Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard. I Samuel 22:23
The wedding had been beautiful, the honeymoon memorable and now the young couple were moving into their new apartment. They would be starting life as man and wife. There was so much to do! They had to find jobs, re-enroll for one more year of college and get their apartment set up. There was so much to do but one important thing they overlooked. They had not found a good church to join. They both loved the Lord very much. They had been in church all of their lives. Now that their new life was beginning they needed to find a church home. They attended a church each week but as the weeks went by they never really found a church home where they could join, settle into and begin to serve the Lord. It was not long until they began to miss services. They had to work and school was very demanding. They were newlyweds and were still building their marriage. There was no way they could get to church for Wednesday night prayer meeting. They were just too busy. Before long Sunday evening church was too much also. Predictably, they began to miss Sunday morning services as well. As a result their spiritual life began to suffer. They started to think that they were the only ones who believed in the Bible and salvation. Soon they began to even doubt their faith. They were out of church and did not realize the grave danger that they were in.They were loosing the spiritual war that every Christian must fight. They did not have the spiritual protection that church provides.
In I Samuel 22 David was on the run from King Saul. The king had just murdered an entire town of priests. Their crime was having helped David. One man, whose name was Abiathar, escaped and came to tell David the horrible news. He was in great danger from Saul’s army. David extended protection to Abiathar when he said to him, “Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard.” (I Samuel 22:23)
It took a while, but our newlyweds finally got into a good church. There they found the protection they needed. David’s army was not a church but this story gives us a good illustration of an important spiritual truth. The church is the believer’s place of protection. The Bible teaching is “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.” (Hebrews 10:25) That command is given for a reason. There is protection there. In church we are strengthened and matured in our faith, trained in spiritual warfare and encouraged to holy living. Attendance and membership in a solid Bible preaching church is not an option for the child of God. Satan seeks to destroy our faith. He tried also destroy Jesus. The Lord says to us, just as David said to Abiathar, “Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard.” Psalm 122:1
“I was glad when they said unto me,
Let us go into the house of the LORD..”
[podcast]https://lifeabovefear.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/024-Fear-Not-With-Me-You-Shall-Be-Safeguarded-.mp3[/podcast]
