petertan.net ANOINTING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT SERIES THE THREE MISTAKES OF DAVID Tonight we continue to look at the ministerial anointing. We have seen the eight principles of moving into the ministerial anointing. We saw it in the life of David and those same principles are found also in the lives of other men of God, like Paul. Tonight we want to see on areas of how to maintain the anointing of God and the pit falls in the ministerial anointing. We need to understand the dangers involved when one who carries the ministerial anointing fall into serious sin. For example, Eli, who was priest at the time of the boy Samuel, had the office, but lost his anointing due to his permissiveness and failure to judge his two sons for abusing the temple sacrifices. He and his two sons subsequently lost their lives. 1 Samuel 3:11-14 The LORD said to Samuel, "Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. "In that day I will carry out against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. "For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them. "Therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever." Uzziah was a king but tried to be a priest and that proved fatal to him. 2 Chronicles 26:16-21 But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the LORD his God, for he entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. Then Azariah the priest entered after him and with him eighty priests of the LORD, valiant men. They opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, " It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful and will have no honor from the LORD God." But Uzziah, with a censer in his hand for burning incense, was enraged; and while he was enraged with the priests, the leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the LORD, beside the altar of incense. Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he {was} leprous on his forehead; and they hurried him out of there, and he himself also hastened to get out because the LORD had smitten him. King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death; and he lived in a separate house, being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. In the same way Saul also fell into the same error. He was a king when Samuel was delayed at one point he started to perform the sacrifices usually the priest should and could perform. 1 Samuel 13:8-14 Now he waited seven days, according to the appointed time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, "Bring to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings." And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him {and} to greet him. But Samuel said, "What have you done?" And Saul said, "Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the appointed days, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash, therefore I said, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not asked the favor of the LORD.' So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering." Samuel said to Saul, " You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, for now the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. "But now your kingdom shall not endure. The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you." So there are dangers involved in moving in the ministerial anointing. Perhaps you could choose another word if the word “danger” sounds too dangerous for you. Then we say there are limitations to the ministerial anointing. But we call it “dangerous” because you could still be moving within the limits but yet you don’t flow perfectly in it. It is possible to flow imperfectly in a ministerial anointing. So we are going to see in the life of David the three major mistakes he made. The three mistakes he made to a certain extend can tie up to the three temptations that are recorded in the life of Jesus in Matt. 4 and Lk. 4. We have taught on that area but we are going to look at it from a different perspective altogether. The First Mistake : Abuse of Power Lets first look at Lk. 4 in the three temptations recorded of Jesus in verse 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘ Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ” We have seen the three temptations of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. We have taught on that area but we are going to look at them from a different perspective now. Basically Jesus had the power to turn the stone into bread. Otherwise it would not constitute a temptation. Jesus had the power and authority to take the stones and turn them into bread. The devil’s temptation was a temptation to get Him to use His power to satisfy His own selfish needs. The temptation was a temptation to abuse power. And since God never said anything about it, Jesus would not have anything to do with it. When you receive a ministerial anointing, God puts you in a powerful office in the body of Christ. Unless we learn how not to abuse and misuse power, God may in the first place never let it rise in our life. You see how it is connected now in the ministerial anointing. God is wiser than us. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts; His ways are higher than our ways. He searches the depths of our heart to see and know what we would do if He gives the anointing and the power of God. Kathryn Kuhlman once said that God didn’t release His anointing greatly upon some people because He cannot trust them. They are not trust worthy to handle that level of power and authority. So how does God prove our trustworthiness in our life? By testing us, by seeing how we respond to different circumstances and temptations. Jesus passed the first of His temptations with flying colors. Jesus refused to use His authority, His position and His power for Himself, even when He had a genuine need. The bible says He was hungry. Even when He had a genuine need, He refused to use the power for Himself. In the Indonesia revival, the leaders turned water into wine. That is powerful prayer. That was a genuine need. Supposing that you reached a point where you have certain authority and you know you could exercise that authority. Wouldn’t it be tremendous to know that you could enter into a high level of authority where you could pray so powerfully and get powerful results? I wonder how many if they reached that level of power and authority would begin to use it for themselves. Of course in the first place if they have that attitude, they won’t reach that level of anointing. But supposing that you are faithful and somewhere along the line you receive that position and authority, you will still be tested as to your faithfulness to the level of power and authority you have. In God’s system of government, Jesus is Lord over all. There is nothing wrong with the system that God has advocated because Jesus is perfect and well able to stand in His position. He is meek, He is humble, He is also powerful. He is also loving, He is also gentle, He is caring, He is all that you ever known. The qualities and characteristic of Jesus qualify Him for His position. Therefore nobody in the whole universe finds His position oppressive although He had great power and authority. And everything that is done has to be done in His name in the kingdom of God. So we see the relationship between power and position. Sometimes people in position do not know or appreciate the value of their position, and they misuse and abuse their position. That is one of the areas that God will test and prove our life. If we are not faithful in little, we cannot be faithful in much. God may give you a small little task to do, like being a leader of a home fellowship. If you became very oppressive or negligent, you probably can go no further than that. The anointing that is going to come forth in your life is not going to flow to greater heights. See God tests us. And there are other areas. God sees whether you would set yourself as above His laws. We are never above His laws. No matter what position and what anointing He places us in we are not above His laws. We are to fulfill His laws. Neither are we under the oppression of His laws. But we are to fulfill and flow in His laws. The second failure of David was in the book of II Sam. Jesus passed David failed. Why do we want to see his failure? If we understand how he overcame his failure then we can also understand how as we grow into those areas and avoid some of these failures. And thus God moves us and promotes us into the ministerial anointing that He has for our lives. II Sam. 11:1 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. Basically what David did was he looked over his roof to his neighbor’s house which happened to belong to his general Uriah. There was Uriah’s wife Bathsheba and she was bathing. There was Uriah’s wife Bathsheba and she was bathing. Despite knowing the Ten Commandments of God, knowing the fact that he even as a king was bound to obey the Ten Commandments, he got Bathsheba over and committed adultery with her and tried to hushed the whole thing up. When Bathsheba sent word that she was expecting a child, David had to think what to do. Everything that he did was an abuse of his power and position and authority. He plotted how to get Uriah killed. And God was displeased with that. Some of us may not be in that kind of situation. But perhaps because you are in a position, it may not be the lust of the flesh, maybe the lust of money. That because you are in a position people will reward you with all kind of things to get you to “exercise your gift” for them. That will be yielding to the lure of money. In the ministry you realize those are the same areas that are faced over and over again. That will be the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. You would be tested to see whether you would abuse or misuse the position God gives you. With the position that God gives you come great grace and favor. David in the early days of his life was faithful. You read about how he was brought into King Saul’s royal staff and the Bible says he observed carefully to do everything. He was careful to make sure that what he did was right. But now he was king it seems that there is no other person above him except God. He is tempted in a time of weakness; let’s say laziness, to be going out to war instead of staying home. In a time like that he was tempted and he abused his power. The sad consequence was that the judgment was pronounced, and David nearly lost his whole kingdom. If you abuse your position or your anointing there will be a period of grace for you to repent. If you are repentant, God’s grace will cover for you but if you are unrepentant, there will be a period of grace but you won’t keep it for long. No doubt you don’t lose your call to the office but your office becomes inoperational and your anointing becomes non existent. Potentially it’s yours but not manifested because you abuse it. We must not misuse our position or anointing. There was this man of God who came by and he preached in a public meeting. And he collected the offering for himself and left. Some time later I managed to contact the organizers because there was a hue and cry that came out after that. Now he finds it very hard to come back. He made one mistake. You should never collect your own offering. This is a simple thing. Don’t drag the offering too long and don’t collect it if you are the beneficiary. You can do it for another person but you can’t do it for yourself. Somebody else has to do it for you. The organizers agreed and said they will see to it that it won’t be done again. Let’s take a different scenario. If for example I have a genuine need and I come and ask this brother for assistance and he helps me. You know what happens. He may help me because he loves me and not because he is led by God. And I am putting pressure with my position. So we have to be careful and even more when you operate in signs and wonder kind of ministry. I mean after you operated signs and wonders people see healings and all these. In their heart they will be saying, “Wow, awesome.” The next moment if you have collected not just an offering you collected cars and houses. People may just give them also. So you see how easy it is to abuse and misuse power and authority. So God would definitely test us in these areas to see if our heart is perfect before Him. We must be careful especially the more position and anointing God gives us, we must be very careful if we want to maintain the anointing. Not lose it like David he almost lose his kingdom. He lost a lot of his family members. One of his special sons died. Almost lost his kingdom. See if you use your power and position to take something that is illegal you reap what you sow. For what you get by compromising God’s principle and God’s word you can never be satisfied with it. Your conscience will bug you for the rest of your life. And in the end you can never keep it either. So that’s the first principle we see what areas God test us before we move into the position and anointing and how to maintain it. We need to know how not to misuse our position and anointing. Never ever do it. Refrain like Jesus refrained - He preferred God’s word to turning stones into bread. He preferred to be hungry and go without. I mean He was hungry. Look at Lk. 4, He was hungry. He preferred to be hungry and do without that bread than to abuse His position and authority. We need to graduate bible students who would prefer to go hungry rather than to break God’s principles and use their position and authority to get their way round. We need a high level of integrity. That is why we need to know how to work through a system and understand the limitations of a position and office God has placed. The Second Mistake : Using the Flesh The second mistake of David is equated to the temptation of Jesus when the devil took Him to the pinnacle and the devil said, “Throw yourself down.” The temptation was when Jesus come down the angels of God will catch Him and He would have a soft landing. He was tempting Jesus with a short cut to instant fame and glory. Wrong methods involved. It’s also in the area of the pride of life. Second mistake of David, I put it as second instead of first one because it’s in order of the gospel of Luke. But it is another major mistake of David. Let us look in the book of II Sam. 6:1 And David gathered all the choice men of Israel, thirty thousand. And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baale Judah to bring up from there the ark of God whose name is called by the Name, the Lord of Hosts, who dwells between the cherubim. So they set the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadah, drove the new cart. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, accompanying the ark of God; and Ahio went before the ark. Then David and all the house of Israel played music before the Lord oh all kinds of instruments of fir wood, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on sistrums, and on cymbals. And when they came to Nachon’s threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God. And David became angry because of the Lord’s outbreak against Uzzah; and he called the name of the place Perez Uzzah to this day. David was afraid of the Lord that day and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to Me?” Instead he put the ark at Obed-Edom’s house which happened to be near the place of the incident. That is an interesting incident. It is another major mistake that David made. Basically, the cause of the mistake was this. That David’s heart was sincere. His intention was pure. He wanted God’s ark. King Saul was not interested. David was interested in God’s ark. He was sincere and his motives were correct. Let me tell you that being sincere with the right motivation is not enough. In the ministry of God, it’s not enough. There are a lot of people in the ministry sadly speaking who are sincere, who are serving God but they are using the wrong methods. Because its their ideas that they use to serve God. Do you know God is not interested in our ideas? He is only interested in His ideas that we are obedient to. What can the brain of man come out with that could satisfy God, nothing. The bible says not by might, not by power, we could have added not by brain, not by logic, not by the ideas of men, but by the Spirit of God. Sincere no doubt. Its time we don’t excuse wrong methods with sincerity of motive. It’s inexcusable. To me it only speaks of laziness and a lack of hearing God. We realize the David was sincere. How do we know, look he was worshiping God. That’s how sincere he was. I mean he was not doing something wrong like he was doing in the incident with Bathsheba that we talked about. He was playing the harp. Singing a song. Worshiping the Lord. And he even made a new cart for the ark. His assistants who were helping were also sincere. Was Uzzah sincere, yes. Did he love the Lord, yes. Yet he was struck with leprosy when he crossed the boundaries and performed what only a priest could do. Let me tell you when you begin to serve God in the ministry, sincerity is no excuse. Its good, admirable, but you can die of sincerity. I have been in the ministry since 1976. I tell you, you could be sincerely serving God. And God can let you fast, without food, in need. Your clothes can really be “holy” clothes, that is, full of holes. And you look and you look around and you think God doesn’t care about you. God will let you pay the price for all those things because you used the wrong methods. And you could be like David who got angry with God and God wouldn’t be bothered. Do you know David was angry with God? Did he have the right to be angry? Humanly yes but spiritually no. His intentions were right - God should have protected him because of his sincerity. Sincerity is no protection. Especially when you use the arm of flesh to do the work of the Spirit. Not by might but by His Spirit then He will be pleased with. What is born of the Spirit need to be done with the power of the Spirit. You don’t do what was born of the Spirit with the power of human flesh. The same Spirit that gives birth to that has to give birth to the methodology too. It was a national mistake. I mean when I talk about the three mistakes of David, I am talking about big mistakes that were national. The judgment was a national judgment. David had to pack his luggage and flee across the river while his son took over as king. These are big mistakes. Let me tell you the higher you go the same mistake will now look very big. Now the things that you do will also bless more people. But the price you pay is greater. The faster you drive the more careful you have to be. The error that you make driving at thirty miles per hour may only dent your car. But the same error you made when you are driving at about sixty-five mile per hour you may end up with your car smashed and you in heaven. Why because of the different speed. At higher speeds, your concentration and alertness have to be greater. And the higher you go make sure that you back your ascent with your character and integrity. Because the same mistake that you do when you are a small fry, that you do when you are a big fry is even more even though it’s the same you pay a greater price. So in this mistake that David did he tried to improve on God’s methods. God ordained that the ark was to be carried by Levites and not by oxen. If you see from God’s perspective, it’s very degrading. God prefers people made in His image to carry His ark. That is why the poles were there for. That’s for human beings to carry them made in the image of God not this ox who doesn’t know anything and had no relationship with God. God wants His method. God already said the tribe of Levite has been consecrated for that purpose. David with the advancement of technology probably thought that it was too slow for these humans. Lets improve on God. He built that beautiful cart, put the ark on it and poor Uzzah was helping it along. The ox stumbled and if Uzzah didn’t stretched forth his hands the whole ark would have fallen down. And Uzzah seeing that it was stumbling cared for the ark. Uzzah held the ark and instantly he died. For a moment there was silence. David was angry and meanwhile he said Obed-Edom you take the ark to your house. He is now afraid of God. Through time he matured and he realized that he was the one who made the mistake. And in the book of I Chron. 15:2 Then David said, “No one may carry the ark of God but the Levites, for the Lord has chosen them to carry the ark of God and to minister before Him forever.” So you notice God’s choice involved in that. So the second thing that David learnt was when you move into the anointing and you move in your office you must move by God’s methods. You don’t move by your own ideas. You always seek His method. Sincerity of heart is not good enough. You need God’s methods. Especially if His methods have already been revealed in His word. In David case it was more serious because His word already established it. He had the written word of Moses. So he knew what the word said about carrying the ark. Especially more if it’s in the written word its inexcusable.