People Who Need The Savior

I Samuel 22.2

Everyone does. So many today are in need of Christ.
Lives all around us are people who are broken. "There are a lot of broken hearts out there, Pastor Larry."- Rudy Migliore

There are broken hearts and broken dreams from broken promises.

Everyone needs Jesus. All have sinned. All need to be saved.
Only those who realize it come. Only those who hearts break because they have sinned.

We look at people and say, "What a great Christian they would be!" or "I cannot understand why they don't ask the LORD into their heart."
First, only the Spirit can draw them
1 Corinthians 12:3 and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
Second, they must sense their need and believe that Christ is the answer.
They must humble themselves or acknowledge that God has humbled them.

Look at the men who sought out David...
I Samuel 22.2
Those who were distressed, in debt and discontent wanted to be with a man who had a mark of death on him, a man who was the number one most wanted man in the kingdom, a man who was hated... and who had the anointing of God upon him.

Those who gathered to David were:

1- Distressed = straits, distress, stress, anguish
Receptive seasons
death, divorce, disease, devastation

Those who find themselves between a rock and a hard place,
those who feel life being squeezed out of them.

People facing loss, facing situations beyond themselves need the LORD.

His brothers were among them!
1 Samuel 22:1-2 David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there.

His brothers had their problems with David's anointing. But here they seem to have had a change of heart. It must have been humbling for them to leave Bethlehem for the cave in Adullam. It must have been humbling for them to be under David's direction. So much better to submit early on to God's choices. We will find ourselves submitting them sooner or later. Since Saul would have gone after David's family these brothers probably were among those who were distressed. They had to flee. It is interesting they fled to David as well as the others. Obviously they were seeing that he was anointed by the LORD.

All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander. About four hundred men were with him.

Perhaps it was Saul's behavior that made them distressed. It could be that those who met up with David and became his mighty men saw the things King Saul was doing to him and to his own son, Jonathan and said, "Enough!"

They had to be pretty distressed. Joining forces with David put a mark of death on them similar to the disciples with Jesus in the Garden.

One of the worst kind of leaders to serve under is a jealous paranoid one. Saul had become that kind.

In Psalm 57:6 David prayed, "They spread a net for my feet—I was bowed down in distress." David was able to understand them because he was going through what they were. He could speak to their souls. He became their leader.

Be on the watch! People who are distressed often open their hearts to the LORD. They come to Christ and become part of the LORD's army.


A second group gathered around David
2- In Debt = in usury, credit maxed

Who realize the price of their sins.
Many in debt of sin are under a load they can no longer carry. They have worn themselves out and in desperation they call out to the LORD.
What joy when they realize that
The Savior paid it all

No wonder the hymn writer wrote:
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe,
Sin had left the crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

The words to the song Jesus Paid It All were written by Elvina Hall (1822-1889) in 1865. Elvina was a member of the Monument Street Methodist Church in Baltimore, Maryland. The Choir Director of the same church was John Thomas Grape (1835-1915). Unaware of Elvina's composition, Grape composed a tune he called All To Christ I Owe.

The pastor of Monument Street Methodist Church, Rev. George W. Schreck heard the music written by Grape and immediately thought of the verse written by another of his parishioners, Elvina Hall. At the pastor's suggestion, Hall's lyrics and Grape's music were combined, and then sent to Professor Theodore Perkins, publisher of the periodical Sabbath Carols. The hymn quickly became a favorite and has been published in and sung from hymnals across America ever since.

Perhaps it was the personal truth of this song that has touched the hearts of believers which has made so well loved for almost 150 years. It speaks of our desperateness, our inability to pay the debt of our sins and the wonder and awe of Jesus doing what we could not do.

Christ paid the debt of our sins. Those in debt, when they see Who Christ is, come to Him for relief and deliverance.


Finally a third group gathered around David those who were...
3- Discontent
bitterness at the end of life, pain, crying

Who are finding out the promises of this world, the flesh and the devil are empty and devoid of lasting joy.
I met Jesus at the crossroads...

All who try to live without Christ are ultimately disappointed.
History is full of laments of men who lived without God.
These are tragic stories.

Everyone who calls upon the Name of the LORD will be saved.
Saved from the eternal consequences of sin. Home in heaven.
Saved from the temporal consequences. Here on the earth.
Living for Christ eliminates worries and sorrows that those who do not walk with the LORD have. For example a person who steals and temporarily gets away with it really is not getting away with it in his heart, soul and mind... in his conscience. Those who have seared their consciences are to be pitied.

One of God's gifts for followers of Jesus is contentment.
1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
Only the LORD can bring contentment to a person's heart.

Perhaps some of these remembered the early days of Saul, now decades ago. They remembered the promise, the strength the young king brought to the nation and to their hearts. More than likely they heard about it from their fathers as a number of years had passed since he became king.

Few had done what Saul did.
"He united a people and founded a kingdom. He created an army out of thin air. He won battles in the power of God, defeated the enemy again and again as few men ever have.
He was immersed in the Spirit of God, prophesied, said unprecedented things by the Spirit resting upon him." -Gene Edwards

Now as Saul's time was closing out (even though there was a decade left in his rule at this point), the true colors of his heart were coming through.
It was a bitter, very bitter end. Disobedience to God always is. Rebellion against the LORD brings a person down. Going one's own way instead of God's way always results in ruin.
Proverbs 3.5-6

They came to David, those who were distressed, in debt and discontent. They followed him.

These are the kind of people looking for the Savior today. They don't know what they are looking for. We need to point them to Christ! We are His Witnesses.
I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Philemon 5