If you would please remain standing, I'd like to invite you to turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 1. We're beginning a series through 2 Samuel. Before we read our text, let's go to the Lord in prayer to ask for His blessing upon our hearing. Father, You have taught us in Your Word that all Scripture is inspired by You, that no prophecy of Scripture is of one's private interpretation, but that holy men of God were moved by the spirit to speak and record your word. You teach us that the scriptures are profitable to instruct us and correct us, encourage us and train us for righteousness. And our Lord Jesus, your only begotten son, teaches us to pay attention to how we listen to your word. So may you enlighten our minds to understand this scripture, open our hearts to receive your truth, and work in us to will and to do according to your good pleasure. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 2 Samuel 1, beginning at verse 1. Now it came to pass after the death of Saul, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had abode two days in Ziklag. It came even to pass on the third day that, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul with his clothes rent and earth upon his head. And so it was when he came to David that he fell to the earth and did obeisance. And David said unto him, From whence comest thou? And he said unto him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped. And David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, that the people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead. And Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also. And David said unto the young man that told him, how knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son be dead? And the young man that told him said, as I happened by chance upon Mount Gilboa, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear, and lo, the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him. And when he looked behind him, he saw me, and called unto me, and I answered, here am I. And he said unto me, who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite. He said unto me again, stand I pray thee upon me, and slay me for anguish has come upon me because my life is yet whole in me. So I stood upon him and slew him because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen. And I took the crown that was upon his head and the bracelet that was upon his arm and have brought them hither unto my Lord. Then David took hold of his clothes and rent them. And likewise, all the men that were with him and they mourned and wept and fasted until even for Saul, and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord, and for the house of Israel, because they were fallen by the sword. And David said unto the young man that told him, Whence art thou? And he answered, I am the son of a stranger, an Amalekite. And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? And David called one of the young men and said, go near and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died. And David said unto him, thy blood be upon thy head, for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord's anointed. And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son. Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow. Behold, it is written in the book of Jasher, The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places. How are the mighty fallen? Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph, ye mountains of Gilboa. Let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offerings. For there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions, ye daughters of Israel. Weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet and other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle? O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant hast thou been unto me. Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished? Thus far the reading of God's holy word. And may God add his blessing to the reading of his word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. We have a magnanimous king. But what is magnanimity? It may sound like a fancy way of saying magnificent, but even though magnificent and magnanimous share many of the same letters and a common root, they're not the same thing. Magnificent refers to that great power and splendor of a person or a thing. A waterfall may be magnificent, But a waterfall may not be magnanimous. A soldier may be magnificent, and yet a soldier may or may not be magnanimous. So what is magnanimity? Well, it might be defined as a generosity of spirit that shows patience and kindness and goodwill toward people, whether you have just beaten them in a fight or you've been beaten by them. It's the character of a big heart that does good even when it is done wrong by another. So, for example, at Appomattox at the close of the Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on where you're from, Ulysses S. Grant had done what no other northern general managed to do. He whipped Robert E. Lee. And he had people around him who said that when Lee came to surrender, he should make Lee grovel. He should make Lee eat the dirt. He should humiliate Lee and all of his officers as the rebels that they are and make all of the South feel shame for their rebellion. But Grant was a different kind of man. He was a magnanimous man. And rather than humiliate the Confederate officers, he allowed them to keep their sidearms, imagine allowing your enemy to keep their weapons, and their horses. He said, let them keep their horses. They'll need them for the spring plowing. In other words, they're not going to be arrested. They're not going to be thrown in the brig. They are going to be free men. They're going to go home, and they're going to rebuild, and we're going to be there with them. Stories say that he even tried to engage in some friendly conversation with Lee as a peer, but Lee, of course, was not in the mood for small talk. Grant's goal was to begin healing the nation after it had been torn apart by war. If only everyone in Washington had been as magnanimous as Grant, Reconstruction might have gone a lot differently for the South. But we have a magnanimous king in the Lord Jesus. He loved his enemies. He reconciled his enemies to his kingdom at a terrible cost to himself. And we see his magnanimity here foreshadowed in King David. And with this chapter 1 we have a little transition where some things are repeated from the first book of Samuel. The death of Saul, the loss of the battle. Now 1 Samuel tells us more about other things that were happening after the loss of the battle. Here we're kind of getting a little bit of a flashback. The battle's been lost and now someone has fled to tell David about it. But with this chapter, we get a bit of a transition from one king to another. The house of Saul to the house of David. And with that transition, we get a contrast between what we studied in 1 Samuel earlier as the tyranny of Saul and the covenantal reign of David, that we're going to be exploring more as we walk through this book. And what we see with David is that the covenantal kingdom of God, And it is a kingdom established in covenant is distinguished by divine wisdom, divine justice and divine compassion. First, consider in David God's covenantal kingdom distinguished by divine wisdom. Here, David has a man in front of him who's telling him a story. And he has to discern what of this story is true and what of this story is false. He has to discern truth from error, the good from the evil. Is this a Malachite lying? Or what parts of his story are lies and what is truth? I mean, his clothes are torn. He has dirt on his head. These are all signs of mourning. And yet what exactly is it that he is mourning? Even his explanation of where he's come from most recently is a little ambiguous when he says, I've escaped from the camp of Israel. Well, what do you mean you've escaped from the camp? Were you an unhappy member of the camp of Israel and now you're glad to be finally rid of it? Or did you merely escape from the Philistines as one of the few survivors of the camp of Israel? Did Saul die at the hands of this Amalekite, as he says? Or did Saul die when he fell upon his sword, as the biblical narrator tells us in 1 Samuel 31? Did his life really linger and the Amalekite finish him off? Did the Amalekite strip Saul in order to align with David as the Lord's anointed king over Israel? Or was he merely ingratiating himself to David as a Philistine mercenary to spite Israel? Because let's face it, for the last few years, where's David been? He's been in the territory of the Philistines, serving as a mercenary to one of the Philistine kings. And the only reason he wasn't brought to battle against Israel is because the other Philistine kings didn't trust David. But he'd been the hired hand of the Philistines. Was this Amalekite merely thinking to himself, man, Finally, Saul is dead. Finally, I can be free of these people of Israel. And who better to take the ornaments of his reign to than to David? And let's go whip some more Israelites. I mean, part of David's deception of the Philistines was to tell them that he'd been raiding in the territory of Israel. That he'd been troubling the Israelites when all along he was actually going to war and going into little battles and skirmishes against the enemies of Israel. But the Philistines didn't know that. What does this Amalekite think David is when he comes to him with the crown of Israel? It's interesting if Saul really did call the man over and he says, tell me who are you? And he says, I'm an Amalekite. It would be very odd if Saul were to say at that point, go ahead and kill me. When the Amalekites were the ancient enemies of Israel, And Saul, one of Saul's chief rebellions against the Word of God was to do with how he treated the Amalekites. God told him, I have a blood vengeance, a vendetta against the Amalekites. You're going to go to war with them, and I don't want you to spare anything. And I don't want you to take any of their goods as spoils for war. I want you to reduce it to dust. Do you remember what Saul did? He spared the king. Agag, the king of the Amalekites, and he spared the best of the cattle and the sheep. Right. He disobeyed the word of God when it came to God's vengeance on the Amalekites. Wouldn't it be so odd if Saul were to call this young man over and he says, I'm an Amalekite. And Saul's like, well, would you finish me off? And I just. There's a lot going, how do you decide something like this? Where's the truth? Where's the error? Isaiah 11 describes the Holy Spirit anointing the son of David as king, not only over Israel, but over all the nations. And he describes that Holy Spirit that anoints that king as a spirit of wisdom. Because you know, when you reign, you have to have wisdom. You have to have good, sound judgment and discernment to know right from wrong, truth from error. And here, David, he has to exercise what we might call the wisdom of Solomon, right? David's son, Solomon. When Solomon was a young man and had just come to the throne of his father, God comes to him and says, I love you, Solomon, and I would give you anything that your heart desires. Tell me what you want. And it's yours. And Solomon is looking around at this kingdom and all this great people. And he says, Lord, how am I who am but a child to reign over these your people? Give me wisdom. Wisdom. Could you imagine how intimidating that task would be? And God granted Solomon wisdom. David here needs wisdom and discernment. And we see that in this case with the Amalekite. We also see it, the wisdom of God in the way that David responds to the report of Saul's death. What would you do if you were told that somebody who had persecuted you, chased you away from your family, chased you away from your homeland, made you live in it as an exile among people whose lifestyles disgust you, and you suddenly find out that this guy who has ruined your life is dead. You might at least grin, but David, he tears his garments. And he leads the men around him in mourning over the death of Saul, his enemy. That's called magnanimity. They mourned and wept and it says they fasted until the evening and they wouldn't eat anything once they heard this report. They mourn for Saul, and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord, and for the house of Israel, because they were fallen by the sword. Here, David is able to see beyond his own personal offense and affairs with Saul, to see what a great loss this was to Israel. What a great loss this was to the people of God, that a man who they had many faults, he was a mighty warrior. who had fought battles for God's people and now was fallen. And that's what David focuses his attention upon. That's what David focuses our attention upon. We can read 1 Samuel and we can see all the folly of Saul. We can see all of his wickedness and rebelliousness and self-will against God. You can read about all of that in 1 Samuel, but you won't hear any of it in David's lament. Here he honors the man. who's ruined his life, you might say, because he's trusting in God. He leaves vengeance to the Lord. David asks the young man the question, how were you not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? Because you see, David, he also had the opportunity to kill Saul on a couple of occasions. One time he was so close to Saul that he was able to take Saul's spear from beside his head and flee away. Another time he was so close to Saul that he was able to cut off a piece of Saul's garment. They were in a dark cave and I guess apparently Saul, you know, going aside, had got close enough to David for David to cut a corner of his garment off. And he says to Saul, God gave you into my hands. And there were people around me who said, this is your opportunity, David. You should go ahead and kill him, take him out. And he says, but I would not extend my hand against you. It wouldn't be my hand that sheds your blood. And he trusted in God. He trusted in the vengeance of the Lord, right? God says, vengeance is mine. So we're not to be the avengers of our own ruin. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay. And so David says to Saul, I'm not going to harm you. Let God be the judge between the two of us and let God deal with you as he sees fit. Even Saul's armor bearer, when Saul does, according to the biblical narrator, that Saul does turn to his armor bearer and say, I'm wounded. The Philistines are upon us. Kill me, lest those uncircumcised Philistines get a hold of me and mistreat me and use me as some kind of trophy to boast about their victory. And the armor bearer says, the Bible says he feared. And he said, no. He wouldn't do it. And so Saul falls upon his own sword so that the Philistines won't get their hands on him while he's still alive. And yet, here is this Amalekite who says when Saul asked him, he fell on him, killed him. But not David. David honors Saul. David would leave Saul to God's vengeance, but not take his own personal revenge upon him. And contrast that with Saul and his self-will. Saul would never wait on the Lord. When Saul grew fearful and impatient in the face of his enemies, he fretted that his army was going to slowly drift away from him. And so what did he do? He usurped the priestly duties of Samuel and started offering a sacrifice to try to gather his men together and bolster their confidence to go to war with him. That's what pagan kings do. Pagan kings offer sacrifices before battles. But in Israel, the king was not authorized to do that. That was the priestly duty. But Saul was in a panic. I can't wait for God. Samuel's running late. God is running behind. I've got to do things on my schedule. And he usurps the priestly role. God says, utterly destroy the Amalekites and don't touch any of the things for the spoils of war. But Saul thinks to himself, well, look, common sense tells you that we want to honor God with the celebration of our victory. And to do that, we need to have some animals for sacrifice. So all we do is just spare the best of the cattle and the best of the sheep. And we spare those so that we can offer them up as sacrifices to God. I mean, what's wrong with that, Samuel? And then Samuel has to say, what? Obedience is better than sacrifice. Just do what God says, Saul. Don't think you're wiser than God. Don't think you've got a bigger picture than God does on what's happening. When his men were in hot pursuit of their enemies in one of their battles, Saul was so excited about this sudden turn of events and the forward movement of his army that he makes them take an oath not to eat anything until they've completely vanquished the enemy. Now you know that an army marches on its stomach. Okay? And every good soldier carries a cookie in his pocket so that, you know, when he's going along and he's feeling famished and tired, he gets a little rush again from a bite and then he goes on some more. But none of them could take advantage of that because Saul had put them under oath. Starve yourselves until everyone is gone. What happened? Well, when the victory was finally won, the men were so famished that they began falling upon the cows and the sheep and eating them raw. Which actually God's law says they weren't to do. They weren't to eat meat with the blood in it. But here they were doing this because Saul vexed them with his oath. Saul was not a patient man. He was not one who trusted in God. He was a peevish person in a lot of ways, as we'll see more in his treatment of David. But David is a different kind of king, trusting in God. He's a magnanimous man. And Jesus is even more so. He is the very wisdom of God. In Matthew 12, when Jesus was talking to the men of his generation, who in their official response to him had rejected his message, had rejected his offer of salvation. He says, the Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it because she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And behold, a greater than Solomon is here. Yeah, Jesus, the wise king, or as Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, 15, the only wise potentate is here. So we enjoy living under the only wise potentate, the Lord Jesus. Paul said in 1 Corinthians, that the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified is a stumbling block to the Jews and is foolishness to the Gentiles. But he says, unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. So we enjoy living under the wisdom of our king, who orders our lives rightly before the face of God. so that we have well-ordered, peaceful lives under our King. And that's how we're to exercise dominion. As He has seated us with Him in heavenly places, we are to rule the spheres that God has placed us in with wisdom from above. And that wisdom from above is going to look something like it does with David. You're going to have hard choices to make. things that you have to discern right from wrong, good from evil, truth from error. How are you going to do it? Because you are seated with Jesus Christ. You are anointed with the Holy Spirit that anointed Jesus Christ. He will give you wisdom. Wait upon Him. Seek His face. God's covenantal kingdom is distinguished by divine wisdom. Secondly, God's covenantal kingdom is distinguished by divine justice. My dad used to always talk about David's justice, Davidic justice, he would always say. But I think it was my mom who actually practiced it better, as she was very swift and harsh in judgment. But David's justice was a God-fearing justice. In other words, he feared God and not men when he had to execute justice. He wouldn't be manipulated by the rich to do harm to the poor. He wouldn't be manipulated by the poor to somehow bring down the rich. He feared God. Not the rich, not the poor, not man. He feared God. And so he judged accordingly. Dale Ralph Davis, in his commentary on Second Samuel, says there was once a Polish prince who always carried a picture of his father next to his heart. And at certain times he would pull it out and look at it and say, let me do nothing unbecoming so excellent a father. And Davis says that is the way all kingdom servants should live, controlled by fear, grounded in love. A fear to do something unbecoming of so excellent a father, a king that we have in our God. David's justice was grounded in such a loving fear of God. And then we see that his judgment was based upon evidence and testimony. He says to the man, I'm executing you because of your own testimony that you did not fear to put out your hand and strike the Lord's anointed, something I wouldn't do, something his armor-bearer wouldn't do. We know better than to do it. You try to frame it like it was an act of mercy, but it's murder, and it was treason, and you're going to die for it. And then he had the evidence presented to him. He might be questioning a lot of things in this man's story, but one thing was for certain. He had Saul's crown and the royal armlet. He had the ornaments. of royalty in his hands. And so with that evidence and with that testimony, David passes his judgment. And it is a swift execution of the sentence. This man is not left to linger in jail waiting for appeal after appeal after appeal. He says, you're guilty on the evidence, you're guilty on your testimony, you're gonna die. And he dies as soon as the sentence is announced. Now contrast David. and his justice in the fear of God with that of Saul, who when David won battles for him and the people of Israel began to sing David's praises as what a great warrior he was, Saul did not put his arm around David and look at the people and say, yes, aren't we blessed to have such a great warrior with us, right? With us? No. He became jealous of David and his shriveled up little peevish soul couldn't stand that David was getting more praise than he was getting. And so this man, who was his son-in-law, this man who was his best general. OK. He persecutes him. He tries to kill him. He forces him into exile. That's not justice. That is injustice. Think of the opposite of what he does with Agag, or Agag, the king of the Amalekites. He's supposed to put him to death, keep none of them alive. He's supposed to put him to death, but he decides, I'll spare Agag. We'll keep him alive. So he wants to kill David, his mightiest warrior, and he wants to keep alive the ancient enemy of Israel. and all in defiance of God's will. David is a different kind of king. A king after God's own heart. God's wisdom. God's justice. And Jesus so much more displays for us the justice of God. We know Jesus is merciful. We know He is gracious. He is full of loving kindness. but never at the expense of the righteousness and justice of God. When Jesus goes to make atonement for our sins, that we might have forgiveness of our sins and not suffer the eternal consequences of our sins, Jesus does not cover them up. He doesn't sweep them under the rug. He doesn't just push them out of view. He goes to the cross and he pays the penalty for them. And Paul explains in Romans chapter 3 that what Jesus does at the cross, making atonement for our sins, is He puts on display the righteousness of God. Yes, in the death of Jesus Christ, we see a picture of God's hatred of sin. And we see the judgment of God poured out upon man for our sin. Jesus is displaying and upholding the righteousness of God in his death. You remember in our study of the Gospel of John, as Jesus is approaching the hour of his death, he says, My hour is coming. Father, glorify your name. Glorify your name. Jesus is going to the cross for the glory of His Father. The display of His righteousness and His mercy. Yes, because there at the cross we see the justice of God being satisfied in the death of Jesus. And we see the mercy of God being extended to us. And so when we commit ourselves to the Lord Jesus, we commit ourselves to Him who judges justly. That's what Peter says Jesus did in His own trial. He committed Himself to the Father, to God who judges justly. And when we commit our lives to the Lord, whether we're being persecuted, whatever we suffer, whatever we're facing, we commit our lives into the hands of Him who judges justly. And we are to judge justly. no partiality, but with humility, with sobriety, clarity of mind, and with truth, showing forth God's righteousness in our own judgment. God's covenantal kingdom is distinguished by divine justice and then finally by divine compassion. We see this in David's lament. Dale Ralph Davis, again, if I might quote him, he gives a great description or definition of what lament is in biblical terms. He says, a lament is an expression of thoughtful grief. In a written lament, then, words cannot simply be dumped or gushed or mushed as in initial grief. Here, one cannot simply vomit out feelings, but must choose words. Not that the lament is cold, objective, and detached. Rather, the intensity of one's emotions unite with the discipline of one's mind to produce structured sorrow, a sort of authorized version of distress, a kind of coherent agony. In a lament, therefore, words are carefully selected, crafted, honed to express loss as closely yet fully as possible. The sorrows and wounds God's people receive from their losses are not miraculously healed after a short time of emotional catharsis. But the lament form of the Bible assumes that our grief is deep and ongoing, and it invites us to enter the discipline of expressing that grief in words that convey our anguish. And I would go a little further and say that our lament is offered as a prayer unto God. knowing that he hears us and trusting that he cares and believing that he is our healer who will turn our griefs to his own glory and to our ability to serve him and others. Saul and Jonathan here are extolled as mighty warriors and their fall is lamented as a great loss to the people of Israel. He calls this the bow, and that could refer to the title of the poem because he does mention Jonathan's bow, and it would be fitting that he would identify that instrument of war that his best friend and brother used in battle to title this lament. And he calls upon the people of Judah to learn it. not just the people of Israel generally, you know, those who were maybe closest to Saul, those who had family ties with Saul perhaps, but he calls upon the children of Judah, his own clan, his own family, those closest to him, those who would be most likely to follow him first instead of Saul. He wants, I want you to learn this lament for Saul and for Jonathan. You're going to mourn with me The loss that this is to Israel. Now, there's a lot that could be said about Saul's failures. But David focuses here upon his might and his strength and the good that he did for God's people. He honors them and guards them even in their defeat. And he calls others to join him in doing this. There's a remembrance, of course, of Jonathan especially and his loyal love. He says that Jonathan's love was wonderful, which is a pretty amazing word, we won't go into it, but he says it passes the love of women. And forget all the perverse interpretations of this that you might hear suggested in our modern times. The point that David is making here is that Jonathan did something in his covenant with David, because they did make a covenant together. I don't know if you know that, but remember from 1 Samuel, they covenanted together. And in that covenant, Jonathan made some sacrifices that most wives are not expected to make when they join a covenant with their husband. You leave your father's house, you leave that identity, and you assume a new name, you assume a new identity, all of that that a woman does in coming under the care of a husband, wonderful, beautiful. You usually don't have to become in opposition to your father's house and rule and decisions in doing so. Now look, Jonathan remained loyal to Saul. That's one of the things that David celebrates here. They died together. He fought at his father's side. But when it came to David and Saul, Jonathan said, you are the Lord's anointed. And my sword is yours. My armor is yours. My ability is yours. That's the kind of love that David is talking about here. Is somebody who says, I know there are a lot of people who expect me to be the next king of Israel, but I know that's not God's purpose. I want to submit to God's purpose. David, I'll be your man. I'll be your soldier. David honors that here, celebrates that. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished? David honors his enemy in Saul, if you will. Treats him like a father instead of like an enemy. And we contrast that, of course, with the way that Saul treated David. At least twice he tried to pin David to the wall with his spear. We know Saul's outbursts of anger weren't just directed toward David. When Jonathan stood up and spoke for David, he tried to pin Jonathan to the wall with a spear, his own son. He wanted to disown his daughter Michal because she supported David. He even had words with Samuel, the prophet. Saul was good at pitying himself, but he seemed to be angry with everyone else. But David is a different kind of king. and he represents a different kind of kingdom. He is, as God said, a man after God's own heart. And what Saul was in all of his peevishness, David was in all of his magnanimity. But how much more so does Jesus embody the love of God, the compassion of God, even for his enemies? When Jerusalem had pretty much made its official decision to reject Jesus Christ, he laments over them, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee. Despite all of that, despite all of the times you've killed my prophets and all of those that I've sent to you to proclaim my covenant to you and call you to find shelter in me, despite the fact that you have mistreated them and mishandled them and murdered them, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you would not. Jesus had pity, he had compassion. John tells us in John 3, in verse 16, that this is how God shows his love. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Or Paul says in Romans 5, 8, God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus is the embodiment of God's compassion, his love. And we enjoy that. In Christ, under his rule, we enjoy the patient, loving government of Christ, how patient Christ is with us. How patient he is with me, how grateful I am for that. And because he has shown such compassion and such patience with us, we are to show that to others. We are to forgive. We are to love as Christ has forgiven and loved us. So when someone hurts you, how do you perceive that person? The temptation when someone hurts us is to only see that part of his character that has wounded you. And that part of his character that has wounded you suddenly colors everything else you think and say about the person. But the Bible says love covers a multitude of sins. Love doesn't dwell on the faults and weaknesses of another, but it rejoices in the good, 1 Corinthians 13. Peevishness, like we see in Saul. shrivels up the soul. Magnanimity that is slow to take offense and when offenses come, it endures them with grace toward the offender. Magnanimity will enlarge your soul to be a great and mighty spring of life flowing out to others for their refreshing and bring glory to God. who is our magnanimous king. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heaven and the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Let's pray. Almighty God, our Father, we do pray as you taught us that your kingdom would come and your will be done on earth just as it is in heaven. Through Christ we pray, amen.