"The Fall of the House of Saul" - A Closer Look at David's House (page 11 of 17)

A Closer Look at David's House

David seeks the Lord. Remember, he is in dire circumstances: He has a small army, he is losing people, and he's even losing loved ones. He is up against both an external and an internal enemy.

Faithful churches these days find themselves in much the same situation. It's not enough to find ourselves up against a radical homosexual community – remember, homosexuals cannot procreate children; this is why they want yours, with their demands to have their lifestyle taught in schools and to lead Boy Scout troops, to take your little boys camping. But it's not enough to have that to deal with – on the other side, we've got Saul. We've got occultic churches. We're small, we're fighting on two sides, and we're paying a tremendous personal price.

Yet in David's day, that was where God was speaking. Saul had the numbers, but couldn't gain the victory. He had the name, but God was no longer speaking to him. I would rather meet in a closet with five faithful Christians who study God's Word, who hear Him through that Word and by His Spirit, than meet in an arena with five thousand of Saul's people. I don't care how many they have – they can't gain victory, and God isn't speaking to them. Better to be with a small group of people or in a small church where God is speaking – that's all there is to it. What good is it, after all, if God is not there?

Verse 8 of chapter 30:

"So David inquired of the Lord, saying, 'Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?' And He answered him, 'Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.' So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and came to the Brook Besor, where those stayed who were left behind." 'Besor' is the Hebrew word for 'gospel'. "But David pursued, he and four hundred men; for two hundred stayed behind, who were so weary that they could not cross the Brook Besor.

Then they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David; and they gave him bread and he ate, and they let him drink water. And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. So when he had eaten, his strength came back to him; for he had eaten no bread nor drunk water for three days and three nights." Again, when you see this, you have a typological reference to the Resurrection. "Then David said to him, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you from?' And he said, 'I am a young man from Egypt, servant of an Amalekite; and my master left me behind, because three days ago I fell sick. We made an invasion of the southern area of the Cherethites, in the territory which belongs to Judah, and of the southern area of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire.' And David said to him, 'Can you take me down to this troop?' So he said, 'Swear to me by God that you will neither kill me nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will take you down to this troop.'

And when he had brought him down, there they were, spread out over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing, because of all the great spoil which they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode on camels and fled." It is here comparing the four hundred who fled with the four hundred who were with David; there was a balance. "So David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives. And nothing of theirs was lacking, either small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything which they had taken from them; David recovered all. Then David took all the flocks and herds they had driven before those other livestock, and said, 'This is David's spoil.'

Now David came to the two hundred men who had been so weary that they could not follow David, whom they also had made to stay at the Brook Besor. So they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. And when David came near the people, he greeted them."

We looked at the phases of Saul: No longer hearing from God, having less integrity than unbelievers, into the occult, and unable to gain victory. Now we look at David: He had come to know his enemy firsthand – he did not know about his enemy, he knew his enemy. There is no light at the end of the tunnel; rather there is more darkness at the end of the tunnel. After that comes the light. Things get worse before they get better. The final phase, or test, of the new army, the new church, the new move of God, that which is in the character of David, is when it affects families.

Families are the cell groups of a church. No congregation is going to be any healthier than the families, which make it up. It doesn't matter how good the Bible teaching is, or how good the worship is, or how good the fellowship is; what happens in the church is never going to exceed the sum total of what happens in family devotional times or when husbands and wives pray together. In order to accurately gauge a person's spirituality, you must see what kind of husband and father or wife and mother he or she is.

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