Part 2 - God Wakes David Up
1 Samuel 30:6
It looks like we’re going to do three messages on this subject – “From Depression to Revival.” So, we are going to change last week’s message title to “From Depression to Revival – Part 1.” If you didn’t watch or listen to the last message, it’s important you do that.
Let me start with another clear disclaimer. The causes of depression are many and varied, and the over-all response to depression depends on the cause – or causes – of our depression. And so, if there is a medical or physiological side to your depression – please do not ignore that.
But what we’re talking about in this mini-series is a spiritually critically important priority for any believer – or any new believer – to go from their depression to God’s revival.
Last message we saw King David with a long back-to-back-to back string of mounting crisis and compounding stress, and we saw him fall into depression and then into spiritual compromise. Today, we get to see King David emerge from his dark valley of depression and compromise.
When we left David, he was living in the land of the enemy (Philistines), and to the best of their knowledge, he was raiding his own people (Israel).
David’s depression and compromise had taken him so far into the enemy camp that Achish (the enemy King) said at the end of Chapter 27, “Now [David] will be my servant forever.” David’s heart was actually still for God, but his actions were being driven by his depression logic.
How about us? Have we ever been in that place? The place where we know (deep down) our heart is still for God, but our actions are being driven by our depression logic? For David, it all led to living a compromised, dual life.
And then, the day came when the Philistines decided it was time for a full-scale attack against Israel, and in 1Samuel 28, Achish addresses David about it.
1 Samuel 28:1 (NLT)
1 About that time the Philistines mustered their armies for another war with Israel. King Achish told David, “You and your men will be expected to join me in battle.”
Remember, David had been attacking non-Israelite towns and lying to the enemy King, saying he was attacking Israelite towns. And now, the lies of his dual life have backed him into a serious corner.
And so, in Chapter 29, David lines his men up with the Philistines, preparing to attack Israel. He had to; he had no way out. But, by God’s grace, David is given a way out – at the last minute. In 1 Samuel 29:3, the Philistine Army commanders flip out that David is lined up for battle with them, and they demand that he be sent back and not be allowed to fight with them because they don’t trust him.
And so, David puts up a little show of disagreement to keep up his compromised image, and finally, the enemy King tells David in 1 Samuel 29:9(b)-10,
1 Samuel 29:9(b)-10 (NLT)
9 . . . the Philistine commanders are afraid to have you with them in the battle.
10 Now get up early in the morning, and leave with your men as soon as it gets light.”
So, David narrowly escapes this potential catastrophe by God’s grace.
Maybe you can think of a time when God has given you this “narrow-escape grace” where your own choices of compromise, maybe depression, have backed you into a corner, and God’s given you a way out.
David must have thought at this time that he was in the clear now. But… boy, was he wrong.
Sometimes God gives us a way out of the consequences of our compromise, and sometimes God has us experience the consequences of our compromise. Can you think back on your life when maybe a time you deserved to experience the consequences God gave you a last-minute pass? And sometimes, God made sure that you experienced the consequences of your compromise. But please hear me, when God allows our consequences to hit us the hardest, full force, it’s always for our good and for his glory. God is always moving us toward him and toward his plan for our lives when he allows those consequences to shake us to the core.
And so, now, God is going to allow the consequences of David’s compromise to hit David with full force – head-on. And here is the good that God is going to bring out of it. Hear it because it relates to your life.
Having to face the consequences of his choices is going to first crush David completely. It’s going to bring David to brokenness, to humiliation. It’s going to bring him right where he needs to be. And then, it is going to rattle David out of his compromise and depression – and then, it’s going to set him on the path to revival with God. God’s going to use it for good.
Here’s how it happens. Unbeknownst to David, while he was narrowly escaping having to attack his own people, there was another attack going on at the same time, and this attack was on David’s home.
Skip down to 1 Samuel 30:1-2.
1 Samuel 30:1–2 (NLT)
1 Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they had crushed Ziklag (David’s home) and burned it to the ground.
2 They had carried off the women and children and everyone else but without killing anyone (by God’s grace).
After thinking they had dodged a bullet (or sword), David and his men return home to Ziklag, and they find their town burned to the ground and all of their families gone.
Compromise… has consequences.
And sometimes God will allow those consequences to fall hard on us – hit us head-on in order to shake us out of our compromise.
Maybe something like that has happened to you. Maybe depression had caused you to turn your back on a strong daily walk with the Lord. Probably not all of a sudden, but probably more gradual – a gradual slide. A slow burn towards a fallen life. And maybe God allowed a consequence of your choices to smack you upside the head, and suddenly you saw just how far away you had slipped.
That is exactly what’s happening to David and his men here. As they return home, cresting the final hill, they see smoke rising up from what used to be their town. And when they get there, everything is burned to the ground, and every one of their families is gone. And this is where God allows the consequences of David’s compromise to slap him square in the face in order to wake him up and get him set on the path to revival.
Here it is in 1 Samuel 30:3-6.
1 Samuel 30:3–6 (NLT)
3 When David and his men saw the ruins and realized what had happened to their families,
4 they wept until they could weep no more.
5 David’s two wives, Ahinoam from Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel, were among those captured.
6 David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, and they began to talk of stoning him . . . (stop there)
This is a “wake up” consequence. David’s town is burned to the ground. All the families are gone – including David’s. And David’s 600 men, who have supported him, fought for him, and stuck with him are now talking about killing him because of their grief over his decisions. And this is exactly the slap-in-the-face wake-up call that David needed.
Here’s what we want. We want to avoid the consequences of our own choices. God sometimes says, “No. This one’s good for you. This one you are going to have to experience. And you’re going to have to work through, and if you will, it will be for your good and my glory.”
David was thinking things were going okay in his dual life of compromise with the enemy, which had all started from his distress and depression.
Then he crests a hill heading home, and suddenly – everything is gone. In an instant, David has lost everything and not only him, but every man who had sworn allegiance to him.
And please listen very carefully to me right now. This event in David’s life – is the absolute grace of God. Can you hear it, please? This is the grace of God that puts David firmly on the path to revival.
It is directly because of the deep and distressing pain that David is feeling right now that we read the words at the end of 1 Samuel 30:6.
1 Samuel 30:6(b) (NLT)
6 . . . But David found strength in the Lord his God.
The NET Bible says - 1 Samuel 30:6(b) (NET)
6 . . . But David drew strength from the Lord his God.
The ESV says - 1 Samuel 30:6(b) (ESV)
6 . . . But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
David FOUND Strength in the Lord
He DREW Strength from the Lord
David STRENGTHENED Himself in the Lord his God
David found strength. What did it take? He’s been there sixteen months. What did it take? Did it take God’s blessings? Did it take God totally making everything roses for him? It took the compromise hitting him square in the face like a two-by-four to get him to wake up and find strength in the Lord again, to draw strength from the Lord again.
This is the point of the entire message today. In fact, this is where we’ve been heading for two messages now.
And this is the turning point in David’s life. From this point of revival on, David heads straight to the throne of Israel.
During sixteen months of compromise with the enemy, we never read these words about David (that he strengthened himself in the Lord) until this very moment. This is the first time since crossing over to the enemy’s side that these words are spoken about David. And so, it should say; FINALLY, David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
And guys, we have got to know what this means. We have got to know what it means to strengthen ourselves in the Lord because there may be a day coming when we are going to get that “slap-in-the-face” wake up call, and we are going to have to know how to “strengthen ourselves in the Lord.”
I see four things David did to strengthen himself in the Lord. We see them all here, and we especially see them throughout David’s life.
Here they are:
1) He cried out to God in PRAYER and Brokenness
2) He actively began WORSHIPPING God
3) He listened to the WORD of God
4) He returned to SERVING God
PRAYER
WORSHIP
THE WORD
SERVICE
We see all four of these things as David is coming out of his pit of depression and self-focus.
And through intense prayer, and active worship, and listening to the Word of God, and returning to serving God – David brought his entire life back to the spiritual foundation he had with God in his “stronger years.”
David returned to the foundation of his relationship with God that was so real and so vibrant in his early days with God – as a shepherd in the fields. He went back to the strong spiritual foundation that his depression had torn him away from.
And if we are going to recover spiritually from our depression, then we have got to return to a strong foundation of prayer and worship, the Word and service.
And so, the question is, how do you build this strong foundation that allows you to strengthen yourself in the Lord?
How do we build in our lives this strong foundation of:
PRAYER – a Continual communion with God
WORSHIP – a Focus on WHO Jesus Christ IS
THE WORD – Receiving, and Obeying God’s Direction
SERVICE – Starting, or Getting back to – Serving the Lord
These are the pillars that build the foundation of our spiritual life that we can fall back on in times of trouble, distress, and depression.
We don’t have time today to see and address all four of these pillars in David’s life and so next message – in our final message on going From Depression to Revival – we are going to look closely at how to build these four pillars of a spiritual foundation in your life.
But for this message, let me just show you how it all starts.
1 Samuel 30:7–8(a) (NLT)
7 Then [David] said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring me the ephod!” (talk more about it nxt wk) So Abiathar (the priest) brought it.
8 Then David asked the LORD . . .
There it is.
Finally, David asked the Lord.
Finally, David turned to the Lord.
Finally, David is seeking the Lord.
And he is seeking God’s answers to his problems.
Why? Why now?
Because the Lord allowed David to get to the end of himself. There’s an old saying, “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” Stop buying the lie that God will never let anything negative happen in your life, or that he’s a “big blue genie” and all your wishes will come true. God will use the consequences in your life for your good and for his glory, and to get you back on the path of revival. And when we come to the end of ourselves, we are often at a place where God can finally begin to revive us.
And again, this is actually the turning point that leads David directly to the throne of Israel. And it came because God used David’s own consequences to snap him out of his self-will and his depression and his compromise.
This is a huge lesson. Let’s read again 1 Samuel 30:8, the whole verse this time.
1 Samuel 30:8 (NLT)
8 Then David asked the LORD, (that’s the important part) “Should I chase after this band of raiders? Will I catch them?” And the LORD told him, “Yes, go after them. (and then – look at this promise) You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!”
In the midst of his brokenness with his life literally in flames around him, David cries out to God and says, should I return to the battle. And the Lord says, Yes – go. By all means, get back into the fight!
And then the Lord gives David a great promise at the end of verse 8.
8 . . . You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!
And the Lord says to you and I today, get back in the battle; get back into the fight. Strengthen yourself in the Lord. Return to the strong spiritual foundation in your life. Get back into the battle, and you can recover everything (I don’t know that you will recover everything – that is up to God) that the enemy has taken from you.
You can recover everything. And if you think, okay, I want to recover something that the Lord doesn’t want me to recover – let me just say, you’ll recover everything that’s important to you. David’s town still got burnt down. But he did recover what was important to him – his walk with the Lord and his family.
And so, maybe, your depression and compromise, your sin, and your choices have caused you to lose things in this world. Don’t think that God’s going to replace the things in the world that may have dragged you down in the first place. But he will replace everything that was important to you. That’s my prayer.
Skip down to 1 Samuel 30:18.
1 Samuel 30:18–19 (NLT)
18 David got back everything (David recovered ALL) the Amalekites had taken, and he rescued his two wives.
19 Nothing was missing: small or great, son or daughter, nor anything else that had been taken. David brought everything back.
I want all of us who have suffered the consequences of self-will, depression, and compromise to mark those words at the beginning of verse 18: David Got Back EVERYTHING. Guys, we’ve got to get to the end of ourselves, because then, if we will strengthen ourselves in the Lord, then maybe God will return to us everything the enemy has taken from us. I want you to know; this is about restoration, it’s about revival. It’s about God returning your spiritual life to you.
And so, now David is back in the battle. God is again directing David’s life. David got sucked into spiritual compromise through his distress and depression, and God allowed his consequences to smack him upside the head, and finally, David woke up and strengthened himself in the Lord. He sought the Lord, and the Lord heard him and answered him, and David got right back on the right side of the spiritual battle.
And next week, we’re going to look at the four pillars that formed the strong spiritual foundation that David returned to.
But for this message, we’ve now seen David go from depression to compromise to revival, and I pray we understand what took him down in last week’s message, and I pray we understand what brought him back today.
And maybe you’ve gone from depression to some spiritual compromise, and maybe you need to strengthen yourself in the Lord. And maybe, you need to be revived and to get back into the battle.
God is ready when you are.
God wants to lift you out of the miry pit, and he wants to set you on the solid rock.
But first, you need to stop right where you’re at, and you need to begin to strengthen yourself in the Lord. You need to make the choices and take the actions that will allow God to revive you, and he will set you back on the path of his good purpose for your life.
God is FOR you. He is WITH you. He will NEVER forsake you, and he still (today) has a great plan and purpose for your life. So, reach the end of your self and return to the Lord, so God can start his great work of revival in you and through you.
Please, stop listening to your depression logic. Stop fighting God’s ways and God’s Word. Humble yourself in brokenness, and begin to strengthen yourself in the Lord.
Come back for the next message for more on how to do that.
Let me start with another clear disclaimer. The causes of depression are many and varied, and the over-all response to depression depends on the cause – or causes – of our depression. And so, if there is a medical or physiological side to your depression – please do not ignore that.
But what we’re talking about in this mini-series is a spiritually critically important priority for any believer – or any new believer – to go from their depression to God’s revival.
Last message we saw King David with a long back-to-back-to back string of mounting crisis and compounding stress, and we saw him fall into depression and then into spiritual compromise. Today, we get to see King David emerge from his dark valley of depression and compromise.
When we left David, he was living in the land of the enemy (Philistines), and to the best of their knowledge, he was raiding his own people (Israel).
David’s depression and compromise had taken him so far into the enemy camp that Achish (the enemy King) said at the end of Chapter 27, “Now [David] will be my servant forever.” David’s heart was actually still for God, but his actions were being driven by his depression logic.
How about us? Have we ever been in that place? The place where we know (deep down) our heart is still for God, but our actions are being driven by our depression logic? For David, it all led to living a compromised, dual life.
And then, the day came when the Philistines decided it was time for a full-scale attack against Israel, and in 1Samuel 28, Achish addresses David about it.
1 Samuel 28:1 (NLT)
1 About that time the Philistines mustered their armies for another war with Israel. King Achish told David, “You and your men will be expected to join me in battle.”
Remember, David had been attacking non-Israelite towns and lying to the enemy King, saying he was attacking Israelite towns. And now, the lies of his dual life have backed him into a serious corner.
And so, in Chapter 29, David lines his men up with the Philistines, preparing to attack Israel. He had to; he had no way out. But, by God’s grace, David is given a way out – at the last minute. In 1 Samuel 29:3, the Philistine Army commanders flip out that David is lined up for battle with them, and they demand that he be sent back and not be allowed to fight with them because they don’t trust him.
And so, David puts up a little show of disagreement to keep up his compromised image, and finally, the enemy King tells David in 1 Samuel 29:9(b)-10,
1 Samuel 29:9(b)-10 (NLT)
9 . . . the Philistine commanders are afraid to have you with them in the battle.
10 Now get up early in the morning, and leave with your men as soon as it gets light.”
So, David narrowly escapes this potential catastrophe by God’s grace.
Maybe you can think of a time when God has given you this “narrow-escape grace” where your own choices of compromise, maybe depression, have backed you into a corner, and God’s given you a way out.
David must have thought at this time that he was in the clear now. But… boy, was he wrong.
Sometimes God gives us a way out of the consequences of our compromise, and sometimes God has us experience the consequences of our compromise. Can you think back on your life when maybe a time you deserved to experience the consequences God gave you a last-minute pass? And sometimes, God made sure that you experienced the consequences of your compromise. But please hear me, when God allows our consequences to hit us the hardest, full force, it’s always for our good and for his glory. God is always moving us toward him and toward his plan for our lives when he allows those consequences to shake us to the core.
And so, now, God is going to allow the consequences of David’s compromise to hit David with full force – head-on. And here is the good that God is going to bring out of it. Hear it because it relates to your life.
Having to face the consequences of his choices is going to first crush David completely. It’s going to bring David to brokenness, to humiliation. It’s going to bring him right where he needs to be. And then, it is going to rattle David out of his compromise and depression – and then, it’s going to set him on the path to revival with God. God’s going to use it for good.
Here’s how it happens. Unbeknownst to David, while he was narrowly escaping having to attack his own people, there was another attack going on at the same time, and this attack was on David’s home.
Skip down to 1 Samuel 30:1-2.
1 Samuel 30:1–2 (NLT)
1 Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they had crushed Ziklag (David’s home) and burned it to the ground.
2 They had carried off the women and children and everyone else but without killing anyone (by God’s grace).
After thinking they had dodged a bullet (or sword), David and his men return home to Ziklag, and they find their town burned to the ground and all of their families gone.
Compromise… has consequences.
And sometimes God will allow those consequences to fall hard on us – hit us head-on in order to shake us out of our compromise.
Maybe something like that has happened to you. Maybe depression had caused you to turn your back on a strong daily walk with the Lord. Probably not all of a sudden, but probably more gradual – a gradual slide. A slow burn towards a fallen life. And maybe God allowed a consequence of your choices to smack you upside the head, and suddenly you saw just how far away you had slipped.
That is exactly what’s happening to David and his men here. As they return home, cresting the final hill, they see smoke rising up from what used to be their town. And when they get there, everything is burned to the ground, and every one of their families is gone. And this is where God allows the consequences of David’s compromise to slap him square in the face in order to wake him up and get him set on the path to revival.
Here it is in 1 Samuel 30:3-6.
1 Samuel 30:3–6 (NLT)
3 When David and his men saw the ruins and realized what had happened to their families,
4 they wept until they could weep no more.
5 David’s two wives, Ahinoam from Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel, were among those captured.
6 David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, and they began to talk of stoning him . . . (stop there)
This is a “wake up” consequence. David’s town is burned to the ground. All the families are gone – including David’s. And David’s 600 men, who have supported him, fought for him, and stuck with him are now talking about killing him because of their grief over his decisions. And this is exactly the slap-in-the-face wake-up call that David needed.
Here’s what we want. We want to avoid the consequences of our own choices. God sometimes says, “No. This one’s good for you. This one you are going to have to experience. And you’re going to have to work through, and if you will, it will be for your good and my glory.”
David was thinking things were going okay in his dual life of compromise with the enemy, which had all started from his distress and depression.
Then he crests a hill heading home, and suddenly – everything is gone. In an instant, David has lost everything and not only him, but every man who had sworn allegiance to him.
And please listen very carefully to me right now. This event in David’s life – is the absolute grace of God. Can you hear it, please? This is the grace of God that puts David firmly on the path to revival.
It is directly because of the deep and distressing pain that David is feeling right now that we read the words at the end of 1 Samuel 30:6.
1 Samuel 30:6(b) (NLT)
6 . . . But David found strength in the Lord his God.
The NET Bible says - 1 Samuel 30:6(b) (NET)
6 . . . But David drew strength from the Lord his God.
The ESV says - 1 Samuel 30:6(b) (ESV)
6 . . . But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
David FOUND Strength in the Lord
He DREW Strength from the Lord
David STRENGTHENED Himself in the Lord his God
David found strength. What did it take? He’s been there sixteen months. What did it take? Did it take God’s blessings? Did it take God totally making everything roses for him? It took the compromise hitting him square in the face like a two-by-four to get him to wake up and find strength in the Lord again, to draw strength from the Lord again.
This is the point of the entire message today. In fact, this is where we’ve been heading for two messages now.
And this is the turning point in David’s life. From this point of revival on, David heads straight to the throne of Israel.
During sixteen months of compromise with the enemy, we never read these words about David (that he strengthened himself in the Lord) until this very moment. This is the first time since crossing over to the enemy’s side that these words are spoken about David. And so, it should say; FINALLY, David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
And guys, we have got to know what this means. We have got to know what it means to strengthen ourselves in the Lord because there may be a day coming when we are going to get that “slap-in-the-face” wake up call, and we are going to have to know how to “strengthen ourselves in the Lord.”
I see four things David did to strengthen himself in the Lord. We see them all here, and we especially see them throughout David’s life.
Here they are:
1) He cried out to God in PRAYER and Brokenness
2) He actively began WORSHIPPING God
3) He listened to the WORD of God
4) He returned to SERVING God
PRAYER
WORSHIP
THE WORD
SERVICE
We see all four of these things as David is coming out of his pit of depression and self-focus.
And through intense prayer, and active worship, and listening to the Word of God, and returning to serving God – David brought his entire life back to the spiritual foundation he had with God in his “stronger years.”
David returned to the foundation of his relationship with God that was so real and so vibrant in his early days with God – as a shepherd in the fields. He went back to the strong spiritual foundation that his depression had torn him away from.
And if we are going to recover spiritually from our depression, then we have got to return to a strong foundation of prayer and worship, the Word and service.
And so, the question is, how do you build this strong foundation that allows you to strengthen yourself in the Lord?
How do we build in our lives this strong foundation of:
PRAYER – a Continual communion with God
WORSHIP – a Focus on WHO Jesus Christ IS
THE WORD – Receiving, and Obeying God’s Direction
SERVICE – Starting, or Getting back to – Serving the Lord
These are the pillars that build the foundation of our spiritual life that we can fall back on in times of trouble, distress, and depression.
We don’t have time today to see and address all four of these pillars in David’s life and so next message – in our final message on going From Depression to Revival – we are going to look closely at how to build these four pillars of a spiritual foundation in your life.
But for this message, let me just show you how it all starts.
1 Samuel 30:7–8(a) (NLT)
7 Then [David] said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring me the ephod!” (talk more about it nxt wk) So Abiathar (the priest) brought it.
8 Then David asked the LORD . . .
There it is.
Finally, David asked the Lord.
Finally, David turned to the Lord.
Finally, David is seeking the Lord.
And he is seeking God’s answers to his problems.
Why? Why now?
Because the Lord allowed David to get to the end of himself. There’s an old saying, “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.” Stop buying the lie that God will never let anything negative happen in your life, or that he’s a “big blue genie” and all your wishes will come true. God will use the consequences in your life for your good and for his glory, and to get you back on the path of revival. And when we come to the end of ourselves, we are often at a place where God can finally begin to revive us.
And again, this is actually the turning point that leads David directly to the throne of Israel. And it came because God used David’s own consequences to snap him out of his self-will and his depression and his compromise.
This is a huge lesson. Let’s read again 1 Samuel 30:8, the whole verse this time.
1 Samuel 30:8 (NLT)
8 Then David asked the LORD, (that’s the important part) “Should I chase after this band of raiders? Will I catch them?” And the LORD told him, “Yes, go after them. (and then – look at this promise) You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!”
In the midst of his brokenness with his life literally in flames around him, David cries out to God and says, should I return to the battle. And the Lord says, Yes – go. By all means, get back into the fight!
And then the Lord gives David a great promise at the end of verse 8.
8 . . . You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!
And the Lord says to you and I today, get back in the battle; get back into the fight. Strengthen yourself in the Lord. Return to the strong spiritual foundation in your life. Get back into the battle, and you can recover everything (I don’t know that you will recover everything – that is up to God) that the enemy has taken from you.
You can recover everything. And if you think, okay, I want to recover something that the Lord doesn’t want me to recover – let me just say, you’ll recover everything that’s important to you. David’s town still got burnt down. But he did recover what was important to him – his walk with the Lord and his family.
And so, maybe, your depression and compromise, your sin, and your choices have caused you to lose things in this world. Don’t think that God’s going to replace the things in the world that may have dragged you down in the first place. But he will replace everything that was important to you. That’s my prayer.
Skip down to 1 Samuel 30:18.
1 Samuel 30:18–19 (NLT)
18 David got back everything (David recovered ALL) the Amalekites had taken, and he rescued his two wives.
19 Nothing was missing: small or great, son or daughter, nor anything else that had been taken. David brought everything back.
I want all of us who have suffered the consequences of self-will, depression, and compromise to mark those words at the beginning of verse 18: David Got Back EVERYTHING. Guys, we’ve got to get to the end of ourselves, because then, if we will strengthen ourselves in the Lord, then maybe God will return to us everything the enemy has taken from us. I want you to know; this is about restoration, it’s about revival. It’s about God returning your spiritual life to you.
And so, now David is back in the battle. God is again directing David’s life. David got sucked into spiritual compromise through his distress and depression, and God allowed his consequences to smack him upside the head, and finally, David woke up and strengthened himself in the Lord. He sought the Lord, and the Lord heard him and answered him, and David got right back on the right side of the spiritual battle.
And next week, we’re going to look at the four pillars that formed the strong spiritual foundation that David returned to.
But for this message, we’ve now seen David go from depression to compromise to revival, and I pray we understand what took him down in last week’s message, and I pray we understand what brought him back today.
And maybe you’ve gone from depression to some spiritual compromise, and maybe you need to strengthen yourself in the Lord. And maybe, you need to be revived and to get back into the battle.
God is ready when you are.
God wants to lift you out of the miry pit, and he wants to set you on the solid rock.
But first, you need to stop right where you’re at, and you need to begin to strengthen yourself in the Lord. You need to make the choices and take the actions that will allow God to revive you, and he will set you back on the path of his good purpose for your life.
God is FOR you. He is WITH you. He will NEVER forsake you, and he still (today) has a great plan and purpose for your life. So, reach the end of your self and return to the Lord, so God can start his great work of revival in you and through you.
Please, stop listening to your depression logic. Stop fighting God’s ways and God’s Word. Humble yourself in brokenness, and begin to strengthen yourself in the Lord.
Come back for the next message for more on how to do that.