to be a people unified unto him.
I look back at our fellowship in Indianapolis again, and I have noticed through the months how many precious brothers and sisters have come, sort of hungering for reality and the breath of life.
They come a couple of times and pretty soon decide to make home with us. They sit there a little bit and finally discover that we have made—of course, they have just the books. I mean, they have just the theory. They have just the mental concept. They have just the something.
It is quite easy to wait and abide your time. But then you begin to offer to David something that you are sure is just what is needed.
And so there is the pushing spirit, the trying to get others to see, and the striving spirit, or whatever might be involved. Oh, brother, sister, this thing of God bringing some people unto David to be that which He can use is quite a discipline. It is quite a discipline.
Even with the revelation, the thing that you know is so wonderful, that you know God has given, still sit and bide and wait God’s time.
And the thing that is quite wonderful, I have noticed—and others have noticed—there is a very sovereign work of anointing within the group. There is that preparation until we are all moving, all moving. Then God, in His time, will begin to create the situation, and He will probably use some other brother.
You are not the father of that after all.
Oh, the cross has a peculiar, wonderful way of keeping the stones in their course and in their order, functioning as living stones.
So we are noticing here in these now who are coming. And I rejoice. My face, as I said yesterday, is set absolutely with conviction that the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. God is going to do it, and He is doing it.
These who come to David are mighty men of valor. That is, God has wrought something of eternal quality and content in life—a better history—and it is fine. But here they come. Do you not like this? “Thine we are.”
Go on, read a little further. First Chronicles 12:23:
And these are the numbers of the heads of them that were armed for war,
who came to David to Hebron,
to turn the kingdom of Saul to him,
according to the word of the Lord.
Then it lists them. And I like this over in verse 32. I found it some years ago, and it has always thrilled my heart:
And of the children of Issachar,
men that had understanding of the times,
to know what Israel ought to do.
Young men for war and battle; older men for counsel, who have the principles, who have seen something of God’s place.
Verse 33, of Zebulun:
Such as went forth to battle,
expert in war, with all instruments of war, fifty thousand,
and that could order the battle array,
and were not of double heart.
Oh, what a statement: who could keep rank. They were not of double heart. Could keep rank.
What does that mean? Keeping rank—in file, in line, in step. You ever find the whole army getting out of step with you? Of course, they are out of step. Keeping step. They were not of double heart.
Down to verse 38:
All these men of war, that could order the battle array,
came with a perfect heart to Hebron,
to make David king over all Israel:
and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart
to make David king.
And the last phrase of verse 40 says, “There was joy in Israel.” Expectancy.
I think, as I look around amongst the many bands of the Lord’s people, there is a little of the expectancy, just a little of vision, just a little of things.
I think whenever I see a group that begins to turn their back from the hub to the rim, it is still, you see, but they are facing another way. There is nothing of the hope and expectancy, and the daring to believe that the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Immediately that group has been succeeded already there. So what are they doing? There has to be something of larger vision. Without it, without it.
Could I say that there has been something of that overtone here all week, I believe? The only thing that pulls is the Lord. “Lord, You are doing something in this house. We do not know how to explain it, but You are doing something. It is far more than a conference.”
Well, it is interesting. Now, we did not quite get things in chronological order the other day. We went into chapter 13 and 15, you know. But let me pick it up, and say: if you had a group of men coming like this, and David’s position—knowing things, capable, qualified—would you inquire of them when you had the next job to do? Do you see the snare that is involved?
I do not know how to impress upon us this wonderful, delicate balance of relatedness among one another: that individualism be taken care of, but at the same time we always maintain that delicate sense of, “Lord, my brothers and sisters—this is collective life in Your eyes—but Lord, is this the time to bring the ark into the midst?”
You see, you have got this war in your heart again. You are there: “Lord, do I go to them? We need to be related, and rightly so. You have said all of these, and yet, Lord, here I am.”
Well, you know what happened, because in this case, and with David, I think it is something very special to me. God was placing him in a position where the priority must be here, and this is verification. But this is here. Do you follow me? I believe it is God’s order.
Otherwise, we begin to make the stones next to us all, and we get things confused with God. These are verification, but this—I must have Him alone.
Well, David—every time I read this, I wonder what it was that caused these men to come. I wonder what it was that told them. We can say it was God, God’s working. But what was it that kept them and finally solidified and brought them into a place where they could function, and then the kingdom was being built?
Well, there is a little story here that I wanted to get a hold of. Maybe it will help us to see something of the man after God’s own heart.
How is he going to bind these fellows together? They have come. What is the unifying factor going to be? What is the unifying factor going to be that is going to keep these functioning together? What will it be?
Well, you can build a nice fence and a nice wall here. We are going to see this morning, I think, just three words: “must,” “ought,” and finally we will come to the heart, and we will call it “want to.”
I looked back for twenty years. I have been an independent, you know. When God did something quite sovereign, at least twenty years ago, one of the first things we began to awaken to was the religious man out here.
By the way, we had not seen things very clearly. And yet, thank God for some of the reality of it without having the doctrine. Lots of people have entered into the reality of things and only much later have been able to do much explaining of it.
We must never forget that God has, in all the tribes out here, some people who have entered into the reality and could not vocalize or articulate it to save their life. But you touch them—you touch them—and you know that there is something of echo to your spirit. You know it.
Well, here you have these, and I ask the question again: David, how are we going to bind these together and keep them from going back to Gad, back to Issachar, reaching a place in their life and experience when they will not get discontented again and go back?
What are we going to do? What is the principle? What overshadowing thing? Maybe God can help us get a hold of the unifying factor.
Oh, let us read it, and then we will get it before us. First Chronicles, chapter 11. I seem to be working backwards, but here is a principle I would like for us to get a hold of.
First Chronicles 11:
Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying,
Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh.
That is in the Old Testament. Expect the New Testament to say to the Lord Jesus, “We are bone of Thy bone and flesh of Thy flesh,” you see. Through death, burial, and resurrection, we have been brought into a new man—one new man—and in this new man we are that intimately related.
And moreover:
In times past, even when Saul was king,
thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel:
and the Lord thy God said unto thee,
Thou shalt be shepherd of my people Israel,
and thou shalt be prince over my people Israel.
Therefore all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel, according to the word of the Lord by Samuel.
I believe David had a triple anointing. It is a wonderful pattern in the picture. You know, there is something that you see in David as prophet, priest, and king.
God, let us move on to what we are really after. We get to these mighty men. Verse 9:
So David waxed greater and greater;
for the Lord of hosts was with him.
These also are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who strengthened themselves with him in his kingdom, and with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of the Lord concerning Israel.
And now we are going to read some of them. Verse 16:
And David was then in the stronghold,
and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem.
And David longed, and said,
Oh that one would give me water to drink
of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!
And the three brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David.
Can you not just sense something of the intimacy and the joy of these men who, after having just overheard, were so close that they overheard it?
Can I ask you a question? What does it do to you when you hear someone—a servant of the Lord, maybe standing and saying, “Now, it is a command: you must be filled”? Here, it is a command now: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.” It is a command: “You must.”
You ever hear that? Sometimes I wonder if I am all fouled up inside, but when I hear just the tone of it, the ring of it, it has for years done something in me. I do not know how to explain it. Maybe this morning I can share what I mean with you.
Can you imagine David looking out at his mighty men and saying, “I want a drink from the well. I command you to go”?
You know what would happen to me? I would probably raise my hand and be the first one to go, but I would never come back. I would never come back.
That is not the thing that I think drew men to David. If I am standing only out here at the rim, and because I am sent in what I do I must do because I have been backed into a corner, a club is over my head—it is in the realm of command.
Well, I guess it is bad. But I do not believe this is what drew men to David.
We read here, you know the story:
And the three brake through the host of the Philistines,
and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem,
that was by the gate,
and took it, and brought it to David.
Nevertheless David would not drink thereof,
but poured it out unto the Lord.
I go back to Isaiah. I have heard it treated in so many different ways, but it was quite some time before I caught a little phrase. I believe I am on the right track, and I have thought of it for some years now.
I like the picture and think of Isaiah in Isaiah 6. God has done purging and something of a cleansing. He has said in verse 5, “Woe is me,” and you know the context. The Lord touched him.
But here in verse 8, you get the spirit of the thing that I am trying to say:
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying,
Whom shall I send,
and who will go for us?
Then I said, Here am I; send me.
“Oh, that I had a drink from the well down there by Bethlehem.” Who is it in here, then? Who is it, Isaiah? Let me ask you: where was Isaiah in order that he could hear the Lord as He was looking out over all the need?
Oh, so like that fellow who is just in the vicinity—or the one who is right there at the house, so close that he overhears, so close that he hears.
Does it take a shout in the other ear, or a whisper? “Oh, that I had a drink.” It is not a shout: “You must. I command you.”
Be filled with the sixth most wonderful privilege possible—and commanding somebody to sit up to eat and drink? Now imagine it. It is a God-given territory; it does not fit.
“I command you. I command you to go out and tell the best news that has ever been heard or told in all the world. Go out there. I command you to go out and make it.” Well, do not put it in that tone.
I hear Paul, in a different context altogether, saying, “You will get to this before that ministry out any place becomes effective.” I hear him say, “The love of Christ constraineth me.”
Because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died;
and He died for all,
that they that live should no longer live unto themselves,
but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again.
There is a difference in the spirit of it. My faith is set to dwell, and behold, and inquire. There is a sensitive ear, something that says, “Oh, what is Your slightest wish? What is Your slightest wish?”
And the minute you know, you break out to satisfy it. Is it different?
I do not want to be misunderstood. But I believe, in the context of what we have been saying this morning, this and this alone can be one of the binding, the uniting factors.
I would not say that there would never be a fence out here. But fences are for people who are facing the other direction. And I am not sure but what the person who is facing that way ought to have lots of fencing—a wide place.
There are lots of things worse than divorce. You know that? There are things worse than divorce. Moses knew the principle when he said, “Because of the hardness of your hearts.”
What is the unifying factor? “You must stay together.” Well, that is all right. I think we need a fence for a lot of people, because they are looking back and forth so often. It is a reminder.
But, dear heart, the fence will never, never accomplish that which is ultimately that which God is after.
What will? Those who come to dwell, they come totally alive, inquiring, sensitive always: “Oh, that the ear would be sensitive to His slightest wish. Beloved, Your wish—we want to drink,” and out we go.
The moral compulsion of it. Now, you can put a “must” in there. It can fit in the middle: “I am constrained. The love of Christ overwhelms.”
I hear somebody say, “Oh, brother, yeah, yeah.” As long as it is the greater David, easy to get a drink for Him, easy to lay down one’s sovereignty for Him. He alone is worthy. He alone is worthy.
And now we come to a very practical problem. Does God have representatives walking around down here, representing Him, fulfilling something of David’s ministry?
As we keep David far enough out of the practical, but lo and behold, in our fellowship, in the practical areas where we are working, here is the David the Lord is putting in place. You cannot escape it.
I would like to keep Him in the heavens only, but there is something of the sense of representation down here. You say, “Who is worthy? Who is worthy? Who is worthy?” Headship, authority, anointing—these things.
The concept alone, unified vision, all of this—is it not represented in someone?
Now you have got to dwell, because my soul begins to go through what I think and so do I right now. I have got to dwell. “But, Lord, I am faced with some things I think are very necessary for understanding.”
So David pours out the water. Let us read that verse again. There were those who had gotten so close that they heard, even as it was with Isaiah.
Was God speaking directly to Isaiah? For a long time I had assumed that He just said, “Isaiah, go.” But He did not do that until Isaiah takes the initiative: “Whom shall I send?”
This is in the realm, always, always, of those being chosen who have already made this kind of a choice of sovereignty.
You hear folks go off and say, “The Lord backed me in the corner and held a club over my head and said, ‘Will you yield to go to Africa?’” Well, I do not put it in quite those crude words, but the spirit of it is there: “Will you yield?” You see?
No, that is fine for this that we are hitting. The same: “I am a love slave.” It is voluntary.
Isaac crawled right upon the altar. I was not there, but he had to. When Abraham stood there that day, Isaac crawled right upon the altar. I do not know. I do not want to go too far, but he had to. You see? It is voluntary.
So David poured it out. Let us read that last verse before we go on:
But poured it out unto the Lord, and said,
My God forbid it me, that I should do this thing:
shall I drink the blood of these men
that have put their lives in jeopardy?
for with the jeopardy of their lives they brought it.
Therefore he would not drink it.
These things did the three mighty men.
My dear, here you get a picture of all the real qualifying that is involved. I tell you, I believe in the grace of God—God’s grace that makes possible our coming to know the gift of salvation and grace, and this wonderful unfolding we will never fathom.
But when you get into this business, there is qualifying. There is quite a war going on. It has been raging for some months here in the States. Letters are coming through to us, and thank God we have been learning not to answer.
People do not want to qualify. I appreciate the phrase, “It is all of grace,” because when we get through, we will realize that. But there is some qualifying—not to be saved, oh no—but there is some qualifying here.
You get a picture of some of these men; then you get the phrase, “those who attained unto.” Attainment. The gift of God—attainment. The pressing of the spirit, my spirit.
Placing, positioning those in full adoption, full authority—all that is involved—will never be wrought and accomplished by a mere passivity that sits back and rocks away waiting for the rapture. Enough said.
Here we are. David poured it out. The men were catching the heart of David, and the heart was pulling them: a man after His heart. Life begets life. Life begets life.
I think maybe we will go on into this principle tomorrow. We begin to see the extending of David. Oh, I must get it just sort of introduced for us.
I think the most wonderful thing that God has made real in these last four or five years is the sense that we come to know a father spirit, a father heart.
And what, in us, in our ministry, we are not able to fulfill, we do by extending ourselves in the son. We live on and on.
I do not know, but the more I read of Abraham, I see Abraham right on through coming to birth in some grandsons and great-grandsons. And David’s son—just say, I think, how blessed it is when David’s heart longed to build the house, with all the preparation, all of the hope and anticipation and expectations, but it finally extended.
You can live your life on and on if God works this principle into you. And all the time you see in every life the potentiality of expressing something more.
I know this sounds strange, but keep it in context with the thought of expressing something more of an unfulfilled wish, desire, to do that—extending yourself here.
Who can comprehend God the Father as expressed in power in the Lord Jesus? What we have been saying is that here is a facet in Abraham, but the fullest passage we find in the Son.
You and I can only really adequately take care of one passage. But in the new man, God is extended in sonship in the fullest measure—all the loveliness of expression that is going to fill the universe.
I used to wonder why there would be so many in heaven. Now I realize that it is not going to stop with this globe, because God is too big to have just a few billion people fill it. Each one of them expressing patience, virtue, love, joy, and peace.
Take the different men we have been considering: the delivering, the possessing, the unifying, the building. Why, if I can conceive that they are using all the galaxies, all the planets, and all out here, and still using space here to fill all the universe, even it would never adequately express it.
I can think of something so wonderful. Do you not think He is going to be short of anything?
Of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end.
So it is quite a thing when God begins to raise up some fathers in an assembly with a real father heart.
They see all of these at the various levels, the stages of growth, and the father comes to rejoice that in every situation he can fully replace himself. “Well, bless the Lord, You brought John in, and John has this unique and particular and wonderful ability, which I have had just in such a little measure.”
“Dear Lord, they can just give him vision, just equip him, and just get the olive tree growing in him. He will be the fuller expression of it. Bless the Lord, and I can retire in that phase.”
I do not want you to get the retiring in the wrong way now. But there is something of the extending, the fullness—only this, only this. Otherwise, there is always the challenge to my position.
Every new convert, every new man of valor that comes in—you say, “To thine own power he is a challenge to me. He just might take over if I am not careful.” You see David? You see the problem?
But it is all a matter of perspective. It is all a matter of the father heart being brought out. We have got to see this more fully.
Oh, there is coming to this kind of—the responsible men are, brother, not just born, but more than born. They are men whom God has brought through the crucibles of life and a history that really produces fathers.
Oh, that this would happen around the country—not myself, but happen. Oh, I still believe my face is set, but I see Him doing it too. These are men of valor out there, full-armed men, fathers—the unifying factor.
We are going to see tomorrow that within this, it takes more than sovereignty. It cannot be a unifying factor. It is not government alone.
Any home that has primarily just government—it is there, but it must not be the primary factor. Or looseness, or moral responsibility, or any of these other things. There is a primary factor.
Did I talk one thing this morning? Let me be sure that we see ourselves in the circle, utterly captured and fenced in unto God, alive to what He is doing.
But, oh, dear hearts, we come—we come to dwell. And in dwelling, our ear begins to be sensitive to His slightest wish.
Then you do not need a manual on what my husband likes so that I know I can please him. What I am saying is, then you just do not live in that legal place of, “This, this, this.” As our brother so well said last night, when there is this kind of sensitivity and we are one mind and spirit with Him, all these external things of our lives begin to take on their proper relatedness.
Would you rush out this morning and get Him a drink? Do you have to be commanded? Do not you just say, “For His sake, You ought to”? This alone will hold.
Dear Lord, who can ever, who can ever understand what is really involved in a people passing through death, burial, over into resurrection?
Paul said we are alive unto God, dead indeed unto sin—not coming with a double heart. But all these men came to David: “Thine we are.” Seems like some of them had really been caught.
Oh, what intense desire there was to please their captain. We claim the same this morning for each of us. We believe You, the Doer. I believe You, the Sender. By faith, so stay in this nearness—dwelling, beholding, inquiring at His slightest wish.
And we are ready to rush out. We are always active in this sense. Oh, thank You, dear Lord.
The job becomes so much bigger than us. The Person becomes so much bigger than us. And our private ambitions, our little goal, our little kingdom we are carving out—oh God, let some of Your people today come.
And they come and say, “Thine we are.” And those in the deep area of the spirit, they can say, “There is peace, David,” because we have laid aside our private ambition. We are not coming to carve out some little area, sphere, or kingdom for ourselves. We come to be David’s, without a double heart. But we come: “Thou art worthy.”
Oh, Thou didst search through us, dear Lord. Did You find in me so often opportunism—seeing an opportunity or something of an advantage, and a hidden mixed motive, or something that is impure? Thinking, “Maybe here is an opportunity; finally it could be something.”
Oh God, we come by way of power, by the way of real peace, through the blood of the cross, through the death of the cross.
Thank You, Lord. If it will move out on resurrection ground, it just has to pass through. Make it very real today, until the overwhelming thing that grips us is this fenced-in thing.
The world cries out, “Do not fence.” Our spirit cries out, “Oh God, we are glad to be fenced in. We are glad to be alive today.”
We praise Thee. We worship Thee, for Thou art worthy of worship. In Jesus’ name, we ask. Amen.