So we are looking at 1 Samuel chapters 21 and 22 tonight, both of them.
It's a big chunk.
We're going to take it in one fell swoop.
That's page 244 in the Pew Bible.
We've been walking through the book of 1 Samuel in the evening service, if you're new, just
seeing the ways in which God's glory is displayed in this book and what it teaches us about
God, our true king, and the growth of his kingdom.
And there's much to learn in this book about a heart that's after God, some of the things
we've been looking at.
As you're turning to 1 Samuel chapters 21 and 22, I wonder if you've ever had a moment
in your life when you've ever been in serious danger, when you've really felt like you were
under threat or maybe not going to make it.
I remember once, can you guys hear me okay?
I'm losing my voice, so this sermon will probably be about 15 minutes, then we'll just go straight
to Q&A.
No.
I remember once when I was, I think in eighth grade, me and my best friend at the time,
John Barker, were camping with my parents in upstate New York, somewhere in the Adirondacks.
And we were young, and we were stupid, and we were canoeing on the lake where we were camping,
and we heard kind of the sound, like the sound of a radio.
Maybe it was sort of a, I don't know, a party or something like that.
And we were like, man, that doesn't sound really far away.
Let's go hike and sort of see what's going on.
So we docked the canoe and sort of hiked to the edge of the campground where it seemed
like the music was coming from.
We couldn't find it.
We're like, well, it's probably just like right over that ridge.
Let's go.
Let's go hike.
So we just went for it.
We just hiked into the woods.
Well, lo and behold, like after about 20, 30 minutes of hiking, we were totally lost.
And it was bad.
I mean, we sort of just kept going up and down ridges, up and down ridges, and it was like,
maybe we should turn back.
So we turned back.
We couldn't get back.
It was nuts.
And we could actually hear my older brother sort of calling out to us, like trying to
find where we were, because they knew we were probably lost or something like that.
And, you know, so here we were.
It started to get dark.
And we thought we heard things scuttling around in the forest around us.
And here we were, too tough.
I played football in middle school.
It looks like it, right?
I played football in middle school.
So we were, and so did Johnny Barker, my friend.
And we thought we were tough.
But we were literally holding hands, walking through the woods together in the dark, trying
to make our way, fearing for our lives.
But we thought we were in serious danger.
We thought we weren't going to make it.
We thought we were going to get eaten by wolves or something like that.
Well, thankfully, we eventually made it to this sort of access road and walked the access
road, and we found this party.
And I don't know what was more dangerous, the fact that we just went hiking out into the
woods to find this thing that we thought was curious, or the fact that we let these,
what I look, looking back, knowing we're just a bunch of drunk college kids give us a ride
back to our campground.
I don't know if that was a more dangerous thing or not.
So anyway, so that's my story of being in serious danger.
But I don't know about you.
Maybe you've been in an instance where you felt like you were in actual danger.
When we turn to 1 Samuel 21 and 22 tonight, we find that David is in a place of incredible
danger, actually.
And he's desperate.
And David's a pretty tough guy.
Remember the song that they used to sing about David?
Saul struck down his thousands, but David his ten thousands.
And yet here we find in 1 Samuel 21 that David is on the run.
Remember from last week, Greg preached on 1 Samuel 20 where Jonathan warns David basically that
Saul's going to kill him.
So that's the situation.
And Saul's out to kill David out of jealousy and rage.
And David's running for his life.
Now, rather than just reading this straight through at one shot, I want to kind of give
you the bird's eye view of chapters 21 and 22.
So I hope you have it there.
I hope you actually just open up the Bible.
So if you haven't, sometimes we put it on the screens in the evening service.
But go ahead and open up the Pew Bible because I want you to just see sort of how these two
chapters are structured and how they're sort of put together.
Because I think when you do that, you see something important about how the author of 1 Samuel
constructed this little mini narrative in the midst of his big narrative.
So look down at, just sort of scan over verses 1 through 9 in chapter 21.
And what's David doing there?
He's running to a place called Nob or Nob.
And he's hanging out with some priests and he's begging for bread and trying to get some
things.
So there's David and some priests in 21, 1 through 9.
And now quickly look to the end of chapter 22 in verses 20 through 23.
There you find David with the priests again, this time a different priest.
So you see how he's sort of building the symmetry of this section.
David and the priests at the beginning.
David and the priests in the end.
Now look how this imagery continues.
Look at chapter 21 verses 10.
Here David flees to Gath, which is sort of enemy territory.
And he's with this hostile king.
And we'll look a little more closely at all these things.
But he's with a hostile king at this sort of second section of chapter 21.
Now look at 22.
22 verse 6 through 19.
Again, there's this hostile king.
So you've got priests, hostile kings, and then you've got something right in the middle.
And that's 22, 1 through 2, which says this.
David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.
And when his brothers and his father's house heard it, they went down to him there.
And everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him.
And he became commander over them.
And there were with him about 400 men.
So here is the sort of center of what I think our author wants us to see about this episode in David's life.
These other things are sort of framing this middle point.
This is often a way writers in the ancient Near East would sort of make their points.
They'd build these elaborate sort of symmetrical structures to their stories.
And put kind of the thing they wanted you to see right in the middle.
Everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to David.
And he became commander over them.
So what's happening here?
David's out in the wilderness.
And Saul wants to kill him.
And who comes out to David to be a part of his sort of resistance movement?
To be a part of his support?
Who comes out to sort of be, you know, supporters of David?
It's not exactly Israel's sort of best and brightest.
Right?
The people who come out to King David who gather around him are a pretty motley crew.
And yet isn't that a picture for us, I think, of wonderful hope?
At this point in Israel's history, things are terrible.
I mean, if you want to just put it bluntly.
I mean, look at what happens in the next episode.
Saul, the king, kills a bunch of innocent priests just because they helped David innocently.
And David, the sort of anointed king, the rightful king, is on the run.
I mean, the country is in utter turmoil.
And here is God in the middle of the wilderness rebuilding his people.
And who comes out?
Who is it that God uses to rebuild his kingdom and his nation and to renew his people?
The distressed and the indebted and everyone who is bitter in soul.
Kind of reminds you of another king who, many, many years later, would say,
blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
I think when I look at this verse, I find it deeply, deeply encouraging.
Because, in some sense, friends, this is an Old Testament picture of the church.
That this is God's people.
So, if you're here tonight and you're feeling distressed,
you know, maybe your job's not going well.
Maybe your relationships are on edge.
Maybe the stress of just paying bills and keeping things together is driving you to the edge.
Maybe you look at your own flaws and your own patterns of sin in your life,
and you think, I'm never going to change.
And you're distressed over that.
I think what this passage says is that there's a place for you in God's kingdom.
And that you can come and gather around this king and find your place.
Or if you're feeling like you're in debt, or if you're feeling like you're bitter in soul,
that you can come and you can gather around the king and find your place.
That this is who God's going to use to reestablish his kingdom.
This is who God gathers around his king.
Now, that's not just the only thing that I think the author of 1 Samuel wants to show us here in 21 and 22.
He's also going to show us something about this king to whom the people gather.
And that's what I want to take the rest of our time looking at.
As we come out to this king, who is this king that the people are gathering around?
And I think we can break down this chapter into three sections, so we'll go into a little more detail now.
First, we see that this is a king who provides for his people in the wilderness.
Let's pick up the story in chapter 21, verse 1.
It says,
Vessels there is a euphemism, in case you didn't catch that.
So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the presence,
which is removed from before the Lord to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
Now, a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord.
His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen.
Keep a footnote on that.
We'll come back to that later in the story.
Then David said to Ahimelech,
Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand?
For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste.
And the priest said,
The sword of Goliath of Philistine, whom you struck down in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here,
wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod.
If you will take that, take it.
For there is none but that here.
And David said,
There is none like that.
Give it to me.
Okay, so now I said that the point of this little section, at least one of the points,
is that David is a king who provides for his people in the wilderness.
Where do we see that?
Well, we see it in verse 3.
Well, verse 2 and verse 3.
I've made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place.
Now then, what do you have?
Give me five loaves of bread or whatever is here.
Here is David on the run, utterly destitute, utterly desperate, goes to the only place where he thinks he can find a friend and says,
Help, give me what you can.
And the priest says,
Well, we don't have any common bread here for you.
We only have this holy bread that we put in the tabernacle.
Now, what's the deal with this bread?
So this bread in the tabernacle was something that God told the people to do in the law of Moses,
to set out 12 loaves of bread in the tabernacle every week on the Sabbath as a sign,
as a sign of the sort of perpetual communion and fellowship that God had with his people Israel.
That there it was, in the middle of the sort of center of Israelite worship,
was a table set saying that I'm communing with my people.
And because this was part of the worship structure, only the priests were supposed to eat it.
It wasn't allowed for anybody else.
And yet here, Ahimelech, the priest, gives it to David.
And interestingly, it's on the Sabbath.
They're getting ready to change out the bread, so he gives it to them.
And I think we see here that God is providing, not just for David, but David's providing for his men.
He's going to sort of get something that he can then share with the rest of his men as he meets them.
You know, it's very interesting that Jesus himself will come back to this story in his life.
Do you remember that?
Let's turn there, actually, to Mark 2.
If you have your Bible open, you can turn to Mark 2, verse 23.
This is really interesting.
So Mark 2, verse 23.
One Sabbath, he, that is Jesus, was going through the grain fields.
And as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.
And the Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?
And he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him?
How he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any, but the priest to eat.
And also gave it to those who were with him.
And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath.
So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.
Now, isn't it fascinating?
Okay, picture Jesus in the cornfields with his disciples.
They're hungry.
And it was fully within the rights of the Old Testament law to grab some grain, rub it in your hands, and eat it.
But, later on, sort of Jewish tradition had cropped up and said, no, actually that very act of sort of rubbing grain together was work, and you shouldn't do it on the Sabbath.
So here, accusers come and say, what are you doing on the Sabbath?
This is not lawful for you to do.
And the first thing that triggers in Jesus' mind is this passage from 1 Samuel.
Isn't that interesting?
Where David himself is the one who goes and gets bread that he's not really permitted to eat, and eats it and shares it with his men.
Now, why is David permitted to eat that bread and take it?
I think there's at least two reasons.
One is, I think we're seeing here that Jesus, and also we see it in the example of David that Jesus is pointing to,
is just saying, look, mercy trumps a sort of over-obsession with the ritual law.
That a human need actually isn't meant to be sort of ridden roughshod over by the important ritual laws that God set up.
You're missing the whole point of the law if you think that just sort of keeping all these meticulous things
to the expense of actually loving your neighbor is what it's supposed to do.
But there's a second reason, too.
And that's the reason, really, that Jesus alludes to at the end of this passage.
You know, when Abiathar gave the bread to David, he was basically saying,
in some sense, David, you've got a right to this.
As the king of Israel, as God's anointed one, you have a right to eat this bread.
And here Jesus is saying, don't you see that I've come and my disciples with me,
and with me, they've got a right to this.
That he stands up in their defense to make a point about his kingship and make a point about those who are connected to him.
So we see here David providing for his people.
Let's go to the next section.
Back in 1 Samuel 21.
David is a king who provides, and David is a king who protects.
Let's pick up in 21.10.
And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath.
And the servants of Achish said to him,
Okay, so where's Gath? Gath is one of the Philistine cities.
Anybody remember who was really sort of famous in the last few chapters who came from Gath?
Goliath, right?
Okay, so, well, keep that in mind.
So David goes to the king of Gath.
And the servants of Achish said to him,
Is not this David, the king of the land?
Did they not sing to one another of him in dances?
Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands?
And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.
So he changed his behavior before them,
and pretended to be insane in their hands,
and made marks on the doors of the gate,
and let his spittle run down his beard.
Then Achish said to his servants,
Behold, you see the man is mad.
Why then have you brought him to me?
Do I lack madmen that you brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence?
Shall this fellow come into my house?
David departed from there.
So back to where I've read before.
David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.
And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it,
they went down to him there.
And everyone who was in distress,
and everyone who was in debt,
and everyone who was bitter in soul gathered to him.
And he became commander over them.
And there was with him about 400 men.
And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab.
And he said to the king of Moab,
Please let my father and my mother stay with you,
till I know what God will do for me.
And he left them with the king of Moab.
And they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold.
Then the prophet God said to David,
Do not remain in the stronghold.
Depart and go into the land of Judah.
So David departed and went into the forest of Hereth.
Okay, what is David doing in this section?
Isn't it very odd?
I mean, imagine your arch nemesis and thinking,
I'm going to go spend some time with them to be safe.
That is a very strange thing to do.
That's about as strange,
even more strange than what David does in the first half of 21,
by going to the tabernacle to eat the holy bread.
Now he's sort of turning and heading straight for Gentile enemy territory,
the same place where he killed probably their most important hero,
their most important warrior.
And now he's saying, I'm going to go there for refuge.
What is David thinking?
Why does he do that?
Well, the text doesn't say exactly,
but I think there's actually a little hint at the beginning of chapter 21.
And I want to sort of tie a little thread together here of what's happening.
David comes to Ahimelech, the priest.
And David's alone.
And Ahimelech meets him.
And Ahimelech's trembling, it says.
And says to him, why are you alone?
And then what does David do?
He lies to him, basically.
He says, oh, I'm here on the king's mission.
It's cool.
Okay, why does David lie to the priest?
Isn't it because he wants to protect him?
I mean, think about it.
We're going to find out in the rest of this section
that to be associated with David at this point in the history of Israel is utterly dangerous.
That David knows that if he comes to Ahimelech and says,
look, I'm in trouble.
The king wants to kill me.
I'm on the run.
I'm actually the true king.
One day I'm going to come into my kingship.
It's going to be great.
Saul's going to get toppled.
Come with me.
Let's start the renewal movement in Israel.
Ahimelech was a goner.
So David says, no, no, no.
I'm on the king's business to protect him.
Was David right in lying?
Was he wrong in lying?
We can talk about that in the Q&A.
But look at his motivation.
He's doing it to try to keep him, like, safe.
And I think that's exactly why David is going to Gath.
On the one hand, it's probably the last place Saul was going to go look for David, right?
But at the same time, David knows he's not going to find anybody in Gath
who he's going to put in danger.
No one else is going to be affiliated with him there
who Saul's going to come after and kill.
Now, look at this.
Isn't it fascinating that David, for the sake of his people,
would go headlong into enemy territory for their protection?
What kind of love and concern for others must he have had in order to do that?
And we see the same sort of thread a little after the sort of middle paragraph in 22, right?
David goes from Mizpah.
David goes from there to Mizpah of Moab to the king.
And he takes his mother and his father with him to Moab and says,
Hey, take care of them because they're in danger too, right?
I mean, come on.
We've all seen mafia movies, right?
Mobster movies.
Who are the first people that the mob wants to off when they're trying to get at somebody?
They take out their family, right?
You know?
So David's like, okay, well, look, Saul's going to probably kill my family
because he hates me and wants me to die.
So he takes his family and takes them to Moab to protect them.
Now, why does David go to Moab?
Well, see the book of Ruth.
David actually, part of David's lineage and his heritage is actually Moab.
So he goes back to sort of part of his ancestral, you know,
he's got some sort of distant relatives there and says,
Hey, can you take care of my parents?
But I think the point that the author wants us to see here is that David is a king
who cares about the protection of his people.
And isn't that true of Jesus Christ too?
The true David.
That he will march into the jaws of death, straight into enemy territory
in order to protect and save his people that he loves.
And Jesus won't just have to sort of pretend to be mad, to be crazy.
But, you know, on the cross, Jesus actually descends into the depths of despair.
He actually cries out.
He actually is sort of swallowed by the jaws of death for our sake.
And that sort of launches us into the last section.
We won't read all of this.
We'll wrap up.
But the sort of spotlight now switches over to Saul.
Saul hears that David's discovered.
He's sort of, at this point in Saul's life, in a typical kind of Saul way,
just starts ranting and raving and says,
Are you all traitors?
Why have you betrayed me?
Is David actually going to give you everything I can give you?
Why didn't anyone tell me this?
And then Doeg the Edomite speaks up and says,
Well, I saw David with the priests.
And Saul says, Bring the priests.
And they bring the priests.
And Saul says, Why were you conspiring with David?
And the priest basically says,
What are you talking about conspiring with David?
David's like your number one guy.
He's the guy who kills all your enemies.
Isn't he your son-in-law?
I don't know anything about what you're talking about.
It's very interesting.
And then Saul doesn't even respond to what Himalek says.
And he just says, Kill them all.
And none of the servants of Saul will do it.
And then Saul turns to Doeg and says, You do it.
And Doeg strikes them all down.
And then continues to strike down the whole city.
And isn't it ironic and sad
if you remember back in the story of Saul's life
that the very thing that caused Saul's ultimate downfall
was not carrying through the Lord's command
to sort of defeat a city in battle,
defeat an enemy city in battle.
He doesn't do it the whole way that God tells him to do it.
And now here he is,
sort of crushing a city of his own people.
That he's fallen so far
that he's sort of sitting in this position of authority,
sitting under the tamarisk tree,
sitting in a position of authority,
destroying his own people.
But, verse 20 says in chapter 22,
one of the sons of Ahimelech,
the son of Ahitub,
named Abiathar,
escaped
and fled after David.
And Abiathar told David
that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord.
And David said to Abiathar,
I knew on that day
when Doeg the Edomite was there
that he would surely tell Saul,
I have occasioned the death
of all the persons of your father's house.
Stay with me
and do not be afraid.
For he who seeks my life
seeks your life.
With me,
you will be in safekeeping.
Two things,
then we'll close.
First,
that God,
even in the midst
of this awful thing
that Saul does,
is preserving a remnant of his people.
That God won't let
the attacks
of the enemy
utterly destroy
his people
and his purposes
in the world.
That God's going to preserve,
even against
the most vicious attack,
a remnant of his people
who will carry out his plan.
But second thing is this,
and in some ways
this might be the big idea
of this whole section,
these whole two chapters
when David says,
with me,
you will be in safekeeping.
that Abiathar can come
to David
and know
that he's safe
in the arms
of Israel's true shepherd.
Look at what David says
in verse 20.
He who seeks my life
seeks your life.
That there David
is taking complete identity
with this person,
with Abiathar.
He's sort of identifying
with him wholly
and saying,
I'm in this with you.
Stay with me
and I promise you
I'll keep you safe
to the end.
Now friends,
I don't know
where you're at tonight.
I don't know
kind of
in what way
you are distressed
or in debt
or bitter in soul.
I don't know
what kind of wilderness
you find yourself in.
If you're a believer,
I do know
that the enemy
wants to seek
to kill and destroy you.
That is something
that is true.
That we find ourselves
in the midst
of a great spiritual battle.
But I do know this,
that with the Lord
Jesus Christ,
you will be safe.
And if you flee to him
and stay close to him,
he will keep you safe
and see you through
to the end.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus,
we are thankful
for the images
and pictures of you
that we see
in this text.
Lord,
that you provide
and you protect
and you preserve us
even in the most
challenging of circumstances.
God,
would you increase
our trust in you?
Lord,
thank you for gathering
us to yourself.
Lord,
that it's not
because we're so great
or so perfect
or so strong
that you've called us,
but God,
because you are great
and you are strong
and you are perfect.
Lord,
not many of us are wise.
Not many of us
are of noble birth.
Lord,
not many of us
are strong.
And yet you delight
to take the weak things
of the world,
the things that others
would cast off
and despise.
and you delight
to make them
objects of your pleasure
and your grace.
Lord,
to turn the world
on its head
and to display
your great glory.
Lord,
so would we cling fast
to Jesus.
Father,
would we hold fast
to him
and know
that he is sufficient
for all that we need.
Amen.
we're going to spend
a little time
just singing a song together,
sort of meditate
on some of the things
we've been thinking about,
and then we'll come back
together for some discussion.
Let's all stand
and sing together.
Lord,
I come,
I confess,
bowing here,
I find my rest.
And without you,
I fall apart.
You're the one
that guides my heart.
Lord,
I come,
I confess,
bowing here,
I find my rest.
And without you,
I fall apart.
You're the one
that guides my heart.
Lord,
I need you.
Oh,
I need you.
Every hour,
I need you.
My one defense,
my righteousness.
Oh, God,
how I need you.
Where sins run deep,
your graces come o'er.
Where grace is found,
is where you are.
And where you are,
Lord,
I am free.
Holiness
is Christ in me.
Where you are,
Lord,
I am free.
Holiness
is Christ in me.
Lord,
I need you.
Oh,
I need you.
Every hour,
I need you.
My one defense,
my righteousness.
Oh,
God,
how I need you.
So,
teach my song
to rise to you.
Jesus,
when temptation
comes my way.
And when I cannot stand,
I'll fall on you.
Jesus,
you're my hope and stay.
And when I cannot stand,
I'll fall on you.
Jesus,
you're my hope and stay.
So,
good.
Does anyone have questions
about this text?
What strikes you?
Yeah,
Andrew.
Yeah.
Yeah,
great question.
So,
the question is,
what do we do with David's
pretty much clear deception
in verse two?
So,
historically,
there have been two answers
to that.
The first is
that there are a lot of things
that are described
in the stories of the Bible
that aren't really meant
for our
moral
imitation.
creation.
So,
just because
David does something
doesn't mean
we ought to then
go do it.
I mean,
there are a lot of things
that the sort of
quote unquote
heroes of the Old Testament
do that we probably
shouldn't do,
right?
You probably shouldn't
marry more than one
husband or more than
one wife.
A lot of people do that
in the Old Testament.
It's a bad idea.
You can kind of see that
as the story sort of
unfolds,
that that's a bad idea.
So,
a lot of things
are described
without being prescribed,
I guess,
is a way of saying that.
So,
we need to look
to the more clear
sort of parts
of Scripture
that sort of
actually are clear
and sort of
how we ought to
live our lives
before God
to sort of
use that then.
But also,
isn't that encouraging
that David
is a man
who needs grace
just like us,
you know,
and that he's
a recipient
of salvation.
He's not sort of
getting God's favor
in his own righteousness.
Now,
okay,
so that's one answer.
You can take that
if you like it.
Second answer is
when God tells us
not to lie,
not to tell untruths,
that basically
if there is an authority
who is,
you know,
unjust,
murderous,
evil,
then that sort of
absolves us
from the obligation
to give in to that
and to go along
with that.
So,
as Christian
ethicists
have thought about
the Holocaust,
for instance,
what do you do
when the Nazis
come banging on your door
and tell you,
hand over the Jews
that you're hiding?
Or are you hiding
anyone here?
Are you under obligation
to that wicked
government,
to that wicked authority
to tell the truth
and to basically
go along with
what they're saying?
So some Christians
have said no,
actually,
that in that instance
you do not have
an obligation
to tell them the truth.
That makes other Christians
kind of uncomfortable.
So,
maybe David,
so if one sort of
believes that,
then maybe David here
is sort of
falling under that
because Saul's,
I mean,
in my sort of reading this,
I think he's trying
to protect Ahimelech
from Saul's wrath,
which as we see later,
Saul
still
executes it.
So,
yeah.
But,
you should tell the truth
in general.
it's a good thing.
But,
yeah.
Yes.
Is it Amanda?
Is that right?
I'm sorry.
What is it?
Sarah.
Fire away.
Sorry,
I don't know why
I thought Amanda.
My bad.
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for sharing that, Sarah.
I think that's a really, yeah.
I mean, I could see that reading of the text for sure.
Yeah.
And I think the question then that throws back on us is like, you know, what are we to make of that then?
So here's David sort of basically taking advantage of these priests.
And I think my understanding of the role of characters in the Old Testament is that they don't have to be perfect.
You know, I think David does some despicable things.
So if your reading is right, then David is doing something here that's a negative example for us.
And we ought to learn from it and do the opposite.
So, yeah.
Thanks for that.
Yeah.
And I think David, the chapter came to do, I think there's a lot of people who are David that said that he did into what he was going to do.
He was going to tell us all the time.
I said, I'm not responsible for that.
Yeah.
A lot of people have read that as sort of David saying like, because I lied, that's why you all died.
So for sure.
Yeah.
That could be another contribution to that.
I mean, I think one of the ways I, as I think about that verse, I think it could also be saying like,
David was there to get help.
He saw Doeg there and he knew that it was trouble.
So, yeah.
But.
Other questions?
Other thoughts?
Yeah.
Yeah, Jonathan.
I just wanted to point out how far his soul has fallen.
Yeah.
bring picture, isn't it?
Yeah.
You know, it's one,
well, more than one commentator,
but a couple commentators have read this section
of 1 Samuel
and have made the observation that like,
you know, if David at this point
is God's anointed one, his Christ,
then here Saul is the sort of prototypical antichrist,
like trying to destroy God's anointed one
and destroying all the other people around him
who are affiliated with him.
Yeah, it's very sad and very sobering.
And I think it ought to be a good call to repentance for us,
you know, to turn back to the Lord.
When we see sort of waywardness in our own hearts,
sort of encourage one another to do that too.
Yeah, because you see this just sort of progression
in Saul's life of just unraveling and unraveling.
It's going to keep going over the next few chapters.
I mean, in a few chapters,
Saul's going to be consulting a medium at Endor
to try to get wisdom on what he's meant to do.
So, I mean, he falls very far.
Yeah.
Yeah, Michael.
Do you have any general thoughts on how you should struggle
rightly against people who are struggling against us
or not rightly or really, I guess?
Mm-hmm.
I see it in Jesus' life,
he's having to slip away from him the whole time in the Acts.
Yeah.
There's a lot of having to escape from the prison.
Yeah.
to what extent
is it
to praise God
for suffering
or
yeah
so Michael's question is
how do we respond
to people who are
well how would you
how would you summarize that
Michael's a good question
how do
how are we to react to those
who are sort of
doing some kind of wrong
against us
is that fair
or
yeah
well I think
you know
I think we go
straight to the New Testament
on this one
and look at
sort of
A
the example of Jesus
and then two
all the teaching of the New Testament
you know
Paul has that great
sort of
exhortation in Romans
to
not overcome evil
with evil
but to overcome evil
with good
you know
and
to respond
even to our enemies
with loving kindness
and mercy
now there might be a time
when you need to sort of
stop associating
with really destructive
and sort of
corrosive practices
you know
I think it's okay
to sort of step back
from something
but
you know
Jesus would never
have us sort of
take matters
into our own hands
and sort of
fight fire with fire
if you will
or sort of
something like that
two wrongs are never
making a right
but actually
and this is the sort of
great promise of the
gospel
is that
as we respond
with the love
as we respond
to those who hate us
with actually good
and love
not only are we sort of
mirroring what Christ
has done for us
who when we sort of
hated him
and crucified him
he forgave us
and gave us new life
but also that God
promises that
in some sense
watch me work through that
what seems so
counterintuitive
to us
that
if I actually respond
with good
to those who are
doing bad to me
like what is that
but just getting
what is that
but being stupid
you know
and I think that's what
typical sort of
worldly wisdom
would tell us
but
you know
the kingdom of God
is very different
than the kingdom
of the world
and it starts
like a mustard seed
and it grows
into a great tree
so
yeah
one more question
it's ten of
or not
anybody else
okay
well let's end there
we can talk more after
so let me just point out
a couple quick things
in the bulletin