2 Samuel 1:1-16 The word bereave means to deprive ruthlessly orby force. I believe the real agonizing pain of deathis its earthly finality.Being deprived or denied the presence of somebodywe love for the remainder of our life is the mostsevere of all heartaches. We talked about First Samuel chapter 30 last week.David returned to Ziklag…

I Samuel 30:1-31 The tree that never had to fightFor sun and sky and air and light,That stood out in the open plainAnd always got its share of rain,Never became a forest kingBut lived and died a scrubby thing. The man who never had to toilTo heaven from the common soil,Who never had to win…

I Samuel 29:1-11 Last week we looked at I Samuel 27 and saw David’sfaltering faith. He doubted that God would continuetaking care of him and attempted to take matters into hisown hands by fleeing to the land of the Philistines. Hedeceived Achish the king of Gath and alluded that hewould fight for him against his…

I Samuel 27:1-12 & 28:1-2 I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear.Fear is not my native land; faith is.I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand inthe machinery of life; faith is the oil.I live better by faith and confidence than by fear,doubt and anxiety.In anxiety and worry, my being is…

I Samuel 26:1-25 Phil walks into his boss’s office one day and says,“Sir, I’ll be honest with you. I know the economyisn’t great, but I’ve got three companies after me,and I’d like to ask for a raise, respectfully.”After a few minutes of haggling, the boss finallyagrees to give him a 5 percent raise, and he…

Exodus 12:1-20; Luke 22:7-20 A young boy was bored one rainy day, so he pickedup the family Bible looking for interesting pictures.Paging through it, something fell out.Turns out, it was a large oak leaf that had beenpressed long ago between the pages. Heimmediately took it to his parents to proudlyannounce, “Look what I found in…

I Samuel 25:1-44 Today we are moving on to I Samuel 25. We are going to see once again the providence of God atwork in David’s life. This time however, we are going tosee David respond in the flesh rather than the spirit.Let’s pray and ask God to teach us His truth this morningas we…

I Samuel 24:16-22 In the Christian catacombs of Rome, the following story (retold inModern English) was found: “A rich man named Proculus had hundreds of slaves. Theslave named Paulus was so trustworthy that Proculusmade him the steward over his whole household. Oneday Proculus took Paulus with him to the slave market tobuy some new workers.…

Genesis 6-8 Happy Father’s Day to all the dads.In honor of our dad’s I thought I would share a fewdad jokes about dads. What did Dad say about the lawn mower race?“It was cutting-edge competition!” What do you call a Dad who tells the same joketwice?Consistent. Classic. Committed. Why did Dad get kicked out of…

I Samuel 24:1-15 When a Michigan deer hunter found a 100-poundbuck struggling to get out of a mud-bog in which itwas hopelessly stuck, the hunter couldn’t bringhimself to squeeze the trigger. Instead, he and hishunting partner snared the animal with a rope andpulled it out of the mud. The deer then bolted tofreedom. The hunter…