Welcome to the Sunday morning service at Bible Baptist Church in Hampton, Georgia, where the Bible is opened and explained, Christians are encouraged, and Christ is lifted up. Thank you for joining us, and may your hearts be blessed as God's Word is taught. And now, enjoy this message from Bible Baptist Church. Thank you, Pastor. I appreciate this opportunity. I know it's no small thing for a pastor to loan his pulpit, so I do count it an honor. an honor and a privilege. We're going to be in 1 Samuel chapter 30. Please take your Bibles and turn there. 1 Samuel chapter 30. As Pastor said, I am a graduate from Bible Baptist Christian School here. You know, we just had a graduation here and most people when they graduate they I go off to college and they don't come back, and they've still been trying to get rid of me for the last three years, and I just, I stick around. But I'm a pastoral ministries major at Pensacola Christian College, and I believe the Lord is calling me to be a youth pastor or some kind of assistant pastor, and so I do love the opportunity to be able to preach, and not just in preaching class in front of 10 other preachers at school, but actually be able to preach in church, and I do appreciate this opportunity, Pastor. 1st Samuel chapter 30. Many Bible scholars refer to 1st Samuel as the real first kings and they'll actually refer to 1st, 2nd Samuel and 1st, 2nd Kings as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th kings because this is really the start of the reign of kings in Israel. Now I've prepared a a message today that I'm going to preach to you guys, but it's not gonna be the most important message you've ever heard. In fact, the most important message you've ever heard will not be preached at Bible Baptist Church. It is not going to be presented to you by Pastor Aguirre or another pastor, another assistant pastor, your youth pastor, an evangelist. It's not gonna be presented by a missionary or maybe a special speaker at your Bible college or during Bible conference, missions conference, revival conference. The most important message that you could ever hear is not going to be preached behind a pulpit. The most important message you could ever hear is the one that you learn to preach to yourself. Let's read this passage in 1 Samuel 30, starting in verse 1. And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and Smitten-Ziklag, and burned it with fire, and had taken the women captives, and were therein. They slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way. So David and his men came to the city, and behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters were taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep. And David's two wives were taken captive." All right, so just to paint the picture here, David has not been making the best choices in life. You can read really from chapter 27 through 29. David has been in enemy territory, not as a captive, but of his own free will. David has actually sided with the enemy. He has not been making the right choices. You know, he's been on the run from King Saul and When he was on the run, the Lord protected him. He protected him in caves and in deserts where he was hiding away from Saul. But all of a sudden, 18 months prior to the passage that we're reading right now, he decides to stop trusting God. God did not do anything to make David doubt God. He did not do anything to kind of provoke David to lose faith in him. But David decides that he's going to be more protected with the enemy than with his God. So we see this, and really what happens here is he sides with the king of Gath, Achish, of Philistine, the enemy of Israel, the leader of the enemies and the armies against Israel. And so we see this, but he ends up sending him away from the battle. King Achish ends up sending David away from the battle because the princes are saying, what are you doing? Why are you allowing this Israelite to fight alongside us? He's going to trick us. He's a double agent. He's not really here to help you guys. And so the king, thinking the best of David, says, hey, I believe that you're with us, but these other princes and nobles, they don't believe it. And so why don't you take the 600 men that are under you and why don't you guys go back home? And I'm sure some of these soldiers are thinking, great, we didn't get deployed after all. These soldiers, Many days prior had just said goodbyes to their loved ones said goodbyes to their little kids said goodbyes to their wives You know and and who knows what they said, you know, I love you. Hopefully I'll see you again, but maybe not And now all of a sudden, they're not being deployed after all. The king sends David and his men back because the people that are ruling with the king of the Philistines, they don't trust David. And so he says, you know, why don't you guys just go home and I'll get back with you guys later. So these guys are thinking, great, we're gonna go back home to our loved ones. We didn't die in battle after all. I'm gonna get to see my kids. I'm gonna get to see them grow up. I'm gonna get to go back and I'm gonna get to love my wife and my family and go back to my home. And so they're coming back and I can only imagine, it says that it was three days journey from the camp of the Philistines back home to Ziklag. Ziklag, which was a city gifted to David, by the way, by the king of Gath. And so we see this, it says it's a three days journey and I can imagine they're coming back and they're excited. Maybe they're whistling a little tune because they're excited that they didn't die in battle. They're coming back home and I can only imagine, surely they weren't too far away when all of a sudden they start to see smoke. It says that the Malachites came in and they burned their houses to the ground. Surely they saw smoke in the distance and was wondering what was happening. Maybe the last part of their journey, they start to sprint, you know, hurry a little bit faster to see what's going on. And they come back and their wives and their families, their kids, they're all gone. It's only by the mercy of God that they didn't slaughter their families together. It said right here that they slew them not in verse two. That's only by the mercy of God. In this time, and even in modern day, normally when a country invades another country or a city-state, the custom is to kill everybody there. But it says that they slew him not. That's only by the mercy of God. And they come back and David realizes, my family's not here. My family's been taken captive. And now they're starting to worry and they're starting to weep. Have you ever been so distressed that you cry until you cannot cry anymore? It says right now, it says, they had nothing else to do but weep. Verse four, then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep. They cried their eyes out. Their tear ducts had run dry. That's how distressed they were. Here we see that David has lost everything because he's starting to suffer the results of his sinful choices. See what happens next, verse six, and David was greatly distressed. Oh yeah, for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters. And then this is the main part, this is the main takeaway. If you don't get anything else, learn this part of the passage. But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. In this sermon, we're going to learn that God expects every one of us to learn to preach to ourselves. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that you will speak through me. Lord, allow me to be your mouthpiece. Pray that no biases or thoughts or opinions that I've mistranslated, Lord, will seep into this sermon, Lord, but that the message that you want conveyed will be conveyed today, Lord. Lord, I pray that if there's anybody here that does not know your son is their savior, Lord, that they will get that settled before they leave this building. Lord, I pray that you would just bless the message, Lord, that it won't just be my words, but it will be your word spoken through me, Lord. I pray all these things in your name, I pray. Amen. David had nobody he could go to. He just came home. There's no counselor he can go to. There's no church service he can go to to encourage himself. His wife, both his wives, were taken captive. His children were taken too. His best friends were there, and it says that they were talking about stoning him. David had absolutely nobody. Have you ever been in a situation in your life at any point where you had nobody? Nobody. You didn't have your parents that you could go to. You didn't have your best friend at school that you could go to. You didn't have a counselor or a pastor that you trusted. Something that you were struggling with so personally and you were so greatly distressed you could not go to anybody for. Have you ever found yourself where it's you against the world? In a situation where there's nobody there to comfort you, no shoulder to cry on. It's just you against the world. That was David. He didn't have a spouse to go to. He didn't have his pastor. Where's Samuel? Samuel's dead. Samuel's the one that anointed him to be the next king. He's dead. He can't go to Samuel for comfort. He can't go to Samuel for encouragement. So what does he do? You know, we think about David, who is often referred to as the great psalmist. You know, he must have had an amazing devotional life. I mean, he wrote many of the psalms in the Bible today, and most of them are devotional thoughts that he had. Some whenever he was a shepherd, and he's just there spending time with God while he's watching over the sheep. Some of them during times where he's in great distress and he goes to the Lord. But the greatest sermon that the great Psalmist David ever preached was a sermon that David preached to David. And that is a sermon that any one of us, if you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, can preach to yourself. It says, but David encouraged himself in the Lord. Now David has been away. He's gone off to war and he's on the wrong side of this war. He has been with the enemy, the Philistines. David was the next anointed king of Israel. And he goes and he sides with not only Israel's enemies, but God's enemies, pagan worshipers that blaspheme God's very name, the God of Israel. Now David knows that he's on the most wanted list. And again, he decides, you know what? I know that the Lord's been faithful. I know that the Lord's been protecting me. I know that so far while I've been on the run, the Lord has kept me safe and I've not been delivered into Saul's hands. But you know what? I would feel a lot safer if I was in the hands of the enemy than with my God. There's so many times that even believers We're so distressed, we're so discouraged, we're so depressed that we run to things of the enemy instead of our God. And God has done nothing to make us lose faith in Him. He's done nothing to provoke this thought, this action in our lives. But human nature, we want to think logically instead of biblically. And we go to these vices that we think will comfort us. Now David is between a rock and a hard place right now because he's going to fight against his own people. All the while, the Philistine princes don't trust him. So now the people that he's going to for help don't trust him, and he's going to fight against his own people. There's literally nobody for David. At some point in the journey, surely they saw the smoke, and they're running over. And now, because David is the only one there, they're so distressed, they don't know what to do, so they're gonna stone David. How illogical is that? But because David was there, because they were a way to fight for David, you know, had they been there, they could have stopped the attack. But because they're fighting for David, they now start to blame David and they start to stone him. It says, David was greatly depressed and the people spake of stoning him. But David encouraged himself in the Lord. What do you do when nobody understands? What do you do when there's nobody there for you? What do you do when nobody is available for counsel? When there's not a pastor that you trust with this? When there's not a family member that you trust with this? When you can't even trust your spouse with this? What do you do when nobody understands? How do you learn to preach to yourself? First, I think we need to ask the question, why do we need to preach to ourselves? Why did David preach to himself? Well, first of all, David preached to himself because his choices were sinful. We see all these choices. He's been following the Lord up until 18 months ago, but 18 months ago he stopped trusting the Lord. He stopped asking the Lord for direction. He stopped asking the Lord to guide his life, to make the decisions for him, even though he's not been better off than when he's been in the hands of the Lord. But in this moment, 18 months ago, for the last 18 months, he has been letting David call the shots instead of letting the Lord call the shots. Why did David learn to preach to himself? Because his own choices were sinful. He is now starting to face the consequences of his bad choices. You know, it's not just that he made this bad choice, but he's made this choice now for the second time. Earlier in David's life, he tried to side with the Philistines again. Right? We see how that worked out for him. It didn't. And now he's going back and making the same dumb choice. You know, maybe you've done that too. I know I have, where I've made the same dumb choice twice. I've made a choice, or I got caught for it, or the Lord chastised me for it, And I face the consequence for it. Like, wow, that was a bad choice. I'll never do that again. And the next thing you know, I make the same dumb choice again. That's what David is doing here. David has made this choice again. He should have trusted God. David was safe whenever he was following God. It was when he went to Ziklag, where David's decision started to dig him in a hole. Ziklag, the city, again, that King Achish, the king of Gath, the king of the Philistine army, gave this city over to him. That was David. Maybe you're in a place right now, or maybe you've been in a place in the past. where you've been in a situation like this, where your choices are now starting to haunt you. You know that you've made a bad choice, and it is catching up to you. The results of that are haunting you. Why did David learn to preach to himself? Because his choices were sinful, but also because his burden was unbearable. When do you preach to yourself? When your burden is unbearable. These soldiers were physically helpless. It says they had nothing to do but cry. Now these aren't emotional men that cry at the drop of a hat because their cat died or because they're watching a Christmas Hallmark movie. And let me just help you out. All Christmas Hallmark movies are the exact same, okay? She's not gonna marry the guy that's rich and a city boy. No, she's gonna go and try to find herself in a small town and she's going to Fall in love with the first guy that's wearing a flannel shirt, okay? These are not overly emotional guys. These are tough military trained men. I can't imagine seeing a group of Navy SEALs just bawl their eyes out until they cannot physically cry anymore. But that is what these guys are doing. They're not overly emotional. These are tough, rugged men that have just lost everything. They've lost their families. They've lost their homes. And now they feel so helpless that all they can do is cry and cry and cry until they cannot physically cry anymore. When did David learn to preach to himself? David learned to preach himself when his sinful choices were catching up to him, but also when his burden was unbearable. Not only that, David learned to preach himself when the people around him became irrational. Verse six, and David was greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved. Have you ever been so distressed and you don't know what to do with all this built up emotion, that you take it out on the first person that speaks to you, you're so greatly distressed. Hey honey, what do you want for dinner? Nothing. You just take it out on the first person there. That's exactly what's happening here. David learned to preach to himself when everybody around him became irrational. They didn't know what to do, and so they start to blame David for something that wasn't his fault. And they were gonna try to kill him. You need to learn to encourage yourself in the Lord. Why? Because the people around you are fickle. I'm not saying don't trust your pastor. I'm not saying don't trust your spouse. I'm not saying don't trust your friends. But at the end of the day, people are people. People are gonna be people. At the end of the day, people's emotions are gonna change like the wind. You can't just put all of your trust in humanity. We're seeing that in today's world where the world is just getting more and more wicked. You know, every once in a while we see this bright glimmer of hope in our country, but then more evil just comes and surrounds that and chokes it out. We cannot just put all of our trust in humanity. Why did David learn to preach to himself? Because the people around him were becoming irrational. At the end of the day, people are gonna act like people. It is in Jesus alone that he never changes. Everyone around you will change, but it is Jesus alone that is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Put your trust in Jesus. He is not fickle. His emotions will not change. He will never let you down. When did David learn to preach to himself? When his choices were sinful. When his burden seemed unbearable. and David learned to preach to himself when the people around him were irrational. David is facing a situation here where all help is unavailable. Well, now we see why we need to encourage ourselves in the Lord, why we need to learn to preach to ourselves. But what do I say? You know, I can't just go back in my devotional journal and find, oh, there's my outline, sermon to John from John, Well, we see an outline right here. Look again at verse six. But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. Wow, what a in-depth outline. Seems kind of self-explanatory. How do I preach to myself from that? Well, let's just break it down a little bit. But David encouraged himself in the Lord. It seems like there's not a lot of meat there, right? But actually there is. We can see a couple things. You know, let's kind of go backwards. You see the subject at the end is God. So first of all, there is a God. Keep going back. The Lord, His God. Okay? So it's personal, it's possessive. The Lord, my God. Right? But then it says, but David encouraged himself in the Lord. So we can see a couple things here. There is a God. He is my God, and he already has the answers to my problem. Why do you think that that was the first thing that David went back to when all hope was lost? when everybody around him was taken captive and the platoon that he was in command of was about to kill him. He had no hope from humanity. He had no hope from the world. Why do you think he decided to turn to God? Because he knew that the Lord already had the answer, the solution to his problem. There is a God. If you are saved, He is your God. And He already has the answer to your problem. I can only imagine what David must have said to himself while he's encouraging himself. He surely had enough devotional material to go back to. We just heard the choir sing Psalm 23, maybe arguably one of the most popular psalms ever written. And it was written by David. You know, I can imagine there's two Davids here, right? There's the David being preached to and there's the David doing the preaching. There's this David over here, all hope is lost. My family's gone. These people are gonna kill me. I can't go back to Israel. Saul's gonna kill me. And then there's this David over here saying, hey, let me encourage you with something. Then there's this David saying, well, what can you do about it? Well, let's read this right here. What does it say? Shepherd. Oh, that sounds a little familiar, doesn't it? Well, it should. I wrote it. The Lord is my shepherd. And then he goes through there and says, I will fear no evil. Why? Because thou art with me. And then all of a sudden David probably starts to think about all the ways that the Lord has been with him throughout history, throughout his life. Hey David, remember that time where you were out in the field and you were guarding your father's sheep and this bear comes up and the Lord is with you and he gives you the strength to overcome a bear that is physically dominant over you. And you got the victory there. Remember the other time where this lion comes and goes to grab one of the lamb. And he goes and he grabs his mane and he ends up defeating the lion through the help of the Lord. Or David, what about that really tall guy from Gath? You remember him? That really tall guy, what was his name? Oh yeah, Goliath? What about that situation where he was physically dominant over you? It made no logical sense why you should prevail over him, but you had God on your side and God delivered the victory for you. David preached a sermon to David about what the Lord has done for him before. Pastor Brian Sams once said, he said, God's faithfulness in the past is his resume for the future. God's faithfulness in the past is his resume for the future. God had not given David any reason to doubt him, any reason to lose faith in him in this moment, but David did because it's human nature to try to go our own way, to try to put ourselves in their driver's seat. But God's faithfulness in the past is his resume for the future. Okay, so we see why we should learn to preach to ourselves. We see what to preach to ourselves, right? But now what should I do? Because every good Bible message is supposed to have an immediate application for you to obey. So what do I do? How did David respond to this message? Verse seven, and David said to Abathar the priest, All right, so now he's getting on the right track, right? He's gonna go to the religious leader now. He says, David went to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech's son. I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. Okay, so the ephod, for those of you that don't know, is this breastplate that the priest would wear as he goes into the temple to seek out the Lord's counsel, to seek out the Lord's guidance, to go and worship the Lord, to go and give sacrifices to the Lord, to go and worship the Lord. So the priest would wear this, and I learned this in Sunday school, maybe some of you didn't, about the different gyms and stuff. You don't need to worry about that. Don't worry about all that. All you need to know is why he did this. You don't need to know all about the ephod and all about the history lesson about that. All you need to know is why David went and got this. He did it, and verse seven, and Abiathar brought hither the ephod to David, verse eight. And David inquired at the Lord. All right, so you don't need to worry about all the details to the ephod. All you need to know is why David did this. Why did David get this little, or it's not little, it's really big, it would cover their entire chest. Why did he get this object that the priest would use to go and give sacrifices and worship the Lord? Because he wanted to hear from heaven. He wanted to hear from his God and he wanted to give God back control over his life. He wanted to give God back the reins. He wanted to put him in the driver's seat. And so he says, fetch me the ephod. Why? Because he wanted to ask God something. We'll see in verse eight what it is. And David inquired at the Lord saying, shall I pursue after this troop? Okay. Hang on a second, why did David ask this question? Right, so his family's been taken captive. He's saying, Lord, shall I pursue after them? Shall I go and rescue my family? We're probably thinking, duh, don't you like your wife? Don't you like your kids? Don't you like your family? Don't you like your things too? That's definitely human nature. If you don't like your family, at least you like the things that come with the family, right? Don't you want to get back everything that was taken from you? Duh, yeah, go pursue him. But why is he asking the Lord this, what seems to us like an obvious question? Because he's deciding not to make the decisions in his life based off of what's logical. He's deciding to make the decisions in his life based on what is biblical. And so he's asking the Lord for direction here. He has two questions. Shall I pursue after this troop? And shall I overtake them? See, David is now giving the Lord command. He's allowing the Lord to tell him no. Right? If he said, shall I go and pursue? Lord said no, he wouldn't have done it. Because he's now allowing God to guide him biblically instead of allowing David to guide himself logically. Here, David is learning from his mistakes. He's putting God back in control. He's reconciling with God for his sinful choices. One of the best decisions you can ever do is beginning each day by asking God for direction, deciding, I'm gonna start each day on my knees and ask God for direction on how to live out my day. I'm gonna ask him for direction on what decisions to make in my life. I'm gonna ask God direction. Even if I think I know the answer because it just makes sense, Because it's logical, I'm going to let God be the final permission. I'm going to let God decide. And you know what? I'm going to be okay if the Lord tells me no. Even if it doesn't make sense. Because I see the mess that I put myself in for my own sinful choices. That is where David is. If you want the Lord's will in your life, seek not what is simply logical, but ask him to show you what is biblical and be willing to take a no. So David is willing to do whatever the Lord says. However, he asked something specifically. He doesn't say, Lord, what shall I do? He says, Lord, shall I pursue? Okay, so there's a couple observations we can see here. First of all, we see that David is allowing the Lord to make the decision, but we're seeing that David also has a bias towards action. He's saying, Lord, let me help. Let me be part of the solution. I made the problem, so now work through me to find the solution, but I would like to go and get my things back. I would like to go and get my family back. So we see he's allowing the Lord to make the decision, but he's showing a bias by asking something very specific. And you know what? That's okay. It's okay if there's something that you really desire, but you don't know if it's the Lord's will. Ask, Lord, can I do this? Not, Lord, what do you want me to do? But, Lord, can I do this? He says, shall I pursue? David was saying, I have a problem, Lord. Please use me to do something about it. Pastor Curt Skelly says this, disingenuous is the prayer that says, God, bail me out with an unwillingness to do something about it yourself. You know, a lot of times we have this problem. We say, Lord, take care of my problem. But maybe the Lord is trying to find the solution for you by using you to fix your own problem. Disingenuous is the prayer that says, God, bail me out with an unwillingness to do something about it yourself. What does the Lord say? David inquired at the Lord, saying, shall I pursue after this truth? Shall I overtake them? And he answered, pursue. Pursue. Not only that, he answers the second question. Pursue. For thou shalt surely overtake them. And without fail, recover all. David learned the importance of learning to preach to yourself. Why? Because his own choices were sinful. Not only that, because his burden seemed unbearable. Not only that, it's because he could not get help anywhere else. There is a God, and He is your God. He's no more my God than He is your God. There is a God, He is your God, and He's already got the solutions to your problem and to my problem. What did David do in response to this message he preached to himself? He asked God for direction and put him back on the throne of his heart. David learned to preach to himself. When there was nobody else around, he encouraged himself in his relationship with the Lord. My favorite hymn is entitled, I Must Tell Jesus. It was written by a pastor and composer named Elisha Hoffman in the early 1900s. The story of this hymn is this. He writes, while I was a pastor at Lebanon, I called one day at the home of a parishioner and found the lady in great distress and sorrow. She cried, what shall I do? What shall I do? I replied, you cannot do better than to take it all to Jesus. You must tell Jesus. For a moment, she seemed abstracted in meditation. Then her face glowed and her eyes lit up. And with exclamation, she said, yes, I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. As I went from that sorrow-filled home, a vision walked over me, a vision of a joy-illumined face lit up, a soul transformed from darkness into light. And I heard, all along my pathway, the echo of the tender voice saying, I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. It is from this story that the amazing words to this beautiful hymn were penned. I must tell Jesus, all of my trials, I cannot bear these burdens alone. In my distress, He kindly will help me. He ever loves and cares for His own. I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I cannot bear these burdens alone. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. Jesus can help me. Jesus alone. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you for this opportunity to be able to preach from your word, Lord. Lord, I thank you for the example of David. the good and the bad. Lord, I thank you for the character study that we can see in this man after your own heart. Even though he was a man after your own heart, Lord, we know he made some tragic mistakes in his life. He made some terrible choices, some sinful choices, and because of that his burden seemed unbearable. Lord, we know that people around us are at the end of the day going to act just like people. But Jesus is the only one that will never change. He will never fail us. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Lord, I pray that in a moment of weakness, in a moment of trial, where everything seems to be going against us. that we will go and tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus all of my burdens, Lord, and lay our burdens on Him. Lord, I thank You for this example. I thank You for saving me and for giving me this relationship, Lord, that I can now go to You. And I can ask you for direction. I can put you on the throne of my life, Lord, and allow you to guide my footsteps. Lord, if there's anybody in here that doesn't know you as their personal Savior, I pray that they will get that fixed today. Get that decision concrete before they leave, Lord, that they will know where they go. if they were to die today, Lord, that they would know that they're gonna go to heaven and that they can have a personal relationship with God. Lord, we know that there is a God. He is my God and that you already have the answers to our problems. Thank you for all this. In your name I pray, amen. Thank you for joining us today. Please tune in each week for new messages from Bible Baptist Church in Hampton, Georgia. Until next time, may the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you.