We saw in chapter four of 2 Samuel that there were several men who had their own idea of what would be best for the kingdom, for David and how he should rule the kingdom and how things should go and so forth. But those personal agendas actually were undermining or threatening to undermine the true work of God. Abner, Rehob, Benaiah, these fellows. And we saw that even when Saul, the primary enemy and persecutor of David is gone, you still have little foxes that can threaten to spoil the vineyard. in the church. So David's challenges continue with lesser foes, but still they have to be dealt with. And David did deal faithfully with those men, and in some ways surprisingly. And yet, justly and mercifully, of course, because David is a shadow of Christ. And we also saw more importantly even than that, and you say, well, what could be more important than doing right? When asked the question, God gave the answer in the person of his son. He said, love the Lord your God. Make it your primary concern to be right with God or to do right even, but loving because that will encompass right. But if we make right to be supreme, we don't love the Lord's love. We view him as a standard that we have to be on the right side of the bar in order to not be punished. penalized, and pretty soon we're not even doing right anymore. So, David waits for the Lord to work. This is one of the reasons why the Lord does afflict us with thorns in the flesh, thorns on the earth, things that frustrate us, cause us pain. He's teaching us to wait on Him and to seek Him and to hunger and thirst after Him. And while we do like to be right and do right, it's nothing compared with loving the person, the God, who is the source of all righteousness and all holiness. So, David is waiting. for the Lord to work out his purposes in his time, and the Lord always does that. Now, in our chapter for tonight, chapter five, David is anointed king over all Israel. At last, this is another big milestone. While it broke David's heart sincerely that Saul was killed in battle, it brought tremendous relief at the same time because Saul had virtually lost his mind and become David's enemy. And so David had a blessing in the midst of that sorrow, but he still only reigned over part of Israel. Now that's taken care of. In the first five verses that we read, the elders of all Israel's tribes gathered together. You remember from chapter three, verse 17 and following, Abner played a large part in this. When he was defecting from Eshbothsheth and saying, I'm going over to David and I'm gonna round up all the tribes and get them to back David. Well, he was as good as the word, he did that. And here they are, all the elders now. But the thing to see here is how they acknowledge David. Three things. One, first, natural affinity. Verse one, you are bone of our bone and flesh. Your flesh is our flesh. You are one with us. Natural affinity. And that's a nice thing. It was what Adam experienced when he saw Eve, when God brought Eve to him after he'd fashioned Eve out of Adam. Here's bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. It's a natural affinity with those who were close to us and made like we are. But that's not the only thing. It's not even the most important thing in some respects. David also, they acknowledged, had demonstrated competence in a way that Saul hadn't. Now, David hadn't been perfect, but he had been generally very successful in all of his endeavors. He had handled himself with honor. generally, during the time of his flight from Saul. He had lapses of faith, but he also had recoveries from those lapses. He pressed on. He got up and pressed on. That's what perseverance is. It doesn't mean just continuing. It means when you stop, you fall down, you get up, and you carry on. But most of all, they acknowledge The calling of God in, uh, in David, uh, in verse two, when Saul was King over us, you were the one who led Israel in and out, and you did a good job of that. But the Lord said, you will shepherd my people, Israel, and you will be ruler over Israel. Now here's the question. Were they blind to this before? Why didn't they see this before? They surely knew that they were related to David. There was that natural affinity. And all you had to do was read the newspapers to find out how David was performing in the field, listen to the reports and all of that. Why suddenly now do they come to see this? And they knew that David had been called by God. Why didn't they respect that? Well, the answer to that is not necessarily that these elders were stubborn and resistant or afraid of Saul, although these were features of it. But God was using all of that. He was using their natural wretchedness in a way for David. It was all for David. It was all about David. You go back and you look at the course of David's life up to this point, and man, he comes out of the starting blocks with a bang. He makes his appearance slaying a giant, and he does so in the name of the Lord. He's like a wizard, a magician, because that's real power. when you can use the fewest amount of tools or the least amount of exertion or anything like that to get the job done. He used one stone and then that enabled him to use Goliath's own sword to finish him off. That's how David started and it was beautiful. He did it in the name of the Lord. Well, he can only go up from there surely but Everything turned quickly sour. Saul was against him. Saul was chasing him. David was being patient. David was being still loving, gracious, spared Saul twice. It didn't change. Saul had relapses, and he was after David again. Israel was defeated on Mount Gilboa. Saul and Jonathan and this other sons of Saul were put to death. And all of this goes on. And then when David is anointed king over some of the tribes down in Judah at Hebron, There's still civil war breaking out. Why? Where's God in all of that? Answer, God is in all of that. God is over all of that. God is stirring that pot. God is using that pot. The answer is that David had to become those things. to become those things, to become more competent in leading the Lord's people, but especially more competent in hearing and heeding the calling of God on his life and his ministry. Well, he was doing that, you say. We've seen many examples of him doing that. Yes, but he still wasn't perfect. He still wasn't perfect. David had to become those things in who he was, in his character, to be deeply and solidly grounded in those things. then they could be safely recognized by the public. And that was God's doing. We all are familiar with the spoiled child who's quick and witty and so forth and indulged. But everybody's applauding the child. And it's because the child is within its family circle and, you know, everybody thinks their kids are great. And then, you know, friends of the family and, of course, they're polite and they'll clap when the child performs and everything like that. But we're familiar with the kid going to the kid's head and when he has to face real life, real challenges, he just folds because he's never developed any emotional stability and power. any intellectual and emotional muscle through a course of resistance. Our father loves us. Our God loves us. Our God shows his love to David by setting this course before him with all of its obstacles, all of its pains, all of its setbacks. And the poor man, I mean, he was, he just couldn't seem to win for years when Saul was after him. When is David ever going to get a break? He does well, but it just doesn't seem to have any lasting or extensive effect. David was being resisted by God in order to strengthen David to be the king, really, before entering into the so-called office of the king. David further demonstrates his competence then Once he's made the covenant, once he's been anointed king over all Israel, and we're given some math work to do, and I didn't want to do it. I couldn't make it add up, so you do it. David was 30 years old when he became king. He reigned 40 years. Okay, here's what makes 40 years. Seven years and six months at Judah and 33 years over Israel and Judah. That doesn't work out. I'm glad the writer of scripture is not my accountant. Or I am not reading it rightly, which is more likely. So anyway, the point is, it's a long time David had to wait. David was 30 years old when he became king. He was probably about 20 years old when he had been anointed. and over the southern tribes. Well, but that should have been 10 years. It was seven and a half. But he was spending some time subduing and consolidating even those southern tribes. He might not have been effectively king. That's the most likely answer. But anyway, it's a process, not a quick one, not an easy one that David went through. And now he's reigning over all of Judah. What's he going to do? He's gonna go out and capture some of the remaining part of Israel that had never been subdued. The indigenous people, the Canaanites, these Jebusites were descended from them, and they were living in Jerusalem. And David is the king, goes out and further demonstrates his competence and his sovereignty by exerting his power, righteous power, in securing Jerusalem. And that's verses six to 10. Look at verse six. Now the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, and they said to David, now here he is, he's king, and the elders have just anointed him and all that, and then you've got these guys throwing insults at him. They said to him, you shall not come in here. You just don't say that to a king. You're living now in the king's kingdom and you're going to say to the king, you don't come in here. You shall not come in here, but the blind and the lame shall turn you away. Now that's an insult because what he's saying is that, what kind of king are you? You know, They had reason to think this too, because they too would have been aware that Saul is chasing David all over the place. And the best thing David could do was just like George Washington did. George Washington didn't win many battles. He lost a lot of battles and he couldn't keep his army together because the Congress wasn't paying the army. And he had morale problems. He had all sorts of problems. You look at Washington and he couldn't clothe the people. They're running around barefooted in the wintertime and all that stuff. But what he did was kept the army together and in the field. He wore out the British. He wore them out. But you look at that and you think, he's weak. He's got to be, you know, on his last leg. And we're finally going to take him at Yorktown. But it didn't work out that way. Well, that's what the Jebusites were doing. They were aware of David having been not a very effective king over all Israel and Saul chasing him and so forth and hounding him. So they said, look, even if we were nothing but blind and lame people in this city, we are so secure in the city that you're never going to get to us. So they're mocking him. David nevertheless captured the stronghold of Zion. And we're thinking, David cannot come in here. It's an impressive place. It's not easy to take geographically in terms of topography. The pride and the self-security of the Jebusites is evident in how they're acting. The natural protection from the position of Mount Zion, which is shut in by three deep valleys, deep valleys, hard to scrabble up, on three sides. So you basically have one side where you have reasonable access. And you're in the city, you're in the fortress, you just wipe out whoever's coming at you. Piece of cake. So you can say the blind and the lame can do the job. But verse eight, David said on that day, whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him reach the lame and the blind who were hated by David's soul through the water tunnel, through the water tunnel. David knew where the vulnerability was. Why? Because David is a godly man. David has been taught in all of the deprivations he experienced, all of his failures. Failure is a beautiful teacher, an effective teacher. Don't despise failure. Don't want your children to grow up to be successes. It's probably one of the worst things they can experience. David learned to be ingenious like the Canaanite woman was when she came looking for mercy for her demon-possessed child and said, can you help me? And he said, nothing. What a slap in the face, nothing. He became ingenious. Well, he didn't tell me to get lost, so I'll try again. And then she asks again, and she says, well, you know, I was only sent to the house of Israel. Well, yeah, but I'm living in that land. I'm living in the nation of Israel. So let me try and press it again. And that's when he says, it's not good to give the children's bread to the dogs. Yeah, but the dogs at least incidentally get some of the bread when the crumbs spill off. This is just what we see with David here. He looks for a weakness because he knows, as a godly man, there's a weakness in everything. There's a weakness in the devil. The devil's not going to show his weakness, but he's riddled with weaknesses. And the challenges that we face in our lives, that we think, this is a pretty impressive challenge. I don't see any way to get through here. Look harder. Look with the eyes of faith. Look with the eyes of God, who sees everything. And you'll see. He'll show you. David was shown. And so they entered in and they pitched out the Jebusites. David captured the stronghold and renamed it the City of David. And David said on that day, you know, going through the tunnel, he lived in the stronghold. He began to build and expand it and so forth. And look what's happening now. Now his success, he is succeeding and it's not spoiling him. Well, there's a touch of it, and we'll get to that in a minute. But he's, because he has been faithful in this one thing, he can bear success in other things, be faithful in the other thing. So now we've got even foreigners recognizing him and wanting to have alliances with him. David finds a way in. David, as a godly man, is ingenious to do so because he trusts the God who sees and knows all things. And, uh, even foreigners acknowledge and enhance his authority. Verses 11 and 12, King Hiram, King of Tyre sent messengers to David and they weren't empty handed. They had materials, cedar trees, carpenters, stone masons. They built a house for David and David. Look at what this says. This is beautiful. David realized that day the Lord had established him. Now, you can read that in two ways, at least. You could say, David realized that day the Lord had established him. In other words, put the emphasis on establishment. That's what I'm waiting to see, isn't it? I want to be established. I want the project to be concluded successfully. I want my job to be done. I want to run the race. I want to be established. And the Lord established David. If you fixate on that, though, you miss the whole boat. The other way to read it is that he realized that the Lord established him. What's the difference there? You and I face a choice every day, thousands of times, tens of thousands of times every day, we face a choice. Here's something I have to do. Here's a chore. Here's something I maybe do regularly. Put out the garbage, whatever it is. I'm going to do it. Do I dare do it in my own strength? Do I trust in my own understanding? Surely I could do it for putting out the garbage. Do I trust in my strength and do that in my own strength? And then when I'm doing it, the bag rips and it all falls out. And I think, oh, man. Or do I even try to do that? Trusting the Lord. Trusting the Lord. I can tell you there have been more than a few times that Debbie's filled the thing up with a bunch of stinky fish bones, and she says, please be careful taking that out to the outside trash can. And I didn't trust in my strength. Lord, Lord, please hold it together. That's how verse 12 is supposed to be read. David realized that the Lord had established him. So that David had learned, he'd been trained not to trust in himself. and his own understanding, but in all ways to acknowledge the Lord and find that he makes straight his path. David came to that. That realization, that vital practical realization is the key to life and true success and true fruitfulness and productivity and joy. trust in the Lord with all of our hearts and not lean on our own understanding. And his ways are going to be strange a lot of the time. He's a strange God. except he's the true and beautiful God. We're the strange ones. We've been twisted and corrupted by our sin and we think this is how things should work. You'd put in the effort, you get rewarded for the effort. You fight the good fight, you win. And God is different than that. He presents himself as foolish, the foolishness of the Lord. This is what the enemies of Israel had been seeing and remarking on all along, not least the Philistines, and we come into them in just a minute, when they said, God, they're God. He's a powerful God, but they beat them and then took the ark and thought, well, that God's not so powerful after all. He just lives in a box. We'll take him to our temple. They learned a lesson from that, a painful lesson. But they learned a lesson that Israel didn't learn. They went out in carnal enthusiasm to fight against the Philistines. And even when they brought the arch in, it was like a lucky charm. They didn't realize that the Lord, the living God, was establishing them. They weren't loving the Lord God with all their heart because he's lovable, he's supremely beautiful, desirable in every way. Why would you even think about doing the most legitimate chore and turning away from him? This is what sanctification is. This is what it develops into. A beautiful, holy obsession with the living God. The strongest, the most hopeless kind of obsession to break because you're bound by cords of love and delight in the Lord. And you realize that he can take care of the practical things. He established David over Israel and exalted his kingdom. Now he sees God, he'd learned to see God in the wilderness and his wanderings and his, his flight from Saul learned to be ingenious. Where are the secret things? You see it all through scripture up in the Northern part, Ravens coming to feed Elijah, God provides, uh, whatever, whatever. And then once you see that, that you can trust him in those hard places, with the way he seems to get easier, not lastingly or perfectly, never in this life. But David realized that the Lord was now exalting his kingdom. David had gone through his death of sorts for many years. Now the resurrection is beginning. But it is the shadow of the reality that is more beautiful and more certain than the shadow is. And because it's the shadow, meanwhile, David took more concubines and wives. On the plus side of that, it shows that David was being exalted and prospering in all sorts of ways. His family, just his physical family, was growing and expanding. And there were more children. But most of these children would be considered by us to be illegitimate children. And most of the relationships we would consider to be adulterous relationships. And so they were considered by God way back in Moses' day, Deuteronomy chapter 17, verses 14 to 20, you can read that. David did wrong, it's a serious sin here. You're always gonna see a fly in the ointment because until we breathe our last, we still have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. knowing that God is at work in us to will and do increasingly and more consistently and more perfectly that which pleases him and pleases us. But here they are, they're named, most of them unrecognizable. And that doesn't mean God didn't love them, doesn't mean we shouldn't love them or that we might not meet some of them in heaven. Only Solomon is the one we would consider a worthy heir of David, but he's the worst one of all as far as how he came into being and who his mother was and who she should have been before David killed her husband. Okay. So we're given that little glimpse. There still is in this man. We're getting excited. He's out of the starting blocks. He's been challenged, but he's been strengthened. He developed a lot of capabilities during that hard time. And now the payday's coming. He's invested himself, trusting the Lord, now the payday's coming. Good times are going to roll. Even these foreigners are bringing in materials and they're bringing in labor and they're building you a house and helping you build your city and everything else. Hey, while we're at it, I like the look of some of these women I'm seeing around the city. So he grabs himself a few more wives. There's no way you can excuse it. You could say it's the custom of the time, and it was. We got customs, too, and when we wake up to them and wake up that they're not very good customs, we realize, well, we should have been looking for that, too, with a little bit more zeal than we were, examining ourselves and measuring ourselves against God's standard. But it goes on. When the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines came out to fight. They tried to nip this thing in the bud. The timing is significant. They tried to nip it in the bud. Now see, Debbie, you've done it. My phone went off one time when somebody was preaching, and I was trying to shut the thing up. She's saying, how could you do that? I said, you just wait. You just wait. Well, I'm feeling better now. I'm feeling vindicated. But I'm not thinking about getting any more wives. I'm learning from scripture here, significant that we're at this point, isn't it? Okay, the Philistines, when they heard he was anointed, let's not let him get his feet on the ground. Let's not let him get his cabinet put together. Let's not let him get up and running. Let's hit him when he's down, when he's weak. Oh, well, didn't you hear what he did to the Jebusites? Huh? They come and have a go. Now, why is this? If David had realized, you know, we tend to think that life is a school and God is the schoolmaster. And what we have to do, the whole job is just to, well, we're going to do bad stuff. We know that. Let's be honest. Be honest with yourself. If you're not honest with anybody else, just be honest with yourself. We're going to do bad stuff. Some of the bad stuff is fun to do. We want to do it. So we're going to do it. Just like kids when the teacher's out of the room. You kids be quiet. Teacher's out of the room. And all this stuff. Don't get out of your chairs. Everybody's running around until the teacher gets back. So we're going to do our naughty stuff like that. We're doing our job. The teacher's job is to teach us, to tell us not to do those things. And sometimes the teacher goes out of the room and we misbehave. And if we get caught, it's the teacher's job to punish us. That's how most of us live our lives. That's it. That's our God. That's our Christianity. God's the teacher. We're the students. Christian life is all about learning lessons, growing in knowledge. No, no. That's half of it. If any, if any of it, it's not even half row in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. What does the grace mean? The Lord is gracious to us. Every day His mercies are new. Every day. Every moment He's with us, for us and with us because He's gracious and He's merciful. He's fashioning everything that's going to be in your life today, Even tonight, what's left of the night. He's fashioning everything for your good, your highest good. And some of that stuff's going to be painful and look hard and you're going to feel bad because you've failed or thought you failed or somebody thought you failed and charged you with failure. But God is with you in all of it. And in all of it, the sin that still remains in us is processing out. And we're more and more putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. So it is with the Philistines. You think, well, David learned his lesson. He's dependent on the Lord. He goes out and almost don't, he didn't learn it perfectly. That's part of why these wives are listed here. Didn't learn that lesson perfectly. David and the Lord, this is great. Lord established me. So what much he established me that I could go out and do whatever I want. That's not why God gives us grace, to spoil us, so that we presume that we can do evil things, wrong things, and it'll mean nothing to him. So we ask ourselves, why the Philistines? They're a bit bigger thorns than the Jebusites, and David still has need for thorns. David, God's doing this for David, the man, one man. Whether he's a king or not, you might say, well, because he's the king and because of that and all that. God isn't like us. He doesn't create all these offices and make everybody believe that there's some kind of inherent power in being a pastor. There's some kind of inherent power. You've got to respect the office. If the pastor is a rascal, he's a rascal. You don't say he's a pastor rascal, and the pastor we just, that's what we look at and we say because he's a good man, but he's, you know, going off and committing adultery every other night. You don't do that. God cares for David as a man, as his child, his son, and as his king, and for God's glory, and for the glory of God's people, all of that. So the Philistines came, spread themselves out in the Valley of Rephaim. What's David doing now? He's not out running around chasing women and trying to get more wives. He's back down in that humility. He's back down realizing that the Lord is his establisher. and you see it, he bounces back, and this is the great thing, and David's the one who says it, and scripture resounds throughout with this, do not rejoice over me, O my enemy, for though I fall, I will rise again. Philistines come and David doesn't run out there and meet them and say, God has established me so I can presume on that. I'll just go out. I don't need to pray about that. God has established me. Emphasis on establishment. Emphasis on I'm king. I'm king. I'm king. I can do anything I want. I'm king. No king does that. The king of kings didn't do that. He did what his father told him to do. And he did it with delight and with perfection. So the Philistines come. David heard about it. What does he do? He asked the Lord. He went down to the stronghold. The Philistines spread themselves out. Verse 19, David inquired of the Lord, shall I go up against the Philistines? Will thou give them into my hand? Will you give them to me? What would we say? We would say, will you strengthen me, Lord, so that I can defeat the Philistines? Well, what's the difference, you say? If you succeed in that endeavor, it's going to go to your head because you're going to think, I did it. No, no, no. You prayed for it. You asked for it. It was an answer to prayer. Yes, but I did it. But if we ask, will you give them into my hand? and not try and prescribe to him how he should strengthen us and how he should weaken them and how he should give us an advantage and put them at a disadvantage. We just give it all to him. And that's what he did. Will thou give them into my hand? And the Lord said, go up, for I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand. And then David defeated them, verse 20. And he gave the glory to God, the Lord has broken through my enemies named before me like the breakthrough of waters. And so soundly with the Philistines defeated, they abandoned their idols. Oh, it's a picture, this is a shadow, but it's a shadow of the end day, you know, when you've got in the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus coming. And you've got people running and hiding in caves and, and, and throwing all their idols away. They're nothing. They're no good. Who can stand in the day of the judgment of the lamb of God? That's it. Oh, but the Philistines come back. First 22 came up once again, spread out in the Valley. Oh, that shows persistence. That shows persistence. Even if God has defeated you. You know, the devil doesn't know he's defeated. He's been defeated since the second he sinned and had pride and aspired to rise up higher than God. He was defeated from then and he's never won a victory in all of his miserable life. Never once has he won a victory. You say, but he's tempted many people. Yeah, God let him tempt those people. God was in control of all that. Not the devil. God was using the devil. Lead us not into temptation. We're taught to pray. We prayed it tonight. But deliver us from evil, because sometimes he does lead us into temptation. He's not the one who tempts us, but he leads us into it. And then we pray, deliver me from it. Deliver me from evil. They persist. But it can be discouraging. And we can think, well, has God given up? Has God gotten tired? You know we think that. We feel it more than we think it. And we live accordingly. I've got to look out for myself. I've got to watch out for myself here. I'd like to trust God more, but I thought he promised that I would have these Philistines out of my hair for good. And here they are back again. or I better start trusting myself. No wonder, no wonder we're so tired. No wonder we're so riddled with anxiety and weak and inconsistent in our Christian walk at times. But this is why God has written these things for us, so that we can benefit from David's experience as the Lord shows us its salient features. So what did they do? They spread out again. What's David gonna do? Go back to the Lord. Now, think about this. Think about what you would do. I went to the Lord the first time. I asked him. He gave me victory. But they've come back. Something's missing here. I need something other than the Lord. And you know that we do that. I've got to rely on something. I need something this time. But David goes right back to the Lord and asks the same Lord the same thing. The Lord, he goes up to the Lord and inquire to the Lord again. And David now is told a different tactic to use by the Lord. Verse 23, you shall not go directly up, circle around behind them and come at them in front of the balsam trees. Why? He wanted those trees to shake when the angelic powers were in them. And he wanted David to hear this, and David to know. David, it was David's weak faith being strengthened here, because you know the stronger your faith is, the more you trust God, even when you don't see him, smell him, observe him in any way. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. That is the supreme development of Job in the midst of his trials. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Why would you trust somebody who's going to kill you? because of who it is who's doing it, he can make you alive again. And he's got a purpose for killing you if that's what he's got in mind to do. That's what the writer of the Hebrews says in the Hall of Fame of Faith, that Abraham, we know what he was thinking. How can a father go to kill his own son? Because he reckoned that God could raise him from the dead. How could Job's latter end be better than his first? He'd lost all of his children. No, he didn't. You can't lose your children. You're never going to lose your children. They're going to be with you. They're going to be with you in glory if they're the Lord's people. And the Lord, even if they die, well, we're separated and sad and all of that. But hang on. It's not going to be that much longer and you'll be with them. For all eternity. Head around to where the balsam trees are. When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsams, who's going to be marching in the top of the balsams? Angelic beings, no doubt. You'll act promptly, for then the Lord will have gone before you to strike the army of the Philistines. This is a more humble assignment, really, for David. You might think that the first one was, go out, I've given him into your hand, and you've got to go out and face him. And he goes out and he faces them. And decisively, like waters cutting through and making channels through their defenses and so forth. But this time, he's got to go and wait for a signal. And he's told specifically that the Lord will strike the army of the Philistines. So what does David say? I don't like it. I don't like this job. I mean, this isn't, this isn't as glorious. You're going to do it. You're going to get all the glory. You're making it clear. You're making it clear to me and you're making it everybody. And you're, you're telling this guy who's going to write this part of scripture and he's going to tell the whole church. They're all going to know you won the battle. Not me. Oh yeah. David was a man, he was a sinner. I mean, if he's going to go and break God's law of getting all these wives, he's going to think and feel things like that. But he prevailed. He prevailed and didn't succumb to that temptation. David did so just as the Lord had commanded him and struck down. Because God includes us in his battles. He's the effectual power. But he treats us like we're partners, working together with him. And he rewards us lavishly. This is our king. Our king. David, well, he lived so long ago. No, no, no. This is our king. working through the shadow king, David, who's pointing to the king of kings, yet to come from David's perspective and having come from ours. And as David was victorious because he humbled himself and trusted God and followed God, followed God's instructions. And you know, this is a whole part of scripture, the wisdom literature, Again, it's not about right and wrong always. Doing what's wise, there's nothing inherently right or wrong about doing a wise thing over a foolish thing. It's just, it's easier, it's more beneficial, it's more effectual to do things in a wise manner. And David didn't say, well, will it be wrong for me to go out and fight him without you? No. But that'd be a stupid thing to do. I'm going to trust you, even in the practical things, and try and be wise, because you're the God of wisdom, as well as love. David's enemy was determined but David, so long as he remained dependent, was safe. And more than a conqueror, he asks for God's direction and he receives it. He acknowledges God's victorious power. that the Lord, verse 20, has broken through. It wasn't me. And go home tonight and read one of the longest Psalms, Psalm 18, and see what David has to say. I want to give you a little taste of it, and then we'll close. We'll taste other things in just a minute. Psalm 18, verses 1 to 6. This very well was the occasion of David's writing that Psalm. For the choir director, Osama David, the servant of the Lord. He doesn't say the king of Israel, does he? The servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him. That's significant too, spoke to the Lord. You think David's writing this for you and me? Who? That's an afterthought. You know, David, this is going to benefit the church through all the history of the church to the rest of the world. What? That's not why I wrote that. He wrote it in a song to God. And incidentally, it'll be food for our souls. He spoke words of this song in that day. The Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said, I love thee, O Lord, my strength. I love thee. You love your money? You get excited when you go to check your bank account and it's rising up? You love that money? Yeah, yeah. Do you love the Lord? Do you love the Lord like that? You want more wives? You want more husbands? You want to take liberties with God's holy law? You want more than what God is telling us we should have? Love the Lord with that kind of love. I love thee, O Lord, my strength. All other kinds of loves will weaken us, but this one strengthens us. The Lord is my rock and my fortress. Now David was living in the city and we're told he's building up the city, but David wasn't trusting in the building and the fortifications. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. He's worthy to be praised, but I'm going to call on him and bug him for a favor. I need something. I have a need. He should just be praised all the time. Never stop. Never mind your needs. No. I call on him who is worthy to be praised. Suddenly I'm the only person in his world. I realized he's given me full undivided attention. That's, that's what the implication is here. I call on him. It was worthy to be praised. I am saved. Notice that he's not even thinking, and you did great. You did it for the nation. You did it for your own glory and all that. All that's true, but it is the glove, the glory of God that he loves us. He loves us. And he's gracious to us because he loves us. I'm saved from my enemies. The cords of death encompassed me, and the torrents of ungodliness terrified me. The cords of Sheol surrounded me. The snares of death confronted me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried to my God for help. He heard my voice out of his temple. That's what I said. I mean, if you, if you use the images of scripture, God doesn't live in a temple. God is not in a place called heaven. God is everywhere. God is everywhere. That's what omnipresent means. Um, but if you think he is up there doing some big, holy job that you, and you've got some troubles down here, he gets out of that temple and he comes running down to your ditch. I cried for help. He heard my voice out of his temple and my cry for help came before him into his ears. And look what he did. He shook heaven and earth. The earth shook and quaked. The foundations of the mountains were trembling and were shaken because he was angry. not at us, but for us, against all that would be our enemies. That's what it is to be more than a conqueror in Christ. Amen.