Verse 5. So we'll be in 1st Samuel chapter 18, starting at verse 5 all the way to the end of the chapter.
If you're joining us in the middle of this wonderful long book, you need to know a couple of things.
Israel is the king. Israel has a king, which is Saul.
But God said that in choosing a man to be king like all the other nations, Israel had rejected God as their king.
We also know that God told Saul because Saul did not honor God as king.
The kingdom now, which belongs to God, is torn away from Saul.
And instead, God has anointed David.
So it's the end of King Saul and the rise of King David.
And this is a very important chapter to see this transition.
1st Samuel 18, starting at 5, trusting it's God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear, sufficient, powerful word for his people.
So David went out wherever Saul sent him and behaved wisely.
And Saul set him over the men of war.
And he was accepted in the sight of the people and also the sight of Saul's servants.
Now it happened as they were coming home when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistine,
that the women had come out of the cities of Israel, singing and dancing to meet King Saul,
with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments.
So the women sang as they danced and said, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.
Then Saul was very angry and the same displeased him.
And he said, they have ascribed to David ten thousands.
And to me, they have ascribed only thousands.
Now what more can he have but the kingdom?
So Saul eyed David from that day forward.
Excuse me.
Verse 10.
And it happened on the next day that the distressing spirit from God came upon Saul and he prophesied inside the house.
So David played music with his hand as at other times.
But there was a spear in Saul's hand.
And Saul cast the spear for he said, I will pin David to the wall.
But David escaped his presence twice.
Now Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him, but had departed from Saul.
Therefore, Saul removed him from his presence and made him his captain over a thousand.
And he went out and came in before the people.
And David behaved wisely in all his ways.
And the Lord was with him.
Therefore, when Saul saw that he behaved very wisely, he was afraid of him.
But all Israel and Judah loved David because he went out and came in before them.
Then Saul said to David, here is my older daughter, Merab.
I will give her to you as a wife.
Only be valiant for me and fight the Lord's battles.
For Saul thought, let my hand not be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him.
So David said to Saul, who am I and what is my life or my father's family in Israel that I should be son-in-law to the king?
But it happened at the time when Merab, Saul's daughter, should have been given to David that she was given to Adriel, the Maholothite, as a wife.
Now Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David.
And they told Saul, and the thing pleased him.
So Saul said, I will give her to him that she may be a snare to him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.
Therefore, Saul said to David a second time, you shall be my son-in-law today.
And Saul commanded his servants, communicate with David secretly and say, look, the king has delighted you and all his servants love you.
Now, therefore, become the king's son-in-law.
So Saul's servants spoke those words in the hearing of David.
And David said, does it seem to you a light thing to be a king's son-in-law?
Seeing I am a poor and lightly esteemed man.
And the servants of Saul told him, saying, in this manner, David spoke.
Then Saul said, thus you shall say to David, the king does not desire any dowry.
That's a bride price.
But one hundred foreskins of the Philistines to take vengeance on the king's enemies.
But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.
So when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to become the king's son-in-law.
Now the days had not expired.
Therefore, David arose and went.
He and his men and killed two hundred of the Philistines.
And David brought their foreskins and gave them in full count to the king.
That it might become that he might become the king's son-in-law.
Then Saul gave him Michal, his daughter, as a wife.
Thus Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David and that Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him.
And Saul was still more afraid of David.
So Saul became David's enemy continually.
Then the princes of the Philistines went out to war.
And so it was whenever they went out that David behaved more wisely than all the servants of Saul.
So that his name became highly esteemed.
The word of God for the people of God.
Thanks be to God.
Please be seated.
Let's pray.
Oh, Lord, we pray that through this ancient narrative, you will help us to understand the meaning of these scriptures.
We pray that the Holy Spirit and every true believer, the same spirit that breathed out these words, will teach us.
Lord, I pray that you will guard my words.
I pray that you'll guard the ears of the congregation.
I pray that what you want to be preached and heard will further your purposes, Lord.
May the preaching of your word now accomplish what you intend and design for it to do for your glory.
And only by your help and power, we pray.
Amen.
Well, the Greek philosopher Aristotle made this observation.
He who is to be a good ruler must first be ruled.
He who is to be a good ruler over the people must first himself be ruled.
David will soon become the greatest king in the history of Israel.
But he's not ready for that yet.
God is putting David through a school to prepare him to be not only a king, but a shadow of the great king, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, that would come.
And in this chapter, I believe we get to see how God does this.
How is it that God prepares a servant like David?
You and I are being prepared.
One day we will rule with Christ when he comes again.
We will rule over the new heavens and the new earth.
And in this life, it's hard.
There's injustice.
There's persecution.
But it's our preparation.
It's how God is sanctifying us.
How he's preparing our souls to learn to be submissive to him, to King Jesus.
And he does this through all these other spheres of authority.
We're going to see in this chapter the ways in which David was taught by God to exercise or practice submission to God,
even by submitting to a wicked and unjust boss or king, which is King Saul.
When David submits to King Saul, he's practicing submission to God.
And for you and I, it's the same way.
Children, when you obey your parents, you're practicing and exercising submission to God by submitting to your parents.
When you as Christians submit yourselves to a local church, you are submitting to God.
When we submit ourselves to our employers, to the government, we're submitting to God.
Either we submit to God and it's expressed as submission in these realms that he's given us,
or what we're doing is refusing to submit to God by denying the authorities he has put in place over our lives.
So by looking at David and his submission in this context, we have a mirror now back on ourselves.
Is God my king?
Do I trust God?
Do I practice my obedience to God through these different spheres that he's given me?
If God is not your king, if God is not my king, we will have a miserable existence.
Can someone say amen to that?
We've tried it, right?
If God is your king, we see an encouragement in David's life.
We will have powerful sustenance.
God will sustain us in a powerful way, just like he did David.
So to set up this contrast, we're going to look at six sad side effects for Saul.
And then we're going to see the life of David and God's powerful sustaining him.
So first, how miserable a person becomes like Saul who rejects God's kingship.
How miserable a person becomes who rejects God's kingship.
You're going to have to just wade through the misery with me.
It's painful, but we have to point it out in what we see with Saul here.
Here's the first of the six observations.
When God is not king, we sinners try to control people.
Have you done that?
I know I have.
When God is not king, we sinners try to control people.
That's the first miserable side effect for Saul.
Saul tries to control, first of all, where David goes.
Look at verse 8, chapter 18.
I'm sorry, chapter 18, verse 2.
Saul took David that day after he slayed Goliath and would not let him go to his father's house anymore.
Now, that's nice because you're in the royal court and there's prestige, but the wording is very strong.
He would not let him go.
I mean, if David's 15 years old and he's been used to tending the sheep, he cares about them,
makes sure they're cared for.
Now the king is controlling this man.
We know he's a growing threat to Saul.
Saul loved his music, but he's going to keep his threats even closer than his friends.
And next we see how Saul also controls David by trying to use him.
Okay, here's a warrior that God is blessing in the battle.
So look at verse 5, chapter 18, verse 5.
Saul sets David over the men of war that day.
And we see that as he goes out, he becomes promoted more and more.
He's given a thousand men and more and more.
David now becomes someone that Saul is going to use to conquer for him.
David will be one to fight in my army, says Saul.
He will expand my kingdom.
He will win for me.
He will bring glory to me.
He will lead my army.
And God says, this is my army, Saul, not yours.
It's my kingdom, not your kingdom.
David is my servant.
You don't get to use him.
Second observation, when God is not king, we sinners are easily offended.
When God is not king, we sinners like Saul are easily offended.
Look at verse 6.
We have to put ourselves in this cultural setting to even appreciate what's happening here.
In verse 6, the women had come out of all the cities of Israel.
Think how sweeping of a statement that is.
All the cities of an entire nation represented in a great victory parade.
Now, the fact that this is happening is most likely trying to reinstall a practice that God had set as a pattern previously.
In Exodus chapter 15, Miriam, we're told in verse 20,
And all the women, all the women of Israel, they gave God the glory for the victory after they crossed the sea.
They went out and they had their tambourines and dancing.
It's very similar celebration.
But listen to how the lyrics that Miriam sang after the deliverance from Egypt are different.
In Exodus 15, Miriam and all the women sing this.
Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.
The horse and his rider God has thrown into the sea.
They're not singing to Moses.
Moses has slayed his thousands of Egyptians.
We read in verse 6,
The women came out singing and dancing, and who did they come to meet?
Look at verse 6 very closely.
They came to meet King Saul.
Did King Saul go fight in this battle against Goliath?
But that's who they are trained now to come and give praises to.
Apparently, this was the custom.
It's what Saul expected all the women from all the cities of Israel to do.
You see how he's made himself a god, an idol.
He's worshipping himself, and he wants the whole nation to worship him instead of God.
They sing praises to Saul, and they give Saul credit for God's victories.
Now, the language in verse 7, I had to have this pointed out to me, but it makes total sense.
Look at verse 7.
In your Bible, is it indented?
Yeah, so it's supposed to be poetry.
We're supposed to recognize this is a lyric.
This is a song they're singing.
The first line goes like this.
Saul, so that's the hero they're holding up, has slain his thousands.
You know, big number, using exaggeration.
And then it sets up a second line that says,
David, another hero, has slain ten thousands.
And in this song, they're using a Hebrew literary device called synonymous parallelism.
These two lines are parallel one to the other, but they're not saying something different.
They're saying something synonymous.
They're repeating the same theme.
And this is Hebrew poetry that we see all over the place, especially in the Psalms.
Think of a good example of using this.
Psalm 24, verse 1.
It also has two lines.
Listen for how they're synonymous parallels.
The earth is the Lord's and all it contains.
That's line one.
So the Lord is the hero.
And this is the scope of his realm.
And the second line repeats the same theme, but elevates it.
The world and all those who dwell in it.
So not only just the space, but all the creatures and mankind.
They all are the Lord's.
He rules over it all.
So here these women, as they're singing, they're using exaggeration to express the greatness of the victories of Israel that day.
They rejoice about Saul, but they also rejoice about David.
And their song David is synonymous with and parallel to Saul.
They're not necessarily making Saul look bad.
They're saying he's a hero also.
And here's another one.
And there's future for our nation.
Some commentator made this observation.
The reaction Saul gives to this song, it reveals how his true problem was not David's popularity.
Not even this foolish song of the women or even the Philistines.
Saul's problem was his hostile relationship with the Lord.
That's the end of that quote.
Saul is envious and enraged and worked up as a result of him having rejected God as his king.
Look at verse eight.
Then Saul was very angry and the same displeased him.
And he said, now what more can David have but the kingdom, my precious kingdom, my idol?
He loves the kingdom more than he loves the God who rules as the king.
Third sad side effect for Saul is this.
When God is not king, we sinners will always view others, even the true servants of God, with suspicion.
When God is not king, we sinners will also view others, even true servants of God like David, with suspicion.
Look at verse nine.
Saul eyed David from that day forward.
He jealously gazed at David.
He suspiciously watched David.
Have you ever had to work with someone like that that seems suspicious about everything?
It's exhausting, isn't it?
And this is a danger because the kingdom of God is a kingdom of power and abundance.
It's not a kingdom like the world.
It's a kingdom when God is the king.
We have peace.
Jesus is the prince of peace.
And the church, the kingdom of God on earth should be marked not with continuous cynicism, but with truth and peace.
The fourth observation is that when God is not king, our lives will be.
I couldn't think of.
I reworded this one like eight times.
I just had to say miserable.
There's no other way to put it.
And look what a confused mess Saul's life is in verse 10.
I don't even know how to interpret this except to read it back to you.
The distressing spirit from God came upon Saul.
Miserable.
Spirit of torment.
And he's acting, you could say, out of his mind.
I mean, everybody could see the this man is now having an episode again.
It's just how you see him.
And he prophesied in the house.
Now, this is so confusing.
Remember the expression Saul will be, you know, a prophet as well.
Even he will be prophesying.
It was the most crazy thing.
So here's this man.
And in the court, when everybody's watching, he's on one hand acting crazy again and very distressed.
On the other hand, no one knows how to really make sense of that.
Some people think he's just, you know, acting like a prophet or trying to say words as if they're from God or or trying to claim authority from God.
But he's a miserable mess in a contradiction.
And we have to come to the conclusion in this chapter for sure.
Saul is a hypocrite.
He wants one appearance.
But everybody knows in his spirit he is a dark disaster.
When you reject God as king, your life will be miserable.
So David played music with his hand at other times, but there was a spear in Saul's hand.
On David is the Holy Spirit of God.
He is anointed.
On Saul is a distressing spirit.
He's brought curses upon himself.
In David's hand is an instrument of peace, music, beauty.
And in Saul's hand is a javelin.
It's the same weapon that Goliath carried.
Someone made this comment.
The misery we see in Saul's life at that point in time is God's down payment on future judgment for sin.
And in Saul's case, it was a well advanced evidence of that.
What that means is that God will judge all who reject him as king one day.
And when we see someone who rejects God as king now miserable, it's a warning.
And that's it's like a down payment of even worse judgment, a worse misery that's coming later on the great day of judgment.
Isaiah 57 verses 20 and 21 says that the wicked are like the tossing sea.
There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.
Don't reject God as your king.
Your heart will be like those tossing waves stirring up sand and dirt.
No peace, no rest.
The fifth observation is that when God is not king, the sins of the heart eventually will lead to destruction in real life.
When God is not king, those dark sins that we think we can mask like Saul being a hypocrite and cover up and hide for a while eventually will bear fruit.
They will be lived out and cause destruction in real life.
See, up to this point, the misery of Saul has been on the inside.
But what was on the inside now comes out.
Look at verse 11.
Saul takes that javelin, that shorter spear, and he cast it at David.
And he said, I will pin David to the wall.
He's not trying just to scrape him or catch his leg.
He wants to impale David.
It's destruction in real life.
Matthew Henry's comment was this.
Sin cherished in the heart will invariably express itself through the mouth and the hand.
And the sixth and final miserable observation about Saul is this.
To me, this was the scariest thought of them all.
When God is not king, you and I will have to obey something unholy instead.
If you and I don't have God as our king ruling over us, obeying him, we will have to obey something else.
And there is nothing else that's holy, which means you're now a slave to the unholy.
And that's a scary thought.
Look at verse 12.
Now Saul was afraid of David.
Literally, Saul dreaded David's face.
Just as the wicked, worldly king Herod later on would fear John the Baptist.
Do you remember that?
That's who we get here.
Saul is a wicked king of the world.
He's like an ancient Herod.
And why did he fear David?
It's because the Lord was with David, but had departed from Saul.
Saul was a concentrated portrait.
Someone pointed out of a man in rebellion against God.
In verse 12, Saul perceived that David was blessed by God in a way that he was not.
And now Saul is becoming the embodiment of what Psalm 1 warns against.
It's that wicked man who is like chaff that the wind drives away and whose way perishes.
Saul is using those same tactics that David would later use against Uriah when he steals Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.
This means that if David did anything admirable in this chapter, it's only by the Spirit's help and power.
Richard Phillips commented this about Saul, applying it to the church today.
Saul is just like people today who focus their resentment and frustration on other people when their real problem is God.
Saul had set his will against the Lord and hardened his heart against God's commands.
God was therefore now against Saul, as seen by the harmful spirit that fed into the king's jealous rage.
That's the end of the quote.
Brothers and sisters, dear friends, if you and I reject God's kingship, our lives will be just as miserable as Saul's.
Let this be a cautionary portrait for us.
Either God or the devil will rule over every single person.
It will be one or the other.
Remember how Satan tried to trick Eve and Adam by saying you will be like gods.
Well, Saul apparently bought into that lie.
And you and I can fall for that too, the deceitfulness of sin.
Listen, if you and I have been tricked into believing that we can be the king or the queen of our own life,
that means that the devil made us swallow that same hook and it's got a barb on it.
You're a slave to the devil.
You will be a slave to your king, whatever that king is, your idol, your sin, your pride, yourself.
The devil will be your true master and the wicked king of your life.
And if Satan is ruling over your life as a wicked king, he has one goal in doing that.
And it's to injure and to destroy you.
Do you see what a difference our king makes?
Make sure God is your king, dear friends.
Well, this chapter doesn't just give us Saul, though.
And God's grace interwoven with these same verses is a different one, a different man.
And as we look at David next, let's think together of how powerfully God sustains a person like David,
a servant who joyfully submits to God as king.
How powerfully God sustains a person who joyfully submits to God as king.
And may this stir you up to submit joyfully to God as your king.
Six observations about David.
Number one, when God is your king, the Lord powerfully sustains his servants
to minister peace to those, even those who hate God's rule.
In verse 10, that's exactly what David's doing.
Picture Saul sitting there on the throne holding that javelin.
Hating David.
And yet God sustains David to stay right there.
With him staring you down, hating you.
Play the music.
Do that simple job I've given you to do.
Obey me, David.
Right there.
Second Peter 314 encourages us.
Look forward to these things.
These promises we have in Christ.
Be diligent to be found by Christ in peace without spot and blemish when he comes again.
Be diligent.
Be found in peace.
Keep doing what I've told you to do.
Number two, when God is your king, his powerful presence moves his servants and preserves you under attack.
When God is your king, it's the powerful presence of God, the Holy Spirit and a true believer that energizes you, moves you,
and also preserves you even while you're under attack.
Verse 11.
Saul with the spear throws it at David.
And we're told that David escaped his presence, his spear twice.
If you're sitting there and someone throws a javelin trying to impale you once, what are your thoughts next?
I'm leaving.
I'm going to go find a new job.
This is not worth it.
My whole life could have been over right there.
And this happened twice now.
And David escaped the presence.
In other words, it wasn't that Saul was a bad aim.
There was movement on David's part.
He was behaving very wisely, we're told, like three times.
Why is it that David is behaving wisely and moving and even able to escape?
Innocent as a dove and shrewd as a viper, you could say.
Look at verse 14 for the answer.
David behaved wisely in all his ways because the Lord was with him.
It was the Holy Spirit on him, causing him to move, causing him to be wise.
See, if God has done that in your life or mine or preserved us or given us that energy, that's admirable.
Like in David's case, we don't get to take any glory or credit for that.
That's the Holy Spirit causing us.
God's presence by his spirit with us preserves us in the same way to do what Colossians 1 verses 10 and 11 call us to do.
To walk worthy of the Lord.
I can't walk worthy of the Lord without God's power.
But God causes us to walk worthy of the Lord by his spirit, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God,
strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power for all patience and long suffering with joy.
Isn't that a glorious passage?
God sustains his people to do that.
His power, all patience, long suffering with joy.
Third encouragement from what God did to David.
When God is your king, he helps his servants to endure in faithful service,
not because the sinner that you're serving deserves it, but because you're doing it as unto the Lord.
God helps his servants to obey even a wicked boss or parent or pastor of a church,
not because that person deserves it, but as unto the Lord.
David had the presence of the Lord with him, and he remained in the court, not once but twice.
He was remaining because God said, David, you will be the king, and I'm commanding you now through this king.
He said, you're not allowed to go home.
You have to stay.
Obey the Lord and do what he's called you to do, even if the orders came through this wicked man.
Colossians 3, 22 and 25 encourage us Christians the same way.
Obey in all things.
Your master's according to the flesh.
See, they don't own you.
God's put them as masters.
According to the flesh in this world, you will have a boss.
You will have a coach.
You'll have a difficult teacher to work with.
Obey in all things within the bounds of Scripture as best you can.
Not with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God.
And whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive a reward of the inheritance.
For you serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done.
And there is no partiality.
The encouragement is that God will make all things right one day.
Some of you are dealing with injustice right now at work or in other relationships.
God will make all things right one day.
We trust him with that.
We don't take judgment or vengeance into our hands.
Instead, we obey all that we do.
Not as one's working unto men, but as working unto King Jesus himself.
Fourth encouragement.
We see what God did to David.
David, when God is your king, he helps his servants to remain humble before God, even when treated unjustly.
When God is your king, he helps you to remain humble, even when you're treated wrong.
David was treated wrong.
The condition for marrying the princess was to kill Goliath.
Do you remember that?
He said, you don't have to pay taxes.
You get to marry the princess.
That work has already been done.
The Bible says the worker deserves his wages.
But Saul is unjust.
He starts adding more burdens now.
Look at verse 17.
Saul said to David, here is my older daughter, Merib, and I will give her to you as a wife.
Now, here's the hidden part of the contract.
Only be valiant for me and fight the Lord's battles.
For Saul thought, let my hand not be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him.
I tried to kill him twice myself, and it didn't work.
So let the Philistines now do my dirty work for me.
This is a public injustice.
Remember, all the soldiers were talking about the great prize you would get if you go fight Goliath.
This is an open abuse of power, and in a monarchy, you can get away from it.
Get away with it.
There's no constitution to hold the king in check.
And those who knew scripture would associate Saul with Laban.
Remember how Jacob had to work seven years, and then he got the older sister that he didn't want to marry.
And he had to work seven more years in order to get the sister that he did want to marry.
Saul is like a Laban.
He's unjust.
But because God is king of David's life, even above Saul, look at verse 18.
David said to Saul, who am I and what is my life or my father's family in Israel that I should be son-in-law to the king?
He remains humble.
Verse 19.
It happened at the time when Merib, Saul's daughter, should have been given to David that she was given to Adriel, the Maholothite, as a wife instead.
Now, that's just a slap in the face.
If the first one was unjust, at least Laban gave Leah and Rachel eventually to Jacob.
Now he's having this promised princess be given to another man in marriage.
Saul denied David what he had promised, and instead the princess is now taken away, and he's publicly humiliated in front of the whole nation.
Now, that should do something.
It should start a civil war, or it should make people realize Saul has way more power than David.
Look how weak David is.
He's just taken it.
He tried to stir David up, one commentator thought, into anger so that David would finally break out in some indecency of word or deed,
which would give Saul the occasion to prosecute David with the law and disqualify him.
If that commentator is right, this was a ploy to try to bring out a reaction out of David,
to show that David is an unworthy ruler.
He's now going against the king, and this should be so obvious to all.
In Psalm 55, verse 21, David speaks of his enemy as one whose words are smoother than butter,
but there is war in his heart.
Perhaps he was thinking of Saul.
But when God is your king, he helps his servants to remain humble, even before God,
no matter what injustices you suffer.
Fifth encouragement is this.
When God is your king, you get to trust the Lord to redeem even something designed to hurt you,
according to God's good purposes.
When God is your king, you trust the Lord to redeem something, even something designed to hurt you.
And God will do it for his purposes.
In verse 21, Saul said,
I will give her to him that she may be a snare to him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.
In verse 25, he explains his plan.
The king does not desire any dowry, but 100 foreskins of the Philistines to take vengeance on the king's enemies.
But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.
To circumcise a Philistine would be the greatest offense to them.
It would be a disgrace, a reproach.
The Philistines had mocked the Israelites for practicing circumcision, something God told them to do.
So to not only defeat one of their battalions, but then to also circumcise those men
and present that to the king of Israel was to bring on all of the Philistines could have to destroy whoever did that to their soldiers.
This was Saul's plan.
It was to exasperate the enemies of God, the Philistines, so much that the whole nation would now put David as the most wanted,
that they will come and get rid of.
But because God is the true king, he preserved David and even used that to redeem his purposes,
to give David even more recognition as being a man on whom God, his presence was resting.
And the sixth and final encouragement for today of how God strengthened David is this.
When God is your king, he makes you pleased to lay down your rights for the joy of serving him.
We see this in David, that because God was his king, he was pleased to lay down his rights for the joy of serving God.
See, the law of Israel was this in Deuteronomy 24 5.
In your first year of marriage, a man did not have to go to war.
And we read that David got to marry Michal, but instead of getting to rest and enjoy this one year now of being a newlywed under the law,
he could get a little sabbatical as a soldier.
Instead, Saul keeps sending him out in and out and in and out and leading the troops to war.
See that in verse 26.
When his servants told David these words, here's David's response.
It pleased David well to become the king's son-in-law, to go and kill those Philistines,
to take the foreskin, not just 100, but 200, to be married to Michal and to continue serving in the army.
Verse 30 says David behaved most wisely as he's being sent out and being brought back in,
fighting the wars of this wicked king as assigned.
Because God is his true king and God makes him pleased to lay down his rights out of obedience to God.
The reaction of Saul and seeing this faithful servant in this way was hatred.
David was there being blessed by God very apparently more and more.
And here's Saul growing more and more angry as he sees this happening.
Matthew Henry commented how this wisdom from God, it puts fear in the hearts of fools.
And it commands the respect of the noble.
Wisdom from God accomplishes both things.
It gains the respect of the noble and it puts fear in the hearts of fools.
Matthew Henry commented more.
God makes even the wrath of man to praise David in this case and serves God's designs of kindness to his people by it.
What Saul intended for evil, God superintended for good.
Well, as we wrap this passage up, let me ask you this question.
Who does this story remind you of?
A steadfast servant.
A blessed man.
One upon whom the Holy Spirit is dwelling in power.
A warrior who goes out joyfully to fight for his bride.
To pay the bride price.
One who would take the sign of the covenant.
The covenant of holiness and being bound to God.
And put that covenant sign on God's enemies.
In Psalm 41 verse 9, David wrote.
My own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.
Saul pulling him into the court, sharing the table.
And there's war in his heart.
I believe the Holy Spirit, the divine author of the whole Bible, wants us to notice the linguistic overlap.
And the correspondence of these words and these patterns and these stories.
We can marvel at God's beautiful word.
The escalating significance.
These repeating events.
In John chapter 13 verse 18.
Our Lord Jesus Christ quoted Psalm 41 verse 9.
I think, I could be wrong, you can tell me if I am.
I think Jesus Christ wants you and me to ponder and appreciate how he is like King David.
Jesus wants us to see, I too will be betrayed by one who I thought was close.
My enemy, Satan, will try to destroy me.
But it won't work.
I will conquer.
I think David points us to Christ.
It's through the humiliation and suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through persecution and attacks like David.
Satan thinking he's winning.
And intending all of this for evil.
To put an end to God the Son.
And God will superintend it for good.
Circumcising a hundred Philistines was meant to be the death of David.
By the power of God.
What the enemy intended to be the death of Christ.
The cross itself.
God superintended for good.
In that very act of dying on the cross.
Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The anointed one.
The Messiah.
He was going out to war.
And he was paying the bride price.
For the church.
We who were once his enemies.
You and me.
We would now be circumcised.
In the heart.
Double the multitude you could ask for.
King Saul was angry at David.
But God on his throne in heaven.
Proved that he was well pleased.
With Jesus Christ.
Fulfilling Psalm 41.
Verses 11 and 12.
By this I know that you are well pleased with me.
Because my enemy does not triumph.
Over me.
As for me.
You uphold me in integrity.
And you set me before your face.
Forever.
Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Pleased the Father.
With his finished work.
The Lord rose him.
And seated him.
In glory.
And exalted him.
And the same encouragement.
The same language is repeated one last time.
In the scriptures.
In Revelation chapter 12 verse 11.
The Holy Spirit powerfully sustains his people.
His church.
In the same way that he sustained David.
And our Lord Jesus.
People like you and me.
And in Revelation 12.
It comes from the singing voice of the martyrs.
They triumphed over the dragon.
By the blood of the lamb.
And by the word of their testimony.
So brothers and sisters.
If you and I joyfully submit today.
Right now.
To Jesus as king.
He will sustain our lives.
Just as powerfully.
Either God.
Or the devil.
Will rule over.
You and me.
Every single person.
As king.
And if it's God.
Then you and I.
Are not king.
Learn this lesson from Saul.
God does not share his throne.
There is no compromise.
But with God.
He's good.
There's no hidden.
Snare.
God knows you.
And he knows me.
He knows that in our flesh.
We are weak.
And he rules over us.
Powerfully.
Sovereignly.
Completely.
And by ruling sovereignly.
He preserves us.
By his power.
And protects us.
And he gives you and me life.
And he sustains.
The life of Jesus Christ.
Inside his people.
By the Holy Spirit.
For his purpose.
Do you see what a difference your king makes?
Make sure God is your king today.
Let's pray.