E.M. Bounds
For Bounds, prayer was as natural as breathing. He said, “Prayer should not be regarded as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.”
For Bounds, prayer was as natural as breathing. He said, “Prayer should not be regarded as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.”
Those of us looking at David's life may use different words to say the same thing about his fatal experience with Bathsheba. We might call it the most distressing episode of David's life; some will see it as an exceedingly dark day; others will lament how the mighty have fallen.
To summarize Scripture, the issue is not that possessions are wrong. It’s our attitude toward them. It is the LOVE of money and things that Scripture condemns. Anything we trust in besides God is an idol.
Looking at 2 Samuel 7, we found David enjoying a brief time of relief from the demands of his role as king…an interlude of quietness. Now we find him in a similar context. He was thinking back over his past.
Some experiences in the Christian life are a mystery. Nothing is necessarily wrong or missing in your walk with the Lord, but for some unexplainable reason He places a definite restraint on you. His denial can lead to disillusionment or be used as a cause for continued growth in obedience. David experienced that mysterious “no” at a crucial juncture in his life. Let's see how he handled it.
Each one of us faces our own kinds of temptations that threaten to lure us away from God's best for us. Chuck Swindoll describes sure ways to resist these lures.
The chapter of Scripture 2 Samuel 6 involves all that transpired in moving the ark to the capital city and David's response to its presence.
Demons cannot possess a believer. They do not have the authority to do so. The believer belongs to Christ, and neither Satan nor his demons can reclaim one who belongs to the Lord.
No one has ever known the experience of being promoted from a fugitive to a king overnight. It happened only once in Scripture—to David. With wisdom and humility, the new king took over a new throne because he had the same Lord.
In our study of David, we have come to the crossroads in his pilgrimage from the sheep to the throne…from an Israelite fugitive to the highest office in the land. And it is a death that altered David's direction—the death of King Saul.