The encouraging word today is going to be found in Second Samuel chapter 16 and I want to help you to see something here that will hopefully be an encouragement for you through whatever it is that you may be going through at this point in time in your life.

We all go through things, whether they’re health issues, financial issues, relationship issues, or anything in between. And it’s it’s easy to get discouraged as you’re going through those things. And it’s common just to pray and ask, Lord, you know, to just take all that stuff away. We like him just to rescue us from all of it and everything. And I pray that way too. And I would encourage you to pray that way if you’re going to get out of it, that’s the best way to get out of it. But sometimes it’s just not his will for us to get out of it.

Sometimes we need to go through some things and by going through some things, that’s going to build some character in us. It’s going to build our spirit and it’s going to build our faith. Unfortunately, if you don’t ever go through anything, anything like that, then those things aren’t going to be built up. And so the struggle is just part of the process.

So as you’re going through that process, I don’t want to just stand up here and say, well, tough stuff. Suck it up, buttercup. That’s what my grandson likes to say all the time. I think maybe because his mother says it a lot, he says, suck it up, Buttercup. That applies to everybody but him, though. And I’m not saying that that applies here. This goes for me as well as for you. But I’m not saying, you know, suck it up, buttercup.

I’m saying be encouraged as you go through those things and look for where it’s driving you and where it’s taking you and how it’s benefiting you. So here in Second Samuel chapter 16, verses one through two, we have here where it says there in the opening phrase, and when David was a little past the top of the hill. And that’s what I want to concentrate on today, he was a little past the top of the hill.

Now, David had a lot of hills to climb in his life, and some of those hills were self-imposed and some of them weren’t. But, you know, David had a lot of things that he had to go through. Now, of course, we know about his great sin that he committed with Bathsheba. You find that in Second Samuel chapter 11. Prior to that, of course, he had all the trouble and things when Saul was trying to take him out and do everything he could do to kill him and wipe him out.

But second Samuel chapter 11, he has his great sin with Bathsheba. And concerning Uriah the Hittite, who was one of his mighty men. Then you have there in chapter 12, where Nathan the prophet calls David out. Chapter 13 you have where David’s son basically rapes one of his daughters. And David didn’t handle that properly. And chapter 14, you have Joab, David’s military right-hand man, who tried to restore Absalom, David’s son Absalom, because Absalom was mad at David for not handling, the Amnon and Tamar situation properly. And then chapter 15 you have here where Absalom revolts against David and tries to take the kingdom away from David and usurp David as as the king.

And then David flees Jerusalem. And you think, well, wow, I thought David was this great, mighty warrior. And he fought. You know, Goliath, everybody knows about, you know, David and Goliath and all these great, you know, victories and all this stuff that David had and all that is true. But there are a couple of things to keep in mind here in regards to Absalom. Number one, it was his son and he loved him and he didn’t want to kill him. And number two, David knew that if he stayed in Jerusalem, that’s where the battle was going to occur, and a lot of innocent people were going to lose their lives. So David decides, you know, to get out of dodge, so to speak, and to leave.

So, that’s kind of where we find ourselves here in chapter number 16. So let’s read verses one and two and see what the Lord has for us here with this passage, chapter 16, verse one again says:

2 Samuel 16:1–2

1 And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him, with a couple of asses saddled, and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine.

2 And the king said unto Ziba, What meanest thou by these? And Ziba said, The asses be for the king’s household to ride on; and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat; and the wine, that such as be faint in the wilderness may drink.

You may be thinking, what in the world is going on here? And what in the world are you talking about? But what I’m talking about here is, look, we all are going to go through some struggles, but as we go through the struggles, we can reap some blessings. And in order to reap those blessings, as I’ve mentioned already, we have to go through said struggle.

You’re not going to get the blessing without going through the struggle. In other words, David is leaving Jerusalem here and he’s got to climb this great mountain, right? And he’s climbing this great mountain and everything. But once he gets a little past the top of the mountain, that’s when the blessings occur.

That’s where Ziba is. Ziba wasn’t halfway down, right? It wasn’t like a marathon race where they got all the little tables and the little cups of water and everybody saying, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. And all that. He didn’t have any of that. He didn’t receive any of the blessings until after he got a little past the top of the hill. He had to go a little past the top. He didn’t just have to climb the hill, you understand? He had to go a little bit further. And once he went a little bit further, then the blessings came.

And if you’ll go through the struggle, if you’ll stop trying to avoid going through the hard stuff, then you can also receive the blessing from the Lord. But that’s what you’re going to need to do. You have to go a little bit further, right? We always want to quit. People are great quitters. People want to quit everything, right? Whenever something gets hard, they quit, right?

• They quit diets because they’re hard.
• They quit exercising because it’s hard.
• They quit reading the Bible because it’s hard.
• They quit going to church because I guess some people think it’s hard,

I don’t know. But people quit stuff all the time.

• People quit their jobs.
• People quit friendships.
• People quit marriages.
• People quit everything because it got hard.

But if you’ll just go a little bit further past the top of the hill. You can receive the blessings. And that’s what I want to encourage you with here this morning.

Our hope at Irvington Bible Baptist Church is that this podcast provided some encouragement and has helped you to develop a closer relationship with the LORD Jesus Christ.