(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Now, let's jump back to chapter 28 at the very beginning, just to give a little context here. In 1 Samuel 28, verse 1, the Bible reads, And it came to pass in those days that the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare to fight with Israel. And Achish said unto David, Know thou assuredly that thou shalt go out with me to battle thou and thy men. And David said to Achish, Surely thou shalt know what thy servant can do. And Achish said to David, Therefore will I make thee keeper of mine head forever. Then we kind of diverged to the story of Saul and the witch and all that kind of stuff. So in chapter 29 here, we jump back into this story where the Philistines have all gathered themselves together, a huge number. They're coming by the hundreds and by the thousands to fight against Israel. When Achish said, Hey David, you're going to go with me to fight against Israel. He said, Oh yeah, let me show you what I can do. Now you're going to really see what I can do in battle. So he's saying that he's going to fight on the side of the Philistines against Israel. He reiterates that in chapter 29, what we just read, where they tell him, No, and I'm just going to give you kind of a synopsis of the chapter. This is a short chapter. We already read the whole thing. But basically, David and his men are in the rear work, or they're in the back. They're not in the vanguard at the front of the troops. They're in the back of the troops. And as the troops are parading forth, and as they're getting ready to fight, the Lords of the Philistines, they say to King Achish, Why in the world are these Hebrews here? Why are these Israelites with us? And of course, King Achish, he's not an absolute monarch here. He doesn't have absolute power. These Lords of the Philistines also have power. And if you remember, there are always five Lords of the Philistines. Because there are five major cities that the Philistines dwelled in. You know, Ekron, Ashdod, Geza, Ashkelon. And so those men have authority too. And they're saying, No way. We don't want the Hebrews going out to battle with us. Achish says, Well, I've had this guy with me all these days, all these years. Now, does everybody remember how long David's been with him? 16 months. So a year and four months. And he says, You know, in all that time, he hasn't done anything wrong. Now, of course, there was that one time that he went out and slaughtered a bunch of the Philistines' allies, but remember, he lied about it. And because he lied to Achish, and Achish believed him, Achish believes that David is totally on his side and that David's going to fight against his own people. They say, Wait a minute. Do you realize how mighty of a warrior this is? This is the one who they say, Saul has slain his thousands and David has slain his ten thousands. There's no way we want this guy to go to battle with us. Because he's going to reconcile himself unto his master by fighting against us in the battle. Then he'll be the hero and maybe Saul will take him back. He's going to use this opportunity to patch things up with Israel by fighting against us and turning on us in the battle. Now think about it. If David and his men are in the rearward and they're fighting against Israel, well, that's going to catch them between two fires. If you know anything about warfare, you don't want to be between two armies. That's the worst possible thing. You don't even want to be unblanked on your sides, let alone the back. And so this is the worst thing that could happen. Achish is very naive because we know David has already been lying to him. Now you could look at this and say, well, was David really going to fight against his people? Or was he just saying that? Well, think about the evidence. Go back through the book. Remember how many times David had the opportunity to kill Saul? And he said, I will not touch the Lord's anointed. So he has been very steadfast, even when he's being persecuted and hunted down, that he would not touch Gaza. He would not fight against Saul. Well, guess who's leading up the army of Israel? Saul and Saul's sons. Guess who one of Saul's sons is? Jonathan. And Jonathan is his best friend that he had exchanged vows with many times and sworn to be loyal unto the end, even that their children would be loyal to each other and that their friendship would never die. There's no way he's going to go to battle against Saul and Jonathan. It's just not happening. He's lying. He's saying that he's going to. Now, when you're reading the Bible, people will often say, well, you know, the Bible can be interpreted in different ways. Now, when you have statements in the Bible, they don't need to be interpreted because they're in English. Just read it. You don't need to interpret it. When he says, for all have sinned, all have sinned. I mean, there's nothing to interpret. When he said that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life, that means that there's nobody on this planet who truly believes in Jesus Christ that's going to perish. There's nothing to interpret about it. It means what it says. It says what it means. But when we have stories in the Bible, God doesn't always give us a commentary saying, hey, by the way, what this person did was right or what this person did was wrong. Many times he does give us that kind of a commentary. Like we see David committing adultery with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. At the end of the chapter it says, you know, the thing that David did displeased the Lord. Of course, we already knew that. We could have figured that out. But he puts in commentaries like that so much. But other times he just gives us the story, he just tells us what happened, and it's up to us to interpret or understand or figure out the story. Well, we have to use the rest of the Bible to help us understand it. We use the clear statements in the Bible to interpret the story. Now, the Bible was clear that David was very steadfast before and after this incident, that he would never put forth the sand and touch God's anointed. He's already had a history of claiming to fight against Judah and the Kenites, and he was lying about it. This is no different. He's lying again. He's saying, I'm going to fight against them. When the battle shows up, he's going to fight against the Philistines. He's not going to fight against Israel. You know, best case scenario, he's just not going to do any fighting. But, you know, if you know David and his men, they're going to fight somebody. But it's not going to be the Israelites. It's going to be the Philistines. So these other five lords of the Philistines, they were a lot smarter. They knew what was really going on here. They knew what David's trying to do. They don't trust this guy. Sixteen months, and we can often be naive like Achish, and this is a major thing we can learn from this story. Just the extreme naivety of Achish. Here's a guy who's historically battled the Philistines on multiple occasions. Not only did he fight against Goliath, not only was he a general in Saul's army fighting against the Philistines, not only did he massacre two hundred Philistines and mutilate their bodies to bring, you know, Saul's bizarre request of two hundred foreskins of the Philistines for a dowry when he got married, but even after he was on the run from Saul, even when he was an outlaw, remember when he heard the sound of the gully and the mulberry sticks and everything, and he went and fought against the Philistines even then? This guy has fought against the Philistines over and over. And then for sixteen months, he doesn't do it. And all of a sudden Achish is just trusting him implicitly. I'm going to make you the keeper of my head forever. Your head's going to come off your body if that's the keeper of your head, because he's the arch enemy of the Philistines. This guy is extremely naive, but oftentimes people can be naive. Here's a naive person, and today there are many people who are very, very naive. Now you need to be careful who you put your trust in. Achish is putting his trust in David. The keeper of my head forever. The Bible says it's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Many people that you want to trust or feel like you should trust are actually wolves in sheep's clothing, infiltrators, and this is why I don't let my kids out of my sight. Don't be offended if you ask to babysit my children and I say no. It's because I don't let anyone babysit my children. Either I watch them or my wife watches them, and that shouldn't offend you. It's not that I suspect you, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't trust anyone. Now here's my motto, suspect no one, trust no one. I'm not in a witch hunt, suspecting everybody, being an infiltrator, looking at everybody, you know, you know, verily I say unto thee, one of you shall betray me. I just look around, make eye contact with each person, you know. I'm not trying to be on a witch hunt. I'm not living in suspicion. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. You know what I mean? Innocent until proven guilty. But the way I balance that is just by not trusting anyone. You know, because I'm not going to sit there and trust people just because they go to church for the last 16 months. You know, right? And, you know, it's funny because people will trust their kids with strangers. Now, you know, I'll trust you with my car. I'm not going to trust you with my children. Because my children are too valuable to me. I'm not just going to drop off my kids wherever. And we live in a society where people just drop their kids off with whoever. I mean, they put their kid on a bus with a driver that they've never seen, with kids that they have no idea who they are. They send it to a classroom with teachers and teacher's aides and janitors and custodians with people that they've never seen, never known, don't know anything about them. Maybe they probably met them for 16 minutes, let alone 16 months. They show up at a church. 16 minutes later, their little tiny children are being whisked off into some Sunday school classroom with some stranger that they don't even know. Are you so naive, ageish, that you think that there aren't predators? Especially in 2011. Open to newspapers every day that children are being defiled and molested. Hey, not under my watch. You know, I'm going to do the best I can, and obviously God's got to protect them, but I'm going to do the best I can to keep them out of harm's way. That's why he entrusted me with children, to protect them, not to just throw them to the wolves and say, well, God's going to protect them. Leave them outside overnight and God will keep them healthy. No, it's our job to protect them and to keep them away. And look, God isn't just going to miraculously protect our children. Instead, he gave us instructions that tell us that there will be false prophets among us, that tell us that there will be people among us having eyes full of adultery, that cannot cease from sin, who will beguile unstable souls, cursed children. We have been warned that infiltrators would be wolves in sheep's clothing among us. God expects us to take heed unto that and to be sober, be vigilant, knowing that our adversary the devil walketh about as the roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Don't be an ache-ish that just says, oh, sure, you can have my kids overnight. I just met you 15 minutes ago. I just met you 16 months ago. I'm not going to do it. So don't be offended. It's nothing personal. It's just I'm not going to do it. I'm going to protect my children. And if you care about your money or your car, probably be careful with those things too. Now, personally, I'm not that protective of my car. I'll hand you some money. I'll loan you money. I'll give you my car to borrow. But you know what? I'm not going to loan you my children because I don't trust you that much. And I don't trust anybody that much because it's always the one that you least suspect. Look at the Last Supper. They're all with Judas. And he says, one of you shall be traded. They're saying, Lord, is it I? They weren't elbowing each other saying, yeah, it starts with a J. And even when Judas said, you know, John, the apostle John leaned on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper. And he asked, you know, who is it? He figured he'd tell him. He said, Lord, who is it? And he said, it's the one that I hand the sop to after I've dipped it. He dips the sop and hands it to Judas. Still doesn't get it. He still doesn't understand. Because they just couldn't number it. No, it can't be. That was the last person they would have suspected. He was the one who was the treasurer. He had the bag. They trusted him with the money. That's how much they trusted him. Even when Jesus hands him the sop and says, that thou doest do quickly, they thought that he was telling him to go buy something at the store. They still, it just did not register that he was the traitor. They didn't get it. They couldn't figure it out. It just blew them away. And so that shows that if the 11 apostles couldn't figure out who the infiltrator was, neither could you. And I'm not saying we should. You don't see Jesus unmasking the traitor. He just tells us, and I believe that the reason why Jesus had Judas, one of the many reasons, why Jesus had Judas stay with him for three and a half years, is to teach us an important lesson that we will always have wolves in sheep's clothing among us. Because if Jesus would have exposed him right away, then we would have thought, oh yeah, that would never happen to us. We'll expose him. No. Jesus showed, no, they'll be with you for three and a half years and you won't necessarily. And so be sober, be vigilant, don't be an Achish, don't be naive, don't trust everybody and just think, oh yeah, you know, this guy's totally changed his ways or whatever. You need to be a little bit more discerning than that, and Achish really failed in that area. Now, God didn't allow this to take place for whatever reason. Now, there's a couple reasons why that could be. Here's one possible reason why God didn't allow this to go forward. If you look at verse number six, this is when Achish is telling David that he can't go with him, because the five lords and the Philistines have vetoed his presence. It says, Then Achish called David and said to them, Surely as the Lord Levithal has been upright, and thy going out and coming in with me, and the host is good in my sight. For I have not found evil at least since the day of thy coming unto me unto this day. Nevertheless, the lords favor thee not. Wherefore now return and go in peace, that thou didst please not the lords of the Philistines. And David said unto Achish, But what have I done? So, David's indignant, you know, his plan's fallen through. He says, But what have I done, and what hast thou found in thy servants, so long as I have been with thee unto this day, that I may not go fight against the enemies of my lord the king? And Achish answered and said to David, I know that thou art good in my sight, as an angel of God. Notwithstanding, the princes of the Philistines have said, He shall not go up with us to the bowels. Now, isn't that interesting what he said? He said, You know what? You're good in my sight as an angel of God. Now, stop and think about that. What is an angel? Well, the word angel means basically like a messenger, okay? Someone who brings a message or tidings. Now, you say, Well, how do you know that? Well, you know, you can kind of use the Bible as its own dictionary and let it define itself. I trust that method than what the dictionary says. Now, I'm not saying a dictionary can never be helpful in your life, but the bottom line is anything in the dictionary, you have to take it with a grain of salt, because the dictionary is written by man. It's not written by God. And some people will just pull out a dictionary definition and it's just authorization to them. See? Thus saith the Lord. Well, no, you can't do that because a lot of dictionaries have long definitions in them, because they're written by man. And sometimes they're written by people with an agenda, especially if it's a Bible dictionary or some kind of a concordance with a dictionary, because they want to push their doctrine. So they'll define words like repent in a way that favors them, or words like hell or words like death. You know, they'll take words and make them mean what they want to mean, or words like conception. Some dictionaries will tell you, you know, it's when the seed and the egg come together. Others will tell you, oh, it could be when the developing blastocyst implants, you know, seven to ten days later. I mean, there are dictionaries that say that. I've looked up the dictionary that will say that. There are dictionaries that will use a biblical definition of dispensation, and then there are dictionaries that will use the modern-day definition of dispensation, which is just dispensationalism has used that word wrong so much to mean like a period of time, that that becomes the definition. I mean, if you use the word wrong long enough, I mean, if we just started calling, if thousands of millions of people just started calling the song book, if we just started calling this, you know, a car, this is a car, open your car, pretty soon it'll say in the dictionary next to car, you know, it's a song book that you use to sing in church, because words mean what people use them as. So words that are not in the Bible, they mean whatever people think they mean, or they think whatever the dictionary says they mean, and the dictionary definition will change to reflect usage, how people use the word. But when we're dealing with Bible words, they can't just mean whatever people want them to mean, because it's God's word. You can't just say, oh, I think it means, I think hell is just a, any bad place could be hell. No, when the Bible says hell, we need a biblical definition of hell. It's a place of fire and torment, and we get that from the Bible itself. So I wanted to find the word angel. One thing that can help us understand the word angel is the word evangelist, which contains the word angel in it, okay? And an evangelist is somebody who brings the gospel. Gospel is defined, if we take the book of Luke chapter 3, or Luke chapter 4, and compare it with Isaiah 61.1, we'll see that gospel means glad tidings, or good news, okay? An evangelist is somebody who brings the gospel, okay? It's somebody who brings good news from a far country, as the Bible says. And basically, if you break down that English word, it comes from a few different root words. Basically, the first part there, the e at the beginning, the e-b at the beginning, is a prefix in English that means good. Like, for example, euphony, e-u, u and v interchange throughout the English language. Eu in euphony means good sound. That's what euphony means. It means it sounds good, okay? Eve at the beginning, angel, message, evangelist, okay? Evangelical means good message, or good news, just like the Bible defines it in Isaiah 61.1, in comparison with Luke chapter 4. Does anybody understand a word that I'm saying? All right, good. Just making sure. So an angel is a messenger, somebody who's bringing a message or news. So when Achish is saying, hey, you're like an angel of God in my sight, what did he mean by that? Basically, what he's saying is that he's like a representative of God. Like, if I sent a messenger as my ambassador, or my representative, or someone bringing a message from me, hey, I couldn't be there in person, but I sent my envoy, or I sent my ambassador to represent me and to bring the message for me. Like, for example, if I had to go to court and I sent someone there by proxy to stand in for me and deliver the message to the judge that I'm not guilty or what have you. That is what this means. Now, this is a biblical concept. Go to 2 Corinthians chapter number 2. And this is actually a theme of 2 Corinthians. You're going to find this in chapter 2, you're going to find it in chapter 3, you're going to find it in chapter 5. This is a major theme of the book of 2 Corinthians about being an ambassador of Christ or a representative for Christ. Let me just show you a few highlights from 2 Corinthians, because this is a theme of the book. It says in 2 Corinthians chapter number 2 verse 14, Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and make it manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. Now what does the word savour mean? Well, what does it mean to, have you ever heard this expression, savour the flavour? Have you ever heard that expression? Or savoury meat or savoury food? Savour is taste, OK? He's saying here we make manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. Verse 15, For we are unto God a sweet savour. What does the word sweet refer to? How things taste, right? Things can taste sweet or salty or sour or bitter. He says we're a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish. To the one, we are the savour of death unto death. And to the other, the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? So we are a savour of Christ everywhere we go. To those that are not saved, we're the savour of death. To those that are saved, we're the savour of life. A sweet savour of Christ. Basically, and obviously people are not literally tasting us. This is a metaphorical. The flavour. What kind of a flavour does our life have or our personality or our conversation have? What flavour is there? It should be a flavour that is the flavour of Christ. That people, like the Bible says, taste and see that the Lord is good. That when people get around us, our flavour is representative or giving them a taste of what the Lord Jesus Christ is like. Because we're supposed to be walking in His steps. We're supposed to be living a life that is in conformity and patterned after His life. So that when people look at our life, it gives them a taste of the life of Jesus Christ. We are representing Christ everywhere we go. So if we are doing what we're supposed to be doing and if we're walking a walk that mirrors the life of Christ, obviously we're never going to live up to that, we're never going to be perfect. But if we speak the words of God, if we live a life in somewhat in conformity with God's Word, people get a taste of that. And it's either a good taste or a bad taste depending on whether they're safe or not safe. If you're dealing with unsafe people, they're probably not going to like you. The more you're like Jesus Christ, if they're somebody who just rejects the Gospel, the world will hate you, the Bible says, if you're following Christ. If they love Him, they'll love you. If they don't love Him, they're not going to love you. Because you're a saviour of Christ to them. You're a taste of Christ unto them. Go to chapter 3, just a few verses down. Look at verse 2, it says, He are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men. Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in flesh He gave us the heart. So here we have the epistle of Paul unto the Corinthians. An epistle is a letter that's sent. The Bible's saying that we are an epistle of Christ. Because Christ sends His message through us. We represent Christ. We are His ambassadors. Look at chapter 5, and we're just looking at a few places in 2 Corinthians, but you'll find this throughout the book of 2 Corinthians. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20, Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. So he said, we're the saviour of Christ. We're the epistle of Christ. We are the ambassadors of Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. So he's saying, we are instead of Christ. Christ is not physically on this earth. Jesus will not go knock that door. You have to go knock that door. Jesus is not going to go talk to your brothers and sisters and cousins. Jesus will not come to your job and speak to your co-workers and explain them the Gospel. Jesus will not work with them every day in the work truck and show them what Jesus Christ was like and show them what Christianity means and what the Bible is. He's not going to do it. You do it in Christ's stead. He has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. So we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. We are his ambassadors. Now, an ambassador is not supposed to do their own will, but the will of him that sent him. If the United States sends an ambassador to Iran, for example, it's not up to that guy to just do whatever he wants and say whatever. You know, if we send an ambassador to Russia or an ambassador to China, that guy cannot just make his own decisions about major issues. All he's doing is just delivering the message. He's there to represent the United States. Now, what if we as the United States sent an ambassador to China, for example? And that ambassador to China, you know, let's say he has a major meeting with some people in the Chinese government. He's representing the United States at an important meeting, representing our interests and our desires. And what if he showed up and he just comes and he's just in like shorts and a tank top and flip flops. And he just says, hey, this is how I am. I'm just a casual guy. This is me. This is how I am. You know, and he's just, he's pulling snacks out of his pocket and eating it during the meeting. Okay. And he just says, but this is me. You're not supposed to be you, Mr. Ambassador. You're supposed to be representing the United States. So you're supposed to be dressing, acting, talking and doing what you were told to do. You're not going there to represent yourself. You're going there to represent the nation that you're being sent from. You know, you'd expect an ambassador from a country like, let's say, for example, you know, Saudi Arabia, right? He's probably not going to dress like an American. He's probably going to dress like a Saudi Arabian because he's representing Saudi Arabia. So he's going to look that way. He's going to talk that way. He's going to, he's going to express their opinions, not conform to the opinions around him. He's going to express the opinions and beliefs of those who sent him to represent them. Okay. If you sent an ambassador to represent you and they gave different answers than you would give, made different decisions than you would have made, they're a poor ambassador, a poor representation. Well, we as believers are ambassadors for Christ. We represent the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we are not to do our own will, but the will of him that sent us. We're supposed to do what he wants us to do. We're supposed to speak his words. We're supposed to share his beliefs and opinions and represent him to where people listen to what we say, and it gives him an idea of what the Bible teaches. Well, I think, you know, I think abortion's fine. Well, it doesn't matter what you think, idiot, because it matters what the Bible says. So why don't you represent that for a while? Why don't you represent God's opinion? You're an ambassador for Christ. I don't care what your opinion is. And we ought to represent God's opinion. You know, when people talk to us and we give our opinion about something, it ought to be biblical. You ought to represent what the Bible teaches, because we're an ambassador for Christ. And you say, well, my opinion's different than the Bible, then you're wrong anyway. So you need to read the Bible and get the right opinion on any subject, no matter what the subject is. Get a biblical viewpoint. And anything you strongly believe, anything that you say, hey, I know this is true, you ought to have a Bible verse to back that up. If you have something that you believe and somebody says, hey, why do you believe that, you ought to be able to say, because it says in the Bible, and somebody ought to say, hey, show me that in the Bible. Well, you know, you ought to have a Bible where it's not just, well, you know, that's what I believe. Well, so what then? It's worthless. It's meaningless. It better come from the Bible. Okay, now look, what did Achish say to David? Hey, you're like an angel of God to me. Now look, Achish is living in a heathen country, the land of Philistines. They're worshiping false gods. They don't know the true God. They're part of a false religion. And guess who's representing the truth to him? Guess who's representing, you know, God's word and the right religion? David. And you know, really, David's not being a very good representative on Achish, of what the Lord stands for. Now, thankfully, Achish, hopefully, probably never really knew, or maybe never really found out the treachery of David. You know, I mean, he was probably dead by the time 1 Samuel was written. You know, by the time 1 Samuel was written, he was like, what? But he was already dead by then, probably. But the sad thing is, I mean, he probably went to hell. I mean, hopefully he got saved. Hopefully David got him saved. He probably went to hell. It's a sad thing. But you know, David, it's pretty sad. Think about this. What if you knew? Because put yourself in the story here. What if you knew you're just lying to somebody's face? I mean, you're just lying to them. And they say, I know you're telling the truth. I mean, you know, you're a Christian. Of course you'd tell me the truth. I mean, you're like, I mean, you're upright in my sight like an angel of God. I mean, you're like the closest thing I know to a real Christian. I know you're telling me the truth. You don't have to keep insisting that you're telling the truth. If you knew you were telling the truth, of course you would. I mean, you know, you go to Faithful War Baptist Church or an involved Christian. Of course you're not lying. I mean, how would you feel? That's basically what Achish is saying to David. Like, oh, you're like an angel of God. I know you wouldn't lie to me. But David's pretty back-footed right now because he's out of God's will. He's out of the promised land. He's been living a life for the last 16 months. Now, let me just give you a little bit more. It's kind of a short chapter. There's not a whole lot going on in the chapter. But I want to help tonight a little bit just kind of begin to wrap up 1 Samuel. Because we're not going to do 2 Samuel right after this. We're going to switch to a totally different book. When we finish 1 Samuel, we're moving on to something else. And many years from now, we'll come back and do 2 Samuel. So I want to just kind of wrap up and give you the overview of what's going on. Because I've got a lot of stuff to preach next week in chapter 30 and the week after with chapter 31. Basically, when David is told, hey, you're not going to go out with us to battle. Remember last week? I just want to kind of try to put everything together for you quickly before the sermon's over. Remember last week when Saul went to the witch at Endor. What did Samuel tell Saul was going to happen the next day? He said, you're going to die. And he said, Israel's going to be defeated. So we got that last week in the chapter. So David's about to go forth into this battle. He's told, nope, go home, you're not going to be part of this. Who's going to win that battle? We already know from chapter 28. The Philistines are going to win that battle. Saul's going to be killed. Saul's sons are going to be killed. At least three of them are going to be killed. So we already know that outcome. Well, when David goes back, and what we're going to learn about next week is where David goes back. And he finds out that his whole town, Ziklag, the town that he's been dwelling in for the last 16 months, has been totally burned down. All of the men's wives and children have been taken captive. And all of their goods have been taken captive and everything's been burned down. You know, that was not God blessing him right there. He's lying, he's doing wrong. And that was kind of a wake up call for him. That's when David gets right with God. And that's really a low point for David. When all of his family's been kidnapped, all of his goods are stolen, and his men are so mad at him, they want to kill him. They speak of stoning David. So anyway, we'll talk about what happens and how that all plays out next week, where he gets everything back and wins that battle. But when this is all said and done, he is going to become king of Israel right away, but not the whole kingdom. What happens is, when he gets back from getting his wives and his children back and his stuff back from the raiders that had stolen everything from him and Ziklag, he's going to take some of that spoil and some of the money and some of the goods that he gets back, and he sends it for a present to all of his friends in Judah. All the high ranking nobles and people that are in Judah that are important people. And after Saul's dead, and after Saul's main children are dead, the children of Judah, as soon as David marches back into land. Remember, David's a national hero. Saul has a vendetta against David. Saul wants David dead because of his jealousy, but the nation as a whole doesn't hate David. He was the hero who killed Goliath for them. So when David shows up into town, in the land of Judah, he's rallied as a hero, and he is exalted and made king of Judah. Now, one of Saul's other sons who is yet alive is made king of Israel. There's a little bit of a civil war that goes on between the north and the south. So the north versus the south, where Ish-bosheth and Abner are in the northern kingdom as far as Israel. Judah is reigned over just by David only, and then eventually David ends up being king over the whole thing. He ends up being king over the whole kingdom. So we know that eventually he's going to be king, and that's how this is all going to end up. We're not really going to see that in 1 Samuel. At the end of 1 Samuel, Saul dies, his children die, David gets all the goods back, and it's over. It's in 2 Samuel where we pick up where Saul is dead, David becomes king of Judah, because he's a hero. He shows up, and instead of choosing Saul's son that's left, because it wasn't... I mean, if it was Jonathan, they'd probably make him king, but it's just this no-name guy, Ish-bosheth. And the guy turns out to be a total weakling as you read the story. He's a wimp. He can't lead. He's really just Abner's puppet. Abner is propping him up. And so they end up choosing David in the land of Judah, because that's his relatives, and he sent him a big gift, too. And you give people money, and you give them presents, they're going to like you. But they liked him anyway, because he was a hero. And then eventually he's going to become king of the whole thing. So in chapter 30, next week, we're going to see the whole story of where David hits that low point, and he finally gets right with God. He gets everything back. He gets everything straightened out. And then in chapter 31, we're going to get to the part where Saul dies. There's a lot of interesting things I want to preach in those two chapters. But that's it for tonight. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you for your word, dear God, and thank you for the warning not to be naïve like Achish, not to just trust people that we've only known for 16 months, or even if we've known him for 16 years or 16 minutes, just help us not to be naïve and to realize, hey, not everybody can be trusted, and we need to be sober, be vigilant, be careful who we trust. And also, Lord, just help us to not live a life in deception and lies, and we saw that that caused David to have a lot of problems and to go through a lot of heartache in his life, dear God. Help us not to be deceivers, but rather help us to be a good representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to be ambassadors for Christ, as you said in 2 Corinthians. Help us to be, as an angel of the Lord of the people, bringing your message and your word and representing you as a sweet Savior of Christ everywhere we go. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.