Church in the the Cave

This message is one of the Times Square pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends.

Cave, the church in the cave. And you'll find this church. In fact, I didn't know it was a church in the cave till one day I was reading this and it opened to me and saw it.

First Samuel chapter 22. The first two words say, and I'm reading King James, it says, David therefore departed. And the therefore refers back to the previous incident.

So go back with me up to a few verses north. Verse 10. And David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath.

And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances saying, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands? See, David thought he could just go there and seek refuge. And David laid up these words in his heart and was afraid of the king of Gath. And so he changed his behavior before them and fiend himself mad in their hands and scribbled on the doors of the gate and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.

Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad. Wherefore then have you brought him to me? Have I need of madmen? And ye have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Should this fellow come into my house? In other words, get rid of him. And it was right after that in chapter 22, David therefore, therefore pointing back to that embarrassing situation at Gath, departed thence and escaped and he hid out in the cave of Dulem.

And when he was there, he was there for a period of time, his brethren and all his father's house, his hometown friends and neighbors heard it and they went down thither to him. And here's who went. And everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in debt and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him.

And he became a captain over them and there were with him about 400 men. And then later, some other men joined him after they came out of the cave. Some joined him later as we will see.

Amen. The church and the cave. Shall we bow in a word of prayer? Our Father, we thank you this morning that we can look back and rejoice in the great things that you have done.

Hallelujah. It has just been sung to us and we rejoice in the many things that you have done in our lives. We thank you this morning and our hearts are overjoyed with praise unto you.

We thank you, Lord, what you've done through us and to us through the word and through your leading us, Lord, in the right paths. And may we see today that you want to lead your church in the right path. You want us to be the church in the cave.

Lord, you've done so much for us as a part of that church and open our eyes to this truth today and liberate those who may be in bondage to religious bondages, Lord. Do it, we pray. Move upon our hearts.

Anoint your people. Anoint our ears to hear in Jesus' name. Amen.

Now, in my message, I want you to look inside the cave of Dulem, which was overlooking the beautiful, lush valley of Elah. And there, as I said, we find David, yet uncrowned king of Israel, hiding in a deep cavern of nature's creation. Now, it's not a very fitting scene for this mighty warrior, the conqueror of Goliath.

He's a popular war hero. His exploits, as we read, were put to song. The number one song on the hit parade at that time went like this.

Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands. And it was a song that was circulating in the land. The prophet Samuel had anointed him as God's sovereign choice to succeed Saul as king.

But instead of wearing a crown, we find in this account that David is wearing a frown. And worse, he sits a fugitive in a rocky hewn hideaway. Now, outside his foxhole, lurking in some mountain pass, is the raging, jealous Saul, unwilling to accept divine sovereign will, unwilling to accept the fact that God has bypassed him and anointed David.

And Saul forces David, who incidentally was his former therapist. You remember when he would get in raging moods that David would come in and play the harp and would soothe his moods. And so he was the equivalent, you might say, of his therapist.

And he was also his right-hand man. But now Saul has declared David public enemy number one, the top man on his hit list. Now, David's retreat to the cave came right after the blundering attempt at self-preservation at Gath, where he faked insanity, hoping there to find refuge.

It was a disastrous fleshly effort of trust in man rather than God as his refuge. And so at Dulem, there is a turning point in David's life. There he finds out that God is his only source of defense.

And he also finds out that others are willing to risk everything to join him, and he's encouraged. Well, he's discouraged at first when he sees who they are, and we'll talk about that, but then ultimately he's encouraged by those who come to join him in the cave because he takes those men and he rehabilitates them. He opens the Teen Challenge Center, if you please, and he puts them through rehabilitation and discipleship and discipline.

And who would have ever thought such a work of grace and power and of righteousness was being divinely put together in that cave of all places? And really, it was the church of the future. In the cave is a picture of the church in obscurity that will, in the not too distant future, become the church and the kingdom under David that is ruling and reigning. And oh, what lessons David and his remnant of 400 have to bless us with today.

You see, the path to truly anointed leadership and to becoming a part of the true move of the Spirit is always by way of hideaway caves. It's always by way of peril in hideaway caves, just like David. And David is an example of anyone who is surrounded by an unrighteous saw or saws and wonders why the wicked seem to prosper and the godly suffer.

But I want you to take note of David in the situation that he was in. Whether he was hiding in that cave or whether he was running in the mountain passes trying to escape Saul, or he was trying to dodge swords, or even when he was given the opportunity to have vengeance upon Saul, he will not use a sword of slander. He will not use a sling of anger.

He will not use an army of deceit. And David will not fall into unrighteousness in an attempt to deal with unrighteousness. And during his exile, David finds it better to rest on the promises of God than to take matters in his own hands.

He will, according to James, and he does, according to James, let patience have its perfect work because he knows that if you do that, in the end, he will be wanting nothing and God will see him through. Now, like David, the lessons that you and I have to learn in our own spiritual and emotional caves is painful but necessary. You see, God will not put us in the place of His choosing until we are fit for that place.

Let me say that again. And if you want to, you can say amen because even though it's Sunday morning, it's all right to say amen and it won't bother me. God does not put us in the place of His choosing until we are fit for that place.

All right, you're okay. You can keep coming then. You can stay with me the rest of the way.

And we also see in this, and what my message is about is that He does not allow us to flee Saul's with Saulish methods. You see, God does not want a wholly separated people who have come to a place where they are rejecting an unholy system or an unholy church. The Lord does not want a people like that who in rejecting that system adopt the very character of that from which they're coming out of.

You see, we are too often like David in that we are impatient and we're imperfect. We're too flawed in our character to mount thrones until we have been made ready for them. To replace a Saul with even a touch of Saul in our character is to defeat the very purpose for which we fight.

And you know, when the Lord opened my eyes some years ago, a few years ago, when the Lord began to open my eyes to the unrighteousness that was in the church, to the Saulishness that was in the church, and I began to see that, and in my reaction to it, the Lord had to show me that my reaction to it was unrighteous. Here I'm concerned about unrighteousness and I have unrighteousness in my heart in rising up against unrighteousness. And the Lord would show us through David that that is not what he wants.

In fact, there's a beautiful lesson and it's a little aside from my message, but I think I'll take you to it. It's in 2 Samuel. If you look at it, a lesson how to deal with a fallen minister or ministry.

David teaches us something beautiful in 2 Samuel chapter 1, how you deal with a fallen minister, especially if you have been religiously abused by a church or a system yourself and you've been a victim of it and you've been hurt by it. And if anybody had the right to be hurt, feel hurt, it was David regarding Saul. And yet look at the end when Saul is gone.

Verse 17 of chapter 1, it says, And David lamented with this lament over Saul and over Jonathan. Now, he loved Jonathan. You would expect him to lament over Jonathan, but he laments also, he sorrows over the fact that Saul is gone.

He doesn't gloat, but he's grieved. He doesn't gloat, he's grieved. And then in verse 20, it says, regarding the fall of Saul, it says, Tell it not in gaff.

Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice. In other words, he said, when something happens in the church, don't go to the news media, don't publish it outside somewhere, deal with it within the church. And the only reason that certain things do get published by the media, and you can always mark it down, if the church doesn't deal with it from within, God will make sure that it gets exposed in the media to have to deal with it.

But that's not God's ideal. That's not God's plan. But he says, keep it in the family.

Keep it in the church. Publish it not in gaff. Don't go off and say, oh, so and so has fallen.

But be grieved. And then also down in verse 24, he said, Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, and with other delights, who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel. In other words, even look at the good.

Look at the good. There was some good that Saul had done. There are certain things that he was thankful for regarding Saul.

But most of all, in the end, he said, Oh, how I am distressed. Verse 26, I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan. And then he says in verse 27, How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished? The point is that David did not gloat over the fall of Saul, but he grieved over it.

His heart was broken over it. But coming back to the cave of Adullam, back to 1 Samuel 22, perhaps you find yourself today where David was. And if you're at a turning point in your walk before God, and I believe that some of you may, even this church, have come to that turning point, and your eyes have been opened to a Saul within or a Saul without, and you're waiting for the next move of God, then learn about this church in the cave.

You see, God is too holy and too good to give us the right thing in the wrong way. He's too wise to give us the right thing at the wrong time. Think of the time and the events and the lessons that had to transpire before David's crowning.

He went from shepherd boy to a giant killer, to a national hero, and then he fell down and became a villain and a fugitive before his coronation. And you see, God always has to process a man first before he's fit for what God has planned for him. God has to process us and prepare us and prune a man for the time and the place that he's taking him.

It's always caves before crowns. It's always process before position. It's always Saul's before service.

It's always being the hunted before being the heralded king of Israel. It's always a principle of scripture that you have to go down before you go up. You have to lose before you gain.

You have to wait before you can win. It's death before resurrection. Psalms 31 is a picture of David during this period in question.

And his prayer reveals his heart. No wonder the Lord said, David is a man after my own heart. Listen to what he says, Psalms 31.

Written during the same period of time, he said, in thee, O Lord, I have taken refuge. Let me never be ashamed. Let me never be ashamed.

I think he was referring to Gath. He was referring when he scribbled on the wall. Can you imagine the king of Israel scribbling on the wall, graffiti on the wall? And he's ashamed.

He said, never let me be ashamed again like that because I take refuge in you. He said, in thy righteousness, deliver me. In thy righteousness, deliver me.

He said, I hate those who regard vain idols, but I trust in the Lord. He said, I've heard the slander of many and the terror on every side. And while they took counsel together against me, they schemed to take away my life.

But while they were doing that, he said this, but as for me, I trust in thee, O Lord, I say, thou art my God, my times are in thy hand. Hallelujah. You see, David learned how to deal with salishness.

He learned how not to do wrong in dealing with right. Excuse me, he learned how not to do wrong in dealing with wrong. And this is the test of the remnant.

This is the test of the righteous. This is the test that I've seen many face who have had their eyes open to the fact that God has lifted his anointing from salish systems and from salish churches and from salish leaders and teachings. And once you see that and God begins to lead you out, you've got to come out in the right way.

Because as I've said here before, if you have no desire to backslide, the devil will do a job on you and he'll try to get you to front slide. And I don't have time to get into that. Except it's to proclaim a holy message with an unholy manner.

Let me ask you this morning, are you a person who is feeling the anointing to prophesy against something? Do you feel God wants you to be in a ministry of pulling down and rooting out? Well, let me tell you something. Before you do that, you better go to the cave of Dulem and let the Holy Spirit pull down and root out certain things in your life before you do that. Are you feeling the Holy Spirit dealing with you about idols in your heart? Idols in your home? Idols in the church? And if you've laid some of them down, and if you've made a decision to live by a higher standard of holiness than those around you, then you better go to the cave of Dulem and let the Holy Spirit deal with the pride in your heart.

It seems invariably that becomes often the byproduct when you begin to determine to walk in holiness that the enemy always comes along and reminds you how well you're doing and how you have separated yourself from everybody else. God will never do a great thing through you until your heart is humble and pure enough for him to do it through you. God always detours kings through the caves of suffering and humility and want.

Now, if your burden today is to see Saul Ministries torn down, then ask God to break your heart over them first of all. Now, having set the stage for what God is doing in and through David in Dulem, let me now turn my attention to David's comrades who joined him. And I want you to know three things about David and his friends in the cave because there I see a church separated, I see a church gathered, and I see a church scattered.

A church separated, a church gathered, and a church scattered. First of all, the church in the cave is and must be a separated church. David departed from Saul because the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul.

And in Saul, we find a very important type, spiritual type. Saul, you see, is a type. You have not already gathered this from my message.

Saul is a type of a condition, be it represented in a church as a whole or a denomination or one particular local church. It's a type that is represented in a pastor or a leader. It's represented in other believers.

But worst of all, it's a condition that is sometimes represented in our own hearts. And what it is, it's a type of one whose inner soul has been eaten away by compromise and carnality and sin. You see, Saul was a man who was made king of Israel, but he never had the character of a king.

He had a position, but he never had the moral character to go along with it. And even though at times the Spirit of the Lord moved upon Saul, Saul never allowed the Spirit of God to so move within him to rid himself of things in his life that eventually destroyed him. And when the Spirit of the Lord did came upon him, he performed outward acts, but there was never a real inward change of heart.

And that's what describes Saul or the Saul type. And you see, Saul is well-represented in the church today. It is those who are in authority, but are not under authority.

It's those who may hold an office in the church, but the Spirit of God does not have a hold of that individual. And there are many Saul's in leadership. Some of them may have been divinely appointed and perhaps at one time served righteously, but something went wrong either in their flesh or in their spirit.

And they compromised or perhaps their position went to their head, but somewhere along the line, something happened. And in Saul's case, as time went on and as the trials and temptations beset him, a hard, stony heart overtook him. And he lived in a spirit of rebellion and pride and envy and jealousy and despair, took possession of his soul, and it did so until his terrible end.

And so David had to depart from Saul, and in so doing, he separated himself from a wicked system. And this, my friend, is the price that has to be paid to keep one's soul from being polluted by the Saul's of this world. Whether that Saul is in the church or outside the church, the Lord says if you're going to be his, you must separate yourself from a Saul.

For David, the holy father of the Lord, he had to be separated from the person, the power, and the presence of Saul. And he was able to breathe more freely in a cave than in the king's palace. Proverbs 16 and eight says, better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.

The place of separation is always the freest and happiest place, let me tell you. David found that to be true. He chose a cold cave and righteousness rather than a warm place and iniquity or security.

And I humbly ask you this morning, do you have a Saul that you have to flee from or should flee from? Now I know that there's some of you that are sitting here, you've already done it. I know a little bit about your history. I know a little bit about your story.

You have fleed and fled from a Saul-y system. But there's others of you that may be sitting here with me this morning. And whenever and wherever God shows you that there is sin or compromise or worldliness, it is time to come out from among them, saith the Lord.

And it makes no difference if the sin is in the world or in the church. Whether it's in your own home or among your close friends or in some personal relationship, if it may be a boyfriend and a girlfriend and one wants to walk in righteousness and the other is folly after Saul-ish methods. It doesn't matter where it exists.

If it exists, then you have to flee. And I say flee as quickly as you possibly can. We are to have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness, whether they are in the church or outside of the church.

Don't think it was easy for Saul, for David to flee Saul. David was a part of Saul's kingdom. He loved Saul.

He sat at the king's table. David had fought for Saul. And yet he had to separate himself from him when the time came.

And I imagine that some might have said to David, David, you're judging the man too quickly. Or David, you gotta have more love. Or David, touch not my anointing.

But let me tell you, it's hard to separate oneself from sin inside, more inside than outside. It's harder to flee unrighteousness in the church or among so-called Christians than it is among gross sinners, much harder. But wherever there is a spirit of Saul and unrighteousness, we are to have nothing to do with it.

Now, when David made the decision to flee from Saul, his decision influenced others. Read it again with me. Look at it.

And when his brother and all his family's house heard it, that was his neighborhood, his hometown buddies. It says that they went and they heard that David was in the cave. Some messenger had snuck out through the mountain passes and left word and said, David is in the dulum.

And when his brothers heard it, they came out. You see, David's decision to flee from Saul demanded others make a choice, a choice between remaining with the rejected rule of Saul or going with a new divinely anointed future king of Israel. Now, David's friends may have not been some of the most outstanding citizens in the community, but they had enough discernment to know right from wrong.

And David's friends took note of Saul's actions and said, we will not be ruled by that man. We will have nothing to do with that kind of leadership. It was either David or Saul for them.

David, the type of Christ, Saul, the type of Satan. They could have played both ends against the middle, but for them, the line of distinction was very clearly drawn. They realized that all who loved the world or who loved the rejected system and a doomed king would continue to stick with Saul.

But all who were dissatisfied with carnality, they fled to the new sanctuary, the new move of God that was going on in the cave because in Adullam was a new move of God. And my friends, that new move is going on today, hallelujah. God is raising up his remnant.

They went to Adullam because the future of Israel was there. The anointing of the Holy Spirit was there. Righteousness was there.

And those who wanted to be where God was separated themselves from Saul and they went there regardless of the price that they had to pay. Listen, it doesn't matter how long a Saul has been in power. It doesn't matter how long you've been a follower of a Saul.

It doesn't matter if your whole family follows. It doesn't matter if your parents follow. It doesn't matter if your grandparents belong to Saul's church.

A Saul is a Saul. And wherever the spirit of Saul is in operation, God is not in it and it's time to join the church in the cave. Hallelujah.

Now listen, if you're a visitor here today and you've got a good church, I'm not preaching against your church and you'll know that. You'll know that if you have a man of God in the pulpit and you'll not feel like I'm making a pitch for you to come to this church. And we aren't because we've got no membership here.

We're making no pitch. We're just like a good restaurant. A good restaurant doesn't have to advertise.

It just puts out a good meal and people come. Word of mouth. So please don't, you know, we're not going to pass out any cards after my message.

We're not going to have you line up and say, you know, I'm leaving my church or whatever. Please don't understand that. But wherever the spirit of Saul is in operation, I say God is not there and it's time to join the church in the cave.

Hallelujah. To the music that's written where it treats God in this manner without respect to his authority over us as his sons. Now this is not to say that we're not heirs.

H-E-I-R-S. In Psalm 37, 27 and 29, it says, Depart from evil and do good, so you will abide forever. For the Lord loves justice and does not forsake his godly ones.

They are preserved forever. But the descendants of the wicked will be cut off. The righteous will inherit the land forever.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Okay, so the church in the cave is a separated church.

But it's much more than that. It's not only separated from something, it's gathered to something. The purpose of holiness, the purpose of separation is never an end in itself.

We are separated from something in order to be gathered unto something. The 400 members who withdrew their membership from Saul's assembly to join the new church that David was starting, they were not just fed up with Saul. They were hungry for a new move of God.

Now usually those who are discontented, as they were described, these men, usually those who are discontented in debt or in distress, they stay where they are or they go somewhere else and they remain discontented and distressed. And God gives them another salvage pastor after their own heart. But David's hometown buddies were not discontented within.

The source of their distress was from without. Now if you're distressed within, if you've got problems of your own making, if you've got things in your life that have not been laid down and you're distressed because of your own sin and your compromise and you may blame it on the church that you attend and if you go somewhere else, remember that wherever you go, you take yourself with you. That's one of my sayings here.

If you haven't been here on a Tuesday night, that's one of them. Wherever you go, there you are. You take yourself with you wherever you go.

But if you're distressed because of sin and compromise outside or in the church and because of a system that is unscriptural, then there is a solution for your distress. David's friends may have been in debt because they refused to play by Saul's rules. But whatever the source of their irritation, the point is this.

They left Saul in order to go to David. But they were not just leaving something, they were embracing something. The purpose of separation is so that we might be gathered unto the Lord.

And whether it's separation from the world or an ungodly situation or whatever, when you leave, you've got to go somewhere. You can quit every sin and every evil practice that you've committed, but separation in and of itself is not the goal. Separation is fruitless unless you are gathered unto the Lord.

And you see, if you're looking for a church that deals just in separation or glories in its separation, I can give you a list of them. And all the emphasis is on what we've come out of and what we've left. But my friend, that's only half the story.

It's what we've come into. To be gathered unto Him is the goal. And in David's company of 400, we see a beautiful picture of what it means to follow a righteous kingdom.

Because once you get a vision of the fullness of Christ, what interest is there anymore in Saul's kingdom? What could Saul offer them any longer once they were convinced that in David there was a type of he who is the way, the truth, and the life? And in David, as in Christ, we find a new object, a new center for our lives and communion with God's anointed. And it's better to sit with Jesus in the cave of Durham than to sit in the splendor and safety of Saul's household, especially if the house is doomed. And so what a beautiful picture we are here in this second verse.

Everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in death and everyone that was discontented gathered unto him. Oh, it's by God's grace that they were gathered. And here I see a picture of a separated, gathered remnant who found a new identity in their devotion to David.

Now, perhaps when David first heard some friends had come to help him, he was excited until he got a closer look. You see, the church in the cave is not many mighty, not many noble. David must have wondered, how, how can I build a church out of these misfits? How would you like to start a new movement in the likes of those in a dulem? But my friend, I see such a church today and I see such a people today.

And I see it right here as well. Don't take offense, but I see it right here and I'm a part of it. It's those who are not satisfied with a Saul movement.

They're deeply disturbed by conditions in the land. They're a type of people who are not, quote, unquote, prospering like other people are prospering. They're a type of people and I, I, we, we get letters all the time.

I got a phone call last night and I, I've got a, well, I don't have an unlisted number like David and I'm sorry for it now because all the calls that he's supposed to get, I'm getting them now. But I got one of them last night. But again, it was, it was people, their hearts are hungry for God and said, oh, oh, he said, we just love the tapes.

We need a church. We're looking for a church in the cave. And I said, look, you look around, God will find you one.

God will find you one. And if you identify with a 400 outcast, then welcome to a dulem. There is a place for you.

There is a work for you. There is a gathering point at which time and place you can join the persecuted, the unpopular, the unfashionable move of God. And the thing that we must exalt in these 400 is that we too are like them.

You too are like them. Once we're miserable, ruined, guilty, void of everything that would make us fit for the kingdom of God. Oh, how we were in debt for our sins and some of you were so in debt.

But at the feet of Jesus and at the cross, we gathered for peace and for pardon. And there Christ has removed our discontent. He's alleviated our distress.

He's canceled our debt. He's outfitted us with a new garment. And he has given us the promise and privilege of ruling and reigning with him.

We are part of the church of the living God today. Hallelujah. The church in the cave.

But the price of identity with David is often rejection. And that rejection certainly of everything that is salish. It may mean disassociation from a denomination, disassociation from a church or type of teaching or type of music or type of message or type of method or type of a man.

I think of a missionary who had come back to our country some time ago before one of the major ministries fell and he came back and saw what was going on. Just a young man, had no great authority or whatever, but he saw something was wrong. And in his pulpit, he called at the heart of church.

He pointed it right out. And word got back to this organization and they called him in for a meeting and threatened that they would take him to... In fact, he got a letter from their lawyer. Got a letter from their lawyer.

He also got a letter from his denomination telling him to stop it. But I thank God for him. He stood and said what nobody else was willing to say.

And he was proved to be prophetic. But the price that he had to pay to pay for that, for what he did. David told us one time... You remember there was a brother down in Texas, Dallas, Texas, stood out in front of one of the largest prosperity churches in America.

I'll not name the name of the pastor lest there be any fans of Tilton here, so I won't name the name of the church. But he stood out and walked around and prophesied judgment against it. They wanted to have him arrested because of it.

Well, thank God for that man because he was willing to take a stand. Now the Lord may not want you to speak out, but at least he wants you to come out and be gathered unto him. Hallelujah.

If that's the situation that you're in, then finally the church in the cave is also a scattered church. David and his men cannot hide forever. They must leave the cave to enter into spiritual warfare.

And these unlikely men of no reputation, do you know what they became? They became David's mighty warriors. They became David's tested and tried and trusted men who through adversity took him all the way to the throne that God had ordained for him. And like David and his men, we too must be a people of mission and movement.

The ministry of the separated and gathered is not just to be separated alone. It's not just to be gathered even alone to Jesus, but it goes beyond that. It is to extend God's kingdom and rule in the hearts of men and women in this city and around the world.

God's got an army, not a fraternity of monks. The very first battle David and his men had, look at it in chapter 23. The very first battle that they had was at Keilah, verse 13.

Then David and his men, which were about 600, they had a revival and 200 joined them. There's now 600 of them joined and departed out of Keilah and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah and he forbid to go forth.

Here's a picture of now the church coming out of the cave, a church that's going to extend the kingdom of God and they went wherever. They went whither and whersoever they could go, they went. And here's a picture of the church reaching out.

You see, the church must never remain on the defensive. We are to be on the offensive, carrying the mission of evangelism wherever we can go. And having done that, we ought to teach such converts also to be separated and gathered unto Christ and then also to go and to do the same again.

You see, the danger within the church, the danger within the church is always to neglect evangelism while dealing with David and Saul issues. And when that happens, the devil wins a double victory. He wins a double victory when he brings air into the church, which has to be addressed, it has to be rooted out.

And while that is being done, energy can be diverted from the task of evangelism. But you see, both tasks are important. And the reason I feel this so keenly and one of the books that we pastors enjoy reading are some old time preachers, J.B. Stoney and others.

We have volumes of their books that we read and we're blessed by it and it feeds our soul. And they were old Plymouth brethren who one time were street preachers. They were once out on the street witnessing, but then they saw the conditions of the church and they began to get a hunger to get closer to the Lord and to address those issues.

And they got so caught up in addressing those issues that they forsook the very thing that God had called them to do in the first place. And I've seen it over the years that within a separated holiness camp, there can be a lack of vision and concern for the lost. And I know some brethren today, I love them.

I love them very much because we're together in the message. They preach a message of holiness, but they do not have a burden for the lost. They do not have a vision to reach the hurting.

Or I've seen those who concentrate in the deeper life movements. They concentrated on being gathered unto Jesus and I also see a similar neglect. And God help us that that will never happen.

Gary has been, spoke the last several Friday nights and has been stirring our hearts regarding the fact that this church not only should be reaching this city and this metropolitan area, but we wanna be a sending church. We wanna see young men, young people come out of this church and take the gospel to the ends of the earth. And when the Lord does that and he puts his hand upon some of you and if you have a call to go to a field and it's verified by these pastors, then God bless you, we're gonna send you out, hallelujah.

Because that's the kind of church that God has committed us to be. We do not intend to be a church that gathers just around a particular doctrine. We're not a church that's gonna gather around an issue.

We're not a church that's gathered around a denomination. We're certainly not gonna be a church that gathered around a personality. We're gonna be a church that is gathered around Jesus and anybody who gathers around Jesus has to catch the vision of going into all the world to preach the gospel to every creature, hallelujah.

Well, finally, let me close. Let me just review something here with you. You see, once the decision to separate took place, once the decision to gather unto David a type of Christ, God will always provide a place for you.

God will provide a ministry for you. But first of all, the separated, gathered remnant drawn to the cave of Adullam were gonna have to find a new identity. They found a new move of God, a new place of service and devotion in their attachment to David.

But I wanna remind you again in closing about the motley crew that came to him. You see, David was in a cave that was up on the hillside somewhere overlooking a valley where you could look out and you could see if enemies were coming. And he had some other men with him.

And I can just imagine, this is probably exactly how it happened. David is in the cave. He's licking his wounds from the embarrassing situation he had at Gath.

He knows that Saul is out there wanting to take his life. And he's seeking the Lord and asking God for direction. And one of his aides come to him and said, David, there's a group, a large contingency out there coming.

And so David gets ready. He wonders, does he have to flee? Is this Saul or who it is? Who is it? But as they get closer, he finds out that they are friends and not foes. And somebody comes back and says, Oh, David, they're from your neighborhood.

They're from your hometown. And David breathes a sigh of relief. And then they get a little bit closer.

And David says, well, go out and tell me who is it. And the aide comes back and says, well, and he begins to name some of them. And David said, oh no, they're from the wrong side of the track.

Oh no. The aide comes back and said, guess who I saw? Don Wilkerson is in that group. David shakes his head.

And then he goes to go out and look again. He said, oh my, guess what? Steve Ratkey is in that group. Kevin is in that group.

Tom is in that group. Tommy Lofton is in that group. Arnie Klein is in that group.

And David said, oh no, oh no, not Arnie. Not Steve, not Tom. Oh no.

They are discontented. He said, oh no. Then he looks at them.

It's the bounce check crowd, he said. But then David, David has a vision. He takes them.

And I want to tell you, I'm witnessing such a church today. I see such a people today, hallelujah. It's those who are left with a bad taste in their mouth, in their spiritual appetite, because they've been eating sullish food.

And they're deeply distressed by the conditions in the church. Yes, they're discontented, they're distressed, they're in debt, because the teaching that they're following is not prospering them like other people. And they're not prospering as others because they refuse to consume God's blessing entirely upon themselves.

And if you identify with those 400 outcasts, then welcome to a dulum. Whether you know it or not, and whether you knew it before or not, you are in fact a member of the church in the cave. But don't bemoan the fact.

It means that there is a place for you, there is a body for you. You are a part of the remnant. You are a part of what God is doing today.

And if you're here today, and God is opening your eyes to sullish systems that you need to come out, and you haven't broken out of, then this morning I'm praying that God will release you from it. Shall we bow in a word of prayer? Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Lord Jesus, we just pray right now that our hearts would be sensitive to the moving of your spirit. Lord, I pray that nothing that I said today would be misinterpreted or over-interpreted or misunderstood. Lord, we love every church that is preaching the gospel, and we know that there are many in this church, in this city that are.

We rejoice. We thank you for them. We pray for them.

We pray for them, especially in our Friday night meetings. And Lord, you know that we want to link with those men, and we're going to have some meetings here in the fall, inviting those pastors to join in with us. So, Lord, you know our hearts are knit with others in this city.

But, Lord, you also know that we're not afraid to take our stand and say, Come out from among them, even if them has to do with a solid church, an ungodly system, and something that is not right, or whether it's sin and compromise in the pulpit or among the deacons or in the pew. And, Lord, if there are people that are sitting here today that are a part of that, liberate them, Lord, we pray. Only you can call them out.

Only you can do it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

This is the conclusion of the tape.