Dealing with Rejection

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 World Challenge, P.O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or calling 214-963-8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends. ...chapter 9 and just keep it open. It's going to take me a little while to get there, about a third of my message until I get there, but I want you to be prepared.

2 Samuel chapter 9. Pastor Bob challenged our hearts this morning. He was sending a wonderful message on the spirit of victory, and tonight I want to apply that to a given area. And as I talk to you about dealing with rejection, dealing with rejection, and let's bow in a word of prayer and ask the Lord to anoint his word.

Our Father, we thank you tonight again. Oh, how faithful you are to minister by the Spirit to our hearts. You lift us into your very presence.

Lord, we felt it again here tonight. We thank you that we have you. We can lean upon your everlasting arms.

Hallelujah. We're a people who lean. A people who are dependent upon you.

We're a people also, Lord, that you are bringing into victory. And we thank you, Lord, in every area of our life, those known areas as well as the hidden areas of our life, that you speak to the deep of them. And Lord, you can release us from that which binds us presently or past.

And we thank you tonight and ask that you would anoint this, the word to your people, we pray. Set us free, Lord, from anything that would bind us. Lord, may we know that in you there is no rejection.

Hallelujah. We are accepted in the beloved. Minister life to us, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. A letter came to our office recently from a pastor's wife. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe that David referred to it or read part of it from the pulpit one night.

In the letter, she told how her husband unexpectedly got up on a Sunday morning in the church and suddenly announced his resignation. She didn't know anything about it, not even told her. Resigned his church immediately.

And on the way home in the car, she asked him for an explanation. And he told her that yes, he was resigning, but furthermore that he was leaving. And she said, what do you mean? He said, I'm leaving you.

And it seems that he had taken up with a young woman in the church and the next day, Monday, they were gone. And left behind in this mess were two teenagers and of course the wife. And overnight, this family, this pastor's family, are without a father, without a husband, without a pastor, without a breadwinner.

Needless to say that the family was in a state of shock. Now what has happened since, I do not know. Nor do I know how that wife and that mother and those teenagers have handled the pain of it all.

But I do know this, without knowing anything about it, I can be sure, you can be sure of this, that they're experiencing and they have experienced deep, deep hurts and the pain of rejection. The wife no doubt wondering why she was rejected for another woman. The kids feeling their own rejection and abandonment and how after 15 years or more, their father could just walk out on them like that and leave them.

And then of course a church witnessing it all. A man of God or supposedly a man of God who suddenly lays down his calling and forsakes his flock. And so in the wake of it, there is strung behind a flock of people who are feeling the sting of rejection.

In another case, I witnessed this for myself. A young man who was in a Christian drug rehabilitation program received a letter one day from his mother. He opened it and in addition to the letter that was there, there was another piece of paper.

He looked at the piece of paper and to his surprise, it was his birth certificate or at least a copy of it. And he said to himself, he said, why is this in the letter? I didn't ask my mother for it. I have no need of it.

Why would she send it? And so he read the letter. And when he finished it, tears filled his eyes. And he stood and he looked out the window for a long, long time.

Finally, he spoke to somebody. Finally, he spoke to one of the staff, one of the counselors and explained to them and told them what was in the letter. Words to the effect.

His mother had said to him, you've caused me so much. You've caused me nothing but heartache and grief and sorrow. And I can't take it anymore.

Here's your birth certificate. No longer consider yourself my son. The young convert was stunned.

He was devastated. Perhaps he didn't know, was this his mother's way of getting a message through to him? Did she not, was this her effort to try to shake him up, to try to motivate him to change his life? Or did she really mean it? He didn't know. But he told me, he said, when I read that letter, my first immediate thought, of course, was that I wanted to run out and I wanted to take some heroin and I wanted to put the needle into my veins and I wanted to escape, escape the pain of rejection.

I think of another young man who told me, shared his testimony. He's now a follower of Jesus Christ, but before this, he was a drug user, but worse, he was a violent young man. He loved to fight.

He loved to get into fist fights. And if he couldn't find one, he would provoke one, one way or the other. And when he would be fighting, a spirit would come over him and as he was coming up against his opponent, superimposed over the face of his opponent would be the face of his mother.

And when that would happen, he would want to just beat that face to a pulp. And then suddenly he would come out of it, he'd realize that it is not his mother. And he'd come back to a state of normalcy.

And he said the reason for his wanting to cause harm to his mother was because of his cruel treatment as he grew up with her. His father had left them when he was just a baby. But unfortunately for him, he grew up looking exactly like his father, as we say, a spitting image of his father.

And so as he began to grow up and the mother would see that, she would take out her own frustrations, her own sense of rejection upon him. And rejection fostered rejection and the cycle went on. Nicky Cruz, who is well known from the Cross and the Switchblade story, he was, I believe, one of about 13 children.

Became a gang leader in Fort Greene. But he recalls as a child, he overheard his mother talking one day and saying to another woman that Nicky was really not wanted, that it was a mistake, that they really didn't want it. She had enough children.

I didn't need him as well. And he heard that and something began to fester down deep inside him, that sense of not being wanted, of rejection. And it finally burst forth on the streets of Brooklyn and Fort Greene as he was the vice president of a mile-mouse.

Who of us tonight have not felt to one degree or another the sting of rejection? To live is to feel at one time or another, or in one situation or another. To live is to feel the hurt of rejection. Let me say that again.

To live is to feel the hurt of rejection. Listen to some of these words of rejection from men in the Scripture. And let me ask you, if you cannot identify with what they're expressing, maybe right here tonight you can identify with it.

Or if not, from some time or experiences in your past, you might have said what these men said. One said this, My spirit is broken. My days are exhausted.

The grave is ready for me. My relatives have failed, and my intimate friends have forgotten me. He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

All my associates abhor me. They are completely estranged from, excuse me, all my associates abhor me, and those I loved have turned against me. Pity me.

Pity me, oh you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. That's Job speaking. And then there's King David, David the psalmist, who shared these words, and I believe they came out of the pain of two very tragic experiences in his life.

One was that Saul had turned against him. When God rejected Saul as king, and David was going to be placed in his stead, Saul turned against David, and he became a fugitive. David knew what rejection was.

And then when he was king, his own son Absalom turned against him, led a revolt, and men that he felt were his acquaintances, men who had seemingly been loyal to him, turned against him, went to Absalom. And when you read some of his psalms, for example, he says, Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances. Those who see me in the streets flee from me.

I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind. I am a broken vessel. For I have heard of the slander of many terrorists on every side, while they took counsel to gather against me.

In other words, plotted to overthrow him as king. He said, They schemed to take away my life. In another place, he says, All who hate me whisper together against me.

Against me, they desire my hurt. Even my close friends whom I trusted, who ate my bread, who lifted up, and has lifted up his heel against me. David understood rejection.

Now tonight, I want to consider with you three other biblical characters who faced rejection. They're not the most popular in the scripture, by no means. In fact, no one faced more suffering and more rejection than our Lord Jesus Christ.

The scripture says that he came to his own, and his own rejected him, his own turned away from him, and they received him not, but they were not just satisfied to reject him, they wanted to do him in, and they nailed him to the cross, the ultimate symbol, or the ultimate act of rejection. Paul faced rejection on many hands, and some of you may be in the ministry tonight, and you know what it is to be rejected by a people, and Paul went through many rejections. There's Joseph, and we'll speak of him a little bit later, but Joseph who was put into a pit, sold by his brothers, was rejected by his brothers over jealousy, and then he's lifted up, but then when he refuses the advances of Potiphar's wife, again he is rejected, and you find him in a prison.

And so tonight I want to talk to you about two Old Testament persons, one New Testament person. First of all, there is a fellow by the name of Mephibosheth, I may have to change that, give me another name, a little long handle, and I don't know, maybe when he was growing up, with a name like that, they might have called him Mo, and you'll pardon me if once in a while I don't slip and say that, I don't want to be disrespectful to the Word of God, but after all, Mephibosheth is, you know, a little difficult to get out sometimes, but let me tell you about Mo, if you please. He was a son of Jonathan, an heir to his grandfather Saul's throne.

He was born into royalty, he was a little prince. In fact, he was born with what politicians would say today, a silver spoon in his mouth. But at the age of five, the spoon turned to rot and to rust as tragedy struck Mephibosheth's life.

His father Jonathan and grandfather Saul were killed in a battle on Mount Gilboa. And in the tear that swept the land, and when the enemies of Saul began to advance towards the palace, this young lad's nanny, or maid, took him in great haste to flee because of what was happening, because of the terror that was there. You know that when somebody comes to take over in a country, they immediately go for the palace as the symbol of headquarters, or the symbol of the place of rule.

And once they occupy that, then it's a sign that they occupy the land. And so they had to flee. And it was then that tragedy struck this young lad.

You see, the maid in her haste dropped the boy. Somehow he was dropped. Perhaps, I can picture them having to flee down the long corridor stairs as it were of a palace.

Or maybe he was being handed out a window somewhere. We don't know just how, but some way, he fell, she dropped him, and an injury resulted to his feet, a handicap that he would carry with him the rest of his life. Now the boy managed to be taken to a safe house, what we would call today a safe house.

It was in a lonely, out-of-the-way place called Lodibar. And there, a loyal friend of the family, Mishar, took in the disposed prince and raised him. And he grew, became a teenager, became a young man.

We know from the scriptures that he married, he had a son. But growing up, he knew, of course, the whole story. He could remember, I'm sure, the occasion of his injury.

If not faint memory, at least he wanted to know, and somebody probably told him the details. He also knew that he had spent five years of his life in a palace, and he also knows that now he is a forgotten, rejected heir to the throne. And you tell me that he did not feel the pain of rejection.

A former king's kid becomes an orphan. His physical handicap perhaps made him feel, as often it may be, his physical handicap may have made him feel less than a man. Other kids have a father, but he did not.

Other kids can run and play, but he cannot. He can only sit around and play on the ground, or move himself, or has to wait for somebody to carry him. And a five-year-old boy has memories of his childhood, and perhaps he has memories of his gentle, loving father, Jonathan, but he was snatched from him at the age of five.

He perhaps has memories of sitting on his grandfather's knee as David would come with his harp and would sing to his grandfather. He can remember also when he could walk and run through the palace corridors, or go out and play in the palace gardens, or swim in the palace pool. And then also he can remember eating at the king's table.

Oh, the memory of eating at the king's table, and all of that food that would delight anybody, but all he could eat sitting there in the safety and protection of the king's palace. But you see, all of that is a past memory, a faded memory. Instead, he's just a crippled boy growing up in an obscure place, a forgotten former prince, a former rejected ex-resident of the palace.

And you ask Mephibosheth if he can identify with rejection, and no doubt he can relate much more than what the Scriptures indicate. But then the years pass. The years pass.

He now has grown. And one day a messenger comes to the village of Lodibar. And the messenger says, Okay, I think we got it taken care of.

Years pass. One day the messenger comes to that little village of Lodibar and comes to this young man and says, Are you the son of Jonathan? He said, Yes, I am. Is your grandfather Saul? He said, Yes, I am.

He said, Pack your bags. Pack your bags. The king David has summoned you to come to the palace.

And so he goes with great anticipation. He doesn't know exactly what's awaiting him there, but he has something down deep inside says to him, There's something good that's going to happen regarding this. And here's what happened.

Turn to 2 Samuel chapter 9. 2 Samuel chapter 9. And this is the account of what happened to this forgotten young lad, rejected young lad. 2 Samuel chapter 9. It says, Then David said, Is there yet anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba. And they called him to David.

And the king said to him, Are you Ziba? And he said, I am your servant. I'll do whatever you want. And the king said, Is there not yet anyone of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God? And Ziba said to the king, Yes.

Yes. Come to think of it, there's still a son of Jonathan who is crippled in both feet. And so the king said to him, Where is he? And Ziba said to the king, Behold, he is in the house of Mishar, the son of Amriel, in Lodibar.

Then king David sent and brought him from the house of Mishar, the son of Amriel, from Lodibar. And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and prostrated himself. And David said, Mephibosheth.

And he said, Here is your servant. And David said to him, Do not fear, for I will surely show kindness to you for the sake of your father Jonathan, and will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you shall eat at my table regularly. Oh, can you imagine? Can you imagine how this rejected one now feels? All the years, some decade and a half perhaps, the forgotten one becomes the remembered one.

At long last his rejection is over. He now eats at the king's table. All is well.

The lost years, the rejection is over. And in fact, we have an indication of how he felt about himself. Look at verse 8. And again he prostrated himself and said, What is your servant that you should regard a dead dog like me? You see, when he was in Lodibar, he had felt that God, everybody had forsaken him.

He felt like a dead dog. But now he feels like a living soul. He feels like a man again.

And in verse 13, Saul Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate at the king's table regularly. And he lived happily ever after. No, it doesn't say that because that's not what happened.

Hold on. Hold on just a minute, because tragedy struck twice for this young man. History repeated itself.

For a second time, when he is living in the palace, suddenly, suddenly an enemy comes, and now a revolt is going on. Absalom is leading a revolt against David, and the word comes into the palace, You must flee, you must flee. Many have turned against you, David.

The kingdom is about to be lost, and so David must take his wives and his children and some of his servants, and they make their way and they go off into the wilderness, into exile. But you see, Mephibosheth, he's crippled because of his lameness. He must depend upon Ziba, his servant, and so he tells his servant, Please saddle the donkey, I must go as well.

And Ziba goes and he saddles the donkey, but he takes off and he leaves Mephibosheth behind. And the servant goes out and meets David, and David wants to know, Well, what are you doing here? He said, Oh, he said, He said, I just came out to help you. I came out to bring you some supplies.

And so he handed them over to David, and David said, But where is Mephibosheth? He said, Oh, he said, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, king, but he's with the other side. He's turned against you. He told me that he's very glad what was happening, and he believes that this is the act of God to give the king.

In fact, here's exactly what the servant reported. He said, This is what he told me. He said, Today the house of Israel will restore the kingdom of my father to me.

And so David, hearing that, he says to his servant, All right. He said, If that's how he feels, then I'm going to give you the land. I'm going to give all that was his to you.

It's yours. And David goes off into exile. And left behind again is Mephibosheth.

Again, he is rejected. Again, he's no longer the resident, cannot be a resident of the palace. And furthermore, he's been slandered by his servant.

And he goes into mourning, even to depression. And all the days that David are gone, he will not shave. He will not wash his clothes.

Once again, he is an outcast. Once again, something precious has been taken from him. My friend, that's the story of Mephibosheth.

It's not the complete story. I'll come back to it in just a moment. I want to give you a second example of another person who understood what it was to feel rejection.

And I speak of, in the first chapter of 1 Samuel, a woman by the name of Hannah, a would-be mother. We know her now as the mother of Samuel. And what a precious testimony it came out to be in her life.

But it wasn't that way when she started out. For years, she suffered the bitter sorrow of rejection, of ridicule, of being the victim of jealousy. You see, Hannah desperately wanted a child, but she was barren.

Her husband, she was one of two wives to her husband, Elkanah. And her husband loved her very much. But that could not compensate for the fact that the two little children that were running around the house and running around the tent belonged to the other woman, did not belong to her.

And oh, every time she would see those children, it would strike a pain in her heart. She would go to the house of the Lord. She'd pour out her soul to the Lord.

And so, oh Lord, give me a man. Give me a child. And to add insult to injury, the other woman with the two children, Paniah, she would irritate her.

She would throw it up into her face. She would laugh at her. She would flaunt the fact that she had children and Hannah did not.

1 Samuel 1, 6 says, her rival, meaning the other woman, her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her. Even her husband did not understand the depth of her grief. And he said to her on one occasion, Is not my love worth more to you than ten children? And when she hears that, that adds to her feeling of rejection, as now she says, Oh, my husband does not even understand.

He does not understand. Listen, when you wait for something a long time, or if you want something very, very bad, it doesn't matter what else good may happen to you. The loss or absence of one compelling, overwhelming desire, you know, can overshadow everything else.

How many of you know that? You've experienced that? But in addition, even Hannah's pastor temporarily rejected her. Turn with me, if you will, to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 1. Let's look at the prophet, excuse me, at the priest Eli.

And she would go, it says, and Hannah rose after eating and drinking at Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. And she greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.

And she made a vow and said, Oh, Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thy maidservant and remember me and not forget thy maidservant, but will give thy maidservant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life. A razor shall never come on his head. Now it came about, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli was watching her mouth.

As for Hannah, she was speaking in her heart. Only her lips were not moving, but her voice was not heard. You see, she was so overwhelmed with her grief.

How many of you know what it is to cry so long that you can't cry anymore? How many of you know what it is to pray for something and you just can't seem to pray anymore? And Hannah had come to this place of feeling so rejected for so long that she moved her lips but her words didn't say anything. And her pastor thinks she's drunk. Her pastor thinks she's drunk.

Look what it, that's what it says. So Eli thought that she was drunk. You see, rejection is often the result of misunderstanding and misunderstood motives.

Here she's crying out to God, but her pastor falsely or temporarily falsely accuses her. But listen to her language, verse 15, but Hannah answered and said, No, my Lord, I am a woman oppressed in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the Lord.

Let me give you one more example in the New Testament. Go to the gospel of John, if you will, in the fifth chapter. And here we have the example of an unnamed man, an unnamed man.

But his story is very well known from this incident in chapter five. He is simply referred to in the gospel of John as the man by the side of the pool. In this pool, the angels would come down reportedly or supposedly and stir up the waters and whoever would go first into the troubled waters, these therapeutic waters would be healed.

And for 38 years, this man suffered from some type of terminal or I should say, not terminal, but permanent sickness, 38 years. And therefore, I believe that his life was, he had the feeding that life for God had dealt him a personal, a personal blow. To be sick is to feel a divine rejection.

The question is, why me, Lord? Why me? And I've seen the bitterness that grows out of this feeding that God has deprived someone of health or of happiness or the things that others have that they do not. And it seems to be indicated in this man's life. I've seen some people feel a sense of rejection.

He felt rejected because he was sick. Others feel rejected because they wish they had more in life than what they have. They may feel, some people feel, may life, in life, I'm too short, I'm too tall, I'm too ugly, I'm too dumb, I'm too this, I'm too that.

God, you left me, what's the expression? A day late and a dollar short? Lord, you came up short when it came to satisfying my needs. Jesus apparently understood this. He said in Matthew 6, 27, And which of you, by being anxious or thinking or hoping or wanting it, can add one cubit to his stature or his situation in life? And some people live their whole lives breeding over regrets because of unfulfilled wishes, wanting to be something else, wanting to be somewhere else, of building sandcastles in their mind and never being able to take possession of the castle.

And when they don't find anybody else to blame, sometimes they have an object for their blame, other times they don't. And when they don't, of course, it's always God who is blamed. The man by the side of the pool also had to deal with lost opportunities.

When Jesus said to him, Do you wish to get well? Listen to the self-pity in his answer. He said, Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirring. But while I am coming, another steps down before me.

Oh, listen, is that your testimony tonight? You look around and you always see somebody else got ahead of you. Somebody else in your family had it better than you. Somebody else you always are reaching out, trying to make it, but always, always, you never seem to get into the pool of Bethesda.

Now, how did these three deal with their rejection? What can we learn from this? And how can you face your rejection and not be crushed by it? First of all, I want you to go back to the story of Mephibosheth. We did not finish it. We left him.

David has fled into the wilderness. And he is in a state of depression. He will not wash his clothes.

He will not shave. He will not trim his mustache because of the situation. But then the news comes.

The news comes that the revolt has been put down. Absalom is dead. And now the word is that David is coming back to occupy the palace.

And so by some means, by some means, Mephibosheth is able to get somebody to saddle him on a donkey. And he goes out. Turn with me to 2 Samuel, the 19th chapter, if you will.

2 Samuel chapter 19. He rides out on his donkey. And he meets David.

Is he about to cross the Jordan to come back in and to possess the palace again and retake his throne, rightful throne? Now Mephibosheth knows that he's been slandered. And remember that David thinks that he's rejoined the rebellion against him. And so in verse 25, then Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king.

And he had neither cared for his feet nor trimmed his mustache nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he came home in peace. And it was then that he came from Jerusalem to meet the king. And the king said to him, Why do you wish? Why did you not go with me? Why did you not come out with me when I fled? And so he answered, O my lord, the king, my servant, deceived me.

For your servant said, I will saddle a donkey for myself that I may ride on it and go with the king. Because your servant is lame. Moreover, he has slandered your servant to my lord the king.

But my lord the king is like the angel of God. Therefore do what is good for thee. In verse 27, Moreover, excuse me, verse 28, For all my father's household was nothing but dead men before my lord the king.

Yet you set your servant among those who ate at your own table. What right do I have yet that I should complain any more to the king? Now there's a lot that we don't know about this. There's a lot of unknown details here.

But his words tell us something about how he dealt with rejection. And listen to me, and listen carefully. I believe that his love for David, and remember here, David is a type of Christ, that his love for David far outweighs his bitterness and the rejection that he faced.

There is one thing that Mephibosheth does not forget, that when he was an outcast, that there, sitting for many years as a forgotten, rejected young man in Lodibar, that David sent that word and brought him. And this is what he said, he said, For all my father's household was nothing but dead men before you the lord, before my lord the king. Yet you set your servant at his own table.

He realized that God had not forgotten him. David, a symbol of Christ, saw his condition. I told you about the young man before who received the birth certificate.

It so happened that morning, in the chapel, somebody had quoted a scripture and he heard it for the very first time, he just was new in the Lord. But he heard the scripture that said this, If my mother and my father forsake me, God will lift me up. He said, Oh brother Don, I'm so glad I heard that.

He said, I'm holding on to that. That young man had a concept of the table, the table of the Lord that he was sitting at the king's table. And I want to tell you tonight, my friend, there is one table where there is no rejection.

Jesus has spread that table for you and he calls out to us tonight, Come and dine. The master calleth, Come and dine. And he says, Sit at my table regularly.

Hallelujah. And when you sit at that table, my friend, all other rejections of men or whatever you have faced, as we sing it here, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of this world and the rejections of your past will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Hallelujah. Jesus has spread that table tonight and I want to tell you there's no discrimination at that table. There's no class distinction at that table.

There's no put-downs at that table. There's no put-offs at that table like the crippled Mephibosheth. This is the table that the king invites you to eat at here tonight.

Hallelujah. Songs of Solomon 1-4 says, Draw me and we will run after you. The king has brought me into his banqueting table and his banner over me is love.

We will rejoice in you and be glad. We will extol you more than wine. And it's that table, my friend, that those rejections that this young fellow mow.

He said to David, he said, Yes. He said, One thing far outweighs. You didn't forget me.

You opened your table to me. Jeremiah 31-3 says, The Lord appeared to us saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with loving kindness.

And again, I think he understood what Hosea said in Hosea 11-4. I led them with the cords of human kindness. With ties of love, I lifted the yoke of rejection from their neck and beat and bent down to feed them.

Hallelujah. But look again back at Samuel 2, Samuel 19 and verse 28, 27 and 28. Let me read it again.

Moreover, he has slandered your servant, my Lord, the king. But my Lord, the king, is like the angel of God. Therefore do what is good in thy sight.

For all my father's household were nothing but dead men before my Lord the king. Yet you set your servant among those who eat at your own table. And then I like what he says here.

He does not lay the actions of man. He does not charge it to God's account. Yes, Ziba had slandered him.

Yes, the maid, the nanny, had made a mistake perhaps and had dropped him, and caused him injury in his feet. But he says, What right do I have yet that I should complain any more to the king? In other words, you didn't do this to me, David. And what about Ziba? What about the rejection of men? Well, my friend, when you sit at the king's table, you eat the king's food and you catch the king's spirit.

And when you catch the king's spirit, my friend, that rejection, you'll lay it down before the altar and you'll be able to do what Jesus said. And what Stephen said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Do you believe that there is power at that table to give that to you and to release people from your charge? Hallelujah.

Let me tell you a little story tonight. I think of a woman whose husband became an alcoholic, been a Christian, backslid, became an alcoholic. They had four children.

Finally, he left. Either she kicked him out or I don't know the circumstances, but he was gone. And gone for seven years.

Needless to say, she had to work through grief, anger, feeling as a rejection, all of that. All of that she had to work through as a Christian. For seven years he was gone.

Came around occasionally at first, but then no more after a period of years. But then one day he came back to the Lord. One day he came, found the Lord, and ended up in the Teen Challenge rehabilitation program and farm down in Pennsylvania.

She had gotten word regarding it and because she was sitting at the table of the Lord, one day God did a supernatural work of forgiveness in her heart. And when she heard that her husband and her children's father had come back to the Lord and had been delivered from his alcoholism and was now in the rehabilitation program, she gathered the children around her one day and she told them the story of what had happened. And she said, I don't know what's going to happen.

I don't know if or when he's going to return, but if he does, when he knocks on that door, we're going to welcome the prodigal father home. And we're going to sit around the table and we're going to act as if he had never been gone. Now my friend, that only comes when you are sitting at the table of the Lord and God does a supernatural work in your heart.

In the meantime, he didn't know any of this. He didn't know a bit of this and so he prayed. He said, God, give me back my family.

He didn't know that she had been at the table of the Lord. He didn't know she had been eating at the king's table regularly and all that had taken place. And one day, he was assigned to go with a team into the city near where his estranged wife lived.

This is the end of side one. You may now turn the tape over to side two. And lo and behold, when they got to the church where they were to minister Sunday morning and Sunday night and he was a part of the team, lo and behold, it was a few blocks from his house.

And as they got there, he turned to some of the other young men in the car and said, you know, my ex-wife, my wife lives near here. And they were all excited. They said, oh, you must go see her.

He said, oh, I could not do that. I can't do that. Sunday afternoon in the church, he got down to pray.

And as he was praying, God spoke to him and said, go home, go home. And so he walked home and he knocked on that door with fear and trembling, knowing all the pain and sorrow that he had caused in that home, but also not knowing what God had done on the other side of the door. And when he opened that door, he was given that welcome home and he's been back ever since, my friend.

And that's what happens when you eat at the table of the Lord. I read to you before about Job. He said, all my acquaintances have forsaken me.

I feel rejected. But at the end of that chapter, Job, I believe it's the 19th chapter. He said in verse 25, he said, yes, all that's true.

All my acquaintances have forsaken me. But as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth and at last he will take his stand on the earth. Even if my skin is devoured, even if I am rejected, my body is rejected, I know my Redeemer liveth.

Hallelujah. That's a man who sat at the table of the Lord. Bob talked about the throne of God this morning.

The same truth. But let me talk to you quickly about Hannah. Hannah used her rejection to draw near to God.

When she did, she realized that the Lord wanted to birth something miraculous in her. Out of Hannah's painful rejection, God birthed a Samuel, the beginning of a new move of God. Her grief drew her towards the Lord, not away from Him.

Her rejection became the seeds upon which the Lord wanted to birth not just a child or any child, but a very, very special child. And in the midst of Hannah's struggle, she was purged of self-interest. And she cried out, not my will, but thine be done.

And through her long trial, she was weaned from earthly ambitions. She was weaned from wanting a child just for natural motherly instincts. Instead, she was awakened to a higher and holier purpose for her life.

And you see, our disappointments and temporal losses is often, if you will understand it, is a disguised blessing in your life because it can deepen your work, your walk with God. And out of it, He can birth a Samuel in your life and use out of that crucible of that pain and rejection and suffering, He can birth something that will minister to others. Remember Joseph and his brothers when they came down before him? Oh, turn with me, if you will, very quickly.

You've got to read this. You've got to see this. This is Joseph rejected.

You know the story. Probably one of the most popular, well-known stories, and it's a story of rejection. It says, then his brothers also came.

This is now after being reunited with them. And even though He had opened His heart to them, they still didn't believe that He had forgiven them. After their father died, they were still feeling that He was going to take vengeance on them.

And in fact, they sent a messenger to Joseph after his father died. Verse 16, So they sent a messenger to Joseph, saying, Your father charged before he died, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph, Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong. And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your fathers.

And you see, Joseph had already done that. But they didn't understand that. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

Verse 18, Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, Behold, we are your servants. But Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for I am in God's place. Do you know, my friend, I don't care what your situation is.

I don't care what your circumstances are. You are in God's place. You say, but you don't understand what I'm at.

You don't understand my situation. I may not, but God does. Joseph said, Do not be afraid, for I am in God's place.

As for you, you meant evil against me. But God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid.

I will provide for you and your little ones. So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Listen, my friend, out of that experience that you may have gone through, God wants to use you.

What did Paul say? Listen, 2 Corinthians 4, 3 and 4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us all in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. And you can substitute the word affliction and put in rejection. Let me read it again.

Who comforts us in all our rejection, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any other kind of rejection with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Now finally, in closing, what do we learn from the sick man? 38 years feeling rejected daily, lying by a pool. And what we learn from it is this. Is that, look at it in chapter 5. It says Jesus saw him lying there.

Let me turn quickly. What verse is that? Verse 6. And when Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already, had been already a long time in that condition. Listen my friend.

Bear with me. I'm just about closed. But please listen to me.

The thing that comforts my heart whenever I feel rejected is that Jesus knows. Jesus knows how long I've been there. He knows how I feel.

He knows how I hurt. He's touched with the feelings of our infirmities and our disappointments. And he will never suffer us to be rejected beyond which we are able to bear.

That is his promise. Do you believe that? Now the situation causing our rejection may not change. I'm not saying that.

Bob spoke to that very well this morning. When we walk in victory, it doesn't matter. People have this concept that it's going to wipe away and change everything.

The situation causing our rejection may not change. But listen. We can change.

And he can turn our mourning into dancing. Hallelujah. Go with me to Revelation chapter 2. Revelation chapter 2. John is writing to the church at Smyrna and to the angel of the church.

Verse 8 in Smyrna, write, The first and the last who was dead and has come to life says this. Look at verse 10. Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison. He's about to cast some of you into prison that you may be tested. And you will have tribulation ten days.

And ten means complete. It means full, total, which indicates that perhaps death was waiting for them because he said be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. And so there was no promise necessarily of escape.

But look at verse 9. Look at verse 9 as he writes to them. And verse 9 in my Bible is in a quote. And the first two words are the same thing, the same principle of what he said to the man at the side of the pool.

He simply says here, I know. He says, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are synagogue of Satan.

Do not fear. To the man beside the pool living in rejection, Jesus said, I know. I see you and know exactly how long you've been in that condition.

And tonight I want to ask you this. Are you that man? Are you that woman? I say to you tonight, if you have felt the sting of a divorce, separation, or rejection, I say to you, young man, young teenager, have you felt it in your life? I say it to you, young girlfriend who has felt the sting of rejection. I say to some young minister tonight, have you felt the sting of rejection? The Lord wants to say to you what he said to the church at Smyrna.

He says to you tonight, I know. I know I see you lying beside that pool of rejection. And he wants you to know that he's greater than your rejection.

You are his Mephibosheth, who calls you to the king's table. And Jesus is at that table. And there's healing at that table.

And there's acceptance at that table. And there's forgiveness at that table tonight. I say to you, mother or ex-wife, are you fighting still, emotional, rolly coaster, because of being rejected? Worse, have you been abandoned, physically or emotionally? Jesus says, I know.

He says, I see you sitting by that pool alone. And he says to you tonight, do you want to be well? He says, if you want to be well, come sit at my table. You must choose whether to remain in your rejection, or even in your self-pity, and remain by the side of the pool.

Or you can come to Jesus, and you can eat regularly at his table. And he, my friend, will minister to your rejection. Hallelujah.

Often rejected people become overly sensitive people. They keep thinking other people are still rejecting them, even when they have no reasonable basis for that rejection. In other words, there are some people who are what we call rejection-prone personalities.

And every time somebody says something to them, or looks at them a certain way, or says a certain thing, they feel crushed, they feel rejected. In fact, sometimes unconsciously, they even do things, they're not even aware of it, to be rejected, because they feel they're not worthy to sit at the king's table. And Jesus said, if you've got a thin skin, he'll put some thickness on it here tonight.

Hallelujah. He said, I know. You know what he knows? He knows what caused you to do that.

He knows what causes you to be that way. He knows the hurt that you've gone through. He says, I understand, I understand.

But he also says that he wants to make you well. Hallelujah. And you know the worst thing about rejection is that if you take it so far, and you're not healed from it, that in your feeling of rejection, you turn and reject God.

David, Pastor David spoke last Sunday night about Cain, Cain's offering that was rejected. And when he was rejected, he got angry, and he rejected the ways of the Lord, and became a murderer. And I want to tell you tonight, if we would go out on the street and stop 10 people, I dare say that a good majority of those 10 that you talk to somehow will have something in their life that they would point to as a justification for having rejected the Lord.

And tonight, my friend, that's the worst thing that you could do with your rejection. But regardless of what your state is tonight, the table is open and available for you to come. And he'll deal with your rejection.

He'll heal that. Do you want to be well? Do you want to be well? He will make you well tonight. Praise his name.

Let's stand together.