David

1 Chronicles, chapter 12, please, 1 Chronicles, chapter 12, 1 Chronicles, chapter 12 and verse 1. Now these are they that came to David to Ziglag while he yet kept himself close because of Saul, the son of Kish. And there were among the mighty men helpers, please notice that expression, helpers of the war. Now over, please, to verse 8. And the Gadites there separated themselves unto David in the hold to 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 rose upon the mountains.

These are the first of Obadiah, the second Eliab, the third, verse 13, Jeremiah the 10th, Machmaniah the 11th. And it is significant that you do not have a 12th. We'll come back to that.

Verse 15, these are they that went over Jordan in the first month when it had overflown all its banks. And they put to flight all men of them of the valleys, both toward the east and toward the west. And there came of the children of Benjamin and Judah to the hold unto David.

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, or we shall be as one as your margin gives it. But if you become to betray me to mine enemy, seeing there is no wrong in mine hands, the God of our fathers look thereon and rebuke it. And this lovely verse, verse number 18, then the Spirit came upon Amaziah, who was chief of the captains, and he said, thine are we, David, and on thy side thou son of Jesse.

Peace be unto thee, that peace be to thine helpers, for thy God helpeth thee. Then David received them and made them captains of the band. Now there would be some little bit of hesitancy on the part of David for good reason in receiving them, and that is he has told them why in verse number 17 where we read, lest you would betray me.

Verse 19, and there fell some of the Manasseh to David when he came with the Philistines against Saul to battle, but they helped them not. For the Lord's of the Philistines upon the advisement sent him saying, he will fall to his master Saul to the jeopardy of our heads. Verse 21, and they helped David against the band of rovers, and for they were all mighty men of valor and were captains in the host.

For at that time day by day there came to David to help him until it was a great host like the host of God, and these are the numbers of the bands that were ready armed to war and came to David to Hebron to turn the kingdom of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord. The children of Judah that bear shield and spear were 6,800 ready armed to war. Verse number 28, and Zadok a young man mighty of valor and of the father's house, twenty and two captains, and the children of Benjamin, the kindred of Saul, those that would be naturally loyal to Saul, 3,000 for hitherto the greatest part of them had kept the ward of the house of Saul.

The children of Ephraim 20,800 and mighty men of valor famous wrote the house of their fathers, and over pleased to verse number 33 of Zebulun such as went forth to battle expert in war with all the instruments of war 50,000 which could keep rank, they were not of a double heart. Verse number 38, all these men of war that could keep rank came with perfect heart to Hebron to make David king over all Israel and all the rest of Israel were of one heart to make David king. And please just for the sake of time come to the last two, four, six words of the chapter for there was joy in Israel, and the reason that there was joy in Israel very obvious is because the right and rightful man is upon the throne.

We've been hearing a lot about David's greater son this afternoon. We're going to speak for a little while and consider this good man David. Only one David in your Bible.

There's more than one Saul in your Bible, only one David. A man after God's own heart. I know that the first thing the godless world will throw in the face of a believer that doesn't know Genesis from Revelation, and I'm referring to the unconverted is what about David? So what about David? Wonderful man that he was, but I want to think of David this way this afternoon just to give you some direction where I'm going.

As much of it I will be out of here at four o'clock, finished or not. I'm going to look first of all at allegiance to David. Allegiance to David.

Secondly, the acceptance of David. There had to be the acceptance of his person. Then we will also consider the appreciation of David, okay, and the assistance to David.

And last, the ascension of David. You see these people that would rightfully join David were people that realized something. That this is not a time to take sides, but a side.

We talk about taking sides. There's only one side they could take, and the side they could take was the side of David. Why would they ever do that? Why would they ever do it? Because every true Hebrew understood there was a day down in that valley where he took my side.

He took my side. Why do I in any sense seek to own, as we've been hearing this afternoon, allegiance to David's greater son? Because brothers and sisters at Calvary, he took my side. He took my side.

That's a wonderful truth in itself. Allegiance to David because he took their side. All that David had to offer them was all he needed to offer them.

You know what he had to offer them? Just himself. Just himself. Now Saul would have had a lot, naturally speaking, in a monetary way to offer to the people.

What are we reminded about Saul? What does Samuel say about Saul? He's not going to give you anything. In fact, he says unto them, he says, this shall be the manner of the king that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself.

He says he'll take your daughters, your confectionaries, your cooks to be his bakers. In other words, he's going to look after Saul. He'll take your fields.

He'll take your vineyards. He'll take your olive yards. He'll take the tenth of your seed.

He'll take your men's servants. He will take, take, take. I'm looking at a good number this afternoon that know a lot more about it than I do, that in that world, and it's never changed its mind, it takes.

And the only thing that it'll take, the only one that it'll take more from than it will, the unconverted, is the child of God. Because you've got more to lose. The unconverted, as far as the great enemies of souls, has no more vested interest in them than a shopkeeper does in a tin of beans.

But my friend invested in every believer today is Calvary, by the one who took our side. So wouldn't our language be this afternoon the language of this good man, Amaziah? Love it. I love it.

I will quote it and re-quote it. The Spirit came upon Amaziah, and the captain, he said, Thine are we, David. On thy side, thou son of Jesse.

Peace, peace be unto thee. Peace be unto thy helpers. The Lord thy God helpeth thee.

And because of that, whatever it is, David, we are willing to be those helpers. Are you in that form today? Whose side really are you on? Oh, you say, it depends where I am. Oh? You know, it's like, I don't think really among us, some preachers, depends what coast they're on, what they're preaching.

Depends who the audience is, what they're really saying. I think sometimes we forget the intelligence and underrate the intelligence of God's people. We forget communications.

Because I happen to know that I've been at conferences before I have done, I got home from the conference, that message was being listened to miles away. So I say, brethren and sisters, myself included, we want to be careful. David had nothing to offer them but himself.

That was sufficient. Do you know why they came to David? Well, why are these men now from Saul starting to move to the house of David? To move away from something that they may have thought he was going to offer. Why are they now only allegiance to David? They're starting to get their eyes open.

They realize this is the king. This king in rejection is our king. He is the one that has delivered us.

Why would we not then own total allegiance to him? What did David want from them? What did David want from them? Just themselves. Just themselves. Go back.

Remember, it says they first offered themselves. And it isn't, my friend, that God wants from you today. Dear believer, it isn't what God wants from you.

Just wants you. Are you prepared, young man? Dear young sister today, brother, sister, older person, are you prepared to take up the language of this good man Amaziah and say, thine are we, David. On thy side, thou son of Jesse.

Or would you like to still stay with the house of Saul that really does have a future in it? You go to the Radisson Hotel, that great big hotel chain, and you know what their their slogan is of late? Nor it is. Absolutely contrary to what is being preached and will be preached in this platform. The Radisson says, welcome to the Radisson, where the world revolves around you.

That's the mentality of our world. That's terrific for advertising for the Radisson. But you and I will certainly soon learn, dear child of God, the world may revolve around them, and it did Saul.

But their world would revolve around David. They would watch David. And they realized that this is a time.

This is no time. I'm reminded just this week of the death of Margaret Thatcher. I always tell of a time when she said, what are your presidents? Presidents George H. W. Bush.

A memo. It was the time of the Iraq war. Know what she wrote? That intelligent woman.

No time to go wobbly, George. I say good advice. How about you today? How about you, brother? Come on, listen.

You prepare to be like Peter says that he stood up with the leaven. Remember, it took the calf and said they sat down to play. You do one or the other.

Not these people. People that are going to be linked with David and own allegiance to David, people that are going to stand with David and for David. Secondly, I want to notice their acceptance of David.

Okay. Acceptance of David. Listen, joining David just wasn't lip talk, lip service.

Notice the challenges that lay before them. The Jordan. Whenever God's people are going to move in the will of God, and they're facing the Jordan, what's it always saying? Which overflowed his banks.

There was times when the Jordan was easy to pass. But when it's overflowing his banks, it's not the thought, my friend, of you going into the Jordan as we speak of death, but it's the Jordan coming out to get you. These men would go in the face of that.

Not only own their allegiance to David, but their acceptance of David. You're going to be on David's side, dear child of God. It's not going to be the easiest one, but it's going to be the only one.

Are you prepared? You be prepared to be misunderstood by other fellow believers. You go from this conference and say, listen, I'm just fiddling my time away here, wasting it. Well, you know, if you went outside the house of David, it would say something like this.

Can I put it in New Testament language, would it allow me? Breaking of bread, 10 a.m. Sunday school, Bible reading, gospel meeting, seven o'clock. Wednesday, prayer and Bible study, 7 30. But you stepped over to the house of Saul, you looked at their billboard, it was a little different.

Oh, you got a good start. Oh, no, you can't say there weren't times when Saul didn't acknowledge God. But outside their billboard, it would read something like this.

Sunday, worship. And Sunday at noon, that was about it. In the afternoon, in brackets, it would say, just do your own thing.

That's the house of Saul. Go down, oh, it was a busy week in the house of Saul. Monday, it would say this, donkey hunt.

Sure, nothing like doing better, Saul did, than looking for lost donkeys. Something about it was tremendous. I don't know what he did with them when he found them.

But there's too many brethren on a donkey hunt. And if you look down the board a little further, Tuesday, it would say javelin practice. Saul couldn't hit the wall, let alone David.

He needed a lot of practice. Why not go for javelin practice? That'd be a lot of fun. Wouldn't that bring a lot of glory to God? Javelin practice.

Wednesday, it would say, we're going down to the witch at Endor, see how she's doing. That'd be an interesting trip. Well, you go on a little further, you go down to Thursday night, and it would say trumpet practice.

Because I want to tell you, there's nothing he loved doing better than blowing the trumpet. Jonathan could win the battle. Jonathan could get his nose run.

But Saul, just give me the trumpet, let me blow it. You can fill in the other two nights, I've been ridiculous enough. Now, whose side do you want to be on? The acceptance of David.

You see, there's something very, very important to understand in Christian experience. When it comes to us, brothers and sisters, God can get along without us, okay? It is not that we are requirable, but we are desirable. Our boys have a small business, and there's times when they require an employee, a tent installer.

So he's required. But after a day on the job, and he's off in the corner smoking marijuana and pot, he is no longer required, and he's no longer desired. He's out, he's gone.

When it comes to you and I, by God, it isn't a matter that, by God, you are not required, but you are desired. Isn't that wonderful? Why would he ever want to use any of us, really? Why wouldn't we want to literally own our allegiance to David and our acceptance of David? We just accept David. They accepted David first person.

No arguments about it. They didn't sit down and say, now listen, I overheard a conversation taking place. In fact, the overseers had really told me about it.

A young man sat down. Here's what he wanted. He wanted this, he wanted that, before he came in the assembly fellowship.

And the tragedy is, is one of the overseers in the interview was trying to accommodate him. Better he'd been down in Florida, I'd say. We'll come back to that.

What about assistance to David? We've looked at allegiance to David, acceptance of David, now assistance to David. What did David need in assistance? He just wanted some help. That's all.

Just some help. What does that list of gifts give you? What's the top of it? Helps, without trying to sound sarcastic. And if I was trying to wake you up this afternoon in the reading, but you're looking very alert, I would have put in the word yelper.

We have more than we had helpers at times. Oh, they can yelp. Oh, oh, if it doesn't go their way.

Oh, you can hear them. You almost know what quarter it's going to come from. Helpers.

How about it? I call your overseers up, sisters too. Yeah, some of you older ones too. I call the overseers up and say, hey, Brother So-and-so, I saw him at the Cedar Falls Waterloo Conference.

How would you describe him in the assembly? And I suddenly think the phone's gone dead. Oh, they say, oh brother, we so appreciate him. He is such a help.

That'd be a lovely, I think that'd be commendable on any tombstone of any believer. I know the words redeemed and all those are wonderful, but how about something like this? He helped. He helped.

Wasn't that he could bring a lot out of the treasury? Wasn't that he could preach the gospel with great ability? Wasn't that he could do this and that? But he can help. These were people prepared to assist David. The man from Macedonia, what's the apostle remind us? What does he say? A place where I can preach? Now, I appreciate exercise of young brethren and I appreciate they're going to write sometimes and state their availability, but I get very, very nervous.

And when I get one and I've had a few of them, I'm wondering about coming for some preaching. You know what I tell them? Go get your day job, stick with it. Worse than that is when mom writes the letter.

And she's going, Mr. McCandless, my boy doesn't realize it, but mom always does, you know? Got a tremendous gift. I think he could use them. And I write back and say, and what part of the grass does he want to cut around the tent? You do that? Come on, you got a tent coming up in supper.

What do you boys do? Just show up at meeting time? You ever go and arrange the chairs? You don't get there in time, right? What kind of a helper are you? You won't pick a paper up off the floor, you leave it for next shift. Oh, you say, but those are simple things. Oh, why don't you do the simple things? Assistance for David.

But there had to be an appreciation of David. Whose are we anyhow? You see, the apostle said, whose I am and who I serve. To whom I belong always determines who I serve.

If the world revolves around me, the Radisson world, who will I serve? Well, I'll likely serve Murray McCandless. But you see, it's different here. Because of their appreciation for David, they will serve David.

Because there was no future for them in the house of Saul. Maybe others. But here was, here was, there was cuts very fine.

These were blood relatives, blood relatives. Leaving the house of Saul, they're now moving over to David's. And David's a little nervous that they might betray him.

Remember the chosen band of 12, there was one that would betray. Any of us could be the betrayer. Any of us could be the number 12 here.

I'm sure I'm not speaking to any, I'm sure that I'm not speaking to anybody that took time to come to the conference here that really wants to betray him. But let me ask you, are you betraying him by your life? How about it? Are you betraying him by your life? Or do people look upon you as ever a lover of David? It's interesting, the men that came, okay? Now, I know there's one other point, the ascendance of David, of course, that's when David is going to the throne and so on. They knew that one day David would be upon the throne.

For that reason, they were committed to the cause of David. But now I want you to notice just very quickly the kind of people they were. I want to notice the marksmen in the chapter.

They were ambidextrous. They're pretty good marksmen, right, man? Ambidextrous, left-hand or right-hand. We'll come back to that.

There was not only marksmen, but there was footmen. There were mountainous men, faces like lions. And we'll come back to that.

And then, of course, there was bondmen, only 30 of them, but they bonded to David. I would say they were courageous men. And last but not least, we have workmen, workmen that were ambitious, seven men of Manasseh, seven that had lived on both sides of the Jordan, okay? Seven that saw the blessings of one side and the pitfalls of the other, now owned their allegiance to David.

First of all, marksmen, the men that were ambidextrous, balanced men that could lose the left hand as well as the right, in other words, they were not men that plucked away at the same old chord every time you heard them, okay? Every time. They only needed an instrument with one string and one hand, and every time they opened their mouth, nothing balanced about them. I think the teaching here is that these, we have it right back there in verse number two, these men of Benjamin that committed men, they were men that knew how, they were marksmen, okay? They knew how to launch an arrow, okay? I mean, whenever an arrow is warped in its making, it's never true in its flight.

Any arrow gets its direction from the hand that it leaves. I'm no bowhunter, you can tell me a lot about it after, but these boys could tell both of us quite a bit about it. They were marksmen, they were men that just didn't fire in the dark.

They were men that could touch the moment. They were men that could handle a sensitive area. They were men that weren't just firing for the sake of firing, hoping to hit somebody.

No, they were men that knew what it was to be on the mark with things. Is your interest, dear brother, dear sister, is your interest in the things of God such that you're known by your and by dexterous, okay? Even if it isn't what your right hand would do, your left hand can do it. In other words, you don't come to them and say, I'm sorry, I can't work this weekend.

This hand's, you know, I've had a lot of trouble with this hand this weekend. I'm just taking something physical and applying it to the spiritual. But what about the other one? Was it Hudson Taylor, the man that came? He went to one lake, and he said to him, you're going to serve the Lord? Yeah, we're going to serve the Lord.

He says, man, you only got one leg. Well, he says, I know that. He said, I don't see anybody that's coming that's got two.

Yeah, there's lots of us got two. We're not using them for that, are we? These men, they were marksmen and by dexterous. But the footmen, these mountainous men, they must have been something to see, faces like lions, okay? I don't want to read something into it.

Let me put something simple I thought about is this. They were men that just didn't blink, okay? Now, listen. Listen.

Aaron did. Remember when the people gathered, and there's another picture of what we talked about last week. What's wrong with the children of Israel? They got their eye.

They lost sight of a man that's gone up for them. That was Moses. And they come to Aaron, and unfortunately, he caves in.

Those people knew who they had. I would suggest that would never have happened with Moses. They knew who they had.

It wouldn't be too long. He'd blink. Not these men.

Not these men. Thank God for men amongst us. Thank God for men that have stood testimony in their day, and you know you can fire at them what you like.

They didn't blink. No. Just a very kind way they stood firm.

You that kind of an individual? Or do you need the memo from Margaret Thatcher to your president? No time to go wobbly. Brothers and sisters, preachers, everybody included here today, if there's ever a time we did need to go wobblies today. We were here about wandering.

Now we're talking about wobbling. So they were footmen. What about the bondmen? These were courageous men.

What's to say about these bondmen? Lovely expression. It says they separated themselves unto David. Separated themselves unto David.

Turned from idols to serve the living and true God. Brothers and sisters, that's the kind of men that are going to make David what he is. Did you ever wonder the scripture of all the, think of all the forces that David had.

Think of the numbers that he had. Isn't something sad to be said that there's just what, 30 here and there's 33 here and there's three here. Out of all of Israel, out of all the men of Judah, and those were the ones that really would be faithful to David.

It wasn't any big number, was there? My, David so appreciated these men. Workmen. These are men that are ambitious.

Okay? Men that were ambitious. Men that were just prepared that whatever David wanted them to do, he wanted water from the wells of Bethlehem, that's what we'll get him. What he does with it is up to him.

He wants water from there, that's what we'll get him. You know what? When these men of Judah are coming, rather the men of Benjamin are coming to David, this was not an easy chapter in David's experience. It's easy for us to read, but there's a lot of difficulties going on here.

It must have thrilled his heart. You'd almost see him turn and start to weep if I could think of As he heard those words ring out from Amaziah that day, thine we are, thine we are, thou son of Jesse. Thine we are, David, thou son of Jesse.

And on thy side, peace be unto thee, and peace be unto those that help thee, and thy God hath helped thee. So, brethren and sister, what we're coming down to is this. Very clear.

Very clear. One or two houses. You can go for one or the other, don't you try to mix them.

You state exactly what this book teaches. You make it in your mind to be totally, totally committed to the house of David. Consecration is a beautiful truth, but I'm going to tell you something.

It's only a word in the dictionary without commitment. The end result of consecration is the filling of hands and the commitment unto a person and his cause. Let me close with those beautiful words.

Thine we are, David. On thy side, thou son of Jesse. Peace, peace be unto thee.

Peace be unto thy helpers. Yea, the Lord thy God hath helped thee.