Given in a meeting for ministry, St Ives

So David and his men recovered all; they secured more than they had lost and they now had spoil from the enemy that had attacked them. I think that is a feature of enlargement; they obtained more than they had before, but that was not the end of the enlargement. We see what happened next. These men of Belial said that there was to be no share of the spoil for those who had been too exhausted to follow with them, but there was something established in Israel as a result of David’s having gone through this pressure. The enlargement was not only a matter as to the spoil, great though that was, but there was a new ordinance for Israel established after this experience. “For as his share is that goes down to the battle, so shall his share be that abides by the baggage: they shall share alike”. David can say that. If those who had been exhausted had not looked after the baggage, the baggage might have been taken. So he made an ordinance for Israel, an ordinance for the whole nation, something established by David as having experienced enlargement. What intense pressure had been on them, and now what enlargement there is.

And it does not stop with the spoil – it is not that the wealth of the spoil was kept only by those who went with David and the men who looked after the baggage. He “sent of the spoil to the elders of Judah, to his friends, saying, Behold a present for you of the spoil of the enemies of Jehovah”. It was what God had given him from the enemies of Jehovah – he distributed it to others. The spoil was distributed widely; what a result in that way from a man who knew what it was to be with God in a time of pressure. The enlargement was for David, but he was such a man that the increase of what God had provided for them was distributed to the benefit of others as well.

I turn to the second book of Samuel, and here it is the other way about. In the first book of Samuel, there was what was extra, as it were, that benefited others. But this well-known passage describes when David was in the stronghold, when these three mighty men “went down, and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam”. I am not saying anything against them being there; it was, as it says here, in the stronghold. David was then in the stronghold – a good place to be, a protected place, but still, it did not give David full liberty to proceed in what God would have him to do. He was restricted in that way. He accepted that limitation, there was pressure in that way, and yet David was protecting those who had come to him. We read about those gathering around him in the cave in 1 Samuel 22; it says, “And the prophet Gad said to David, Abide not in the stronghold; depart, and go into the land of Judah. Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hareth” (v.5). In due time, God told David to move, but at this point he was restricted and he was feeling it. He was feeling the departure of Jonathan, one he knew so well.

And then David thought of Bethlehem. I do not want to speak on the natural line of where he was brought up, but as a man who was with God, even as a youth, David would have known what God had provided for him in Bethlehem. He would have known the well in the gate. Just think a little of that well and where it was in Bethlehem, the “well of Bethlehem, which is in the gate!”. We sometimes speak of the gate as representing administration, but I would like to speak of it simply as a well that was there at the entrance to Bethlehem, near the entrance.

If you were going out of Bethlehem on a journey, whether you had been a visitor there, or whether you belonged there, you could draw that water, draw something that speaks of the Spirit, the resources that were there to set you on in your journey. If you had just come to Bethlehem on a journey, what supplies there

would have been for you. David would have valued that well; he longed to have some of that water. I suppose from the experience of his youth, he knew that there was something special about it and he desired to have some of it. We know the story of those who were moved by his longing, and they brought him some of that water.

So here David was, feeling the pressure, not being able to go about in a general way, and not able to go to that well. He knew that it was a fine resource which God had provided, and the men brought of it. What an answer to David’s longings! “In pressure thou hast enlarged me”. This thought then comes to David; ‘This water is not for me, it is for God’. This was not a formal sacrifice, it was not according to the prescriptions in Leviticus: this was a pouring out. He “poured it out to Jehovah”.

Beloved, if I see someone who has been able to help me, as these men had in bringing this water, if I have gone through testing and someone has helped me, it is not only a matter of thanking the person who helped me, but have I become enlarged so that the profit I have received as a result yields for God Himself? David says, “Be it far from me, Jehovah, that I should do this thing! Is it not the blood of the men that went at the risk of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it”. He had been brought in his love to see the value of having such men, and appreciate the risk they had taken. He appreciated all that, and the final thing was that he offered it to God Himself; he “poured it out to Jehovah”. It was all poured out; it was not that David drank some and poured out some, but it was all for God.

In 1 Samuel, it was what David, having known the pressure, had recovered and then distributed to his friends and to all Israel, and in this scripture, it is the other way about; it is what others obtained for David, and what God received from him.

May we all find something for ourselves from what has been said, for the Lord’s name’s sake.

23 November 2021

A John E Temple