It's Your Season To Recover All by Apostle Johnson Suleman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

It's Your Season to Recover All

1 Samuel 30:15-19 records how David, after pursuing the Amalekites who had raided his camp, recovered everything that had been taken: his wives, his people, and all his possessions, with nothing missing, small or great. The Bible says David recovered all.

There are people from whom much has been stolen, much that does not belong to the enemy, yet has been taken from them. By the move of the Spirit, what was lost is to be recovered, and recovered double. Ecclesiastes 10:15 says the labor of fools wearies them, because they do not know how to find the way to the city. There is a gate that leads to abundance, to increase, to wealth, to advancement, and to honor, and that gate is about to open.

Starting late does not disqualify anyone from finishing strong. Those who appear to be ahead, celebrating while others are still waiting, do not determine the outcome. As the saying goes, others may have wine, but those who hold on to the word of God hold something that wine cannot become, water can become wine. Through the Gospel of John, water appears again and again, as the place of Jesus' baptism, as the substance turned to wine at the wedding, as the means of Nicodemus' new birth, as the well where the woman met the Living Water, as the pool where a man waited thirty-eight years for healing, as the surface Peter walked on, and as the image Jesus used for rivers of living water flowing from within those who believe.

The Background to David's Loss

David had been rejected everywhere he went, because people feared the trouble that would come from harboring a man King Saul was hunting. Eventually he found refuge with Achish, king of Gath, who allowed him to settle in Ziklag for sixteen months. While there, David helped the Philistines in their battles, but never against Israel, as a way of honoring the refuge he had been given.

Then the Amalekites came, not against the Philistines, but against the place where David and his men lived. Isaiah 31:3 says, "he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is helped shall fall down together." When the enemy wants to bring someone down, they often attack the one who has been helping them. The Amalekites took everything that belonged to David: his wealth, his wives, his children, and the wealth of the men with him, and then burned the city to the ground.

It would have been easy to call this bad luck, to say that David had brought misfortune on everyone connected to him. But people are not defined by their experiences or their losses. Even God lost angels to rebellion and remains God. What happens to a person is a function of what that person carries; the content within someone determines the nature of the warfare they face. David lost everything, down to the city itself, yet the Bible records that he recovered it all. When a person reaches a point of not knowing where to start from, when there is no visible health, wealth, or direction left, that is often the very point at which help arrives unexpectedly, in a way that feels like a mystery.

This unexpected help often comes after a season where something that seemed good is taken away, only for something better to take its place. A counseling encounter once involved a young woman whose long-term boyfriend had left her for another woman after years of his financial support. She was encouraged not to mourn the loss, since whoever leaves is not the one meant to remain, and was told that God does not take away what is truly good, only what is not good enough. Some time later, a visiting young man, resistant to the idea of marriage despite his mother's encouragement, met that same young woman during a visit and was immediately drawn to her character. They went on to marry and now live abroad with children of their own. Whenever the seeming good departs, the best is often on its way.

Battles Fought Before You Were Aware

In Genesis 41, Joseph interpreted dreams for Pharaoh's butler and baker while all three were in prison; the baker, whose dream involved birds eating bread from a basket on his head, was later executed, just as Joseph had said. There are battles fought over people's lives long before they are even aware of them, in the same way that two grown, married, and accomplished people may never realize there was a spiritual contest over their heads from childhood, through school, through marriage, all without their knowledge. Every such hidden battle over a life is declared to have come to its expiration point.

Three Keys to Total Recovery

1. Access

   1 Samuel 30:11-13 describes how David's men found an Egyptian in the field, and it was this Egyptian, not an Israelite, who led them to the Amalekite camp where everything was recovered. Ecclesiastes 9:11 says, "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Access, time and chance, can come through the most unlikely sources. Acts 28 describes how, after Paul's shipwreck, the people of Melita, who were not believers, showed kindness to the survivors. God can use people who would ordinarily show no favor to anyone to bring about someone's breakthrough.

   A personal account illustrates this: at a time of struggling in business after resisting a call to ministry, a man unexpectedly offered to give land, described in vague and unmeasured terms that made no sense at the time, and the offer was declined. Years later, while a ministry building project was underway, the same piece of land turned out to be needed for the project, and the value of accepting that earlier, seemingly nonsensical offer became clear. When God is about to bless someone, the process will often not make logical sense at the time; it requires receiving access even when it looks unconventional.

2. Success

   Success is arriving at one's intended destination, achieving what was pursued, reaching the goal that was set. Luke 15:16 describes the prodigal son in his lowest state, where "no man gave unto him." There are people for whom nothing has come easily, who have labored and struggled without the breakthroughs others seem to receive freely. 2 Corinthians 9:8 promises that God is able to make all grace abound, so that in all things, at all times, there is sufficiency for every good work.

   Sometimes the struggle is foundational, rooted in one's family background. 2 Timothy 1:5 speaks of the genuine faith that lived first in Timothy's grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, even though his father was a Greek, an idol worshiper. A household divided between an altar of faith and a contrary spiritual foundation can create a kind of drag, two steps forward and several steps back. Yet scripture says believers have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, where such patterns can be broken regardless of family history or generational pattern.

3. Excess

   Ephesians 3:20 says God "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." After the flood, Noah sent out a dove that found no resting place and returned, then a dove that returned with an olive leaf, and finally a dove that never returned, remaining in the heavens until the day it descended again at the baptism of Jesus, when the voice of God declared, "This is my beloved Son." What was released in one season can remain held in reserve until the appointed moment, then return with even greater significance. This is the nature of excess: God exceeding what was expected, not merely meeting it.