2 Sam 18:28, And Ahimaaz called and said to the king, "All is well." And he prostrated himself before the king with his face to the ground. And he said, "Blessed is the Lord your God, who has delivered up the men who lifted their hands against my lord the king." 
	In this morning’s reading we are presented with another of those times when it was realized that God is to be blessed in the manner in which our walk on this earth is unto His satisfaction. It is the means of humanity to live unto the blessing of God, not to be caught up with the schemes and the efforts to get His blessing. 
	This chapter details the end of the revolt that would have removed David from the throne. This averted the death of the ordained Davidic kingship over the nation of Israel and as the heritage of the Messiah to come. The reign of King David was met with the human recognition that it was a blessing to God that this sovereign remained in place and not the usurper, who would have ended that lineage because he had no male heir. This is evidenced as the writer details that Absalom set up the pillar in the King’s Valley as his commemoration stone instead.
	When we see that the Lord’s will is accomplished and His plan is forwarded, we are to recognize that He is blessed. Whether this is in our lives individually or corporately, there is to be honor given to The Lord as the walk of His people on this earth reflect and carry out that which is His plan and purpose for the sake of His glory. This removes that vision of seeing us as the center of all our activities and motives. Rather, it places the full breadth of the glory and the honor to be received upon Jehovah as the focal point. 
We live with the view and desire that He receive the praise for all the good work which He has done, is doing, and ever will accomplish. Accordingly we declare, with the every fiber of our essence, that He, Alone, is to be blessed in the works of His hands and in our obedient service of sacrifice unto Him.
	This was in evidence very early on in the history of this living relationship with God, in which The Lord directed and maintained the walk of those who would seek to honor and bless Him above all else. We turn back in our Bibles to Gen 14:18-20. This is the account of Abram, soon to be Abraham, after he had obeyed the Lord in rescuing Lot and his family from the raiders who had plundered the city of this nephew. Abram was on the return trip home when he was met by Melchizedek.
	Gen 14:18-20, And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand." And he gave him a tenth of all. 
	This king, and priest of God gave Jehovah the blessing for all that had been done by Abram in obedience to the Lord. Even in the greeting of Abram and the blessing of him by Melchizedek, there was the pronouncement that he was a man of God, thereby blessing The Lord in that salutation. This priest then continued with the direct assertion that God Most High was to be blessed by the successful response of Abram to the task that was given by and directed unto Jehovah. The entire meeting of these two was that which would bring honor and adoration and glory to Yahweh in a manner of the recognition that He, Alone was to be blessed and praised in the responses of those who belong to Him.
	Next, please turn to Gen 24:27, where the blessing of God is voiced by that servant who sought for the house of the family of Abraham in order to bring back a wife for Isaac. Abraham, in honoring the Lord and the declaration of the blessing that God was to receive by the faithful obedience of this lineage, wanted Isaac to not take a wife from the land of the Canaanites in which Abraham and his family were dwelling. There was to be in evidence that consideration of the holiness of God in the choices made by His people on this earth.
	Therefore, Abraham sent his servant to locate a suitable woman to become the wife of Isaac, a woman who would bless the Lord as did this patriarchal family. 
Accordingly, this servant searched diligently for the one whom the Lord had prepared as the wife of Isaac. He asked the Lord to make known to him where the family of this chosen one would be. 
The Lord, through the selfless actions of Rebekah, made known exactly whom the servant should approach and ask to come back to Abraham and Isaac. In the recognition that God had directly intervened and provided the response to this request, we find that servant expressing that which we all should hold in our hearts before the Lord.
	Gen 24:27, And he said, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master's brothers."
	Whenever we find ourselves in need of the guidance of God, which is all the more as each day progresses, we should follow this same Biblical example. There should be that welling up within us which has to fully proclaim that God is to be blessed. 
This is not just because He has made the every provision in our lives with His supply and direction, but because He so cares for His people down to the nth degree. There is nothing too small or too large to entrust to the Sovereignty of God. He directs and rules and overrules in the minutiae as well as the grand scale of the sojourn of His people on this earth.
	As an aside, Abraham had counted on Jehovah to prepare the spouse of Isaac. He had asked the Lord to work in her all that was necessary to become the wife through whom the lineage would be carried forward to the glory and the praise and the blessing of The Lord God Almighty. It was imperative that this woman would be the perfect help-mate as the family of Abraham was to become the blessing to all the nations of the earth as well as to Yahweh in the fulfillment of His plan and His purpose.
	Accordingly, it is just as imperative that parents, and grand-parents, and great-grand parents, and even great-great-grand parents are seeking for God to work and prepare those men and women who will become the help-mates of our families as the heritage of the Lord. 
It is like the planting of the tamarisk tree for future generations to know and to honor The Lord God Almighty. This is vital to the course of the testimony that our families are to the people in our societal realm. We must never just assume that things will work out. 
It is our duty as the parental element and the matriarchs and patriarchs of our lineage that we beseech the Lord to instill, in the entire posterity of our earthly family, Who He is and all that He has done. This requires that we live before our entire line of relations the more and more perfect expression of the will of God in our lives. We hold Him at the forefront of our every interaction. We
ask Him to rule and overrule in the every choice of spouse as He so deems the heart’s preparation and desire to know Him all the more fully.
	We sincerely ask that He would be blessed in the walk of our posterity as we so desire Him to be blessed in the paths of the obedience that our feet tread. We cannot make those decisions for our heritage, but we are to live them in the manner of our choices and our earnest desire that God is blessed, no matter what the course that He determines to be trod.
	In the truth of how this entire familial blessing of the Lord is to be set into the heart of each unit member, let us see how even a father-in-law, dealt with in great respect and honor, was drawn into the process of giving God the glory and the blessing that He, Alone, is due. Please open to Ex 18:8-12, as the heart of Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, became attuned to the magnificence of God. Thus Jethro offered Jehovah the blessing that comes from a parent’s heart for the manner in which the Lord rules and overrules in the lives of the family.
	Ex 18:8-12, And Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, all the hardship that had befallen them on the journey, and how the Lord had delivered them. And Jethro rejoiced over all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel, in delivering them from the hand of the Egyptians. So Jethro said, "Blessed be the Lord who delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of Pharaoh, and who delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods; indeed, it was proven when they dealt proudly against the people. "Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat a meal with Moses' father-in-law before God. 
	Jethro was not of the Hebrew lineage. He was a shepherd and the patriarch of the family that Moses married into. But even in this, as God worked so mightily on the behalf of His chosen people, the tribes of Israel, there was still the witness that caught the eyes and the heart of this Gentile father. He saw the same glory of God revealed through the plagues as well as the crossing of the Red Sea where the Israelites danced with all joy in Jehovah, their God and their Savior.
Accordingly, as the details of the mighty and miraculous work of Yahweh were presented to this Gentile, he joined into the celebration of the majesty of Jehovah and made the great declaration that every Gentile, brought into the familial heritage of The Lord makes in our hearts and with our mouths, Blessed be the Lord who delivered you… 
At that point we all add the details of that from which He has delivered us. There is the same heart of gratitude and honor and adoration espoused from everyone who comes to know The Lord and seeks to add to His blessing as the Lord of lords and the King of kings. 
David, in one of his last proclamations, as recorded in 2 Sam 22:47-51, may well have alluded to what transpired in the matter of this morning’s reading as he blessed Jehovah with up to the very last breath of his life. His encouragement to all the people of God is one that we should hold in our hearts as the means of facing those final moments of our lives. It is not with regret or with resignation for all the things that we could not finish or accomplish. That puts the state of our last moments into the focused idea that we could have done more or that we missed out on this or that. 
Rather, as did David, we need to be certain that God receives the glory for all the manifest work of His grace and mercy and love which He lavished so fully all the days of our sojourn here. All the days of our lives, all the decisions that formed the basis of who we are and what we did, all of it is overshadowed gloriously and manifestly and majestically with the truth of how Jehovah Jireh worked to His complete and fulfilled glory through the witness of such as we are.
2 Sam 22:47-51, "The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock; And exalted be God, the rock of my salvation, The God who executes vengeance for me, And brings down peoples under me, Who also brings me out from my enemies; Thou dost even lift me above those who rise up against me; Thou dost rescue me from the violent man. "Therefore I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord, among the nations, And I will sing praises to Thy name. "He is a tower of deliverance to His king, And shows lovingkindness to His anointed, To David and his descendants forever." 
	As we continue with this consideration, Lord willing, let it become very clear to one and all that the focal point of our lives in this realm, at this time, is to honor and praise and bless Our Lord God Almighty! It is no longer about us and our problems and our need to fix what we can with our own ingenuity and the devices that we can utilize. So much of the current mainstream Christianity is set in the way that God can bless us as we do this or that. There are all the gimmicks of religiosity to bring forth wealth and prosperity and comfort because of what God will do for us as we name it and claim it in His name. 
	Certainly, as we live those lives in line with all that would please God, in full accordance with His Word, by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we will receive the best that God has to lavish upon us through Jesus Christ. However, that is not the goal and the purpose of the salvation which He offers so freely through the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son! It is all because of the outcome of our obedient surrender to whatever He would have for us to do in witness to Him and to His Glory, Alone! 
	The other aspect which needs to be instilled in our hearts and minds is that all that we receive, all that we have, all that we will ever know, it all belongs to God to use as He so deems fit. Where there may be prosperity, it is not for the use of anyone but God! We are just caretakers of His bestowed means to meet the needs of those who require such as is bestowed upon us. Ever and always, we are here to be a blessing to others as we so bless and sacrificially serve God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength. It is all to the glory and the praise and the adoration of The Lord God on high, and Him, Alone! So be it.
And Ahimaaz called and said to the king, "All is well." And he prostrated himself before the king with his face to the ground. And he said, "Blessed is the Lord your God, who has delivered up the men who lifted their hands against my lord the king." Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 9:1. I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all Thy wonders. Amen.