Choices in the Cave

All right, good morning, Lake Church.

It is so good to be here this morning.

I say that every Sunday because every Sunday is so good to be here.

It's so good to be with my church family.

And if it's your first time with us this morning, we are so glad that you could join us.

We are getting back into the life of David, going through the life of David, focusing on this series, the heart of the matter, studying David because he was a man.

The Bible calls the only man that we see in the Word of God, David was a man after God's own heart.

So we can see some very powerful and practical examples as we study his life, not only the high moments, but the low moments.

And there's probably no other person in the Word of God that we see the great realm of humanity where we see the high, great high moments of David's life where he like slayed Goliath, but then we see the great low moments as well, right?

And that applies to all of us, right?

So we are in one of the low moments in David's life.

And you can turn to 1 Samuel chapter 21.

1 Samuel 21 · chapter mention

Last week, we looked at how David was entering into this dark season in his life.

He began entering into a cave.

And not just a literal cave, not just a physical cave, but a figurative cave that symbolizes the dark season that he was entering into.

A cave is dark, right?

A cave is damp, a cave is depressing, a cave is unpleasant, and a cave is uncomfortable.

And that's where we see David at in this season that we believe goes on about seven to ten years, where he's running from King Saul.

Saul was trying to kill David, and David was full of anguish, he was full of fear, he was full of heartache and confusion.

It was a cave.

It was dark, it was a sad moment of his life.

And maybe you walked in here this morning and you can relate.

Maybe you walked in here this morning and you are also in a season of darkness.

A season where you can't see God, you can't hear God, you can't feel God, you don't know what he's doing.

But what I want to encourage you with as we go through this season of David's life is that God has not left you in that season.

He's still with you in the darkness.

He's still doing a work in the darkness.

And maybe you're in that season of darkness.

Maybe it's a season of darkness in your family, in your marriage, in your finances, in your health.

Maybe it's a season of darkness in relationships, and you're praying and you're praying and you're asking God and you feel like He's not answering.

Does anybody relate to that sometimes?

You feel like God has shut up the heavens and you're in that dark season.

Listen, God has not left you in the darkness.

And I said this last week, I'll say it again.

Christians are not exempt from caves.

You can love God and still be going through a dark season of life.

Just because you're a believer in Christ and just because you maybe recently gave your life to Jesus doesn't mean that you will not experience trials and problems and hard times and sufferings.

In fact, sometimes, whenever you become a Christian, that leads you into some hard times.

That's the part that, you know, prosperity preachers don't like to tell you.

Sometimes it's not always sunshine.

Sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes there's grief and there's sorrow and there's confusion.

And you're like, why did I even get into this?

But the but the but the thing we have to remember is that God is still there with you and He is still doing a work in you.

And we looked at last week, we kind of ended the message on this thought, that David's character was being developed in the darkness.

Y'all remember that?

And just like God does a work, God does some of the deepest work in some of the darkest moments.

He David could not bypass the cave.

It was not a detour to God's plan.

It was part of God's plan.

It wasn't the final destination, but it was a part of the journey.

Because there were some things that God was going to do in David that couldn't have been done in the easy times.

Y'all ever heard, you know, smooth seas don't make good sailors or something like that?

I messed that up, didn't I?

Hard, you know, what is it?

Somebody tell me.

Y'all don't know either.

Y'all stop.

Y'all trying to stop by guy, I don't know what I'm talking about.

God doesn't work in the hard times, right?

And we see when we look at David, here's what we see when we look at David, in the darkness, David, his heart was becoming more like God's.

God was doing a deep work in his heart.

And not only that, in the darkness we see David pointing and revealing Jesus.

David is a good foreshadowing, a good, a good type and picture of Jesus.

You say, how so?

When you look at David, he was the anointed yet rejected king.

Does that sound familiar?

He was the king, he was anointed king, but he was rejected.

He was hated without cause.

Does that sound familiar?

He was he was going through a season of intense suffering, right?

And we see the same with Jesus.

Jesus was the anointed yet rejected King.

He was hated without cause.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

Right?

He went through a time of intense suffering and pain when he went to the cross.

Right?

Everyone rejected David.

Uh uh, you know, and everyone we see rejected Jesus.

Uh, and I love this.

I said this last week, but uh, it bears repeating.

And David went into the cave.

Jesus went into the grave, but just like David came out of the cave, Jesus came out of the grave.

How do we see this?

We see David pointing to Jesus through a season of darkness and suffering.

But but here's the thing.

We looked at last week lessons from the cave, but but what I want you to understand this morning is that just going through a cave, going through a dark season, does not automatically make you more like Christ.

Alright?

Because here's the thing: you have a choice in the cave.

You see, he sends us through the lesson, but you can choose in that season of darkness to become more like Jesus or less like Jesus.

I like how, I like how one old preacher said it like this you can become bitter or better because of a cave.

You can go through a cave, a dark season of life, and you can leak you can come out of it angry at God, or you can come out of it trusting in God.

And what I want to preach on this morning is the choices in the cave.

Choices in the cave.

In the dark season of life, you have a choice to make.

And here's the main two choices you can make in a cave.

Will I be guided by fear or faith?

Will I make decisions based off fear or faith?

Will I let fear be my motivation or faith?

And David, when he was in the cave, I'm sure he was afraid.

But the thing about it is, faith doesn't mean you aren't afraid.

Faith just means fear does not make the decision.

Come on, son.

We could have had at least one amen right there.

Faith doesn't mean that, look, natural human tendency is to be afraid sometimes, right?

But the problem is, is when we start letting fear make our decisions for us, it never leads us in a good direction.

What do we do?

We do like David did.

We lean and we trust in God in the darkest moments of our life.

And that's what brings us on the other side of our cave, our dark season, saying, I didn't know understand at the moment, but now I see that God was doing a work in me through that season of darkness.

Don't waste your cave.

Don't rush your cave.

Don't act like it's, you know, not part of God's plan to help you become more like Jesus.

Paul said that I may know him and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.

Sometimes the Christian life takes sufferings.

Now, we look at choices in the cave.

You have two main choices: fear or faith.

Which one is guiding your life?

Which one is directing your decisions?

Which one is influencing your choices?

Fear or faith.

We're not called to walk by fear as believers.

We're called to walk by faith, trusting God even when we do not understand.

Here's what fear does: fear says, I will figure this out.

Faith says God already has.

Fear will say, I've got to control this.

Faith will say, I release this God into your control.

Fear will say, I, you know, I don't know what's going on.

Everything is going wrong.

Faith will say, no matter what, God is still good.

What will your choice be in the dark season of your life?

We see, as we look at David, we see a contrast from chapter 21 to chapter 23.

Now look, we're going to summarize chapter 21 through chapter 23, okay?

Y'all don't worry.

We're not going to read every single verse in the chapter.

Okay?

Don't start heading to uh lunch yet.

We're going to summarize it, okay?

Chapter 21 and chapter through chapter 23.

But but what the reason is because we see a contrast where David was making decisions off of fear and what that led to, and then we see how when David started making decisions off of faith, what that led to.

Now, I want to start with this.

Number one, fear makes you take control.

Fear will make you want to take control.

Fear will make you want to take matters into your own hands.

Right?

Now, we're gonna summarize chapter 21, but we see in chapter 21, it's not David's greatest moment.

Right?

And I like how the Bible does not overlook the bad parts of people's lives, because that's, I don't know about you, but that's what I can relate to.

We see David was spiraling out of control.

We see he was making decisions based on fear.

He starts taking matters into his own hand instead of trusting in God's hand, and that's where he messed up and it caused a lot of problems, a lot of sorrow.

Look at verse number one, chapter 21, verse number one.

It says, Now David came to Nob, which is a priestly city, to Ahimelech the priest.

And Ahimelech was afraid when he met David and said to him, Why are you alone and no one is with you?

So Ahemelech's like, all right, something's going on here.

Something's up.

Now I want to back up here.

This is, we looked at chapter 22 last week, so we're going backwards.

This is when David began running from Saul.

He left his house, he left Jonathan, he left everything he loved.

He was all alone, he was running from Saul because Saul, out of jealousy, wanted to kill him.

So he goes to Ahimelech to the city of Nob, and Ahemelech's like, something's going on here.

And look what David says.

This is so important.

So David said to Ahimelech the priest, the king has ordered me on some business and said to me, Do not let anyone know anything about the business on which I send you or what I have commanded you.

And I have directed my young men to such and such a place.

Now, what did David just do?

He lied.

David didn't consult with God.

We don't see in chapter 21 David consulting with God at all.

But when push come to shove and he was running for his life and he was afraid, he let fear take over and he let fear be the steering wheel to his life, and he lied.

First time we see a crack in David's character was when he was reacting out of fear.

By the way, fear will always lead you to become a person you never thought you would be and do things you never thought you would do.

David lied.

Alright, so let's go on.

Uh, verse number.

Let's skip down.

Uh David gets with Ahemelech, and Ahemelech gives him some bread from the from the tabernacle.

And uh let's jump down to verse number seven.

Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord, and his name was Doag.

I almost said Doug.

It's not Doug.

I don't believe there's any Dugs in the Bible.

D-O-E-G-O-E-G, not D-O-U-G.

His name was Doag and Edomite, the chief of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul.

So David was talking to Ahimelech, and then he realizes that there's a man there who is a servant of Saul.

So not good, right?

Now look at verse number 8.

And David said to Ahimelech, is there not here on hand a spear or a sword?

For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business requires haste.

Again, he's deceiving and he's lying.

So we see Ahimelech gives him Goliath's sword, uh, and then look at verse number 10.

Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul and went to Akash, the king of Gath.

And the servants of Akash said to him, Is this not David the king of the land?

Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousand?

So what did David do?

He saw Doag and he fled, he got scared, and he went into Gath.

Now, why is that significant?

Because Gath was Goliath's hometown.

What did David do?

He ran and went into the enemy's territory out of fear.

He went somewhere that he never should have been out of fear, not faith, out of fear.

And then they recognized, and they're like, this is that dude, David, that killed thousands, tens of thousands of Philistines.

And then look what it says, verse number 12.

Now David took these words to heart and was very much what?

Afraid of Akish, the king of Gath.

So he realized that they recognized who he was.

He got afraid, and because of his fear, he made a decision.

Verse number 13.

So he changed his behavior from them, pretending madness in their hands, scratched on the door of the gate, and let his saliva fall down off his beard.

Everybody say, Wow.

This is David.

This is the next king of Israel.

Let's finish reading it and we'll get on.

Then Akish said to his servants, Look, you see, the man is insane.

Why have you brought him to me?

Have I need of a madman that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence?

Shall this fellow come into my house?

This is not one of David's most finest moments, to say the least, right?

He went to Ohimelech, he lied.

He saw Doeg, he got scared, he ran.

He went into the enemy's territory out of fear, running from Saul.

They realized who he was, he got afraid, and he pretended like he was crazy.

Letting spit run down his beard, scratching and clawing the gate.

Now I want you to visualize this.

This is the same David.

Let's do a side by side of David.

David over here, pre-this, was standing facing Goliath, saying, The Lord shall deliver you in my hand.

Cutting off the head of Goliath by faith.

He slayed Goliath.

And then out of fear, he's running for his life, acting like an insane person with spit running down his face.

Why?

Because fear was driving his decision and not faith.

Fear was his motivator.

Fear was his steering wheel.

And the Bible tells us over and over throughout the Word of God, do not fear.

Do not fear.

Some say it's in there 366 times.

I haven't counted, I'm just taking their word for it.

366 times.

That way you can rest in a promise to do not fear every day, even on leap year, every day of the year.

To do not fear.

But David was letting fear drive him to become, listen, a person that he was not.

And what was David doing?

David, this is very important because this relates to all of us.

David was forgetting who he was, and he was forgetting who God was.

David could have looked back and remembered the faithfulness of God and placed his faith in God and said, This is the same God that delivered me from the lion and the bear and Goliath.

And so far he delivered me from Saul.

But he got to a point where he's like, okay, I guess God has hit his limit on how many times he's going to deliver me.

And don't we do the same thing sometimes?

We can look back and see how many times God has been faithful.

Raise your hand if you can say God has been faithful.

Come on, raise it up high.

God has been faithful, amen.

But sometimes when we're in the middle of it, we can forget how faithful he is.

And we can stop, we can, we can we can think like, okay, God must have hit his max for faithfulness, so now I gotta take this in my own hands.

David was trying to control something that he should not have been trying to control.

Do we have any control freaks in here?

Come on.

Anybody anybody married to a control freak?

Right?

You're about to get in trouble.

About to get in trouble.

Okay.

Now that we're all in trouble, here's what control is, really.

It's a mask to hide your fear.

When you think you have to control everything, when really we can't control anything, right?

There's very little in this life we can control.

You get a diagnosis, and guess what you're doing?

You go on to Google to see what you gotta do to control it.

Or if you're gonna die with cancer in three days, right?

You go to Chat GPT, you try to control it.

I believe one of the one of the most uh probably relevant practical examples we have of this recently is COVID.

COVID reveals that we cannot control anything, really, can we?

But whenever we were afraid, and I say we as humanity, whenever we were afraid, y'all know what happened?

We could not control what was going on in our world.

So what'd we do?

We went and bought up all the toilet paper.

And if I remember correctly, COVID did not even do anything that made you need toilet paper.

Except for maybe wipe your nose, and you can use a paper, you know, you can use a tissue.

That's what I'm thinking of tissue for that.

What were we doing?

COVID does not have a symptom really where you needed toilet paper.

All right, let's just, I'm not gonna get too graphic.

But what did we do?

We were afraid, and we decided we wanted to control something.

So we bought up all the toilet paper, and everybody's trying to get toilet paper.

It made no sense, but that's what you do when you're afraid.

You do things that don't make sense.

You try to control something, even if it doesn't make sense.

Control really is a way that we are hiding our fear of not being in control.

Fear causes us to take into our hands what we should have left in God's hands.

David should have left it in God's hands.

And listen, church, listen, before I move on, the only thing you can control is whether you trust the God with the things that you can't control.

The only thing you control is your choice to react by fear or faith.

And David in this instance reacted out of fear, and it has consequences that we're gonna look at.

Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.

We all know trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understandings and all your ways.

Acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

Right?

So, so we see fear makes you take control.

Number two, fearful choices have consequences.

Fearful choices have consequences.

David made choices out of fear that didn't just stay in chapter 21.

They carried on to chapter 22.

They followed him into the next chapter.

They did not just affect him, they affected those that he encountered and those that he was around.

Now, I was gonna read a bunch of verses right here, but I'm gonna I'm gonna uh I'm gonna just let you read them on your own time, read through chapter 22, and uh I'm gonna kind of summarize it.

So, David, we know in chapter 22 he went in a cave, and then Saul here.

You know, he's running from uh David's running from him.

Uh Saul is trying to find David.

Uh and he and he asks his servants, his army, is like, okay, does anybody know where he's at?

He threatens them.

He says, Y'all conspiring against me.

And you know, he's he's he's uh trying to figure out where David's at.

And then Doeg, not Doug, Doeg, stood up and said, I know where he's at.

Trying to get some brownie points from the king.

He tells Saul what happened, how Ahimelech gave David a sword and bread and sent him on his way.

So remember, David lied to Ahimelech, right?

Ahimelech didn't really know what was going on.

Saul went to Ahimelech and he said, he confronted him and he says, You're helping out David.

Uh and Ahemelech's like, look, David, I don't know what's going on, okay?

David came to me.

David is your son-in-law, David's been faithful, David is honorable, he's taken up for David, even though he didn't really know what was going on.

Y'all know what Saul did?

He tells his army to kill, remember, Ahimelech's a priest.

To kill not only Ahemelech, but all 85 of the priests in Nob.

His army, and you can go ahead and read this on your own time, but his army thought it was so sacred, the priesthood was so sacred, they would not even lift a finger to kill, to obey the king and kill the priest.

But then again, we have a man named Doeg, not Doug, Doeg, and he said, I'll do it.

And he killed 85 priests.

He killed their family, he killed their wives and their kids, he killed the livestock, he destroyed the city of Nob.

One person got away, Abathar, I think it was his name, Ahimelech's son got away.

He went and told David what happened.

And I want you to see what David said in verse number, where are we at?

Verse number 20, in chapter 22, verse number 20.

Now one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, I don't know if that's how you say that, I just made that up.

Ahitub, named Abbiathar, escaped and fled after David.

And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the Lord's priest.

And David said to Abiathar, I knew that day when Doeg the Edomite was there that he would surely tell Saul.

And look what David said, I have caused the death of all the persons of your father's house.

Then he says, Stay with me, do not fear, for he who seeks my life seeks your life.

But with me you shall be saved.

Now David did not kill the priest, but David's reaction out of fear, lying to Ahimelech.

You know, Ahimelech didn't know what was going on.

He couldn't run for his life.

David didn't order the sentence, but David felt responsible because he made a decision out of fear and it affected innocent bystanders.

Listen, I say all that to say this.

Nobody in here sins in isolation.

Your sin and your decisions based off fear, especially men, they do not just affect you.

You have a responsibility before God, men, to make decisions by looking and seeking God.

Because when you make decisions off of fear, when you lead your family out of fear, through fear, by fear, you can have negative consequences in your life, in their life.

Your sin does not just affect you.

It affects all those around you.

That should give a weight to the responsibility.

And it doesn't just apply to men, all of us.

We do not sin in isolation.

Your decisions affect those around you kids, grandkids, a church.

It has an effect that reaches farther than you can imagine.

It has consequences.

And you know what we do a lot of times?

So David, he he owned up to his sin.

He owned up that I'm responsible for this.

I feel at fault for this.

But you know what many times we do?

We don't seek God, and then we do something based off fear or something against God, and then when bad consequences happen, we blame the God that we didn't ask.

I'm not alone in that, am I?

Haven't we done that before?

God, why are you allowing this to happen?

And He's like, I never told you to do that.

That wasn't my plan.

That wasn't my will.

That's not what I told you to do.

You took it upon yourself to do it your own way, and this is the consequences.

You know what the great news is?

Is God will even be with you in the consequences of your own actions.

We can screw everything up.

We can mess up, we can make a mess of things, and we can turn to him, and he can still work through our sinful situations that we cause for good.

He can work in the mess, he can work in the cave, he can work in the darkness.

But that doesn't mean, look, here's what we should do: we should seek him before we make a decision.

In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

All your ways, not just the big things.

Every day we need to open, we need to open the word of God, surrender our heart, and say, God, I need direction and guidance for my life.

I surrender my heart to you.

Reveal to me your way.

So it had consequences.

Then we see number three, faith seeks God's direction.

So we move on from fear to faith here.

And we go to 1 Samuel chapter 23.

1 Samuel 23 · chapter mention

We see something very important changes from chapter 21 to chapter 23.

Chapter 21, David is reacting out of fear.

He's making decisions not by seeking God again.

Like I said, nowhere in chapter 21 do you see David seeking God.

But then you look at chapter 23 and look at verse number, look at verse number 1.

Then they told David, saying, Look, the Philistines are fighting against Kealah, and they are robbing the threshing floor.

And look at verse number two.

Therefore David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and attack these Philistines?

And the Lord said to David, Go and attack the Philistines and save Kealah.

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

How much more than if we go to Kealah against the armies of the Philistines?

And verse number four.

Then David inquired of the Lord once again.

And the Lord answered him and said, Arise go down to Keilah, for I will deliver the Philistines into your hand.

And then verse 5, and David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines, struck them with a mighty blow, and they took away their livestock.

So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.

What do we see here?

Something changed in between 21 and 23.

David in the cave in chapter 22 decided he was going to start trusting in God and not his own way.

And then in chapter 23, whenever he had a decision to make, he didn't make it out of fear.

He made it out of faith.

He inquired of the Lord.

He said, Shall I go fight?

God said, Go fight.

His men, remember, he had about 600 men at this time.

His men said, Hold up, David.

The Bible says they were very afraid.

You know what they needed?

They needed a leader, not to make decisions off of fear, but faith.

They were afraid.

And human logical reasoning would make you think that, okay, you got a battle coming.

You don't need to go pick another battle.

Right?

But how many of y'all know that sometimes faith goes against human reasoning and logic?

David could have said, God, okay, you know, this is a, I don't even need to ask you about this one, God.

You know, I'm being chased by an enemy, an army.

Why would I go pick another fight?

I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I've been in a cave, you know, things are rough.

I'm not gonna go waste my time fighting this battle when I have another battle on the way.

But David, instead of using his human logic and reasoning, he's he sought the Lord and God said, Go and fight.

The men were afraid, so he sought them again.

Just make sure I heard you right, God.

You did say go and fight, right?

He said, Go and fight.

He won the battle.

He he regained the spoil from the battle, and it was a great victory.

You know what I believe, church, we need to do?

We need to be very specific in praying for specific things.

David said very specifically, shall I go?

Shall I do this?

And God answered him, Go.

He sought the Lord, he was seeking God's direction.

And again, I'll say this again: faith does not mean you're not afraid.

Faith just means fear does not get to make the decision.

And we see on throughout this chapter, David seeking God.

Verse number 10, it says, Then David said, Oh Lord God of Israel, your servant has certainly heard that Saul seeks to come to Kealah to destroy the city for my sake.

Will the men of Kealah deliver me into his hand?

Will Saul come down as your servant has heard?

Very specific questions, right?

Very specific prayers.

O Lord God of Israel, I pray, tell your servant.

And the Lord said he will come down.

Then David said, Will the men of Kealah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?

And the Lord said they will deliver.

So we see David constantly seeking.

Why?

Because he knows that following God's will is better than his own will.

You know what I believe we like to do sometimes?

We like to make up our mind what we're gonna do already, and then just ask God, just so we can go through the motions.

I'm saying, okay, God, what we're really doing is we're just wanting God to sign our permission slip to do what we want.

It's not saying, it's not praying to say, God, you align with my will.

It's saying, God, I want whatever your will is.

That's what faith is.

He's seeking God specifically for specific things.

And God delivered him.

Now, I want to point out something before we move to our last point.

I'm about done, but I want to highlight this because this is a very significant, very important part of David's life.

In verse number 16 and 17, we see Jonathan comes to David, and we see this is the last time that Jonathan and David will ever speak.

This is the last encounter Jonathan, his best friend, will have with them.

And David was seeking direction from God.

God revealed it, and then Jonathan came and confirmed what God had already said.

Look what in verse number 16.

Then Jonathan Saul's son arose and went to David in the woods and strengthened his hand.

And he said to him, Do not fear, do not fear, for the hand of Saul, my father, shall not find you.

You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you.

Even my father knows that.

So the two of them made a covenant before the Lord, and David stayed in the woods, and Jonathan went to his own house.

I say that because Jonathan's words confirm what God had already said.

By the way, that's a good friend.

When a friend comes and doesn't try to tell you what to do, but just remind you who God is.

He says, Don't fear, God's promise will come true.

Don't fear, have faith.

How did David receive direction from God?

His word.

But then he had a godly friend that confirmed the word that God had already spoken.

I'm saying all that to tell you, listen, we seek God through his word, but we should also have godly people in our life.

And God will use those people to confirm the word that he's already spoken to us.

Don't go to your friends that's going to go against God's word.

I don't care if they say, I got a word from the Lord.

If it don't come line up with God's word, that's not a godly friend.

God revealed to David by his word, this is what you should do.

Jonathan confirmed the word that the Lord spoke to David.

Don't fear, trust God.

Godly friends, we should do the same thing to people in our life.

David, last encounter with Jonathan.

And Jonathan told him, Don't fear, have faith.

And then I'll bring you to the last point and we're done.

Number four, faith overcomes the enemy.

Faith, your faith, David's faith, overcame the enemy.

Now, chapter 23, we're going to read three, four verses.

Verse number 26, it says, Then Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David his men on the other side of the mountain.

So David made haste to get away from Saul, for Saul and his men were encircling David and his men to take them.

But a messenger came to Saul, saying, Hurry and come, for the Philistines have invaded the land.

Therefore Saul returned from pursuing David and went again to the Philistines, so that they called the place the Rock of Escape.

Then David went up from there and dwelt in the strongholds at Engedi.

So what do we see here?

Saul's army is closing in.

It's kind of like a cat and mouse game here.

David's on one side of the mountain, and Saul's on the other, and he's chasing him and he's running from him.

Well, Saul's army encircles David and his army.

Saul's army is probably, you know, thousands and thousands of people, and David is only 600, and they're circling David, and they're closing in.

And it looks like David's about to be overtaken.

David can't fight against Saul.

He doesn't have the manpower.

David can't escape Saul.

He can't get away.

He can't run forever.

David doesn't know what to do, where to turn, what's gonna happen?

Saul's army's closing in.

What's gonna happen?

I'll tell you what happened.

God showed up.

That's right.

There's a battle going on that Saul and his army need to attend to.

Saul reluctantly leaves from chasing David, goes to this other battle, and David is delivered from the hand of the enemy.

How?

Not by himself, but by faith.

And he goes to, I love this.

He goes to the rock of escape.

That place that he was delivered was the rock of escape.

He did everything he could.

He exhausted every option, and he was about to be defeated by the enemy.

But y'all listen, when we have exhausted every option, we're in a good place to realize that God never runs out of options.

God delivered David.

God was his only hope.

God was greater.

The danger was real, but God was greater.

The pressure was real, but God was greater.

When it looked like there was no hope, no path forward, God was greater and God delivered him.

And they named that place the rock of escape.

The rock of escape.

I want you to think about that.

A place of deliverance.

You know what Paul said about Jesus?

He said, Christ is that rock.

Jesus said in Matthew 7 that using the parable of the rock and building a house on a rock in the sand, he was showing that Jesus is that rock that you can build your life on.

Peter said he is the rejected stone.

He is the stone of a fence.

Where is our deliverance?

Not in ourselves.

It's in Jesus as our rock, as our escape, as our deliverance, as our place of salvation.

Just like David.

We have an enemy.

The Bible says in 1 Peter 5.8, it says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, like a walks about like a roaring lion, seeking.

He was hunting.

Saul was hunting David, the enemy seeking whom he may devour.

But you know what John tells us, 1 John 5, 4.

It says, For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

And then he goes on to say, Who is he that overcomes the world?

But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

Listen to me.

If you're a believer in Christ, you are an overcomer by faith.

Your faith has overcome the world.

The enemy cannot defeat you because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

What do you do?

You run to Jesus.

You trust in him.

And you let God fight your battles.

We can have a song of invitation this morning.

Your faith.

Because it trusts in a God that's all powerful.

Trust in a God that can't be defeated.

And some of you may be here today and like you just keep trying to fight in your own strength.

You keep trying to do it on your own.

Keep making decisions on your own.

Keep relying on your own reasoning.

You keep saying, like, okay, I gotta control this, I gotta manipulate this, I gotta scheme this, I gotta figure this out.

When there is a place of escape, there's a rock of escape, and his name is Jesus.

If you're in a cave this morning, if you're in a dark season, you have a choice.

Will I react out of fear or faith?

Fear says, what if?

Faith says, even if.

Fear says, what if I fail?

Faith says, God is still good.

Fear says, I have to take control.

Faith says, I'm surrendering this God to your control.

Fear looks at how dark the cave is.

Faith looks at how good your God is.

He's still there.

He's still working, he still has a plan.

You can't choose your cave, but you can choose your response in the cave.

In the darkness.

Maybe you're here this morning, you're living in fear, constant fear and worry, and stress.

Look, you can't control them.

My them, y'all know who I'm talking about.

Whoever that person is that just came to your mind, you can't control them.

You can't control what they do.

You can't control what they say.

You can't control anything but what you do in the moment where you don't have control.

You trust in the one who is in complete control.

And when you do that, you can lay your head down at peace, knowing that if God is for me, who can be against me?

Maybe you're here this morning, you're living in fear because you've never truly trusted in Jesus as your Savior.

You've never come to that place where you've crossed that initial line of faith, where you're living in fear because the enemy is at work in your life.

And I would say even controlling your life, and you don't sometimes don't even realize it.

You've never made Jesus your Lord and Savior.

You've never recognized him as your Lord and called upon him as your savior.

You're you're trying to do it on your own.

But the truth is that Jesus came down to this world, died on a cross, rose from the grave, conquered death, conquered hell, conquered the grave, and by faith we have victory through Jesus.

We have victory over death.

We have victory over sin.

We have victory over the grave.

We have eternal life through Jesus Christ.

And I'll just say, like Brother John said, our faith has overcome the world.

It's not us, it's the fact that the one who our faith is in has overcome the world.

Maybe your first step this morning, instead of asking God to fix your problem, maybe you need to come to Jesus by faith and receive Him.

I want to pray and we're going to close.

If you're here this morning, you're going through a dark season.

I want you to know you have a church that loves you, that's here for you, that will walk through that with you, that will support you, that will encourage you.

And we just want to pray with you as you're going through this.

So if you're going through some struggles this morning, you can find a place at this altar.

You can come get with our prayer partners.

And we're going to spend a few moments this morning just letting, just turning our heart, our eyes, our focus to God and realize that he is big enough.

He is bigger than any problem you're facing right now.

Look to him.

Father, we love you.

We thank you for your truth.

God, we pray that you would help us to surrender our control to your control.

Surrender our fear and be led by faith.

God, that we would surrender our problem and stop looking at how big our problem is, but look at how great and powerful you are.

And that you would do a just a work in our heart and lead us and give us freedom and victory.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's stand.

We're gonna sing.

I want you to sing this out.

If you need prayer this morning, you can come, and we would love to pray with you.