<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Pillars of Faith SDA Church

Eric Walsh

The Ziklag Crucible

Our message tonight is entitled the Ziklad Crucible.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to share your word.

Lord, I ask that you once again just make me a nail upon the wall.

Hammer me into the wall, Lord, and then hang a portrait of Jesus Christ on that nail.

Eric Walsh does not need to be seen or heard tonight.

We need to hear a word from Jesus by the power of the Holy Ghost.

There's a prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name.

All right so we start our story We're gonna start with David.

1 of my favorite Bible characters is David.

I like David because David is very human.

I like David because David is very faithful and David's relationship with God is a love relationship.

David's relationship with God is built on love, and that's why David writes love songs in the form of Psalms to God, because David is connected.

We're talking, When I do my testimony tomorrow night, you're gonna hear a lot about the Psalms.

So we reach into a point in David's life, and I have sermons on almost his entire life, but we reach to a point in David's life where Saul has exiled him.

He was jealous, and he was spiritually corrupted.

Saul had fought and he was a righteous man when God found him.

But Saul was corrupted by his power and his stature and all the blessing that came from being a king brought him.

Saul was mad because David was loved by the people.

You remember the story when they came back in from battle?

The women would sing, Saul has killed his thousands, David has killed his 10 of thousands.

Saul was such a chicken, if you really study the story of David and Goliath, Saul actually wanted David to wear his armor into the battle.

If David had worn Saul's armor into the battle and won, everyone, because they were looking down from these big precipices would have been would have thought it was Saul who beat Goliath.

We know that because he winds up going to the witch of Endor a lot of crazy things end up happening but 1 of the things that happens is that demonic spirits get into Saul.

So much so that the Bible says that they when this these evil spirits would get into Saul, they'd call for David and David would do what?

He'd play his harp and the Bible says that this evil spirit.

I'm going to talk about music in the morning, but that's powerful that he could play a harp and it drive a spirit out of a man.

Here's what's deep If you can play a harp and drive a spirit out of a man Do you think there's music you can play and bring a demon into a man?

Right so you Music matters anybody say music don't matter.

They haven't read the Bible that story alone tells you music matters now So Saul is mad.

He didn't kill his tens of thousands and the women aren't singing that to him So he tries to kill David many times David runs, but here's where David's mistake is There's a mistake some of us make some time David runs to a kish the king of the Philistinians the mortal enemies of Israel That's where he goes and gets protection Right.

It's like I grew up in you know, I'm living in LA I used to work with the bloods in the crypts You don't you don't leave the bloods and go get protection from the crypts You just don't do stuff like that, But that's what he did.

He went with the other gang Acus really liked David he viewed David as a favored person.

So he liked a kiss had this mentality He wanted to favored folk around him So he brought David in and David then starts doing some funny stuff, some kind of mercenary behavior.

He would go in and rob from some of the other tribes and keep the stuff, really upsetting those guys.

But he'd go back to Achish and tell Achish, I got this from Judah, I stole this from Israel.

So in that process, he's building Achish's trust in him by doing this kind of mercenary, kind of thieving kind of stuff that he was doing.

But he's lying because he can't really go and steal and beat up his own people.

So he doesn't really do that, which leads him to a dilemma.

He goes and as, and I'll show you a slide on this in a second, as Achish is about to go and fight Saul, and I'm going to show you where the battle was, I'm going to show you a map of it all.

As Achish is about to go and fight Saul and I'm gonna show you where the battle was.

I'm gonna show you a map of it all as a kiss is about to go and fight Saul David is there and Aker says looks David.

Now you got to roll with me It's the other David is like look we can roll When the Lords of the Philistines the other leaders kind of like their Congress when they see David in about to go fight Are you kidding me Are you seriously about to take David with us to fight Israel?

He was a little kid and he killed Goliath.

What happens if in the middle of the battle he decides to turn sides?

Dave because it's not just David David has 600 Mighty men of valor with him.

I mean some real stone-cold warriors So if David turns loose 600 of plus David on it's a wrap The Lords of the full of stuff.

No, no, you're not bringing this dude with us to fight That solves David's conundrum because you see the conundrum is if David goes and fights against Israel and Judah, he'll never be king.

If he says he can't fight against them, Achish will realize he's actually still loyal to Israel.

And Achish and the Philistines will kill him and his 600 men.

God, let me tell you something, we get ourselves into messes.

Ain't it amazing how God gets us out of mess we get ourselves into?

He got himself into this mess lying and carrying on like he crazy, robbing other tribes and whatnot, and here God gets him out.

Because Achish says, look, we're not gonna kill david.

He's got to go home We're gonna send him back home.

Now a kiss had set david up with a place called ziklag His own little town where him and his 600 men lived and and were happy and could do what they needed to do.

So he said, listen, you got to go back home, David.

It's 1 of those things where you don't get the job interview, but you realize, I would have never wanted to work there anyway.

They get to go home and get some R&R, right?

The war is actually going in the opposite direction.

But the Bible says in 1 Samuel 30 verse 1, And it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, it's a 3 day journey from the battle, that the Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag and smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire.

Verse 2 said, and had taken the women captives that were therein.

They slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away and went on their way.

So here David had been robbing and 1 of the groups he had gone in and messed with was the Amalekites.

David's off dealing with Achish and Saul and all this stuff.

They have safety and they burn down David's place of safety You got to get this they burn down the town That David was given So that he would not be afraid I'd not have to deal with Saul Then they take only thing that's really left are women and children They take all the women and children captive don't kill anybody they capture everybody That's what happens now.

This is Ziklag Nobody there's a there's a question mark here because nobody's for sure knows where Ziklag actually was I've been to Israel all up and down the coast and Jerusalem no when I was there the teacher told me you know, I did college credit there Nobody really knows where Ziklag is But it was in the south right the Bible says that The Amalekites came from the South because the Amalekites are further South than even this.

This is Saul, and he goes up to the battle in Jezreel.

The Philistines gather all their troops, and they go to battle at Jezreel.

Saul and the Israelites were used to the low ground, the flat ground, they didn't have, I mean to the high ground, they didn't have horses and chariots and stuff.

So they weren't going into a fight that it was gonna be easy to win, but they weren't afraid because normally who shows up to fight for them?

The children of Israel didn't need, I like this, they did not need a tactical advantage.

If God fought with them, even when Pharaoh and all his armies were coming, they didn't have 1 sword recorded in Scripture among the whole host of them.

Moses had a staff that was it and Pharaoh and his whole armies drowned in the Red Sea.

Let me tell you something about your life.

Back to Menu

The Ziklag Crucible

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine