Would you please turn with me to First Samuel 30. I can still remember this like it was yesterday. It was Saturday morning, May 10, 1986. I was still in bed when I got a call from my uncle, Anthony, and he said two words, after which I didn't hear anything else. He said, “Dot’s gone.”
Dot, Dorothy, was my mom. She had passed away the night before, and Anthony had the responsibility of letting the children know because my dad was just so torn up about it that he could not make the phone call. I cannot tell you how devastating that was for me. Not only was the fact that my mom was just 48 years old, but what hurts so much was the fact that she lived less than an hour away, and I always said I needed to go home and see her.
The last time I saw her was shortly after our youngest son was born, and I probably saw her maybe once or twice after that. Always promising to go home and see her and never making it. I must admit that there are times when I beat myself up about it, and next year will be 40 years since her passing.
I remember when the funeral director took care of her body and put her in the casket, because she had not been sick, she looked like herself, almost as if she was sleeping. From the time they put her in the casket until the time of the funeral, I probably went to the funeral home two or three times every single day.
I thought about that as it relates to the record we're going to read tonight. Because it's a record that talks about something unexpected and challenging, and sometimes the unexpected things are hard on you, there are opportunities to reflect on other aspects of your life that perhaps should be in your life.
I remember when we moved here and I took a job at Wright State. The president who hired me died three years later of pancreatic cancer. Three weeks later, the new president had one of his vice presidents let me know that my services were no longer needed. I went home and told Doris what happened. I love my wife. While I'm devastated and trying to wrap my mind around it, she's hot! She’s angry. The new president wanted to replace me with his person, and I happened to be over communications and marketing at the time. It wasn’t a performance issue. I had never been fired from a job.
One more. I thought the death of my mom was hard, but the death of Candace was harder. The day she died her mom and I, and Steven just had your normal, typical day. My heart goes out to Stephen because he was the one who found his sister in her bed after she had passed. My first thought was, “Father, I want her back. I want her back.” So, I went into her room and started praying and calling, and I heard this really plainly, “She's with Me. She's not coming back.”
I can’t tell you the joy that I experienced in hearing that. Joy has nothing to do with your emotions. Joy has more to do with what you know and who you trust, and I had dropped Candace off at the altar many years before because I could see her life spiraling in the wrong direction. So, I said, “Father, what you need to do to make sure she gets to you, do it.”
When you have a lot of emotions happening at the same time and you hear things, then you go back did I really hear God say that 'Candace is with Me.” I knew I had heard that, but my emotions were so out of whack. I thank God for my pastor because the first thing he said when he walked in the door was that he had been praying and he had asked God \was she coming back and Jesus said no, she's staying with Me. That was the first thing he told me when he walked through the door.
The Bible gives us road maps when it comes to dealing with difficult situations like that. And tonight, we're going to look at one example of that, and I wish I had been at a place much earlier to understand the value of what we're going to read tonight.
So, let's begin in First Samuel 30, and what we're going to see is that chapter 30 is sandwiched between King Saul visiting the woman of Endor, who had a familiar spirit. Then we have David, and on the other side of David is where Saul dies in battle. I mention this because David was not part of Israel at this time.
He and his men were living around Gad, which belonged to the Philistines. He had been given the city of Ziklag as a gift. And we're going to pick the record up in chapter 30, verse one. The Philistines are going to battle against Saul and the king of the Philistines, and their military leaders were concerned that David would turn his back on them and join Saul and fight against them. So, they told David to go home to Ziklag.
First Samuel 30:1
(1) And it came to pass, when David and his men had come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire;
The reason the Amalekites did that, if you go back to chapter 27, verses 8-9, we see that the Amalekites were one of the peoples that David and his men defeated, including killing the women and children. I don't know if you remember this, but the Amalekites attacked the children of Israel as they were coming out of Egypt, and because of this, God vowed that they would eventually be wiped out, which occurred hundreds of years later.
(2) And had taken the women captives, that were therein: they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way.
(3) So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives.
(4) Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep.
David and his men were shocked, helpless, and disheartened. They had left their homes, left their wives and children, and all their possessions when they were part of the army of Gad. They return home to find that the Amalekites had raided it and burned it to the ground. Can you imagine coming home and not having a home? Can you imagine coming home, you have wives and children, and you have no idea where they are or even if they are alive?
When I read that, I thought about the incidents I shared earlier about all the emotions and things that go through your mind that happens. So, their response was typical. They cried until they couldn't cry anymore. You have 600 men crying because they have lost their families, and they don't know what's happened to them.
(6) And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.
I want to paint a picture of what’s going on. So David and the men are upset and trying to wrap their minds around what has happened. I can see them – being fathers and husbands – feeling guilty because they were not there for their families.
It says that David was greatly distressed. The word “distressed” means to be narrow. It paints a picture of David feeling like he's being squeezed. He's being squeezed on the one hand by his emotions are just and then on the other side, there is another squeezing that's taking place, and we see it here in verse 6 – “for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters.”
Their grief, ladies and gentlemen, had started to turn to bitterness toward David. In other words, they were blaming David for what happened. “If we had been here, David, this would not have happened. We are holding you responsible. We were following you, and that's the reason we're in this place.”
When my mom passed, and I didn’t get a chance to see her, the person that I held responsible for not seeing her before she passed was Barry. When Candace passed, I held Barry responsible because, as her father, I believed I should have been able to do more to help her. And so you beat yourself up over and over, and God finally had to tell me that's enough, you need to stop. I told you she was with Me. You need to stop.
Distressed paints a picture of being hemmed in or the walls closing in on you. In this first, we see David response to being threatened by his men. “He encouraged himself in the LORD his God.” And that word “encouraged” means to fasten upon, to seize. So instead of focusing on the horrible situation he was in, David turned and focused on the one constant that has always been a part of his life – the God of his people.
David knew that God had an answer, that He could supply what he needed in that situation. So it's no surprise to me when I read in Psalm 27:13 that David writes, “I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”
It's no surprise to me at all how he responded in this situation, and I thought about Hebrews 12:1, which says, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,” referring to the men and women listed in Hebrews 11. My question was “What was their witness?” The unfairness of the circumstances in their lives did not determine their faith in God.
So many times, we have opportunities to allow circumstances to determine whether or not we really believe what we say. You know we're good at saying what we think people want to hear. But do we really believe what we say?
(8) And David enquired at the LORD, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them?
What I want you to see in this is a lesson I had to learn. This situation did not paralyze David. This situation made David so angry that he wanted to do something, but before he decided to do something, he said let me talk this over with God. So, David took a chill pill and decided to have a conversation with God first.
I can't tell you the number of times that I have made a decision and decided on a plan of action without asking God what he thought about it. I just assumed that it would work. And ladies and gentlemen, when you do that you win some and you lose some and you lose more than you win.
So David asks the Lord what he should do. When Candace died, I didn’t exactly ask the Lord what I should do. But because I wasn't doing anything, He was able to nudge me. During the times of intermittent crying, I read the Bible and worshiped, and I constantly thanked the Lord for honoring my prayer, the Candace was with Him. And I still do that from time to time. I say, Lord, I thank you that my baby girl is with you.
God was able to nudge me in the direction that I needed to go so Barry could be whole again. And I need to be whole and look at the second part of verse 8 – “And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.”
So, David asked the Lord if going after the Amalekites was the right thing to do, and he didn't make the decision and then ask God to be in agreement with him. How many times have we done that?
When we’re facing situations where there are no easy answers, we need to fix our eyes squarely on Jesus and ask Him what we should do and then be humble enough to do it because sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, He's going to tell you what to do you're not going to like it, but you asked Him and He gave you the answer you needed. If you ask Him and He gives you the answer, be humble enough to say. yes Lord. Yes Lord.
There may be times we go to God and He says everything that can be done has been done, and there's nothing more you can do. It's during those times that we have to trust Him, and it's during those times that we truly find out if we are as humble as we say we are.
So, David pursues them. Now look at verse 18.
(18) 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.
So, David sought the Lord's counsel before he went on the offensive. Sometimes it takes us a while to calm down enough to hear the Lord's voice. It takes us a while, and sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't happen in the first hour or in the first few hours that you were sitting waiting to hear His voice. It may take a day. It may take a couple of days. It may take a week, but you have to be willing to sit there after asking Him what you need to do.
When we pursue the Lord's heart, then we will get the wisdom we need to get through the Ziklags in our lives. And I want to end with James chapter 1, a verse that you are very familiar with. James 1:2 – “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”
Everything I described this evening about my mom, my job, and about Candace was an opportunity to test what I really believe about what this book says. It was a test to see whether or not I really believe that God loves me so much that, whatever the situation I find myself in, He would take care of me.
Ladies and gentlemen, when we are in a position where we count it all joy when we fall into temptations or trials, we can have joy. It doesn't mean we're not going to have pain. It doesn't mean that we're not going to cry. It doesn't mean we're not going to hurt. It doesn't mean that, at times, we're not going to be miserable. But we can have joy in the midst of all of those things because we know what the Bible says. We are not going to live in our emotions forever. At some point, we're going to draw the line and say we're done. This is what the Bible says.
I think about David when he said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” David understood clearly the depth that your emotions can take you when you are battling situations that come out of nowhere, that are unexpected. David understood that clearly, but he said, even in the midst of those situations, I am walking through this valley in my life.
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I want you to understand that whenever life circumstances are so unpleasant and so unexpected that you didn't see them coming, just know that you can still have joy in the midst of all the pain and all the heartache because it's just a valley that you are going through.
I'm 68 years old and I've been through a lot of valleys. I didn't build a house in the valley. I didn't put a camper in the valley. I walked through the valley. So I want you to know tonight, ladies and gentlemen, that God will help you overcome the Ziklag moments in your life. He will help you overcome the Ziklag moments in your life. All you have to do is just give him an opportunity to help you do that. Amen.
