Bring Me The Ephod - Pastor Denny Duron

Praise God.

Well, today I um I want to share a message that I hope will ring true in our hearts because I have a certain desperation in my spirit to be able to reaffirm these truths.

I really feel that what I'm sharing today may be one of the most important messages that I at least have shared in a while.

Uh the Lord dropped something in my heart just a week ago, and I couldn't get away from it.

And um I am in a series now of messages.

I just want to tell you that this is the first one on the life of David, and I will be uh bringing a different chapter.

It's interesting, is that most of the events of David's life are framed by a single chapter.

And so I will be bringing these chapters to you with the permission of my pastor throughout the year.

And um, we'll just call it The Adventures of David, because they're certainly adventures, but they're also life-changing truths.

The title of my message today is Bring Me the Ephod.

Now I'm going to start reading in 1 Samuel 23.

When David was told, Look, the Philistines are fighting against Kilah and are looting the threshing floors, he inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and attack the Philistines?

The Lord answered him, Go attack the Philistines and save Kilah.

But David's men said to him, Here in Judah we are afraid.

How much more than if we go to Kilah against the Philistine force?

Let me just give you a little background.

David is in this season of his life when he is running from Saul.

Saul has finally openly declared David to be public enemy number one, and is actually leading his armies throughout the countryside to try to find David and his men and to destroy them so there's no threat to his throne.

And so that's where we are.

And David hears this uh news that this city of Kilah is under Philistine attack and they're robbing them of all of their food and and just pillaging this village, this city.

And and so he asked the Lord, Shall I go and defend these people?

And the Lord said, Go and attack the Philistines and save Kilah.

But David's men, of course, they balk at the idea because this idea of being uh fugitives is new to them as well, and they're terrified.

And so they say to him, you know, it's just not a wise idea.

And David is kind of unsure of himself in this new role.

He's always been so confident talking to the Lord, but he actually goes back a second time and asks, God, do you really want me to go?

And the Lord says, Yes.

And and so they go.

And um let's continue.

Um so David and his men went to Kilah, fought the Philistines, carried off their livestock, he inflicted heavy losses on the Philistines, and saved the people of Kilah.

Now, Abarthor of Ahimelech, that means he was the son of Ahimelech.

This was actually a ministry team of father and son.

Ahimelech was the high priest, Abia Arthur was one of his sons, had brought the Ephod down with him when he fled to David at Kylah.

And Saul was told that David had gone to Kilah, and he said, God has delivered him into my hands.

For David has imprisoned himself by entering a town with gates and bars.

Here, Saul felt like he had a strategic advantage because David had gone to Kilah, in that the way that the city was constructed was going to swing the favor to his own forces.

And Saul called up all his forces for battle to go down to Kylah to besiege David and his men.

When David learned that Saul was plotting against him, he said to Abia the priest, Bring the Ephod.

David said, Lord God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Kilah and destroy the town on account of me.

Will the citizens of Kylah surrender me to him?

Now, you have to understand what's happening here.

The ephod was a vest that was worn by the priest, and it was joined with precious stones at the shoulders and had 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel.

It had a supernatural connection with the presence of God, in that God would answer yes and no questions when the high priest or the king asked him those questions.

I mean, can you imagine?

Would you love to have one of those today?

And so here, what you're going to see is David saying to Abiathar, this high priest's son, bring me, bring me that ephod.

And so he is not going to ask and inquire of the Lord as he had previously about coming to Kila.

He had no ephod.

But because this is such an important decision, he doesn't want to make it the same way.

He brings the ephod and he asks these questions.

He said, just one second here.

What verse was I on?

Somebody give me.

11.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's not short-term memory, folks.

I just lost it on the page.

Believe me.

Will the citizens of Kilah surrender me to him?

They're asking this vest, this.

Will the citizens of Kylah surrender me to him?

Will Saul come down as your servant has heard?

Lord God of Israel, tell your servant.

And the Lord said, He will.

He's coming.

How'd he say that?

Just about yes.

Again, David asked, Will the citizens of Kylah surrender me and my men to Saul?

And the Lord said, Yes.

So David and his men, about 600 in number, left Kilah, kept moving from place to place.

When Saul was told that David had escaped from Kilah, he did not go there.

Again, my uh subject today is bring me that ephod.

Father, I pray in the name of Jesus that you will speak to us.

Amen.

You may be seated.

David has been nounted king.

He knows he's going to be the king.

His brothers finally concede that he's going to be the king, and they've joined him as a fugitive.

The people know that he's going to be the king.

But Saul does not want to give up the throne, and an evil spirit fills Saul to the point that he becomes this murderous, vindictive maniac, and he wants to destroy David and anyone who is favorable to him.

It would be over 20 years, arduous, difficult, trying years before David would actually be crowned king over the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah.

And in this part of David's journey to the throne, he's a fugitive.

He's running from King Saul, who's determined to kill him.

And David was in a position that was new to him as a warrior.

He had been able to hear from God as a shepherd.

He had been able to hear from God as a psalmist in Saul's court.

He had been able to hear from God as a warrior and as a general of Saul's armies.

But now everything was upside down.

He's trying to find a word from God, and he didn't know who to trust.

He could hear from God, but he needed to hear more clearly.

Anyone else in that boat?

You hear from God, but you need to hear more clearly.

It is here that another man of God walks on the scene.

Now, Abia, son of Ahimelech, had brought the Ephod down with him when he fled to David at Keilah.

That's what the word of God says.

Abia and Ahimelech, of course, were priests that were serving God together at a spiritual retreat, this temporary kind of temple that had been set up in a city called Nob.

And these 85 priests ministered to the Lord in worship on a daily basis.

It was a holy place.

And the scripture says that something tragic and horrible happened there at Nob.

David, being a fugitive, knew that there were some places that would always be friendly to him.

And Ahimelech, who was the high priest, loved him and he knew it.

And he loved Ahimelech.

So he went to Nob, this temporary spiritual retreat where Ahimelech had gathered all of his 85 priests, and he came in and said, Look, Ahimelech, my guys and I are out on a mission for Saul because he did not want to endanger Ahimelech by making him choose sides.

So he told him nothing of the conflict.

So Ahimelech thinks that David and Saul are good, and that David is, you know, still just Saul's son-in-law and is serving him, and of course playing him songs when he's tormented.

Those are the things that the Israelite people knew.

And he wanted to make sure that Ahimelech continued to believe those things.

And so he said, We're out, and we didn't bring supplies, and we had to leave in such a hurry, he wouldn't even bring weapons.

He said, Do you have any bread?

And Ahimelech said, Well, the only bread we have here is the show bread.

This was the bread that was placed in the holy place, and only the priest ate it.

But he said, really, the law says if you have and your men have been clean and you haven't been involved in any overt sin for this period of time, then you're welcome to eat it.

He said, Well, he said, we've been fighting and running and out in the wilderness, so we hadn't had time to do any sinning.

So we'll love to have some bread.

And they just sit down and ate the bread.

And then David said something that would prove to place everyone in that worship center in jeopardy.

He asked for something he should have never asked for.

He said, Do you have a sword?

And Ahimelech said, Oh yes.

I still have the sword of Goliath that you sent over.

It's right behind the ephod.

Let me get it for you.

There's none like it.

It wasn't long, of course, that Saul heard from a pagan who was there when all of this transpired, a man by the name of Doeg the Edomite.

He was not an Israelite, he was not committed to the living God.

And he immediately went to Saul and told him the whole thing, complete with the fact that Ahimelech had given him a sword.

Maybe when Saul came and began to accuse Ahimelech of siding with David, maybe he could have escaped with the explanation he gave because it was a good one.

He said, Look, he said, I don't even know what you're talking about, Saul.

I'm not siding with David.

Saul came right after David left.

He said, I'm not siding with David.

He said, He's your son-in-law.

That's all I know.

And I've always advised the young man.

I've never been disloyal to you.

I don't know anything about a rift.

I don't know anything about an argument.

Because you see, David hadn't told him any of that.

But he gave him a weapon of war.

And it compromised him in the sight of Saul.

So Saul turned to his soldiers and said, kill them all.

All of them, all 85, kill them.

And his warriors, to their credit, just looked at him and would not lift a finger against the priest of God.

But Doeg the Edomite, who had come to give Saul the message, had accompanied him to come back to that place.

And so Saul looked at this pagan and he commanded him to do something that he himself was afraid to do, and all of his priests were afraid to do.

He said, You kill them, and he did.

All of those priests died, and their families, and their livestock.

Everything about them was destroyed that day in that place.

But one of the sons of Ahimelech was able to escape.

Now, here's a very interesting point.

When that son escaped the temple, when they escaped that holy place, he probably had time just to grab something.

You know, when you're leaving and running for your life, you're good, you get something.

And hopefully you go for the thing that is the most important to you.

And what he did was take the thing that was most important to him.

He took the ephod.

Now, what you've got to understand that all 85 of those men there had an ephod.

And he took the one that belonged to him and he ran to David.

When he told David what had happened, David knew immediately that what he had done was wrong, and he began to profusely apologize.

He said, It's my fault that your kinsmen are dead.

You see, the Levites were a family of ministers.

That's the way God planned it.

If you were born into a Levite family, you were called.

So his cousins, his uncles, his father, all killed.

David said, You be with me.

You stay with me.

So David, who had just at the beginning of this reading of this first chapter that we just read together, asked God, should I go and fight these Philistines?

And God said yes.

And then his soldiers balked, and then he asked him, asked him again, should I go?

And he said, Yes.

Now that Saul was coming, he turns to Abe Arthur, the priest who had escaped, and he said, Bring me that ephi.

He understood that he had made a tragic mistake that believers have been making since there was opportunity to believe.

Something we can put our hands around, and then we want to add God to our plans.

Interesting the contrast, isn't it?

One young man ignores the fact that there are eighty-five ephods that he, as the anointed king of God, could have asked for any of them and would have gotten them.

And would have had this divine ability with him as he was a fugitive.

Should we go north?

No.

Okay.

Should we go south?

No.

Should we go east?

Yes.

Okay, guys, it's east.

The Lord says east.

Is there danger ahead?

Yes.

Okay, guys, we gotta stop.

I mean, they had the ability through the ephod to have the built-in voice of God.

Can you imagine?

It sounds a lot like the Holy Spirit, doesn't it?

It is the forerunner of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Because we are all kings and priests unto God, and we are all baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire.

You see, the fact is today, if you have been filled with the Holy Spirit, you have the very same all-knowing, omniscient ability to guide and direct your life as they had as first generation apostles.

You've got the same spirit in you that raised Christ from the dead.

You obliterate arguments that come against you.

You destroy strategies that the devil has meant for your evil and for your destruction.

Every one of us has the power to choose the ephod.

But we want us a Goliath sword.

Churches get sidetracked.

We do, all of us.

I was talking to somebody about my pastorate here as the senior pastor, and I was I was laughing.

I said, you know, I was an evangelist, and so I step into this role, and I have a dad who pastored this church so gently and just was always seeking God and hearing from God and then hearing again and then hearing again.

And he was very slow to move as far as wanting to make sure that everybody was on the same page.

And then Denny Rodney's the same way.

He's just the image of my daddy.

I mean, just a guy that is so thoughtful and just plans so carefully, wanting to make sure that the people all move in sync and that when we announce that we're gonna maybe do something, that we announce it for a few months that we'll maybe do it, and then then we decide to do it, and then we make sure that everything's in place.

I mean, it's I told him the other day, I said, son, I said, I'm gonna just tell you something.

I said, I cannot even tell you how proud I am of you.

I said, all of us are so comfortable moving in the will and the plan of God because of your leadership style.

I said, I pastored this church for 25 years and everybody had whiplash.

We were like, over here and over here.

Praise God, we're gonna do that.

Glory to God, raise a million dollars in one day.

Let's go! You know, it's like all I can tell you is this when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, we must prefer Him over our own way and means.

You see.

Americans are at such a disadvantage in some ways because the only government we have ever known, which I'm just telling you, is the kind of only kind of government I ever want to be under is this democracy.

I just thank God.

And do you thank God for the United States of America and the fact that we have freedom?

But here's what happens: it handicaps us sometimes in our thinking as kingdom people.

Because the kingdom of God is not a democracy.

The kingdom of God is a kingdom.

We have a God who calls all the shots.

We have a God who has the audacity to tell you that you can just get married.

You have to be faithful.

How about that?

No choice.

You can be faithful, buddy.

You're going to be faithful.

We have a God that says this is the way I want you to use your money.

This is these are the values that I want you to have in your life.

What we would rather do is take the sword and carve our own niche in the kingdom.

We would rather say things like this.

But here it comes.

You know, I've been serving God for a long time and my daddy.

And what we believe is once saved, always saved.

Hallelujah.

I know I got I got life insurance.

I got fire insurance.

Folks, let me tell you something.

If you're bragging about that, you don't even know God.

Because you didn't get saved to just go to heaven.

You got saved to walk in absolute obedience to the living God.

If you're looking for an excuse, you are already in trouble.

Now, I am not doubting your theology.

All I'm telling you is that there is a higher road, and you need to find it before you die.

The fact is, we have a God who demands things of us, and it is a pleasure to obey him.

We get excited about him speaking to us.

Yes, sir, Lord God, we will do it.

We'd rather reach for that sword.

Interesting about the sword of Goliath.

There's so much symbolism here.

Because remember when Goliath came out to him on that fateful day in the Valley of Elah, where David was going to defeat him with a sling, even though he stood there with a sword and a shield and armor.

And David said to him, You come to me with your sword and your armor, your shield.

But I come to you in the name of the living God.

And yet David is in the presence of eighty-five ephods and he can't borrow one.

Instead, he reaches for the sword of a man who died wielding it.

If you buy into the philosophy of this world that's hit and miss, maybe so.

I hope so, theology.

See, what are you talking about?

Well, the Bible says that when you get saved, that you are given life and life abundantly.

But sometimes we can have an easy believism where we don't surrender to the Lordship and the kingship of our God, and we will experience all of the same death that the world experiences.

See, what are you talking about?

I'm talking about the fact that either what you're touching has life on it or it has death on it.

You know, when we first uh discovered this property out here in West Shreepport where the school is now, somebody got so excited about it, they built a house next to it.

They felt like that was gonna help me make up my mind to buy it.

And so the man came to me and he said, Man, I am so excited.

I just built my new house right next door to that.

I know God's gonna give it to you.

I said, Don't you ever pray God gives me that property.

I said, property's got death all over it.

There were two schools that had been there who were predominantly, and I'm just telling you, they were segregation schools.

And I'm not going after anybody today.

I'm just saying that's the way it was.

And you know what happened?

Both of those schools died.

And that property was horrible.

It had death all over it.

It had weeds that were, you know, shoulder half everywhere.

It had water in the hallways and in the classrooms where pipes had burst and nothing had been done about it.

Every, every window in that place was broken.

I have never seen such a mess in my life.

It looked like Beirut after the bombing.

It was horrible.

He said, God's gonna give you this.

I said, I don't want it.

Don't you tell God to give, don't put that idea in God's head to give me that property.

I don't want that property.

And I also had never wanted a big organization where the tail wags the dog.

I had preacher friends that had lost the joy of ministry because now they're having to raise money to support this big organization.

And I determined that I was always going to just preach.

Didn't want a big organization, a lot of bills to pay.

So a man comes from a revival that I'd held in Bellingham, Washington.

And um, I'd stayed there nine weeks.

And I met a lot of people.

I couldn't quite place him, and even when I met him, I couldn't quite place him.

But he said he was there in the meetings, and he said, I've come now into the oil business here in Shreeport, and I just I want to do something for your ministry.

This is what he said, he called me right out the clear blue.

Well, the reason that was significant is because the week before I had been leaving the property because we did lease their baseball field and get it all nice so that we could at least have a place to play baseball for our home games.

So I'm coming off that property.

And when I came off the property, folks, I never looked to the left or the right.

I'm just telling you, I didn't want to even look at it.

I wanted nothing to do with it.

And the Lord stopped me, literally stopped me at the front gate.

You said, How do you do that?

And suddenly I felt God's presence.

And I just, I don't know.

I just put on the brakes and I just sat there in my car.

And the Lord said this to me.

He said, On this property, you will train missionaries and evangelists that will go around the world and preach the gospel.

But I didn't say, Oh, hallelujah! You know what my response was?

God, I don't want this property.

True story.

And then I said, This to the Lord, if you want me to have it, you gotta send somebody to give it to me.

That was when the man showed up from Washington the next week.

I'm sitting at lunch with him.

He said, Well, what do you want me to do with you?

And folks, let me just tell you, the Lord had to drag it out of me.

I wasn't even gonna tell the man about it.

Even though I knew what this meeting was about.

I I knew.

I said, Yeah, I'm about to get railroaded here.

Have you ever prayed for God not to do something and he did it?

Not to give you something and he gave it to you.

And I said, Well, there's this property.

Oh, let's go look at it.

I said, Okay.

I said, but it's really rough.

He walked around, all he was seeing was great things.

He just, well, praise God, Denny.

I'm gonna get you this property.

I went, Yeah, thanks.

Thanks for that.

Went down to the bank, he said, give Denny this property because I'm gonna sign on for it, and he's gonna be fine.

I'm gonna give him uh some money over the next few months to fix it up.

And then let's just have a balloon note of 125,000 say into December.

So it sounded great to me.

He was gonna pay for it.

Hallelujah.

Let me tell you something.

He gave us a lot of money to fix that place up, and it was pristine, it was beautiful.

I mean, I I was amazed how good it looked.

It looked great.

And then after we got it all fixed up, he started stopped answering our phone calls because he was embarrassed.

And uh finally we got the word he had gone belly up in business, he had no money left.

And I went to the Lord, and honestly, this is what I said to him.

I told you I didn't want this property, I didn't want it.

And the Lord asked me this question.

He said, Did you really ever think that you were going to be able to work for me and not trust me?

You see, that's the difference in a sword and an ephod.

The sword gives you comfort as long as you are personally with your own strength winning the warfare.

But when you begin to lose, you lose and win on your own.

But when you say, Bring me that ephod, your victory is with the voice of the living God.

Now, brothers and sisters, this is what I'm gonna tell you is that some of you right now are in a place where there's not much joy, there's not much presence, and there's not much power in your life.

There was a time where you walked closely to the Lord, where you loved him with everything within you, but recently it's been more difficult, and you know you're coasting.

You know that your prayers have become shallow, self-serving, and self-sufficient.

Oh God, if you will just let me have this business deal, I will.

Oh Lord, why is it taking so long for you to come through?

Dear God, you know this is your plan.

This has got to be your will.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a theology that is afloat today, that is so self-centered and is so new age that we have got to run from it.

And that is that.

Once you give your life to Jesus, you can dictate the terms of your life, your future, and God's plan.

And that will never be the case.

I want to tell you that you didn't get saved and filled with the Holy Ghost just to do great things in life.

You got saved and filled with the Holy Ghost to primarily, listen to me, to primarily, to primarily be close to God, to love God, to please God, to talk to God, to be with God.

You belong to the Lord.

All I can tell you is this.

I drive on that property today, and I thank the living God that it was an ephod and not a sword.

I thank God that I didn't have millions in the bank where I could just go and buy it and fix it up, or maybe move across town and fix something up that we could occupy.

Because today, when we don't have enough money in the bank to make payroll, I'm still good.

My source is endless.

Now, when we have to have something new and fresh, and it's gonna take money to do it, I don't get terrified because the God who met my needs yesterday will meet my needs today.

The God who did it before will do it again.

The God who is all in all sufficient is always there.

I don't say, bring me that sword.

I say, bring me that ephod.

I don't want to hear the will and the purpose of Almighty God.

Stand with me all over this place.

Hallelujah.

You're out of touch with God, aren't you?

How's that working out for you?

Does it feel good to see the devastation all around you and understand the one reason is because you've departed from his presence?

Oh, but I know the Lord loves you, folks.

Let me just tell you something.

That's relevant, but it is irrelevant concerning your life.

Because God doesn't want to just love you, he loves everybody, he wants to be with you.

And he wants you to walk with him.

Today is the day.

You know what's amazing is this.

You can trust God when you're making a little money.

But then when you get blessed, you reach for the sword.

Start looking for scriptures to justify you.

Isn't that amazing?

What are you doing, son?

I'm looking for a scripture so I don't have to pay you a tenth.

Isn't that what you did?

Sure it is.

It's what you did.

Here's what I ask you.

From where you are right now, go back to when you made that decision and see if there's any chaos between there and here.

Because maybe you serve a God who stopped rebuking the devourer.

You say, Well, Dan, this kind of this kind of preaching makes people leave the church.

I know, I know, and I don't want you to leave.

But I'm fine if the warriors stay.

People that don't war with the sword, but who do it God's way, and who call out for that Ephod.

Give me a word from God, give me a word from God.

God, show me my sin, show me my transgression, show me where I blew it.

Things are a whole lot different now than they were when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, we we we waded around the altars and we repented.

We looked, we we tried desperately to find every speck of dirt that was in our lives.

Because more than anything, we just wanted to be pleasing to Him.

We didn't have any money.

We didn't live on the good side of town, we didn't have great houses, we didn't have boats and cars and vacations and all of that.

We didn't we didn't, I don't know, I don't I didn't know what a vacation was.

You say, well, you want to go back to that?

No, it's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is this is that once God anoints you king, that is, he writes your name in royal blood in the book of life, you've got to keep it a priority to please him.

And for some of our people, you're waiting on things that aren't coming through.

And the reason why is because you're missing something.

It's you.

Did you hear me?

I said it's you, it's not anybody else.

So why would you say that?

Because until you recognize that, you won't run to his presence and get it right.

One of the most convicting songs I've ever heard in my life was the one written by Michael Jackson.

That stinking man in the mirror.

Because this is the guy that I have to take care of.

If I didn't have to deal with this guy, but I do.

And I'm gonna tell you, my flesh is a stench in the nostrils of God.

And most days I can't stand it either.

But oh the glory.

When a man of God who is called of God turns to a grieving young priest who just lost his whole family to a demon-possessed king and says, A Bathor, bring me that ephod.

Let's get back to hearing from God in Jesus' name, Lord.

As I pray, I ask the Shriport Community Church will return to its first love.

I pray that we will look away from the things and distractions of this world and we will say, God, show me how to do it your way.

I love you supremely.

Everything I own belongs to you.

Everything I do, everything I think, everything I desire, it belongs to you.

And then we say this, brothers and sisters, we say, The problem is with me, oh God.

The problem is with me.

Please search my heart.

Hallelujah.

See if there be some wicked way in me.

That's what we used to sing.

Cleanse me from every sin.

And set me free.

Jesus' name.

Jesus' name.

Here's what I'm gonna ask.

Would you like to seal this by having just a few minutes of waiting time before the Lord?

If you would just come and come and gather here.

No special invitation.

Just you want to come wait on the Lord a little bit and say, God, please, let me reach for your presence.

Let me reach for your presence.

Thank you, Jesus.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

God, today, at the end of this fast, we consecrate on your altar the thing that's wrong.

We're what's wrong.

And we thank you that you've never rejected us or set us aside as a son or a daughter.

But we're what's wrong, Lord.

And we right now cry out to you.

Do a work in our lives.

Thank you for connecting with us today.

The first step to a new life in Christ is receiving the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.

If you have never received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, repeat this prayer after me.

Jesus, I believe you died on a cross and rose again for me.

I ask that you come into my heart and be the Lord of my life.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Whether you committed your life to Jesus for the first time today or are already on your journey of faith, we would love to stay connected with you.

Please visit scchurch.com and follow SCchurch on all social media platforms.

And remember, the best is yet to come.