Power With the Knife Down: The Road Back After Failure

The recovery packet still has last month's we-will-restore sentence. After a named wreck this church already finished explaining, one hallway said they should pay. The room received that sentence as if it were the only public news a restored name is allowed to keep.

A sponsor two seats over printed the restraint line on the packet. He also signed the first note that left the named work under a they-should-pay file. He has a sentence about healing. He has not asked who still waits with the cloth.

This is a sermon for a church that already knows how to survive a wreck and does not know how to come back without dressing the return in someone else's blade. If you preach 1 Samuel 24 as a map of anyone's private relapse, you will lie. If you preach it as David in En Gedi, a real king in a real cave, a cut robe, a checked company, and a God who will judge between them, you give this church a God who will not let payback wear the name of repentance.

Text

Hear the cave as Holy Scripture tells it, from the World English Bible: "When Saul had returned from following the Philistines, he was told, “Behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi.” Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men on the rocks of the wild goats. He came to the sheep pens by the way, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were staying in the innermost parts of the cave.

David’s men said to him, “Behold, the day of which Yahweh said to you, ‘Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’” Then David arose and cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe secretly. Afterward, David’s heart struck him because he had cut off Saul’s skirt.