Let's bow our heads a moment. Father, again, we thank you for your word that we now consider it again. We pray that you'd help us to understand it and to apply it to our hearts and to our lives. For Jesus' sake, amen. I want us to return to 1 Samuel. You know most of you that we're doing that when I'm here preaching on a Sunday morning, 1 Samuel, and we've arrived at Chapter 16, and last time we looked at the anointing of David by Samuel, who now is going to replace Saul as king eventually. Saul has been rejected by God because of his disobedience. We've dealt with that. And it's quite a sad chapter, really, in chapter 15 and 16 as well. We dealt with that last time. There are just a few verses at the end of chapter 16. And I thought, hmm, not much in that, really. Let's go on to chapter 17. Oh, we love chapter 17. It's a gigantic chapter. Ha, ha, ha, all right? It's a lovely chapter, and we'll, God willing, we'll do it another time. But then I thought, no, it's part of scripture. and it must be significant because it's there. God doesn't write anything. God, the Holy Spirit, doesn't write anything, inspire any man to write anything, which is not very relevant. It has a tremendous importance on that which will come in the future days. Now, the concentration is going to change to David. Saul will still be there, but it's on David who will be the future king. Now, we know that, and we know that the rest of Samuel will be taking up Saul and David and the conflict. and then eventually to somewhere where David will be king and so on. So I want us to look at what we're actually told historically, it's real, it's narrative, at what happened in the verses from 14 to the end, but I also want to use it as an illustration of gospel truth. I often say this to you, that when we come on Sundays and we look at a passage, particularly in the Old Testament, Nice to see what happened, and perhaps I'll learn some principles from there. But we are living here in Halesham and District 2024, and we need that which will help us today and tomorrow. When you go to work tomorrow, or go shopping tomorrow, or go to the doctor or appointment, whatever you're gonna do tomorrow, under God's help and by the Spirit, I want something that is said this morning to be a help to you tomorrow, and the rest of the week, and in months to come. It's not a theoretical thing. This is real practical stuff. And it seems to me, there's a lovely little illustration, it's very simple, of the gospel, which we'll come to in a moment. Now again, there are difficulties with some of these verses here. It'd be easy to say, well, we won't deal with that, let's move on. We have to deal with them, because they're there, and do our best to understand what it is. So the first problem is, verse 14, but the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, we understand, because he's disobeyed and the spirit came upon him, now the spirit is leaving him, all right? Whether he was a truly converted, I don't know. I suspect he actually wasn't, all right? God changed his direction and God blessed him, and the spirit was with him, but I know that the spirit was in him as in a regenerated person. That's the way I understand things. And so the spirit departs from him. But here's the difficulty, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. Shows the spirit, leaves him, and an evil spirit comes. But the evil spirit comes from the Lord. So what's the Lord doing sending an evil spirit? Lots of explanations for this. Ultimately, God is sovereign. All that happens in this world is subject to God. Everything, every single thing is subject to God's sovereignty. Wars and disputes and terrible things are under his sovereignty. What he allows, what he foreordains, everything's under his hand and even Even, I say this carefully, even hell is under the charge of God. You say, wow, that's a big thing to say. Well, the easiest illustration of that, and one with which you'll be familiar, is Job. You know the story of Job, as mentioned, I think, last week or the week before, whereby God is there, and it's like a special heavenly council, if you like, and Satan comes along, and he joins in, as it were. And he says to God, God is obviously speaking about his followers and those who believe and trust in him and so on, and Satan says, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but these people, they only worship you, they only serve you, they only do what you want because of what they can get out of you, all right? All right? And, well, says God, have you considered my servant Job? He's a godly man, upright man, man of integrity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let me get at him. Let me spoil him. Let me take his possessions away. Let me take everything from him. Let me take his family from him. Then see if he worships you and praises you and loves you and all that. Well, says God, okay. You do what you want, but don't touch his life. Don't touch him. So God gives him permission. And Satan is always under the permission of God. You can't do anything outside of God's sovereign will. Now, that's difficult to understand, I know, but, and you know the story there, that he goes and he attacks him, and at the end of it, Job says, well, the Lord gave and the Lord took away, blessed be the name of the Lord. And then, so sin goes back and says, okay, okay, round one to you, but let me have another go. Let me attack him personally. And God says, okay, but don't destroy him. And so he's allowed again to bring all these boys, and he's in a terrible state. And yet he worships God. He vindicates, as it were, God's faith in him, if I can use such a phrase. But my point I'm making is that God uses even evil, even Satan, to fulfill his purposes. And the most amazing of all, he allows Satan to enter the heart of a man called Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed Jesus, and he's totally accountable for that. He's accountable for what he did. He wanted to betray Jesus. And yet God is gonna use that to bring salvation to his people. So the point I'm making is that when you see this, you think, oh, God sent an evil spirit. If it's easier for you, God allows the spirit to come. Actually, God directs the spirit, allows the spirit to come and to do what he did. Now the other thing is that you have to understand sometimes evil is not meant personally, as a personal unclean spirit or whatever, devil if you like. a demon, is sometimes used to describe something. And I think the best way I can explain that to you is to tell you about some very strange verses in Isaiah. I've told you previously of a friend of mine in school, a colleague in school, Lindsay, he was a humanist, he was agnostic, he may have been actually an atheist, but anyway, certainly an agnostic, and he read all the books. And he knew more theology than I did, but that's another story. And he said to me once, Colin, you know the Bible says that God created evil? I said, no, that's not right. That's not right, I don't believe that. Yeah, he said, and he quoted the verse. So of course I go home, you know, I'm looking up in Isaiah, and there it says, I the Lord create good, and I the Lord create evil. I thought, oh. He was right, I was wrong. How can God create evil? But then, when you look into it, and those who know the Hebrew and all this, what Isaiah seems to be saying is this. I, God, create good consequences from obedience, and I, God, create bad consequences for disobedience. And then it's pretty easy to understand then, you see? So God creates all things, and he creates blessings, and he creates curses, blessings for those who are obedient, curses for those who are disobedient, and so on. So that's the explanation of that. So what I'm saying is this. Here's this evil spirit sent from God, allowed from God, whatever you want to term, because he has been disobedient. And this, in a sense, is a punishment to him. And it troubled him. He's a troubled man. He is, some would say he's a depressive. If you know anything about depression and clinical depression and manic depression, it's quite a serious thing. You may have experienced it yourself or known people who have it. And it's something quite deep. And it's no good saying to these people, shake yourself, get out of it, because they can't. They want someone saved, but they can't. Terrible condition to be. There was a lady in our church in Istanbul, and she was clinically classified as a manic depressive. And they think the cause of it was she saw her husband commit suicide. which would block anybody off, I think, knock anybody off. And I hope nobody's ever been through that. But I have an uncle that saw something similar. No, it's a terrible thing. And she was, now she was a Christian. I'm sure she was actually converted Jewish person, but she was a Christian. And sometimes she was high, and other times she was really flat. Now, whatever, this seems to be the outworking of this evil spirit. He is troubled, Saul is troubled. And his servants, they obviously want the best for their master, and they say an evil spirit from God troubles you. Now, what we're gonna do, we're gonna seek a man who is a cunning player on a harp. The word cunning means ability, comes actually from the word knowledge. He has knowledge and ability to play a harp. And that will be a help to you. I'd love to spend half hour talking about music. We have a musician here, at least one to others. And you don't know this, I don't think. But I love classical music. Classical music is on my house most of the day. And I love violin music. All right, Connons, and Pachelbel, and Vivaldi. I know, you didn't know that, did you? You don't think, this country bumpkin from those? Yeah, I like the classics, okay? Now, there's something lovely about, to me, about classics. You might say, well, I'm a jazz man. Well, so be it. All right, don't tell Gary, all right? But yeah, I'm a jazz man. We are affected by music. Sadly, in my humble opinion, being a boy who brought up with the Beatles, the Beatles, the Everly Brothers and Ezra Spresley back in the day, modern music is noise in my humble opinion. But that's my view. But music has a wonderful application, all right? And it actually worked. God in his common grace has given us music to be a blessing to us. All right, sometimes people say to me, have you heard the latest pop song? Isn't it great? I said, I don't know about great, but it's great, but that's just my view. Now, okay, so he plays the harp, all right? So David, right here, he's gonna come in on scene again, all right? And when the evil spirit comes, he will play in his hand and it should be well. So Saul sends his servants, provide me now a man that can play well. Play on words then, the Hebrew, provide me a man. God has previously said, provide me with a king. You see the link there, right? So God says, provide me with a king, who will be David. Saul says, provide me with a player, a half player, who will be a help to me. They both want provision, and it's the same person. Interesting, okay. So, verse 18, and Ramses I said, behold, the son of Jesse, all right, he's cunning and he's mighty. Now, listen to the phrase, listen to this description of David. He's a mighty, valiant man and a man of war, prudent in matters, and he's good looking as well, all right? He's a comely person, and the Lord is with him. At this stage, as far as we know, David has never been to war and he's never been valiant and all that kind of stuff. Some think this bit was written much later on. I don't think so. It could be that the servant want to exaggerate. We love to exaggerate, don't we? Oh, he's so wonderful and so great and so wonderful. And it may be that. It may be, because we know from David's own account, that he has been in battle with bears and wolves and all that kind of stuff, looking after the far sheep. It may be a reference to that. It doesn't matter too much. That's the description of David which actually is accurate. OK, verse 19. Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse and say, send me David thy son, who is with the sheep. I said some to you this week, I'm amazed, you know, as I read scripture, things that are there that I've never seen before. I've been reading this whole book for 62, three years. Not that I know every word in the Bible, but there are some things, well, And it just may be that they've read it lots of times, but something, boom, it jumps out. Boop, it jumps out. That's right, jumps out. And the word that jumped out to me was sheep. You say, oh, that's exciting. Well, let me tell you. Right, so the word sheep is mentioned there. If you remember when Samuel goes to Jesse and wants, God has said, one of your sons is going to be, to be anointed, blah, blah, blah. So he gets all these sons and, no, no, no, no, no, I don't judge by appearance, I judge by heart and so on. So he said, why haven't you got any more? And he said, oh yeah, yeah, there's one more. What is it? He doesn't actually mention his name. He says he's the youngest, and he's looking after the sheep. He's keeping the sheep. So they go and fetch David from looking after the sheep. And then, we've got this little verse that he's with the sheep. So they send for him, all right, and he, Get somebody to look after the sheep, right? Actually, I think that might be in the next chapter. In the next chapter, he goes to see his brothers who were in the war against the Philistines, and he says, and he got someone to look after the sheep. And when he goes to his brothers, they say, what are you doing here? Come here to see what's going on here, blah, blah, blah, blah. And who's looking after the sheep? He said, no, it's okay, I'm taking care of it. You think, all right, sheep, sheep, sheep. Why are you mentioning that? Why is it important? Well, it's because sheep and shepherd, and it runs through the Old Testament, and it goes into the New Testament. David will be a shepherd king, and he will, having looked after sheep, and caring for sheep, and protecting sheep, he now will have a care and a concern and protect people. People, he's learned his trade with sheep. Sometimes they're easy to manage on people, but he's learned his trade with sheep, and now he's gonna, now, move on. The king, it's all about the king. The king of kings, the Lord of lords, the Lord Jesus Christ. And how does he describe himself? I am the good shepherd. It's my life of sheep. It's the shepherd sheep motif. We are the flock of God. if we believe and trust in him. So it seems to me it's deliberate, right? You see, Colleen, you made a lot of emphases on this. Well, I am because I think it's important. Okay, so he's still with the sheep and Saul sends for him. All right, so verse 19, wherefore Saul sent message unto Jesse and said, send me David thy son who is with the sheep. Jesse took an ass laden with bread and a bottle of wine and a kid and sent them by David his son unto Saul. He saw him, stood before him, and this is amazing, you know, and he loved him greatly. You hear Saul loving this man, a few chapters down the line, he will hate him. How quickly love can turn to hatred, turn to love. How quickly it happens. But at this moment, Saul loves him greatly, and he became his armor bearer. That will be in future days. So Saul sent to Jesse, saying, let David, I pray thee, stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight. And it came to pass when an evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took a harp and prayed with his hand, so Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed for him. Oh, well, there we are. That's a nice little story. And it's all true. Now, how do we apply this? Well, this is what I'm gonna share with you. And bear in mind, this is an illustration, right, of gospel truth. This is not the explanation of what happened there. This is something that I want us to look forward to, to the Savior, and various aspects, which might be of help to us, which I trust will be. And when we read the Old Testament scriptures, we must always look for Jesus, Christ in all the scriptures. You say, well, yeah, I know that, but how can it be in all these, some things are very difficult. How do you get Jesus out of that? Well, don't do a quantum leap, but realize that all the events of the Old Testament are working towards the coming of the Messiah, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the little thought that came to me, right, is David's occupation He was a shepherd, yes, but this, he's a skillful player with a harp. And that, in turn, is a means of blessing to Saul, and he restores Saul to a certain measure of mental health, if you like, or physical well-being. He restores him. He, that's the word I want to think about. He restores him, he helps him, he mends him, if you like. All right, let's come to the Lord Jesus. I don't know that we ever think about him as a tradesman. We have one or two tradesmen amongst us, and I don't think, I don't know if you ever thought about Lord Jesus as a tradesman. Now we know he was a carpenter. All right, after his adopted, if you like, father, Joseph. He was the carpenter in Nazareth. Whether he was the only one, I don't know, might have been others, but he was a carpenter. But the word carpenter can also mean a worker in stone. So he's in the construction business, if you like. Bear in mind in those days, men who had these things, who were kind of farmers or whatever, they would do several skills in construction. So they'd do wood, they'd do work with wood, they'd do stones, they'd probably do roofing jobs, all kinds of little jobs they would do to make and to restore. That's the word I'm after, to restore. And so, for 20 years, possibly, when he started off apprentice, we would say, with Joseph, and then he began to do the trade himself. We don't know when Joseph died. Some think he was quite young. Jesus was perhaps the beginning of his teens. But almost for 20 years, he worked with his hands as a manual worker. And he worked with wood and stone and all the rest of it. And you can imagine somebody saying to his mother, Mary, I've got a fence broken down there. Do you think Yeshua, Jesus, will come and fix it for me? Come and mend it? Oh, I'm sure he can. I'll ask him, and he'll say, Yeshua, can you do Mrs. Solomon's fence? Yeah, ma'am, I'll come down and go tomorrow and look at it. Now, that's the real world. We're not all about it, but you don't need to exaggerate. He worked with his hands as a workman. restoring, blessing people physically. Now move to 30. He's still in the business of restoring. But now it's not buildings and fences and roofs. It's man's hearts, man's lives. And some of my favorite verses from the Old Testament into the New Testament, fulfilled in the New Testament, are from Isaiah. Now, some of you will remember these verses. tempted to run from memory, but if I can find it, I'd rather read it accurately to you, where God says about the one who will come, the Messiah, the chosen one. So it's Isaiah 42. You don't need to turn to it. Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him, and he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets, a bruised reed he shall not break, smoking flax he shall not quench, he shall bring forth judgment and to truth he shall not fail or be discouraged till he hath judged the youth and so on. Here's a promise regarding the Messiah, that he will not bruise the broken reed. That which is bruised, that which is almost going to be snapped away, smoking flax, he will just chuck it away, he will restore it, he will bring new life to it, he will bring blessing to it. That's what he will do. And Matthew quotes that verse in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then later on in Isaiah, again, you know these verses, as I quote them to you, oh yes, I know that one, Isaiah 61. Again, speaking of the Messiah, Isaiah says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound to preach the acceptable view of the Lord and so on. Now, Jesus himself quotes that. Jesus himself goes to the synagogue. Jesus himself reads this passage from the Old Testament. And he's there in the temple, whether he chose the passage or it was delivered to him, we're not too sure. But anyway, he had the book or the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he opened it, and this is what he read. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance unto the captives, recovery of sight to them that are blind, to preach the acceptable view of the Lord, and so on. So Jesus says, Isaiah is speaking about me, I am that one. And one of the things I've been sent to do is to heal the broken hearted. Thank God he's still doing it. He's healing the broken hearted. He's restoring those that are fallen, those that are broken. I thought about this and I don't know, I could spend all day talking about the broken world in which we live. It's a real and apt and relevant description. Our world is broken. The fact that we are commemorating two world wars is ample evidence that we are in a broken world. And I was listening to a preacher this week and referring to the First World War. At the end of it, I don't think any of you Be careful what I say. I don't think any of you were alive at the time. But certainly, all right, at the end of the First World War, it was said, this is the war to end all wars. There will never be another war. Look at the tremendous loss of life, both sides, terrible business. No, we must never, ever have another world war like this, and so on and so on. How many years later is it? Not too many. Another world war. and all the terrible things that happened. I was thinking about the media talks about the innocent suffering in various wars in various places, and I think, you know, some of you, not all of you, will remember or have read about Coventry being bombed. The Germans bombed Coventry and obliterated it. Terrible. In retaliation, the British bombed Dresden. Beautiful German city, smashed it to bits. All the people that died in Calvary and all the people that died in Brisbane, and that's just two cities. It's a, war is a dreadful business. James talks about from whence wars come, from your hearts. It's not nations that war. It's people in authority, mostly mad, but very dominant in whatever reason. And it's lust in the hearts of men. It's sin. That's the basic problem with wars, big scale, little scale. Broken world. But let's bring it down a bit narrower. A nation broken. I don't know what's going to become of us. There's all kinds of things you're talking. America, who knows what will happen there now, and the rest of the world. There are broken nations. Fighting seems to be epidemic. But then let's bring it down a bit closer. There are homes that are regarded as a broken home. We talk about someone and we say, oh, I feel sorry for him, for her. He comes from a broken home. How sad is that? And we know what that means. That there's been a relationship, probably with the parents, that is broken and is separate. Now we know some of that. Some of us know that personally, right? Broken relationships and broken bodies and broken minds. We're familiar with all that kind of thing. And it's such a sad, sad world. Now into that world, comes the Savior to bring, to mend broken hearts and broken lives and broken minds, to restore them. You know that little phrase in Psalm 23, isn't it? He restoreth my soul. That's a lovely little verse. He restores my soul. There are two aspects of this restoration. Firstly, there's the initial restoration of a sinner to God. When Adam sinned, that relationship of man with God was broken. Sin came in between, disappears, and from there on, everybody who's born into this world is born into a broken relationship with God. It's not a neutral one, and then some will decide to continue, and some will decide not to. No, we're all born, this is the doctrine of original sin, if you want to be technical, every single one of us, every little baby, even the precious, dearest little baby that we have in our church, that we have in our families, broken and separated from God. So, what does the Lord Jesus Christ come to do? Well, he comes to deal with that broken relationship. He comes to deal with that sin, that disobedience. He comes to heal that brokenness. How does he do it? Well, David played the harp with skill and knowledge and so forth. How does the Lord Jesus deal with a broken relationship between man and God? He's skilled, he has the knowledge, He is God in the flesh. He's totally human, but he's totally God. How does he do it? Well, strangely enough, he does it by dying. Now, somebody who's totally ignorant of this says, oh no, no, no, mate, if somebody wants to come into help, they need to be full of life. If I'm suffering in whatever way and somebody comes to help me, I want them to be full of life and any skills and knowledge they have to apply it to my condition and to sort me out. Some of you have been to doctors and surgeons and the rest of it. If you said to the man or the woman, if you said to the man, may I ask you, have you got any qualifications? He said, well, not really, but I've read a couple of books and I've seen a couple of videos on YouTube. I think I know what to do. I've got a scissors and a pen knife and I think I'll be all right. What? Yeah, yeah. You want somebody who is the best at dealing with these kind of situations. And Jesus does it. but not by giving advice purely and telling what to do, what not to do. No, the big problem is sin and the law of God says sin must be punished, a penalty must be paid. And so Jesus comes, not to say, right, this is what you must do with the law, you must do this and do that and not do this and not do that, because that won't pay the penalty, that won't suffer the wrath of God. And so he has to take the place of the broken and, in a sense, be broken on their behalf. And so he suffers for sin, the just for the unjust. He might bring us to God. He is separated from his father. He might reconcile us to his father. This gospel is glorious, you know. It really is glorious. substitutionary death, atonement, prepossession, as we call it, the death of the Lord Jesus on our behalf, in our behalf, is glorious. There's nothing like it anywhere. Paul writes to the Corinthians. Again, you know it well, but I'll read it for you. In 2 Corinthians, chapter five, he's talking about the gospel, and he talks about the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is what he says in verse 17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. All things are passed away, behold, all things become new. And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us this word of reconciliation, And it's committed to us this word reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors of Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God, for he, God, has made him, Jesus, to be sin for us, for you, for me, he who knew no sin, that we might be in the righteousness of God in him. Hallelujah. That's the gospel. And he has the skill and the knowledge to bring whoever you are, whatever you are, to bring you to God, to mend that broken heart spiritually, to bring you into a relationship with his father. And it's glorious, and it's wonderful. Now I'm gonna close in a moment with two illustrations, all right? This one, the first one, is to do with a broken heart and a broken life. And you know the man of whom I speak, it's Mike Mellor, good friend of mine and some of you, and he said this, I think he might have said it from this pulpit, that he was drunk. Now this is extreme, right? I'm sure nobody here would be in that state. Anyway, he was a drunk, alcoholic. He worked for a newspaper, I think it was in, it was in Bournemouth, I think it was something like a Bournemouth Gazette or whatever. And he worked in that office. His life was a mess, he was a broken man, it was breaking his family up, his wife, his children, terrible state. In that office was a young man called Paul. I know Paul, I knew his dad. These days I'm scared to say, oh, I knew his grandfather. I didn't know his grandfather, but I knew his dad. Paul was a young Christian boy. And he witnessed to Mike. I don't think of bashing him, but gently. And anyway, got a very long story short. God dealt with Mike, and God brought him to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And his life was turned upside down and inside out. And now he's a preacher of the gospel and used of God, particularly in the open air. God can't do that. Now, you don't have to be a drunkard to be reconciled to God. You can be a very nice, respectable, decent person, as I'm sure most of you are, but you still need to be reconciled to God. You still need to be saved. You still need to call upon the Lord Jesus to be your saviour. And the other story is of a man who actually was converted. He was converted in Port Talbot, in South Wales. The preacher of this little mission church was a man called Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. He had given up medicine, a very high position in medicine, and he'd left it all to go and be a preacher, a minister. Some said to him, don't give up your medical job. Do this preaching on the weekends, but carry on. We don't want to lose your skills in the medical world. And he said, I'll tell you my problem. My problem is this. I mend people's bodies, and they go back to sinning. Right? They've got broken bodies and minds, and I deal with that, and they fix, and they go back and live as they were before. I want to deal with a man's hearts. I want to change their lives and their hearts and so on. Anyway, so he goes to Port Talbot, and this man is there, and he's converted. And he's a Christian, and lives a Christian life, has a family. And then he leaves his wife, goes into sin, great sin, and goes away from Port Talbot and away from God, and goes to London. And there's many years, there are many, many years. And he's in a terrible state. He's not right with God, and he's not right in his heart, and he's not right with anybody else. The woman he was with, I'm not sure if she died or left him, but he's on his own. And he got to a stage, this is a true story, he got to a stage, he said, I can't live like this anymore. And so he went to, he was in London, he went to one of the London bridges over the Thames, and he decided he'd jump in. End of his life. There was nothing left. And as he was about to climb to get over the bridge, Big Ben struck. Talk about the providence of God. It's just amazing. Bang! Bang! Right? It's six o'clock. And he thought, you know, that man, Lloyd Jones, he'd be going up the pulpit now in Westminster Chapel. I think I might go and hear him just one last time. So off he went. He sneaked in, I'm using that expression, he sneaked in the back, went up into the gallery, and he sat at the back. And as he walked in, Lloyd-Jones wasn't actually preaching, he was praying. And this is what he prayed. Lord, have mercy on the backslider and restore him to yourself. The man broke down and cried and wept. He went and saw the doctor and he was restored and lived a godly life thereafter until the day he died. God is good. God is so good. I don't know you very well. I know you outwardly. I see your little faces, and you see mine. But I don't know what's going on in your life, in your heart. It may be that you need to be restored. It may be that there are very bad things going on, but some things are not right. Maybe you're just cold toward the Lord Jesus. There's a coldness. Not as you went through. So many things have happened in the family and the business and this and that and the health. Oh, dear me. And you're just cold. And you need to be restored. You need to be brought back into a right relationship with the Lord. Let me encourage you. Let me encourage you. Let me tell you what a saviour heals the brokenhearted and restores the backslider to himself. Blessed be his name. Blessed be his name. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this story of Saul and David. We understand the history of it and the significance of it for the future days in Israel and so on. But we thank you for this illustration of the Lord Jesus. and of the one who can fix us and restore us, restore us initially into salvation and acceptance before you if we call upon him, but also can restore us if we've grown cold, if we're not walking as close as once we did. Oh, for a closer walk with God, a heavenly way. Oh, Father, you know us. It may be that you were speaking to some senior this morning, No deal kindly with them. Tell them that you'll have them back. In spite of all they've been and all they are, you'll have them back. Grant a desire in their hearts to come back, to come home, to come home. Bless us for Jesus' sake. Amen. Let's sing a final hymn. 523, it's a prayer really. Lovely, lovely prayer to the Saviour. 523. I hear thy welcome voice that calls me Lord to thee. cleansing in the precious blood that flowed on Calvary. I am coming, Lord, coming now to thee. Wash me, cleanse me in the blood that flowed on Calvary. Though coming weak and vile, thou dost my strength assure. Thou dost my vileness fully cleanse, till spotless all, and pure, and so on. Five, two, three.