David and Achish

[0:00] Daniel somewhat hit the nail on the head when he said what's going on that was pretty much! the words from me for most of the morning and most of yesterday.

[0:10] let me share something with you. my sermon today is called the road not taken and we'll talk about that in just a moment.

[0:26] let me share with you what happened with me yesterday. I spent a bit of time preparing this sermon it got to lunchtime and I thought yeah I'm on top of this. I got to near the end and I hit a mental block completely and I thought to myself what is going on I don't understand how on earth am I going to get this finished on time so I left it and I went down to the kettle downstairs and I made myself a pot noodle and I thought to myself it'll probably be all right my past experience is that God has always always provided at the last minute and so I opened my pot noodle and what did it say on the lid?

[1:04] said success is 90% inspiration four minutes preparation. Now I think I spent a bit longer than four minutes on this sermon you'll be you'll be pleased to know and it made me laugh and I I thought to myself well actually this is right isn't it that the important thing is sometimes it's not the academic study but it's the stopping and it's the listening and it's the waiting to hear what God has to say to us and that was an important lesson and one of the prayers I prayed is how am I possibly going to get this this sermon done in time I was falling really behind and you know this morning I woke up and the printer broke I couldn't print out the sermon so slightly panicking I came to came to church and Daniel's very kindly helped me out says okay we can print it out upstairs and I got a version of it that's kind of printed on both sides so it feels a little bit backwards and so we printed it again and then the printer ran out of ink but through all this I'm standing here this morning and I have a sermon just to share with you some of the things that I've found in the text and my slides appear to be working so praise God um not only has he is he made everything work but he's done so and given me an illustration for the sermon right in the nick of time so my my sermon was was called uh the road not taken but I'm unofficially changing it from this moment to right in the nick of time because that's exactly what's happened um right that's my water so let's begin should we start with a prayer actually before we go any further let's just pray our father in heaven uh lord we thank you we thank you for your sovereign hand and we thank you for your word and we thank you that you have provided for all of us today your word and so we do pray that you would speak to us that we would hear and understand your voice uh lord and we pray that we go away today feeling edified knowing that we've we've come uh drawn a little bit closer to you lord and that we know you that that little bit better so so do bless uh bless bless me as i speak lord bless the bless the hearers uh may we all be drawing closer to you this morning in jesus name amen amen amen so i'll make sure i've got this all around the right way i think i do yeah uh so we're going to start with a recap on the story so the basic outline is um i followed the traditional method i have two introductions four main points and um conclusions that's not some of you will be thinking that's not the traditional method um that's how it is so let's start by having a quick recap on where we've been so far so we've got our main players we have king saul he is king over god's people israel and he's become very very selfish and harsh with his men we see that in 14 24 appear to be missing a slide that's okay uh 14 24 to 45 he's repeatedly disobedient to god through failing to carry out his commandments and i'm going to fly through this by the way so if you're if you're looking to just uh open the pages uh i might be moving a little quickly uh he's failing to carry out god's commandments we see that in 13 13 and 15 11 god rejected saul as king with the promise that another man would be raised up to take his place and we see that in chapter 13 verse 14 and 15 um verses 28 so samuel that's all samuel who was god's

[5:06] voice in israel at this point is sent by god to anoint a new king as a he's a king in waiting he's a shepherd boy musician called david and god uses and forms david into a powerful warrior uh in service to king saul where he wins another a number of battles over the enemy god's people the philistines so that's uh we can see that in 18 5 so the success that god gives samuel sorry no that's not right the success that god gives david drives saul into paranoia he becomes intensely paranoid and threatened by david and he he turns into this kind of sort of irrationally violent man which has led him to try and kill david so god's anointed king is is seeking after um he's been rejected by god and he's seeking to kill the the king that god has anointed for his place king david as david goes on the run however god's protection was upon david all of this time we see that in chapter 19 verses 18 to 24 and david himself has said there is only a step between me and death and this was the way that david was living there is only a step between me and death that's in 20 verse 3 and as we heard a couple of weeks ago that was a step that was never actually taken for david so as saul pursued david saul was given into the hands of david by god twice and it would have put an end to a lot of david's problems if it actually just killed him and he had the opportunity but david refused to kill saul saying that he would not lift his hand against the lord's anointed we see david's in this these the run up to where we are today we see david's obedient heart and it's very much in contrast to saul's disobedient heart so for a moment saul is sorry and he appears to be repentant and there's a there's a glimmer of hope there with saul um but unfortunately it doesn't last long he just goes after david again he's chasing him and in fact it fulfills what we see in chapter 18 verse 29 it reads saul became still more afraid of him and remained his enemy the rest of his days all of his days he sought to pursue david and take david down so david gets to the point as we heard from from phil a couple of weeks ago he's just absolutely had enough he's been chased and hunted he's fed up and so he goes to live with his men in philistine territory which is the enemy territory and he becomes close with this this chap called akish uh i don't know if i'm pronouncing that right or not but he's a philistine commander or king very important guy uh one of five i believe in the territory and um david has been in this territory for now over a year first 20 chapter 27 verse 7 says he's been there for a year and four months and he thinks he's found refuge doesn't he david is in enemy territory and he thinks he's found refuge from trouble with the enemy and as phil pointed out strangely it worked he did find some kind of of refuge in that place which is is scary and then akish this king this ruler of of philistines said drops this bombshell and he says you must understand that you and your men will accompany me into battle it's 28 verse 1 your men will accompany me into the army akish is calling david to go into battle against israel his own people so by this point david it seems is just going along with

[9:10] the lie um that he has um been creating about his loyalty and about his actions to akish see he was uh he was deceiving akish actually by his behavior um but he goes along with the line he says all right okay akish now you'll see for yourself what your servant can do yeah i can do that i can be in your army i can fight against israel that's 28 verse 2 and that was the cliffhanger from last time that's where we are today our chapter picks up from here um so note that we're not picking up from last week where we heard from steve uh we're actually picking up from the week before chapter 27 the story is not completely linear so is that does that make sense where we are today so today is the day after two weeks ago and last week will happen somewhere between now and next week is that clear you know good the philistines plus david and his men are marching into battle against god's people israel boots are on the ground uh so if you've got your please open your bibles to chapter 29 if they're not already and um as the chapter opens look at verse 1 paints a picture of the philistine forces right before they leave to launch what is to be a devastating attack on god's people israel and here's a map up on the screen so the philistines are just outside the most northern edge of their territory at afek we're told there is that israel are encamped north of their position at a place called jezreel so on the map jezreel it looks like quite a long distance it's about 40 miles so for professional soldiers you're looking at just a couple of days away at the most so this is painting a picture straight away of this is the moment this is this is where the stuff is going to happen the philistines are going against israel and it's going to happen immediately everyone's assembled preparations would have been made swords would have been sharpened everybody is ready and we see again that disaster for david and his men is just a step away isn't it this is the final leg of the journey this is the final step into disaster so if david goes off to fight why do we call it disaster let's just touch on this for a second if david goes off to fight he would have turned his back on god turned his back on his people killed be killing his own people and lift his hand against the lord's anointed something he's been refusing to do it would be a great sin a great sin he'd be turning his back on everybody but if he does go off and he joins saul probably saul would still try and kill him anyway the philistine army lists in their numbers in their thousands so he probably wouldn't stand all that much of a chance we imagine so it seems like there's there's no way out doesn't know this chapter is saying well david is he's at the very last step before death there is no way out at this point but god again does provide a way out and uh these are the bookends to our chapter it opens with this predicament and it closes with david going off um back to safety weirdly in philistine territory whilst everybody goes up to fight israel whilst the philistines go up to to fight israel so there's one question that this chapter throws up time and time again and it's going to be our focus as we go through it and that is who is david really and that's the question isn't it who is david when we when we look at who he is in this text that's the question who is he and that's the question everybody seems to be asking as well so in this chapter we've got three main sources that actually shed some light on who david is firstly there's akish he's got a lot of nice things to say in this about

[13:13] him in this chapter we've got the philistine commanders they're a little bit more critical and then we've got david himself who he has a fairly high opinion of david um i suppose that's to be expected so let's get into it what i call the road not taken i've got four main points that we'll go through uh in this chapter the eyes of akish the eyes of the philistines the heart of david and the hand of god so the eyes of akish verse two when we look at verse two it really emphasizes excuse me i'm very dry this morning verse two really emphasizes to us the scale of the army of the philistines i think it's it reminds me of all those those war films you ever seen lord of the rings where you hit masses of thousands and thousands of people gathered for battle it's very large it's very impressive it's very dominating the leaders the text says leaders march by with their hundreds and thousands not the delicious cake topping i see someone smiling at the back when i said uh hundreds and thousands no hundreds and thousands of trained warriors very very dangerous people and whereas david he's at the rear with akish if you flick back to uh chapter 28 verse two there seems to be this moment where david is formally enlisted into the philistines army as akish's bodyguard at least as far as akish is concerned i found it interesting that the literal translation for bodyguard here is is something like the guardian of the head it's very very interesting language the king james translates it as keeper of mine head forever so definitely not seeing what we're not seeing between akish and david at the moment is the normal walk-along catch-up that we have with people that we haven't seen in a while this isn't general conversation there is an absolute closeness between david and akish so david already by this point we see with this close relationship um that this is he sees him as someone he can trust straight away we see this the position of akish in the army he's at the back he's at the safest place and he's surrounded by david and his men so he must feel that david and his men have an element of safety he's safe with them he trusts them akish is outwardly expressing what is in his heart yeah i have a deep trust of this guy and so i'm gonna i'm gonna keep him close to me at the back with me for my protection sook of verse three the commanders of the philistines there's the princess the princess the the highest ranking leaders come to akish and they question him on why david and his men are going to battle with them they say what are these hebrews doing here now there is i think i believe there is a tone here that we we can't ignore what on earth what on earth is going on the same the same as what i was saying this morning when the printer broke what on earth is going on what are these hebrews doing here and that's the question of the day really is is along with who is david is what what is he doing there akish clearly understood the tone the commanders weren't happy with this arrangement in the slightest and that's why straight away we hear akish's testimony about who he thinks david is and it's interesting isn't it that akish's defense as to whether david belongs with the philistines or not

[17:15] is based really in david's actions what he sees is this not david was an officer of saul but it's been with me now if you're using the niv i think it says does it say years over a year um some translations say years other translations say days and years there's a an odd language going on here um in the original text in the hebrew but it's something similar it's a phrase it's a phrase you ever heard in english donkey's years put your hand up if you're just curious who's most of us have heard yeah donkey's oh calvary church yeah that's been there donkey's years i don't think any of us who use that expression really understand um a donkey's how a donkey experiences the passing of time we don't do we well we still say it's an expression yeah that's what akish is doing he's saying he's saying david's been with me all of this time does that not tell you something this is david used to be with saul but now he's been with me for donkey's years akish goes on to say from the day he left saul until now i have found no fault in him i see no fault in him that's a bold statement isn't it especially if you know the story i have found no fault in him and the philistine commanders are pretty united in rejecting david and his men outright we're going to come back to that um so when it comes to telling david that he must turn back akish makes a point this big point of saying that he doesn't share the view of the philistines and he's really emphatic on this verse six he says as surely as the lord lives should have switched over there as surely as the lord lives surely this is this is what the actual text surely as lives yahweh which is the name for the one true god now akish is bizarrely using the is the god the god the one true god his real name who is the god of israel um as a stamp of credibility or sincerity and what he's saying is that not bizarre this is not the god of akish akish he uses his name to seal credibility but doesn't really know god anyway he goes on to say as surely as the lord lives you have been upright honest reliable and in my eyes in my sight it seems right that you should march out with me in the campaign that's peculiar isn't it it's right that david should be with the philistines fighting against israel that's question why this is the sort of the first um major red flag of well david's definitely not where he should be if that's the thing that's being said about him oh it seems right that you're with the philistines it seems right that you should march out with me in the campaign and uh the the words there in my eyes sight it was it was actually um phil that mentioned this to me i i missed it when we're going over my notes that the hebrew actually has the word for eye there interestingly in my eye in my sight it's how i see you akish then contrasts his view of david with the philistines and says well never nevertheless the laws do not approve of you regardless of how i feel the laws do not approve of you and then he repeats himself again and there's this repetition as we've seen so many times repetition is really important he repeats himself he's he's he's really

[21:22] pushing home this idea he says i know verse 9 i know that you are pleasing blameless good in my sight as an angel of god again he provides a contrast in view of the philistines nevertheless the commanders of the philistines have said he shall not go up with us to battle so this is an interesting view of how akish sees david isn't it upright blameless good and the others don't approve of him but this is how akish sees him however david has not been those things has he we know that and the sad thing is as convinced as akish is about david's honesty and uprightness he's very very much been misled by david he's been misled by lies he's been deceitful um i didn't venture into this on the text just because there's so much to say but actually if you look back at the way he tells the lies it's very very clever it's like a truth mixed with a lie it's something like i went up to the south and i raided these people not being specific he was actually raiding the enemy of israel and not the enemy of akish anyway just reminded me of chapter three in genesis where you see that the devil uh mixes truth with a lie so that's an interesting just an interesting aside there um so bit by bit david was filling the ears of akish with all these tall tales that made himself look really really good honest and loyal uh by saying that he'd been helping akish by fighting against israel but if you go back to chapter 27 verses 11 to 12 uh that's what we heard in in part one of this uh from phil uh what he was actually doing was working against akish as we've said he was slaying israel's enemies and he went in with such merciless and brutal force that not one person was left alive to reveal the truth about who he was and this was his way of life in philistine territory so we get a little bit of light there shed on that when akish says seems right to me that you should fight with me against israel actually when we look at the evidence what does that tell you it fits doesn't it his behavior fits with that comment sadly but the tapestry of lies and deceit is starting to unravel now as a philistine's question well who is david really and this will always be the way if that's how you choose to live the truth will often come out one way or another have you ever heard of that famous saying i've written it down so i always get it backwards you can fool some of the people all of the time all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time i haven't written who who that came from but it's a very very famous quote maybe it was abraham lincoln was it an american senator okay i think you tend to hear that don't you who quoted that oh it must have been abraham lincoln regardless of the quote um anyway so akish has been taking david's word at faith face value he hadn't checked to see if everything was actually true or not he just went along with it and he was caught up in the lies and the deceit and if he'd actually stopped and checked on what david was doing in these other territories he'd realized he would realize so actually i'm being deceived here so akish in some ways pretty much being irresponsible of all the men that he's got under underneath him that's a uh off the little off the track a little bit one would imagine we put ourselves into the shoes of akish he didn't want to see the truth david is this mighty warrior it would be such an asset to to have in his army um so he probably didn't want to know the truth

[25:25] there is probably an element so um now he's faced with conflict from the philistine commanders who do not share at all akish's view of david so let's look at the eyes of the philistines verse four akish has presented his favorable uh appraisal of david to the philistines and the response of the philistines to akish's appraisal of david is anger they are mad which i think is pretty understandable um but let's look at why they're angry verse four he must not go down with us he must not go with us into battle or he will turn against us during the fighting uh turn there is literally it was become our adversary and it says that in the sv he will become our adversary how better could he regain his master's favor at saul than by taking the heads of our own men i don't know if you feel the same way but one of the most oh let me see ah yeah here we go sorry backward sheets the philistines don't trust where david's loyalty is and it seems like they think akish is a bit of a fool for thinking any different they're saying this could end in death for us this could be it for us look at verse five it says isn't this that david they sang about in their dances saul has slain his thousands and david his tens of thousands isn't that what we know of david isn't this david isn't this who david really is this is a song that people sang after david slayed goliath which led to numerous victories over the philistines it's become part of who david is it's become part of his reputation but more than that we're seeing the truth of david coming out i think that's what that's what's happening here the truth of of what's happened is coming out we've seen already in the book of samuel the victories that david has had uh over the philistines were by god's hands in 23 4 god says directly to david go down to keilah for i'm going to give you the philist give the philistines into your hands chapter 18 which i think was the last one that i i spoke on um saul tried everything he could to set david up for death absolutely everything the odds were absolutely against david and david was victorious every time and why 18 12 says saul was afraid of david because the lord was with him uh 18 14 we see he was successful every time so it's interesting isn't it the philistines we look at their view of who david is or who they see how they see david um there's this massive fear there but whether they realize it or not it's not just david that they fear but it's the hand of god the hand of god working and using david that has given him this this reputation so the philistines call for david to turn back this is another strange thing they petition akish to turn david back verse 4 um it's quite literally the turning point for david it's by this petition that god shows david mercy and he's prevented from going into battle so the idea of david being turned back here i just want to get this phrase across is is repeated three times we see in verse 4 turn back we see again in verse 7 where akish says turn back and again in verse 11 where david returns to philistine territory so this is a theme turn back turn back david turn back so let's ask that question again who is david really we've seen the the view of from akish and the philistines akish would say in my eyes david is reliable trustworthy obedient perhaps even a friend

[29:25] it does seem that it does seem like he has some admiration for david the philistines in contrast will say well actually in my eyes david is he's fear inducing he's dangerous he's unpredictable he's a liability he's untrustworthy he's certainly not a friend when akish says in the verse oh they don't approve of you it's it's a lot stronger than that um it's very very much under say they really don't approve of him they don't want him anywhere near him um so that's how we see so that's what we see we see uh who david is in the eyes of akish and who david is in the eyes of the philistines but there's one more point of view in the chapter and that's the heart of david so i don't know about you but when i was saying earlier that i got really hung up i got stuck on this text this was part of it the heart of david is one of the most perplexing parts of this chapter um as we see david's response to everything that's going on look at verse 7 akish instructs david to turn back with his men have a read of that he's saying no need for a fuss don't fuss don't fight go in peace don't displease the commanders saying we don't want to fight we don't want to we don't want that hassle just just go go in peace the hebrew is is pretty interesting here and i'll just say i'm not any kind of hebrew scholar we're talking about this the other day i like a lot of people i'm just leaning on the interlinear of the work of other very very clever men um but i think that's okay we have these resources to use don't we i think that's i think that's important um yeah so so the the literal um phrase or or the words read something like not do adversity evil in the eyes of the philistines don't do that don't do evil in front of these people don't let them see you do evil it's a strange thing for the philistines to say isn't it to david of all people and so we have a time where david has a window of response he can go back he can go back to ziklag back to his safety in philistine territory and avoid going off to fight israel but instead for some reason his response in verse 8 is what have i done what have you found in your servant from the day i entered your service until now that i may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king meaning akish is that bizarre he chose to continue the light he didn't take the opportunity to go off back to safety he's actually arguing in favor of continuing down this disastrous path that he's on which will lead to either he'll be faced with as we said this earlier killing saul and god's people something that would be a deep sin and make him hostile to god and his people or he would have to join saul and fight the philistines where victory is unlikely since the philistines are in the thousands and he'd most likely be attacked by saul too plus there's another thought that uh as i read in the commentary they'd actually mean that this person that he's got close to and has shown him such kindness over all of this time he'd be turning his back on him as well wouldn't he so it strikes me that living this lie for a year and a half he's found himself in a position now where every every way is is uh is a is a no is a no-go every path leads to disaster of some kind he's he's absolutely stuck

[33:26] so he's been living out this lie what do we judge by david's response who is david really how do we know that david wouldn't go out to fight against israel but let's be honest that's the scary part how do we know we don't we don't it doesn't say that in the text we don't know what david was thinking one of the i was watching some sermons on it i think it was last week and one of the guys said oh when i get to glory i've got to ask him go ask him what were you thinking and commentators go along the same lines for the most part they'll just leave it there and they will say um his response is ambiguous we can't know what he's thinking and i think that's right that's true um but i am stood here and i do have an opinion and so i'm going to give you my opinion i think there's more to it than that i think the fact that it's ambiguous is actually the point we look at david and we can't see what he's thinking what he's doing it's a massive red flag isn't it and it forces us into self-inspection what's our behavior look like who are we what are we doing where are we going what road are we on it's a wake-up call when we look at the behavior of david this ambiguousness is is left him in such a such a mess such a pickle um so let's get to our final point where are we does that say the hand of god the heart david oh maybe i was one behind it's okay the hand of god uh uh nope not that yet sorry my notes are backwards okay so you see david's actions have led him into a place that he can't get out of um and so we ask that question again who is the david that we see here and it's interesting and this is the most interesting for me one of the most interesting parts of the chapter is up until this point if you've been following along in the book of samuel we see many many times how david represents a christ style figure he's the anointed king and we've heard it time and time again his successors beyond the odds he's this this this christ um christ like figure the anointed king to be and we've seen these following traits in him we've seen him as merciful honest trustworthy prepared to face death at the hands of the enemy obedient to the father all these same traits that we see in the lord jesus christ we could see an echo of them in david didn't do all of them perfectly but they were definitely there but the david in these most recent chapters is almost the opposite it's almost the antichrist when you think about it he's mercy less where's his mercy gone where's the mercy that he was showing saul as he's slaughtering people so that the truth doesn't come out he's deceitful and dishonest he's led these kind folk astray people would have been kind to him at least he's untrustworthy people can't trust him and he's doing everything he can to avoid death at the hands of the enemy even being disobedient to the father going into disobedience to avoid uh to avoid death excuse me so i think that david asking that question again who is david really i think the david that we see here he isn't a messianic figure is he he isn't uh someone to look up to as a as a king as such i think when we ask who is david based on all of this evidence of what we what we see in this chapter really our response can only be one thing he's a human being who has gone completely the wrong way and is now in a real fix and needs a savior

[37:29] and i think that's what we're meant to see i think his ambiguousness points directly to that that's who david is we ask who david is that's who david is right in this in this chapter david does find a savior who does he find a savior and look at verse 10 a kish a kish a kish leads to salvation bizarre is this this this chapter everything seems upside down and backwards the good guy um who should be david seems like the bad guy a kish who should be the bad guy seems like the good guy um safe territory is philistine territory everything's upside down what is going on again like i was asking this morning with the printer or when when the other one run out of ink what is going on lord help is what we should be saying it's what david should be lord help so david gets his way out verse 10 a kish repeats the instruction to david to turn around with his men go back to ziklag philistine territory as we said place of safety strangely um adding that he's to leave as soon as he has light as soon as possible this is absolutely emphatic leave as soon as possible as soon as you get the chance verse 11 david and his men do just that they turn back they're out the hot water and the philistines go off and continue their fight against israel praise god somehow against all the circumstances david and his men have survived and have been turned back to the right path and the chapter is a mess it's all very messy and very strange and very backwards um and we were left thinking like i was staring at the pot noodle this morning um what is going on that was yesterday sorry not this morning we've got one more point to make we've seen the eyes of a kish who david is uh in the eyes of a kish the eyes of the philistines david's heart now we see the hand of god and like we've said his life is incredibly upside down his actions are questionable he's in a place he clearly doesn't belong he's found himself marching in step with the enemy it seems he's too far gone however this doesn't prevent god from leaning in and rescuing him out the chaos at the very last moment that's what happens isn't it when you come to know who god is many of us can testify to that many times god stepped in right at the last moment he did just this morning it's my illustration it's the pot noodle it's the little message that he sent to me via a little snap hang in there i will i will teach i will guide turn to me but david didn't turn did he here's the interesting thing david's very far gone and the interesting uh one of the most interesting things about this chapter is the way that god chooses to go about his rescue so if we look at the way that god has previously brought about rescue um for his people chapter 7 god saves israel from the philistines with a thunderous sound that sent the enemy scattering in confusion do you remember that that was an incredible massive scale event boom everybody got confused and they were running every direction and israel went off and got the victory um in chapter 5 verse 6 the hand of the lord it says this the hand of the lord was heavy on the philistines as he terrified them and afflicted with tumors something very visual something big something epic a plague he sends a plague

[41:33] to deal with the situation and so we come to this chapter and we think well okay we've got thousands of men on the battlefield we got david and his men who are completely in a jam there is no way out we expect something massive something big something epic god to really come down and say okay i'm gonna do this boom sorted but actually it's all very quiet it's all very very quiet and very gentle what's what god used it wasn't an earthquake it wasn't plagues or anything like that it was a song wasn't it and i find that amazing how did he perform his rescue just a simple song saul has slain his thousands and david his tens of thousands from chapter 18 i say a quiet reminder of who david is to god and what god has done through him was enough to provoke the philistines into sending david and his men back but more than that we see the hand of god working i think it's a call to david to remember exactly all the times that god gave him to be a man of the philistines and his men back but more than that we see the hand of god working i think it's a call to david to remember exactly all the times that god gave him success against all odds he's calling out him even in this this situation to remember who he is remember who god's called him to be the lord's anointed king i think we even see god working through the words of someone who ironically doesn't even know god a kish seems backwards but maybe that's the case when he says as sure as yahweh lives maybe to him it's just a phrase to win david over but to david maybe it's a reminder he might have been a long time with the enemy but the lord lives the lord is there and maybe we could see god's hand working in all the voices that tell david to turn back i'm speculating for some of these it's just a maybe just a thought um but for sure we could see god's hand in the fact that even when david ignored all of this stuff god gave him a merciful escape anyway an undeserved merciful escape you're going to ignore me you're going to want to go off to fight against me i'm going to rescue you anyway and it strikes me that throughout this chapter of confusion and backwardness and reversals and all this strange stuff the one person that is rock solid is god he is still there he is still him he is still rescuing he's still caring for his people even when we turn our backs on him can i get an amen shall we draw some conclusions so i've hopefully made the point of asking that question who is david really the chapter naturally asks this question what do you see when you look at god's anointed king but if we're talking about david we probably say that david's failings as we see him as an opposite to christ actually point us directly to a successful christ it serves to highlight human need for a real unfailing savior

[45:40] it points to god's mercy to the undeserving and god did provide a rescue to an undeserving people via a savior another anointed king who faced similar questions of who he was and that was jesus matthew 16 13 to 16 says this when jesus came to the region of caesarea philippi philippi he asked his disciples who do people who do people say the son of man is they replied some say john the baptist others say elijah and still others jeremiah or one of the prophets jesus said to simon peter what about you who do you say i am simon peter answered you are the messiah the son of the living god unlike david there was no last minute rescue for jesus he went willingly to the cross and died so that we too can be rescued from that path of destruction and be brought life we've heard that david was seen as blameless in some way he wasn't blameless we saw that he was the opposite of blameless but jesus really was blameless he didn't do anything wrong david's road to death would have ended complete disaster if he hadn't been saved if david went off to that place nothing but disaster nothing but trouble well jesus road to death ended in complete success didn't it that's the polar opposite because jesus demonstrated who he was as sovereign king not just by dying on the cross for the sins of his people but by taking up his life again on the third day 1 corinthians 15 verses 3 to 4 says this for what i received i passed on to you as a first importance that christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day and so as we close this is the question who is jesus to you maybe you're a christian and you're hearing this and you're just thankful for your rescue which we should all be praise god but let us demonstrate that practically not to be a david where i mean okay in fairness to david you know he was being killed things were looking to be killed he was things were really really tough he made some bad decisions let's make the best decisions that we can and always seek god in everything that we do it's not an easy road but god lives and he's right there with you with his by his spirit keep watching keep listening to how he speaks to you maybe you're not a christian maybe you're just not sure that you want to take that step maybe you just rather wait and put it off and i would say to you don't be a david definitely not don't wait until the very very last moment to see if god will rescue you the moment is now the last step is now go as soon as you see light go go to jesus now or maybe wherever you are in your faith you found yourself so far from god you can't see a way back you feel that your actions have put you so far out of the reach of god's mercy that there is there's no option now

[49:42] well the truth is jesus is the way to life and salvation and he is the only way so to all who are hearing this and it might be in that situation the truth of this chapter is plain actually the road that you've traveled on and the things you've done will not exclude you from god's mercy if you seek him god has shown his mercy on you already by sending his son that all who should believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life so don't wait come to christ now amen