The interesting thing about 1 Saul chapter 30 is this is where, this is the story about David and Ziklag. So I'm going to read the story first. In fact, I'm going to pray and ask God to like settle my mind.
Father, thank you for your goodness and your word and the truth of it. I pray that you'd help me to settle and just relax into your word. I pray that you'd help us to perceive what you have for us to perceive so we can receive what you have for us to receive in the name of Yeshua.
Amen. All right. So this story is, I'm just going to, I'm going to, before I read the story, I'm going to give you a little background.
So. Um, David, I think, I think it was in chapter 16 or 17 of first Saul, David kills Goliath, right? So Saul's anointed to be the king. And, um, he's after he's anointed to be the king, because it's so funny, like so many, even before I say that, let me say this. So the Bible is not a book about religion.
Okay. The Bible is a book about a king, a kingdom, a royal family, and the culturalization of. of a foreign land.
That foreign land is called earth. And the objective of our experience of life as followers of Christ is to establish heavenly culture in the earthly realm. That's why we're here, right? And it's so interesting that we see in the Bible, we see promises, we see principles, we see practices, we see patterns, we see...
precepts and prophecies and prayers that give us the ability to understand life so we can make predictions about outcomes in the future, so we can position ourselves in the right place to fulfill our purpose and experience. like the prosperity, and the word prosperity is a Bible word, so I like the word prosperity. And the word prosper basically means to flow, right?
And so we can experience the prosperity of living our lives on purpose, in our purpose, right? But we have to learn to recognize these promises, principles, practices, patterns, precepts, prayers, and prophecies. We have to learn to recognize them when we see them because, oh, this reminds me of that, right?
And so what's really interesting... is when the people of God said, give us a king because all the other nations have a king. They chose, God chose Saul, who is head and shoulders above all the people.
And you'll see, that's one of the patterns you see in Scripture. You see the principle of the second born, right? So the first born is often, through Scripture, rejected, and the second born is accepted.
And that's just a pattern of the first. First Adam sinning and being rejected because of that sin. And the second Adam, Christ, redeeming us back to God. So that's what it's a picture of.
And we see it in Cain and Abel. We see it in Jacob and Esau. We see it in Ephraim and Maxasseh. We see it in...
Isaac and Esau, we just, all throughout scripture, well, Saul was chosen first, but he's a type of the flesh, head and shoulders above the rest, so he looks, he's apparently the one, right? And so what we have to understand is what is apparent is not always true. real and apparent comes from the word appear. So things are seldom as they seem to be and seldom do things seem to be as they are. So as long as we understand that anyway, so, so then David kills Goliath and then there's a new hit song.
and the new hit song is um Saul has slain his thousands and David has slain his tens of thousands now David liked that song I'm sure David's mom and dad liked that song I don't think his brothers were crazy about that song and Saul hated the song every time tall Saul turned on radio obviously there was no radio but but he got tired of here David is Saul's change things thousands David is slain his tens of thousands and see the reason that bothered Saul is because Saul Paul was not focused on who he was supposed to be. He was comparing himself with somebody else. And the scripture tells us clearly that they that compare themselves among themselves, measuring themselves by themselves, are not wise. Peter asked the Lord, he said, he asked Yeshua, he said, he said about pointing at John, what shall this man do? Because Christ told Peter what kind of death he was going to die.
He said, and what shall this man do? And Jesus said to Peter, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. What difference does it make what they're going to do? Like somebody else's assignment is not my business.
My assignment is my business. And if I'm focused on my assignment, then and only then can I fill my assignment. I can't be competing with Max and saying, okay, I got to outdo Max.
I don't have to outdo Max. I can't outdo Max. The only person who can outdo Max is Max. Right?
You want to compare yourself to something. Compare your practice right now with your potential. That'll give you something to compare yourself to. So anyway, I'm getting all worked up.
That's what I do. I get myself worked up in the introduction. Right? And so what happened is because Saul didn't like the song, and he didn't like the fact that Saul had come and anointed David to be the king after God gave Saul a directive that Saul disregarded. And here's what God told Saul.
And a lot of times, we as followers of Christ, we have a hard time with so much in the Bible because we believe in our traditions more than we believe in God's truth. Right? But here's what God told Saul to do.
God said, I want you to go down to the Amalekites and I want you to wipe them out. Now when I say wipe them out, here's what I mean. I want you to kill every man, every woman, every child, and every animal.
Now that's some serious annihilation. What kind of God would do that? The kind that don't answer to you.
That's the kind. Let's don't get that twisted. God doesn't owe us an explanation for anything.
It's all his. The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, right? But God loves everybody. I know that's what you've heard, but that's not what the Bible teaches. God doesn't love everybody, right?
And if you don't believe me, go read Psalms chapter 5, verse 11. Go read Psalms chapter, I mean, Psalms chapter 5, verse 5. Go read Psalms chapter 11, verse 5. Go read Romans chapter 9, where he reiterates from the Old Testament that Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Right? Right?
Hated. God can't hate people. He's God.
He can do whatever he want to do. He has a right to hate all of us. But because he shows mercy on some of us, we think that that's not fair.
Well, the fact that he showed mercy on any of us ain't fair. So are you as irritated that he showed you mercy as you are that he didn't show somebody else mercy? Come on now.
Anyway. God told him to wipe out the Amalekites. Here's why God told him to wipe out the Amalekites, because the Amalekites were the Canaanites that laid in wait for them and ambushed them when they came out of Egypt on their way to the Promised Land.
Now, here's what the Amalekites are a picture of. Since I'm giving you the groundwork of the story, I might as well just go ahead and give you all the groundwork since I'm rabbit chasing. So the Amalekites are a picture of secret sin in your life. that hides out in the dark places and waits for you to become vulnerable and then it attacks you. And so God said, you don't play with that secret sin.
You don't pet it. You don't let it in your house. You don't entertain yourself with it.
Here's what you do. You wipe it out. You eliminate it completely and utterly. Because if you don't, it's going to come back and kill you.
The thing that you're protecting, the lie that you're protecting, is the one that's going to come back and take your life. And so he said, wipe out every Amalekite. Saul didn't do that. So because Saul didn't do that, when Saul comes and says, so Saul, what are you doing, bro? I gave you the commandment of the Lord.
He said, go wipe out the Amalekites. He said, he said, he said, he said something like, behold, the man of God is here and I have obeyed. the commandment of the Lord.
He said, really? He said, what is this bleeding of this blowing of the oxen and this bleeding of the sheep that I hear? He said, if you did what God told you to do, what's all this bad, bad moo moo I hear in the background?
Right? And he said, oh, the people, the people, they urged me. And to keep the best stuff alive. And he saved the king of the Amalekites, and he saved the best animals. And he said, Saul told Saul, because you've rejected God's word, God has also rejected you from being a man. being king over Israel.
Now here's what the tragedy of that is that when Saul didn't obey God, it didn't just destroy his life. It destroyed his whole family's life. All of his kids were killed except one. And the one that was left alive. The one child that didn't get killed was lame from his feet because his nurse dropped him when she was trying to escape the attack of the enemy.
Like, literally, because Saul did not do what God said, it didn't just negatively impact his life. Like, we need to make better decisions for our children's sake. We need to make better decisions for our grandchildren's sake.
Like, we can't just do what feels good in the moment and let whatever comes after that, let it be what it is. We got to take into consideration. that this is not the last of it. Anyway.
So. Saul doesn't kill him. And then Saul told Saul, he said, here, God has rent this kingdom from you.
He's torn it from you, and he's given it to your brother, who is better than you. Who's that brother? David. He went to David's house and anointed David to be the king in the presence of his brother.
you have time to go in that. So David gets anointed to be the king. Now, here's what's really interesting about David being anointed to be the king. Like, you got to be so in tune with God's assignment for your life that you recognize it when other people don't. Because here's the thing about David's coronation service.
He was the only person in his family not invited. What? Saul comes to Jesse's house and says, hey, hey, call your sons. God told me that one of your sons is going to be the king. And he brings all seven of his eight sons.
All seven of his eight sons. And he looks at the first one. Saul looks at the first one. And surely this is Lord.
And the scripture says, and the Lord has rejected this. Right? Now, this ain't it. That ain't it. You either.
Uh-uh. Nope. Not you. Not you. Not you.
He said, don't you have any other chosen? He said, yeah, I got one, little David. He's out in the pasture.
He's tending those sheep. Surely it can't be him. Call him.
And Saul anointed his head with oil. Here's what an anointing, you got to understand the concept of an anointing. The anointing was when God revealed your purpose to you and all of those around you.
That's what the purpose, that's what, like when we talk about an anointing, there's an anointing on your life. That means God has revealed your purpose to you and those around you. That's why it says that Saul anointed David to be king. Where? In the presence of his brethren.
Because God wasn't just showing him, God was also showing them. Now I'm going to tell you something. When you get your anointing in the presence of people who don't yet have their anointing, sometimes your anointing is annoying. Am I telling the truth this morning?
Sometimes they're like, no, no, no. Hey, you remember. You remember when Joseph got his anointing, don't you? God showed him in a dream. Hey, your brothers are going to bow down to you.
Your parents are going to bow down to you. Joseph made the mistake of revealing his anointing to those who would be annoyed by it. And they were so annoyed. annoyed that they thought about killing him, killing their own brother.
Like, I can't imagine killing anybody, but my own brother? I sure can't imagine that. And then they said, well, let's don't kill him, because we can't make no money if we kill him. Let's sell him.
You know what? That's a good idea. Let's sell him.
And they sold him to some foreigners, and they took him into a foreign land. What in the world? Like, what are y'all thinking? Well, what I'm thinking is his anointing is annoying. Right?
So, hey, hey, hey, let folks know. Don't you let my anointing annoy you. Because it's not your anointing.
Because I'm sure not going to let your anointing annoy me. How many of y'all tracking? Wave at me, my people.
So, so what you understand, when you understand David gets anointed, now what happens? Now David becomes one of Saul's soldiers. And Saul invites him to a dinner, picks up a spear, and tries to, like, throw it through his heart. Like, he puts out a contract on David.
He tried to kill him. Then he put out a contract on David's life. David is running from Saul for his life. He can't find anywhere to go, so guess where he goes? He goes to the Philistines.
He feigns madness, and then he gets recruited into the army of Achish and the Philistines. So David is serving in the enemy's camp. Now, here's what's really interesting to me.
There's so many parentheticals in this story that, like, I almost... Anyway, I'm just going to go ahead and tell it. So what's really interesting about God and what we see in the Old Testament, what we see oftentimes throughout the Old Testament, is that when God got ready to deliver his people, from oppression, war, or bondage, he would often take the leader of the deliverance out of their protected religious environment and put them into the palace of the king.
Why? Because when Adam and Eve sinned, they abdicated their kingdom authority to Satan. And you go read the story in Genesis chapter 3, like, Adam and Eve got, in Genesis chapter 1, God gave Adam and Eve authority.
God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful, multiply, replenish, subdue, and have dominion. Dominion is authority over. Adam and Eve yielded to Satan, so they yielded their authority to someone who was under them.
Now what happens? If you look at what began to happen after that, the seed of Satan, the descendants of Satan, the descendants of Cain, Lamech, they began to build kingdoms and name those kingdoms after their children. And the children of God began to build altars. And so Satan was using kingdom principles that God wanted to use to establish his kingdom.
He was teaching them to his children so they could establish Satan's kingdom on the earth because the earth is the place where God intended for his heavenly kingdom to be expanded. So Satan said, I couldn't take over heaven, but so now I'm going to try to take over earth. So God would take somebody like Joseph and put him in Pharaoh's palace. Before to deliver his people from starvation.
Took Moses and put him in the palace. Took Ezra and put him in the palace. Took Ruth and put her in the palace.
And we can see this as a pattern over and over and over and over again. And even King David, before he went up to reign on the throne of David, he went down for years and worked for the king of the Philistines. That's a parenthetical. Doesn't really have a whole lot of stuff to do with this Bible study this morning, except this. David was...
We could call him the mayor of Ziklag, this little village in Palestine that the king of the Philistines had given him to rule over with him and his 600 mighty men. So David settled for less than the appointing of his anointing. What do I mean by that?
Well, whenever there's an anointing, the anointing is always for an appointing. And we as human beings, what we like to have is we like to have our appointing show up right after our anointing. But God has ordained that our appointing doesn't happen immediately after our anointing. We have to go through another season. between the season of anointing and the season of appointing, there's another season.
It's called the season of disappointing. And that's the season where God gets you ready for what he already has ready for you. It's where he prepares you for what he already has prepared for you. It's the thing, it's the place that makes you strong enough to stay there when you get there. And so David is in the season of disappointing, but since he's there in his uncomfortable comfort zone, he settles in.
He settled in so much that it came time for the Philistines to go to war against Israel. And David's like, David reporting for duty, sir. Achish said, okay, well, there's a problem.
My princes, they said, you can't come. What have I done? Have I not been faithful? I have not. You've been like an angel of God these many years.
This is what the king of Philistine said, you've been like an angel of God for these many years. I've not found any fault in you at all. But my princes said, you can't come to this battle because they think you'll get out there and we'll be fighting against Saul and you'll see it as a good time.
for you to restore yourself to your master Saul, and you'll turn against us. And they said, this song was so popular that it got all the way down to the Philistines. They said, isn't this the same David they said Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands?
He ain't coming with us. So they sent David back to Ziklag. What is Ziklag? Ziklag is the place you settled for that's less than your appointing. Ziklag is your comfort zone.
And I am here to tell you that it's time for the comfort zone to end. This is the end of the comfort zone. Now, the comfort zone is the failure zone.
Right? The comfort zone, now here's what's interesting about it. It doesn't feel like failure. Right? What does it feel like?
It feels like comfort. That's why we call it the comfort zone. Right? The comfort zone is the failure zone.
It's the place you settled in. But I got news for you. The comfort zone was never the place you were meant to be.
The comfort zone was never the place I meant. And we live in a world that coddles people and that says, oh, you can, you can, oh, oh, you're just, you don't need to worry about changing. You're awesome the way you are.
Really? I've never met anybody who's awesome the way they are. Not as awesome as they could be if they put some effort into becoming more.
Do you understand that we were created to become more than we are? In fact, it's an interesting side note. And you've heard me talk about the fact that Hebrew words are built. Well, the word for man in Hebrew is the word Adam, right? is the word Adam, and it's spelled Aleph, Dalet, Memm.
Every Hebrew letter has meaning, it has significance. The letter Aleph represents God. Hmm. Hmm.
And God said, let us make man in our image. Dalet Memm, Dalet Memm, these two words, spell the word blood. And we know that the life of the flesh is where?
In the blood. So what is a man? A man...
Max or woman, by the way, God called their name Adam. Adam later called her name Eve, right? So what is a man or a woman? We are God-like creations with flesh and blood.
But see, Hebrew words don't have, they don't, Hebrew words don't have vowels, right? They just, yeah, Hebrew words don't have vowels. So what do they have? They have, no, that's not what I'm looking for.
I'll just use this. So Hebrew words don't have vowels. They have only consonants.
And these consonants, I got to get rid of all this stuff, sorry. Okay, so they have only consonants. And what they do is they put... Like symbols, like they're called an accude.
And so like if I go like this, oh, yeah, that part. I'm going to change back to my marker now so I can write. So if they put this under that, then it makes it make the ah sound like ah-bah, ah. And then a dome. If I put a dot here, this is a dome, a dome, right?
But if I don't put those there and I put the. Mem, now this says Adam, which means what? I will compare myself or I will become like.
And so it shows us that the same word, depending on how we pronounce it, this means I will become like. I'll make this part of me more like that part of me and make sure this part of me is yielded to that part of me. I'm supposed to make the flesh and blood part of My yielded to the spirit, the God part of My. Making this yield to this and making this more like this is the purpose of our lives. To become more than we are.
Spirit is infinite. Flesh is limited. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is what? Weak.
We need to make the flesh yield to the spirit. Spirit so that we can accomplish more from and with our lives. But most people don't do that. Most people don't even attempt to do that. What do they do?
They just, well, I'm just, I'm just, everybody, everybody's gonna win. Everybody's gonna pass. Everybody's gonna get, you're all winners. If you're in a competition, you ain't all winners.
Anything, there's first place and there's every other place. Right? And every other, first place gets a W, every other place gets what? An L. That's how life works. We are supposed to be seeking to maximize our potential.
Making ourselves more than we are. See, people who are not striving. to maximize their potential in what?
In every aspect of their lives. They resent the struggle of life. In this life, you shall have tribulation.
But if you're not working to become more than you are, if all you're doing is existing, You're going to resent the struggle of life. You're going to be like, I don't like this. Why?
Because you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. You don't see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You don't see the finish line while you're running around the track.
You're just like, I'm just doing this. No wonder most people... People are frustrated.
There are a couple of books that I would recommend that you read. One is called The Coddling of the American Mind. And it's showing you how our schools and our colleges and our universities are creating a bunch of weak-minded, mamby-pamby, whimpering, tantrum-throwing babies in adult bodies. Oh, that wasn't politically correct, was it? Oh, that's right.
I'm not running for office. I forgot. Okay.
Ending. Oh, the title of the book is The Coddling of the American Mind. There's another book called Anti-Fragile. I don't know if you've read Anti-Fragile, but Anti-Fragile says, the premise of the book is this. The same wind that extinguishes a candle feeds a forest fire.
So what's the point? Don't be the candle, be the forest fire. And so the difficulties that break weak people... See, there's fragile, there's non-fragile, and there's anti-fragile. Fragile, easily broken.
Non-fragile, not easily broken. Anti-fragile, the things that break most folk make us stronger. Anti-fragile. So, I didn't even read the story yet.
Okay, so now we understand the background. David is living in Ziklag. He's living in the comfort zone.
And he's settled for it. And the comfort zone was the place of hiding. How many of you are hiding in your comfort zone? Hiding in that easy place?
Huh? But it's also the place of hindrance. See, because as long as you're in the comfort zone, if you're sitting on the throne of Ziklag, you are not sitting on the throne of Israel. It's a place of hindrance.
And what's really interesting... It's, I don't even know how much time I have. It's a place of hesitation because you're waiting and waiting and waiting for that perfect time. There is no perfect time. So you have to take the time that is and make that perfect.
So now we're going to read the story and you're going to see what happens. This is mind-blowing. Here's what it says. 1 Saul chapter 30, verse number 1, down to verse number 8. It says, and it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, because they left where the battle was going on between Saul and the Israelites, that the Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag and smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire. Wow.
And had taken the women captives that were therein, and slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way, so that his men came, so that, so David and his men came to the city, and behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters were taken captive. And David's people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, I'm sorry, then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, and so they were taken had no more power to weep. Have you ever cried that hard? Have you ever cried so hard that you ran out of tears? Wow, exactly.
This is a place of despair. Why? Because the comfort zone had been burned to the ground.
Here's what's interesting about the comfort zone. Oftentimes, we relish the comfort zone so much that God has to ordain that an enemy destroy it. Because I'm not going to, we ain't going to destroy it.
I would destroy it, but it's a little bit too comfortable. And see, a lot of times we think that the end, we think that what's going on that's difficult is the end. But everything that feels bad ain't bad, and everything that feels good ain't good.
And we think that the destruction of the comfort zone is the destruction of my life, but it's not. Right? Because why? Because my life begins at the end of my comfort zone. And we're talking right now about the end of the comfort zone.
But here's what's going to happen. In your life, in my life, I can think back to times in my life where I did not end my comfort zone. God ended it. Right, just like God said, okay, I'm going to send destruction.
I'm going to ordain. God doesn't send the destruction. He ordains that the enemy brings the destruction to destroy your comfort zone. Here's what the enemy doesn't realize. The enemy doesn't realize when they come at you like that, it's to their own demise.
Right? Right before they lose, they think they won. That's the whole story. Right? And David and the people that were with him looked over their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.
And David's two wives were taken captive. Ahinoam. And to Jezreelitess and Abigail, the wife of Nabal, the Carmelite. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his son and for his daughters. And David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.
When your comfort zone is destroyed, it causes you to lose. It causes you to lose family. How be it temporarily, but you don't know that when you're in it.
Causes you to lose friends. His own friends were speaking of stoning him. Causes you to lose faith.
Watch what happens next. In verse number 7, And David said to Abiathar, the priest, Ahimelech's son, I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought hither the ephod to David. And David...
inquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop and overtake them? And he answered, he who, he God, answered him, Pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. Here's what God said. Now that the comfort zone is destroyed, go get your stuff. The enemy made you think he won.
They made you think you lost, and he thinks he won. But I'm telling you right now, go get your stuff. Don't you let the enemy have your family.
Don't you let the enemy sneak into your house, take you by storm. take you by surprise and steal your family and sell them into some illicit lifestyle, to drugs, to alcoholism, to sex, to homosexuality. Don't you let the enemy come in and steal your family. And by the way, if they've already got them, your family's worth fighting for. If the enemy already has your property, it's worth fighting for.
And I don't know about you, but I know me. I can remember a time in my life in the not-so-distant past when the enemy had came in and destroyed my comfort zone so bad, I didn't even know if I ever wanted to be an entrepreneur again. I was, like, done.
I was, like, over it. I was exhausted. I had worked hard, and almost everything that I worked hard for was gone.
You know what? God said, go get your stuff. And here's what it says.
You will no doubt recover all. I'm not going to finish the story today, but here's what I'm going to say. When your comfort zone ends, pray.
Bring me the ephod. What was that? That was what the priests wore when they went before God for man. Pray. Prepare.
You will, yes, pursue after them. You will overtake them. So pray, prepare, pursue, because that is the only way that you will ever prevail. And what we're going to look at on the next Bible study, next week, if not next week, for those of you who are here, by the way, what we're going to do next week on YouTube, what we're going to do, we're going to release the next video and tell you the rest of the story.
It's going to blow your mind. It blows my mind when I think about it. So, stay blessed by the best.
Remember, your anointing is for your appointing, but your appointing almost never comes right after your anointing. In fact, you have to go through the season of disappointing because that's the thing that makes you strong enough to stay there when you get there. Saul is one of the only people in Scripture I see whose appointing came right after his anointing. He didn't have to go through anything. Maybe that's why he wasn't strong enough to stay there when he got there.
The end of the comfort zone is the beginning of the purpose zone. Don't lament the comfort zone. Step in.
to the purpose zone and fulfill the purpose for which God created your life. If you like this video, click the like button, comment, share, subscribe, and all the other YouTube-y stuff that I forgot to say. Do that. And I look forward to seeing you on the next video. Bye for now.