Thank you, Stu, very much. Good morning, everyone. It is a great joy to see all of you. For those that have been praying for my health this past week, thank you very much. It's better, and I trust that it will keep getting better. Looking forward to this creeping crud. I've got to get it out of my lungs, and that'd be gone. But nonetheless, feeling lots better, and I do appreciate it very, very much. Well, we're going to continue on in the book of 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 18. So if you'd like to turn there, please. We're going to begin reading at verse 13. Well, actually, I'll read it, verse 12, just to kind of catch us up, connect us from last week's message, moving on into this latter section of the chapter, and I'm going to read on to the end. So, if you are able, I invite you to stand with me for the reading of God's holy word, 1 Samuel 18, and I'll begin reading at verse 12. Saul was afraid of David because Yahweh was with him, but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a thousand, and he went out and came in before the people. And David had success in all his undertakings, for Yahweh was with him. And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, for he went out and came in before them. Then Saul said to David, here's my elder daughter, Merah. I will give her to you for a wife. Only be valiant for me and fight Yahweh's battles. For Saul thought, let not my hand be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him. And David said to Saul, who am I and who are my relatives? My father's clan in Israel that I should be son-in-law to the king. But at the time when Merah, Saul's daughter, should have been given to David, she was given to Adriel, the Mahathalite, for a wife. Now, Saul's daughter Michal loved David, and they told Saul the thing pleased him. Saul thought, let me give her to him, that she may be a snare for him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Therefore Saul said to David a second time, you shall now be my son-in-law. And David commanded his servants, Speak to David in private and say, Behold, the king has delight in you, and all his servants love you. Now then, become the king's son-in-law. And Saul's servants spoke these words in the ears of David. And David said, Does it seem to you a little thing to become the king's son-in-law, since I am a poor man and have no reputation? And the servants of Saul told him, thus and so did David speak. Then Saul said, thus shall you say to David, the king desires no bride price except a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, that he may be avenged of the king's enemies. Now Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. And when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king's son-in-law. Before the time had expired, David arose and went along with his men and killed 200 of the Philistines. And David brought their foreskins, which were given in full number to the king, that he might become the king's son-in-law. And Saul gave him his daughter Michal for a wife. But when Saul saw and knew that Yahweh was with David and that Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him, Saul was even more afraid of David. So Saul was David's enemy continually. Now, the princes of the Philistines came out to battle, and as often as they came out, David had more success than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was highly esteemed. God adds his blessing to the reading of his holy word. Be seated, please. So I expect that most of you have heard of that saying, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Everybody heard that? Maybe you know the story behind that or what's behind that. Gift horses were often made because they were old and rickety and maybe not quite so good and so it wasn't polite to look in their mouth. Why would you look in their mouth? You look at their what? At their teeth. You kind of get an idea of how healthy they are and all of that. So you didn't really want to, at least in the presence of the giver, say, hold on a second, let me check those teeth and see if this horse is actually worth getting or not. It's good, polite manners to just accept it and deal with it later on. Well, when it comes to standing firm against your enemies, however, I'd say that looking a gift horse in the mouth should probably be part standard practice and be a little less concerned about politeness. And in this particular case, Saul with David has a couple of gift horses that he is trying to trot out to David. If you'll allow me to call his daughters horses. But in any case, Saul is unquestionably David's enemy. He's already tried to kill him twice. Besides that, he's just irrational. He's unstable. It might be tempting for David to, in a moment of compassion, to go, well, he's just not really thinking straight. He didn't really mean it. You know, just let it go. David, as young as he is, is not naive. And we'll see that as we go through this particular account. As unstable and irrational as Saul is, he is still nonetheless very dangerous. Now, We look around and we have enemies of our souls. We have enemies of our life and ministry. We have enemies of righteousness and godliness in society. Have you ever noticed, particularly if you're on social media at all, or even if you're not, the general assessment of the opposition, and by the way, it's not just us thinking this about them, but they think this about us, but the general way of dealing with opposition is essentially to accuse your opponent of having lost their minds, right? And we write them off because we just say, well, they're still irrational. They just don't think straight. But nonetheless, irrational or not, there's still danger. You can't just say, well, well, you know, doesn't matter. They're irrational, they're stupid, they're whatever. We just talk dismissively of it and then wonder why we get hit like a ton of bricks with the opposition and affliction that comes the church's way and sometimes comes our own way. Sometimes even in our own heart and the temptations that we have, that we face, we can kind of write off temptation as if it's not a big deal. And we excuse our participation in that temptation because it's not a big deal. After all, you know, we're victorious in Jesus, so. But we need to be a little smarter than that. Because your enemy is very cunning. He's very smart. And you and I need to be smarter in the way that we approach and deal with the attacks But sometimes attacks are a little easier to deal with because it's more obvious. What will your responses be when the enemy comes bearing gifts? Now as I was thinking about this, I had occasion to talk with a couple of people this week that helped my thinking along this way and set my mind in this vein a bit. Coming out this passage is a little different. This is not going to be a heavily theological sermon. This is much more of a practical, how-to, wisdom type of message today. Because that seems to be what's going on here in this passage. As we go through this, I expect that many of you will think, wow, this would be a super, super message for politicians and elected officials to hear. And it is, and it will be, because folks that are in those positions face a lot of pressures. All kinds of folks want them to cave to one line of thinking or a certain course of action for the sake of political expediency, for the sake of peace, for the sake of advancement, all those kinds of things. And particularly those who are servants of, oh, there. They're all servants of the Lord. But the ones that acknowledge it, especially, and are humble before Him, to walk wisely, as we see David doing here, is good to keep in mind. Because those gift horses are there. Those of you that have held office or are in office know exactly what I'm talking about. People come with gift horses all the time. They want to buy your favor. Very often, of course, the favor that they're trying to buy comes with a cost. Actually, those that are your enemies are not interested in being really buddy-buddy. They're interested in getting out of you what they can and then neutralizing or destroying you so that you cannot oppose them any further. Let's go through and see what some of these gift horses are. Let's look at some of these strategies because Saul employs a number of them in this section. And then we'll look at David's responses and see what we can learn from that is how we should respond when we're faced with these things. So yes, the strategies of your enemy are smart. They might come across Seeming like they're trying to be noble and all of that, and trying to be all up and up, but ultimately what they're motivated by is fear, fear of losing their place, fear of the prospects of having to change the way they live, particularly to please a holy God, and hatred. And we see that with Saul here. If you look at verse 15, And verse 29, you just see Saul is fearful. He's recognizing that his plans are coming to nothing, which shouldn't surprise him. Just a couple of chapters before this, Samuel comes to him and says, you have disobeyed God. I'm removing you. Your kingdom's going to be in an end. I'm replacing you with a neighbor who's better than you. And you've got to believe that Saul had those words of Samuel ringing in his ears all the time. And anybody that would have stepped up as a rival, Saul would put down. If you read a little bit earlier, as we mentioned last week from chapter 14, he was prepared to kill his own son. The man was out of control. But nonetheless, he has a certain cleverness about him. And we see that here. First of all, this strange account in verses 17 through 19, where David says, here's my older daughter. Saul has two daughters, Merab and Michal. And he says, I'll give you my older daughter. And we don't see David's reaction there. We don't see the daughter's reaction. We don't see really anything about this. I'm going to give you this daughter. And then there's a time appointed, apparently. And before the time is that they are set to get married, Saul yanks her away from David and gives her to this other guy, Adriel, the Meholathite. I mispronounced that earlier. Lots of syllables to get all in one, all together. But Adriel, whoever he was, gets Merav. And it's, I don't know when I read that, or if you've read that before, and you just sort of sat there scratching your head going, what just happened there? What, did Saul just forget that he'd already promised her to somebody else? No, no. As I was thinking about this, doing some reading and study, this is what I believe Saul was doing. And it's a common strategy of your enemies. First of all, your enemies will seek to humiliate you. Now think about this. Here's David. He is this great champion. He's killed Goliath. The whole nation loves him. David's a winner. But all the population sees are the big events. They don't see what's going on behind the scenes. And you can bet that it was trumpeted around that David was going to marry Moab, because after all, the king's daughter had been promised to anybody who was going to kill Goliath. Remember that? From chapter 17. So everybody knew about that. So everybody's expecting this. And then the next thing you know, David is pushed aside and this other guy, who nobody knows who he is, gets the eldest daughter. The shame of that, the humiliation of that, would have been pretty severe. It's interesting, Saul here clearly has no concern whatsoever for his daughter, none whatsoever. And he certainly doesn't have any concern for David or David's feelings. He's only concerned, I believe, with trying to depict him as a loser, as a person who wasn't worthy after all. Those of you that have been in public office or you've been in some other position of authority, know that when people oppose you, one of the things that they will try to do is make you look foolish, and undercut you, and undermine people's confidence in you. And that's exactly what Saul's doing here. Seems like a gift, a great horse he's giving. And I know we're not told anything about Merob. She may very well have been a very fine young lady. So the problem really isn't with her, it's with the gift itself. It wasn't sincerely meant. Just because people want to give you things, pause for a minute and don't necessarily assume that they have your best interest at heart. Secondly, Your enemy may try as they're going through all of their motions to try to undermine you. They might try to sound spiritual. Look what we see in verse 17 there. Saul says, only be valiant for me. Ooh, that's good. And fight Yahweh's battles. He uses God's name in vain. Boy, it sounds spiritual, doesn't it? fight Yahweh's battles. You and me, David, we're gonna do this. Fight for me and you've got my daughter here. Your enemies, whether it's Satan or for your souls, whether it's opposition in the world around you, they'll try to sound spiritual and holy and righteous and try to couch everything in the best possible ways. We're really about wanting to serve God together and even use His name in vain. This is not the kind of using name in vain that we often think of. I won't get off on a big rabbit trail here, but a lot of times we only think about using God's name in vain as in a swear word, curse word, that kind of thing. We also use His name in vain when we put it to things that He hasn't ordained, that He hasn't delighted in, that He hasn't endorsed, that when we use it as a lie to try to get somebody to do something else, when we say it so that people will think we're more holy than we are, All of those are ways of using the Lord's name in vain, and Saul does that here. David, I don't think, was taken in. We'll see this a little bit later on. Your enemy, another aspect of this gift horse approach is, well, working, and this all kind of all goes together here, but may work to try to discourage you. Now, this is kind of the other part of the humiliation. Anybody here like to be humiliated? Anybody like to have your name drug through the mud of public opinion? No. But it goes even beyond that because here, both Merab and David would have had their hopes raised that this was going to happen. this marriage was going to take place. And having those hopes raised and then destroyed by betrayal can break you if you have your focus on the wrong things. If your hopes are all about that gift, if your hopes are all about that position, if your hopes are all about that advancement, if your hopes are all about that reputation rather than your hopes being in your God, When people who you thought were your friends and who came across as trying to support you, betray you, it can be crushing. And when that happens, it can make you just wanna give up. And I believe absolutely that that's what Saul was trying to do. He was trying to humiliate David. He was trying to discourage him to the point that David would be neutralized as any potential rival. to Saul's position. It comes down to that. And I think that Saul likely thought that if anything was going to undo David and slow him down, it would be doing this to him. That he would raise him up and then cut his legs out from under him and leave him just humiliated and discouraged. But, That didn't happen. And then, in the midst of this, Saul hears about Michal. Now, Merob were not told anything about her response to David. Perhaps she was excited, perhaps she wasn't. Maybe she liked David, maybe she didn't. Maybe she didn't know who he was, didn't care, just thought, oh well, here we go, guess I'm gonna marry this guy. We're not told anything about Merob, but we are told about Michal, and Michal loved David. And so, when Saul sees that the whole Merob thing doesn't work, because remember, that's something that's repeated three times in this passage, is that Yahweh is with David. David's upheld him in the midst of this discouragement. But Saul sees McCall and goes, oh, okay, that plan A didn't work, but plan B, this could be really good. And we read about Saul's thinking here. He wants to ensnare David. And so that's another aspect of your enemy's strategies. Humiliate you, discourage you, all with spiritual sounding terms. And when those things don't work, your enemies will often try to trap you. Try to trap you. And we've already seen some of this where Saul has attempted to trap David really with position and trap him with duty, putting him as a commander of thousands, sending him out to fight the Philistines, giving him a position. And those can be traps because we see here that Saul is not so much interested in having the best guy lead his troops. He's out there hoping that David will catch an arrow or a sword. He really wants to see David dead. But he's too much of a coward to continue to try to do it himself. That's a little obvious, though. He'll try again later. But at this particular time, he's like, well, let's go a little more subtle. But this particular trap that Saul sets here is much more appealing than a bunch of smelly soldiers out in the field. This is his beautiful younger daughter, Michal. Daughter who loves him. And yet I think that Saul was counting on his daughter's loyalty to him rather than to David. He's hoping to use her so that he can wield influence over David. Kind of work to, whether it's through nagging him or whether discouraging him from putting out too much effort or whatever else, He's hoping to use Michal to render David powerless as a rival. So the enemy can trap you with position and duty, but he can also trap you with relationships. Relationships can be really tricky because you want to maintain them, you want to uphold them, you want those those friendships or those alliances to accomplish some good for what you're setting out to do. And yet, the adversary can use those relationships to take your focus off of what you're supposed to do. You know, part of these traps, you think about David being put in a position as the commander of thousands, and even the whole aspect of being the king's son-in-law, that position and the duties that come with that. Part of the danger of this trap is ego involvement, surely. People can come and want you to do this, that or the other and exalt you in a position so that they can gain your favor so that you won't oppose them later on. But part of it, and I was thinking about this, and this is something that those of you that know me well at all know that this is a challenge that I have, and maybe some of you do as well. You look at David's positions, and you look at the relationships that he has, the connections that he has, and all of that, Part of the trap is not just ego involvement. Part of it is just the busyness that comes along with all of this stuff that you are called upon to do when you're given those positions. A busyness that robs you of your focus upon what is primary. essentially neutralizing you in those primary areas. We need to be on guard against that. I know I do, because it's too easy for me to look around and go, oh yeah, I could do that, I could do that, I could do that. Or, boy, there's a need, there's a need, there's a need. It's like, well... I need to be careful that those aren't traps of the adversary, as holy and as great as they might be. Perhaps there's something for somebody else to do. Maybe it's not something that I need to do so that I can focus on what God has called me to do primarily. Anyway, in this particular case, even in this relationship, Saul clearly, again, cares absolutely nothing for his daughter, Michal. He just wants to use her. Doesn't care about her feelings, just as he didn't for Merab. Saul has no concern whatsoever for collateral damage. Not for his daughter's feelings, not for David's feelings, not for his soldiers. Right? He wants David to go out and be so distracted and discouraged by his wife that he can't pay attention to what he's doing. He sends him out as a head of thousands to go fight the Philistines. If David's going to die, do you think any of the other soldiers will as well? Oh yeah. Saul is willing to sacrifice his nation and the lives of his subjects to get rid of David. all under the guise of, let me give you my daughter. So we need to be wise as David was. By the grace of God, Saul's plan here backfires because of one little problem that he didn't anticipate. And that is that Michal actually loved David and loved him more than she would be loyal to her father and try to undermine David on her father's behalf. Well, David has some humility here. We'll talk more about that in a moment. But he's like, well, wait a minute. To be the king's son-in-law, I'm just a poor guy. I don't have any status. I don't have any right to this. And so David is digging in his heels a little bit, and Saul is finding that to be a frustration. I mean, he's just looking at this, dangling this carrot in front of David and thinking, well, this is, he, sure, sure, he's gonna go for this. But David says no. So Saul shifts gears. You know, you may be able to withstand the onslaught of the enemy's traps, the enemy's strategies, at first, but they don't give up. They come at you from different ways. You may think you've withstood that attack, that temptation, and you go, phew, I've withstood that temptation, I've withstood that opposition, now I can relax. And then you get hit T-bone from the other side. Saul turns to something that, can get to a lot of us. He utilizes peer pressure. Now, again, Saul has tried to kill David twice already. So rather than coming to David with this proposal, he sends David's peers, other servants of Saul, he sends them with a message. Hey, this is something you really ought to do. Why would he do that? Well, I believe he uses David's peers in order to lure him into this trap because if he came to David, that proposal might not have too much credibility after the way he's already treated David. So he's using David's peers to give his proposal more credibility. Now, it's not clear whether the servants are innocent in this matter. They're just passing along the message? Or if they're collaborators? It seems like they're probably innocents in this. There may have been some jealousy. If you look at verse 30, it says that his name was highly esteemed, but certainly if his brother Eliab would be jealous there on the battlefield, you can expect that perhaps others might be as well. We're not told that, but in any case, the servants come, and exert their pressure upon him. And David, to David's credit, he withstands that pressure as well. No, I'm not just going to do this. Basically what David is saying, I need to earn this somehow. I'm not just going to be given it. So Saul hears this and goes, okay. Steps it up. And this is diabolically clever. He appeals to David's manhood, to his courage, to his newly found skills as a warrior. All these things said, I want you to go and I want you to bring me back 104 skins of the Philistines. That will avenge me on Yahweh's enemies and that will prove your worth. And boy, talk about an appeal to ego. And Saul, however, is simply trying to put David in harm's way. That's the whole goal. He's really not interested in vengeance. He's interested in seeing David dead. You know, some honors are given to us for reasons that are just, reasons that we could expect. I mean, after all, David certainly, as the slayer of Goliath, had earned some credibility, had he not? Well, Saul, however, wasn't really thinking about that so much. After all, he's asking David to do something else, something in some ways much harder. Some of the honors that are given to you are excuses. to put you where you can be hurt, where you can be exposed. Saul thought that this challenge, I think, would appeal to David's ego, cause him to forget caution. But thankfully, Saul was wrong. And we've already spoken to this before. Your enemies in his strategies may pretend to have noble motives. If you look at 22, You read there that the king has delight in you. I just love you, David. Of course, he couldn't really bring himself to say, I love you. He just said, the king has delight in you. All his servants love you, and so now become the king's son-in-law. That sounds noble, because I delight in you. Really, really, I'm just thinking the best for you. Just want what's good for you. And in verse 25, We read there, again, about being avenged of the king's enemies. Sounds really noble, but there's nothing noble about Saul. While he's clever and he's smart, he's wicked and malicious and is desiring to get rid of his rival. So while the strategies of your enemy are smart, you can take a lot of different approaches, your responses must be smarter. And rather than motivated by fear and love, fear and hate, which is what was driving Saul on, we see David's responses that are more motivated by courage and love, love for his Lord, love and concern for others, love for his nation. And perhaps, though it's not said in this particular passage, we know that David did love Michal, and so there was that love as well. What should your responses be when you're faced with these kinds of strategies on the part of your enemies? One, be faithful to your duty, as David was. Verses 13 and 16 speak of him going in and out before the people. It's not just a, well, it's a figure of speech, but it's, it doesn't just mean that he walked out, said hi, went back inside. He was there. He was present. He did the things he was called upon to do faithfully. It was the idea there. For us, it's important that the things that God has called us to do, whether it's on a larger scale or whether it's just in our daily lives walking before the Lord Jesus Christ, that we faithfully do those things that he's called us to do, in holiness and in righteousness. If you don't stray off from that, you're much less likely to be drawn off. So, be faithful to your duty. Verses 18 and 23, where David is saying, you know, who am I? I'm just a poor guy. That expresses, I don't believe that's a false humility. I believe that David was truly walking in humility before Saul and before others. You and I need to have that same sort of humility in our attitudes. David was not eager for advancement without any honor. or without any effort. Again, as if killing Goliath wasn't enough. But vain people love to be flattered. David wasn't accepting the flattery. David wasn't vain. He didn't think that he was owed anything. We'll see that in actually the next passage where he goes back and after all of this goes on, he's still back in the court playing music again. David was humble in his attitude, and so you and I must walk in humility. It can be really easy for us to lift up ourselves in the face of opposition and think, you know, we're great and we're smarter than that, and we can withstand all these attacks. That's really a foolish thing to do, because none of us are sufficient for these things, only as the Lord enables us. It's a walk in humility before others. And in verses 26 and 27, where David goes out and does the deed, David is pleased to be the king's son-in-law once he finds out, hey, there's something I can do to demonstrate my worth here and actually earn this. He goes out and he does this, he arose and killed 200, not just 100, killed 200 of the Philistines. So there's no question about his ability there. But then it speaks to the courage that David has and the courage that you and I should have in our warfare. When we're being assailed, when we're being discouraged, when we're being humiliated, when we're being put in harm's way, it can be really tempting to turn tail and run. and won't just want to go hide. But there are legitimate fights to fight in our souls and in our society. And we should not shrink from the honor of engaging in those fights. For David, this was about honor. It wasn't about ego. Like David, you must have an eagerness to engage the enemies of your soul and life, but let it be tempered by the next characteristic that we see with David, and that is wisdom. David was wise in his warfare. Now, this is particularly seen in verse 27 by the fact that he did not take this challenge on alone. I don't know if Saul was counting on David to go out as a lone ranger and try to kill all these Philistines by himself, but David took his friends. He got his men together and they went out and they did the deed. Maybe think of the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 4, 12. Though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A three-fold cord is not quickly broken. Part of being wise in your warfare, in your own spiritual walk, as well as just in your testimony in the world and whatever activities you're engaged in, whether they're of a business nature, civil nature, whatever they are, is not to be a Lone Ranger. So many try to walk through life without the Lord, without the church, without His word, without trusting anybody, without all of this stuff, thinking that they can just do it on their own. But you can't. We need to join with those who have like precious faith, be encouraged by them, be accountable to one another, be subject to discipline, both self-discipline and external discipline that comes with accountability within the church so that you stay on the right track. And don't get derailed by those gift horses so that others come alongside and say, hey brother, hey sister, you're involved in something that could bite you badly and to pull you back from that brink before you get destroyed. David was wise enough. He didn't get all excited about this and just lose his head and decide, I'm gonna go out and show what a hero I am. He takes his men, and he goes out, and he takes care of the challenge. The final aspect about your responses is just a little bit of a different one, but it's one I've mentioned a couple times before, and that is that you really need, you must be enabled by Yahweh. You cannot walk through this life faithfully and escape the gift horse problem if you think you can do this without the Lord. You need to pray for this. Pray that God would be with you faithfully as he's promised. Feed your soul with his word. Feed your soul with his worship and fellowship. As I mentioned a moment ago, be ready to walk under his discipline. so that you can stand firm in the day of challenge and opposition. That's interesting. Saul's actions through this bear a striking resemblance, do they not, to those of Satan in the Garden of Eden? I could just about, if I went, if we went back to Genesis 1, I could just walk through the things that Satan did. And he tried to make Eve feel like she was being humiliated by God, for example. He tried to sound really spiritual, don't you wanna be like the gods? Oh, well, you can't have all this other stuff. What a discouragement. And trap, yeah, it was a big trap, wasn't it? And get Adam involved, get the peer pressure going. Ultimately, it put all of us in harm's way. He tried those same kinds of devilish strategies because with the Lord Jesus Christ, Satan has a long standing playbook. He has lots of gift horses and through the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus, he tried these same things. But our Redeemer responded in faithfulness and humility. He responded with courage and wisdom. He was upheld by his father. And as he did those things, he carried through to completion his redemptive work. And he did it perfectly and was ultimately glorified. Your enemies from Satan on down will use gift horses to ruin you. So be aware, be wise, and be ready to serve your Lord faithfully. in communion with him without fear of the cunning of the enemy. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for this cautionary tale that we have here before us today. We thank you that you instruct us on how to recognize the signs of opposition, no matter how attractively they might be packaged. Help us to wisely and righteously withstand these assaults on our souls and upon your church. As we rest in you, communing with you and depending upon you to uphold us and sustain us in all that you've called us to do. We thank you, Lord God, for your promise to be with us. Lord, we depend on that promise. and know that in you, we will indeed be victorious. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.