We will be looking mainly to the 30th chapter of I Samuel. As an
introduction, David and his men, to avoid Saul’s persecution, went to Achish
the king of the Philistines who accepted them and gave them the city of Ziklag.
In the 29th chapter of I Samuel we find the Philistines gathering
together all their armies in Jesreel to fight against Israel. It was this fight
that cost the life to Saul and Jonathan. In order to avoid any plot by David and
his men, the Philistines denied to them to be a part of their army and sent them
back to Ziklag. I Samuel 30:1-6 tells us what they found there:
I Samuel 30:1-6
"Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day,
that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned
it with fire, and had taken captive the women and those who were there,
from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and
went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned
with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken
captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up
their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep. And David's
two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the widow of Nabal the
Carmelite, had been taken captive. Now David was greatly distressed, for
the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved,
every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the
LORD his God."
I was in a church some weeks ago and God showed me this passage. It is a period
where I think a lot about the subject of losing and recovering and I believe God
wants us to hear the message of I Samuel 30. Many of us we can relate to the
situation described in I Samuel. We don’t inhabit Ziklag nor we live in the
days of Saul and David. But we may have something in common with David and his
men: the enemy may have invaded our territory, at the time that we were out or
"sleeping" and he may have stolen us things very valuable to us.
Whatever this may be at the end may be translated to disappointment, loss of
hope and orientation, loss of vision and enthusiasm. Brothers believe me: if the
devil does not steal your hope and enthusiasm HE IS DEFEATED. He does not aim to
simply steal you something. His end purpose is to steal your hope, your
enthusiasm, your HEART. The aim of the devil is your heart and your hope. For
he knows that only hopeful hearts are alive hearts. Our problem is not
that we haven’t seen God. We have seen Him. The problem is that we have also
seen the devil. The problem is that we expected that our Ziklag (whatever this
may be) would never be stolen. We hoped that God would somehow protect it from
any destruction. But things may have turned differently. Stuff may have happened
in our lives that we never expected and we suddenly discovered that bad things
may also happen to good people. "Cities" of good people may be invaded
by the enemy of our souls. To face these arrows, many of us have chosen to
anesthetize our hearts so that it does not feel pain any longer and we carry on
to what we call "the road of faith". It may be a road full of service
and works, WITHOUT however the enthusiasm and the warmness our relationship with
God used to have. Many we feel OK with this situation and we deny to admit that
there are things that have been lost and need to be recovered. Many feel OK to
just survive, without hope and dreams, and call this "faith", instead
of pursuing again for the lively relationship they once had with the Lord. I
have discovered that God may leave us in this stage till we DECIDE WE WANT to
change. Till we no longer compromise with the defeat nor we accept and hide the
loss but we make the decision to pursue and recover all that was stolen. And let
me remind you that what is stolen is mainly THE HOPE, THE ENTHUSIASM, THE HEART.
Once we made this decision, God immediately becomes also very near to us. The
message today is not that there will be no stealing. I don’t intent to give
you the 10 steps that will ensure the devil will never touch you. I don’t have
them! As long as there is a thief there will be stealing! BUT we can overcome
it. The message today is ATTACK to recover all that the enemy has stolen from
us: enthusiasm, faith, hope, joy and others. We can cry for as long as we want.
We can say that life is tough. And it is! However, as David and his men did, so
we have to make a decision: either we will cry for the losses, hiding probably
our frustration by anesthesia, apathy and religious activity or we will deny to
compromise, we will ENCOURAGE OURSELVES IN THE LORD and we will stand up to
recover everything. It is really a very critical decision, a decision of
spiritual life or death. Either we will live as spiritually wounded, or as
spiritual heroes. What I want to emphatically say today is that if you
are wounded, your wound will not be healed by accepting the defeat and the loss
and forgetting the alive fellowship you used to have with God with the false
idea that "it is impossible to go that far again". The wounds will be
healed only if you stop crying and instead stand up to recover everything, to
return at least where you used to be! GOD HASN’T CHANGED MY BROTHER. He is
exactly the same God as when you first met Him. We may be wounded but we will
not find healing in resignation but in "encouraging ourselves in the
Lord" and standing up to recover everything. Not with religious works that
many use to cover the emptiness of their true relationship with God. Do you want
to find the level of your relationship with God? Don’t look at your
activities! They will show distorted results! Instead imagine yourself without
any activity. Could you live with God without any activity or is your
faith "activity maintained"? Is your relationship with God at
least as alive as it used to be when you first believed? Again deny to use works
and logic to hide the truth! You need the truth! Paul tells us to examine
ourselves whether we are in the faith! You don’t need to cry for any loss you
might have. What you need to do instead is to STAND UP and encourage yourself in
the Lord. STAND UP and you will recover everything. That’s what David chose to
do:
I Samuel 30:6-8, 18
"Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him,
because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his
daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God. Then David said
to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech's son, "Please bring the ephod here to
me." And Abiathar brought the ephod to David. So David inquired of the
LORD, saying, "Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?" And
He answered him, "Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and
without fail recover all.…. So David recovered all that the
Amalekites had carried away"
The people were crying. David also did the same. Nobody reacts to the pain with
gladness. The pain is pain and it brings cry. However after the first shock
there were two reactions. All the others continued crying and they moved with
anger against David (similarly, many being angry for their pain, pick up stones
against the state, ministries, people, God and generally everybody they consider
as responsible for what was stolen) but David encouraged himself in the Lord and
asked Him what to do. The Lord then gave him the assurance that if he pursued
after the Amalekites he would recover everything. See here the following:
Though there was a stealing,
there was a way to recover everything.
God didn’t obstruct the stealing.
Also God didn’t tell David what to do before he stopped crying and turned to
Him to ask Him.
Many of us spent our days, months and even years with the question "Why
God?". Many we feel bitterness why God didn’t protect us since we know He
could. I don’t know why He didn’t protect you or me but I know that when
this goes further than a genuine expression of the heart as Job did, then it
leads nowhere. My personal answer to life’s frustrations is that ALL things
work together for good to those who love God (Romans 8:28)! ALL, what we think
as evil and what we may think as good. Your life is NOT in the hands of the
devil BUT IN THE HANDS OF GOD. Even if the devil has wounded you there is a way
to recover! The question my brother is not why God didn’t protect you. The
critical question is whether you will stand UP, encourage yourself in the Lord,
not accept to compromise with the loss, not accept anything less in your
relationship with God than what at least you used to have. If you do this, if
you stand up, THEN I KNOW 100% WHAT WILL HAPPEN: YOU WILL RECOVER. YOU WILL
RECOVER EVERYTHING. That’s what happened also with David and his men. GOD HASN’T
CHANGED. Remember the sweet times you had with Him, before the Ziklag was
invaded. HE IS THE SAME. You can have the same relationship with Him, NOW. It is
not a matter of eventual recovery. The recovery can be instant. If you only make
the decision to not compromise and that you cannot live any longer with anything
less in hope, faith and enthusiasm that what you used to have. The situation is
turned upside down exactly at that moment. David and his men turned the
situation upside down at the moment they decided not to accept an invaded
Ziklag, with the enemy having their hopes, dreams and enthusiasm stolen, but
they wanted a Ziklag as it used to be, a heart with the hope faith and
enthusiasm that it once had. At that moment the enemy had lost the battle. For
at that moment they stoped crying and they started fighting. And fighting, they
recovered EVERYTHING!
Tassos
Kioulachoglou
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