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Wives, Witchcraft, and Wilderness Prayers: Offbeat Stories of David and Saul
39 Plays10 days ago
In this episode, Dan Sanchez and Pastor Ridley Barron talked about the deeper and often overlooked parts of David’s story in 1 Samuel. While most people know the famous tale of David and Goliath, this conversation dives into David’s polygamy, the troubling nature of Saul’s mental and spiritual decline, the mysterious account of Saul and the medium, and what it means when the Bible says David "strengthened himself in the Lord." They also reflect on Psalms tied to David's journey and wrap up with an encouraging reminder about remembering God’s faithfulness through journaling and prayer.
Timestamps:
- 01:17 – David's multiple wives and polygamy in the Old Testament
- 03:54 – How polygamy is still present in parts of the world today
- 07:04 – Saul’s emotional instability and possible spiritual oppression
- 10:46 – Saul, the medium, and the question of Samuel's spirit
- 13:15 – Comparing other rare supernatural appearances in scripture
- 17:26 – David strengthening himself in the Lord after Ziglag
- 19:14 – The emotional intimacy of God shown in the Psalms
- 21:29 – The value of extended time in prayer
- 23:44 – Why it's important to learn history and remember God's works
- 25:10 – Practical ways to remember God’s faithfulness through journaling and scripture
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:01
Dan Sanchez
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church Podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez, and I'm here with Pastor Ridley Barron, where we're continuing in the book of 1 Samuel. And like I was just saying to you, Ridley, I love this series because I hadn't, hadn't for this one week, I hadn't heard the sermon coming up to this podcast. I'm uploading it before this before this episode goes up, I will have uploaded, listened to it and then published it.
00:00:26
Dan Sanchez
So I'm flying a little blind, but I went and previewed with you, Ridley, like the main things I wanted to talk about.
00:00:32
Ridley Barron
Yeah. Uh-huh.
00:00:32
Dan Sanchez
And of course, I always find the little offbeat things inside the Bible to talk about, which is reason why I love recording these
Offbeat Stories in the Bible
00:00:39
Dan Sanchez
episodes.
00:00:39
Dan Sanchez
To give the little extra scoops, if you're reading along with us, there's always these kinds of things in scripture that make you just kind of turn your head a little bit. And make you wonder, wait, what what just happened?
00:00:51
Dan Sanchez
Where is this? A lot of us are familiar with David and Goliath. But of course, i don't know, the so core story always has to be revisited too, because it's always amazing to talk about those things.
00:01:02
Dan Sanchez
But in this episode, I want to cover some of the the smaller things that happened at the end of 1 Samuel.
Polygamy in the Old Testament
00:01:08
Dan Sanchez
Starting with the fact that David, in his life, really starts taking on multiple wives.
00:01:16
Dan Sanchez
First we have you blanking on a name. I'm reading. It's like my shell, Mike, Mikel, Michael, Michael, uh,
00:01:23
Ridley Barron
lot of people just pronounced it Michael, but I think it's Mikhail is the way it's pronounced.
00:01:26
Dan Sanchez
Mikel, yeah. Of course, that's his first wife, and then she's given away to another man.
00:01:31
Ridley Barron
Right.
00:01:31
Dan Sanchez
And then we pick up Ahinoam. Not a lot of context for it, but we know about it. And then we pick up Abigail, the widow.
00:01:37
Ridley Barron
Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:01:40
Dan Sanchez
So, and of course, more happens a little later on. But I feel like David starts to collect wives like he's collecting Pokemon cards or something here.
00:01:49
Ridley Barron
exactly
00:01:49
Dan Sanchez
And it makes me wonder, does the Old Testament even condemn polygamy? Or is this just an no okay thing? It seems like it's happened multiple times in the Old Testament so far.
00:02:01
Ridley Barron
Yeah, the Old Testament doesn't come out and and outright condemn polygamy in a negative fashion. In a positive way, it does in the sense that God says one man, one wife for life. You know, a man shall cleave to his...
00:02:15
Ridley Barron
his Wife, and leave his mother and father and cling to his wife. Sorry, stumbled over that for a little bit. So very clearly, God had it all along and tended this way.
00:02:25
Ridley Barron
And truth is, this was a practice just about every single one of the big saints up until this point had practiced. I mean, Abraham did it by having cumbines.
00:02:34
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:02:36
Ridley Barron
Jacob married Leah and Rachel. and had two concubines in addition. And so it's it's a practice that was done a lot, I think primarily for guys like David and then eventually Solomon. It was a diplomatic thing to try to build alliances with other nations. And of course, in that day and age, because fertility was such a huge thing and having plenty of descendants was such a big statement of honor.
00:03:00
Ridley Barron
It also was a thing of power. A man who had lots of wives and lots of kids was seen as as a blessed and powerful man. But we also see every one of these stories, and I love this about the Bible, how transparent it is.
00:03:13
Ridley Barron
Every one of these situations where there was polygamy practice, there were problems because of it.
00:03:19
Dan Sanchez
It's interesting how impactful the New Testament has been, which clearly like condemns it more.
00:03:27
Ridley Barron
Mm-hmm.
00:03:29
Dan Sanchez
it's It's because of Christianity and Western society. like You hardly ever hear about it. hear about, like oh, like this little group of Moerans down in Arizona. It's a shock and awe thing because you're like, my gosh. But and it wasn't until I was working at a missions organization, you heard about, like oh, like what do you do when you run into African tribes where this is still a thing? And you're like, oh, some people are still still doing that out there in the bush.
00:03:49
Dan Sanchez
And I found out that the the play, because if you had if you had multiple wives coming to church and the husband wasn't because he'd have to divorce them, but they don't the wives don't want to be divorced.
00:03:59
Dan Sanchez
So you create these weird problems out in the missionary field where you have like these situations.
00:04:03
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:04:05
Dan Sanchez
The missionaries have figured out, like look, invite the whole family to church. This is already a prearranged thing. like You'll throw off the whole family structure and people will be... like beggars.
00:04:15
Dan Sanchez
If you throw off this whole structure, just make sure all the new marriages don't include more than one woman.
00:04:20
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:04:21
Dan Sanchez
Right. So it's like, okay, like it's happening out there, but I keep hearing about stories of this becoming kind of a normal thing again, as the culture shifts from less away from Christian values
00:04:30
Ridley Barron
yeah
00:04:34
Dan Sanchez
Right. As we run away from the Bible and, you know, in a couple of generations, you start to forget like why we did the things that we didn't. So throw off constraint and polygamy starting to become a thing again.
00:04:45
Ridley Barron
Yeah. And, you know, keep in mind that it never actually run away in parts of the world like the Mideast.
00:04:50
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:04:51
Ridley Barron
I mean, the the fastest growing religion in the world up until a few years ago was Islam. And Islam, of course, it's very much accepted practice.
00:04:56
Dan Sanchez
Hmm.
00:04:59
Ridley Barron
Mormonism, even though it's not as large, not nearly as large as Christianity or Islam, still propagates that idea because they are missions organization that goes around the world. So they carry with it that idea that it's accepted practice.
00:05:13
Ridley Barron
And then you've got a lot of false teaching within the Christian church because, you know, a lot of Christians do look back at the Old Testament and go, well, I mean, there were there were places where the law, the Old Testament law,
00:05:24
Ridley Barron
took care of the extra wise and made fairness. Does that mean God was endorsing it? And some people twist it to say that, but that's not, a obviously not God's
Saul's Struggles and Repentance
00:05:33
Ridley Barron
intention. God was just trying to take care of people who are being poorly treated in those situations. So.
00:05:38
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. I mean, it says Exodus 21.10, if a man takes another wife, he must provide for the first one.
00:05:43
Ridley Barron
Yep.
00:05:44
Dan Sanchez
Deuteronomy twenty one fifteen through seventeen if a man has two wives, he must not play favorites when it comes to inheritance. And then Deuteronomy 17.17, kings must not multiply wives.
00:05:49
Ridley Barron
Right.
00:05:53
Dan Sanchez
So you start to get a little bit of a warning and some governance there, not necessarily condoning it, but it's not condemning it so much either.
00:06:00
Ridley Barron
now is very much very much like the restrictions and regulations and commands regarding slavery god doesn't ever endorse slavery in fact he speaks up to protect slaves against their masters from being mistreated and that kind of stuff eventually it's jesus who comes along and begins to start talking about okay this is never how god really intended it to be let's get these things straightened out and
00:06:02
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:06:15
Dan Sanchez
don't.
00:06:23
Ridley Barron
move beyond allowing for those behaviors. So
00:06:28
Dan Sanchez
So this is still a reality where I've even seen it in Chapel Hill itself, where polygamous relationships are taking place.
00:06:35
Ridley Barron
really.
00:06:39
Dan Sanchez
Whether official marriages or more like lifestyle kind of situations, I have seen it. It's probably more around than we would ever want or think or imagine.
00:06:48
Ridley Barron
yeah
00:06:48
Dan Sanchez
And I think we'll become... more as the society society gets more confused.
00:06:54
Ridley Barron
Right.
00:06:54
Dan Sanchez
I just wanted to bring it up because one, it's one of those things you look at in the bubble, you're like, wait, how does he, why is he doing that? But it's also only becoming more relevant as the society starts to run from values.
00:07:03
Ridley Barron
Yeah. And, and right. And probably what you might be more familiar with or see more often before you will see polygamy is open marriages, which is kind of in essence, the same thing.
00:07:13
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. Yep.
00:07:15
Ridley Barron
You just don't make a commitment to one another.
00:07:17
Dan Sanchez
Yep.
00:07:17
Ridley Barron
And I think that's, probably part of the reason why we're seeing some of this commitments not it's not something we honor very much these days like we used to it's you know you change jobs you stay change wives you change cars you change brand loyalties i mean people just run from things and they don't commit very much to them and so that polygamy just kind of caters to that kind of mentality
00:07:39
Dan Sanchez
The next thing I want to talk about is Saul. Like, it's hard not to read this story and be like, what is wrong with this guy? Like, he's all soft and fuzzy one day, and then the other day he's throwing spears, he's getting mad, he gets confronted, he confesses, he's like, man, you were a better man than I am, David.
00:07:48
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:07:54
Dan Sanchez
Like...
00:07:55
Ridley Barron
Right.
00:07:56
Dan Sanchez
It seems genuine. You're like, man, Saul's at least bipolar.
00:08:01
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:08:02
Dan Sanchez
Like the guy's got some really big emotional issues. but But at the same time, it's it's hard to not read it and feel like, is this me sometimes?
00:08:12
Ridley Barron
yeah yeah
00:08:13
Dan Sanchez
Does this not happen to us all where we're like, God? help me become a better man. I, I, I could do better in this, this, I am so regretful of this. And that the next day we're, we're back to that thing that we don't want to do. And it reminds me of Roman seven, right?
00:08:26
Ridley Barron
Right,
00:08:26
Dan Sanchez
Um,
00:08:27
Ridley Barron
I do think there's a lot of factors at play here with Saul. Number one, there is the the natural human side that you you rightly say all of us relate to. going to try our best and we recognize we did something wrong and and those kinds of things. So I think there's a part of that at play.
00:08:42
Ridley Barron
I also think there is this not genuine repentance that occurs because not because he really feels bad about what he did, but he feels bad because he got caught. And so he tells Samuel and or God, you know, oh, I'm so sorry about that. And it really isn't because he thought he did wrong. It's because they caught him doing what he did. And so the the repentance isn't really genuine.
00:09:04
Ridley Barron
And then, of course, the the big underlying thing there that they're not quite so visible is that the Bible says very clearly that God removed his spirit from Saul and that he sent a evil spirit to him.
00:09:15
Dan Sanchez
Tormenting spirit, yeah.
00:09:16
Ridley Barron
Yeah, that would taunt him and and torment him. And I think towards the end of more towards the end of his life.
The Spirit World and Samuel's Appearance
00:09:22
Ridley Barron
And of course the beginning of David's interactions and and parts of the story that that part is really where you start to see it come to play, which may have expressed itself in some kind of bipolar disorder, you know, where one minute you're enjoying the heart music and the next minute you're trying to kill the harvest. And that's, that's just kind of crazy, you know?
00:09:42
Dan Sanchez
I mean, it's probably a different level than bipolar, but it's at least that minimum probably goes up from there.
00:09:45
Ridley Barron
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
00:09:48
Ridley Barron
my Right. And of course, with the very limited medical understanding they had in that day, there were no real treatments for any of this.
00:09:53
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:09:55
Dan Sanchez
Mm-hmm.
00:09:55
Ridley Barron
what What he had then might have been something today we very easily could handle with the means of a counselor or a good conversation with a minister or medication.
00:10:04
Ridley Barron
But for him, it displayed itself over and over again to the point where he couldn't be trusted.
00:10:11
Dan Sanchez
I could see that being a short, fun video to watch. Saw laying on like a couch talking to a therapist.
00:10:15
Ridley Barron
Yeah. know
00:10:17
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, come on, wouldn't that be a 12 minute video you would watch? I think I'd watch that one.
00:10:19
Ridley Barron
Yeah. as I wonder if Saul could have gotten his counseling degree and, i mean, Samuel could have gotten his counseling degree.
00:10:23
Dan Sanchez
yeah Like the day when AI can like make videos and write the whole script and just shoot the whole thing.
00:10:27
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:10:31
Dan Sanchez
I think that's going to be one that I make because that's just going to be fun to watch.
00:10:32
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:10:36
Dan Sanchez
Gosh, one one story that I've come back to a few times in here, because it kind of opens up a whole can of worms here, is when Saul goes to the medium and uses this medium witch lady to tap into the spirit world and actually call up Samuel's dead soul and have a conversation with him.
00:10:49
Ridley Barron
Yeah. right
00:10:57
Dan Sanchez
And because it's in the Bible, you're like, this happened. This is truth.
00:11:01
Ridley Barron
Right. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt.
00:11:03
Dan Sanchez
But what does this what does this say regarding the spirit world? Is there more than just angels or demons, or is there other shades of things going on beyond that?
00:11:12
Ridley Barron
Well, I think you have to go up one level deeper and ask the base question. was this really Samuel? cause there's a lot of speculation as to whether it really truly was Samuel spirit.
00:11:25
Ridley Barron
Was it a demon posing as Samuel or was it an angel God sent to pose as Samuel so that he could communicate to Saul, knowing that Saul would listen to it. I think there's a lot of speculation and and really truthfully from what I read, Dan, there's a lot of disagreement, almost pretty even across the board as to what it is.
00:11:44
Ridley Barron
My gut tells me that because of the language of the story there as Samuel is talking to Saul and the fact that Saul recognized him immediately, my gut tells me that it probably was Samuel, that it is a rare situation where God allowed someone who passed away to come back to make an appearance because it had a specific purpose.
00:12:10
Ridley Barron
I don't think it's something that we regularly can do. I don't think you can pull out your Ouija board and talk to your great aunt Ethel. I don't think that that's something that we can practice on a regular basis. I do think that when people do practice those kinds of arts and they think they're communicating with the dead, I do think in those cases, it probably is demons parading for a purpose to to manipulate people.
00:12:32
Ridley Barron
I think in this particular situation, though, it might be that God said, Samuel, i need you to one more time to go back and take care of something for me. and and I could be argued the other way, but that kind of where I stand after reading the stories, you know, several times and look at some thoughts from other commentators.
00:12:49
Dan Sanchez
trying to think of any other situation where this happens in the Bible. And I can only think of one where Moses, and I think it's Elijah, appear before Jesus on top of the hill. We have kind of another instance of it.
00:12:59
Ridley Barron
Yep.
00:12:59
Ridley Barron
Yep.
00:13:01
Dan Sanchez
Coming back in a similar way, but obviously in a righteous way, not an unrighteous way.
00:13:02
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:13:05
Ridley Barron
Right. And again,
00:13:06
Dan Sanchez
But of course that's God, Jesus, you know.
00:13:08
Ridley Barron
Yeah. Again, i think that it's, it I think with the story of Moses and Elijah, I have heard people say, again, it was an exception, that God needed a special thing.
00:13:21
Ridley Barron
There are others who say that God did not actually bring Moses and Elijah back, but that the the apostles were given were put into kind of like a trance where they saw and envisioned them.
00:13:31
Ridley Barron
I think either way, it's a special situation that's not practical. You know, God, he doesn't ever do the same thing over twice, but yeah, yeah.
00:13:36
Dan Sanchez
Yeah. So we talked about last week. Yeah.
00:13:38
Ridley Barron
I think he just did this in this specific specific account because he knew these apostles were going to need to have this moment with Jesus's crucifixion coming up to be assured that they were indeed following the right guy.
00:13:50
Ridley Barron
And this was indeed the son of God. And and so having Moses and Elijah appear was huge. Those were the two big prophets of Israel right there.
00:14:00
Dan Sanchez
kind of,
Modern Miracles and Divine Interventions
00:14:02
Dan Sanchez
and don't know, that that argument expands a long way just beyond just ghosts and different things like that. The kind of thing of like, yeah, there's there's some rare instances.
00:14:08
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:14:11
Dan Sanchez
Sometimes they're repeated. Sometimes there's just like this one instance of like Jesus walking on water.
00:14:15
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:14:16
Dan Sanchez
Though I've heard some stories of missionaries or people like being persecuted and usually in the middle of a jungle being chased down, realizing they had just run across water kind of situations. But
00:14:25
Ridley Barron
Wow.
00:14:27
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, it's in it's not Fox's Book of Martyrs. It's like that Jesus Freaks book, which is a repackaged Fox's Book of Martyrs.
00:14:33
Ridley Barron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:35
Dan Sanchez
Lots of interesting stories in there of some old, some some modern ones. But all kinds of weird miracles.
00:14:40
Ridley Barron
Mm-hmm.
00:14:42
Dan Sanchez
You're like, huh, God's still doing some crazy things out there. But they're kind of rare. and But they are happening.
00:14:50
Ridley Barron
Yeah, I read those stories too. I've never read anything particular like that, but amazing stories of how God is doing, even now, unique things, especially probably have heard in the Mideast how God is causing visions to happen to people who are part of the Islamic faith.
00:15:04
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:15:10
Ridley Barron
I mean, pretty much the only way God would be able to get to them because missionaries aren't allowed in most of those countries And so he is of making these grand appearances to them to convince them of his reality.
00:15:22
Ridley Barron
I still believe God performs miracles. I've heard for years that churches in Korea have actually seen people with limbs that grow back as as a result of prayer.
00:15:29
Dan Sanchez
you know
00:15:32
Ridley Barron
I've heard of places like Argentina and Venezuela where revivals break out and people bring their dead relatives that come back to life. I don't know how to explain that. Do I believe God has the power to do that? Absolutely.
00:15:45
Ridley Barron
Do I believe I have to understand it all? Absolutely not. I'm
00:15:49
Dan Sanchez
Yeah, and the charismatic church, they they really glorify those kinds of things, which at first i was really fascinated by it.
00:15:53
Ridley Barron
sure.
00:15:54
Dan Sanchez
And then I was kind of like, eh. After a while, it's kind of like the real miracle is watching Christians filled with joy and glorifying God during the hardest things imaginable.
00:16:06
Ridley Barron
Absolutely.
00:16:09
Dan Sanchez
And I'm like, there's no greater miracle than watching somebody sing praises while they're literally being hung up on a cross, which has happened a lot in history.
00:16:13
Ridley Barron
oh no. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you know, you you hear this.
00:16:18
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, yeah.
00:16:19
Ridley Barron
Credible stories of people being burned at the stake, praising God as they die. And I can't remember which which one of the great saints it was who was being put to death and he basically fell on his knees and said the same thing Jesus said, Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing.
00:16:23
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:16:34
Ridley Barron
you know It's amazing, amazing.
00:16:36
Dan Sanchez
yeah
00:16:38
Ridley Barron
There is no miracle like the miracle of a man set free from his sins. You and I both know that. That's the greatest miracle of all. But these others, man, they absolutely prove the power of God.
00:16:50
Dan Sanchez
Because the other things are mostly like convenient. like Our will is always going to align with some miraculous thing happening, miraculous feeding, escape, something, healing.
00:16:57
Ridley Barron
Yeah. Right. Right.
00:17:00
Dan Sanchez
But the other one's going against human nature entirely, which is
00:17:03
Ridley Barron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:04
Dan Sanchez
the hardest thing to do, especially in groups.
00:17:06
Ridley Barron
Mm-hmm.
00:17:08
Dan Sanchez
So Saul talking to the medium.
David's Faith and the Power of Prayer
00:17:11
Dan Sanchez
The last big one I want to talk about before diving into some fun tidbits from the Psalms reading this week is that after Ziglag, which gets raided where David's living, before he goes after the band, it says David strengthened himself in the Lord.
00:17:19
Ridley Barron
Mm-hmm.
00:17:28
Dan Sanchez
There's been many times I've read that and I'm like, trying to picture that.
00:17:30
Ridley Barron
Mm-hmm.
00:17:32
Dan Sanchez
I'm like, is he praying? Is God supernaturally empowering him? Is he putting courage in his heart? What does that mean?
00:17:41
Ridley Barron
I think you're on the right track there, Dan. Absolutely. i i think for me, this is an ideal place as far as speculation is concerned about where he might've written some of the Psalms that especially deal with him being chased by Saul.
00:17:56
Ridley Barron
Maybe he sat still before God, wrote a couple of songs, Psalms, prayed couple of prayers, obviously consulted with God and said, Hey, de do I need to go chase these guys or do I just, you know, do I let it go? And so,
00:18:10
Ridley Barron
Man, what a great example. You and I, we run into problems and the first thing we do is get emotional and react and launch out of those emotions. I think David did a critical thing because he didn't he didn't act out of those emotions. He sat still before God and allowed God to prepare him for whatever was about to come.
00:18:28
Ridley Barron
And it's again, i said this Sunday morning in the sermon. Every single instance in Scripture where God stopped, I mean excuse me, David stopped to consult God first, he was successful.
00:18:39
Ridley Barron
Every single instance where he started out on his own, he failed, made some kind of mistake. And so this is a perfect example of him stopping, drawing strength from God before he he launched out his companion campaign. Hmm.
00:18:52
Dan Sanchez
In Psalm 56, it says, you have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle.
00:19:01
Ridley Barron
I mean, what a, what had a beautiful image of the intimacy of a God who's so big, the entire universe is in his hands, but so close and so near that he's, he's paying attention to your tears.
00:19:15
Ridley Barron
And I, man, if there's a prayer I could pray for my people at Grove Hill Church, it would be that all of us could feel that kind of closeness to God and realize that he, i mean, he's not just out there waiting for us to mess up so he can, you know, discipline us or whatever.
00:19:29
Ridley Barron
He feels our pain. He knows our hurt. He knows what keeps us awake at night out of fear. And he wants to be there as a close companion to guide us through those particular situations. And man, what a great place to draw strength for our own journey, but being in the, in the Psalms, reading these stories from guys like David and Asaph.
00:19:49
Dan Sanchez
And from when on when i one of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 63. It says, my soul be satisfied as with fat and rich food, which is interesting to think about. like He's literally in the middle middle of the desert, probably fairly hungry, if not like orderly starving.
00:20:02
Ridley Barron
Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:20:04
Dan Sanchez
But he's like, no, my soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food.
00:20:09
Ridley Barron
Yep.
00:20:10
Dan Sanchez
That somebody could be that satisfied in the presence of the Lord, that food's kind of like, like, I don't eat it.
00:20:11
Ridley Barron
Well,
00:20:15
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:20:18
Ridley Barron
Today, and as our staff meeting was starting, I read and prayed Psalm 66 over our staff, where it just talks about the the whole earth praising and and being inspired by God's great works and how the enemies of God will cringe before Him because they see how marvelous He is and those kinds of things. And I think...
00:20:41
Ridley Barron
It's real easy for us because we get overwhelmed by the activities of life to forget how good God has been and the fact that he always keeps his promises for us.
00:20:52
Ridley Barron
And we don't we don't have to worry or be afraid. We just need to trust in this God that he's always going to be there right on time with whatever we need, even in the darkest situations.
00:21:03
Dan Sanchez
find I miss sometimes when I was younger and had like a ton of free time because I didn't have kids, wasn't married. I could take like these extended prayer times and just go and walk and pray or go on a really long run and have a lot of quiet time by myself.
00:21:20
Dan Sanchez
I miss those times because it's like those times where you can actually spend clearing the air of like all the other things you were thinking about and then finally get down to the point where you're like, all right, God, I'm ready to talk.
00:21:26
Ridley Barron
Yep.
00:21:28
Ridley Barron
Yep. Listen, if you if you had the opportunity to ask my staff, they would probably confirm this for you, but... Probably the most effective days of every month are the days that I take for prayer.
00:21:43
Ridley Barron
And to show how important they are to me and my own spiritual well-being as a leader of this church, they are also the same days that are most contested for my attention, and I believe, by Satan.
00:21:55
Ridley Barron
I mean, everything brett falls apart that week. Everything gets backed up that week. There are phone calls and emails and marriages and struggling and counseling needed. And sometimes I just have to say, you know what, I just can't deal with until I get back. I've got to spend some time drawing strength from God.
00:22:15
Dan Sanchez
didn't martin luther say something funny like
00:22:21
Dan Sanchez
gosh, he said something funny about prayer and being too busy. He's like, on on my busy days, I pray more or something like that. and
00:22:25
Ridley Barron
and i think I think it was something like this, something to the effect of, I've been asked before how I can spend three hours in prayer every day to start my day.
00:22:26
Dan Sanchez
I'm like trying to remember the quote. Yeah.
00:22:36
Ridley Barron
And he said, I'm so busy. How could I not spend three hours? You know, it's the idea being that that time helped him sort his day and helped develop his priorities so he could get through each day with the right kind of heart and attitude.
00:22:45
Dan Sanchez
Yeah.
00:22:52
Ridley Barron
It's good quote, good reminder.
00:22:55
Dan Sanchez
And I don't have a say less as question today because we and we missed miss Sunday and missed miss life
The Importance of Learning History
00:23:01
Dan Sanchez
group. But I do have a typical question that both of my kids ask that almost every kid asked at some point that I'm like, but it's a good reminder to actually wrestle through why this is important because the Bible is full of this is why is it important to learn history?
00:23:18
Dan Sanchez
As a history buff yourself, how do you answer that question?
00:23:21
Ridley Barron
Well, you know, the whole standard reply for every major major who, a person who majored in history is, Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And that's that's the basic reason. We learn valuable lessons from watching the lives of those who went before us.
00:23:37
Ridley Barron
And of that is what happens when a dad looks at his son and says, please learn from my life so you don't have to repeat the things that I went through. But on a grander scale, a more universal scale, we have the ability to learn valuable lessons and to see where some of the potholes in the road and the barriers in the journey are. And we can miss a whole lot of the heartache if we would just learn from it.
00:24:00
Ridley Barron
On a grander scale, things like watching what happens in countries that give way to socialism and how they fall apart and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, here we got people who've never learned history or want to repeat it by going, oh that's what we need here in our country.
00:24:13
Ridley Barron
That's just a huge, huge mistake. Go back, read the stories of what's happened in in the past, learn from the lessons of people who've gone before us. Now, on the flip side of it, there's encouragement to be drawn from history, too, and specifically in this case, reading the Word to see how God has taken care of His people in the past.
00:24:32
Ridley Barron
And that's why the Bible tells us over and over and over again, remember, remember, remember, remember do not forget what God has done.
00:24:41
Dan Sanchez
had a mentor tell me once to write those things that God had done for me personally into a notebook. So there's a place where I keep some of those if I remember to write them down. And it put sometimes you get like letters of encouragement or a note nice note that somebody sent you.
00:24:56
Ridley Barron
yeah yep
00:24:57
Dan Sanchez
i have and have a digital version of that as well as a paper version like where I keep those notes just for those those hard times to remember what the Lord's done and what some of your friends and family have said along the way because we all hit those moments.
00:25:08
Ridley Barron
i think that's a great practice dan and i would encourage everybody to do it i mean Girls call it diarying or whatever, but most most guys refer to it as journaling. Journaling is a great way to do that.
00:25:20
Ridley Barron
But if you're not a journaler, you don't really have to have it. You go pick up the Bible and read the Psalms. David did a great j job of, and and not just David, Solomon, Asaph, there's many in there, a great job of recounting all the favor favorable ways God treated his people.
00:25:38
Dan Sanchez
And if you want to go one level deeper, if you've read the Psalms and want to take it up, I like reading them out loud as prayers. And then I'm like, I don't know what it is, but I think there's a part of it.
00:25:46
Ridley Barron
Yeah.
00:25:48
Dan Sanchez
And if you really want to get intense, maybe put some gladiator music on in the background. like You read it intensely. I've done some weird stuff, Ridley. I'm sorry.
00:25:55
Ridley Barron
yes I like that.
00:25:56
Dan Sanchez
i've tried I've tried this thing many different ways. Hmm.
00:25:58
Ridley Barron
Yeah. yeah There's a couple of good books. There's one, I can't remember the name of it, about how to pray the scriptures. I would encourage every believer to read that, not just the Psalms.
00:26:05
Dan Sanchez
and
00:26:08
Ridley Barron
There's other places in scripture, obviously, some of the early, early hymns of the church that Paul recorded for us in his letters, the prayers of Solomon at the dedication of the temple.
00:26:09
Dan Sanchez
Oh, for sure.
00:26:15
Dan Sanchez
Oh, yeah. Most of his letters open up with a prayer.
00:26:19
Ridley Barron
There's some great prayers in the Bible that we can pray over ourselves and our families.
00:26:25
Dan Sanchez
Fantastic. Thank you, Ridley, and I'll see you next week.