00:00Hello everyone, this is William Chambers. It's a pleasure to be here with you all today. I want to
00:04give a shout out to my YouTube friends and family. You guys know who you are. That being said, let
00:10us
00:10just dive into the text. If I had a title for today's topic, I would call it, If God wants
00:15to
00:15use you, you often must go through the cave. David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave
00:24Abdullah. And when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to
00:30him. And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that
00:36was discontented, gathered themselves unto him. And he became a captain over them. And there were
00:44with him about four hundred men. Oh, we're looking at this text right here and now. And David is cut
00:52off from a whole lot of things in his life that he was depended on. Oh, have you ever been
00:58cut off
00:59from what you've been depended on? He's been hunted by Saul like an animal. Saul wants to kill him. So
01:05when he escapes to the cave of Abdullah, he's cut off from Samuel, the prophet that had anointed him.
01:12Oh, he could take refuge in Samuel, but that was cut off. He's cut off from Saul. David loved Saul,
01:19even though Saul was trying to kill him. He's cut off from his hometown. He's also cut off from his
01:27status because he was in the army of Saul. He had status there, but now he's cut off from status
01:34and hunted and fleeing for his life. God chose David to be king. David was God's chosen man.
01:45Now, it seems to me, if you're God's chosen man, you should go straight to the position. He chose him
01:51as king. Why didn't David go straight to the palace? No, no, no, no, no. Instead, David went to go
01:59face all
01:59kind of loss. God said, no, no, no, not straight to the palace. You're going to face loss of everything
02:05you trusting him. You're going to face exile and you're going to face danger before you get to the
02:13palace. David here is experiencing grief. Have you ever experienced grief? He's grieving the loss of
02:20his safety, grieving, promptly grieving the loss of his status and his comfort. And when he don't have
02:26these things, now he's in a state of hypervigilance. Life has totally changed. Oh, I'm being hunted like
02:31a dog. I'm hyperly vigilant now. Cause I used to feel safer than this, but now they have to be
02:37have somebody ever been after you before? They want to take them. So I want to take David down.
02:44He was, David was in constant awareness of salt, every movement. Cause he had to be what's my enemy
02:50doing. Hmm. Where's his allies at? David must be aware of all of his survival options. Well,
02:55if they do this, I'm going to do this. If they do this, they're going to do that. Okay. I'm
02:58going to do
02:58this. I'm going to do it. Uh, have you ever had to be in survival mode? Cause somebody was out
03:04to
03:04assassinate you. They wanted you dead. They wanted you out the picture. Oh, that's what David was
03:10right here. He was on the run being hunted like an animal. He was anointed as King.
03:17He was anointed as the soon to be King. Yet he was powerless.
03:23He was hunted and hiding. This is humiliating. I'm supposed to be a man of power yet. I'm running
03:31for my life. I'm being humbled by God. Not only was David suffering divine loss, but he was the
03:41suffering divine isolation. Uh, sometimes the stuff you suffering ain't because of what man is doing.
03:48God is doing it because he wants to build you. God removes every external safety that David had
03:56relied on. The armies was gone. The throne was gone. So all he had was faith in God. He had
04:04to mature
04:05that he could no longer put his refuge and nothing else around him and political allies. He could not do
04:13any of that. Uh, he had to put his trust and faith in God. When David first ran to the
04:21cave of
04:21Abdulham, he was alone. He was by himself. He had to feel, uh, anxiety and loneliness. He was fleeing to
04:31the cave by himself. He was isolated. This had to, because it was for his life, this had to be
04:35an
04:35emotionally, very emotionally heavy situation for David to endure. Cut off from the courts,
04:42cut off from social life, cut off from the palace. He was basically living as a fugitive. And when
04:47you're living as a fugitive, because somebody's out to get you, you live a very limited life.
04:52You can trust very few people. You're watching out for everything. So you, you can, you can find
04:58very few people. Every decision he made, he had to be careful because it could have been a life
05:02or death decision. Pursue relentlessly. He could not live in the open. I want to talk about also
05:11the divine cave. This cave was a place of heartbreak, but also the place of revelation.
05:19You must go through the place of heartbreak at the same time. It's breaking your heart,
05:24but at the same time, it's revealing so much about God. Have you ever been through a place that was
05:29breaking your heart so much? But in that same place, you was understanding God so much. This
05:35is the reason why people who God wants to use must go through the cave. Oh, there was so much
05:41that he
05:42learned. God became the refuge. I must first become your refuge before I become your throne giver.
05:50What do I mean by refuge? A place of refuge is a place of safety.
05:56I must first, God said, I must first become your place of protection. You must know me as your
06:01shelter. You must know me as your place of safety. I'm your shelter from damage. You must know me in
06:08this way. Before I give you the throne, I don't want you looking to nobody else. I want you to
06:12look to
06:13me and me alone. You must know me as this. That's why the cave came before the throne. Oh, if
06:18God wants to
06:19use you, he must take you through. Oftentimes to the cave. You must know that I am your shelter from
06:25danger. I am your shelter from trouble and distress. Run unto God. Oh, people will fail you. They were
06:31failing David left and right. He had no allies. He had to run to God. Oh, the place of trust.
06:40Oh, Lord,
06:41I don't want my trust in anything less than the blood and righteousness of Christ Jesus. All of this
06:46other stuff. Going to let you down. Oh, goodness, help us. This cave became David's spiritual
06:53classroom. He had to, he had to do a whole lot of thought work. There was some conflict processing
06:59in this spiritual classroom. He had to reconcile, although I'm a man of calling, I'm still in this
07:08present danger. So he had to patiently wait upon God. He had to learn to wait. Oh, in this classroom,
07:16which is the cave, he had to learn to rely on not the political army, not the palace army, but
07:23he had
07:23to rely on God. This hunting by Saul was forcing him to go to God for guidance and protection. Have
07:31you
07:31ever been forced in the arms of God? God, I have nowhere else. There's nowhere else to turn. Everybody
07:37has turned their back on me. Oh, we're talking about the cave. I know a little bit about the cave.
07:47Therefore, I put my faith and trust in nothing less. Hallelujah. You must go through the cave,
07:53men and women of God. In this cave, 400 brethren joined themselves to him, but they, but these
07:59brethren were distressed. They were in debt and they were discontented with the ways of this life.
08:07So David had to learn with people that are, are broken. He had to learn to manage them, protect them
08:14and inspire hurting people. Those, that's what he learned in the cave. Oh, you will learn something
08:22in the cave. Oh God. He had to learn some stuff in the cave. Hallelujah. Oh, the cave was a
08:30place of a
08:30broken heart, but it's also the place where God built the King. In this classroom, David, we can see
08:37David reflecting for it's in this classroom where he pens Psalms 57. Psalm 57 once says, be merciful unto me,
08:47O God, be merciful unto me for my soul trusted in thee. Yea, in the shadows of thy wings will
08:54I make my
08:55refuge until these calamities be overpassed. God, I will make you my shadow and my refuge until all of
09:05these calamities overpass me. He learned how to make God his refuge in the cave of Abdullam.
09:14Brother and sisters, if you're going through something, maybe it's just God. Men didn't do
09:18that. Ultimately, it was just God. He's taking you through. You're going through it so that you can
09:25be used of God. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask your help in this area. In Jesus name, we pray and
09:33say amen.
09:43to God.
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