1 Samuel 30:18-19 KJV And David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away: and David rescued his two wives. [19] And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor any thing that they had taken to them: David recovered all.
I. INTRODUCTION -- JOHN WESLEY POWELL
John Wesley Powell has been pretty much forgotten.
It used to be that every grade school kid in America knew about Powell and his amazing courage to survive a journey against all odds.
As a matter of fact, a lot of people thought that Powell was nuts.
The expedition was simply too dangerous, especially for a man with just one arm!
During the Civil War, Powell had lost his arm when an enemy soldier shot him in his forearm.
The wound led to an amputation but Powell never let his injury stop him from being a national hero.
Back in 1869 conventional wisdom said that passage through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River was impossible.
The country surrounding the Grand Canyon oozed with legends of doomed expeditions.
No one had ever dared that stretch of river and come out alive.
Out of all the expeditions that had given it their best shot, there was not one survivor.
One army lieutenant who had explored the Colorado just on the southern side of the Grand Canyon believed that powerful river so treacherous that ‘the Colorado, along the greater part of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed.’
But the one-armed explorer thought he could pull it off.
On May 24, 1869, Powell and a party of nine stepped into their boats to attempt the thousand mile journey.
Along the way, their party encountered numerous ambushes.
They were ambushed by legion killer rapids.
They were ambushed by waterfalls.
They were ambushed by boulders the size of cabins.
They were ambushed by the loss of boats, critical foodstuffs, and instruments.
Yet one hundred days later, Powell and five men emerged from two boats.
The hope for their survival had been given up weeks before.
They were suffering from exposure and near starvation.
But they made it.
What happened to the four other men?
One had decided to turn back.
The other three, after numerous disagreements with Powell, left the expedition.
They hiked up to the rim of the Canyon, only to be killed by Indians.
(Adapted from Finishing Strong, Steve Farrar, 1995, Multnomah Books, pp. 21-22)
-Powell and his men rose up against the odds and pushed on through.
-Life and service to God is going to have more than one or two obstacles for you to have to move through.
The longer I live the more and more I am coming to believe that it is something that burns in the heart of a man that helps him to press on against the odds.
II. THE STATE OF MEN IN BATTLE
-The church is beginning to understand the armaments that have been afforded to her.
Revival has the capacity to awaken those things within the heart of even the most distant saint of God.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 KJV [3] For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: [4] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) [5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
-What Satan has embezzled from the Church, both individually and collectively is reaching a point of recovery.
• His plundering of our joy.
• His robbery of our victory.
• His kidnapping of our children who are caught up into a place of
worldliness must stop.
• He has pillaged our prayers and mocked our worship.
• He has looted our peace.
-But there is always another side to the story. . . . .
All of these things must be restored to a Church whose hope is not in itself but in Another.
One who is much higher and more powerful than any thing in this world.
-The church must arise and pursue.
The Church was never intended to be something that was stagnant and static, it is ever seeking to meet the challenge of its times.
It is dynamic and pulsing with life.
II. THE TEXT IN 1 SAMUEL
A. Leading Up To Ziklag
-To get the setting of the story for which 1 Samuel 30 is leading up to, one must understand that David is still having to deal with the onslaught of pursuit by Saul.
We find in the opening chapter of 1 Samuel 29, that David was in a place called Aphek.
Aphek was a three days worth journey from Ziklag.
-While David had been in Aphek, the Amalekites had been working destruction at the only safe place that David had in his life.
If you will remember, the Amalekites were those people whom had badgered and provoked the children of Israel practically every step of the way when they left Egypt and even until the time they had settled in the Promised Land.
-Finally God had had enough.
His instructions to Saul had been to totally annihilate the Amalekites.
But Saul in the sad spiritual state that he was living in refused to fulfill the entire purpose of God.
He only obeyed half of what God instructed him to do.
Partial obedience is equivalent to full disobedience.
And what Saul refused to deal with became in issue in the life of another.
-A principle that we all must realize is that our life does indeed affect those who are around us.
B. Trouble in Ziklag
-So now because of the Amalekites who had not been dealt with by Saul now began to heckle David and his men.
-In his absence they came and disrupted the lives of those in Ziklag.
All of the wives of David and his men were taken.
It was a very discouraging moment for David.
-David had 600 men.
Of those, 200 were too weary to cross the brook Besor.
So David allowed them to stay behind while the others pursued.
Every church will have among its saints those whose love for God burns high and their faith is real but at times their strength becomes weakened and they become depressed in spirit and more than anything, they need rest.
Not criticism but rest.
-A lot of factors may have been involved in their weariness:
• They had been in an alliance with the Philistines against Israel.
• They had been forced to march for three days back to Ziklag.
Sometimes the pace is wearying.
• They had to deal with the grief of their loss at Ziklag.
• Perhaps even the force of a swollen brook at Besor was enough to
dishearten them.
-But whatever the case may be, they were allowed to remain in a place of restoration and rest.
-This same characteristic has to be found in this church.
We must consider that there are those around us who need our encouragement and our support during times of weariness of battle.
We will find that one of these days when we get to heaven that we helped someone else get there.
C. The Victory in Pursuit
-So David and his 400 pressed on and engaged the Amakelites (1 Sam. 30:9).
-1 Samuel 30:17 gives us a hint as to the battle. . . . .
David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day. . . .
Sometimes the battle requires more than just a day.
• A church is not built in a day.
• A man of God is not built in a day.
• A prayer warrior is not built in a day.
• A stress fracture in life may take more than a day to recover.
-Pentecost occurred after a tarrying time.
Whatever the cost is, no matter what the obligation required, the church finds itself at a point where she must pursue and conquer.
No matter how long it takes – We must get involved!!!!
-No matter how difficult it may seem there is a God who can help a man to recover.
-Satan may want us to think:
• We are as Esau and cannot recover the birthright. You have sold
something that you cannot buy back.
• We are as Judas and we have betrayed what we will never be able
to redeem.
• We are like the rich young ruler who has bypassed the
intersection of opportunity and we cannot make a U-turn.
-The enemy of the soul would cause us to think that we cannot retrace our steps but we cannot believe a liar.
D. The Challenge to the Fallen
Micah 7:8 Rejoice not against me . . . for when I fall . . . . . When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light.
-If we have fallen–the challenge is to get back up again.
-Ziklag has been looted and destroyed but David encouraged himself in the Lord
–The fire was rekindled.
-David recovered in a day what he had lost over a period of months, even perhaps years.
He fought on against the odds!
• Difficulties are suddenly left in the dust.
• Tears of defeat suddenly turn into songs of victory.
• Trouble suddenly turns into the spiritual gym that hardens our
muscles.
-Apostolic quest, purpose and passion may have been robbed from us, but we must recover those things which have been lost.
Rise to the full potential that God has invested in us.
-David refused to lift a hand against Saul but he went after the molesting force of the Amalekites and destroyed them.
Principle — Some things we may have to put up with from the hand of a brother but we never have to submit to the antics and wicked influence of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
-God is a recoverer, restorer, and rebuilder.
The epistle of Peter reveals to us his descent toward recovery.
III. EXAMPLES OF RECOVERY
A. The Man of Gadara
-The man of Gadara–
void of clothing, void of mind, void of morals.
The devil had completely destroyed him.
But Jesus started working with this man and erased and re-created him.
-The woman at the well–
pillaged, pirated, and wasted by illicit relationships.
Five husbands and the one she was with then was not her own.
But now all of the life had been sucked out of her.
She was like a piece of gum that all the sweetness had been chewed out of and then spat into the dirt. . . . .nothing left, until one who loved her helped her to recover.
Sordid, tainted, of questionable reputation and all of these details forced her to go to a well in the middle of the day.
-But when Jesus got through–
her morality, her chastity, her purity was restored to her.
It was so drastic that by the time that Philip got to Samaria in Acts 8, the whole city had turned as one heart toward God.
-What God determines to take, He gets.
He took the keys of death, hell, and the grave.
• Abraham received from the grave.
• Jacob released from the grave.
• The Hebrews in the furnace released from the grave.
-The Lord always shows up at the service with the keys.
He is the recoverer of all.
Job lost all… but the Word declares that despite all of this he fell down and worshiped.
-Then the boils appear… and then the three friends come and watch for seven days in dead silence.
And then the ever encroaching question:
Where is God???
-Job said he could not find Him but that was not the issue.
The issue was that God knew where he was.
“In My Flesh. . . . . I shall See God. . . .”
-When purpose, passion, and vision are gone there is still a God who can restore it all.
Take a chance, get active with your faith.
-The 93 leading biographies of the men who have most impacted America did not come into their own until the age of 57 years.
It’s time to recover, pursue and overtake.
-It is time to recover:
• Our worship.
• Our commitment.
• Our sense of holiness.
• Our devotion to prayer.
• Our hunger for the Word of God.
• Our desire to reach lost men.
-It is time to recover, pursue, and overtake.
-Moses made it to 120 years and his eyes did not dim according to Scripture.
-The latter house shall be greater than the former house. Local churches in the endtime will exceed the exploits of the Early Church.
Ecclesiastes 7:8 KJV Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
-God’s day starts at night.
His height rises with the sunrise.
In Genesis 1, it states that the evening and the morning was the first day.
In case you are wondering, God is working the night shift.
-The best wine is always last.
-Elieazar–loaded with riches for a bride.
This was mere pocket change in comparison to what would come to that Bride.
-The word “perilous” is used once in the Bible.
It speaks of perilous times.
But there is a Spirit that overcomes.
The day is dangerous but the Spirit is being poured out.
-Some would say, “Pastor, I’m wiped out.
I went around an emotional curve and lost control, shattered myself.
I’m almost ashamed to walk back into a church and lift my head, my failure and mistakes have been so great.
I’ve prayed through 10 too many times that I’ve worn out the saints time and again.
Their faith, their prayers have taken me toward God too many times, I’ve lost all sense of credibility.”
-The devil is a liar, a sifter, a destroyer.
But the Lord is a rebuilder, a restorer.
-If Samson could take a jawbone, if Shamgar could take an oxgoad, if Gideon could pick up a pitcher, then pick up whatever you can get your hands on and knock the daylights out of the devil.
-David with a single slingshot toppled a giant.
A lonely pasture prepared him for a showdown.
He killed the giant and brought everything that Goliath had.
-Job 42–The latter end was greater than the former.
IV. CONCLUSION -- GOD OFTEN SEES MORE THAN WE DO
-Romans 4 speaks of Abraham.
Paul writes that he did not stagger at the promise of God.
This implies that he had strong faith.
He then shows up in Hebrews 11 in the roll call of the faithful.
We must understand that God had a plan for his life.
-However when we read in Genesis the account of Abraham’s life we find some things that are not so faithful.
• He quit praying too soon over Sodom.
• He was a liar about who Sarah, his wife was, whom he claimed was
his sister.
• He had a son born out of doubt named Ishmael.
-But God was willing to say that he was a man of great faith.
I have a feeling that God often notices more value in us than we even perceive.
-This is the same principle with Peter.
God told him his name was Peter, a rock.
Prior to that, he had been identified as Cephas, or a reed.
-It is time to recover. . . .
A. You Have To Get Up!
(Author Unknown)
Defeat! He lay there silently, a tear dropped from his eye.
“There’s no sense in running anymore—three strikes, I’m out—why try?”
The will to rise had disappeared, all hope had fled away,
So far behind, so error prone, closer all the way.
“I’ve lost, so what’s the use,” he thought, “I’ll live with my disgrace.”
But then he thought about his dad who soon he’d have to face.
“Get up,” an echo sounded low, “Get up and take your place.
You were not meant for failure here, so get up and win the race.”
With borrowed will, “Get up,” it said, “You haven’t lost at all,
For winning is not more than this—to rise each time you fall.”
So up he rose to win once more, and with a new commit,
He resolved that win or lose, at least he wouldn’t quit.
So far behind the others now, the most he’d ever been,
Still he gave it all he had and ran as though to win.
Three times he’d fallen stumbling, three times he rose again,
Too far behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end.
They cheered the winning runner as he crossed, first place,
Head high and proud and happy; no falling, no disgrace,
But when the fallen youngster crossed the line, last place,
The crowd gave him the greater cheer for finishing the race.
And even though he came in last, with head bowed low, unproud;
You would have thought he won the race, to listen to the crowd.
And to his dad he sadly said, “I didn’t do so well.”
“To me, you won,” his father said. “You rose each time you fell.”
And now when things seem dark and hard and difficult to face,
The memory of that little boy helps me in my race.
For all of life is like that, with ups and downs and all,
And all you have to do to win—is rise each time you fall.
“Quit! Give up, you’re beaten,” they still shout in my face.
But another voice within me says, “Get up and win that race.”
