In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of unity among believers. He emphasizes the need for a unifying factor that will bind them together and keep them functioning as a cohesive unit. The speaker uses the analogy of building a fence and a wall to illustrate this concept. He also shares a story about a little girl trying to make up her mind about which pair of shoes to choose, highlighting the different "minds" or preferences that can hinder unity. The sermon concludes with a biblical example of David and his three mighty men, who demonstrated their unity and loyalty by risking their lives to bring David water from the well of Bethlehem.

How we praise thee, Lord Jesus, that thou art equal to every need. Thou art our sufficiency. We come once again fully aware this morning that we are to be occupied with thee. We choose to dwell and behold thee, to inquire just of that which will please thy heart, wherein there might be hidden back in our own mind or our own thinking any ways by which we might build or by which we might accomplish or by which we might meet the needs of people. We do claim even in this moment thou will do a shattering work and once again keep us fully, fully alive to thee. Only thou dost have the shaft of light that can pierce through and give the answers. Only thou can take a portion of thyself and feed that need, that area of need. All of our manipulating, all of our maneuvering, all of our attempts somehow to reach out and take care of the needs as we've seen have always left us empty. But all this morning we claim thy very sovereign working. We thank thee, Lord Jesus, that thou has never left thy people, never let them go away as it were without thy word to their heart. This is again what we claim. Help us to look beyond any servant or vessel of such, but just to keep our our faith turned upon him who is altogether lovely and worthy. We ask it in your wonderful precious name, Lord Jesus. Amen. Since we began in our particular portion of sharing, we have been just sort of opening our heart to consider the man after God's own heart, man Paul David. And I must confess we've sort of been pulled and propelled along. I didn't come, it's an awful confession to make, really knowing where we were going, just having wanted to fill ourselves with all that was involved in this man whom God found delight in, as he reflects the one whom our Father finds such delight in, his lovely son. I did say in the very beginning that as you look through the Scripture at various lives, there is often something quite unique and distinctive that God works out through a life. We were saying in the very first evening, as we began with the founding fathers of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the particular place that they fulfilled in the divine economy. Then looking at Moses, we saw the work of deliverance, the bringing them out of Egypt and the unique thing and the place that he filled. We went on to Joshua and the leadership, the captaincy by which they were moving out to possess more and more. The inheritance, that they might realize the purpose. That waning period of the judges in which there were incidental awakenings and revivings. And finally Samuel the prophet, who is the voice of God. And then we went through that, what I believe is a parenthetical. When King Saul is introduced, the head of God's real economy and purpose, three and a half years, I believe it is, you have him in this sphere. But finally, David comes as the unifier, the great unifier of the people. Now, it's interesting as you look back through all of this array of man that in each life, there has been a uniting factor. There has been something that united the people. You notice this, especially when you come to Moses. The people were quite united about getting out of Egypt. They were quite ready to be delivered from the taskmasters, the slave masters. The emphasis, of course, as we see, Moses taking them out from, but oh how hard, how difficult to bring them unto the larger thing. They were so content to get out. And of course, that was immediately their need. And finally, when they get out of the wilderness, let out of it, they begin to move in and possess, you sense something of a unifying in the campaigns as Joshua is leading them along. But pretty soon, they get about as much land as they need to settle down and enjoy. They fail to move on to the larger, overshadowing thing that God has. We go through that period of declension. Samuel comes along. Well, today we want to pick up the unique thing that I think we can see in David, the unifying factor. What it was in these paths, but that's not sufficient for now. What is it that's going to bring about it, people? Unify them, that they might come to the fullness of the thing that the Lord himself wants. I've noticed through the years how people go through these different phases. Something that's immediately before them has unified. But when you get to David, you almost run into this, that here's the need for unity, so we'll be unified around the need for it. Is that sufficient? I'd like to believe it, but I never found it works. Not very long, just the need for it doesn't seem to be a sufficient factor. It may have seemed yesterday, now we've been moving along in the sense of the man whom God has been preparing and considered the authority and the sovereignty of God in his life, the anointing of God, the way that God brought him into cooperation that the anointing might work. And yesterday it may seem as though we got into something kind of a bypass when we were talking about how David would learn to dwell. But I want to point us to one verse. Before you can have an unity, there can be something of an outward working of unity. God's great need is to get us unified right down in here. Dame seems to put it in these words when he says, whence come wars and fighting among you? Ever see two fellas trying to settle a world war out here, and they end up with the pretty well manifested war right in here? Do you see? Whence come these wars and fighting, all this external? Do they not issue out of this inward war, you see? I think maybe you get a glimpse of the longing of David's heart when, of course, he's saying, I have one desire to dwell, to behold, to inquire, to seek. But he says over in Psalm 86, 11, unify my heart. Unify my heart to hear thy name. I'm reminded of the little girl who was taken into a shoe store by her mother to buy a pair of shoes. And after trying on, I suppose, eight or ten pairs, the mother turned to the little girl and said, now sweetheart, Mary, you must make up your mind. Hurry, which one do you want? Little Mary looked up at her father and says, oh, it's easy for you to make up your mind, mother, but I've got so many minds. Can you think of what those minds would be? Here's the mind that says, ah, I like that red hair. Everybody will notice me when I walk down the hall in school. That's a mind. Then she thinks dear old dad back home, dad would sure like those. They're really practical. They'll last for several years. Here's another mind, you know. I don't need to go on. Oh, how much turmoil there is deep within, all the time. And if God can bring us to something of an inward sense of unity, would it be amiss to say that I realize that this is the thing God's been having such a time to do in bringing some of these arguings and concepts and things that roll around in the realm of the soul. Finally, you give up, as we said yesterday, and you come to dwell and you say, Lord, you've not called me to solve all of this, nor will I ever be able to unify out in this realm right here, but I choose to dwell. This is not escape, necessarily. This is the first sensible thing you've ever done. If you found this is a priority, Lord, I just turn it all over to you. Far greater man than I have tried to solve all of these wars and fighting, theological and otherwise, but I choose to dwell. And the thing that I think quite wonderful is that God then takes us into his own schoolroom, and the light that begins to move, the quickening from within begins to do some enlightening, and strangely some of the awful frustrations begin to take on different colors. Well, let us look this morning now at this man, David. We'll assume immediately that God has begun to do something of unifying in him. We're going to see for a little bit how we have the people who come to begin to offer themselves to something of the vision that I believe is before them. You want to look with me, first of all, this morning to see in 1 Samuel chapter 22, this first group that seem to come and bring themselves to David. Well, let's start with chapter 2 and verse 1. Now, if you've got designs for unifying some place or somebody or some church or some group, here's some real good help. Chapter 22, 1 Samuel, verse 1, David therefore departed faith and escaped to the cave of Dolom, and when his brethren and all his house heard it, they went down thither to him. And everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in death and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them. And there were with him about four hundred. Wouldn't you like to unify that group of people? I'll say it. I wasn't going to, but I'll get out on a limb. The more I move around among the halls here, the more I listen and fellowship, the more I see this second verse walking around all the time. All the distresses that have literally driven us. How many are in distress? I mean, I won't ask. How many are in death? How many are discontented? Well, this is the impossibility of it. Do you see what's involved? Oh, how the staggering impossibility of this thing hits us right in the face at the beginning. Lord, who is equal to such a thing. I look back through at least twenty years of traveling in different places among churches, and I learned a long time ago that when I would be invited to some independent Bible church, it had almost been, you forgive me now if that happens to have been your heritage, but all, what it's like to move in where all the discontents from the city have finally congregated in one mass. And all, you know what I mean. I think there's something that we have to get a hold of right here very quickly, and it is this. There's an awful lot of discontent that's raging through religious circles today, but God will never be able to take some of those stones that are coming unless we get certain things very clear in the building and the unifying and the bringing about of what he's after. There's some material that has been, well, we're going to see in a little bit when the tribe of Gad, I like to call them the Gadabouts, when the Gadabouts come. They've been here, been discontented, and of course there's been a deep hunger and a longing. The next fellow who moves to town, they join him for a while, sit at his table and tell he has all that he has to share, the new thing he brought. Then another man moves to town, and the Gadabouts about to join over here to absorb all that he has. I want us to see this morning that I believe in the thing that God is doing. These who have come to David and that which must be over, God has to deal with it in us, is to lay the cross right at the root of this kind of appetite for some new thing, for some new thing. It's very difficult to deal with. Or, and I'm on dangerous ground again, this sort of thing that says, well, I wasn't getting fed over there, so I decided I'd go over to this trough for a while. A lot of reasons for discontentment, lots of reasons. I've found quite often the trough I was feeding at had food, but my appetite, my taste buds, you know what I mean? My taste buds, this manna that came down all the time, and the onions and the leeks and the watermelons. Where's my friend who brings them in every night? You have to know the background of all of that. Oh, the appetite that we have. God has to do a thorough renovating of some appetite, and apart from this, no group of people will ever be able to meet together very long, because there is no one man who can keep the trough filled continually with that which, you see, it's impossible, absolutely beyond. It's not God's Word, it's not His way. And I think we'll discover, and I know we'll discover before we go on very far, that all these malcontents, discontents, these and that, all of these, God has to deal very carefully with the motive and all that's involved in why we're really coming to Dullam State. People get quite alarmed with me when I go into cities or go into places, and I don't really help build their little group too much, because folks who come, they like to somehow, somehow pull all the folks over, but there's God's timing. You get people into a group before the timing of the Lord, and you've got greater problem on your hands. There's the timing of God, and God's releasing, and God's changing of appetite, God bringing to death some of the, some of the things that have been ruling in the life, and in His own time, they'll find their way thoroughly discontented, thoroughly in debt. I think it's all right in some ways. You understand it in the right way, and they will join themselves to David. So, we ask the question, what is it that is in the life of David that we can get a hold of that seems to be a unifying factor? What is it that caused all of these? Was it mere expediency? Was it merely running from condition? Or was there something of the unto that was alive in their vision? Now you can move a little bit further, go over to 1 Chronicles and chapter 12, and I think you get a lovely picture here of all of these who came to David. I've marveled at this portion. Chapter 12, 1 Chronicles. It ought to cause our hearts to rejoice this morning that scattered throughout all of the tribes, God is working, He's preparing, bringing hearts into that proper preparation so that when there is the coming together, the unifying, these have got something of history, something of background, something wrought out in the light. Chapter 12, the companies that came to David at Ziklag. Now these are they that came to David. The Ziklag, while he yet kept himself close because of Saul, the son of Kish, they were among the mighty men, helpers of the war. They were armed with bows and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow, even of Saul's brethren, of Benjamin. Let me stop to say that if I see anything in this, let us consider that these different groups that are coming now are coming with something that's been wrought within them. They're not so much bringing something as just themselves, but there's something of content and something wrought within their lives. This is important. This is important in what God is doing here. You read down in verse 8, And of the Gadites, they separated themselves unto David in the halls of the wilderness, men of might, men of war, fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the rose upon the mountain. In verse 17 we read, And David went out to meet them, and answered and said unto them, If ye become peaceably unto me to help me, mine heart shall be knit unto you. But if ye become to betray me to mine enemy, seeing there's no wrong in mine hand, the God of our fathers shall look thereon and rebuke it. Then the Spirit came upon Amitiah, who was chief of the captains, and he said, Thine are we, David, and on thy side thou son of Jesse, peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thine helpers, for thy God helpeth thee. Then David received them and made them captains of the band. One word stands out to remind me that there is no real entering into a unity apart from the cross. Peace through the blood of the cross. And you get further inference in all of this, I believe, that these who are coming, recognizing David and the position of leadership that God is using him in, coming as it were, vowing there's something of going through death to lay down their sovereignty, to lay down their own rights. That which was involved in each tribe, laying down to accept another sovereignty, the way of the cross. This is the only way by which there can be peace brought out. I think I have seen across the country in the last two, three years, a few places where people got a hold of the New Testament church concept. They thought, oh, what we need to do is gather in this city on the ground of locality and need to be unified. And according to what vision they had and what light and understanding, this pastor would bring a group of his people. Here's the leader over here with a group of his people. They come. And another with his people. They come and form a wonderful democracy. Three leaders who are going to be unified. I can show you a city where this happened, a couple of them. But it only took a little while to discover that God's way of blending is not that of mutual agreement, necessarily. God's way of accomplishing peace is always to take factors, to take us down through death. And there in death every last thing that we have that has seemed good and all that we have been or all that has been involved, it is left in the tomb. And when we come up on resurrection ground, Jew and Gentile and all of the other separating things that our brother spoke of yesterday, bond or free, the cultural, the racial, the religious, all of these on resurrection ground, there's one new thing that's produced. Faces and antitheses come into death, as it were, and the synthesis must be a totally new thing. And that's not easy. This particular city that I've been thinking of, it was just three months, the brother told me that each leader took his people back. But it works in this way also. I think we've been finding it quite true, and you have also. So when a group of people begin to come, as it were, to David, come to give themselves in peace under the thing that God is working out, there is this awful death of leaving back here on the other side every last thing, no matter how good it is. There can be no importing over to resurrection ground anything that does not have in it the contents or that which is wrought in the life. That which is merely mental, that which is merely of a doctrine, or that which I am going to import, it will not go through the grave. But these men of valor, there's something wrought in them, the bow that they can string, the arrow they can shoot. Here's something of quality wrought in. You can take it through the grave over to resurrection site, you see. But if you've got a book on archery, it won't go through, you see. All about how to do it, all the religious world today is so filled with, man, everybody's got this theory, the idea, this is what ought to be done, this is how it ought to be done, this is it. We get together to tell all that we read about, how it was done someplace else, and so on. God keeps cutting my own heart up to the fact that unless there's been something wrought out of the experience, and it becomes something really wrought, it has to be left back here at the door when you come unto David to be a people unified unto him. I look back at our fellowship in Indianapolis again, and I have noticed through the months how many precious brothers and sisters have come, sort of hungering for reality and the breath of life, come a couple times and pretty soon decide to make home with us, sit there a little bit and finally discover that we have to meet. Of course, they have just the book. I mean, they have just the theory, they have just the mental conception, they have just the, they have the something. It's quite easy to wait and abide your time, but then you begin to offer to David something that you're sure is just what's needed. And so there's the pushing spirit, the trying to get others to see, and the striving spirit of whatever might be involved. Oh brother, sister, this thing of God bringing some people unto David to be that which he can use, it's quite a discipline. It's quite a discipline. Even with the revelation, the thing that you know is so wonderful, that you know God has given, to still sit and bide and wait God's time. And the thing that's quite wonderful I've noticed, and others have noticed, that the very sovereign work of anointing within the group, there's that preparation until we're all moving, all moving. Then God in his time will begin to create the situation and the need, and he'll probably use some other brother. You're not the father of it after all. Oh, the cross has a peculiar and wonderful way of keeping the stones in their course and in their order, functioning, but a stone, a living stone. So we're noticing here in these now who are coming, and I rejoice. My faith, as I said yesterday, my faith is set absolutely with conviction that the veil of the Lord of hosts will perform this. God is going to do it, and he's doing it. These who come to David, mighty men of valor, that if God has wrought something of eternal quality and contentment in life, they've had a history, and it's fine. But here they come. Don't you like this, thine we are? Go on, read a little further. Verse 23, And these are the numbers of the bands that were ready armed to the war, and came to David, to Hebron, to turn the kingdom of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord. And then it lists them, and I like this over in verse 32. I found it some years ago, and it's always thrilled my heart. Verse 32, And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do. Young men for war and battle, the older men for counsel, who have the principles, they've seen something of God's ways. Verse 33, Of Zebulun, such as went forth to battle, expert in war, with all instruments of war, fifty thousand, which could keep rank. Oh, what a statement. Which could keep rank. They were not of double heart, could keep rank. Brother Batch, what does that mean? Keeping rank, in file, in line, in step. Ever find the whole army getting out of step with you? Of course, they're out of step. Keeping, keeping step. They were not of double heart. Jump down to verse 38, All these men of war, that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel. And all the rest also of Israel were of one heart, to make David king. And the last phrase of verse 40 says, There was joy in Israel, expectancy. I think as I look around amongst the many bands of the Lord's people, there's so little of the expectancy. There's so little of vision. There's so little of seeing. I think whenever I see a group that begin to turn their back from the hub to the rim, they're still, you see, but they're facing another way. There's nothing of the hope and the expectancy and the daring to believe that the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Immediately, that group has in it the seeds already of death. To what end do we exist? It has to be something of larger vision. Without it, without it, could I say that there's been something of that overtone here all week, I believe? The only thing that pulls us and moves us. Lord, you're doing something in this hour. We don't know how to explain it, but you're doing something that's far more than a conference. Well, it's interesting. Now we didn't quite get things in chronological order the other day. We went into chapter 13 and 15, you know, but let me pick it out. There's been reason in it. Let me pick it up and say, if you had a group of men coming like this in David's position, knowing things, capable, qualified, would you inquire of them when you had the next job to do? See the snare that's involved? I don't know how to impress upon us this wonderful, delicate balance of relatedness among one another that the individualism be taken care of. But at the same time, we always maintain that delicate sense of, Lord, my brothers and sisters, this is what seems right in their eyes, but Lord, is this the time to bring the ark into? You see, you've got this war in your heart again. Unify me Lord. Do I go to them? We need to be related, and rightly so. You've said all of these, and yet, Lord, here I am. Well, you know what happened, because in this case, and with David, I think it's something very special and unique. God was placing him in a position where the priority must be here, and this is verification, but this is first. You follow me? I believe it's God's order. Otherwise, we begin to make the stones next to us, allow we get things confused with God. These are verifications, but this, I must ask from the Lord. Well, David, every time I read this, I wonder what it was that caused these men to come. Wonder what it was that pulled them. We can say it was God. God's working. What it was that kept them, and finally solidified, and brought them into a place where they could function, and the kingdom was being built. Well, there's a little story here that I want us to get a hold of. Maybe it'll help us to see something of the man after God's own heart. You'd be disappointed if I didn't draw something. How is he going to bind these fellows together? They've come. What's the unifying factor going to be? What is the unifying factor going to be that's going to keep these functioning together? What will it be? Well, you can build a nice fence and a nice wall here. We're going to see this morning. I think we'll just use three words. Must. We'll press in a little bit to ought. And finally, we'll come to the hub, and we'll call it want to. I look back for 20 years. I've been an independent, you know. When God did something quite sovereign at least 20 years ago, one of the first things we began to awaken to was the religious mass out here. But we haven't seen things very clearly. And yet, thank God for some of the reality of it. Without having the doctrine, lots of people have entered into the reality of things, and only much later have been able to do much explaining of it. We must never forget that God has, in all the tribes out here, God has some people who've entered into the reality who couldn't vocalize or articulate it to save their life. But you touch them. You touch them, and you know that there's something of equity of spirit. You know it. Well, here you have these. And I ask the question again. David, how are we going to bind these together and keep some from going back to Gad, back to Ithaca, reaching a place in their life and experience when they won't get discontented again, and go back? What are we going to do? What's the principle of overshadowing things that maybe God can help us get a hold of the unifying factor? Well, let's read it, and then we'll get it before us. First Corinthians chapter 11. I seem to be working backwards. But here's a principle I'd like for us to get a hold of. First Chronicles. What did I say? First Chronicles. Have a body at your side, isn't it? Then all Israel, chapter 11, then all Israel gathered themselves to David and to Hebron, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. That's in the Old Testament. You expect in the New Testament to say to the Lord Jesus, we are bone of thy bone and flesh of thy. You see, through death, burial, and resurrection, we've been brought into a new man, one new man. And in this new man, we are that intimately related. And moreover, in time past, even when Saul was king, thou wast he that led us out and brought us in Israel. And the Lord thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be ruler over my people Israel. Therefore came all the elders of Israel to the king, to Hebron, and David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel according to the word of the Lord by Samuel. I believe David had a triple anointing. It's a wonderful pattern in the picture. You know, there is something that you see in David as prophet, priest, and king. But let us move on to what we're really after. We get to these mighty men, verse 10, or verse 9. So David waxed greater and greater, for the Lord of hosts was with him. These also are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who strengthened themselves with him in his kingdom, and with all Israel to make him king according to the word of the Lord concerning Israel. And this is the number, and then it goes on. And now we're going to read some of them. Verse 16, And David was then in the hold, and the Philistine garrison was then at Bethlehem. And David longed and said one day, O that I had a good refreshing drink of water from down at the well, O that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate. And the three break through the host of the Philistine, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David. Can't you sense something of the intimacy and the joy of these men who, after having just overheard, just were so close that they overheard it? Can I ask you a question? What does it do to you when you hear someone, a servant of the Lord, maybe standing and saying, Now it's a command, ye must be filled? It's a command now, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel? It's a command, you must? Do you ever hear that? Sometimes I wonder if I'm all piled up inside, but when I hear just the tone of it, the ring of it, it has for years, it has for years done something in me, I don't know how to explain it. Maybe this morning I can share what I mean with you. Can you imagine David looking out at his mighty men and saying, I want a drink from the well, I command you. You know what had happened to me? I'd probably raise my hand and be the first one to go, but I'd never come back. I'd never come back. That's not the David that I see. If I'm standing only out here at the rim, in because I'm sent in, and what I do I must do because I've been backed into a corner, a club is over my head, it's in the realm of command. Well, I guess it's not, but I don't believe this is what drew David, I mean drew men to David. We read here, you know the story, and they, verse 18, and the three break through the host of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate and took it and brought it to David, but David would not drink of it. I think he would have choked me too. He would not drink it, but he poured it out. I go back to Isaiah. I've heard it preached in so many different ways, but it was quite some time before I caught a little phrase, believe I'm on the right track, hadn't thought of it for some years now. Here we are. I like to picture and think of Isaiah in chapter 6. God has done a purging and something of a cleansing. He has said in verse 5, woe is me, and you know the context, the Lord touched him. But here in verse 8, he gets the spirit of the thing that I'm trying to say, and he says, Isaiah says, verse 8, chapter 6, also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Oh, that I had a drink from the well down there at the gate by Bethlehem. Who is it that hears this? Who is it that hears this? Let me ask you, who would overhear David say this? Who would overhear? Where was Isaiah in order that he could hear the Lord as he was looking out over all the need, saying, whom shall I send? The fellow who's just in the fence here, or the one who is right here at the hub? So close that he overhears. So close that he hears. Does it take a shout for you to hear, or a whisper? Oh, that I had a drink. It's not a shout. You must, I command you, be you filled with the most wonderful privilege possible in commanding somebody to sit up to eat the watermelon. I can't imagine it. I can't imagine it. It's just out of character. It doesn't fit. I command you. I command you to go out and tell the best news that's ever been heard or told in all the world. Go out and I command you to go out and make it. Well, don't put it in that tone. I hear Paul in a different context altogether saying, you'll get to this before that ministry out any place becomes effective. I hear him say, this is the kind of affirmation that drives me, the love of Christ, because we thus judge that if one dies then are all dead, that they which live should henceforth not live unto themselves but unto him who for them died and rose again. There's a difference in spirit of it. My faith is set to dwell. And behold, and inquire, and with a sensitive ear that something that says, oh God, what's your slightest way? What's your slightest way? And the minute you know, you'll break out to get to this. See the difference? I don't want to be misunderstood, but I believe in the context of what we've been saying this morning. This and this alone can be one of the binding, the uniting factors. I would not say that there would never be a fence out here, but fences are for people who are faced the other direction. And I'm not sure, but what the person that's faced that way ought to have lots of acreage, a wide place. There are lots of things worse than divorce. Do you know that? There are things worse than divorce. Moses knew the principle when he said, because of the hardness of it. What is the unifying factor? You must stay together. Well, that's all right. I think we need a fence for a lot of people because they're looking, you know, back and forth so often. And it's a reminder but dear heart's defense will never, never accomplish that which is ultimate of that which God is at. What will? Those who've come to dwell, become totally alive to him, inquiring, sensitive always. Oh, that the ear would be sensitive to his words. David, you're worthy, you're worthy. We want to drink and out we go. Command? Are we just ought to out of the moral compulsion of it? No, you can put a must in there. You can sit in the middle. I'm constrained. The love of Christ overwhelms me. I hear somebody say, oh brother, yes, yes. As long as it's the greater David, it's easy to get a drink for him. It's easy to lay down his sovereignty for him. He alone is worthy. He alone is worthy. And now we come to the very practical problem of does God have representatives walking around down here representing him, fulfilling something of David's ministry? As long as we can keep David far enough out of the practical. But lo and behold, in our fellowships or in the practical areas where we are working, here's the David the Lord is putting in place. He can't escape it. I'd like to keep him in the heavens only, but there is something of a sense of representation down here. You say, who is worthy? Who is worthy? Who is worthy? Headship, authority, anointing. Can concepts alone unify? Vision, all of this. Are they not represented? Are they not represented in someone? Now this is a place I've got to dwell because my soul begins to go through what I see some souls doing right now. I've got to dwell. But Lord, I'm faced with some things I think are very necessary for us to understand. And so David pours out the water. Let's read that verse again. Here were those who had gotten so close that they heard, even as it was with Isaiah. Was God speaking directly to Isaiah? For a long time I'd assumed that he just said, Isaiah, go. But he didn't do that until Isaiah takes the initiative. Whom shall I send? This is in the realm, always, always, of those being chosen who have already made this kind of a choice of sovereignty. You hear folks so often say, the Lord backed me into a car and held a club over my head and said, will you yield to go to Africa? Will you? They don't put in quite those crude words, but the spirit of it's there. Will you yield to preach? Will you, you see? No, no, that's foreign to this that we're needing to see. I'm a love slave. It's voluntary. Isaac crawled right up on the altar. I wasn't there, but he had to when Abraham stood there that day. Isaac crawled right up on the altar. I don't know. I don't want to go too far, but he had to. You see, it's voluntary, voluntary. So David poured it out. Let's read that last verse before we go on. But poured it out to the Lord and said, my God forbid it me that I should do this thing. So I drink the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy. For with the jeopardy of their lives, they brought it. Therefore, he would not drink it. These things did these three, my dear. Here you get a picture of all of the room for qualifying that's involved. I tell you, I believe in the grace of God. God's grace that makes possible our coming to know the gift of salvation and grace in this wonderful unfolding. We'll never fathom. But when you get into this business, there's qualifying. There's quite a war going on. It's been raging for some months here in the state. Letters keep coming to us and thank God we've been learning not to answer. People don't want to qualify. Now, I appreciate the phrase, it's all of grace, because when we get through, we'll realize that. But there's some qualifying not to be saved. Oh, no. But there's some qualifying here. And I get a picture of some of these men and you get the phrase, those who attained unto, Obtainment by grace, the gift of God. Attainment, the pressing of the spirit, by spirit pressing, placing, positioning, those in full adoption, full maturity, all that's involved, never be wrought and accomplished by mere passivity that sits back and rocks away waiting for the rapture. Here we are. He poured it out. The men were catching the heart of David. The heart was pulling them. A man after his heart. Life begets life. Life begets life. I think maybe we'll go on into this principle tomorrow. We begin to see the extending of David. Oh, I must get it just sort of introduced for us. I think the most wonderful thing that God has made real in these last four or five years is the sense that we come to know a Father spirit, a Father heart. And what in us, in our ministry, we're not able to fulfill, we do by extending ourselves into sons. We live on and on. I don't know, but the more I read of Abraham, I see Abraham right on through coming to birthing some grandsons and grandsons of Solomon, you see, of David Solomon. You'll see, I think, how blessed it is when David, who had longed to build a house, with all the preparation, all of the hope and anticipation, expectation, but it's finally extended. You can live your life in fullness if God works this principle into you. And all the time you see in every life the potentiality of expressing something more. I know this sounds strange, but keep it in context with the love. Expressing something more of an unfulfilled wish, desire that you've had, extending yourself here. Who can comprehend God the Father as he expresses himself in the Lord Jesus? What we've been saying is that here's a facet in Abraham, but the facet we find first in the Son. In all these varied facets, you and I can only really adequately take care of one facet. But in the new man, God is extended himself in the fullest measure. Oh, the loveliness of expression that's going to fill the universe. I used to wonder why there would be so many in heaven. Now I realize that it's not going to stop with this load, because God's too big to have just a few billion people saved. And each one of them expressing patience, and virtue, and love, and joy, and peace, and take the different men we've been considering, the delivering, the possessing, the unifying, the building. If I can conceive of him using all the galaxies and all the planets and all out here, and still using seed here to fill all the universe, and even it would never adequately express him. If I can think of something so wonderful, don't you think he's going to be short of anything? The increase of his government, there shall be no end. Extending yourself. So it's quite a thing when God begins to raise up some fathers in an assembly with a real father heart. They see, they see all of these at the various levels, the stages of growth, and the father comes to rejoice that in every situation he can fully replace himself. Well, bless the Lord you brought John in. John has this unique, and particular, and wonderful ability, which I have had just in such a little measure, and dear Lord, if we can just envision, and just equip, and just get the olive tree growing in him, he'll be the fuller expression of it. Bless the Lord, and I can retire in that phase. I don't want you to get the retiring in the wrong way now. But there's something of the full, only this, only this, only this can, otherwise somebody's always challenging my position. And every new convert, and every new man of valor that comes in, you see, to join himself, he's a challenge to me. He just might take over from that careful. You see, David? You see the problem? But it's all a matter of perspective. It's all a matter of the father heart being brought out. We've got to see this more fully. It's all a matter of coming to this kind of, this is what responsible men are, brothers, elders. And they just really, I'm acquainted. They're, they're born, but they're more than born. They are men whom God has brought through the crucibles of life in a history that really produces fathers. And until this happens around the country, not much else will happen. Oh, I still believe my face is set, but I see him doing it too. Some men of valor out here, full-armed, full-armed men, fathers, the unifying factor. We're going to see tomorrow that within this, it takes more than sovereignty. It cannot be a unifying factor itself. Government alone. Any home that has primarily just government, it's there, but it must not be the primary factor, or looseness, or moral responsibility, or any of these other things. There is a primary factor. Have you caught one thing this morning? Let me be sure that we see ourselves in the circle, utterly captured and fenced in under God, alive to what he's doing, but oh, dear heart, we've come, we've come to dwell, and in dwelling, our ear begins to be sensitive to his slightest way. Then you don't need a manual on what my husband likes, so that I know I can please him. What I'm saying is, then you, you just don't live in that legal place of this and this and this, and this is our brother so well said last night. When there's, when there's this kind of a sensitivity, and we're one mind and spirit with him, all these external things of our life begin to take on a proper relatedness. Would you rush out this morning and get him a drink? Do you have to be commanded? Don't you just take it as you ought to? This alone will hold, dear Lord. Who can ever, who can ever understand what is really meant when involved in a people passing through death, burial over into resurrection? Whereas Paul said, we're alive unto thee, dead indeed unto self, not coming with a double heart. But oh, as these men came to David, thine we be. Seems like some of them had really been caught. Oh, what intense desire there was to please. We claim the same this morning for each of us. We believe you to do it. We believe you to set our faith, to so stay in this nearness, dwelling, beholding, inquiring at his slightest wish, and we're ready to rush out. We're always active in this sense. Always thank you, dear Lord. The job becomes so much bigger than us. The person becomes so much bigger than us, and our private ambitions, our little goals, our little kingdoms we're carving out. Oh, God, let some of your people today come, and may they in coming say peace, peace, peace, and know that in the deepest area of the spirit, they can say there is peace, David, because we've laid aside our private ambitions. We're not coming to carve out some little area or sphere or kingdom for ourselves. We come to be David, not with a double heart, but we come. Thou at work. Oh, thou that's hurt through us, dear Lord, and you find in me so often opportunism, seeing in an opportunity or something of an advantage, and a hidden mixed motive or something that's impure, saying maybe here's an opportunity finally to be something. Oh, God, we come by way of power, by the way of real peace through the blood of the cross, through the death of the cross. Thank you, Lord. None of it will move out on resurrection ground. It just can't pass through. Make it to be very real today, and tell the overwhelming thing that grips us in. Must we be fenced in? The world cries out, don't fence me in. Our spirit cries out, oh, God, we're glad to be fenced in. We're glad to be alive today. We praise thee, and we worship thee, for thou art worthy. In Jesus' name we ask thee. Amen.