Introduction
- Jesus as a point to prove through his church in WA, his church can be BOTH pure and prosperous
- there is a release of the kingly presence of Christ coming soon
- this will bring breakthrough but fail to reach maturity without holiness
- these principles are embodied in the lives of Saul,Davidand Jesus.
Spiritually, we are in the cave of Adullam.
“David departed from there and escaped to the caveof Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. 2 And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul [or, discontented] gathered to him. And he became captain over them…” (1 Sam 22:1- 2)
God has a remnant gathered around Jesus as he called the discontented to gather aroundDavidat thecaveof Adullam
Just as from this wilderness caveDavidwas elevated to kingship, so the kingship of Jesus must be exalted. But first the kingship of Saul must end.
1. Saul
1 Sam 15 : incident of Amalek, God commanded that the king destroy their entire community, Saul disobeyed:
He fails his kingship for 4 reasons:
1. he fears the people
Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice (vv. 24; 9, 15, 21).
Present Day Application: failure of present day church leaders to call for repentance (want to be liked).
2. he wanted to be noticed
And it was told Samuel, “Saul came toCarmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” (12)
Present Day Application: obsession with visible success in society and church
3. he stubbornly refuses to execute God’s holy war and destroy all that belongs to Amalek, things totally devoted to God alone (3, 8, 9, 15, 18, 20, 21).
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption/arrogance/stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.” (22- 23)
Present Day Application: keeping for oneself things that belong to God e.g. failure to release finances
4. he had a self –centred view of who he was
And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes ofIsrael? The Lord anointed you king overIsrael. 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, (17 -18) cf. Jer 45:5
Though the anointing of God cloaked his life (1 Sam10:10; 11:6), he saw himself merely as one among the people.
The LORD was intimately related to Saul in a way he never understood (because it is a mystery). In declaring his kinship removed Samuel uses a unique expression for God, God “the Glory of Israel” (1 Samuel 15:29). When David, [being a prophet (Mark 12:36; Acts 1:16; 4:25)] lamented at the death of Saul he says, “Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen! (2 Sam 1:19). Samuel andDavid grasped that the anointing imparted to Saul a share in the glory of God’s own kingly rule.
2. David
It was becauseDavidknew that the king lived in the sphere of God’s holiness he would not strike Saul (1 Sam 24:6, 10; 26:9,11; 2 Sam1:16). He understood that the king was drawn into God’s own life, that the sphere of the holy (whether the Amalekites or Saul) was inviolable/untouchable to anything except the Word of the Lord. He grasped that with respect to the sphere of the holy no one could appropriate anything for themselves- fame, honour, houses, land, titles, …..
Holiness is internal to the very nature of an anointed king.
Present Day Application:
As a worship leader,Davidcould speak of “the splendour /beauty of holiness” (1 Chron16:29; Ps 29:2; 96:9). Being intimate with God, which is what holiness communicates, was infinitely more attractive than the favour of human beings or worldly rewards or grasping power. Davidknew this because he had been long in preparation for holy kingship – in the pastures, in the secret place, in thecaveofAdullam, where at his lowest point all he had was the purity of the presence of God.
We have ceased from calling Christians “saints” (“saint” = “holy one” 62x in NT) because we have lost our sense of identity as anointed people, we have lost a sense of the whole of life as being lived in the sphere of the holy.
If you believe God has put a call on your life to do much greater things and you are in a hidden place then the message he is communicating to you – as he did toDavidin the cave of Adullam- is that you have been drawn into the sphere of the holy – you belong ONLY to God.
Despite knowing all this,Davidat the height of his powers fell.
“In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle,David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and allIsrael. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. ButDavid remained atJerusalem.”
Holiness means warfare against evil, to forget this wasDavid’s first fatal error.
“2 It happened, late one afternoon, when Davidarose from his couch (lounge lizard who had taken early retirement) and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful” (2 Sam 11:1- 2)
Davidslipped because he was more attracted to the physical beauty he saw in Bathsheba than to the beauty of holiness, Davidsinned in the same way Saul did – he despised the word of the Lord (2 Sam 12:9cf. 1 Sam 15:23), He placed himself, in his own eyes, beyond accountability, this was intolerable to “the Holy One of Israel.” (Isa 5:24).
[(Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. )]10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ (2 Sam 12:9- 10).
Present Day Application: This is a prophetic warning to us. The time is coming when God will multiply success to many Christian leaders, but it is exactly in an atmosphere of abundance and spiritual blessing that those who have forgotten thecaveofAdullamwill fall.
Apparently no one in the king’s court warned him that to call in Bathsheba was itself an evil – “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” (Prov 9:10) Apparently his courtiers feared man more than God!
3. God the King
Prophetically, the Bible speaks again of Adullam. The time of Micah was a time of “material prosperity…selfish materialism…a complacent approach to religion as a means of achieving human desires…disintegration of personal and social values.. Wealth was invested in land…priests and prophets did little more than echo the spirit of the period…” (L.C. Allen, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah p.240) Does this sound like a time and place we are familiar with?
In the midst of this affluence God released the Assyrians (Isa 7:18ff; 8:7) to overrunJudah, many refugees fledJerusalem, so he says,
“I will again bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Mareshah; the glory of Israel
shall come to Adullam.” (Mic 1:15)
First God brings a harassment on the religiously lazy people, by this means he shifts them to the discontentment and isolation of Adullam, only then he promises the supernatural breakthrough.
“I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel;
I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture,
a noisy multitude of men. 13 He who opens the breach goes up before them;
they break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their King passes on before them,
the Lord at their head.” (Mic2:12 -13)
[The same order of supernatural deliverance as in the time of David, “And Davidcame to Baal-perazim, and David defeated them there. And he said, “The Lord has burst through my enemies before me like a bursting flood.” Therefore the name of that place is called Baal-perazim.” 2 Sam 5:20]
Where other kings have failed, God himself will deliver.
4. Jesus
The glory of the king that Saul failed to understand,Davidshared and lost, and that was prophesied by Micah is completely concentrated in the cross.
Prophetically, the words above Jesus on the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek (John19:19-20), the languages of the known world, speak of the discipling of all nations. Their conversion begins at the cross.
The breakthrough prophesied by Micah is heard in the words of the rebel, ““Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”” (Luke 23:42), and the amazing declaration of the Gentile soldier in charge of crucifying him, “when the centurion… saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”” (Mark15:39). These men saw in the Spirit the glory of the king.
These were not religiously self –satisfied men, they had the status of the outcast and despised, when they heard the words, ““Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”” (Luke 23:34) they were granted a revelation of a love so pure so holy that this had to be God himself speaking in their hearts. No wonder they yielded to the King – and every single rejected and outcaste person who has this revelation of his holy love in the cross will yield in the same way.
This was a breakthrough into the sphere of the holy, into knowing God’s kingship as he truly is.
Present Day Application
If we jump to the resurrection as the manifestation of kingly power/enthronement of the Messiah [e.g. the use of Psalm 2 in Acts13:34- 35; Rom 1:4.] and ignore the cross, we will fall as surely as Saul andDavidfell, even if we think of ourselves as men and women after God’s own heart (1 Sam 13:14; Acts13:22).
Conclusion
As a “holy apostle” (Eph 3:5) Paul imparted “a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Cor 2:7- 8).
Holiness is glory concealed (this is the cross) and glory is holiness revealed (this is the resurrection). Adullam and Transformation WA, the secret place and the manifestation of kingly power, they are as linked as the dying and rising of Christ, those who have been drawn into the sphere of the holy (all Christians) should and must know these things.
3 specific applications, if you experience holiness as beautiful you will
- marriage- praying together as Christian couples in deep spiritual intimacy
- prayer- will be felt as the most precious part of your life
- you will have a hunger and delight in the Holy Scriptures