Michael Youssef - Never Out of God's Sight
There are times in all of our lives when sin and pride and self-sufficiency brings us brokenness. There are times in all of our lives when our stubbornness and the stiff-neckedness bring about brokenness in our life. And when that brokenness comes in, which comes to all of us, we can go either of two ways. Brokenness can make us better or bitter. Brokenness can make us more stubborn or lead us to a genuine repentance. Brokenness can either humble us or blind us. Brokenness can either bend us or break us. Brokenness can either restore us or add resentment.
Now I can testify to you personally that brokenness, when it's handed to the hands of our awesome God, we would have nothing to dread. Brokenness when it's surrendered to the Redeemer, he will fully restore us. Brokenness, when it is handed to the great Restorer, can bring us inexplicable blessings. This brokenness when it is handed to the great remolder and remaker, he can give us joy unspeakable out of that brokenness. The shattered pieces of our lives can be remade better by our Master's hand. The shattered dreams in life can only be reassembled, a far better use in the hand of the dream giver. Can I get an "Amen"?
In the last message, we left David in the town of Ziklag that was given to him by King Achish of Philistine. Ziklag, as I told you, is the place of compromise for any of us. And your Ziklag and my Ziklag, I said, is totally different. But it is nonetheless, for all of us, it is the place of compromise. It is the place of idolatry. It is the place of disobedience. It is the place of ignoring the will of God. Ziklag is the place of do-it-yourself Christianity. Ziklag is the place of self-improvising. Ziklag is the place of distrusting of God's plan for our life. And there in Ziklag, David has hit rock bottom.
In 1 Samuel 29, David actually has gone so low that he wanted to join the Philistine army to fight against the people of God, Israel, his people. That is what you call really rock bottom. But God so graciously protected him from that bottomless pit. God so graciously provided a way of escape from the hour of temptation. God graciously ordered David's steps as he himself would write later in Psalm 37, verse 23: "The steps of the godly man are ordered by the LORD. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast out; For the LORD upholds him with His own hand". God, so gracious that he delivered David from the stupidity, from that foolishness, so much so that he could write about this time in Psalm 18:4-5: "The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; and the snare of death confronted me".
Please listen very carefully to what I'm about to tell you because it is relevant to every single person at the sound of my voice, whether you're here or watching around the world. While the Lord delivered David from this horrible hour of betrayal and treason, yet as often the case, the consequences, the scars, last for a long time. But even in the consequences of our doing, God often used this brokenness to wake us up to his gracious hand. Had David come back from that great deliverance that God provided him, had he come back and found Ziklag, his hometown, intact, he would most likely have thought, "Oh boy, that was a close call," and then gone to bed. Most likely he would have thought, "Oh boy, I nearly got into a deep trouble that I could never have gotten myself out. How can I volunteer to serve in the army of the Philistine against the people of God"?
And then he would have conducted business as usual. After these Philistine generals, when they saw that their king is inviting David, when David volunteered to fight with them against Israel, when these generals said, "No, no, no, no, we can't trust him, we'll go into battle, he could turn against us". But this is God's way of delivering David. Isn't that amazing? He can use our enemies to deliver us. So they sent him home. Said, "We can't trust you. Go home". So David comes home to Ziklag and they find the city is burned down to the ground and the wives and the children all taken into captivities by the enemies.
Look at what happened with David, the man whose heart after God's heart. Just look at him. When he began to compromise and got to Ziklag, left Israel and went to the land of the Philistines, he stopped fully trusting in God. He began to trust in his own clever strategy. He began to trust in his own scheming and maneuvering and manipulating. And when he started doing this, guess what? Everything went south for him. It just went south. Somebody would say, "Well, Michael, Michael, Michael, David did not live in the age of grace. He did not live in the New Testament".
Please listen to me. Please listen to me. The 21st century fallacy, which is really not new, it goes back to the 2nd century, that says that the God of the Old Testament is not the same as the God of the New Testament, this, my beloved friends, is a danger that can only lead to a disaster for the church of Jesus Christ. We do not have two gods, the God of the Old Testament, a God of the New Testament. We do not have two books. We do not have two sets of ethics. For those who say that the God of the Old Testament is not the same as the God of the New Testament, because the God of the Old Testament is the God of the Law, and the God of the New Testament is the God of grace, I want you to answer the following questions.
Was Abraham saved by grace or by the law? Grace, God bless you. The law had not been given. It was given 400 years later. God always saves by grace, in the Old and the New Testament. And here, I want you to see it right here, right here, 1,000 years before Christ, the Son of David. Here, David's life, we see God's grace on display over and over and over again. Beloved, God never stopped loving David even when he went to Ziklag. God never stopped loving David even when he cheated and lied. God never stopped loving David even when he lived in fear and unfaithfulness and distrust of God. You have to understand the love of God is constant. The love of God is unchanging. The love of God is persisting. The love of God is pursuing. The love of God is enduring. The love of God is not dependent on our failure or success.
In fact, it's out of deep love for us that God instructs us. He rebukes us. He disciplines us. He chastises us. That is all the mark of his love. God loves us too much to leave us to live in sin, in foolishness. You see, part of loving us is when he allowed the natural consequences of our sin and our failure to be a reminder for us of his love. The natural consequences of our inclination to rebel against his Word is to be his way of waking us up from our stupor. The natural consequences of our loving us is that when we love the world system more than we love him, he tries to sound the alarm bell: "Come back. Come back". Here you see it clearly. God uses the natural consequences of David's sin to get his attention. I love you too much to let you go. To be sure, David's heart was broken when he saw Ziklag burnt and the kids and the wives taken captives.
So they wept. He and the 600 men sat there and they wept, and they wept, and they wept until the Bible said they had no more strength to weep. But beloved, listen to me. It is only in brokenness that God would begin to do his restorative work in us. It's only in that brokenness that God begin to restore David to what he can be and will be. But the theme of brokenness and the blessing that comes from that brokenness is a dominant theme in the Bible. Did you know that? For it was in the breaking of Jacob's natural strength at Peniel that God put him together again and renewed him, and he no longer is Jacob, but now he's Israel. It was in the breaking of the rock in Horeb that the water gushed forth and fed the people. It was when the 300 chosen men of Gideon broke their pitchers as a symbol of breaking of oneself that victory became possible.
It is in the breaking of the five loaves and two fishes that Jesus was able to feed thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people. When Mary broke her alabaster box and anointed the feet of Jesus that the aroma of her life blessed millions of people. But above all, it was when the Lord Jesus Christ himself allowed his body to be broken on the cross that redemption poured forth. And because of that broken body, sinners like you and sinners like me can be eternally saved and delivered from sin and the consequences of sin. Oh, yes, God uses brokenness. Don't you ever listen to anybody else who said, "Oh, it's too late for you". No, God uses brokenness. Yes, God restores brokenness if you let him. If you let him.
Beloved, you can bring your brokenness to him right now. Only you know where you are. I don't. God knows. You do. Bring your brokenness to him. Hand it to him and watch what he can do for you in restoring you. I know. I've been there. Verses 1 and 2 of 1 Samuel 30. David returns from being delivered from this temptation to betrayal and deception and treason to find his little town of Ziklag burnt to the ground. The Amalekites came and they burnt the city, took the women and the children captive. Question, what would David do? Well, it depends on which David. Is it David before restoration or the David after restoration? You see, the David before restorations, he would have probably spun to action. Or he could do what he did before, sat there and wallowed in his discouragement, you remember?
And wore discouragement like a blanket. We saw that in the past, and led him in a worse situation. But instead, now the restored David became broken before God. When your heart is after God, you will recognize your inadequacy and turn to him. Verse 4: "David and his men wept until they had no more strength to weep". David not only wept, but in verse 6 you see him genuinely distressed. The men wanted to stone him, and they were bitter in their soul because of the loss of their wives, children, and possessions. Look with me. "But David strengthened himself," where? "In the LORD". Well, someone may ask, "Well, Michael, how do you know that David's tears were not crocodile tears"?
I'm going to show it to you, two things from the scripture. First of all, right here in verse 6, he strengthened himself not in his scheme, not in his strategy, not in his plan, but strengthened himself where? In the Lord. And beloved, God loves to restore broken children. He loves to restore us and make us better servants, more effective for his kingdom, and put us to a good use for his work. David now may have been out of God's will, but he's never out of God's love. David may have been out of God's leadership, but he's never out of God's protection. David may have been out of God's instruction, but he's never out of God's reach. David may have been in his own Ziklag, but never out of God's sight. God's eye is watching every step. God's hand is always stretched to you until you come back to the point of weeping, maybe even until you have no strength to weep anymore. God has not forsaken you.
Listen to me. The Bible, when the Bible said, "God will never leave you or forsake you as his child," it means he never will. And the second evidence of David's genuine repentance is that he went back to inquiring of the Lord. We've been seeing this throughout the series. Every time he goes in alone, he messes up. Every time he goes and inquire of the Lord, the Lord answers him. So here he comes. That is the truest mark of true repentance. He's no longer talking to himself, he's talking to the Lord. David no longer speaking in his heart, now he's inquiring of the Lord.
Verse 7, indeed, it's a beautiful verse. If you have your own Bible, underline it. Verse 7, 1 Samuel 30: "David said to Abiathar the priest, 'Bring me the ephod.'" Bring me the ephod. And I explained to you the ephod is what the high priest wore, and had the Urim and the Thummim, the two stones. One would shine, "Yes," and the other one would shine, if it's "No". So now he's inquiring of the Lord. Solomon, his son, years later could write in Proverbs 28:13: "He who conceals his sin does not prosper, but whosoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy".
And nearly 2,000 years later, the apostle John could say: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and he will forgive us," how many of our sins? "All our sins". Charles Spurgeon, he used to tell this story to illustrate the joy of confession and repentance and the blessings of confession and repentance. He said a certain duke once boarded the galley of a ship. That's the bottom of the ship where normally the prisoners are the ones who are doing the rowing.
Always, that's the work of prisoners, to get down the galley of the ship. And he decided to go down at the bottom of the ship, at the galley, and see all these prisoners and he began to ask them, "Why are you here? And what brought you here? Why are you a prisoner"? Every one of them said, "I'm innocent. I didn't do anything wrong. I am here through injustice". They blamed somebody for being there, for being prisoners. One guy said, "Well, the judge was bribed and sent me here". Another one said, "Well, somebody else did this and I'm paying the price for him".
And none of them confessed their crime except for one young man who walked up to the duke and said, "Your Highness, I am here because I am guilty of stealing money, and therefore I'm a prisoner, because it's my fault of the wrong I did". Upon hearing this, the duke called for the wardens and he said, "What is this scoundrel doing here with all these innocent, guiltless people? Get him out of here".
And the young man was set free at once. He experienced liberty while the rest of them were tugging on the oars, why? Because the prisoner's freedom came as a result of confession of guilt. As long as you're breathing, it is never too late to confess your sins to God. It is never too late to confess you're running ahead of the Lord. It is never too late to repent of your self-will and stubbornness. It's never too late to acknowledge your impatience with God. It is never too late to forsake that controlling Spirit. It's never too late to yield your desire to his desire. It is never too late to yield your will to his will. It's never too late to yield your mind to his mind. Never too late.