Gregory Dickow - What to Do When You're Under Attack
Now let’s get right into today’s content. I call this teaching the «Ziglag Zigzag.» I know it’s kind of a tongue twister, but it just hit me in a certain way today, and I want to share it with you. It is the path through when life and hell attack. This is all about spiritual warfare. What is the path when life attacks? It’s the Ziglag Zigzag. Because listen, when you’re under attack, the reason I call it that is because when you’re under an attack, the way out is never a straight line; it’s messy, it’s emotional, it’s unpredictable. But God is in it. And there are a lot of lines, a lot of zigzags, and a lot of ups and downs. We want life to be a straight line, but it’s not. Life is not linear; life is filled with zigzags. And I want to take you through exactly those zigzags at Ziglag that will invigorate you and inspire you to follow these same lines and to follow this same simple path.
God gives us, in this passage that I want to turn to in 1st Samuel, chapter 30, a master’s degree in spiritual warfare. Are you ready for that? This isn’t even going to cost you what college or a master’s degree would cost you, but God gives it to us for free. It is a master plan; it is a master’s degree in spiritual warfare and what to do when you’re under attack. So we come to 1st Samuel, chapter 30. David and his soldiers are absolutely devastated to find their city, Ziglag, burned and their families taken captive by the Amalekites. So when David and his men return to their city, everything’s gone. Their homes are burned. All that’s left is smoke and flames. Their wives, their children are taken captive. There is no enemy in sight-just smoke, silence, and devastation.
And I want to pick up here where it says in verse 1, «And it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziglag on the third day.» You know, the third days are always symbolic in scripture. The third day is the resurrection of Jesus, as we know. And there are many other places in scripture where a third day has significant impact and significant meaning. So they come to Ziglag on the third day. No matter how bad things are, there’s always going to be a third day. No matter how burned things are, there’s always going to be a third day. And this third day, when they came, the Amalekites had invaded the south and their city, Ziglag, and they had smitten Ziglag, the scripture says, burned it with fire, and taken their women and children captive. There was nothing left, neither great nor small. They carried the people and the plunder away.
And now, in verse 3, David comes to this place. So when he and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters were taken captive. It says then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until there was no more strength to weep. They lifted up their voice and wept until there was no more power to weep. And I want to double-click on this because this is the first path, the first line, the first zigzag that we need to take when devastation happens. When you come up against an attack, when you are facing spiritual warfare, when it seems like all hell has broken loose against you-and we’ll come back to the passage of scripture and break it down-but I want you to see the first thing that David does. His first response to this attack was they wept. In other words, you have to feel it before you can fix it.
We have to feel it before we can fix it. The fact that they wept until there was no more strength in them to weep is a picture of how we need to face the reality in spiritual warfare. We need to face the reality that we’re at war. We need to face the reality that we’re under attack. Now, Jesus has won our battle for us; we’re going to heaven; the devil’s defeated. But there are spiritual plots and plans against us to deceive us, to get us tricked, to get us to stumble, to get us to detour off of God’s path. But what I want you to see is we can’t live in denial that we have to pull down strongholds. We can’t live in denial that things are going to come against us. We can’t live in denial that weapons are going to be formed against us. But I love what Isaiah 54:17 says: «No weapon formed against you shall prosper.» Now, He tells us that the weapons are going to be formed against us, but He says none of them are going to prosper. And the word «prosper» means to reach their intended target or to reach their intended destination. So clearly, He is telling us that there are weapons formed against us, but none of them have the power to reach their ultimate destination because we’re the righteousness of God. We’re bought with a price by the blood of Jesus, and we’re sons and daughters of God.
Now, I want you to see that David was not in denial. Denial is not strength. It’s not faith to say we’re not really under attack. It’s not faith to say this isn’t really happening. It’s not faith to say the devil is real. It’s not faith to say the devil’s not real or that the devil’s not really doing anything. That’s not faith. Faith says it is real. Faith says there is an attack. Faith says, «But God.» Faith says, «But God.» So I want you to know David did not live in denial; he cried until there was nothing left in him to cry. We have to let the weight of what has been done to us hit us before we respond because if we respond while in a place of denial, we’re not going to hit the target. We’re going to miss every time. It says David and the people who were with him lifted their voice and wept until there was no more voice to weep. This is not weakness; it’s necessary. You don’t get clarity, and you don’t make progress by pretending you’re not hurt. Let the pain bleed.
I want you to see this: this is the first key, the first strategy, the first plan that God gives us here. We have to let the pain bleed out so our judgment is not clouded when it’s time to move. Okay, that’s number one. Number two, I want you to see if you go back to this verse in verse 6, it says David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. So the second thing I want you to see here is people will let you down. People will turn on you. Even the people that are for you-the same men who used to fight beside him now want to kill him-not because he failed, but because they are broken too.
I want you to understand this: in spiritual warfare, we can’t wait for other people to handle pressure well. We can’t depend on other people to handle pressure well. We can’t depend on even the people that are closest to us to handle the pressure well. We have to handle it ourselves. So we have to realize that not everybody is going to be able to handle the pressure and the spiritual battle for us or with us. We’re in our own battle. Now, there are people in our lives that we want to count on and we want to rely on, but they’re not always going to be able to do it for us. They’re not always going to be able to push us over the top, so to speak. And we have to be prepared to lead ourselves, which leads me to point number three: before you can lead anyone else, you have to lead yourself.
And here’s where David led himself. He didn’t defend himself. He didn’t give an explanation to his men. He didn’t beg for them to stay loyal. He didn’t try to make them feel shame or guilt for talking about stoning him. And he didn’t react in fear either. He knew they were emotional; he knew that they had lost everything. He had lost everything too, but he had to lead himself before he could lead others. We have to lead ourselves before we can lead others. And David went straight to the only place where he could get strength from, and that place is where he didn’t depend on anyone else but went directly to God.
And I want you to see in 1st Samuel 30:6, it says this: «But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.» Here is a secret that most of us miss, and I want you to get this: there comes a moment when no one is going to rescue you. You have to remember who you are, and you have to remember who God is. We have to learn to encourage ourselves so that we’re ready when no one can, because there’s going to come a point where times when no one can encourage us. We must do it for ourselves. We must speak to ourselves. We need to look in the mirror and speak to ourselves. Talk to ourselves. Hey, we listen to ourselves enough; why not start speaking to ourselves? And notice what he said: «David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.» In other words, David knew that God was his God.
When you’re in a trial, when you’re in attack, when you’re being faced with spiritual warfare, the most important thing to remember about God is He’s your God. He’s your God. You’re His son; you’re His daughter. He’s your God. He’s not just the God of somebody else; He’s your God. You can go to Him. You can encourage yourself by going to Him. You can encourage yourself by realizing He’s your God. Remember this: this will change your life. Number four-and I might have thrown in a bonus here or there-but number four, the fourth thing we can do to respond to whatever attack comes against us is: don’t be moved by emotion. We can have emotion, but don’t be moved by emotion. Move, but don’t be moved. Move when God speaks.
David did not charge forward. He didn’t react; he didn’t act rashly. He stopped, he encouraged himself in the Lord, and he went to God for a plan. Now it says David, in verse 8, «David inquired of the Lord, saying, 'Shall I pursue this group? Shall I overtake them? '» And God spoke to him; He said, «Pursue, for you will surely overtake them, and you will recover all.» Now, one of the things that I missed in this passage was I want to just make mention of this, because David went to the priest who has access to God, and he said, «Give me the priestly garments.» Now, David was the king; he wasn’t the priest, but he went to the priest and said, «Give me the priestly garments.»
In other words, «I’m going to go to God myself. I’m not going to wait for somebody else to go to God for me; I’m going to go to God myself.» This is a point that the scripture contains, but I glossed over that part of the story, and it’s worth double-clicking on and remembering that David was not a priest. The priests went before God; the kings led the people, but the priests went to God to bring a message from God to the people. But David said, «I can’t wait for you to go in there and get a message from God for me. Give me your garments, and I’m going to go in there myself, and I’m going to get a plan.» And that’s exactly what David does. He gets a plan, and God speaks to him and says, «Yes, pursue them, for you shall surely overtake them, and you shall recover all.» He says, «You’ll recover all.»
One of the things that we have to do here in battling in spiritual warfare is say what God says. So God tells David, «You shall recover all.» So when David hears these words, he needs to prophesy these words: «I shall recover all.» When you get a plan and you hear the word of God, and you get a scripture, and you’re like, «Okay, this is the scripture I’m standing on,» say what God says. Speak it out of your mouth. Spiritual warfare includes words. Spiritual energy responds to spiritual truth. So when you speak words of life, spiritual energy-whether it’s demonic energy or any other energy — has to respond to the words. Words have power over spirit matter. God said, «Let there be light,» and words had power over spirit matter. God said, «Light, be!»
So when God says, «You shall recover all,» we need to say what God says: «I shall recover all.» When you do that, you’re piercing through the darkness. You’re piercing through the spiritual warfare. You’re piercing through the enemy’s shield. You’re piercing through the lies of Satan: «I’m not going to recover all.» «Yes, I shall recover all.» I’m saying what God says-not making something up; I’m saying what God says. All right, number five. I think sometimes the most powerful thing you can do in the middle of chaos is wait. It’s listen. It’s go slowly. Go slowly to go fast. We need to slow down to go faster. That is, we are in such a hurry to go and to do something that we go in the wrong direction in a hurry, and now we’ve got to get back to the right direction, start from scratch, and we never seem to have time to do things right, but we always seem to have time to do them over again. Did you catch that?
We never seem to have time to do something right, but we always seem to make time to do it over again. It’s better to measure twice and cut once. This is the way: go slow to go fast. The most powerful thing you can do is slow down. Don’t be in a hurry; God’s covering you. God’s protecting you. Angels are all around you. Wait for His strategy. Wait for His wisdom. Ask for His wisdom, and He will give it to you. When David asks God for this strategy, God gives it to him: «You shall recover all.» And then one of the things that happens is David receives help from an unexpected place.
So my next point, as I want to take you on this path, this zigzagging out of the wilderness, out of tragedy, and out of spiritual attack-and whatever comes against you-expect help from unexpected places. You see, on the road to recovering all, David finds an Egyptian slave left behind by the very enemy he’s chasing. And this man becomes the key to the whole mission. It says here in 1st Samuel 30:11, «They found an Egyptian in the field.» He said, «My master left me behind when I fell sick three days ago. Swear to me by God that you will not kill me or deliver me to my master, and I will take you to where they are.» These are powerful verses in 1st Samuel 30: 11- 15. And then I want you to see something: don’t overlook the broken thing right in front of you.
God often hides direction inside of what others discard. I want to say that again: don’t overlook the broken thing in front of you. Here, man is the Egyptian slave, but he’s carrying the answer. Sometimes the thing right in front of us has the answer, but we’re not asking the thing that is right in front of us. We’re not drawing from the thing that is right in front of us. What’s right in front of you? You have this podcast now. You can go to our website and watch any of our messages. You can read books; you can read scripture. Obviously, even more importantly, speak God’s word. Don’t overlook the thing right in front of you that God has put the solution and the answer in it. The answer is in the word. The answer is in your words. The answer is in the blood covenant. The answer you need is in the word of God. The answer you need is in asking God.
What happens is, they actually recover it all. He didn’t just weep; he didn’t just pray; he followed the word that he received. We can’t stop short on the path in responding to spiritual attacks. And how do we respond when we are attacked? He followed the word he received, and he moved with clarity. It says in verse 18, «So David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken. Nothing of theirs was missing, whether small or great, sons or daughters.» David brought back it all. David recovered it all. Listen, there weren’t any shortcuts to this recovery, but it was a full recovery. There wasn’t perfection in these people, but they were humble, broken people-imperfect people reaching out to a perfect God. There was no hype; there were no shortcuts. There was just simply God and refusing to quit. The Ziglag zigzag-it’s not clean; it’s not straight; it’s not always clear. It starts with pain; it goes through confusion; it pulls you into silence; it requires clarity. But it ends in full recovery. You shall recover all.
You won’t walk a straight line through this, but follow this plan, and you’ll get it all back. You shall recover all. Say it right now: I shall recover all in the name of Jesus. Say this: in the name of Jesus, I respond to spiritual warfare with the word of God. I respond to spiritual warfare with God’s plan. I’m following this plan, and I will recover all in Jesus' name. Listen, this plan is tried; this plan is tested. This path, this plan-it works every time if you follow these simple steps and this beautiful master plan that God has, no matter what you’re up against.