In this sermon, the speaker discusses the unification of the scattered tribes of Israel under the leadership of David. He emphasizes that the people had never been unified in a kingdom or purpose before David's time. The speaker also highlights the importance of understanding God's larger purpose and not getting caught up in personal struggles or contentment. The sermon references the stories of Moses, Samuel, and the Israelites' journey out of Egypt, as well as the distribution of land in Canaan and the request for a king.

I've been asking the Lord if there was something that he might share that would give us a proper focus for the rest of the week that would not be just mine, but something of his own choosing. I would have to say that for almost three years now, I've been tremendously moved, I believe, by the Lord to go back and study the life of David. I've gone through different phases of study and emphasis, but it has seemed that the Lord is, I don't know if it's just me, maybe I believe it's him, as though an inner voice was saying, there are some principles in the life of David that you're going to need done. I want you to get a hold of them. And I have not continually, but at different times, have tried to get back into some of the things that surrounded the unique calling and the ministry, the thing that God wanted to do through David. And I want tonight, maybe by way of just introducing our own little sharing, I want to share this as my burden for why we are really here. What is the focus of our burden these days, this week? If you would turn with me tonight to the book of Acts, chapter 13, I want to read just a couple verses to point out thinking. May I read it first in the King James, which you all no doubt have, and then I want to read it from another translation. Acts 13, beginning with verse 22. I want the last portion, but we'll read the whole verse. And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Verse 36, for David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep and was laid unto his father and saw corruption. But there are two phrases here. First the one, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. And then in verse 36, for David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God. I don't know, but if I have cried out through the years for any one thing, it has been, O dear Lord, let me sense what it was that made David to be a man after your heart. What was it, what was it? Is there something that you would indicate to this young man that I might more clearly grasp what it is, a man after your heart? The Berkeley translation, which I want to use, puts it this way, these phrases. He raised up David for their king, of whom he testified, this is verse 22, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man agreeable to my mind, who will carry out my whole program. A man who will carry out my whole program. The other verse that we read says, but God raised him, David, verse 36, David, however, after serving his own generation in agreement with God's purpose. What I'm interested tonight in is this. I wonder, I wonder if too much of the time, the reason we are prone to faint, the reason when we get into the midst of something of reverses or struggle in our calling and ministry unto the Lord, I wonder if we've been living in the largeness of the framework of the purpose, the thing that God is really after. There's something of a progressiveness. There's something of an unveiling as we go along further and further. I'm concerned with the people who are content to settle down with something that's good and something that's better without daring to cry out, as I sense in the heart of David, Oh God, to fulfill your whole purpose, the whole program that you have in mind that I might be properly related to it. Let's just go back for a little bit tonight, and I'd like for a few minutes to lay this kind of background in Acts 13. Let's just pick up the history of Israel. Paul is saying, and I think I'll read it out of the Berkeley, Men of Israel, beginning the last part of verse 16, Men of Israel, and all you who reverence God, listen. The God of this people, Israel, selected our fathers and raised up the nation. When they lived as strangers in the land of Egypt, then with uplifted arms he led them out from there. For about 40 years he endured their behavior in the desert, then destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan. He distributed their land by lot, all of which took about 450 years. After that he gave them judges until the prophet Samuel. From then on they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Tith, of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years. After deposing him, he raised up David for their king, of whom he testified, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man agreeable to my mind, who will carry out my whole program. Let me, just for a little bit tonight, see if we can't go back and see the uniqueness with which God has used various men in the progressive unfolding of his program. We'll start here with Abraham, the father, the patriarch. We'll move on to his son Isaac. Finally to Jacob and the twelve sons who became the twelve tribes. Finally who went down into Egypt, the time of famine. You remember this period, 400 years, not particularly concerned about that which God was really after, but they became a multitude of people. They increased, even in their slavery. You know the story in due time how Israel began to cry out to get out of Urbandi. God's unique timing is something we have to always recognize. Moses was ready long before the people were ready. Finally, in God's own timing, when the people are sick of their slavery and the deliverer has been prepared, we have God raising up a man with the unique ministry of delivering Israel, bringing them out. I'll just put down he's the deliverer. This is the distinct thing. If we would say of Moses, as we have said of David, that he fulfilled the purpose in his generation, the unique thing that God had, the bringing of them out. It's interesting, however, that God was not interested merely in bringing them out of Urbandi, merely getting them out of the world, Egypt and all that it represented. But God was wanting to bring them on into the possession, the thing that he was after. It's quite something when you can make the people alive to that. I say to us tonight, as I think I've said on probably every other occasion last year, oh, when people move out of merely relating God's working and activity to what it means to them, and they get beyond until the cry and the yearning of the heart is what it means to the God, what he's going to get out of it, then you sense a different kind of groan. There'll be a groan, but it'll be a different one. It'll be a different thing. Well, you know, after Moses has fulfilled his ministry of getting them out of Egypt, as it were, into the wilderness, but not on into the land of Canaan, we have another man raised up. Joshua becomes the captain. And the unique and distinctive thing, see, of his ministry, is that he's hauling out all the people so that he could have them for that. Now, I'm afraid that the great majority of the people never quite saw beyond the fact that they needed a little more land for themselves, and the possessing was mostly related this way, not so much to what it would mean in the testimony and the larger purpose of God. But Joshua fulfills. I like to speak of him as the captain who would lead them on into the possession, that fullness that God had planned, taking them on the next phase. Well, you know the story. It would be wonderful if they had moved on, as it were, in the line of purpose and onto the full thing that God had. But we come very shortly. We read after the men who outlived Joshua after their vision failed. Then we come to the period of the judges. And it's rather interesting that with the judges, you find something of a story like this. You want to read it? I think we will. Turn to the book of Judges for just a little bit. Chapter 2 in Judges, beginning with verse 16. So what has happened is that the people who should have moved on in the line of purpose and the whole program of God, they were content, content to get a parcel, content to get something that would be good for them, but they were not particularly alive to the larger thing that God wanted. And so they became captive to the various nations of Israel, nations in Canaan that kept plundering and coming in. We read now in chapter 2, I think we'll pick it up there, verse 16. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that foiled them. And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a-whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them, and turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord. But they did not sow. And notice. And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judges and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For it repented the Lord because of their groaning by reason of them that oppressed them and becked them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they returned and corrupted themselves. What's the word? Everybody say it together. You know, I forgot to give you instructions. When I get tired, you know, and I put my hand up like this, that means it's your turn. You remember that? Didn't I do that last year here? Well, we'll do it this year. This is your turn. And it says, and they returned and corrupted themselves more. Now I want you to see. Here we are in the pattern of purpose. There's a bit of reviving. There's a bit of awakening. But they go back further in their own way. They corrupted themselves more than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down under them. They cease not from their own doing, nor from their stubborn way. Well, you know the story. God was wanting a people who would move in and present. A people who would come and become in a peculiar testimony. A people who would be delighting to fulfill the program, the larger purpose of God. But their contendedness each time was to cry out, Oh God, we're in an awful mess. We're in an awful mess. And you know, there comes a time then when God raises up the prophet Samuel. And we come into Samuel's ministry. All during this period, it says, that there was no king in Israel and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. You begin the book of Samuel and God looks down on a people not particularly alive to the thing God is after. Just wanting somehow to keep out of the bondages, the misery, the struggles of the Philistines, the different ones. God hears, gives them a delivery, but they're not alive to the larger purpose. Then Samuel comes on the scene and it says in the opening portion of Samuel that in that day there was no open vision. That is, a word from the Lord was very unusual. It's a very precious thing, it was so scarce. But God in Samuel now, once again begins to restore something of vision and something of inside back in the larger program. And you know how the people begin to cry out in due time, Give us a king. And we have King Saul brought to the throne. We won't get into that tonight. Finally we come to the whole unique period in ministry of David, which is my real burden. Then we move on to the ministry, the unique thing that God had for Solomon. But I'm concerned as I get into the ministry of David. It seems as I look upon the ministry of Samuel and he begins to awaken the people to something further of the purpose of God, something of the vision of what God is after. Then you have David stepping in on the scene and he becomes the unifier of a motley, motley group of people. Here are all of these scattered tribes. They've never been unified in a kingdom. They've never been unified in purpose. They've never seen much beyond just the little plot that the lot that had been parceled out today. Now this is my burden tonight. It's just something of a bird's-eye view of what I'd like to say. Dear heart, in case there's someone who has come in and in your own yearning to know where God would lead you on and maybe what he's doing in this hour, what is the focus and the thrust? You might say, I've been through the ministry. I understand what it is to have a ministry like Moses getting people saved and bringing them, as it were, out of Egypt. Praise God. That's wonderful. We thank God. Or you may have actually said, thank you, Lord. I see that there are saved people who are pretty poverty-stricken. They have never come to possess much of what there is in Christ, much of the increase that the Lord wants to make available. And what we need is to get people to grow in grace and to possess more of their possessions. Well, that's wonderful. And that's a blessed ministry. And I thank God for everyone I hear who is underscored that which constitutes something of the ministry of Joshua. I think I can say, this has been my burden. This has been my burden. Then I went through, and I think you'll not be hard with me if I use the past tense, went. But I went through a period when all I prayed and all I saw was revival. I moved for almost eight or nine years from church to church claiming that God would give a revival, an awakening, as regards to people. It's wonderful. It's wonderful when people in desperation, like we have pictured here, begin to cry out, Oh God, we need deliverance from the Philistines. We need deliverance from the awful bondages of that which is pressing in upon us. You read that God sends a judge. He sends a deliverer. He sends an awakening. But I began to see, some years ago, as I would go into one place, the spirit of the Lord would awaken and quicken some people. And we had something of revival. And I would come back the next year and I'd say, Well Lord, it's going to be wonderful to get back to this people. I remember how blessed and how awakened and how alive they were last year. I can hardly wait to get back. Do I need to tell you the rest? Only to my heavy heart to discover that they needed another revival, another shot in the arm, another spring boost, or whatever. I don't mean to be light about it. And you can't move. You can't move around among God's people very long before you begin to cry out, Oh God, why aren't more people being led out of Egypt? That's necessary. Why aren't more people beginning to move on with Joshua to possess some of the things that you want to make available? Lord, why don't we see more reviving? I like to call it continuous revival. But then, as my friend Armand Guestline says, that's really not God's plan. Continuous revival, because that anticipates the fact that there ought to be this. Lord, is that the best you can do? This? No. I don't think revival is God's norm. It's only because of the state where it's because of the lack of vision. Is it possible that God can envision a people, take a group of people and a fellowship and enlarge their hearts and so bring them into the focus of what he wants? I know it's the ideal, but I still believe in the ideal. That there doesn't have to be this. There can be something of the steady progress, the moving on to the large purpose. What I'm trying to say tonight is this. I believe in revival, but I don't believe it's the answer. I don't believe it's the greatest need of this hour. I don't believe it's the greatest need of this hour. And I'm open for correction if you want to take me aside. I'll have some time, I'm sure. But this is my burden tonight. God is wanting to focus some people on something of a larger framework. When I read where it speaks of David coming to live in his generation to fulfill the will of God and the omniscient distinctive thing, I wonder if God is wanting to enlarge our framework while this that the judges went through is something wonderful and we can call it the period of revival, yet it says in the last verse that every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Every time I read that, it strikes me. It strikes me with a cut. Because God seems to say, been saying it to me for some two, three years now, young man, your days, your days of just moving on your own are over. Your days of just going as you would, what seems right in your own eyes, working for God, but I've got another bridle that you haven't been wanting. And I'm not sure I've wanted it, I should be honest with you, but something that bridles the life to the place where you cry out, oh God, just to fulfill the larger thing that you want. Well, we'll get into more of what Samuel's ministry meant and where King Saul fits in. I think it's kind of a parenthetical thing really. I don't believe that King Saul's ministry was the full or the highest purpose of God, but finally we focus our attention in the unique thing that God is wanting to do through David. And I am held before him when I see how the principle, the ways by which God established David, the struggle of the wilderness, the final time when the key men of Israel came and presented themselves to him and said, David, we've come to you, we'll be on your side. And how God used his life, the uniqueness of his ministry, to unite all these scattered tribes and finally to bring all of the material that was necessary for the building of the temple. I maybe haven't gotten as far as some of the others. I would that our brother Tong or brother Sparks would take us on. I trust it'll be so in all that's involved in the testimony and the real temple that God is building. But I seem to be stalled. I seem to be burdened and pressed in my own spirit for the uniqueness of the ministry in which David is bringing all of these isolated, scattered tribes into a place where finally they give up some of their own little bits of sovereignty. And they come to submit and they come to really crown him in his rightful place. Oh, I wonder if there isn't a greater David along the way who's calling some people out. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm only a dreamer, but I wonder if in our coming there might not be something of the larger focus, the larger purpose that God has in bringing some people to a place where you say, Lord, Lord, let me sense a little bit of what's involved. As it was said of David, one who could live with a whole heart to fulfill the whole program of God. I don't know. But I tell you when you see something, you get caught. You get stuck with it. And you wish you'd never seen. I hate to say that. It's sort of a confession. I've cried out so many times through the years, Lord, I wish I'd never seen that, the responsibility of it and the inability to get rid of it. And I've kicked, and I've attempted. I don't mean that it's been a knock-down, drag-out, but there's been those inward murmurings and complaining that seem to say, Lord, it's such a... Nobody else appreciates. Nobody understands. You get all alone with Elijah, you know, out there murmuring and complaining. You know what I mean. And he finally says, Lord, you think you're alone. Well, I think maybe there's something of the joy of coming together like this. Lord, are all these people here for the same purpose I'm here? Have they all seen what I think I've seen? Are they all interested in the larger program, the thing that you're burdened for this hour? Well, I may be disillusioned, but I believe you are. I believe so. I believe that there's something very sovereign in God's working at this hour, not only in our getting here as individuals, but in the very fact of our meeting. And I don't believe that's any boast at all. It's just something we sense. Well, I must not go any further. But I do want to say to you as individuals tonight, there's something of a uniqueness that God has for you, something of a unique ministry and calling. Lord, to settle for something less, to be content with just a part of the program, I don't know how to say it, but I know that the groaning of so many is, why aren't you content with just getting people saved? Isn't Moses' ministry, isn't that sufficient, just getting them out of Egypt? I think my dear mother prays every night of the week. She has come so many times. She said, son, son, and she means so well. And if you don't think this tears at your heart, you get so close, but someone says, son, you don't get people saved like you used to. What's happened? That's cut. You don't have the big crowds you used to have. Well, that's not important. That means nothing. But when the enemy can come in as if to say, look, look, if you just weren't determined to go on for the whole program of God, even though nobody understands or others don't appreciate, you see. And I believe we should say to you tonight that there's something of the uniqueness that God has to work out through every life. Not just what he did through Abraham and Isaac and then Jacob, but that place that Moses fulfilled and Joshua, Samuel, and David. One of the men whom I've counted as a real brother in the Lord said to me some years ago, and I'll never forget the ringing words, one of the marks of a spiritual fulfillment in any life is the uniqueness of that ministry and calling that God has for them. The mark of spiritual fulfillment. Oh, how prone we are to see somebody who's being used. You know? You read an autobiography or a biography. I don't know how many people there are trying to be George Mueller. That's a lofty aim. Or someone else. But oh, brother, sister, God has something of the uniqueness to work out in your life. And your willingness to accept that particular thing that God has marked your life for will be the point at which the cross will really cut. I used to wonder what the cross was. I used to wonder what the cross was. So far as the ministry is concerned, I honestly believe that it's the individual's wholehearted choice to fulfill the unique and distinctive thing that God has marked that life out for. When relatives and close friends and everybody else disagrees and misunderstands, that's where the depth comes. In fulfilling the calling that God has. Now, I suppose that'll give license to somebody to go out to their peculiar, unique thing they've always wanted to do. Well, go ahead. It'll only last a little while. But God will bring you back. He has a last one every life. But I say tonight, oh, God, don't let any of us go through this rationalizing of the mind that's so pro. Those people don't believe in this. They ought to do this. They ought to have more altar calls. And they ought to. My heart goes out to say we are concerned for every bit of it. But more. But more. To be alive to the larger program that God has for this hour. And I believe this is the reason that people are thinking. I wish you could see some of the mail that we get. Pastors, missionaries, all over the world, throwing in the hat, as it were. Not going back to the field. Pastors who are leaving their pulpit because God, in his own wonderful way, has dried up the ministry that they had. And they wouldn't go on. I guess you have to go through that to know what I'm talking about. Oh, how the phase or the sphere that God once made so real and so effective. And then, lo and behold, it becomes a dry well. Just utterly. Utterly. You go back and try all of the devices, all the means to re-implement it. And even pray harder. And God's answering your prayer in a different way. Oh, cheer up if there's a heart here tonight who's been going through something of real drought. You can look back at all of the blessed hours and the good periods, but don't look back. Look ahead. Keep your eye on the larger thing that God's doing. There's a new well. There's anointing for the thing that he has ahead, but not for the thing that I choose if I want to settle down. You ought to be happy about it. God won't let you settle down very long. But what he begins to stir up the nest and enlarge the vision. Well, this is my burden tonight. That's all I have to say. I guess I better quit. But I do want to, during these days, to live in the larger framework. Don't let anyone go out and say, those people aren't evangelistic. Because I suppose we'll see, as we did last year, people being brought out of Egypt, saved. And I trust Josh will lead every one of us on to really possess. And I don't think we need to spend any time here. We can go right on to David. On to really seeing what he has and become alive to the larger purpose, the program of God. Dear Father, in the midst of our stumbling tonight, would you plant a seed. Maybe there are those who, like my own heart, through the years have cried out, Oh God, to be a man after your heart. To be a woman after your heart. I look out at these precious people tonight and I believe that there's an echo in so many, many of their hearts. I see it on their faces. As those who say, Oh God, don't let me settle short of anything. Don't let me see my life in ministry as it's just related to what it'll mean to me or what I'll get. But oh, to see it related to the whole program, the larger thing that you're after. We pray, Lord Jesus, that thou will hold every one of us steady in your hand tonight. Let every man fulfill the ministry that he sees in that particular phase of calling which has the anointing of God upon it. But oh God, save us from trying to resurrect anything that you have written Ichabod upon. Anything, dear Lord, that was a past tense, save us from trying to resurrect it and move us on, dear Lord, until we're more purpose conscious than we're anything else. Not that we want to be alive to doing or alive to ministry or alive to our own calling, but alive to be that which will satisfy thy own heart and which will bring pleasure to thee and we can be the man after your heart, that which thou didst desire. Dear Lord, we commit ourselves to this these days and we pray that there will be no looking merely to man, but oh God, that our eyes will be fixed upon thee. There'll be the sense and the awareness that no speaker comes with anything unless there's an open heaven, unless there's a clear word from the Lord. No one comes to share anything unless the anointing of God gives it and there's the relief in us and, dear Lord, the receptivity in thy people. Oh, we admit ourselves together in a believing and a claiming tonight that these shall be days of fulfillment for thee. We do not parse, of course. We do not tell thee what we're after. We do not come with our own designs or our own themes or outlines. We move this evening from service to service with a strange sense that we're utterly dependent upon thee, meeting by meeting. And I pray tonight, dear Lord, that thou will enlarge the framework of our consciousness. Enlarge it, dear Lord, if it's been too small. Enlarge it until we can see what it is to fulfill your purpose for our generation, the unique thing that you have for our individual lives. I believe you to do it. I believe you to do it in hearts here these days. We'll give thee the praise and the honor and the glory for thou alone art worthy. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.