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As we open your book, I pray
that you would speak to each one of our hearts according to
our actual needs and according to your purpose of what you're
working to accomplish in our lives. We believe Lord that this
portion of David's life has something to speak to us and pray that
you would open our ears to hear it and to understand what it
is that you're after. We thank you in the name of the
Lord Jesus. Amen. All right, gentlemen, let's continue
our study through David's life. You can turn to 1 Samuel 19 if
you brought your Bible with you. This is a quick review, quick
rehearsal. We're spending all the time that
we are in David's life. We're not rushing through it.
We're going through event by event. And we're taking the time
that we're taking because we believe that The Lord chose specific
individuals from all of history to use as kind of a template
to lay over our lives and to instruct us, to teach us, to
train our hearts in basic principles of discipleship. David's life
in particular functions this way. All of the Bible characters,
Moses, Abraham, you can take any one of the Bible characters
that there's any more than a few verses that are dedicated to
their lives. They serve this same function,
they serve the same purpose. But David in particular, because
after Jesus only, David has more verses, more chapters, more material
dedicated to the story of his life than any other character
in the entire Bible. There's more about David than
there is about Paul, than there is about Peter, than there is
about Moses, than there is about any other character other than
Jesus himself. And so the concept that we should
have in the background of our perspective is that the Lord
focused extra attention on David for our benefit. So as we go
through this, keep in mind that the lessons that David is going
through, the circumstances that God custom designs in his life
situations are designed to benefit us, to teach us, to train us.
So where we're at with the story is this. David has not too far
in his past, he's passed through the whole event that he's most
famous for, of course, the great victory over Goliath. After the
victory over Goliath, he's welcomed with open arms into the king's
inner circle, into Saul's inner circle. He's become both the
armor bearer and the personal attendant of Saul. He ministers
to him in various ways, including playing the harp for him and
helping to calm his agitated spirit. As we've seen, there's
this beginning of a steady deterioration of Saul's spirit. He Saul is
wrestling against what the Lord is after in his life. And there's
been this disconnect between the Lord and Saul. And David
is being placed right in the midst of that circumstance. And
he has a key role in what's happening between the Lord and Saul. And
we've seen that David has risen to position of responsibility
in the kingdom. He's been assigned a role as
a chief in Saul's army and has already won some great victories
on behalf of Israel and behalf of Saul. And he's formed this
close bond of special friendship with Jonathan, the king's son.
It's the kind of friendship that we've talked about. Maybe you
will only experience once in your entire life. And if you
ever do have this kind of friendship, you're blessed among men. It's
the kind of friendship that exceeds any kind of casual relationship.
You can imagine it's a brother-to-brother bonding that benefits both David
and Jonathan for the remainder of their years together. And
we've seen that in just this last study that we did that while
Saul has a has a growing hatred for David for no good reason,
no rational reason, and is attempting to take David's life that Jonathan
steps in between his father's anger and David, who is basically
an innocent victim in this circumstance. And he intercedes or intervenes
between his father and David. And he makes a godly appeal to
his father's heart. And he wins over his father through
the power of this appeal, appealing to someone who's in authority,
but who is mishandling or misusing the authority that he has. And
because of the wisdom of his appeal, he actually restores,
not permanently, but for a period of time, he restores peace between
Saul and David. So that's the backdrop of where
we're at in the story. Let's pick it up. We've already
covered the first few verses of chapter 19. We're going to
be in the middle section of 19, but I want to read from verse
one just to get our context again. This is 1 Samuel 19.1. Now Saul
told Jonathan, his son, and all his servants to put David to
death. But Jonathan, Saul's son, greatly delighted in David. So
Jonathan told David, saying, Saul, my father, is seeking to
put you to death. Now, therefore, please be on
guard in the morning and stay in a secret place and hide yourself.
I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where
you are, and I will speak with my father about you. If I find
out anything that I will tell you." Then Jonathan spoke well
of David to Saul, his father, and said to him, do not let the
king sin against his servant David, since he has not sinned
against you. And since his deeds have been
very beneficial to you, for he took his life in his hand and
struck the Philistine. That's referring, of course,
to Goliath. When the Lord brought about a
great deliverance for all Israel, you sought and rejoiced. Why
then will you sin against innocent blood by putting David to death
without a cause? And that's the essence of Jonathan's
appeal to his father. And the fruit of his appeal is
that Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan and Saul vowed as
the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death. Now verse seven
is where we're going to pick up for today. I'm going to read
from seven through to 18 for our next section. Then Jonathan
called David and Jonathan told him all these words. And Jonathan
brought David to Saul and he was in his presence as formerly. When there was war again, David
went out and fought with the Philistines and defeated them
with great slaughter so that they fled before him. Now there
was an evil spirit from the Lord on Saul as he was sitting in
his house with his spear in his hand. And David was playing the
harp with his hand. Saul tried to pin David to the
wall with the spear. he slipped away out of Saul's
presence so that he struck the spear into the wall. David fled
and escaped that night. Then Saul sent messengers to
David's house to watch him in order to put him to death in
the morning. But Michael, David's wife, told him saying, If you
do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be put to death.
So Michael let David down through a window and he went out and
fled and escaped. Michael took the household idol
and laid it on the bed and put a quilt of goat's hair at its
head and covered it with clothes. Then Saul sent messengers to
take David. She said, he is sick. Then Saul, sent messengers to
see David saying, bring him up to me on his bed that I may put
him to death. And when the messengers entered,
behold, the household idol was on the bed with the quilt of
goat's hair at its head. So Saul said to Michael, why
have you deceived me like this and let my enemy go so that he
has escaped? And Michael said to Saul, he
said to me, let me go. Why should I put you to death?
Now David fled and escaped and came to Samuel at Ramah and told
him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and
stayed in Naoth. All right. Where does the story
go next? As Jonathan has appealed to his
father, his father makes a vow. He listens to his son and he
says, all right, I'm going to pay attention to what you've
said. You're right. There's no good cause for me to actually
put David to death. The appeal temporarily, in a
sense, calls Saul back to sanity. calls him back to a rational
perspective. And he embraces David again,
welcomes him back into his inner circle. And more than that, Saul
makes a vow regarding David. And the essence of the vow is
what? What does he vow? And what's
so significant about a vow? He's vowed not to kill him. And
basically saying, look, you know, it's an acknowledgement and a
vow. The essence of the vow is that it's in those days when
you took a vow, it was something that was done in the sense of
I'm making this commitment in the presence of the Lord. I'm
committing myself to a specific course of action. Or in this
case, I'm committing myself to avoid a certain course of action,
which is to put David to death. And essentially he's saying,
I'm recognizing that David's righteous. I've been wrong. And
I'm returning to welcome David into my inner circle, into my
court. And so David returns to his court.
And the very next thing that's mentioned that happens here is
look here in verse eight. As soon as he returns to Saul's
presence and he's in his presence as formally, meaning all that
means is David returned to his normal duties, the normal pattern
of his relationship with Saul. The very next thing is there
was war again that arose. Now it wasn't too long in the
past in which there was a war between Israel and the Philistines.
And that was the battle that was focused around the challenge
of Goliath. Now, David was used by the Lord,
as we saw, to win that battle with the Philistines. It was
a battle that up until David entered into that circumstance,
Israel had no hope of winning because it was a single challenge
battle. There were two ways to fight
in the ancient world. One was army against army, and the other
was single challenge of a chosen champion for each army that would
come out in front of the army and would literally challenge
the best man on the other side. And whoever would win that single
challenge, that would be the declaration of victory for that
side. So David won that single challenge
and that resolved the problem with the Philistines, but apparently
it's not a permanent resolution. warfare is flaring up again with
the Philistines. Now in this case, because David's
returned to his former position, he's back in charge of the part
of the army that Saul had previously appointed him to. And so David
now leads that army out again in battle against the Philistines.
The details of the battle apparently are not significant because all
we're told at this point is that he goes out, he fights with the
Philistines, and he defeats them with a great slaughter so that
the Philistines flee before him. So this is one more evidence
of God causing the reputation of David to grow within the community
of Israel. And even outside of the boundaries
of Israel, his reputation is growing among the nations around
him as he's defeating the nations that rise against the armies
of the Lord. Now, as he's returning from the
battle, what should he expect in terms of a welcome as he returns
home to Israel and as he returns to the court of the king? What
should he reasonably expect after the victory of verse eight? Praise, welcome, let's have a
feast. This is good stuff. You once
again, you know, speaking for Saul the king, David, once again,
you have done me a great personal favor. You've led the armies
that I'm in charge of and the nation that I'm responsible for
to a great and glorious victory. I'm so glad to have you by my
side because you are doing my job for me. And that's essentially
what's really going on here. In those days, the king was responsible
to lead his army into battle. For the king to stay at home
when the army is fighting was considered to be a point of great
dishonor. We're going to see that same
theme played out later in David's life in a moment of weakness.
when he sends the army of Israel out to battle. And he makes the
mistake for the first time in his life of remaining behind
when he should have been on the battlefield and taking his ease
when he sends his soldiers to fight. And that opens the door
for his heart to be tempted with the whole circumstance with Bathsheba.
But here David is doing what he's supposed to be doing, but
it's Saul that's actually failing to be responsible where he should
have been responsible as king. And of course, that's just one
more indicator of where Saul's heart is at with the Lord. He's
not in a good place. He's not walking in the responsibilities
he should be walking in as a king. But at the very least, even though
he's not being responsible to lead as he should have led, You
would think that he would be happy that someone's doing the
job for him. You would think he'd be appreciative
and grateful that at least he's got David to go out and win the
battle for him if he's not willing to lead the battle himself. Let's
read on from verse nine again then. And now there was an evil
spirit from the Lord on Saul as he was sitting in his house
with his spear in his hand. and David was playing the harp
with his hand. What's noticeable between verse
eight and verse nine is just the absence of the interaction
between David and Saul. There is no welcome from Saul.
There is no note of appreciation. There's no expression of gratitude.
There's no celebratory feast like a king would normally throw
for a victorious commanding general that's returned from the battlefield
on his behalf. There's just nothing, silence,
no appreciation whatsoever. Now, one of the lessons we can
draw from this for ourselves is there will be times as you
serve the Lord, as you are called to do your own assignment, as
we've recently been focused on for the last several weeks, both
on Friday nights and Sunday morning. in the teaching time, you have
an assignment from the Lord. You have your own job to accomplish. And there will be times when
you will do your job and you'll do it well. and people around
you will recognize the good job that you've done and the work
that you're doing is onto the Lord. And they will go out of
their way to give you praise, hats on the back, words of appreciation,
might even throw a celebratory feast on your behalf or something
of that nature. And when that happens, that's
icing on the cake and that's a blessing. But the reality is
there's going to be times when you do what you're supposed to
do and you do it well, like David in verse eight, winning an awesome
victory against the Philistines. And nobody says anything. You
just do your job. You do it the right way as it
ought to be done. And there will be no appreciation
coming back your direction. How do you handle that when that
time comes? Well, the good thing is we don't
see any hint here that David is struggling with the lack of
appreciation coming from Saul. And what that should tell us
is most likely what's going on in David's heart is at this point
he's still in a good, healthy place of faith. Meaning this,
that when he does his assignment, he's not doing it for Saul. He's
doing it for the Lord. He's winning the battle, not
for Saul. He's winning the battle for the
name of the Lord. Just like we saw when David ran
out to meet the Philistine Goliath in that great battle. What was
it that David had to say about that as he was running toward
the giant? and as he was answering the giant's
challenge. It wasn't, hey, you know, I'm
here to win this battle for the sake of Saul and the name of
Saul. The whole concern and perspective of David's heart was, you know,
you've challenged the name of the Lord by issuing this challenge
to the army that represents the Lord. And so his whole concern
was the honor, the name, the reputation of the Lord. not Saul. And so in this case, while David
receives no appreciation from Saul, it doesn't knock him off
course. And the lesson we should draw from that is just keep your
heart tracking as you carry out your life assignment from the
Lord, that whether you get a pat on the back or not is irrelevant. I mean, it's nice if you get
a pat on the back for being the husband that you're supposed
to be, being the father that you're supposed to be, doing
a good job at the work the practical career work that God has given
you to do. Doing the work that God assigns
you in the context of church and anything else that represents
his assignment for your life. When you do that and you receive
the praise of men and pats on the back from people around you,
that is a blessing. Don't disregard that. Don't fight
against that. But at the same time, don't become
addicted to that. so that when it's missing, you're
not struggling because you're not getting the kudos from the
people around you that you've become so accustomed to or that
make you feel so good about yourself. Your sense of satisfaction needs
to come not from the king that's sitting there stewing in his
juices as you've just done the will of God. Your sense of satisfaction
needs to come just from the inner awareness and knowledge that
I did the will of God. I did what I was supposed to
do. I carried out the work that God gave me to do and I did it
for him. And on the final day, I believe
he's going to express his appreciation. He takes note of what I've done.
He knows whether I've done the right thing or not. And whether
Saul acknowledges it or Saul disregards it is not the key
issue of what's going on here. It's just a side factor. It's not the primary factor of
what's happening. Now, as we go on, we notice again,
just that Saul is experiencing what we could call a fit of insanity. At the very minimum, it's irrationality,
but it's probably more than this at this point because the text,
and this isn't the first time, turn back for a moment and look
in a chapter. Let me see if I can find this.
I think it's just a chapter before. Yeah, look in chapter 18 for
a moment. We'll read, because this isn't the first time this
has happened. We'll read from verse six of
chapter 18. It says, it happened as they were coming, when David
returned from killing the Philistine, that's from the great victory
over Goliath, that the women came out of all of the cities
of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tambourines,
with joy, with musical instruments. The women sang as they played
and said, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands. And then Saul became very angry
for this saying displeased him. And he said, they have ascribed
to David ten thousands, but to me, they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but
the kingdom? Saul looked at David with suspicion
from that day on. Now it came about on the next
day that an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul and
he raved in the midst of the house. while David was playing
the harp with his hand as usual. And a spear was in Saul's hand,
and Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, I will pin David
to the wall. But David escaped from his presence
twice. Now Saul was afraid of David,
for the Lord was with him, but he had departed from Saul. So
now we read this next account in chapter 19. And what we're
immediately supposed to be aware of is this sounds familiar. It's
an almost identical story. The elements of similarity are
in both cases, David has just won a great battle on behalf
of the armies of Israel. In both cases, he returns to
Saul's court. In both cases, he returns to
his normal ordinary duties of being a personal attendant to
Saul. In both cases, he starts playing music for Saul. And in
both cases, Saul picks up a spear and attempts to pin David to
the wall. Now in the first story, we don't
have this description, the story in chapter 19, but we're meant
to carry forward our understanding from the first account in chapter
18 of the first time this happened. Why does Saul try to pin David
to the wall? His actions are irrational, but
it doesn't mean he doesn't have a reason for what he's doing. He's jealous and he's fearful. What he's fearful of is he's
fearful that David's rising popularity in the midst of the nation of
Israel will lead to him eventually being deposed as the king and
that he will lose his position of privilege to David. And honestly,
he has good reason to be concerned about that because David is,
as we've seen from the very beginning of his story, he is marked out
by the Lord to one day replace Saul as king. But in another
sense, the irrational part of Saul's concern is that the Lord
is not going to make David king until he's done with Saul being
the king. So where Saul is missing the
big picture of what's going on between him and David is David
is not ever, ever going to try to take the kingship away from
Saul. He's never going to attempt to undermine Saul's position
as king. David is trusting the Lord and
he's waiting on the Lord. He's heard from years before
that God has ordained for him one day to replace Saul as king,
but he's waiting on the Lord. And however long that takes,
that's up to the Lord. He's not going to ever raise his hand
against Saul. And what Saul doesn't understand,
the issue is not between him and David. The issue is between
Saul and the Lord. That's who he's really upset
with is the Lord. And David just happens to be
a convenient target for his anger, for his fear. And yes, for his
jealousy, jealous that David is becoming more popular and
he's actually waning in popularity at the same time. So Saul attempts
to pin David to the wall in his fit of insanity. And what we're
given is kind of a spiritual description of what's going on
here. and that what is identified, and this is kind of a mysterious
phrasing. We talked about it a little bit
before, but I just wanna make sure no one misunderstands the
meaning of this phrase. Look again in verse nine where
it says, now there was an evil spirit from the Lord on Saul. Now, when we're thinking in terms
of evil spirit, what are we talking about? Was this just like a,
a bad mood that Saul had that day? I mean, all of you have,
I would imagine, right? You've experienced a moment in
your life or two of being in a bad mood. Anyone here ever
been in a bad mood before? Would you call that, if you were
to try to spiritually describe that, an evil spirit from the
Lord is upon you? Would that be appropriate description?
No. I don't, I wouldn't describe
it that way. So what we're talking about here
and what the text is trying to lead us to understand is this
is something more than just a bad mood. Saul clearly was in a bad
mood, but there was something more than a bad mood going on
here. This isn't just an emotional swing. This isn't Saul as a bipolar
individual that has a chemical imbalance and he's just struggling
with his emotional mood swings. This is something more than that. There's a spiritual element to
what's going on here, not just a emotional, mental, or even
chemical element. What is going on is that When
we talk about an evil spirit, how does the Bible also designate
evil spirits? What are we talking about here?
Okay, demonic spirit. We're talking about the spiritual
beings that are real. I don't care what the culture
around us says in poo-pooing this. There are real beings that
are inherently evil and are committed to resisting the will and purposes
of God in this earth. and who are not visible and yet
who are influential in the lives of human beings. Now it doesn't
mean that every person that isn't walking with the Lord is demonized. We've talked about this before,
but There is such a thing as demonic influence in the lives
of people. And in this particular case,
Saul enters into an experience of direct demonic influence. Now, to what degree the Bible
doesn't say that this demon came and physically entered into Saul
as in the worst cases we see in a few places in the scripture
of what we would call demonic possession. That's not happening
here. He's not actually possessed by
this demonic spirit, but he does at certain key moments of his
life come under a significant influence or oppression of this
particular demonic spirit. Now the mysterious part, and
most believers are tracking with what I've described so far. The
mysterious part is the tagline that's added to the designation
of this being an evil spirit. It's an evil spirit from the
Lord. And that's the part that some
believers struggle with. You know, how can that be? That
seems to be a disconnect. That seems to be like a spiritual
problem here because the two things don't seem to go together. There's some Christian teachers
that in their attempt to simplify complicated spiritual matters
have gone too far beyond what the Bible teaches and have tried
to make formulas like this. Like I've heard this before.
God is a good God. The devil is a bad devil. And
the two don't have anything to do with one another. Meaning
that if there's a good thing that happens in your life, then
that good thing is from God. If there's a bad thing that happens
in your life, that bad thing happens because of the activity
of the devil in your life. And the two never cross over
those lines. Well, that's just not true. That's
just not the way things actually are. There are all kinds of quote
unquote, good things that happen in people's lives, things that
those people would consider to be good, that may not be the
hand of the Lord and the purpose of the Lord for them, but may
actually be the influence and activity of a demonic spirit
in their life. For instance, I read a story
not too long ago, and I don't know the spiritual details of
what really happened behind the scenes. I'm just going to use
this as a point of illustration. You guys are all familiar with
the California lottery, right? That's been ongoing for several
years now. You may have heard some of these
stories yourself, but this is a real thing that happened. There was
a person that won the California lottery. Before they won the
lottery, they were not financially well off. They were not exactly
poor, but they would, you might say, lower middle class economically. They bought a ticket, won the
lottery, won millions upon millions of dollars, and within a year
of winning the millions upon millions of dollars committed
suicide. Because winning that money ruined their life. They
just didn't handle it well at all. And it led to problem upon
problem and an increasing burden upon their heart to where they
just couldn't stand it, couldn't handle it anymore, and ended
up committing suicide. So that was a good thing to win
the lottery for that person, right? And yet, you know, there's literally,
literally millions of people that, you know, standing in line,
you know, to buy lottery tickets because none of them are thinking,
okay, I want to buy this lottery ticket because this is going
to be a bad thing and may lead to my eventual suicide. You know,
I want to buy this ticket for this purpose. Every single person
that buys a lottery ticket, and there are millions that do every
single week, you know, I don't know how often they do the lottery,
but whatever the frequency is, They all have one thought in
their minds. I wanna buy this ticket because if I buy it, I
might win. And if I win, I guarantee you, they're all thinking this
is a good thing, okay? So what the Bible leads us to
understand is that the lines between good and evil are not
as obvious to the natural man as we should understand as spiritual
men. We need to be able to discern
what's really going on behind the scenes in each spiritual
circumstance that we encounter. Now, in this case, it's the opposite. We have the activity and the
influence of a demonic spirit, and yet it's identified here
as an evil spirit from the Lord. Now we touched on this before,
but I just want to make sure we're tracking. How can that
be? How can that be an evil spirit from the Lord? Is that even possible?
Well, of course, it's possible. The Bible just said it. So I'm
tracking with you. It's possible. But let's try
to grasp the concept in an understandable way. How is that possible? Okay. Well, the Bible very clearly
teaches that while there is such a thing as the reality of demonic
activity, demonic beings, that none of them are total free agents.
None of them, including Satan himself, are running around in
the spiritual atmosphere of this world and doing whatever they
want, whenever they want, however they want, to whomever they want,
as much as they want. None of them have that kind of
freedom. Every single demon, including Satan himself, are
operating within assigned boundaries of the Lord. assigned boundaries. He gives them limits to their
activity. We see that in detail in the
interaction in the book of Job in the first two chapters, when
Satan has to present himself before the presence of the Lord
for personal accountability for his activities. And he has to
give an account for what he's been doing, how much he's been
doing. And then there is a determination
by the Lord of what he will be allowed to do further leaving
that meeting of accountability with the Lord. And what is clearly
implied by this passage and others that support it elsewhere in
the Bible is that the Lord is not beyond using demonic activity
to accomplish his purposes in the life of an individual. Now,
is that shocking to you? Like God would use a demon? God uses anything and everything
at his disposal and everything is at his disposal to accomplish
his purpose. Now, sometimes in the life of
an individual, his purpose is a good and holy purpose. And
sometimes in the lives of other individuals, his purpose is a
purpose of judgment. In this case, Saul is in committed
rebellion to the Lord. And so the Lord's purpose for
Saul at this time in Saul's life. Earlier, the Lord had blessed
Saul when Saul was in submission to the will of the Lord and was
walking in obedience to the Lord. Now that Saul's in rebellion,
what the Lord does is he, in a sense, removes the kind of
barriers of protection, what was described in Job's life story
as a hedge of protection around him. The Lord removes that and
grants access to this evil spirit to come and oppress the mind
and life of Saul. And what that oppression does
is it leads Saul to bring out publicly the behavior that's
already present and hidden in his heart. The judgment of the
Lord in this case, through the agency of this demonic spirit,
simply squeezes out of Saul what's already in there. Why would the
Lord do that? Why would the Lord squeeze out
of him what's in there all along? In his heart, he was already
jealous toward David. In his heart, he was already
enraged and fearful of David. And now all the Lord is doing
is squeezing that out publicly. Why would the Lord do that? Why
would the Lord expose that in the heart of a man who's in rebellion? Right. It's a matter of public
accountability. And the Lord does this. He will
justify his actions in the life of a person by making it obvious
to everyone that this is what's really going on with this person.
The Lord's plan is to eventually replace Saul with David. And he wants everyone to see
that this is a justified replacement. But not only that, he's not only
dealing with, the Lord's not only dealing with Saul, as you
should have already learned this about the way the Lord works
by now. The Lord is dealing with everybody
all at the same time. And he's using different situations
to deal with different things and different people. The Lord
is also dealing with the whole nation of Israel here. The Lord's
judgment on Saul is an expression of the Lord's judgment on the
entire nation. You think it's a blessing or a curse for a nation
to have an insane leader? I mean, think of Adolf Hitler.
Think of Joseph Stalin. Think of some of the examples
we've had in history. Or think of on the flip side,
think of Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln. What a blessing
it is for a nation to have a good person leading, a wise person,
a righteous person, someone that does the right thing at the right
moment versus someone like an Adolf Hitler or a Stalin or Nero
in ancient Rome that's just literally out of his mind with madness
and just acting in whichever way the latest impulse strikes
him. It's a tremendous blessing to
have a righteous leader. And it's a tremendous curse when
a nation has an unrighteous leader. And in this case, the Lord is
judging Israel. Now, why would the Lord judge
Israel? What's Israel done that would deserve the judgment of
the Lord in this particular circumstance? Well, that's true, but going
a little bit back before that, how was it that Saul became king
to begin with? Anybody remember? Exactly. Right, Saul becoming
king in the first place was the judgment of the Lord because
Israel had, as the Lord described it, Israel had clamored to be
just like the other nations and to be given the privilege of
having a great and mighty king to lead them in battle just like
the other nations had. And so they cried out to the
Lord to give them a king. And the Lord said, okay, I'll
give you a king, but understand this. And that king was Saul.
Understand this, by embracing Saul as your king, what you've
essentially done is reject me as your king. So this is the
judgment of the Lord. The insanity of Saul is the Lord
teaching the entire nation that, you know, this is what happens
when you reject me. Believe me, when Adolf Hitler
was the leader of Germany, if you read in the history of Germany
leading up to the period where Adolf Hitler took power, He didn't
take power in the midst of a godly nation that was serving the Lord
and walking with the Lord as a general culture. He rose to
power in the context of a nation under the judgment of the Lord.
The same with Russia and the whole Stalinist thing. The same
with Rome and Nero. We could name literally dozens
of other examples through history. And it's the same way when a
godly man comes to a position of prominence and power, it's
usually a blessing of the Lord as a reward for the faithfulness
of the people of that nation. And so in this case, Saul's insanity
is a result of a demonic influence, but that demonic influence is
an expression of the judgment of God upon Saul's rebellion
and beyond him upon the rebellion of Israel itself. All right. We're going to put a. a comma
right there. And we'll pick up next time with
this whole pattern that develops between David and Saul. And this is just the beginning
of what's going to be repeated over and over again over a course
of years now that's ahead of David in which Saul is going
to be attempting to murder David. And David is going to be dodging
left. He's going to be dodging right.
He's going to be ducking low and he's going to be jumping
over. And he's going to be avoiding the spear after spear after spear
in various forms that Saul is going to be hurling his way.
And we'll pick up with that theme of how the enemy will assault
us and yet the Lord will provide for us the way of escape.
God's Judgment in Saul's Insanity
Series Life of David
| Sermon ID | 1125151631610 |
| Duration | 41:36 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | 1 Samuel 19:7-10 |
| Language | English |
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