1 Samuel 21:9 (KJV) There Is None Like That

1 Samuel 21:9 (KJV)

And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if thou wilt take that, take it: for there is no other save that here. And David said, There is none like that; give it me.

David was in a terrible fix. I know we can accuse him for the lie to the priest—that he was on the king’s business (a lie which could have contributed to the deaths of the priests of Nob, though I think we have to stretch some to make that connection)—but David was in a worst-case scenario. The king literally, personally, wanted him dead. He was running for his life, trying to “go dark.”

We might try to put ourselves in those shoes and ask whether we would have done better.

David asked the priest for two things: some bread (Jesus later uses this account as a lesson about the Lord of the Sabbath) and a weapon. As for the weapon, the only one available was the very one David had used to kill Goliath—Goliath’s own sword.

In one of the worst moments of David’s life, God had seen fit to arrange things so that David could be reminded of one of the highest moments of his life to that point. His response to the offer of Goliath’s sword was simple and powerful: “There is none like that; give it me.”

I had not been in the ministry many years—I am sure it was less than three—when I prepared and preached a message on that phrase at the very small Lower Columbia Baptist Church we were attempting to plant in Astoria, Oregon.

The Sunday I preached that message, a couple visited the service. I preached with as much joy as I had. After describing what must have been David’s memories of slaying Goliath with that sword, I went on to express some truths that have blessed me since my new birth:

• There is none like salvation through Christ; give it me.
• There is none like eternal security; give it me.
• There is none like immersion baptism under proper authority; give it me.
• There is none like faithful church attendance; give it me.
• There is none like old-fashioned soul winning; give it me.
• There is none like… 

you get the idea.

After the service, that visiting couple came up to speak with me. They said they had not heard a message preached so well in many years. They were encouraging, kind, and enthusiastic.

And they never came back to our church again.

December 29, 2025, marked the 42nd anniversary of my ordination into the ministry. I can tell you those years included many times of stress when I thought I would break. There were heartbreaks that left scars I still feel today. There were times so confusing that I doubt there was a clearly right way to handle what I was facing.

But I can also say this: through it all, God was there to hold me up. I did not do everything correctly, but I would not change a thing.

I am reminded of—and can echo—the words of King David:

Psalm 37:25 (KJV)
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

#ThereIsNoneLikeThat #GodsFaithfulnessProved #LessonsFromDavid #FromBattleToBread #StillHoldingMeUp

There Is None Like That: Reminders God Saves for Dark Days

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The Word of God has a way of meeting us in our darkest moments—just as it did for David in 1 Samuel 21. If you’ve ever wondered where God is when the pressure is on, the Scriptures still speak with clarity, truth, and hope.

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To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 7000 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

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1 Samuel 21:9 (KJV) There Is None Like That

Acts 21:14 (KJV) Stubborn or Steadfast?

Acts 21:14 (KJV) 

And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done.

Many years ago, I pastored in Astoria, Oregon. I led the church there to install an air-conditioning unit in the auditorium, but like so many Baptist churches, we did not have enough money to install what would have been the appropriately sized unit. It worked well for the most part, but there were some summer days when the building filled with people and the air became quite stale.

On one occasion, a very kind lady in the church started to open a window, as they were accustomed to doing before we had air-conditioning. I stopped her and explained that the A/C would not work efficiently with the windows open. She countered that the A/C was not doing enough anyway. I insisted that we allow it to do its job, explaining that it would be better than having hot air flooding in while the unit struggled to cool the room.

She turned to my wife and said, “He is the most stubborn man I’ve ever known.”

Mind you, she is—to this day—a very close friend. And, by the way, I think I’d have had a tough run against her husband in the race of stubbornness.

I can imagine those believers trying to persuade Paul not to go to Jerusalem finally giving up and saying, “He is the most stubborn man I’ve ever known.”

I know my personal illustration does not compare with the situation unfolding in Paul’s life, but there are some parallels. Leadership is often called to insist upon things that those under that leadership do not understand and cannot agree with. In the temporary, worldly sense, they could have said in the end that they were right—Paul did get arrested in Jerusalem and was eventually executed in Rome. (But we know that God had a greater purpose and Paul was used mightily in those prison years.)

I am not saying the pastor is always right. But he is always the pastor. If he is humble, he will listen to the people of his congregation and allow them to influence his leadership. In the end, however, he is the one who must make the decisions. In eternity, he is the one who will give an account.

A humble congregation understands this and loves their pastor—even when they sometimes, and perhaps oftentimes, disagree, and even when they can later point out that on the visible world at least, they were right.

#TheWillOfTheLord #BiblicalLeadership  #TrustGodsPlan  #SubmissionAndFaith #PastoralResponsibility

Stubborn or Steadfast? The Will of the Lord Be Done

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Acts 21:14 reminds us that obedience to God’s will is not always comfortable—but it is always right.

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To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 7000 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
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Acts 21:14 (KJV) Stubborn or Steadfast?

1 Samuel 19:24 (KJV) Stripped of Purpose

1 Samuel 19:24 (KJV) 

And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets?

Matthew Henry says of this passage, “He stripped off his royal robe and warlike habiliments, because they were either too fine or too heavy for this service, and fell into a trance…”
Jamieson-Fausett-Brown writes, “that is, divested of his armor and outer robes…”
And John Gill says, “not entirely naked, both without his upper garment or royal robes, or else his armour; so an unarmed man is said to be naked.”

We are prone to read into the Word of God what we want to read, not necessarily what is actually there.

On my recent trip to the United Arab Emirates, one of the pastors took my wife and me to see the Miracle Garden in Dubai. It is a tourist destination that reminded me in some ways of Disneyland. The UAE, and Dubai in particular, is attempting to become a world-class tourist destination. Realizing their oil reserves are diminishing and anxious to maintain their wealth, they are seeking alternative sources of income. Tourism is logical because of the climate. However, in order to welcome tourists, the Muslim-led government has had to ease restrictions significantly. We Christians would call that compromise.

As we walked through the gardens, the pastor hosting us—who has lived in the UAE for around three decades—bemoaned what he called the nudity there. There were virtually no standards of dress. Modesty was nowhere to be seen. Mind you, no one was dressed more immodestly than what we might see at Disneyland in California, but this pastor had lived there in a time when no one, man or woman, would have exposed any skin. He was not a legalist by any means, but he did describe public exposure of the neck and shoulders, the stomach area, and the thighs as nudity.

That is all this passage has to mean. Saul was not stripped entirely naked, but rather stripped perhaps of his upper garments, his royal apparel, or—what I find most compelling—his armor and weapons. Remember, his mission was to kill David. God took away his weapons and his means of doing harm.

When God is protecting us, no weapon of the enemy may harm us. (Isaiah 54:17)

#RightlyDividingTheWord #BibleContextMatters#NoWeaponFormed #GodsProtection #AmongTheProphets

Stripped of Purpose: Reading the Text, Not Our Imagination 

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To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 7000 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

1 Samuel 19:24 (KJV) Stripped of Purpose

1 Samuel 18:10 (KJV) "An Evil Spirit from God”

1 Samuel 18:10 (KJV) 

And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand.

The commentaries I have available all tend to concentrate on what sort of spirit this was—whether a devil, or some sort of mental illness such as melancholy or depression—which, by the way, they note “the learned” are not agreed upon. I am more interested in the phrase “from God.”

I see at least three ways to understand this:

This was an evil spirit God created.
Even devils are beings created by God. He did not create them to be evil; that was their choice. But He did create them. From time to time we hear of someone being mauled by a bear. The bear could be said to be from God because it is a creation of God. The bear did what bears do. That would not be the same as saying that it was God’s will for the bear to maul the man.

This was an evil spirit God allowed.
God allowed the devil to do all sorts of evil to Job. It was not that God is evil, nor that He did the evil, but that He allowed the evil that exists in this world to operate. He has a plan to eradicate it in the future (I pray it is in the near future). Evil exists because of the sin of man, and God uses even that which is evil to bring about His will. It had already been determined by the Lord that Saul would be replaced and that David would be his replacement. Whatever evil befell Saul was used by God to direct events toward that eventual transition.

This was an evil spirit God knew would result from Saul’s disobedience.
Here is the plain fact: evil exists in this world. There is no way to avoid being affected by it entirely, but the Word of God does teach us how to avoid much of it. A person who goes out in the rain will get wet. A person who goes out into the woods could encounter a bear. A person who disobeys the Bible will face consequences he might have avoided had he obeyed.

In some measure, all of these were true of Saul.

The devil was certainly playing his part in this most important event in the history of the people of God. God was using the corrupt nature that existed in Saul to direct circumstances toward David’s becoming king. And there is no doubt that Saul’s disobedience to God led him to jealousy toward David, seasons of depression, and an explosive, evil temperament.

#WhenGodRemovesHisHand #ConsequencesOfDisobedience #GodsSovereignRule #SpiritualDecline #LessonsFromSaul

An Evil Spirit from God”: Spiritual Torment After Disobedience

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God’s Word speaks plainly—even on difficult passages like “an evil spirit from God.” If you want Scripture to interpret Scripture, not opinions to replace truth, you’re in the right place.

❓ How do you understand God’s sovereignty and human responsibility in passages like 1 Samuel 18:10?
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To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 7000 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

1 Samuel 18:10 (KJV)  "An Evil Spirit from God”

1 Samuel 17:20 (KJV) Before the Battle

1 Samuel 17:20 (KJV) 

And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took, and went, as Jesse had commanded him; and he came to the trench, as the host was going forth to the fight, and shouted for the battle.

David was a keeper of his father’s sheep. When he was commanded by his father to take food to his brothers, who were in the army standing against the Philistines, he left those sheep with another keeper. It is significant that Jesse also told David to “look how thy brethren fare.” His duty was more than delivering food; he was assigned the task of assessing the situation on the battlefront—at least as it concerned his brothers.

This keeper would have been a trusted friend, another shepherd, or someone else who agreed to take responsibility for the sheep while David was away.

New duties seldom give us leave to abandon previous ones. David did not chase God’s calling by neglecting present duty. He secured the flock first, then stepped into God’s unfolding plan. That is a strong principle—God often advances faithful men who take care of what is already in their hands.

Although David had already been anointed by Samuel, he never allowed larger fields of service to become an excuse for disregarding the smaller fields already entrusted to him.

The Biblical application is simple: be faithful in the small things, and God will entrust us with greater ones.

#FaithfulInSmallThings #PresentDutyFirst #TrustedWithMore #GodsTimingNotOurs #FromSheepToService

Before the Battle: The Faithfulness That Comes First

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God’s Word still speaks with clarity to everyday life, just as it did in David’s day. Faithfulness in the small things is never wasted, and the Bible shows us why.

💬 Question for you:
What is one responsibility God has placed in your hands right now that you need to guard faithfully?

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To my readers:

Thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and, more than 7000 earlier Daily Visits with God, visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2005.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

My books, and other resources, are available at:
https://marvinmckenzie.org

Join me at Daily Visits with God Podcast
https://marvinmckenzie.substack.com/

Merch at my Teespring store https://macz.creator-spring.com/
Be a witness with hats, mugs, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and more

Let’s have coffee?
The link to Ko-fi  is an opportunity to support this effort to reach a world of souls with the Word of God. I would appreciate any gift you can give. 

1 Samuel 17:20 (KJV) Before the Battle