If you'll turn with me to 1 Samuel 27. I only want to read verse 1 to begin with. And then a couple of other places I want you to look with me. And I want to speak to you, Lord willing, Lord helping, on the height, no, no, no, the depth and heights of faith. Not always riding high, it fluctuates. Would you pray with me? Our Father, it is such a tremendous work within each of your children's hearts when they can say, Thee, Lord, is my Lord. And Thee, God, is my God. We always, in reflecting upon our position, we always run immediately to the person of Christ, who he is, what he did, and what he shall continue to do until the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more. Father, we ask for your help, mentally, physically, spiritually. We ask you for thy spirit. You taught us to. If we being evil know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more shall the Father give you of his spirit? We need him to guide We need him to grant wisdom in speaking, to grant hearing ears, and that you might be pleased, our Lord, to call us unto thyself afresh and anew today. Make real to us thy presence. Glorify your son, edify your children. Lord, provide that which we cannot of ourselves provide. In Christ's name we pray, amen. 1 Samuel 27 verse 1, and David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day. I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines, and Saul shall despair of me to sink me any more in any coast of Israel. So shall I escape out of his hands. Missing today, for the most part, I guess missing today always in religious circles is practical, experiential Christianity. Salvation has been taken from the hands of our sovereign Lord, and it's been placed into the hands of mortal beings. We become our own Lord, We become our own master of our fate. We become the director of our life. The reality of a living savior has disappeared, as did vital union. I am the vine. Ye are the branches. You can't get any closer than that. I am the bridegroom, ye are the bride. A holy union ordained of our Lord, sure to propagate life until the last one has been born. in the flesh and the last one has been born in the spirit. And whatever work God will do with that last one, then it's over and we go to be with him. Vital union, we've lost it. A personal relationship. My Lord and me. Everybody today is approached in evangelism on the basis of every man, woman, boy, and girl possessing faith. That's not true. Or that all men have not faith. But along with the message that is declared today, they say you are converted, you are born again, if and when you decide to accept Jesus. Faith is little more than, as they declare it, is little more than a mental attitude, a perception in our head. And man is approached today as to being saved by the exertion of his own ability and power. And so since faith is this mental ability to believe life is fine as long as I have a positive attitude, And I start going downhill when I lose that positive attitude and begin to be more negative. When I get down, this is a thinking, all I have to do is just call faith back into action and I'll be back up again. I'll remind you now and probably again later, it's not your faith. It is the faith of Christ. And people that are always on that path that knows nothing of ups or downs, getting to the bottom, and faith, no realization in your heart of faith being anywhere. But those that know nothing of the ups or downs in the life of a child of God, living in faith by faith, if they don't, they're either a very young Christian or they're unconverted altogether. Preachers today would answer a 911 call. Sir, this is Jonah. And I'm at the depths of the ocean. Seaweeds have wrapped all around me. It's almost as if I can feel my flesh deteriorating. I am in the belly of this great fish and enclosed in iron bars. His ribs have become my sail." And we answering that, we would say, well, Jonah, you just need to believe. and God will raise you out of that. Well, Jonah, you exercise faith. You believe that God will do as he's promised, and you'll get out. Jonah did exercise faith, and he did know that he would come up from there and worship again in the house of God. words and a positive attitude does not and cannot bring faith forth from such depths. It did rise to great heights in Jonah. yet thou hast brought my life up from corruption. Only God could do that. You're very familiar with Hebrews 12, you need not turn. 12.2, looking unto Jesus, the author, bringing something into existence that was not there. the author and finisher of our faith. You have the ability to exercise faith only as God works that in you, and you're looking to the author. Knowing that a man is not justified by works, Galatians 2, but by the faith, the faith of Jesus Christ. If he is the author of faith, then before you ever begin seeking God or had a need to do so, Christ had worked in your heart that which was not there previously. Now, because of the faith of the Lord Jesus, we can with boldness and with confidence have access. Galatians, no, that's Ephesians, have access by the faith of him. Now it being the faith of Jesus Christ, it can only be made active so as to lay hold of God and of any and all promises by His Spirit. It is the gift of God. He must enable you to believe that God is, that God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. So those that say all you have to do to get out of the doldrums of life is just believe, they think faith is no more than a mental attitude. And if you get your thinking correct, you will be brought up from the depths of depression, anxiety, or whatever. Faith being from its author, the Lord Jesus, and it being His faith within us, it can only be made lively, it can only be made active by the Spirit of Christ. You cannot find one in Scripture where much is written about in which you don't find them down and out at times. At the bottom, like David was here, I perish. But David, didn't Samuel anoint you to be king of Israel? He did, but there's no way that that can possibly be today. I'm at the end of my rope now, and I'm gonna leave Israel and go over there to Achish. Abraham, the father of faith. Sarah, would you tell the men of this place that you're my sister? If you don't, they might kill me. Don't you think that's faith way down low? Don't you think it's faith when Abraham took his only begotten son, the son in whom God said, in Isaac shall thy seed be called? Don't you think faith was at its height when he laid him on that altar? and took a knife to cut his throat, intended fully on him being a burnt sacrifice, and God from ashes, raise up that son that he loved. Don't you think that was faith at its height? but low on several occasions when he would tell Sarah, tell them you're my sister. Joseph, in his actions of all that is recorded in scripture, you can't find a fault, a sin, but you can find faith low in Joseph. Psalm 105, and the word of the Lord tried him. He couldn't even believe the scripture of what God had told him in those dreams. His brothers would bow to him, his mother and father. He couldn't believe that. The word of the Lord tried him until his word came. The disciples, hiding for fear. And yet that one that denied Christ, lied, told him he wasn't one, stood on the day of Pentecost preaching to thousands there and saying, ye men by wicked hands have crucified the Lord of glory. Don't you think that that was faith? Great faith that he did not have when he was asked there, aren't you one of his? His speech sounds like one of the disciples. So Peter thought, I better change my speech, and he cursed. Now they'll know that I'm not one of his. Paul, the greatest, and we'll look at that later, the greatest of all the apostles, greatest man in all the New Testament, in that storm, he said all hope was gone. that we should be saved. Turn back with me to 1 Samuel 17. But before I read four verses in this chapter, I want to tell you about Martin Luther. so brave that he would stand up against all authority coming from the Catholic Church. And folks, they were mean in the 1500s when Mary, Bloody Mary, ascended the throne. Man after man was burned to death because they would not acknowledge that in the wine and in the bread, that that actually turned into the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. They could not say that, and they were burned. Latimer, Hooper, and on and on. But Martin Luther being a man of great faith. One of his companions said, don't go down there. They're just waiting to judge. And he said, though every towel on every roof was a demon, a devil, I do not fear them." That man with such great faith became so depressed that his friends talked him into going away, just hoping a change of the air would bring him out of that depression. But he came home as miserable as before. And one day his wife and all of her children, their children, came in the room where he was and all of them was dressed in black. And Martin Luther said, where are you going? I'm going to a funeral. Oh, who's dead? God is dead. Haven't you heard, doctor? God is dead. My husband would never be, would never be in such a state of mind if he had a living God to trust. And Luther said, Kate, thou art a most wise woman. I have been acting as if God was dead. Faith reaches great heights, but it can reach great depths. Now 1 Samuel 17, 34. Now this is the one that I read to you from 1 Samuel 27, where he said, I'll perish one day by the hand of Saul. But look at him here. 1 Samuel 17, 34. And David said unto Saul, thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock. And I went out after him and smote him and delivered it out of his mouth. And when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and smote him and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God." That's a little lad. That's the youngest of the boys in his father's house. He's too young to go fight, and so they always gave the youngest one the duty of looking after the sheep. But Jesse sent him down there to check on his brothers. And he saw that giant, he heard that giant, and he saw the men of Israel, and Saul, cowering down under just the voice of that old giant out there. But he slew him by faith. Faith and David there facing the lion, facing the bear, then facing the great giant was at its height. But I read to you, where it was at its depth. He could no longer believe God. Maybe Samuel just made a mistake and did not have the right man when he anointed me king. That's faith, lo, lo. You will go through times I won't say depression, but you might go through times of depression, some in great depression, and you can do little about it. The religious folk would come along and say, well, just believe God, pull yourself out, go over there in that country and get a few breaths of that fresh air. You'll come back out of your depression. Just believe God and He'll pull you out of the dark place you're in. Children, it's Christ faith. It's not always at your disposal and never in your hands to make active when you think you most need it. For by grace, Ephesians 2, 8, are we saved through faith that none of us say it. It is the gift of God. Now faith being the gift of God is communicated when and to what degree God would have it in his children. And if God leaves a man alone, that man will begin that downward plight where he could end up in great depression. Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He, in anger, shut up His tender mercies? I was almost in the midst of all evil. I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation. Where do the mercies of God go? His graciousness, His kindness. Why today can I not see God as that one high and lifted up? Why today am I living as if there is no God? Because to me He's not there. That's Christ's faith. That's faith made real, God made real through Christ's faith by the Spirit working in your heart. Without true faith, natural man, religious man, he thinks, well, if I just keep a right attitude. And he lives only with dead facts. God is gracious, God is full of tender mercies, the eternal kindness of God. Dear ones, he, she that has never lived in the sunlight of God, being gracious and full of tender mercies, do not know what it is for God to withhold those from you. I want to look at some of the natural causes as to faith being diminished or at such a low ebb, sometimes in the believer's heart. What's that giant to God? Well, I put on my armor. Okay, but he put it off. Crossing the stream down there, he picked up five little smooth stones. I don't know what the four were for. He knew that man on that mountain over there is a dead man. That same man said, I'll perish one day, naturally thinking, what were some of the causes that brought David so low? The longevity or the length of the trial, and day after day, It continued to wear. No relief, none whatsoever. You go to sleep that night hoping that tomorrow God will once again be real to you and the darkness will be gone and you'll be walking back in the sunlight of God's great tender mercies. But the next day is the same. And the night's the same and on and on. You're under that heavy trowel, walking in that darkness. And the longer it lasts, the weaker you become. You've got this heavy load on your back, burdened heart, and you can't find relief, you can't find God, anywhere near to take that weight off your back, relieve you of that burden in your soul. Every day you keep hoping this will be the day I once again will hear the Lord speak, but he doesn't. For years, David run around Saul on one side of the mountain, David on the other. Just a step, he said, between me and death, what he told Jonathan. And so the length of the trial continues to wear on you until you get so low you can't even lift up your head to look towards God. And folks, those in religion know nothing of what I've just said because they know nothing of practical experience of walking with a living God. They don't know ups and downs. I'll say in their spiritual condition, but they don't have a spiritual condition. Just think back to God and God's deliverance. Luther, think back to the brave man that you were going down there to the Diet of Worms. Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Remember the times when God was so gracious to you in helping you preach, bring souls into the kingdom of God. Remember that. But it didn't get him out. Sometimes the physical pain in his body was such that he'd leave for months on end to try to get in a warmer climate. Oh, Charles Spurgeon, just begin to think positively. You'll get out of that. No, he won't. It's impossible. He had the faith of Christ within. And it's not always ours to call into our service in the Lord. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God. Why, the psalmist said, all you need do is hope in God. Now, folk, because our God is the living God, and he will put you in difficult straits. You have no idea what brought it. You might begin looking within, thinking, well, sin, sin's the cause of my faith being so weak. Might be, might not be. I Peter 1, 7, that the trial of your faith, your faith, If God grants it, if God puts it within your heart, God's going to try it. That the trial of your faith being more precious than of gold that perishes. See the one thing about the faith of Christ in you, it can't perish. You might think it's low. You can't believe God for anything. All God's doing is separating the wheat from the chaff, the good grain from the bad grain. See, mixed with our Our faith, Paul called it his. He called the gospel his gospel. We know it was the gospel of the Lord Jesus. But when Christ gives me something, it becomes mine. But I've got emotions. I've got sentiment in my head. Sometimes I don't know if it's me thinking, God will, or if it is the Spirit of God. And God, over time, He'll burn away your natural thinking that is mixed in with the faith of Christ, and He'll leave you with that faith coming out of the trial. Your mental disposition in your early years as a Christian Sometimes you can't distinguish between that and true faith. But you will be able one day. David, for years, saw no bright days ahead of him. In front of him, there was nothing that would give him any hope that tomorrow would be better. Everywhere he goes, as just a step between him and death. That's just on a few days. If you have dark days, but the next day you get up and the sun's shining, I'm speaking in spiritual terms now, it's okay. But day upon day, No hope in sight. Darkness is about you. The heavy trial continues, and it grows weightier. That's David in 1 Samuel 27. He got to the point where he said, Saul's going to get me today. I'm tired. I'm worn out. You will go through some difficult times, but God usually makes them rather short compared to David, compared to Martin Luther, compared to Spurgeon. But if you go day upon day, year upon year, the longevity of the trial will continue to put you down, down, down. You doubt if there is a God. In those dark, cloudy, stormy days, you'll wait patiently knowing that God will bring you out and the sun will shine tomorrow. But it didn't. And you go through another day, the weight's there. The doubt grows more and more. And you think tomorrow God will, but God didn't. So the longer you are in something, the weightier it becomes. I told you about one of the tortures that they would bring upon men. They would stake him flat on the ground with his head upward and a large barrel of water over him and they had punctured a small hole. And that drop of water would hit between his eyes. Not bad at first, it's just a little drop of water. But it continued and continued until the man would be driven completely crazy. Because that drop of water had become so weighty, it felt like a ton hitting him. The longevity, the length of the trial would get the best of God's children. Now turn with me to Acts 27. In verse number 16, the ship that Paul is in, was caught in a wind and running upon a certain island, which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat. So verse 17, they undergirt and they strike sail and let it sail where it will. Afraid they might strike land. Verse 18, and we being exceedingly tossed with the tempest, the next day they lighten the ship. And the third day we cast out our own hands the tackling of the ship. The length, now listen, and when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, that ship riding high on a wave and then sinking into the depths as it was between giant waves, no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. That's the man that was stoned, left outside the city gates for being dead. But that same man got up and walked back into the city, proclaiming the same gospel for which they stoned him. That's faith in a high place. But day upon day, the storm's so great, we don't know when the ship might turn over. We don't know when it might run into an island and all of us be destroyed. We don't know. We've got no guidance there. We can't look into the sky in the daytime and find out the direction we're sailing by looking at the sun. We can't even plot our course by looking at the stars in the night. Darkness is all about us. Well, a religious man, a religious preacher would come along and say, well, Paul, all you've got to do is just believe God. You can't believe. at the snap of your finger or when you want to. No, it's Christ's faith in you. Paul many days without a guiding light. David many days running for fear of his very life. Paul and the men exceedingly tossed. Had it been only a day or two and the sun appeared then they would have hope again. But the length of the trial wears on you the weight of the trial. What if it's a matter of life and death to you? Or them getting David's family? We'll capture them, we'll put them to death. What if all that's on you? You're going to go down, dear ones, being exceedingly tossed day after day, night after night, and you don't even know the difference between day and night. of the storm, the severity of the storm, the weight of the storm, or even the great apostle down, sitting in that ship, maybe tossed to the floor, picking himself up, no hope that they'd survive this. Paul, God said you would testify at Jerusalem for him. No hope, no hope of getting out of this. And then there could be many. You probably could tell me many things in our natural life, but I'll give you one more. David's isolation. David's desolation, being alone. You think, well, he had men with him all the time. He did, but David's the captain. First Samuel 22, men came to David out of a need for life, sustaining of life. David, though, was alone when he traveled from place to place, this side of the mountain, that side of the mountain, down to Keilah, walking away. He had men, but they couldn't be, and they couldn't get where David was. They couldn't relate. David bore the weight of those men with him, losing their lives. As captain, he's at the forefront to take the first arrow. Now, he's got some good men with him, and he's got some wicked men that you'll see in 1 Samuel 30. Sons of Belial, he said. but he's got nobody that he can truly confide in. Even the best of his men, David, in the cave and asleep in a valley, even his best men said, David, God's delivered your enemy into your hands. Let me go over there. I'll strike him one time, one blow. You don't have to worry. But David had discernment there. No, his time will come. He'll go out to war and be slain, or this might happen. That's David. But now he's got nobody. They couldn't understand why. David wouldn't let them kill Saul. He's your enemy. He's keeping you from the throne. God anointed you king. Let me kill him. No, they didn't understand when David said that's God's anointed. But David, he's a wicked king. No, he's still God's anointed. You don't touch him. So he had nobody that he could truly confide with, even his best man. His wives, his two wives, they weren't with him. His companions, his helpmates, they're not there. David's alone. He had no one. David, there's no way you are a Christian to fall to such depths. But he couldn't go to anybody just to talk with someone that by similar circumstances knows where you are. If they don't know where you are, they'll say, well, I'll be praying for you. I hope you soon get over this. I hope God brings you out of that. But they don't know where you are. Son seems to always be smiling upon them. But if you find somebody in like circumstances, then you can talk to that person because they know where you're coming from and they know where your trouble is. Why do you think our Lord sent disciples out two by two? One down, the other can be up. Solomon said, two in the bed, one cold. He can get heat from the one that's warm. He knew the wealth of a companion. David didn't have his companions. David was separate from his men. Captain can't confide. too much in the soldier. And so David's isolation, David's separation from everybody, brought him to that low, low point. I perished one day. He had seen good deeds that he had performed to other people, be in vain. And the Lord said, David, go down there and deliver the inhabitants of Keilah. Deliver them. Philistines are coming upon them. His men said, David, we can't go down there. We're on the run. We can't get out in the open like that. He said, Lord, shall I go? God said, David, go. Deliver Keilah. And David and his men went down there, and they saved that city and the inhabitants there. It's all heard. Oh, we got him in the city now. We'll put cords around it and draw it in until we get him." David said, Lord, will the people of Key Island deliver me up? Surely not, after I did such good deeds for them, saved their life. God said, they will deliver you up. Imagine you doing good, and people or persons benefit, but they'll turn on you. Because faith had given way, not upholding David, he says, we'll just go down there out of Israel to Achish of Gath, and Saul won't hunt me there. He dwelt there a year and four months until Achish sent him away. Faith alone, though it is within you, It cannot benefit you until he who implanted it makes it real and active. And faith alone in the strongest of believers. We'll see that strong man or woman hit bottom in life. Many, many today say that the Word of God, declared correctly, properly outlined, and put in illustrations, the Word preached will convict sinners and edify believers. There's nothing further from the truth. I could preach the truth all day long, and until God makes it effectual in your heart, you don't get it. You don't understand. I could have that perfect outline, follow it, and you'd leave empty. Then again, I could come in and stumble through a message, but God opened your heart. You got over the stumbling, bumbling preacher, and you were refreshed in your soul by that. The Word preached has got to have the Spirit in preaching and in hearing. And faith within has got to have the Spirit of God laying hold of God and what God has said. You want to see faith very active. Go to Hebrews 11. By faith, Abraham offered up the one that his seed would be called, Moses, sitting on the throne down in Egypt, Moses, esteeming the reproach of Christ far greater riches than what he had, the treasures of Egypt. Paul said time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Sapson, Samuel, and David, who through faith subdued kingdoms, stopped the miles of line, saw their dead raised again, endeared cruel markings, imprisoned, stoned to death, sewn asunder, yet they were strong in dying. I said, I don't have enough time, don't have enough paper to write down all the men and women of the Old Testament that we see faith in its height. I'm going to close there. I don't know, because I've been there before, I don't know if I will go back next Lord's Day, but that same man When they get to Kiala, not Kiala, when they get to Gath down there, and the city's burned to ashes. And all the men's wives and children have been taken. They're so mad they gotta have somebody. to take their anger out on, so his men all spoke of stoning him. Now, here's what's amazing. In 27, in the depths of distress and despair, I said in 1 Samuel 27, in 1 Samuel 30, that same man, his men talking about killing him, his two wives taken, and all the men's wives taken. And here's that amazing verse in 1 Samuel 30, and David encouraged himself in the Lord. What is the difference in 1 Samuel 27 when he's in despair and 1 Samuel 30 when he's on that mountain encouraging himself in the Lord? We know the difference. It was the Spirit of God. How long, how heavy, how isolated you are the greater the weight of the trial you're in. Patiently endear as hard as it is. God will raise you up out of that and turn your darkness, midnight darkness, into the midday sun.