I'm going to be a little ambitious today and I may regret this, but we're going to cover nine chapters in the book of I Samuel. Now do you think we can do it? We hope so. I saw someone look at their watch just now like, yeah, we can do it if we take enough time. So you're right. Hopefully we won't have to take that much time. But before we actually go back and look in 1 Samuel 18, which is where we will be this morning, I want us to begin before our prayer time by looking in Hebrews chapter 12. I want to read just a verse here in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 8. because this is a good jumping off point for the message, for the lesson that I would like us to glean from scripture today. So in Hebrews 12, verse 8, the writer of Hebrews says, but if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. It's that idea of being without chastisement. It is the lesson of this verse that says that every child of God, every redeemed child of God, will be chastised. But that word chastisement, it's important that we have just a little bit of understanding of what that word is saying. Oftentimes, when we think of chastisement, we think of punishment, right? I mean, you know, chastisement is, you know, a smack on the rear or something like that. And that may be included, but not punishment so much as correction. Our sins were punished at the cross. The entirety of our sin was dealt with at the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ. However, as believers, there is a need in the process of our growth and maturity for us to be trained. And so maybe a good word that we could use to understand chastisement here is the idea of training. It's the idea of being taught. It's the idea of learning a lesson. And surely that's what a parent does when they chastise their child, right? They're trying to teach their child an important lesson. And so God teaches us lessons. And with that in mind, I want us today to think about God's school. Because each one of us, in the sense that God is teaching us lessons, each one of us is in God's prep school. And that's what I want to talk about today. How God trains His children. You and I are being trained by the Lord. How does He do that? That will take us back to 1 Samuel, beginning in chapter 18, and we'll start there after we pray. Let's ask the Lord's blessing on our time together today. Our Father, we thank You for the promise of Scripture. And we thank You, Father, for this lesson this morning, one that I think is important for us to learn. Father, we're still thinking about our theme for this year, how we are to only trust You. And Father, as we do so, part of that is in the normal everyday living out of our lives and the various circumstances that we face, some good, some bad. We need to have an understanding, Father, of what is happening. Why are we experiencing the various things that we experience? What is your purpose? Is there a purpose, Father, behind all of the circumstances of our lives? And Father, I believe there is, and I believe that today, as we consider the life of David, we can consider how you prepared him for greater ministry, for greater service. You grew him, you matured him, and Lord, as you did that for him, so you do for us. So help us to understand, help us, Lord, to make application of these lessons to our lives today, and help us to honor you in the process, Father, for we ask this in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. A lady by the name of Judith Swanson told this story. She said, from the day we entered the ninth grade health class, one blackboard was covered with the names and locations of the major bones and muscles of the human body. The diagram stayed on the board throughout the term, although the teacher never referred to it. The day of the final exam came and we came to class, we found the board wiped clean. The sole question on the final exam was, name and locate every major bone and muscle in the human body. The class protested in unison. We never studied that. That's no excuse, said the teacher. The information was there for months. Now I imagine that taught those students a very important lesson, you think? I imagine it, the teacher had to have a lot of patience for an entire school year. This teacher knew, this is what I'm gonna ask on the final exam, and never referenced it, never pointed it out. For a year waiting to make what would ultimately be the most memorable thing that teacher ever taught. And that was to be observant. and to recognize that lessons are not simply what is taught in the class book. That, in fact, there are bigger lessons than that. When we think about education, how do we define education? Well, Merriam-Webster defines education this way. The first is the action or process of educating or being educated. Okay, we got that, right? Education. Educating or being educated? Okay, anything better than that. The second, the knowledge and development resulting from the process. of being educated. I like that one, because it's not focusing on education as this thing that we have to grasp, but understanding that there is a process, and there is a purpose behind the process of education, be it learning how to count, or how to spell, or how to read. There is a process, but the process has an intended purpose. There is a goal in mind. And in terms of what you and I as God's children should understand when it comes to how God educates us is to realize that there is a process, a divine process where the Lord is working to grow our knowledge of Him and that in our growing in our knowledge of Him to have developed within us the godly character that reflects the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are being molded into the image of Christ. In God's training school, in this prep school that we might think of, that we all are enrolled in, every Christian is enrolled in this school, we recognize that in His school it is designed to provide for us spiritual growth and spiritual maturity. I think when we look here in Hebrews 12, 8, that's the idea. It isn't punishment. It isn't smacking us in the face. It is God, through the process of chastisement, through the process of training, He is working to mold us and shape us into the image of Christ. Now, let's see if we can take that Just a step further, thinking about God's training school, note with me James chapter 1. That should be just a page over probably in your Bibles, no more than two. And in chapter 1 of James, verses 2 through 4, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers' temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." And that word perfect is the idea of maturity. And so what James is saying is that we should be happy, we should be joyful when we have problems. That's what trials are, right? How would we define trials? Well, they are problems of one sort or another. And when we have these problems in life, what is happening? God is using those problems to develop us. to train us, to grow us, to what end? That we might be mature, perfect, mature and entire, wanting nothing. That everything you and I need for life and godliness, we gain through the process of training, this training school God has us all enrolled in, through this process of divine education, if you will, through the process of problems and how we deal with those problems and how we learn who God is in the face of those problems. that the Lord helps us to mature spiritually, to become the men and women of God that he would have us to become. Now, here's the good news about that. Philippians chapter one, verse six says that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. You know what that means? That means not one of us is going to fail in God's school. Isn't that good news? None of us are going to fail because ultimately the Lord will accomplish exactly what He set out to do. Now, the rub in that statement is it may take a lot of retesting. We may have to take the same test over many different times. Because let's face it, how often do we learn something and then forget it? Did that happen academically? You know, I've learned a lot of things in my lifetime. I've had a lot of school. And one thing that I have to be honest with you about, there are times now when I will see something and I'll think, I used to know that. And I've gotta go back and refresh my mind. Now exactly how does that work again? You know, what is Plu Perfect anyway? You guys know what Blue Perfect is, right? Okay, we won't go there. But that's the point I'm making. Concepts, ideas, and various disciplines that we learn that we forget, but we need to remember them again. And how do we remember them again? God puts us back through the class until we are more capable of remembering, if you will. Now, somebody said, well, here's the bad news. I don't know if this is bad news. I understand what they were saying. The bad news is none of us will ever fail in God's prep school, but none of us will ever graduate in this life from God's prep school. Do you know when graduation day is from God's training school? The day he calls us to heaven. When He calls us to heaven, we've graduated. And when you think about it, there's joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repents. Can you imagine the joy in heaven? The scripture says that in Psalm 115, 16 or 116, 15, I'm getting those kind of backward there, that God is glad at the death of his saints. And the idea isn't glad he's dead, what happens to a saint of God when they die? They go into His presence. And so there is joy on that day of graduation. But we won't reach that day of graduation until we are in His presence. But one day we all will be in His presence and we all will have that wonderful experience. No more trials. No more tests. You remember that when you graduated from high school? Yeah, I remember graduating from high school. Man, it's all behind me. And then I remember graduating undergrad. Boy, I'm glad that's all done. And then master's degree. I'm glad that's finished. And then that terminal degree, called the doctorate. There's a reason they call that terminal. Get that little joke there. The point I'm making is we never stop learning. When we're in his presence, we will know even as we are known. Now, what am I driving at? Some people are disappointed because they have been taught that when you trust Christ, all of your problems are gone. Some have been taught that when you walk in victory in Christ, that it ushers in a higher plane of living and all your problems just glance away. But is that true? It's not true, it's not biblical. The Bible clearly teaches that God uses trials to train us to be more like Jesus. Hebrews 5.8 says that Jesus learned obedience through the things that He suffered. And the fact is, that is exactly how God teaches us. The process, however, is worthwhile because Hebrews 12, verse 11 says, Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. We may not enjoy the process, But ultimately, we enjoy the fruit, because the fruit of that is righteousness. It is God molding us and shaping us into the image of Christ. It is that spiritual growth and spiritual maturity that we all, as believers, as the children of God, should be seeking. Now, having said that, I want us to go back now. This is where my ambition comes in. to 1 Samuel chapter 18. And we want to view God's prep school in the life of David. So what I've just described, I've just given this big picture about how we are engaged in a process of being taught, a process of learning, a process of growth, a process where God is developing godly characteristics within us. And this process involves chastening, that God's training involves in that sense of discipline, and it involves trials as we see in James chapter 1, so problems, difficulties in life. But is there an example of this? And this is where we come back to David. Because I want us to see in the life of David that this process is not something new, that this is a process that God has used. We could pick some other Old Testament character, or even a New Testament character, and we could see how they went through this same process of training, of growth, and that oftentimes it was difficulties in life that God used to teach them certain lessons. So, let's think about David. David was an unusually gifted and advanced young man. I think we would agree with that, right? While a teenager, he had been anointed as the king to replace disobedient King Saul. As a teenager. As a teenager, he killed Goliath. And that victory pushed David into instant national fame and popularity. He was brought, here in 1 Samuel 18, he was brought into the palace and set over the men of war. Notice verse five, and David went out whithersoever Saul sent him and behaved himself wisely. And Saul sent him over the men of war. And he was accepted in the sight of the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. David is a teenager. Can you imagine a teenager in that position being given all those accolades, being patted on the back, being held up as this great person? Can you imagine being accepted by the men of war? He's a teenager and yet the guys who have actually been out fighting against the Philistines are looking to him for leadership. They're accepting him as their leader. And the people just fawn all over him. Remember the song, Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands. Had David killed 10,000 people? No, David hadn't killed 10,000 people, but it shows you the spirit of the people when they're thinking about David. So think about this teenage boy, anointed to be king, set in this place of respect, loved by all the people. I mean, individual. This wouldn't go to his head, would it? This would not have caused any problems down the road, would it? I mean, think about what David's life could ultimately become if this is the trajectory he's on when he's a teenager and there's nothing to teach him some important life lessons, that he just expects that it's always going to be this way. Will it always be that way? So, the Lord, in order to prepare David for the important role of being the king took him through his prep school. He trained him. How long did David's training take place? Now, we would admit it never stopped, but for our purposes, how long was David in this training school? Well, at least 12 years. He was 30 years old when he became the king. So at least 12 years. He was a teenager. Might have been 17. We can't really say for sure when he killed Goliath, but that's kind of 16, 17. So let's say you come to chapter 18 and he's 18 years old. So for 12 years he actually is enrolled in this very important training school. Let's note some features about this training and make application to us. What are some things we can acknowledge about God's school? Let's think about the program for a moment. It is not explained to the student in advance. Note how it begins. here in chapter 18 verse 6, And it came to pass, as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tabrets, with joy, with instruments of music. And the women answered one another in plain, saying, Saul slain his thousands, David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth And the saying displeased him. And he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands, and what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day and forward." And it came to pass on the morrow that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house. And David played with his hand as at other times, and there was a javelin in Saul's hand. And Saul cast the javelin, for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. And Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him and was departed from Saul. This is how it began, and we could read other verses as well, but here's the point I'm making. There is no record in scripture that God ever came to David and said, now, David, I want you to listen for a moment. Here's what's going to happen for the next 12 years. You need some training, you need some maturity before you're going to be able to handle being the king, so I'm going to allow Saul to try to kill you. And He's going to chase you all over the Judean desert for the next 10-12 years. And I'm going to be teaching you to depend on Me when you come to the end of yourself." There's no record that God ever said that to David. It just started happening. He's anointed king. He kills Goliath. He's given this place a prominence. The ladies in the city are praising him and singing how great he is and you can just imagine what would any red-blooded guy be doing at this point? Oh, this is great! And then all of a sudden Saul takes the javelin and tries to hit him to the wall. He had no idea this was coming. Let me ask you this, aren't you glad that God doesn't allow you to know the future in advance? You know, when you're 20 years old, it's like, boy, I wish I had a road map to tell me that every fork in the road I'm going to face for the rest of my life. Would you really want that? Because it would be scary to consider every possible issue and problem you would face. But I'd be ready for it. Would you? Or would you spend your time saying, oh no, it's gonna happen next week, right? We'd be worried about what we know is coming. and we would be forgetting to do what David is being taught to do here, and that is depend on the Lord. Remember, only trust Him. The idea of only trusting Him is a reminder of how absolutely dependent upon Him we really are. And ultimately what David is learning through this whole process is how dependent he is upon the Lord. And so he didn't understand, he didn't know exactly what was coming when it came, but we understand that God is at work in our lives. Now let me put it this way. Let me go back once again to Hebrews chapter 12, because I want to read verse 5 to you. Verse 5 says, And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. You know what that ultimately means from a practical standpoint? It simply means this. When you face difficulties in life, don't chalk it up to bad luck. Because God is working in your life. to a profitable end, to mold you and shape you into Christ. And so we can look at the difficulties, the problems of life, and we can focus on the problem and say, oh, man, why is it always me? You ever felt that way? Or we can take a step back and say, I only trust Him. And if the Lord has allowed this difficulty into my life, He has a purpose. Now if there's sin in my life, obviously I need to repent of that sin, right? I need to confess it to God. But as a believer, as we said last week, there is not always sin. Sometimes it's simply God in His wisdom bringing a circumstance into our life to shape us, the instrument for us to become. So we don't know what's happening. Number two, it lasts a lifetime. I've already touched upon this. David was a sharp young man, mightily used of God as a teenager, but think with me for a moment. God did not see fit to entrust the responsibility of the kingdom to him until he was 30. We've talked about Joseph over the last few weeks. Joseph spent his 20s in a dungeon in Egypt. He was 30 when he became number two in Egypt. John the Baptist was about 30 when he began his ministry. Even the Lord Jesus Christ was about what age when he began his earthly ministry? About 30. Paul was probably 30 when he got saved. He knew the Hebrew Bible well. He was exceptionally gifted. But what happened after Paul got saved at 30? Did he immediately start preaching? Was he immediately the great apostle Paul? No, Paul went to Arabia and he spent three years in the Arabian desert privately being taught. And then he went to Tarsus, and he spent five to ten years in Tarsus. What was he doing in Tarsus? He wasn't the Apostle Paul, ministering and working in a local church in Tarsus. He really was not some renowned individual. He kind of faded back into the woodwork. We read the Bible, everything's compressed, right? So we see Saul, this evil man who's persecuting the church, and then he gets saved on the road to Damascus. And then we see him in Antioch, and he and Barnabas going on this great missionary journey. What we forget is all of those intervening years, the roughly 15 years or so that God used to take this 30-year-old new believer and prepare him to become the Apostle Paul. It took time. He's 45, roughly, when he begins his ministry that we know him for as this great apostle to the Gentiles. Well, 45, your life's over, isn't it? Some of you younger folks say, 45? I mean, that's... Well, not quite. But the truth is, who among us thinks about beginning a new life at 45? And yet, God prepared Paul over time for just that purpose. Now, I'm giving you general rules. There are Spurgeons who was a pastor at 17 of a large church in London, England. But those are very few and far in between. The general rule is it is wise to submit to God's timing, to His preparation, to His training. It doesn't stop at 30. It continues all of our lives. It involves years of training. I could put it this way, there is no such thing as instant fruit of the Spirit. Is that fair to say? You go to Galatians 5, you see the fruit of the Spirit. You don't pray one night and wake up the next morning and I've got all the fruit of the spirit that I could ever have. No, it's a process. You grow and you mature and over the course of time, that fruit, that singular fruit that is manifest in love and joy and peace, et cetera, that is an outgrowth of what God is doing as he takes us through his training school. Number three. It involves many courses that have to be repeated even if you pass. I suggested this earlier. You and I are familiar with regular schools where you take a test and you put it aside and never have to worry about that subject again, right? Even though we know that's not quite perfect in itself. In God's school, we repeat the same course. Think with me. God called David a man after his own heart when he was still a teenager. He was not rebellious. He was not disobedient. He had a strong personal faith in God. And yet, when you read through chapters 18 through 26, we find that David went from one extreme difficulty to another over this entire period of time. I could read all of these verses, but we don't have time to do that. But it was during this time that David likely penned these words in Psalm 34, 19. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. Can I read that again? Many are the afflictions of the righteous, this is David, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. David is saying, You know, if you're looking for a life free of difficulty, you're in the wrong place. Because we live in a sin-cursed world, and living in a sin-cursed world, there will always be the ramifications of that curse. And so we have hurricanes, and we have floods, and we have fires, and we have tornadoes, and we have blizzards, and we have cold like we have here. These things happen. We suffer. And then, on a larger scale, we suffer interpersonally. We suffer economically. We suffer physical illness. The righteous are not exempt from any of this. But what is the promise that David says there in Psalm 34? The Lord delivers him from them all. He's teaching us as he takes us through these difficulties, he's teaching us. In other words, God's training or discipline is not just for the wayward to bring them back in line. It's also for our faithful obedience to make us more like Christ. Number four, it is necessary for a person to be able to handle prosperity. As we've seen, David was catapulted into fame and popularity as a result of his victory over Goliath. We read those verses. Often that is the most dangerous thing that can happen to a young person. One historian put it this way, affliction is bad, but for every person that can handle prosperity, there are a hundred that can handle adversity. In other words, more people can handle adversity than can handle prosperity. I mean, we kind of, wait a minute, that's backward, right? Shouldn't it be, you know, no, the problem is that prosperity is the thing that can destroy many. I had a good friend when I was a teenager. Just so happened that, unbeknownst to the two of us, he went to the same church on a Wednesday night that I went to on a Thursday night. Wednesday night, he gets saved. Thursday night, I get saved. Had no idea, independently of each other, that that happened. Until we end up in the same church on Sunday. I just got saved, me too, wow, great. He surrendered the call to preach. The same week I surrendered the call to preach. We were good friends. In the parlance of the teenagers in the 70s, he was big T and I was big D. Yeah, okay, some of you from bygone ages can remember that, right? We were good buddies. He was far more gifted than I could ever hope to be. I mean, he was just naturally gifted. Public speaking, his voice that could just mesmerize you, a personality that was magnetic. I'm not exaggerating. Freshman year at Bob Jones University, he gets elected as the chaplain of the freshman class. Some of the professors and people there of renown got to know him and were saying he's gonna be the next big thing. Freshman year. They're putting him up on a pedestal. They're building him up. I was happy for him. Couldn't understand it, because I really knew the guy. But here's what happened. It went to his head. He began to think that this was inevitable. That he was just so naturally gifted he didn't have to put the work in. He just expected it would all come to him. And you guessed it. He made some stupid mistakes. He fell. And while I was pastoring in West Virginia, he would call me up on the phone weeping. I messed up my life. I destroyed my life. I can never do what I know God called me to do. And I always look back on that and I thought, you know, if those learned people had just used a little wisdom and not elevated Him before He was really able to handle the prosperity, who knows what God could have done. Now, he's responsible for his own decisions, but I hope you get the point I'm making. The prosperity, I believe, messed him up. He would have been far better off to have not had those natural gifts and to have had to work a little harder. That would have been David. David was this gifted person. We've already talked about how he was received by the people of his day. God often uses adversity to humble a person so that they can handle success. I'll give you Paul as an example. After Paul went through, perhaps, a 15-year process of preparation, and then God uses him as this great evangelist, this great apostle to the Gentiles, and through Paul a majority of the New Testament is written? I mean, think about how God used this man. And yet, what does Paul say? He gives a testimony and we believe those third hand that he's talking about himself and he testifies that he was caught up in the paradise and he heard inexpressible words which a man is not permitted to speak. That's 2nd Corinthians chapter 12. And what did God give him in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12? What did Paul reference in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12? That he suffered a thorn in the flesh. Most likely a physical ailment. And why did God give him that thorn in flesh according to 2 Corinthians chapter 12? To keep him from exalting himself. Used greatly by God. Saw things and heard things that you and I cannot even begin to imagine. And God said, Paul, I'm gonna keep you from getting full of yourself. You need this thorn in the flesh to stay grounded. Otherwise, you're gonna think too highly of yourself. So, if you're going to experience any sort of success in serving Christ, do you want to be used of God to do some great thing? Well, understand what comes with that. through the school of adversity. So the Lord can make sure that you can handle that success properly. That's a description. What are the courses? Very quickly. And I'm just gonna go over a few of these real quick. I knew we wouldn't have time to really get into all the verses that I wanted to read. But if you look at the life of David, what did David have to deal with? Broken promises. The student will be promised something by someone, but the person will break the promise. Did that happen to David? Well, right here in chapter 17, verse, chapter 18, verse 17, Saul promised David his elder daughter Mirab. Did David get to marry Mirab? No, because a couple of verses later, you'll find that Saul actually gave Mirab to somebody else. And this is just an example of how that happened. In fact, it's interesting, in verse 21, notice the beginning of verse 21. And Saul said, I will give him her, talking verse 20 about Michael, his daughter, that she may be a snare to him. What does that say about Michael? Okay, I didn't give him Mirab, but I'll give him Michael, because she will trip him up. One of those kids, huh? Okay, you know, big family, you know, middle child. No, I better not go there. Because some of the middle kids will say, wait, what? The older kids will say, it's the babies. They're usually the ones that get away with murder. The point is, David had been promised by Saul so many times so many things and the promises were broken. How about evil for good? This is when we do something good for someone and that person turns around and does something evil towards us. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever done something good and positive for someone and you're repaid by them doing something evil or bad toward you? David had saved Saul's kingdom from being overrun by the Philistines. The result in verse 11, And Saul cast the javelin, for he said, I will smile. There's his reward. I saved your kingdom. I'm gonna pin you to the wall. He did something nice. This was repeated time and again. David delivered a city from the Philistines. And what did they do? This is chapter 23. So he delivers the city from the Philistines and then Saul is looking for David and David says in verse 12 of chapter 23, will the men of Caleb deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, they will deliver thee up. He saved the people of the city. How did they reward him? They turn him over in a heartbeat to King Saul. Shouldn't they have been grateful? Yes, but that's the problem, that there are those people that in life you will learn that even though we do good, we won't always receive good in return. I would hesitate to get into specifics, but let me just say that one thing I learned in 40 years of ministry, I could recount to you times when Jan and I have done good things for people only to find out later they were the very ones who were going around trying to get everybody all stirred up to kick us out of the church. It happens. Not just the pastors. But what is our response, by the way? What is our response? If somebody does evil to us, what do we reward their evil with? Good, right? Isn't that the biblical response to somebody who mistreats us? We turn around and give them a drink of water. Offer them the cloak off our back. Smack one side of our face. Hey, you wanna smack the other side just for good measure? But that's not, how do you do that? That's the school God has us in. It takes time to grow to be able to do that. Opportunity testing. This is when we're given an opportunity to take revenge. We won't go into it. 1 Samuel chapter 24, you're familiar with the story. Saul is chasing David and chasing David and chasing David and David knows if he ever gets caught Saul's gonna kill him and one day Saul is in a position where David could kill Saul. What does David do? I've been anointed to be the king. Saul is trying to kill me. I kill Saul. I become king. What's the deduction? Let me kill Saul. God gave me this opportunity. He's put him right in front of me. It must be God's will that I take Saul's life and then I can claim the throne. What did David do? He let him pass. Not once, but twice. Why did he do that? Because that was the right thing to do. Because David said, I will not touch God's anointed. Because David said, if God will remove Saul, then God will remove Saul. But it'll be the Lord's work and I'm trusting in the Lord. And so he didn't take the opportunity in his own hand to do that. These are just a sampling of the realities that sometimes in life there are those who mistreat us and we want to take revenge. But what does Romans chapter 12 tell us about revenge? Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay." So if someone mistreats you and you have the opportunity to treat them in kind, what is the biblical position? You leave vengeance in the hands of God, you do the loving thing even to your enemy. Right? Now what is the Lord's purpose? Very quickly here and I'm gonna have to really press now to do this. What is the Lord seeking to do in this? Let me mention four things very quickly. David learned to take refuge in the Lord and see the Lord's love even in adversity. Probably the best way to illustrate this is in the Psalms. Psalm 59 This is what David said at the end of verse nine, beginning of verse 10. For God is my defense, the God of my mercy shall prevent me. And then verses 16 and 17. But I will sing of thy power, yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning, for thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing, for God is my defense, and the God of my mercy." David is running from his enemies. They're seeking to get him. What had David learned that he now put into words in that psalm? God is my defense. What had David learned through all of that adversity for all of those years? That God was with him. that he could trust God, that he could be dependent upon God. There's more we could say about that, but someone put it this way. Never interpret God's love by your circumstances, but always interpret your circumstances His love. Someone illustrated it this way. When a parent takes a small child to the doctor, the child is frightened and doesn't understand and sees the nurse with a needle, and what does the child do? The child snuggles in to mom. because the child trusts in mom for protection. In contrast, you see a trapped bird and you want to release the bird. What does the bird do when you come near it? Starts flapping its wings and making noise and doing everything it can to get away from you. You there are there to help the bird, but the bird doesn't understand and tries to get away. And the point is this. We should be like the trusting child, not the scared bird. When difficulty comes our way, we should snuggle in closer to God. Not just go flapping our wings and squawking and making all kinds of noise because we don't understand the problem. We know who God is. And we know we can be dependent upon him. Cling tightly to God and never doubt his love. Number two, David learned to seek the Lord's mind rather than act impulsively on his own. How many of us act before we think? How many of us speak before we think? It happens a lot, doesn't it? Even in marriages, sometimes that's the worst place for it. David learned to take the situation to the Lord before doing anything else. I mentioned here in chapter 23 how he saved Kayla. And then Saul is chasing him and before he does anything, he goes to the Lord and says, Lord, what should I do? And the Lord in essence says, they will turn you into Saul. You better leave. But what did David do in chapter 25 with Nabal? Do you remember? Chapter 25, this is two chapters later. Chapter 23, he looks to the Lord and asks God for guidance. Chapter 25, remember the whole situation with Nabal? He reacted in anger. He rode off to wipe out Nabal and his men before he stopped to ask the Lord, and how did the Lord, what did the Lord do to teach him? Do you remember? Abigail. The Lord sent Abigail to stop David in his tracks. Here are two occasions. One, he asks God for guidance. The other, he doesn't. And in the second one, he's rebuked by a woman. Now, I'm not saying that because that should, you know, don't offend any of our ladies, but understand in the context of that day, it wasn't just that God sent someone to say, no, David, what you're doing is wrong. It's that God sent a woman to do it. I mean, that was an extra slap in his face. David should have known better. He passed it. He passed the test on one case. He failed it on the next case. God is teaching him these lessons. So seeking the face of God before we act. Number three, David learned to wait upon the Lord for his timing. He learned endurance. In chapter 26, We find that Saul, of course, is pursuing David. Been going on for years. In verses 10 and 11, David said, furthermore, as the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall descend into battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed, but I pray thee, take thou now the spear that is in his bolster and the crews of water and let us go. So this is one of the occasions that I mentioned When he could have taken Saul's life and he says, no, if God's gonna take his life, God will take his life. I will not touch God's anointed. God will take care of that. I think it was during this time that David may have written Psalm 62 verse five, where he says, my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him. I'm not going to take it into my own hand, I'm going to trust God and I'm just going to persevere. And then fourthly, David learned to acknowledge his sin quickly to the Lord and to those he had wronged. In a word, he developed a tender conscience. I think this is an important one. We find that in verse two. And David said unto Himalek the priest, the king hath commanded me a business and hath sent unto me, let no man know anything of the business whereabout I send thee and what I've commanded thee and have appointed my servants to such and such a place. Had David been given a charge by the king? David lied. 1 Samuel 21.2, David lies to Ahimelech the priest. You know what the result of that is? The priest helps David because he thinks he's doing what the king wants. Saul hears about it. He kills Ahimelech and the whole village of priests. One son, Abiathar, escapes and he comes to David. Now, if you were in David's shoes, and you told a lie and it led to the murder of all these people and the son of the man you lied to comes to you, what would you say to him? Well, you know Saul is the one that killed your dad. Can't believe he did that. And that's true. Saul did it. What did David say? Notice verse 22 in 1 Samuel 22. And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house. David admitted it. He confessed it. He said, you know, I saw Doeg, and I knew when I saw him, he would run to Saul. I didn't do anything about it. And now your entire family is dead because of the choice I made. I lied and then my suspicion was proved true about Doeg. He didn't try to shift the blame. The temptation would have been there to do that. But David He responded and repented. When Abigail confronted him, he acknowledged his sin and he thanked God for sending her. The point is, David learned through all of this. to keep a short account with God, to confess his sin, and even to confess it to the person he sinned against, not just God alone, but the other person as well. So, let me conclude by saying this, and I've jumped through a lot of stuff here, because I knew I had far more than we would have time to cover. Those whom God uses must go through his prep school to develop trust, submission, endurance, a tender conscience, But we should be assured that God has our best interests at heart, doesn't He? Ultimately, I can only trust Him because I know whatever I face in life, God is using all of these circumstances to mold me and to shape me and sometimes polishing me. What does polishing create? What do you need to polish something? Friction. And what does friction create? Heat. And so sometimes in the process of that friction and that heat that that circumstance is bringing into my life, it is God molding me, shapening me, sharpening me, smoothing out some rough spots in my life, polishing me up so that I can fulfill His purpose in my life to a higher degree than I could otherwise. God has my best interests at heart. And so I would challenge you this morning. Every one of us, if you're a child of God, you are in this training school. And God will use the difficulties of your life to bring about good. Isn't that what Romans is saying? All things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. And what you go on in the passage, and what does it say God is doing? The good is He is molding us into the image of Christ. And He's doing that through the difficulties of our lives. And so we can face the difficulties of our lives and question God, and now we're just gonna have to take that test over again. Or we can learn the lesson and say, Lord, I'm getting it. Let me close with this. Sometimes this is how we express our trust in God. God, I trust you, but today was really hard. God, I trust you, but they did this. I trust you, but my car keeps breaking down. God, I trust you, but I don't trust myself. God, I trust you, but I don't see a way forward. Are we saying we trust God in those statements? Yes, but let's turn them around. Think of the same statements said in a different way. Today was really hard, but God, I trust you. They did this, but God, I trust you. My car keeps breaking down, but God, I trust you. I don't trust myself, but God, I trust you. I don't see a way forward. But God, I trust you. Do you hear the difference? Sometimes we express our trust, I trust you but, when the reality is it should be here's my problem but, I trust you God. I trust you. David learned that lesson. It took 12 years and even after that he still had to learn a lot of lessons, didn't he? but you and I can learn these lessons. We can allow the problems to teach us, or we can fail the test and have to face it again. Don't waste your problems. Let God use them to mold you into the image of Christ. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for the opportunity we've had to very quickly try to review nine chapters in the life of David. And Father, I know there's so much more in these chapters that fit these points, that would fill them out even further. I pray, Lord, that perhaps if someone's heart has been touched here this morning, They've been challenged in some way by this message. They might go back and read in 1 Samuel 18, in the following chapters, and think about all the circumstances David faced and the lessons you were teaching him. And Father, through your teaching him and recording this for us in these narratives, you are seeking to teach us these principles as well. Father, help us to not waste our time in your school. God, help us to take full advantage of the lessons you are teaching us. And Father, mold us and shape us and make us into the image of Christ. And Father, enable us to accomplish even more for your glory as we go through the process. Ultimately, we look forward to the graduation day when we're in your presence and we have dropped off once and for all this body of sin. And Father, standing before you, we will fully appreciate all that this new eternal life means. Until that day comes, help us to continue to grow, and Lord, may you continue to shape us and mold us. We'll give you the glory in Jesus' name.