Calvary Bible Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan

29:08 minutes (13.61 MB)

We are starting a look through the Scriptures at the most written about person in the Bible. Other than God the father, Son, and Spirit, there are more chapters recorded about David's life than any other Biblical figure.

We know more about David than the New Testament church planting missionary Paul; and more than on the chief apostle Peter; and more than about father Abraham, or Daniel. God has chosen to give us David: examined from more directions, recorded in more situations, and captured in more passages than anyone else. (Read More)

53:09 minutes (24.34 MB)

There are almost three thousand biographical portraits in the Bible. In fact, the Bible is the single greatest source of biographical information from antiquity. There are more different individual from a wider scope of history recorded in God's Word than any other single source in the world. (Read More)

54:29 minutes (24.94 MB)

Last time we saw that David had a simple focus in the midst of a very complex life.

As we open to Psalm 19, look with me at the last verse. Here is the cry of David's heart, right in front of us, and on paper. David simply said, "I want my life to please YOU. Every part, seen or unseen, I want my life to please you."

14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer. (Read More)

47:05 minutes (21.56 MB)

As we open to I Samuel 16 think with me what David must have felt: So much has happened so fast. First, "King for a day" in chapter 16 we met a young shepherd boy, minding his sheep when the greatest man in Israel comes and sits in his dad's house waiting to meet him. There in front of his family, David is anointed the next King of Israel. Back to the sheep he goes, and off to the war go his brothers. (Read More)

56:50 minutes (26.02 MB)

None of us know what will be written across the pages of life tomorrow. So God invites us to cling to Him, since He already knows what lies ahead. We cling to God more and more through His promises, as we see how precarious life can get. If we don't start a habit of clinging to the promises of God, sooner or later we'll end up falling apart during times of living fear and desperation like David did. (Read More)

51:19 minutes (23.49 MB)

We have all heard of people who have gone through complete emotional or mental breakdowns, but few of us have ever actually witnessed one as it happened. The good news is that God recorded the "before, during, and after" of the emotional and physical breakdown David experienced.

This sad but instructive event is captured flawlessly and in amazing detail. As we open to I Samuel 21:13 David hit the bottom, overwhelmed by life, sinking into fear, and trapped by his choices, he melts down. (Read More)

50:58 minutes (23.33 MB)

Psalm 13 may be the very deepest of all the pits of life David endured. In this Psalm David is all alone and momentarily felt that even God had left him. Note the exact spot these events take place in the text of I Samuel 21:15-22:2:

1 Samuel 21:15-22:2 Have I need of madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?" 22:1a David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.

(Read More)

53:06 minutes (24.31 MB)

As we open to Psalm 40, David feels life's become like a horrible pit. Probably the closest public event that would mirror David's life is what the quake-struck residents of Haiti and Chile have felt, going through in the ten plus weeks since the 7.0 quake hit Haiti on 1/12/10 and less than a month ago, the much larger 8.8 quake hit in Chile 2/27/10. Since these twin events[1]: (Read More)

57:04 minutes (26.12 MB)

As we come to I Samuel 22, we find David hiding in a cave, and living on a day to day, just making it mode surrounded by troubles. His experience is mirrored in the lives of multiplied people across the world. When live reduces to being just in a survival mode.

"Survival mode" means knowing that life must go on, but you just couldn't remember why. These times of just making one day at a time is often when slowly become a vicious swirl of getting up, going to work out of the home or in the home if you're a mom; and dropping into bed exhausted at the end of the day. (Read More)

44:46 minutes (20.49 MB)

If you've ever felt trapped, imprisoned, or helplessly caught by life, then you share the emotions of David in the midst of life in the Cave of Adullam.

Things had gotten so bad that David makes a confession that is packed with meaning to us today. In the form of an urgent prayer offered to God, and captured for us on paper, David explains that his soul is in prison. The setting is so graphic, look at it with me in I Samuel 22.

David is in the midst of his life on the run, under immense stress in verses 1-4: (Read More)

56:25 minutes (25.83 MB)

As we open to I Corinthians 10:11-13, it is our reminder as we study the Life of David: following God is hard, it is not EASY!

For many years songwriter John W. Peterson (1921-2006) lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan. One song he wrote among the thousand that bear his name is titled: "It's Not an Easy Road". David, whose life we are studying, would have heartily agreed with these words:

It's not an easy road we are traveling to heaven,

For many are the thorns on the way

It's not an easy road, but the Savior is with us (Read More)

61:08 minutes (27.99 MB)

As we open to I Samuel 23 we are coming to the final stages of David's life on the run. From the desolate wastelands of Israel's geography we hear the cries of David's heart from desert where he now find that added to danger, deprivation, and despair are the twin struggles of betrayal and loneliness. (Read More)

40:03 minutes (18.34 MB)

God has given us an inspired record of over 2900 hundred different people in the Bible, for a purpose.

God through those lives captured by Him in His Word wants to show us through their lives how to live right (for doctrine), how to live wrong (for reproof), how to get right (for correction), and how to stay right (instruction in righteousness). (Read More)

46:49 minutes (21.43 MB)

As we open to I Samuel 25 we are opening to David getting the opportunity to apply all the wonderful truths he has been learning. Just like the lessons we hear in Sunday School class are wonderful, but seem so different when we are actually out on the street witnessing, or on a missions trip. (Read More)

49:36 minutes (22.71 MB)

Open with me to I Samuel 18 as walk through a few chapters to get to our passage for this evening. These chapters tonight remind us that: (Read More)

50:17 minutes (23.02 MB)

As we open to II Samuel 5, we are continuing our journey through the Life of David. David is one of the monumental personages in the Bible; only God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are discussed more than David in the Word of God.  (Read More)

43:59 minutes (20.41 MB)As you open to the 132^nd Psalm you are opening to God’s record of the life of David. We are not sure if David wrote this Psalm or if it was written about him, but we do see the powerful message it contains. This Psalm is one of a set of 15 called the Psalms of Ascents. (Read More)

58:30 minutes (27.06 MB)As we open to Psalm 101, may I remind you of a transformational truth?Your habits are shaping your destiny, one little action at a time. Habits are the default settings of our soul. (Read More)

34:56 minutes (15.99 MB) 

David from the Bible was just a man. He had a job, a house, a family, and all the other little details of life. Though he was a King, an inspired Psalm writer, and a man after God's own heart, he was also 100% normal human.

So as we look at the longest stretch of David's life, the 40-year career he had as King of Israel, we come to areas that can touch our lives deeply. (Read More)

37:50 minutes (17.32 MB) 

As we open to 2 Samuel 11, David has finally made it to the top. Giants are killed, enemies are dead, life on the run is over, and normal life has finally started for David. As we will see, it is precisely when things are going "great" that we face some of the most lethal spiritual pathogens. (Read More)

61:21 minutes (28.08 MB) 

Most spectacular sins are like most flat tires: they are not usually caused by a loud pop of a blow out, rather, they are almost always the result of a slow leak. The long-term effect of small rationalizations, of small disobediences, or small neglects can after time snowball into immensely destructive activity. That is what we see in David's life:

Beware of the Slow Leaks In Your Spiritual Life

Jesus said that when we are faithful in little things it shows that we will be worthy of great things. Look at Luke 16:10: (Read More)

49:50 minutes (22.81 MB)As we open to 2 Samuel 12, try to think of the searing pain that would come when secret, private sins get exposed for all the world to see. Just imagine what David felt as the truth of what he had done could no longer be hidden. That is the event and those are the emotions that David is feeling in the verses of this chapter.

One of the great deterrents to sin is looking at the consequences. God's Word records David's crash through each barrier God put in his way, and the resulting wreck David made of his life and family. (Read More)

51:19 minutes (23.49 MB)All that really matters in life may be reduced to one simple reality--what does God think of what I am doing or have done[1]?

As we open in our Bibles to the last sentence of II Samuel 11:27, and read those words that is exactly the perspective God has of David's life at that moment. (Read More)

46:31 minutes (21.3 MB)Psalm 32 will forever be recorded in Heaven as a song about the day David's soul was set free from the prison house of guilt and anguish over his un-confessed and un-forsaken sin.

As we open to this Psalm, imagine with me the events surrounding the day that David was finally set free from his emotional bondage. Here are his words that overflowed from the depths of his soul:

Psalm 32:1-2

1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,

         Whose sin is covered. (Read More)

52:03 minutes (23.83 MB)The first observation a student studying God's Word would make in Psalm 32 is that David is so thankful for his sin being forgiven, that he uses four different Hebrew words to describe the depths God had to go to accomplish his forgiveness in just the first two verses. Note those with me as we open to Psalm 32:

Psalm 32:1-2 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. (Read More)

44:17 minutes (20.28 MB)We have gathered to celebrate the greatest possession we have as fallen and sinful humans. The God of the Universe so loved us that He sent His Son to set us free, wash us and remove the eternally destructive sins we were born with by nature and have practiced by choice. John writes about this incredible gift in the opening verses of Revelation:

Revelation 1:5 (NKJV) "and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed [freed, loosed] us from our sins in His own blood" (Read More)

53:57 minutes (24.7 MB)Psalm 51 is a roadmap to anyone who has ever gotten away from the Lord; it is a beacon that clearly captures for us the roadway back to God.

David fell so far, so fast, and he didn't even realize it until the dullness of his soul spread to every inch of his spiritual life. Soon his cold and lonely heart was combined with his tormented soul and trapped in a painfully chastened body. And he stayed at the bottom like that for almost a year. (Read More)

58:37 minutes (26.84 MB)We have entered the final lap of David's Life: we have watched him as the shepherd boy and giant killer, then as the humble and patient warrior and King, now we join him perhaps 20 years into his career as King. (Read More)

59:28 minutes (27.23 MB)

As we open to 2 Samuel 15, we have entered the consequence years of David's[1] life. So even though David is beloved of the Lord, he still has to face the consequences, just like believers in the New Testament, who are also beloved of the Lord, have to face the consequences of our sins. (Read More)

53:57 minutes (24.7 MB)As we open to Psalm 3 we can note some details that set this Psalm apart as a very special Psalm to learn from:

• First, this is the first of the Psalms, called a Psalm, note the superscript says: A Psalm, and no other Psalm before this one says that.
• Secondly, this is the first Psalm attributed to David in the Psalter, note it says: A Psalm of David. There are 72 others after this one ascribed to David, but this is the first.
• Third, this is the first time we see the term Selah used in a Psalm.

(Read More)

53:47 minutes (24.62 MB)As we open to Psalm 3, we are seeing David's response when bad things happen to him, especially when he is doing nothing wrong. The lesson is that when bad things happened in David's life he looked for God for understanding.

For us the lesson is that when bad things happen to good people, they are to look to God for understanding. (Read More)

53:09 minutes (24.33 MB)When God describes a person's life, He usually does so very succinctly and measures whether or not they served Him well. As we open to Acts 13, we are opening to God's assessment that David lived life deliberately for what pleased God. David sought and followed what God wanted done in life, not what David wanted done. There are only two choices on the shelf of life: doing what pleases me, or what pleases God.

David's life was summed up by the only One who can look at every moment of our life, from start to finish in one glance, and reduce us down to a statement. (Read More)

59:42 minutes (27.33 MB)Lessons learned in the furnace of affliction often get etched deeply into our hearts and lives.

David learned a lesson in his hard times. That lesson was that life must be lived on purpose for God. Coasting, going along with the flow and living carelessly always leads to wasted life. David wanted to place and keep his trust in the Lord. (Read More)

41:43 minutes (19.1 MB)We have come to the closing years of David's life. David - whom we know more about than any other human recorded in God's Word. Because God spends so much time capturing David's life, seen through the lens of Scripture, we have more truth explained about each era of life we face, than in any other place.

There are four concluding eras, or stages through which David passes on his way to Heaven. Those are what we'll walk though in the days ahead. First, let's survey some of the nuggets of truth for each stage. These are: (Read More)

53:57 minutes (24.7 MB)As we open to 2 Samuel 23, we are opening to a confession from an elderly David.

The older we get, the harder it is to hide what is really going on inside our hearts and minds. Consequently, we become more and more transparent with our feelings and fears.  And God designed it that way. For as the clay pot, the tent we live in, cracks and tears, He wants the treasure of Christ within us to spill out to encourage others in their own unending struggles. (Read More)

52:32 minutes (24.05 MB)The 71^st Psalm deals with some of the troubles common to living on planet Earth. For troubles are always with us-as Job said almost 5,000 years ago. Either we are just getting through some, in the middle of some, or headed into some.

Life is hard, as Job 5:7 says: (NKJV) "Yet man is born to trouble, As the sparks fly upward". Those words come from what may be the oldest book of the Bible, written by Job, who lived just after the Flood at the end of the Ice Age. (Read More)

30:16 minutes (13.86 MB)

 

Application is the best part of Bible study.

But, just like a "straight from the garden" meal, there is so much work to do. For food grown or caught, there are many stages to go through. Pick up and clean or wash; cut up and prepare; cook and serve-and then at last: the meal. There is nothing like fresh, homemade meals, in all the world. It is the best; and it is hard! (Read More)

47:53 minutes (21.92 MB)As we open to Psalm 18, we are entering the last days of David. No one else in Scripture has more space devoted to their life other than the Lord Himself. David is God's object lesson to each of us on: how hard life can be, how much we can struggle, how greatly we can fail-and how incredibly God can use us.

As we will see in these 50 verses of David's longest Psalm, David extolled the Lord as his Master and King. (Read More)

46:44 minutes (21.4 MB)David was a man who loved the Lord, and the Lord loved him.

God named His own Son, "the Son of David" (Mat. 1:1). That in itself, is amazing. The Son of God called the "son of" an angry man, the son of a murderer, the son of a liar, the son of an adulterer, and so on? That is what a Son of David means. But God is a God of forgiveness, new beginnings and grace. That is what makes David such a compelling figure in the Scriptures: David broke all ten of the Commandments, and God loved David, called him the man after His own heart, and named Jesus the Son of David. (Read More)

43:56 minutes (20.11 MB) 

As we open to the inspired postscript to the life of David, we find that the Holy Spirit directed Paul to say amazing truths.

First, in Acts 13:22 Paul writes that David served God's purpose in his own generation; then in v. 36 of the same chapter, Paul notes that David was the man after God's own heart. That phrase is perhaps the best know New Testament description for David. (Read More)

50:36 minutes (23.16 MB) 

Psalm 30 is titled that it is for a dedication. The NKJV, KJV, and NAS all translate it as a dedication of the "House of David". But the ESV and NIV clarify what house is being referred to, by translating this superscript as the: "Dedication of the Temple". (Read More)

52:37 minutes (24.09 MB)

45:06 minutes (20.65 MB)