that which the Lord spake. And it came to Bethlehem, and the elders of the town trembled at His coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably? And He said, Peaceably I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord. Sanctify yourselves, and come with Me to the sacrifice. And He sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice. And it came to pass, when they were come, that He looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord's anointed is before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord seeth not as man seeth. For the Lord looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. That's a famous verse, so if you didn't know where that was, mark it down. And you'll use that one. And Jesse called Ben-Adab and made him to pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this. And Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this. Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The Lord hath not chosen these. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent and brought him. Now he was ruddy with all of a beautiful countenance and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and the evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold, now an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our Lord now command thy servants which are before thee to seek out a man who is a cunning player on a harp, and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well. Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. Then answered one of the servants and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is cunning and playing, and a mighty, valiant man, a man of war, and a prudent man in matters and comely person, the Lord is with them. Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep. And Jesse took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them by David his son unto Saul. And David came to sell, and stood before him. And he loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me, for he hath found favor in my sight. And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took a harp and played with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." Let's pray. If the brother can pray in the sound booth, and then as soon as he's done praying, we'll be seated. Father, as we continue our worship here, we pray that it's been pleasing to you, my Lord. We ask that you will now bless the pastor, Lord, that you will give him wisdom and understanding, Father, to deliver this message here in this book of Samuel. We thank you for his willingness, Lord, this willing vessel that we have here to bring every Sunday, Lord, a message from you, Father. We thank you, Father, again. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. You may be seated. Last week we learned about how Saul did not obey God, and because of that, he rejected the Lord. So in return, what did God do? He rejected Saul. And the Lord rejected him from being king over Israel, and He said, I'm going to give it to your neighbor that's better than you. And that's what this story is, where God gives the anointing to David. The man God rejected, Saul, is still on the throne and would be for another 20 years. So what was Samuel to do? It said that he mourned for Saul, didn't it? There in verse 1, how long will thou mourn for Saul? In the previous chapter, in verse 35, Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord repented that He had made Saul king. So, Samuel is in this terrible situation. There is a hopeless king on the throne that's driven by ego. He's presumptuous. He won't listen to God. He doesn't care about what God wants. And he's still on the throne. And it's not divinely appointed. God did not sanction Saul. He took his hand off of him. And Samuel is old. And he's about to die. And his sons aren't going to be the next judge of Israel. And what was worse is Samuel, you know what he did? He is the one that anointed Saul. Now, it was at the Lord's command, but what did the people know? As far as Samuel thought about it, all the people are looking at me and say, you put this guy on here, and then you die and leave us to clean up the mess. So, it's a bad situation, and no matter how you look at the situation, it was bad for Israel and it was bad for Samuel. Have you ever had situations like that, that were just bad? And it didn't matter how you looked at it, from any angle it was bad? And maybe it was something that you did to get yourself in the situation, but you can't see a way forward, and nothing you look at gives you hope. It seems like things are getting worse. And all you are doing is standing back and watching everything you love burn to the ground. Have you ever been there? I've been there. And if you're not there, just give it time, you will be there. I visit this place from time to time, but the trick is you don't want to buy a house and settle down there. Life will bring you there and you will visit there. And we just have these situations that are out of our control sometimes, but they bring us to this place of mourning, this place of desolation, this place of hopelessness. And you know, sometimes we come to church like this and we think everyone has it together. And we think that nobody's going through what we are. And you know, one preacher explained it to me like this. The church is like an engine, okay? And so when one cylinder's up, the other's down. And one cylinder's down, the other's up. And so when you come to church and not everyone's depressed like you are, praise the Lord. Maybe they can help you carry your burden, right? I know in my marriage, and many of you that are married might see it this way, when I'm up, my wife is down. When I'm down, she's doing better. And the Lord has it that way, He's designed it that way so we can carry one another's burdens. We don't go through it all at once, but we all go through it and have these times. You know what I call it? I call it being in the spin cycle. I've been there recently, and so what do we do when we are there in this place of turmoil? And maybe what God showed Samuel to do when he is there, will help you to be able to get out of the spin cycle and get out of that place of hopelessness where everything seems bleak and there's no way forward. So what do we do when we're there? I would like to say, number one, look at verse 1. And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul? Now, does God ask questions to get information? Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God? He didn't ask this to get information. God asks questions for different reasons than we do. You know why God asks this question? He wants that question to lead Samuel to a truth that will help him get out of this place of turmoil and get out of this spin cycle. He's asking him because he wants him to consider this. He wants him to consider how much time is he going to devote to the past. And when you're in that place of hopelessness, God would ask you this question, how much time are you going to devote to the past? How much time are you going to devote to mourning for Saul? Now, God didn't say it was wrong to mourn. God gave us these emotions, right? He didn't tell him he was wrong and you're wicked for doing that. He's saying, there comes a time when you need to move on. There comes a time when you need to stop letting those emotions guide you, and you need to guide them. There comes a time when you need to stop being paralyzed by your emotions. Now, if Samuel is God's man, and he's the judge over Israel, and he's susceptible to that, How much more are you and I going to be susceptible to doing that? You know, the Bible wasn't written about superheroes. It was written about men and women of like passions of you and I, that were just like us, and faced situations we face every day. And it was written in a way where you can see them in that situation, and how God got them out of that, so God can teach you these principles how to get out of these problems. People face the same dilemma every day in the Bible that we face today. And we have the tendency as humans to live in the past, don't we? To think a lot about it. And God would ask us this question. I find it interesting that people that have social media, and I'm one of them, you know what there's a tendency to do? Spend a lot of time devoted to checking up on people from the past. People that have left. People that God has rejected. People that have rent our garments and hurt us, and God has showed us, through situations and all kinds of things, that those people are rejected, at least as far as we're concerned. They're not to be part of our life anymore. They're past hurt. I mean, what profitability do you get out of checking out your old flame? Is that helpful? You're single, and you're upset, and you're mourning, and you don't know where the future is leading, so we go check on the past. And we need to consider, when we're in this place of turmoil, how much time... You ever go down the road and you see an accident? And you know the traffic is always slowing down. And many times the accident's a hundred feet off the road. And there's already an ambulance there, and there's authorities, and they're dealing with it. And you know why everybody is slowing down? We call it rubbernecking. Because they're spending more time looking at the accident than the road ahead. And I think God was saying right here to Samuel, Keep it moving. There's nothing to see here. Keep your eyes on the road ahead. How much time are we going to devote to the past, the things that we wish would have been different? Oh, Saul, you know, listen, he had so much potential. I mean, he was raised in Israel. He had good parents. I mean, Kish was just such a stand-up guy. Look at all the opportunity. Man, I just wish he would listen, and I wish it would have been different. Well, he didn't. He didn't. And you know, sometimes we can do that with our siblings, with our family members, with our children. We can spend a lot of time wishing that it would have been different. And wishing they would have listened. You know one thing I've learned You can anoint your children. You can instruct your children. You can raise your children. But you can't raise Christians. We give birth to natural kids and we can raise them. Well, not me, but women do, right? But God has to give birth to the spiritual. And God has to be the driver of the spiritual. No matter what we can do, we can never get into our children's heart. Only God can get there. And we have to remember that. When the disasters happen and the things go wrong, we have to pray. I was reading this book about prayer, and this man had an autistic child, and the child would get up at night and he would pace the floor back and forth. And it was on the floor above them and it would be stomping. He's trying to work things out, pacing. And the father would get up in the middle of the night and do what any sane father would do and scream at his child and say, go back to bed. It's time to sleep, right? And he said, one time he got up and his wife said, why are you getting up? Are you going to go yell at the child? And he said, no, yelling hasn't worked for 20 years. I'm going to try something different. And he said, I went up there. And I put my hand on her, and I began to pray. And he said, I started asking God for his intervention for something that I couldn't do for 20 years. He said she fell asleep. But the pacing continued, and he continued to pray. And God, through different circumstances, had them move. And when they went to the new house, the pacing immediately stopped. And you know what the problem was? Autistic children are very susceptible to noise, and there was a factory that had diesel engines closed that kept waking her up at night. And through prayer, God did something that He could never do. We have to remember that. We can't devote all this time to the past. We have to go forward and go with God. What has God rejected and removed and pruned out of your life? When you're in turmoil, how much time will you devote to that? Here's the principle. It is not spiritual to mourn for Saul, and it doesn't do any good. Feeling bad is not spiritual. This will help you if you get it. Feeling bad is not spiritual, and it accomplishes no eternal purpose. It's not wrong, but it doesn't make... You know what people will do? They will lose someone, and they will keep themselves in a place of perpetual grief. And they'll never move along, and they'll never go forward, and they'll keep themselves in that place of grief, and it doesn't do them any good. Godly sorrow worketh repentance, but sorrow for the sake of sorrow is not good. What is the purpose of it? Saul could take comfort in the fact, Samuel could take comfort in the fact that God said anoint him, and God also said to reject him. What else do we do when we're in the spin cycle? We prepare for the future. Look at verse 1 again. He said, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Now watch it. Fill thy horn with oil, and go I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided me a king among his sons. Now, I want you to think about this. Samuel anointed Saul and he anointed him with a vial, and now he's anointed David and he's anointing him with a horn. The difference is this, a vial is what man makes, a horn is what God makes. Saul was the king that man chose, and David was the king that God chose. And so, you think about the first man was Adam, he was earthy, and the second man was the Lord from heaven, Jesus Christ. The ram was caught in the thicket by the horns, and they put horns on the altar. It was a picture of the power of God, the provision of God, and the promises of God. And he said, fill that horn with oil, and oil is what God made. Oil is, what I meant to say is, oil is a type of the Holy Spirit. And the New Testament verse is this, if you look there, Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 17. How do you prepare for the future? You have to fill your horn with oil. Well, how do you do that? Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 17. And here's the New Testament equivalent for us. He says, Wherefore, be not unwise, understanding what the will of the Lord is, And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess. But here's the thing. But what? Be filled with the Spirit. And how do you do that? Look at the next verse. Speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Now, when you are born again and you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit of God, but what it means to be filled with the Spirit of God is you let God have all of you there is to have, and you speak to yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and that fills you with the Spirit. The Bible says in Acts chapter 4, when they prayed, they were filled with the Spirit. You know what you should do instead of crying about what you can't change? You need to prepare for what God's doing in your life. You need to prepare for the future. Samuel had spent all his oil on Saul. Saul was an oil vampire. You know what we call people like that? Energy vampires. You ever dealt with people like that? And you're done, you're spent, you want to nurse your wounds. But you know what we need to be doing? We need to be getting a hold of God and finding out what's next. Being filled with the Spirit. God wants us to know, He said, I have provided Me a King. God already has a provision for our problem. He's already taken it into consideration. You want to fill your horn with oil and be prepared to meet David. You prepare for the future king. He said you're not ready for David. You have to fill your horn with oil. Here's a real life illustration how I can bring this into the principle. My first wife passed away. And I had three children. And I was in this place of grief. And I said this, eventually, I don't know if God has a wife for me in the future. And I don't know if God has a mother for these children in the future. It's evident that we both have a need. But I don't know what, like Samuel, I don't know what the provision is for that need. But you know what I need to do? I need to prepare. So we began to pray and we said, God, we don't know if there's someone that you have, but we do pray, Father, if that person comes along, we would be a blessing. It would be a good fit. And we began to pray that way and prepare that way. Furthermore, I went to the gym and I started eating right and losing weight. That all immediately stopped as soon as I met Michelle. But what was I doing? I was trying to prepare. for what God may have for me in the future. Let me ask you this. Are you ready for David? Are you ready for what God has for you in the future? Is your horn full of oil? Are you filled with oil? Listen, God has made the provision. He's provided the king. He has the answer. What's your turmoil? What's your problem? What are you mourning about? Whatever that is, God has the answer for that. And you need to prepare and get ready for when God provides that answer and you and that answer come together. Number three, what do we do? We depend on divine guidance. Look at verse two. And Samuel said, how can I go? If Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer with thee. Sam, come to the sacrifice of the Lord. And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou shalt do. So if you don't know the way forward, Samuel didn't. He didn't know how God was going to work this myth out. Have you ever been there? You don't know the way forward? You know what you need to do? You need to ask God. How? How? I don't know how. How? We need to learn to become children again. We need to learn to depend on God. We need to get our direction from Him and our instruction from Him. And if you don't know how, just ask Him and acknowledge your obstacles. Acknowledge your fears. Identify them and tell them to the Lord. You know what He said? This is treason. This is crazy. Look, we have this egomanic... whatever that word is, right? this maniacal, this evil king, and he's sitting on the throne, he doesn't care about God, and he would not hesitate to kill a prophet. I mean, we know that from the life of Saul. And he said, if I do this, and I anoint a future king while there's a king sitting on the throne, that's treason, and he will absolutely take me out. How can I do this? And you know what God did? He showed him a way forward when he could see no way forward himself. You know what God will do? He will guide you forward, and He will make a way when there is no way. And you know what His information was that He gave to them? He said, take a heifer with thee and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord. You know what He said? He said, you need to leave some information out when this comes to Saul. You know, there's times in the Bible where people were supposed to practice civil disobedience. The midwives lied to Pharaoh about what they did, and God used that. Now, this does not mean that you can do whatever you want to do, and you have a blanket statement to be a rebel. But this does mean that there are instances where we obey God rather than man, and He said, I want you to leave that information out, and I want you to go, and here's the way around it. You need to take a heifer with you. You need to go sacrifice to the Lord. What is the heifer? It's the Lord's provision. It's the sacrifice. Listen, did He give life to the heifer and give blood to the heifer? No, that was God's blood and God's life and God's provision. And when you don't know how to go forward, you know what you need to do? You need to take the Lord with you. You need to take a heifer with you. You need to take the Lord Jesus Christ with you, and you need to depend on Him. If God before us, who can be against us? The Lord is the path forward. Stay close to Jesus when it gets scary. If you have the Lord, what do you have to fear? Psalm 118.6, the Lord is on my side, I will not fear. What can man do unto me? What can Saul do if you have a heifer with you? You're of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than He is in the world. You know what you need to do? Depend on divine guidance. You need to get spiritual. You need to be devoted to God. There are people in your life like Saul. Here's what God knew. Hey Samuel, what are you going to do? Well, I have this heifer, and I'm going to go to Bethlehem, And I'm going to sacrifice to the Lord. You want to come? I don't really want to be a part of that. Go ahead. I'm going to call Jesse and we're all going to get together. You sure you don't want to come? No! Go ahead. You know, when you get close to God, a lot of times the people that are causing you problems, they're going to stop causing you problems. I don't know if this is a proper way to say it, but they can't hang. You start a prayer meeting and they're like, yeah, I gotta go. Right? You have a sacrifice, you gotta go. Listen, yes, come on over. We're having a Bible study. Yeah. I would love to talk to you. Let's talk about the Lord. I'm going to start asking you these questions about what God's doing in your life, and I'm going to tell them about what God's doing in my life. And all of a sudden, the person that's going to kill you and destroy you wants no way, nothing to do with you. Remember when God has the children of Israel there on the brink of the Red Sea? He opens the water and he says, go in there with the Lord and with the cloud. Pharaoh's army couldn't hack it. They went in there, and then they started taking the wheels off their chariots, and then the thing that saved them destroyed them. Listen, when you're dealing with carnal people, get close to the Lord, and the heifer, the thing that saves you, will destroy them and stop them messing with your life. Depend on divine guidance. Go forward with God. And he said in verse 3, call Jesse to the sacrifice and I will shew thee what thou shalt do. You don't have to have all the information, just go ahead with God and He'll show you the rest in the pathway of obedience. If you are, the answer for your turmoil, the answer for your problem, it's on the path of obedience. It's with the people of God. down in Bethlehem. It's with the sacrifice. It's with the heifer. It's not in the place of mourning. If you are waiting on the picture of the king so you know what he looks like when you get there to get moving, you'll never find him. You need direction. You don't need the details. He'll give you the details later. I love operating this way. I love it. I know some of you don't, but I do. Amen? Let's go. Where are we going to go? Well, let's just go visit somewhere. Let's go somewhere. Where are we going? I don't know. But we'll figure it. What do I need to pack? You can pack along the way, honey. That's how I do. Before I met my wife, I would get a laundry basket or a Walmart bag, and I'd throw in there some possible things I need and bring my credit card, and there's a CVS or a Walmart somewhere. I don't even need to pack. Do it along the way. And you know what? That's not how all life is operated. But God says, go that way. And I'll give you the instructions along the way. And if he wants you to take something, he'll tell you. You go at his command. A lot of people never leave because they can't see around the corner. I tell people that are looking for a wife or a spouse, I say, if God has a spouse for you, is she alive? And they're like, yes. So she's somewhere on earth and you just haven't found her. They say, that's correct. I say, well, what do you need to do? They say, well, as a husband, I need to have a job and provide, and I need to have a place so we can live, and I need to be ready spiritually. I say, okay, go build the nest. Go get everything ready. Prepare thy work in the field, and afterwards build thy house." And I said, continue to start praying for them. Lord, I pray for my wife. I know she's alive somewhere. I don't know where she's at, but I know that she needs your protection. She needs your guidance. God, she needs you to minister to her, because I'm a lot to handle, and she needs to have these tools when she meets me. God, please protect her, and you start praying for these things, and getting ready, and when you get it ready, God's going to say, boom, you have your horn ready with oil, here it is. Because you were depending on His guidance. For all the problems you're facing, are you depending on you figuring it out? And your wisdom to get it out of the spent cycle, or on His? In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy path. Okay. Number next. This is a good one if you're a woman. Or a man. Or whatever you identify as. Let go of your expectations. Verse 6. And it came to pass when they were come, He looked on Eliab and said, surely the Lord's anointed is before him. You know, he had an expectation of what the answer would look like, and he was wrong. He was wrong. Surely the Lord's anointed is before him, but he wasn't. He said, verse 7, The Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance or the height of his statue, because I have refused him. For the Lord seeth not as man seeth. For man looketh on the outward appearance, but God, but the Lord looketh on the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him to pass by. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this. And Shammah. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this. And seven of his sons. And he said, The Lord has not chosen these. Are here all thy children? Well, there's one more. He keeps the sheep, and he said, go get him. And he came in, and the Lord says in verse 12, Arise, anoint him, for it is he. And he took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren, verse 13. And the Spirit of the Lord came on David from that day forward. So he rose and went to Ramah. Don't go by your own wisdom as to what the answer is. Wait to hear from God and don't get ahead of God. It's not your kingdom, it's God's kingdom. Don't put the king in that you want and you think. Make sure it's God's king. He had an expectation of what the answer would look like. A progenitor, the firstborn. Because that's how men do things. But that's not how God does things. He said, Abraham, he chose Isaac. He wasn't the firstborn. He chose Jacob. Judah and David, the baby of the family. He had an expectation. He's tall. He has the face of a leader. But he said, don't look at his countenance or the height of his statue, because I've rejected him. Why did God reject him? Because he had a bad heart. His answer has the right heart. God sees what we cannot see, and that's why we need to let go of our expectations. Here's one thing that'll help. The answer is not what you think it is. It's not. The answer doesn't look how you think it looks. Whatever you're thinking right now, it's wrong. It is. God's gonna do it this, it's not that way. It's like that illustration I told earlier. It wasn't, God answered the prayer not by having her sleep there, but when they moved. He never would have expected that, right? God's answer to your prayer is not what you think it is, but I can tell you this, it's better than you think it is. It's not what you think it is, it's better. You just got to let go of those expectations. It's also not the first thing you see. You know that? Well, maybe it's Him. And maybe the answer is not in front of you. It's not these six, it's the seventh that's out in the field. Maybe the answer is, it's not right before you. And He calls all the seven of the sons in 1 Chronicles 2, 13-15. You don't have to go there if you write it down. It gives you the names of the other kids, and they were Shema, Nathanael, Radi, and Ozem. Aren't you glad it wasn't Ozem? Ozem was a man after God's own heart. And then everyone would be named Ozem instead of David. It's not always the options. And you know why God does that? Because God shows you what it is not before he shows you what it is. How many of you have experienced that? God says, this is not it, but this is what it is. It's not what you expect. And he said, he came and he said, arise, anoint him. When it's the right answer, it will be confirmed by God. God will say, that's it. That's it. And it will be evident to man it was in front of all his brethren and everyone else knew it too. And you know what else it could do? It'll come from the right place. He came from Bethlehem, isn't that where Jesus came from? Was born. And it will be beautiful. It says that, doesn't it? He was beautiful. Now I don't feel comfortable calling another man beautiful. Okay? But I do feel comfortable saying that. God's answer to your problem is beautiful if you let go of your expectations. And then the last thing, and this won't take long, is you need to watch the past prepare the future. You need to watch the past prepare the future. Verse 13, And Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. The Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward, so he arose and went to Ramah. He did what God told him to do and he went home. But the Spirit of the Lord, verse 14, departed from Saul, and the evil spirit troubled him." And then they're like, well, we need to have a man come and help with this. God is done with Saul, is He not? Saul is the past. God's departed from him, and now He's left to the winds of His stormy moods, and this evil spirit takes over. Now, in the Bible, evil in the Old Testament doesn't always mean demonic. An evil beast hath devoured him. God repented of the evil that he thought to do against them and did it not. And spirit doesn't always mean demon or the Holy Spirit either. It says in the Bible, in Isaiah, it says that, Isaiah 61, that you put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. And so what happens is the spirit of God's gone from Saul, and he starts having these foul moods, right? And the servant said, you know what you need, Saul? You need some easy listening music. That'll make you feel better. Music, it's therapeutic. They got this new instrument called the harp, and I know just the guy that knows how to play it. Really? You know someone that plays? Oh, yes. Yeah, I know. You know, his name's David. Now, what are the chances of that? That's God, right? And so David comes in there, and he begins to play the harp, and then the bad mood goes away, and he's doing that. But what is God doing? Remember Samuel, he's like, he's going to kill me. Imagine how you would feel if you were David and Jesse. Hey, Saul wants you at the palace. You know, sometimes the past coming into the present seems scary, doesn't it? Isn't it scary when things from your past Meet the future? David's the future. The past and the future are about to meet each other. I remember when I met my wife. Everyone should have this talk. If you don't, maybe it's why you're going to have problems or have problems. But I met her and I said this, and I have problems too, I didn't mean to say that, but I said this. I said, I need to tell you about all the bad things they've ever done in my life. Because you need to know who you're getting in a relationship with because you probably won't want to have a relationship with me after I tell you all these things. That was scary. Has anyone ever been there? But you know what that did? That prepared the future, and it created trust, and it created intimacy, and it created a wonderful stepping stone for the future. It created acceptance because she knew who she was getting in a relationship with. And David's the future, but the future's not going to be on the throne for 20 years. You know what God did? He said, David, come here. And he had Saul. He got to know what the kingdom was like. He got to know how things ran. And you know what did? The past prepared the future. Now, doesn't the Bible say in Romans 8, 28, all things work together for good to them that love God? to them that called according to his purpose. I remember when we were in Bible school, the old preacher man would get up and he would preach a chalk talk. And we would sit there. Remember Brother Cruz? And we would just like, man, it was so good. And sometimes he would make this big mistake. He'd put this line across it or something. I'm like, oh, that's done. That's ruined. What's he going to do now? But they say the mark of a good artist is not that he doesn't make mistakes, it's that he paints them into the picture. And when you're done, you step back and you'd be like, man, I never even knew there was a mistake there in the first place. Now, God doesn't make mistakes, but we do. And if we will just allow Him to keep painting in our lives and keep trusting, He'll take those horrible mistakes and He'll paint them into the picture and the future will be beautiful. Now, our ultimate future is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He's going to help us with that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back. So, when I'm in the spin cycle, if you can come to the piano, Miss Janie, this helps me when I'm in the spin cycle. He can still use this mistake, even if I make it, if I yield to Him. Will you allow God to take your ugly past and use it to prepare and shape the future? What do you do when you're down, when you're in the spend cycle? What do you do when things didn't work out like you thought they would? Well, you consider how much time you devote to the past. You prepare for the future. You depend on divine guidance. You let go of your expectations and you allow the past to shape the future. Let's pray. Lord, thank You so much, Father, for Your Word. Thank You, Father, for the lessons that You give us for when things are going rough and when they're going wrong, Lord. And I want to thank You, Father, for this wonderful story about how You work. And Lord, I'm sure that there's some people, not all, but there's some people in here today, and the future looks bleak, They're in turmoil and they're in mourning. And God, I just pray that these principles would be a blessing to them, Father, and help them. And I pray all this in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Please stand. Turn to page number 277.