The Throne is Bestowed by God
Good day to all. Let us turn to II Samuel, chapter fifteen. I have entitled this chapter, God is More Important Than the Throne. This truth is vividly demonstrated in the life of David. Consider, what is the typical reaction when one loses a throne? David’s response is difficult for the average person to comprehend. However, how did David respond when he lost his throne?
The king also said to Zadok, “Take the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s eyes, He will bring me back and let me see it and His dwelling place again. But if He says, ‘I am not pleased with you,’ then I am ready; let Him do to me whatever seems good to Him.” (II Samuel 15:25-26)
This passage illustrates that David understood that the throne came from God; it was bestowed upon him by God. If you become the CEO of a company, it is God who has bestowed that upon you. If you become a director, that too is from God. It is crucial to understand that the throne is bestowed by God, and likewise, the position of chairman, CEO, or the title of entrepreneur is also granted by God. If everything is bestowed by God, how should we react? If one is the chairman today and continues to be the chairman tomorrow, people find it normal. But what happens when one loses that position? David’s wisdom lies in his clear understanding of the throne; he knew it was not obtained through political maneuvers, but was a gift from God. It is problematic if you believe it is solely your own accomplishment.
For instance, an entrepreneur who starts a real estate company might say, Every penny was earned through my hard work and sweat. Does that not leave a cold impression? If the government did not provide resources, your company would not have gotten off the ground! Those are resources provided by the political system. You cannot attribute all the achievements and merits solely to yourself! Take the people of Shenzhen, for example. Some build seven-story buildings with five rooms on each floor, and the village provides dividends annually, making them feel powerful. But what is so remarkable about that? It is because an old man once drew a circle in Shenzhen, turning it into a special economic zone. Your prowess has little to do with it. You must recognize that your abilities are limited.
Personally, I have a characteristic where I do not easily believe I am entitled to anything. I feel that I deserve curses, and what I receive is all grace. If someone glares at me, I think it is normal. I am a nobody, merely blessed by God. If someone glares at me or criticizes me, I take it in stride. I go home, prepare some peanuts, have a little wine, and remind myself that the most important thing in life is to be happy. If someone tells me, You are just a dog, I would reply, Oh, you overestimate me! I am just the dog's excrement! Have you seen dog excrement? If you have not, then seeing me is like seeing dog excrement. It is akin to a person speaking nonsensically when drunk.
What do we have that is not given by God? Our jobs and enterprises are all bestowed by God; nothing is not from God. However, these things must not take away my God. I am a person who sheds many tears and is soft-hearted. You cannot tell from my appearance; you would not know unless I tell you. Someone sought my ministry, saying they were about to die. I ministered to them, and after the ministry, they were healed. After I hung up the phone, I wept for half an hour. I wondered, How am I capable of solving other people's problems? Someone like me, just a piece of dog excrement, would God listen to my prayers? But God truly listened to my prayers, and the person received healing. I am very grateful to God.
I am somewhat excited because it is like meeting an old friend. Previously, he was in the hospital waiting to die. I went to see him and minister to him. After my ministry, he happily went home, as if nothing had happened. Just an hour before, he was waiting to die! But an hour later, because of my ministry, he could happily go home. This is not boasting; this is a small matter to God. I went back and said to God, Thank you, God! What merit do I have to receive your grace? Since childhood, my mother told me, Child, you will become a remarkable person in the future. It is not because of anything else, but because of God! Serving God requires no pretense; it is such a blessing!
Sometimes I wonder, what else is there to do if one does not serve God? Some just like to play, then play to the fullest. In the past years, my first job was given by God. My former boss told me, Do you know? This job was bestowed upon you by God. I truly did not know how I got the job. My English was not good; I could not understand what people were saying, and people could not understand what I was saying. How was I supposed to live like that? To be honest, I did not know myself. Later, he told me, Do you know? I prayed over this stack of resumes, and God told me very clearly, it was your name! The next day, I laid my hands on that stack of resumes again because your English resume was terrible, with grammatical errors and typos everywhere.
Just two months ago, I met my former boss and had tea with him. He was emotional! How could he have hired an employee like me back then? But the next day, something happened. A voice spoke clearly in his ear, telling him, Just hire this person! Was my job given by God? After hearing that, I said, God! I will serve you for life. I have never done anything for you, yet you have treated me with such grace. You saved me from the brink of death! From that moment on, I decided to serve God!
So many years have passed, and I will not let my job affect my service to God. David received a throne, but I only received a position as a customer service representative, perhaps like a delivery driver or a Taobao customer service agent. But I am grateful, unlike some who receive tremendous grace from me but discard God like trash. What a blessing it is to know God! I am quite opinionated, and I do not bother getting to know politicians or the wealthy.
I only have one thought: to help as many as I can, to bless as many as I can. Later, I started a church to serve my God! But some said, Does this guy have ulterior motives? I can assure everyone that I have never sought a penny from anyone. I only seek one thing: to be a blessing to you. Later, a brother told me, Teacher, do you know? I thought you were faking it, but after seeing your service, I realized you were serious. Tears would stream down my face because: I have no merit to be chosen and to serve God!
Even if I lose my job and everything else, I still have God! God is everything to me. I believe that everything I have comes from God, and I have walked to this point with that belief. David also had this understanding; David's understanding is the same as mine. How did I acquire the ability to know these things? My boss told me: I really heard a voice, like holding a loudspeaker to my ear, speaking your name, telling me to hire you.
Three months later, he held a party and invited all the dozen or so employees in the department. He walked up to me and said: Your job was given by God. I said: I really don't know, because my English is not good, and my skills are those of a complete beginner. Why would they hire me? That was truly God's grace! If I couldn't find this job, I really wouldn't have much interest in living, so my life was given by God. When I realized that my life was given by God, I could serve brothers and sisters until 1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM, or even until dawn, and then still go to work the next day. This is who I am!
Why? Because I know that everything I have is given by God. Would I forget that my life was given by God when circumstances change? I have not forgotten! David lost the throne and later regained it. Everyone must understand that this was not achieved through conspiracies. I shed tears because I am grateful for God's grace. I am a person who loves to cry; please do not blame me because my heart is bitter. Some people take their tears for analysis, and the tears are full of poison. I say: God, you are amazing! You even made me like to cry.
Over the past years, every time I minister, I would say something from the bottom of my heart: How I minister to you, you should also minister to others in the same way in the future. This is a treasure! This is a wise choice. Do not be foolish. If you have experienced God; you have touched a treasure. Later, after I established a church, I once told the brothers and sisters: I do not want to be a full-time pastor, and I do not want to depend on the church for a living. At that time, I was arrogant, and this statement also insulted God. Later, God caused me to lose my job. David lost the throne, and I lost my job.
In the past I had power, in charge of many budgets. At this time, looking again, people's true faces were revealed. I planned left and right, and I guessed correctly, because I said: I am going to serve God! Some people said: Teacher, a while ago you told us that you didn't want to be a full-time pastor, how did you suddenly want to do it? I said: Hey, I was wrong before. My skin is pretty thick, if I mess up I mess up. Everything I have comes from God, luckily I come to serve God, so I live so wonderfully. How many people have received grace from my ministry here? Too many! If I were not serving God full-time, it would not have been possible to create Chinese Mingding Destiny.
I have an old friend. At that time, he sent me a message from the hospital, asking me to help him. When I arrived at the hospital, I saw that he was in a state of waiting for death. After praying with him for an hour, he went home alive and kicking, and I also went home. When I returned home, tears kept flowing. This is not my doing, because it is God's doing. What merit do I have to have the opportunity to serve God! To be able to bring my good friend back from the brink of death! I have performed too many miracles, and I can't finish talking about them all. Every miracle makes my tears flow down! It really produced some results, really brought people back from the brink of death.
In fact, my classmates all know what I am doing. I have a classmate who died of cancer. I sighed in my heart, because he knew me, but he didn't come to me. I was very helpless! If he came to me, the result should be different, because I have God! Therefore, I look down on my position. I really don't care about the position of pastor, because I only care about my God, all positions come from God. If you want to sit in this position, that is God's will. If God is pleased to give it to you, He will definitely give it to you. If you know that all positions in this world are given by God, what would you do? Maybe you have retired, but the path of serving God has just begun.
Absalom Obtains the Throne by Means
Can Absalom obtain the throne by means? Absolutely! In this world, you can accomplish some things by means, but you will also lose your life for these things. Absalom uses his own means, and many businessmen and politicians use their own means, which is really not very useful. I once wrote a book called Doing What is Right in the Eyes of Jehovah. Absalom used a political means to obtain the throne. Did he obtain it? He obtained it. Is it useful? It is useful. But this usefulness also brought him a result of an unnatural death, and he was really not far from death. Brothers and sisters must know that as time goes by, few things in this world can escape the palm of God's hand.
Politics is a potent force. What is politics? Anything that involves people is politics, the human heart is politics. You must understand clearly, we do not play politics. If you think I want to get something from you, you are mistaken, I truly want to give you something. Someone like me who has seen through life and death would have died long ago if not for God. It is because of God that I have the opportunity to serve Him. I do not want to gain anything from you, I am a priest of Jehovah God, I want to share with you the benefits I receive from God. If you come among us and do not receive any benefit, then you should leave! Because you seem to have come to the wrong place. In fact, it is highly unlikely you will not benefit from being among us.
A few days ago, a child was hospitalized, not even recognizing his parents, in a completely deranged state. His mother is a member of our church. A few days before this, he told his mother: Mom, I had a dream that ghosts were going to catch me. His mother took this to heart, and her pastor led her in prayer, and the child was able to return home from the hospital. **You and I rely on God's means, on the authority received from the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, to make waves in the spiritual world. Can things be done through human means? Yes, but not permanently.**
I think it is a bit difficult for me to die. Actually, I am not particularly interested in living, but I never seem to die. I have experienced the valley of the shadow of death. Some time ago, I contracted the Delta variant of COVID-19. Why did I contract it? The reason is very simple, it is because I have too many ailments. Someone joked: Teacher, how do you still have ailments? There are so many ailments, so far from God's holiness. During that period, I kept hiccupping and farting every few seconds, day after day without stopping.
Later, I thought, if I had not been hiccupping and farting, I would have really kicked the bucket, because there was too much filth inside me. When I was lying in bed praying in tongues, my voice changed. But I knew **everything I have comes from God, my life and breath depend on God.** Later, many people asked me: Did you go to the hospital? Going to the hospital would not have stopped me from kicking the bucket! To be honest, I really did not go, I just prayed at home. I am still quite conscientious, not wanting to affect others, so I stayed at home, almost kicking the bucket! Fortunately, I could hiccup and fart.
Actually, going to the hospital is the same, it is useless, because I do not live by political means, nor by human means. When I contracted COVID-19, I also saw through a lot of anger, and after wandering on the edge of life and death for a while, I knew that a person's life and breath depend only on God! So I decided to serve God for the rest of my life, to pass on God's words until I leave this world and return to God. Absalom had a logic, which was to gain the throne by political means, and later died, that was really kicking the bucket. Do you know how he played political means? He played with people's hearts.
Once I was in a car, and a sister was sitting next to me. People said: Teacher, why are there always sisters next to you? Do not get the wrong idea, it is normal to have sisters next to me. I have a good friend who is particularly envious of my work. I asked him: What are you envious of? This friend has been my old friend for many years, we played together when we were eight or nine years old. Later I understood, he always saw a group of beautiful women around me. We have to understand that there are more sisters in the church. He said: Your job is good! I said: How is it good? He said: Admiration, admiration is pastoring. I said: What kind of logic is that? I do not particularly like admiration, but I must implement pastoring.
The sister sitting next to me in the car asked me: Teacher, who do you like in Romance of the Three Kingdoms? I could hear the implication in her words. I said: I like Liu Bei. She said: Liu Bei buys people's hearts. It sounded like she was saying I was buying people's hearts. What would I gain from buying people's hearts? **A person who lives by God never plays political means.** I asked her: After Liu Bei was defeated in Xu prefecture, did he take the people of Xu prefecture with him when he left? Why did he take these people? She looked at me for a long time and replied: I do not know.
I said: Because Liu Bei was playing it for real, not acting. A group of people, dragging their families, carrying all sorts of junk on their carts, walked extremely slowly. Although I cannot be Liu Bei, I will never play it fake; Liu Bei did not play it fake, and I will not play it fake either. The brothers and sisters who work with me know that I will definitely rush to the front in risky matters, if someone has to die, I will die first; in matters without risk, you can run ahead and have some fun.
Absalom used political means to gain the throne, playing with the people's hearts, buying the people's hearts. Brothers and sisters, **if you are a person who serves God, you cannot buy the people's hearts; if you serve God with your heart, without political means, God will surely be pleased with you.** I do not particularly care whether people like me or not, that is not important, I pursue God's pleasure. Because my position comes from God, I serve the eternal God, which is why my ministry is so effective, because I only pursue God's pleasure in my life. Why do I tear up after I finish serving? Because God has heard my prayers. This is not gained by political means, **but by pleasing God, my position comes from God.** In this chapter, Absalom played with the people's hearts, and it was very effective, but he did not die well.
## David's Reaction When He Lost the Throne
When David saw that the hearts of all Israel were turned toward Absalom, his reaction was remarkable:
**The king said to Zadok, Take the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again. But if he says, ‘I am not pleased with you,’ then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him. (2 Samuel 15:25-26)**
**In David's view, the throne was nothing, he did not care about some people following him, what he cared about was God's pleasure.** He said: God can treat me this way or that way! David did not struggle or resist, nor did he do too many strange actions. If a pastor uses political means to maintain his position, he is an Absalom; if a pastor relies on faith in God, his position will surely be stable. But a position is nothing, what would someone who has seen through life and death value? If one day you say: I do not like Chinese Mingding Destiny, I want to go to the church near my home. No problem, but I give you a suggestion: you have to first see if that pastor or district leader is someone who has seen through life and death.
**When David lost the throne, his reaction was still to trust God, he did not care about the throne.** My reaction when I faced unemployment that year was similar to David's. At that time, I asked God, what should I do to please you? Until now, I still have a pain point in my heart, am I really walking in God's will now? I said: God, if you are pleased with me, let me live in this world and serve you all my life. **A person's reaction when he loses his position determines his future.** David's reaction when he lost the throne was a reaction of trusting God, which allowed him to return to the throne of King of Israel, because God is in control of everything.
If God is not your core interest, but anything else, such as: the throne, work becomes your core interest, these core interests will eventually become a curse. Saul suffered from severe depression, also called paranoia, because of the throne. I have served people with paranoia, I understand how painful that feeling is! When David lost the throne, many people still wanted to follow him, but he sent them all back.
**The king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why should you come along with us? Go back and stay with King Absalom. You are a foreigner, an exile from your homeland. You came only yesterday! And today should I make you wander about with us, when I do not even know where I am going? Go back, take your countrymen with you, and may the Lord show you love and faithfulness.” (2 Samuel 15:19-20)**
David said: You are with me, but I have no fixed residence, escaping today, escaping tomorrow; being chased today, being chased tomorrow, you should go back! It is not easy for a person to see through these things.
## Loyalty Can Be Seen When the Throne Is Lost
We see the first person who is loyal is Ittai. When David lost the throne, Ittai still followed David! He was not thinking: I will only follow you when you have the throne, once you lose the throne, I will look at you like garbage! When David lost the throne, he could see the loyalty of the people below, and as a result, these people were willing to follow David. They might have to wander in this world for the rest of their lives with David, and it is very likely that Absalom would be king forever, and they would wander with David forever.
In ancient China, there was a man named Tian Heng, he was a nobleman of the state of Qi, someone wanted to buy him off, but could not. Originally, this Tian Heng was going to be recruited, but he committed suicide on the way, and the 500 warriors who followed him also committed suicide, and from then on, their loyal reputation has been circulating on the land of China, **so when a person loses the throne, he can see the loyalty of the people below.**
God has mercy on me, and has given me a group of disciples who are loyal to God, I am particularly grateful for establishing His glorious church, how loyal our team is! I believe that our colleagues are not coming to the church to work for a salary, but to be a loyal priest before God. Because you are chosen by God, not chosen by me. People like Zadok, Abiathar, and Hushai are loyal people, and I often wonder in my heart: What is this person here for? Is he here to work in the church for a salary, or to serve God?
I declare in faith: **You are all loyal people, so seeing people's loyalty is so important!** When I was poor and destitute, and the church was still desolate, many brothers and sisters resigned from their jobs and came to serve in the church. When I saw them coming, I cried for a long time, and have been moved ever since. Whether you came early, mid or now, I believe you are a loyal person. We see that Ahithophel gave Absalom an idea at that time, but because Absalom did not adopt it, he was unhappy and went home and committed suicide. In fact, he was not loyal to anyone, he was a self-centered person.
Brothers and sisters, as we wander in this world, we must know that the most important thing is that God sits on His throne and looks down: to see if there is any who understands? Is there any who seeks? Is there any who is loyal? God has been looking for a loyal priest. I said: God, since you have chosen me, I will be a loyal priest, like Moses and Samuel, and be completely faithful in God's house. I thank God! He used me to create Chinese Mingding Destiny; I also thank God! Because He has also chosen you, that is great! These are all my heartfelt words.
**If God is more important than the throne, then what is more important than God? Nothing! Not even the throne is as important as God.** What are presidents, chairmen, and directors? They are nothing! Brothers and sisters, **no matter what we lose or gain in our lives, we must always hold on to God!** Because God is everything to us! If God is pleased with us, may His will be done in us. How did God later accomplish David? David went back to be king again. May good things be accomplished, may wonderful things happen! May we who fear God and are loyal to God, live in God's great grace every day, Amen!
May God bless you all!