To Encourage You

1 Samuel 30:9-12 “So David set out, and the six hundred men who were with him, and they came to the brook Besor, where those who were left behind stayed. But David pursued, he and four hundred men. Two hundred stayed behind, who were too exhausted to cross the brook Besor. They found an Egyptian in the open country and brought him to David. And they gave him bread and he ate. They gave him water to drink, and they gave him a piece of a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. And when he had eaten, his spirit revived, for he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights.”

1 Samuel 30:21-25 “Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow David, and who had been left at the brook Besor. And they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. And when David came near to the people he greeted them. Then all the wicked and worthless fellows among the men who had gone with David said, ‘Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except that each man may lead away his wife and children, and depart.’ But David said, ‘You shall not do so, my brothers, with what the Lord has given us. He has preserved us and given into our hand the band that came against us. Who would listen to you in this matter? For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage. They shall share alike.” And he made it a statute and a rule for Israel from that day forward to this day.’”

Yesterday I wrote about the Biblical truth that we all have to serve somebody – but we only have two choices. We will either serve God or we will serve the enemy of God.  As Jesus said in Luke 16:13, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  He, of course, is talking about the choice to either serve Him or serve the god of this world who is completely opposed to Him.  There is a type of the god of this world in the passage above from 1 Samuel 30. It is the king of the Amalekites.  There was an Egyptian that was serving him, but when the Egyptian became sick and was no longer of any service to the king, he left the man behind to die.  That’s the way it is for all who serve Satan, either willingly or unwittingly. The end of that way is always death, for death is the ultimate objective of the devil for anyone.

But then we have the other Master. We see a type of this Master in the person of king David.  When David comes across the Egyptian and finds him in need, he doesn’t destroy him. Rather, he gives him food and water and enlists him into his own service – despite the fact that this man had been part of the army that had destroyed David’s city of Ziklag and kidnapped his two wives. 

But we also find it in the way he treated those who had fallen behind who were in his own army.  These 200 men were too weak to go on, so they stayed with the provisions that David had left behind. They didn’t engage further in the battle with the Amalekites as the 400 stronger soldiers did. When David returned from defeating the Amalekites and recovering every bit of the people and property that they had taken from him, he, against the wishes of the stronger 400, blessed the 200 weak men with the very same things as the 400 strong.  And so it is with service to our Master who is in heaven. A believer can become weary in service to the king. He or she can stumble. They can fall. They can fall behind those who are more mature and stronger spiritually. However, unlike the Egyptian who fell behind his master, the king of the righteous never abandon’s them.  In fact, He will make sure to bless the weak with the same blessings as the strong.  He will restore every bit that has been taken from them as a result of their service to Him.  Listen to these words of Jesus from Mark 10: “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30). 

So, what master will you serve – the one who is like a leach, ever taking from you as you serve him, for he has no love for you – or the one who died for you and has condescended to serve you? And like David did with the Egyptian, this One will feed His former enemies with the bread of life and quench their thirst with living water if they will but leave their former master to serve Him. 

No one can serve two masters, but every one of us will serve one.  Why serve the one who hates us, when we could serve the One whose very name is Love.