In His World No.12 Compassion

Loving God and Father, we come before your Holy Throne. In the blessed name of Jesus Christ, your Son and ever our Saviour, we thank you for the opportunity of coming here, some as a result of determined action, others perhaps at the human level through a fluke of circumstances. But whatever brought us here on this bitterly cold night, we thank you for an opportunity of being able to come around your Word and around this table.

We ask that the whole flow of this service may be directed not by man, but by your Spirit. We would hoist ourselves to the wind of the Spirit and ask you to blow in and help us to follow and to go the course that he wants us to take. We pray that this service shall become meaningful to everyone, even the most ignorant of spiritual things who happens to be here at present.

We thank you, beloved Lord, for the offer of the Gospel. We thank you for the free mercy and pardon of our God. We praise you for your compassionate nature.

We thank you that your mercies are new every morning, and that you are a God who deals kindly and tenderly with people like ourselves. So come upon us, because we ask these things in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

Now we are very glad indeed to have you with us tonight. We're going to be thinking about the mercy and the compassion of God. There's not one person here who is redeemed who would argue with the fact that the heart of the Gospel is the revelation of the kindliness of our Lord.

As we were reminded this morning, we're not saved because of anything that we've done, because of any good that there is in us. We're saved as a result of God's tenderness towards us. And there's a hymn that speaks of that particularly.

It's number 33 in hymns of praise, or rather mission praise. And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood? Died he for me who caused his pain, for me who him to death pursued. It's an experimental hymn.

That means to say that it speaks about something that all of us ought to have gone through. If we can sing this hymn properly. Verse four.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. That's not the name of our organist alone.

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free.

I rose, went forth and followed thee. We're going to praise God in the singing of the hymn. At the same time, we'll praise him as we bring our evening offering towards the work of God here in Worthing, elsewhere in Sussex and indeed in other parts of the world.

So we'll stand, sing and give all at the same time. Number 33. Let's turn in God's holy and inspired word to the first book of Samuel in chapter 30.

The first book of Samuel in chapter 30. One of the things that we emphasize at the tab is the importance of the word of God. It's the reason why the Bible is open here on the pulpit, not just as an ornament, but because central to our belief is that the word of God is authoritative.

It speaks to us today. And it's our concern not only to preach it, but to teach people how to read it, to understand it, hopefully to live their lives by it, and to demonstrate in weighting our preaching into the Old Testament, as well as in the New Testament, that both these books are inspired. In fact, they are not two books.

They are one book. The Holy Spirit inspiring both the old and the new section of the Bible. There is a sense in which when you read the Old Testament, it is illustrative of the new.

That means to say that a lot of the teaching that you find in the New Testament is actually concealed within the old. So having a complete Bible, we have this advantage over against, say, the people in the early church. We can read the New Testament and discover how it throws light on the Old Testament and vice versa.

So I hope you're not just people of the New Testament. I hope you read the Old Testament. I hope you'll at least make the effort to try to read through the whole Bible this year.

If you were to take two chapters of the Old Testament and one of the New today, and maybe one of the Psalms too, which wouldn't take you terribly long, then you would easily get through the Bible in the course of one year. So there's a challenge. Make it a New Year's resolution.

We're only on to the third day. So there's an opportunity still to pick it up and run with it and see if you can get through the whole of this blessed book that we call the Bible in one year. Now, having read this, I'm going to preach.

And then our brother Adrian is going to lead us in some worship and take us around the Lord's table. At least the songs will help to do this. That's not the sort of second part of the service that we hook onto the first.

It's actually part of the whole. And what we're inviting people to do is, if they love the Lord Jesus as their Savior, when bread and wine is passed to them, for them to take the bread and wine and to eat and drink in remembrance of Him. It's an active commitment.

And for some of us, all of us here at the beginning of this New Year, or virtually the beginning, it's an opportunity for us again to renew our vow and our covenant that we belong to the Lord God through the grace of our Savior. And then later on, some of our brothers who are moving into specific ministries or changing ministries and moving into others, they will be recognized as we pray for them, lay hands on them. And as far as a couple are concerned, introduce them to the main congregation here, probably for the first time.

So if you like, that sets the agenda for our service this evening. But let's come to the vital part of the reading and the explanation of Scripture. 1 Samuel and chapter 30.

So do pay attention to the reading and maybe check with someone else alongside you. If you don't have a Bible yourself, we're going to read all the verses. 1 Samuel 30.

David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burnt it and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old.

They killed none of them but carried them off as they went on their way. When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.

David's two wives had been captured, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel. David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him. Each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters.

But David found strength in the Lord his God. Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, bring me the ephod. Abiathar brought it to him.

And David inquired of the Lord, shall I pursue this raiding party? Will I overtake them? Pursue them, he answered. You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue. David and the 600 men with him came to the Bezor ravine where some stayed behind, for 200 men were too exhausted to cross the ravine.

But David and 400 men continued the pursuit. They found an Egyptian in a field and brought him to David. They gave him water to drink and food to eat, part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins.

He ate and was revived for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three days and three nights. David asked him, to whom do you belong and where do you come from? He said, I am an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned me when I became ill three days ago.

We raided the Negev of the Kerethites and the territory belonging to Judah and the Negev of Caleb, and we burned Ziklac. David asked him, can you lead me down to this raiding party? He answered, swear to me before God that you will not kill me or hand me over to my master and I will take you down to them. He led David down and there they were scattered over the countryside, eating, drinking and reveling because of the great amount of plunder they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from Judah.

David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day and none of them got away except 400 young men who rode off on camels and fled. David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives. Nothing was missing, young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken.

David brought everything back. He took all the flocks and herds and his men drove them ahead of the other livestock, saying, this is David's plunder. Then David came to the 200 men who had been too exhausted to follow him and who were left behind at the Bezor ravine.

They came out to meet David and the people with him. As David and his men approached, he greeted them. But all the evil men and troublemakers among David's followers said, because they did not go out with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered.

However, each man may take his wife and children and go. David replied, no, my brothers, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He has protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us.

Who will listen to what you say? The share of the men who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All shall share alike. David made this a statute and ordinance for Israel from that day to this.

When David arrived in Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah who were his friends saying, here is a present for you from the plunder of the Lord's enemies. He sent it to those who were in Bethel, Ramoth, Negev, and Jatir. To those in Arwa, Shifmoth, Eshtioma, and Rachel.

To those in the towns of the Jeri, Melites, and the Kenites. To those in Homer, Bor-ashen, Atak, and Hebron. I wish I got Tim Saunders to read this.

And to those in all the other places where David and his men had roamed. Well, that is the word of the Lord. And the passage that we focus our attention on particularly, well, it's from the 11th verse through to the 14th verse.

And I want to talk to you about the compassion of God. The compassions of God. Do you know what? The word compassion means, it's one of the most beautiful words in the English language.

I suppose associated with it is the word mercy, or if you like the word kindness. And one of the things that you need to know at the beginning of this year, probably you knew it already, but it needs to be underlined in your understanding is this, that God is a kind and a compassionate God. The Bible says, I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion in the book of Exodus.

And our beloved Lord, when a lot of people were with Him who had listened to Him preach for many hours and the day was almost at its end, well, it said of Him, He had compassion on the multitude because they hadn't eaten. Our Lord was always exercising thought and care towards people. And you may have come into the tab this evening and you feel that nobody has any interest in your life whatsoever.

I want to tell you that that's wrong. God is full of compassion towards you and He wants you to benefit by that soft heart that He has when He considers you as a person, even though He can be angry at your sin. So sometimes in the Old Testament, you get a little cameo.

You know what a cameo is? It's a picture. If I had been able to show one or two pictures of South Africa this evening and pass them around the gallery or downstairs in our large congregation, then you would have a little insight as to the sort of country in which my wife was born just a few years or so ago. You'd have got a cameo.

And in the Old Testament, you sometimes get in the historical narrative a cameo of the heart of God and the way that He deals with ordinary people. So here's a man who we put the spotlight on and I want to speak to you first of all about the circumstances that he was in. The circumstances he was in.

He's an Egyptian and you read of him, as I say, from the 11th verse. Now before you focus in on him, you've got to realize this, that King David is in trouble. You got the gist of the Bible reading, didn't you? What has happened is the Amalekites have attacked David and they've taken not only his family, but they've taken the family of his fighting men and as a result, there's mutiny in the camp.

Why has David been so careless as to allow the Amalekites to invade his territory? And as I say, there's anger directed towards him. And it so happens that in the theater of conflict, some of David's men come across a most wretched, unfortunate fellow. They found, verse 11, an Egyptian in the field and they brought him to David.

This man was far away from home, far away from the place where he had been born. He was, if you like, in the Old Testament, an example of the prodigal in the new, a long way from his moorings and in great difficulty. As all of us were at some time and some of us are now in need of help and perhaps not even recognizing that help is available.

Moreover, not only was he far away from home, but he was not in charge of his own life. When this man responds to David's question as to who he is, he says, I am an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite, far from home, removed from freedom. And it seems to me that that's another common denominator that he has with the prodigal son.

And maybe now you can begin to identify yourself and forget about the Amalekite because in one sense, he's not so important. What is important is the application of God's word to us today in the 20th century. You see, the Bible tells us that when a man is away from God, he's actually in the slavery of sin.

That's why Jesus, when he describes his ministry, says that he has come to set the captive free. He who believes in the son is free indeed. And there are many men and women, boys and girls.

There was a sensational article that brought tears to my eyes in the Guardian this weekend, the supplement yesterday, which spoke of nine, 10, and 11-year-old kids in the North and in the Midlands of England who are already hardened into a life of crime. And the projection of criminality amongst the younger part of our society today in the 20th century is so great that if the police have got it right, then thinking spiritual people are constantly to be in prayer for our younger generation. We have Egyptians far away from home.

People who are not in charge of their own circumstances on the streets of our capital cities, even in this so-called respectable town of Worthing. And what is more about this man is, not only was he away from home, not only was he not in charge of his own life, but he was utterly expendable. Look, when David's men find him and they hoist him in front of David, not only does he tell David who he is in terms of his country of origin and his situation at the moment, but he tells us, my master abandoned me when I became ill three days ago.

All the cheapness of human life. Not only yesteryear, but today, Croatia, Serbia, 440 people killed in South Africa while I was there. And all I could say to some of the large crowds who gathered in some of the meetings in South Africa by way of compensation is, it's not much better elsewhere in our world today.

This fellow took ill and his Amalekite master just released him with the heat of the sun and the obvious possibility of dying from thirst to be his lot. What an awful thing just to be cast adrift on the sea of life. No anchorage, no place to go, feeling utterly homeless and unwanted.

I've seen it in at least 10 townships in the last few days, either from the air or driving through the Transvaal. But I want to tell you this, that God has compassion for such people, not only yesteryear, but also today. You see, David who interviews this Amalekite is an anticipation of a greater than David who will come to this world.

We sing about him in the carols, don't we? Once in royal David's city, a greater than David is born. And sometimes in the Old Testament, when you read of David, he catches a little bit of the light which will come to its fullness in the personality of his greatest son, of his greatest descendant, when our Lord Jesus comes on earth. And as David's men were privy to the interview, twixt David and this Egyptian.

So we have some idea as we read scripture of the way that the Lord Jesus encounters those who are in desperate need in his day and our day. So here is a verse that speaks of the circumstances in which this wretched man was in, but it goes on and it tells you further about the kindnesses he was shown. Do you know there's a great deal of need in our world today for people just to be kind.

And that sounds slush and sentimental, but it's so true. To show the kindness of God to somebody in the time that you give them, in offering them some help, perhaps physically and practically. Jesus came into the world to show the kindness of God.

And here you find David doing exactly the same and his men towards this wretched, Egyptian. It was so unexpected. Look at verse 11.

They gave him water to drink and food to eat. Can you imagine a Croatian found by a Serbian being so treated today? The astonishing thing about God, as I was trying to show the congregation this morning and some of you were present then, is that he singles out those who don't deserve his keseth. That's the Hebrew word for mercy, for favor.

He singles them out and he pours, in an unexpected fashion, his grace and his love towards them. This is why we sang that first hymn, And can it be that I should gain? And Newton's hymn could have been a rival choice. Amazing grace.

How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. My chains fell off. My heart was free.

I rose, went forth and followed thee. Oh yes, I know I get a bit worked up in the pulpit, but can you preach on these things without getting worked up? Not in terms of theatrically trying to summon your emotions, but God in heaven has given us emotions to express and to react to the love that he prophesied us through our Lord Jesus Christ. The kindness that is shown to this man.

It was unexpected. And what's more, it was undeserved. After all, he'd been on the side of the enemy.

You say, but he was a slave. Nonetheless, as far as David's men were concerned, this fellow was in the ranks of the Amalekites. The Amalekites in scripture, in the Old Testament, they always stand for those who are the enemies of God.

And Jesus said, if you're not with me, you're against me. So when you read the Old Testament and you come across the Amalekites, there you've got an illustration of what Jesus was speaking of. And what you must do is take it from the Old Testament and translate it into the new.

The Old Testament, if you like, is the negative. The New Testament is the fully fledged photograph. You're either with him or you're against him.

You're either enslaved or you're free. And if you're free, well, it's as the result of discovering at some stage in your life, his grace, his mercy. In this case, it was unexpected.

It was undeserved. And what's more, it was costly. They gave him good food.

They gave him water in conditions where food was not that easily obtainable. You can demonstrate that by looking earlier in the chapter and discovering that David had to leave some of his men who were utterly exhausted. They couldn't go with him into the thick of the battle simply because, well, they didn't have all the resources that were necessary to keep body and soul together.

And yet this wretched Egyptian owned by an Amalekite is fed and given water to drink. You know, the salvation that you were offered is a very costly thing. There is no son or daughter of Adam here who claims to be a Christian, who has any right to play fast and loose with the grace of God.

Though we only turned in from Africa yesterday, my wife had me Marks and Spencers in the afternoon. I so love Marks and Spencers and saints on a Saturday afternoon. It's a real joy after being in Africa to go there.

And they got bargains. They're cheap. They're not free.

What God offers at the cross is free, but it's not cheap. To save you from your sins costs the greatest sacrifice that this world has ever known. The precious blood that flowed from the veins of His Son, the breaking of the body of our beloved Lord, the piercing of those hands which had been laid upon lepers and were responsible at the human level for bringing physical recovery to the sick.

That was the cost of your redemption, my redemption. The kindness of God, unexpected, undeserved, and costly. They found an Egyptian in a field.

They brought him to David. Then David asked him, to whom do you belong? And where do you come from? And that's a timeless question which I put to everyone in our congregation this evening. To whom do you belong? Do you belong to the Christ or do you belong to the power of the Prince of this world? You're either with Him or you're against Him.

Choose this day, says Joshua, who you will serve. But know this, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I'm asking you to put your flag up to the mosque, to mail your colours this evening.

Again, take the bread and take the wine and say, as for me and my house, this is our decision. When those Roman soldiers took the oath, they would take their fists and beat it across their breasts. And they would say, as for them, they will die for Caesar if necessary.

It was the imperium. It was the imperial oath that they took. And very often in the New Testament, which was actually birthed in a sort of Roman culture, the sacramentum is referred to there.

Not the vow that you take to Caesar, but the vow that you take to Almighty God, the vow that you take to the Prince that came into our world, our Lord Jesus Christ. And as you take your bread and as you take your wine, you're saying, yes, this is my oath. I am showing where I now come from and to whom I belong.

And Jesus says, do this, do it often, in remembrance of me. And those early Christians, not just once a week, but often on the weekdays too, would renew their oath. They would take their vows.

This man is asked where he comes from, to whom he belongs. And he gives the answer that we've already investigated. But he makes a response to the kindliness of David.

And he does so in a threefold way. He says to David that he is prepared to help the King, provided David will give him an assurance that from this time on, he has passed from the service of the Amalekites into the service of the Hebrews, from the people of this world to the children of God. And so this pagan brings into his vocabulary not the name of the Egyptian gods, nor the name of the Amalekite gods.

He has David on his honor. And he says, swear to me before God that you will not kill me or hand me over. Swear to me before God that if I cooperate with you, you will accept me as though I was one of yours.

And you know, that's the wonderful thing about our beloved Lord. He wants you to have an assurance that you've ceased from being an Amalekite. And so to speak, you've become a Hebrew.

You've passed from the ranks of this children, the children of this world into the domain of the people of God. He doesn't just want you to know that incidentally simply because Scripture says so. That's one level of assurance.

And it's a wonderful level. It's the prime level of assurance. But it's not the only level.

He wants you to know it through the Word and through the Spirit. That's the reason why He sends His Spirit into the world. That's the reason why we talk of the baptism of the Spirit.

That sense of knowing that you belong to God, that you have passed, if you like, into the family of David's greatest son. Swear to me, King Jesus, that when I surrender myself to you and submit to your authority, you will make me as though I was one of yours. And King Jesus responds, all who come unto me, I will in no wise cast out.

He saves everyone. Repentant Egyptians. He saves those who recognize their need to pass from one category of people to another.

From the darkness of this world into the light of the glorious kingdom of God. So, He responds by asking for assurance. And then He willingly agrees to be as one of David's men.

Swear to me before God that you will not kill me or hand me over to my master, and I will take you down to them. And then you discover He links Himself with David. He led David down.

He involves Himself in David's work. I always love to hear the testimony of Hugh Hill and of my good friend John Makara and many another who were converted in the middle years of their lives. I love to see something of the passion for evangelism that they have and the expertise that they've developed.

Because, well, perhaps they know a little bit more of the strategy of the kingdom of darkness than some of us who were saved in our childhood days. And they go back to the very territory from which they came. As Hugh does so often, and ministers amongst the men in the pubs and the places where I was never allowed to go as a boy.

But they go there in a different fashion, with a different intention. They go back to the territory of the Amalekites. They know something of the strategy of the evil one.

But now they're on David's side. Now they're on Jesus' side. And they go back.

For what reason? Well, to take from the powers, the evil forces of this world, the plunder that has been extracted and to bring out from the kingdom of darkness all those who belong to God. This is a royal thing. You see, we're saved not to be passive, not to sit on the rocking chair because as the Negro spiritual tells us, the Lord won't have any lazy bones there.

We are saved for service. And this is what this Egyptian slave demonstrates. He uses his knowledge of the enemy to the advantage of the forces of righteousness.

And he takes David and his men into the territory of the Amalekites. And ere long, David has his wives, his family back, and all the relatives of his men are back and all the plunder is restored. And the reason is, at the human level, well, this Egyptian slave has moved from one category to another category.

In New Testament terminology, he has been saved. He has responded to the mercies, the compassions of God. The Hebrews are very descriptive sometimes in the sort of terminology that they use.

Let me have another run at trying to explain that. I'll approach it from a different angle. I love to study words.

The history of words is called technically etymology. And it's interesting in the English vernacular, but it's even more interesting in the Hebrew. Now, you remember the story our beloved Lord tells, which has some common denominator with that in the Old Testament of the prodigal son.

I've made reference to it before. Well, you've got the picture of the father, haven't you? The prodigal limps back to the territory where he was born. And he's expecting to give a speech to the father when he's found him.

But what he discovers is that his father actually has been looking for him for a long, long period. And when he sees this pig-smelling lad shuffling towards the home territory, the father rushes down the hillside. And the word is used in the Aramaic, compassion.

And if you put it through to the Hebrew and you check the origin, it has to do with the human body. The Hebrews believe, like the Greeks, that emotions actually are alerted within your physical frame. And compassion actually goes back to the physical property within your body that we call the intestines.

And if you translate it literally, it means that he was cut in his intestines. In other words, here is a figurative poetic description of the emotions, the feelings of a father towards his son. But not just an ordinary father, the God and father of our Lord Jesus.

So broken, so concerned about this lad. He's cut to the depths of his being and he rushes down the hill and he embraces his boy. And he says, this my son was lost, but he's found.

He was dead, but he's alive again. The compassions of God, the kindness of God, the mercy of God. And it's all illustrated in that little cameo, in that little picture in the Old Testament.

But have you responded to it? Have you acknowledged that Jesus is your Lord and your Savior? Then if so, renew the oath. Take the bread, take the wine and say this year, it's not going to be a horrible year. Like maybe last year was for some dignitaries in our country.

It's going to be a wonderful year because I'm going to live it for the glory of God.