THE LORD OF THE BREAKTHROUGH

David was anointed by Samuel to follow Saul as the king of Israel (see 1 Samuel 16). This rather unusual selection by God would be followed by years of preparation before David would actually become the king.

In 2 Samuel 3, David is made king of Judah (the southern kingdom) and then in chapter 5 he becomes the king of the tribes of Israel (the northern Kingdom) as well. This made David the king of all the tribes of Israel.

In 5:12 (ESV) it says, “And David knew that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for the sake of His people Israel.” The word established means that David knew that God had firmly set him in place to be the king of His people—there was no doubt in David’s mind.  

Very soon after David had become the king, the archenemy of Israel, the Philistines, moved against David and Israel. In the Old Testament the Philistines are a type of our enemy the devil.  Verse 17 says the Philistines were searching for David and that meant they were planning to depose and destroy what God had set in place.

You can mark it down that every time you begin to move ahead in God, the enemy will contest your forward progress. You may have begun to be more faithful in your daily walk with Him, in prayer, in witness, in giving. The enemy will not give that ground away without a contesting on his part. And so it was when the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king: “The Philistines went up to search for David” (v. 17).

David went to prayer and asked the Lord what to do. “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?” (v. 19). God responded in the affirmative to David and so we read that David and his army came to the Valley of Rephaim and he defeated the Philistines there.

God’s instructions to David were very clear: “Go up and I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand.” When David did what the Lord told him, the victory was his. David called the place of victory Baal-Perazim, which means, “Lord of breakthrough.” When a river breaks out of its banks in a flood, great force is unleashed and that force literally washes away everything in its path. David describes the power of God in a similar way because when God unleashed His power, there was nothing that could stop it.

Was this then the end of the Philistines coming after David? The answer is a simple no!

Verse 22 says, “The Philistines came up yet again and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.” Just when you think the enemy is finished . . .  here he comes again.

Verse 23 says, “And when David inquired of the Lord.” David did exactly the right thing! I have to wonder if David wasn’t asking the Lord, “Shall I do again what I did last time? That really worked beautifully.” But God said, “You will not do it the same this time as you did last time. This time, go around and get behind them and wait. When you hear the sound of marching coming from the tops of the trees, then go, for the Lord has gone before you and struck down the army of the Philistines.”

What unusual instructions: “Listen for the sound of marching coming from the tops of the trees!”  But unusual or not, David did what God told him to do and a great victory was won.

Carol and I can testify to the validity of doing what God says even when others disagreed with our direction. When you decide to follow His voice, some of your closest friends might tell you, “Don’t do that” and then get upset when you do what God has told you to do.

HOW DO WE GET OUR OWN BAAL-PERAZIM?

1. ASK GOD—David inquired of the Lord (verses 19 and 23).

David did not assume the obvious. To inquire means to request, to ask, to consult, to pray. Our greatest problem is that we don’t ask God about our situations . . . we assume or we presume!

2. HEAR GOD—The Lord spoke to David” (verses 19, 23, 24).

Romans 10:17 –“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” We must set aside time to ask and listen—-most of our questions are clearly defined within the Word of God. Sometimes the Lord will ask us to do something that is contrary to our natural understanding, such as hearing the sound of marching in the tops of trees, but we are to listen, for He will speak to us! 

 

3. OBEY GOD— And David did as God commanded him (verses 20 and 25).

Obedience is the doorway to victory and to the blessing of God resting upon what we do.

“Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.  And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built” (Luke 6:47-48).

UNLOCKING THE RICHES

Several years ago I was working on a teaching from the first chapter of Joshua for some ministry leaders in North Texas. In this teaching that I call “Guidelines for Success,” the first nine verses are God’s instructions to Joshua when he assumed leadership of the children of Israel after the death of Moses. This great passage is filled with very meaningful instructions, not just for leaders but for every believer. God was not merely instructing Joshua on how to lead the nation but He was giving him powerful promises for every part of his life, both public and private.

As I was preparing this teaching, I stopped at verse eight: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8, ESV). 

    

I had always struggled with the first part of this verse—the instruction to not let the Word depart from your mouth and then the tie-in to meditation. For me it had been like hitting an unexpected speed bump and I had not found a fully satisfactory answer. I grasped the meditation part, but why the instruction to keep the Word in our mouth? Meditation is not an act of the mouth, it’s an action of the mind, so how do the two work together?

My study had always focused on the mouth being the primary entrance portal to the body for food, air and water (some of us have very big portals, with other parts of our bodies being the proof) and that would lead one to believe that the instruction was to regularly take in the Word and then meditate on it. That is solid and good instruction but the Holy Spirit showed me something else that wonderfully builds and expands on this.

 

We live in the age of fast food, fast cars, fast Internet, fast banking, fast women (actually, they’ve been around for a long time). Everything is being done at increasing levels of speed. The pace of life is fast, and rarely do we slow down to enjoy much of anything—including church. We are now in the age of fast, prepackaged church services.

In order to enjoy food, you must savor the mouthful that you have taken in. The food’s flavor is unlocked when you chew it and you can really taste and enjoy what you are eating. The word savor means “to have the experience of.” The whole concept behind fast food is that we are in a hurry so let’s eat quickly and continue on with our rushed lifestyle. The driving principle of fast food is not savoring but quick consumption—“You need this but it’s not necessary to really enjoy it!”

What hit me as I studied this verse was the need to recognize it as an injunction to not rush our time with the Word. In meditating, as in eating, it is the chewing, the repetitious motion of grinding up a mouthful, that causes the flavor to be released. It’s as we “chew and savor” the Word that we begin to understand more fully what the Author intended. To savor the Word, we need to take the time to let the riches begin to unlock . . . and that cannot be done in haste. We need to “stop and smell the roses.”

For a follower of Jesus, meditation is not the mindless repetition of a sentence or a verse. Christian meditation is the prayerful repetition of a verse or passage. It’s prayerful because you are asking God to unlock the riches contained in that particular passage.

(A warning here! If you think you have found all the flavor in a Scripture, that’s the first sign that you haven’t. We are to savor the Word with the understanding that we will never completely unlock all the taste and essence in a particular passage.)

There are a lot of practical ways to learn to savor the Word of God. One is to memorize passages . . . long or short . . . and then call them back to mind. Another method is to read and reread passages that have been ministering to you, that you have been drawn to. Still another is to put special passages on a card that you can carry in your pocket or post on the edge of your computer screen. In any case, you can refer to them regularly, chew on them a bit, and continue to let the riches unlock.

                “The unfolding [opening up] of Your words gives light;

            it imparts understanding to the simple” (Psalm 119:130).

The riches of God’s Word are available to all of us. The success that He promised to Joshua can also be ours! Take the time and let the flavor/riches unlock in your heart and spirit.

THAT WE MIGHT HAVE HOPE

From the apostle Paul, the architect of the message of grace to the New Testament church, comes a powerful word of instruction on how we become people of hope.

“For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4, ESV).

Paul is not a stranger to writing and teaching on hope; I counted at least 46 times he used the word hope in his writings. In the original language the word hope means, “A confident expectation based on the certainty of God’s Word, His promises.”

Hope is never inferior to faith but is an extension of faith. Faith is the present possession of grace; hope is the confidence in grace’s future accomplishments. In other words, when we use the word hope we are saying, “As God has worked in my life in the past, I know He will work in the future.”

If there has ever been a moment in my lifetime when I have felt the need for an infusion of hope, it is now. It seems like everywhere we turn we see an increasing level of chaos and lawlessness. In the past two weeks at least eight police officers have been killed in the U.S. The stock market is in deep trouble. Europe is being overwhelmed by illegals arriving from the Middle East and North Africa. And America’s political arena can only be described as a circus. As Paul said, “In the last days there will come times of difficulty (troublesome/fierce)” (2 Timothy 3:1).

A few months ago I was reading a book by one of the leaders of the current over-emphasized grace message and I was stunned at one of the statements he made. The writer said that we should not give attention to anything said or taught by Jesus prior to the resurrection, because all of that was “law” and everything afterward was “grace.” The unspoken part of his message was, “Don’t bother with the Old Testament because that’s all law.” I really don’t know how to respond nicely to such a foolish and misleading statement.

The assertions of some of the current “grace teachers” are not only insulting to Scripture, but are also insulting to the life and ministry of Jesus and to the apostle Paul. Both Jesus and Paul referred frequently to the importance of the Old Testament for New Testament believers. Consider what Paul said about the Old Testament: “These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age” (1 Corinthians 10:11, NLT).

I was brought up in what would be considered today a “hyper-grace” church. I love the beauty of the message of grace but for me to be the person God called me to be, it must be coupled with a message of personal responsibility. Maybe it’s just for me, but this is the message of balance that keeps me on the pathway to being mature in Him.

Making those statements takes me back to Romans 15:4 and Paul’s message to the church about the involvement of God’s Word in bringing us to the deeply needed message of hope.

Let’s look for just a moment at what Paul is teaching us in Romans 15:4.

1.      “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction.”

Paul is referring here to what we know as the Old Testament. At the time when Paul was writing the letter to Rome, what we know as the New Testament had not yet come into being. Many of the letters to the churches and the Gospels had not yet been written.

Paul was validating the value of reading and studying the whole Bible. Those who do not read the Old Testament are missing large segments of the instruction/teaching God has designed for us and they do so to their own detriment.

2.      “That through endurance.”

One of the key messages of the Old Testament is the endurance/patience that we observe in the life of the great men God uses. Over and over we are exposed to the patience of men such as Moses, Abraham, Joseph, Joshua and David as God prepared them to be His vessels of honor.

Today we live in an impatient world whose impatient and demanding systems have crept into the church. One of the reasons the church in America is in decline is because we have not learned to “wait on the Lord.”

Endurance is steadfastness in the face of adversity. “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31).

3.      “And through the encouragement of the scriptures.”

Encouragement in the Greek is paraklesis, meaning “comfort.” All Scripture is relevant because it flows from the heart of an eternal God who, through the power of Holy Spirit-infused Scripture, understands and speaks to our deepest needs. Through His Word, God brings to us the comfort and power of the Holy Spirit.

4.      We might have hope.

It is through the instruction, the patience and the comfort of Scripture that we are enabled to live with the confident expectation that as God has worked in my life in the past, so He will again. As He has done the impossible, so He will again. As He has shown Himself faithful, so He will again!

“That we might have hope!”