David's 3 mighty men

These passages are familiar and you've heard them before and we'll try and move as our brethren have today and keep them as fresh as possible. I do not want to be like the fellow by the name of James Dunn. He was a pastor with the First Baptist Church, James Dunn was, and he likely wasn't the easiest man to listen to and he got moved down in southern Tennessee and his wife's name was Gladys and he didn't really have a lot of personality but she kind of made up for him.

She kind of picked up slack and she would meet and greet people that were coming. This particular day was a hot day, the AC had quit and there's a number of people sleeping really and things didn't go well for James and he needed some help. So she started to work the rows as people were waking up and coming out and she's got this down this run row and this boy's just coming out of sleep but she just struck out her hand as she could and she said, you know, I'm glad it's done.

He says, you're not the only one. So I hope you're not going to say that before I get out of here but we'll try and move along as quickly as we can. 2nd Samuel chapter 23 and just for the sake of connection we're going to pair up some verses here.

Verse 9, and after him went Eliezer the son of Dodo the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men. Verse 13, and three of the thirty chief went down. Verse 16 and it says three mighty men.

Verse 17 again we have three that would, three of the mighty men that would not drink, rather he didn't drink but he jeopardized their lives. It says these things did these three mighty men. Verse 17 and verse 18 that we have the three chief among the three again.

Verse 19, was he not most honorable of the three? Verse 22, these things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada and had the name among the three mighty men. Finally verse 23, he was more honorable than the thirty but he attained not unto the first three. Now we'll come back to where I want to read this afternoon and that is in verse number 15.

Verse 15, and David longed and said oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate on the three mighty men. Break through the host of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate. Notice the significance of that was by the gate and took it and brought it to David.

Nevertheless he would not drink thereof but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said be it far from me O Lord and I should do this for it. Is not this the blood of men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it.

These things did these three mighty men. Now the reason for reading those verses and I think there's a total of eight of them that have the word three in it, not that I want you young men to do that just right now but you know with that little word dictionary program and you've got olive tree on like your iPhone or whatever. I don't know if there's another chapter that has more in it, more times that the word three than 2nd Samuel chapter 23.

That's what I want to speak on this afternoon as I want to speak on David's three mighty men. But it is interesting as you go through the chapter how it's always linked with the three but we'll come back to that in a while. I just want to think particularly of these that would literally break through the ranks of the enemy to get David of a drink of the waters from the well of Bethlehem.

Now first thing you must understand David did not say that hey this is what I want. Okay David did not issue a request. It says David sighed, just a sigh all that it took.

These men were so attracted and so affectionately desires and admired to David and attached to him that just took a sigh. You know in rereading this I sometimes think and in fact just of recent is I think literally it shocked David that they actually took off and he would be sitting there said what these three are going and before he could get the words of saying just a minute I was just dreaming about her thinking about it they're on their way. It's not a wonderful way and a wonderful thing to think that we as God's people just think of the sigh of the master today.

Think of the sigh of the heavenly David and things that he would want us to do. When it comes to the second mile things were commanded to do, things that were expected to do but when it comes maybe to go on the extra mile it might be just the sigh. Let us be like these three mighty men of David that would attain unto more than even the others because of the meeting just the sighing of his heart.

That's why when they brought it back to David as they come back likely when they thought they'll never make it. How will they break through the rank of the Philistines? How will they ever do it? They'll never make it. Did he expect to see them come back again? I'm not sure that he did and when he brought it back he said what do I do with this? The only thing he could do he said I can only pour it out before the Lord.

He said these men went in jeopardy of their lives. Risky business. Gospel work is risky business brethren.

You know what? You're gonna go and do gospel work? It's risky business. You're gonna knock on doors, tell people what they need, tell them where they're gonna go? It's risky business. Go to visit somebody's child that's related to the Christians or whatever and you're a little too hard on them? Grandma comes down on top of you? It can be risky business.

The risk of rescue. Tell you something more risky than when it comes to the unconverted. Visiting a man that's away from the Lord.

It's risky. Some of us that I speak of for overseers and do a lot more of it than I do of it but I've been called upon to and unfortunately, sadly I must say even friends of mine, very close friends of mine at least at one time and you draw that second breath and you go and you go in the fear of the Lord, you pray, you maybe have emailed them months before this and you go and you just don't feel a visit went and after a while you get a message. Guess who was out to prayer meeting? You sit there, you weep.

You think God has done this. The Lord has restored my soul. So anything that we're going to do for God is risky business.

It'll even risk the misunderstanding of other fellow Christians. Other brethren say, wait a minute now. Aren't you going a little too far? Wouldn't it be those that would say, okay, here's men that are dead.

Here's tremendous victory. You're going for some water? Was there really anything that was insignificant when it comes to David? Is there anything that is insignificant when it comes to our heavenly David? Please, dear child of God, if you teach Sunday school, don't say, well, I'm just a Sunday school teacher. Don't say, oh, I'm just a local brother.

I'm just a local sister. There's no such thing in this great work of God. No such thing is that in testimony.

Think of these men today. You know what's interesting is I read the chapter, you read of men and the equipment that they had, the spears and the swords and they were armed. Though these men have, these men are tall.

I was noticing just reading earlier this week of Benaiah. It's interesting. When Benaiah went down to meet that lion, of any time somebody would need a sword, wouldn't you need it then? Other men used it.

Other men defended David with a sword. But where's he going? He goes with the staff. You think, staff? Where did he learn that? He learned that from the one that he was serving.

I mean, it was the laughter, had to be almost the laughter of Saul. Definitely wasn't the job of the giant Goliath. When he looks down and he sees David coming, he's got the staff in his hand.

You know, it's almost like, hey, wait a minute. Oh, this isn't a wilderness cakewalk. What are you doing here? This is a battle.

You're supposedly going to take me on. You've got that staff? He had learned the value of that staff from the one that he was serving. Brethren and sisters, that, of course, is a subject in itself, but sometimes we have to learn the value of the simple things of God from the one that we're serving.

Not the big things. Whatever instrument he gives us. I'm reminded of the young fellow that his uncle gave him a harmonica for his birthday.

A mouth-harmonica. I know he used to give me one. I'm not musically inclined.

But he gave him one. So, about a year later, the uncle came back. He lived a long way away and he called him up and he said to him, Joey, he says, how are you making out with the harmonica? Do you play it? Oh, no, no.

He said, don't play it. But he said, it's the best gift I ever had. Oh, he said, excuse me.

He said, run that past me again. He said, it's the best gift I ever had, but I don't play it. Oh, he says, why is that? Well, he said, mom pays me a dollar every day if I don't play it.

And when dad gets home, he gives me another dollar if I don't play it at night. Sometimes we're better off without, we think, you know, when it comes to, we think you know, if I just had this, if I just had what somebody else has, what I could be, what I could do. That was not the thinking of these men here at all.

There was one thing on their mind, one way or another, if it's just the sigh of David, that's what we want to bring him. Because after all, they understood this, we owe everything to David. You see, what you would do for David depended on how much you loved him, how much you felt indebted to him.

Isn't that not true in our Christian experience? Why, we sing it so easily. He paid a debt, he did not owe, and a debt we could never pay. But do we really believe that? I mean, how far are we prepared to go as Christians? Out of the way, into a danger zone.

Now, I'm not talking about going down into the lower parts of Milwaukee and doing gospel work. If you want to do that, that's fine. But I'm not really so much talking, I'm just talking about things that are, I mean, a drink of water, that is just so natural and what man would want.

Just sigh for it. I mean, think of those disciples trained by the Lord Jesus Now they're ready to go and do big things. They must have had missions in their mind and he said, go get me a colt.

And can't you see them saying one to the other, did he ask you to go get a colt? A colt? How do you make out, brethren, with the small things they ask you to do? You know, at the conference, I don't know how it goes here, but scraping plates. Simply because I knew the brothers at a conference a number of years ago, and there's a brother there scraping plates, didn't look all that happy. And I said to one of the brothers, he said, doesn't like his job.

How do you make out with that, huh? You leave that for the next shift. Let them look after it. You carry on and look for something better, something bigger.

But listen, it all depended on your link with David. How much you would love to him. These men were willing to identify themselves with a rejected man because they loved him and they were attached to him.

You know, you could go down through the chapter and find out men that were interested in the property of David. They're going to guard it. Others that were interested in the promotion of David.

David is in rejection. They're identifying themselves with a man in rejection. You know what these three men were interested in? The person of David.

The person of David. You know, brethren and sisters, we never go wrong in our intimate interest in the person of Christ. Interested in his person.

We never sit down and just contemplate who he was. Who God really sent. That he was a real man.

That he was born into this world. And he came out of his own. He was a man that came and was rejected by his own.

It's just like Moses. Remember Moses? Simply because he picked up a Gentile bride. Why the rest of the family, his own, rejected him.

Isn't that Miriam's language? Isn't that why she's speaking against Moses? Think of the Lord Jesus. The man from glory. Taking up a Gentile bride.

Rejected of his own. What's it say? John tell us. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

That's why the Lord Jesus would counter this in Matthew chapter 10 and say, a cup of cold water. Give it to my name. A cup of cold water.

Sometimes we get taken up with the big and the bigger things. I want to interest you today in the small detail things. Maybe things that people just don't see.

They don't know you're doing it. They don't need to know you're doing it. I'm sorry to say that Brother McLeod was at the same conference and boy, I really felt sorry for some of the Christians there.

I thought they got a pretty hard going over for not reaching out to people in their neighborhood. Not doing that and not doing the other thing. And it was my nature to be very quick and pick up and email a brother and say, wait a minute.

Do you want a list of people? Here's what they're doing and nobody knows that. Please brother, in God's name. I don't know what everybody's doing for the Lord in this community, but I have somehow reason to believe you're doing something.

Something. Just some little thing that maybe nobody else knows you're doing. Do they have to know it? Does it really matter? Well, you say they might think I'm lazy.

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Just like I say, we're not told that.

But others could have looked at that. Those guys are going to risk that for water. For water.

But it was for who it was for that all that mattered. But said the Lord Jesus, he that is greatest among you, he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. Matthew chapter 23.

But it's interesting. I find it very interesting that there are always those that had their three. Three that were faithful.

Always great men in the Bible. I just want to go over them very quickly that were linked with three. You remember that Daniel.

There's three with Daniel. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Here's Daniel, likely the leader of the three.

And there's going to come a time when Daniel wasn't going to be with them. Whatever he's going to forge into their thinking is going to be done now because there's going to be a day when this young man, Daniel, is not going to be with them. A few chapters just in a matter of time and he's an old man.

But during those early days, there's something they picked up from Daniel that stood them in good stead when it came to the furnace. When it came to the fiery furnace in which they're going to be cast. And there's just three.

Where were the rest? Good question. Where were the rest? Come again. What about the Lord's three? I mean, think of them.

Peter, James, and John. Oh, he loved all of those disciples. All those disciples did different things with them.

But again, like David and like Daniel, so with the Lord Jesus. Peter, James, and John. Just go through your New Testament.

I'm not going to take time to rattle them off to you. Peter, James, and John. Those were the three that were closest to him.

We go to 2 Timothy chapter 4 and we read Paul's three. I mean, think of all the names that the apostle gives us, but think of the three in particular. Luke, Timothy, and of all people, John, Mark.

Just three. Just three. Where do you fit into this? Where do I fit into this today? One of our brethren already quoted the verse, Matthew 18 and 20.

What's it say? Were two or three hundred? Wouldn't you like a breaking of bread where there's 200 to break bread? I hear men talk about a former day in Ireland and in Canada too. The assembly that commended Mr. Norman Crawford west side Toronto one time. There's 200 breaking bread there.

The assembly on Brock Avenue that commended Burt Joyce. In fact, when he was saved, there's over 120 breaking bread. The Lord's Day morning.

You say, wow. That's not like who we are. We're just small.

Is the Lord anticipating that? Let me just apply Matthew 18 and 20 to that. He said Matthew 18 and 20 to that. Where two or three are in heaven being gathered together in my name.

In my name. There am I in the midst of them. So there you are.

I want to ask you something. I have no idea how many is in the fellowship of the assembly. By and large, just to use street language if you allow for a minute, the engine and transmission of most assemblies reduces to two or three.

They're the driving force in that testimony. Does that include you? Just think where you come from. All I do is pick up children.

That's enough. But we have another man. He's a Sunday school superintendent.

He does this and he does that. Does he do everything? That's a mistake too. That's a mistake too.

But yet there are those. And you know something? It's wide open. Two and three can be representative.

It doesn't mean, well, listen. Here's the three. You'll sit right now as you're going over maybe where you come from and say, well, him and Mrs. So-and-so.

She's the head when it comes to the food at the conference and so-and-so. Really, there's our three. You can be part of that three.

You can be part of that three. Sure you can. It was wide open.

I've often thought with all the list of men that are given that were linked with David, how come there's so few? How come the Bible wouldn't give us, it will in the Chronicles, all their names. How come that when it comes to the end days, when it comes right to the close, it's just the three, three, three, three, three mighty men. Why is it we've already been hearing from 1 John, from Brother Lavery, when we come to the Revelation, we're down to one now.

An overcomer. An overcomer. You're going to be part of the three.

You're going to be an overcomer. You know, it's not always the big names. It's not always the big names that made David's mighty list.

Now, are you with me? Joab. Joab never makes the list. His armor bearer does.

And his brother does. Joab never makes it. Yet, I'm sure as you thought of the victories, I mean that boy, if anybody came into his crosshairs, they were done.

They were out. Abner didn't matter who it was. That's Joab.

You know what Joab's difficulty was? I borrow this from Mr. Albert McShane. He said, Joab, he said, love the kingdom. No doubt about it.

He just didn't love its king. Very possible for me to become very affectionate toward the assembly of Christians, and I should be an associate Jew. But you know, ultimately, my love has to spring from the one to whom it belongs.

Our Lord Jesus Christ. If I love him, I'm going to love you. If you love him, you're going to love me.

So there's men, and we think of those men that would have made it. I mean, think of a man like Jonathan. Jonathan.

And you think, for sure, Jonathan would make it. No, Jonathan doesn't make the list. No, and that's when you add it up.

There's one short. Who's he waiting for? He's waiting for one more. You know who that could be today, brother, sister? That could be you.

You could be one of David, our heavenly David's mighty men. Now, as we come back, just looking over these men very quickly, like I've said, you know, David doesn't issue a command. It isn't a command that you've got to do this.

You know, there's a lot of things in our Bible that we are not commanded to do, and you'll remember that when it came to Nadab and Abihu, because they weren't commanded to do a certain thing, and they took liberty themselves and brought about their death. But you know, sometimes we get challenged almost like a challenge today. Well, where's your chapter and verse for it? Those could have been sat back and said, well, David, wait a minute.

This is too mundane. This is too simple. I mean, you're a military man yourself.

You know, it wasn't a military act that they were interested in. It wasn't something just routine. It wasn't something abnormal.

Sometimes we want to do the abnormal, the big thing, something that's so different than everybody else. You know, we want to reinvent the wheel. It just was a cup of cold water.

They just got the sighings of his heart. There was only one way you could get that. You had to be awful close to David.

I must challenge my own heart and ask myself today, am I that close to him that I know the breathings of his heart? No, you can't tell me that there aren't times when you are challenged to do something and you don't do it. I've been impressed with that lately of that early church that said they purposed in their heart to send relief out of the poor saints in Jerusalem, which also they did. How many times have you promised yourself that you're going to I think I just saw it in somebody's little card here about giving up tracks.

You know, there's a young brother back our way, a couple of brethren. I think there's one that's kept with me tenaciously. We started to think at the beginning of the year, it's not a bad habit.

Got a pocket in those shirts? Think I see one? If you don't, get rid of the shirt and get one that has a pocket, okay? Because I want you to go out fully dressed. And remember, you're only half dressed if you don't have at least a track to go up with in the day. At the end of every day or the next day, I want you to take and put an X every day you didn't give out a track.

You know, we stand and we'll sing, Christians go and tell of Jesus, but we want everybody else to do it. Pretty brethren and sisters. Now I know there'll come a day when I won't print tracks and I'm a promoter of tracks, I get saved through a track and I pass them out.

I pass out tracks to other men too. You want to print your own pass out? I don't care. Just do it.

Just do it. It's the signs of His heart. So let's just go back.

Can you believe it? I can't believe it that we're to the end of April already. Now if I looked at your calendar, let's just go for the month of April, okay? Which would be most rare? The day you were spared the X? Well, because every day had an X in it and there was never a day that you passed out tracks. I'm going to ask the whole company here today.

It likely would be, and this isn't just you people here. I mean, as preachers, we fail. Come on, brethren.

Let's own up to it. Let's not get up here and start beating up on the Christians. We don't do it ourselves.

We don't do it. A former generation did it. I don't mind telling you, if you've heard me tell it before, I'm sorry, I'm going to tell you again.

The last day of my mother's life in the north of Ireland, not even the country from which she came, she'd give out three tracks. She didn't know that was going to be her last day. She didn't know before she'd have her tea or her supper, as we would call it that night, walked into those stores, clerks she'd never met, she passed out three tracks.

Who's picking up that? To our shame, brethren, sisters usually do it better than the brethren do. Do you know who I have given the most tracks to in my life, and I will not take anything from them? Do you know who gives out the most tracks of people I know? Both of them are in wheelchairs. Both of them are in wheelchairs.

I give you the names. They give them out by the hundreds in wheelchairs. You've got two legs.

You've got an arm. What's your excuse? There would be nothing wrong. You don't have to come and tell me you're doing it, okay? There'd be nothing wrong, all of us.

Come on, some of you retired men. Come on, we've got no excuse. Why don't I ask you to give one out, brother? Boy, I'd be embarrassed if somebody asked me to spit this one out.

How many X's on your calendar last month? Nothing wrong. We're starting from here on. Okay, I'll start Xing the calendar each day.

Don't give a track then. We'll be wrong on that. A sister over in the north of Ireland, just to finish the story, was so impressed with what had happened.

She had been with my mother that day. It was her birthday. There was a cake in the trunk or boot of the car, as they called it over there, that she never got to see or never got to eat.

She called me up. She said, Marie, she said, would you mind going with me visiting today? I said, are you visiting? I said, sure. Where do you want to go? She said, I want to take you back to the three ladies.

I know them all. That your mother visited in the shops, as they call them over there. I want you to meet the ones that they give the track to.

You know what she said? And I haven't done it. Why does a woman come thousands of miles on her last day on earth, and she didn't know it was going to be her last day? Do you know this isn't your last weekend? Do you know this isn't your last day? My mother died. I didn't plan to get on this, a bit of a detour here.

But let me tell you something. I'm 67. My mother died at 77.

From various conference platforms, I was saying, you know, if I die when my mother's, I've got 10 years. That's what I'm saying. I've got 10 years.

If you were to talk to me, midnight, January the 1st this year, as I lay in the emergency room of our local hospital, after a very serious bleed, I didn't know if I had 10 months. You know what you start to think about? Hymns suddenly take on a different meaning. Verses suddenly take on a different meaning.

Men of the Bible. Men like Hezekiah. They got a second chance.

And just to give you the end of the story, I've had all the tests necessary and the doctors to this day do not know what happened. I'm just thankful and I appreciate it. I didn't realize how many people knew it until I was at the Stout Waterloo conference.

Everybody's coming up to me and asking me how I was. I'm fine. But you start to think things over.

And I start to think, this is a second chance. What am I going to do differently now than I've been doing prior to this? Here is a one shot for these men. One shot! You'll get one shot too.

You start doing it, brother, and it'll pay off. Would you allow another personal reference? Coming out of the Stout conference, I was flying alone, without an autopilot, fighting ice, everything the pilot doesn't want. Flew into Syracuse, New York.

I tell you, I was pretty glad to see some asphalt when I broke out of those clouds. A lot of things in your mind. Fortunately, that day, I had presence enough of mine to reach into my pocket and give the receptionist the track.

When I arrived in Iowa, I got a card. It came right to where I was in the mail. Dear Mr. McCandless, thank you for stopping into Landmark Aviation's Syracuse airport.

I'm holding in my hand, that's maybe not how she said it, I have here, that pamphlet you left me. I appreciate the stories in it. Very enlightening.

She says, I haven't quite read one like this. I wrote her back and I sent her a God's Way of Salvation, just kind of a follow-up on it. Scott and I landed here, right here in town.

Ready to get Waukesha airport. This doesn't always happen, just as in this trip. Maybe it's part of the second chance.

I had one of the receptionists, and she came to me, she said, I'm sorry, it's very interesting. See, I haven't been able to put it down. Now, I do know, I get various responses from them.

But I'm going to tell you, what responses are you going to get, dear, if you don't get them out? Who are you going to hear back if you don't get them out? Do you realize there's people that you've crossed, you'll never see them again? Never see them again. And there's other people that the Lord could have brought you across their path, but the reason he didn't is because you couldn't meet their need. Remember the man at the side of the road? I mean, when that Samaritan didn't arrive, they'd say, just a minute, you hold it here.

I'll get home and get what you need. How many times, let's be honest about it, you said, if I just had, isn't that true? Sure it is. Who do you do that for? So I don't have any X's on my calendar? You do it for David.

You do it for one you love. You want to tell them about somebody that means a lot to you and you're prepared to do it. These men were, it was just a simple thing.

Did David think it was simple? David says they went in jeopardy of their lives. We don't go in jeopardy of our lives. We could be a country today, think of it, brethren and sisters, we could be a country today, you wouldn't be allowed to give that out.

You'd have a bullet to the back of the brain before you were 100 feet down the street. Seriously. You know that as well as I do.

Think of the liberty we have. Think of the opportunities we have. We toss them to the wind.

A lot of things that maybe I'm not gifted to do. A lot of things that maybe you feel today I'm so inadequate. But really, how much does it take to pass along some interest of what's important to you just to someone else and the Lord will honor you for it.

So I look at Daniel's three. I see them function without Daniel. I come to the Lord's three.

It must have been some day when he stood and he was taken up from them. They watched him go. They would all watch.

And there's Peter, James, and John. A point when really they were at the crucifixion likely running for their lives. John came back, thank God.

Now they're without him. They're without him. Once he was with them.

Once they came to him, they're difficult. Who are they going to go to now? Do you ever feel like that in Christian testimony? We're all alone in this town. Nobody else is here.

Nobody else knows us. We're so insignificant. We're not part of the in crowd of the megachurches and so on.

These men could have felt like that. I mean David took the rebuttal and the jokes and the mocking. He'd heard it all his life.

It made nothing to these people simply because they loved David. I like the Apostle Paul. It's nice with these men.

It reminds me of three more men. The Apostle had done the three men. If you go to the I think it is of 1 Corinthians chapter 16 it's got to be.

And he speaks of three men there by the name of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaus. And he says that which was lacking on your part that which was lacking on your part he says they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Now you'd hardly think three men coming from Corinth of all people of all places could refresh anybody.

A church in that condition you're going to refresh somebody? I'm going to ask you brother you come in the assembly, is that a refreshment for the saints? Your presence just coming among God's people really some kind of a refreshment to them or do they go watch how we say here. Got to be careful what we say. She's so touchy.

Just looked the wrong way. Not like that. Paul said they refresh my spirit and yours.

You know what he's telling them? Those Corinthians? They have done for me what they've done for you. It's amazing how we can maybe go to a conference and refresh everybody else and I can come here and I hardly think anybody would come this distance to attend a conference and be like this. But it does happen.

Be so friendly to everybody else and yet when you go home you're just an old grump. That's at places in Farley, Ohio we go by coming there cutting through from green. Coming through and it says the town population says one old grump.

You know something? It's never ever said two grumps. It always says one. I watched that sign for 30 years.

They must repaint it every three years. There's something else. The town hasn't grown either.

Want your assembly to grow? You refresh them. Nice to have believers. Paul says they refresh you.

You! So who can stand up and say, listen, they didn't do that for me. Is that a lot to do? Just the way you carry yourself. The way that you function with fellow believers.

Just the way you operate. Nothing critical. Nothing hard.

Just to be able to refresh the stage. Listen, I'm going to tell you as visitors, let me take the liberty to say you people that have given this weekend to come here to the Walker Shaw Conference. I'm speaking on behalf of this assembly at this moment.

You know what you've done to them? You've refreshed them. You have. And our desire is that this conference will be a refreshment to you.

And if it is, ultimately, you know whose heart's really refreshed? The one who from heaven looks down on this town with all that's going on, with all that takes place. There's my people gathered. Guess what happened? They're being refreshed.

These men, that's all they did for David, even though he never tasted of the water.