History of — 1 Samuel 16

0:02 Well, the sound guys better not be laughing at me. I might just have to come up there after the message. Well, it's great to be, back with everyone at Westlake. Shelly and I love to come to visit, and from time to time I give you updates, usually announcing my wife's pregnant, but I haven't been doing that lately, announcing that. What I do have to announce is I am in transition to become a high school teacher.

0:33 So it's happened that I did get hired. Sorry, my wife's having a laughing attack. Oh, realize I'm trying to move past. It's what speakers do. Man.

0:52 So if you missed everything I said, I'll start again. I am trying to get hired as a substitute teacher first because in our province, that's what you must do to become a teacher. You have to be a substitute for one year. So I've made it over that hurdle. And the next hurdle will be to be a teacher that replaces a teacher on pregnancy leave or sick leave or whatever.

1:19 So we're still a couple years out before I'm official teacher, but that's where we're at right now. I've been supply teaching, substitute teaching for a month. In Canada, call it supply teaching, which Americans always go blank when I say that, but that's just how it is in my country. Today we're looking at, the life of David, not the whole life of David, there isn't time to do that, but we're going to look at the life of David so that we can understand some of the Psalms a little better. Because some of these Psalms start, if you noticed, with a description of when they were written above the Psalm.

2:36 Psalm 43, no author is given. Psalm 44, again, the sons of Korah. Psalm 45, sons of Korah. And on and on it goes through the forties, none of those are written by David. But when you get into the 50s, we're going to look at today, you'll start to see something very different, how these Psalms are organized.

3:01 Now you get a little historical description for each Psalm. In Psalm 51, it was written when Nathan the prophet went to David after he had gone into Beersheba. Psalm 52 is when Saul killed, or sorry, Saul told this fellow named Duag to kill all the priests at the house of Ahimelech. David wrote that one there. Psalm 44, you can see again, sorry, Psalm 54, you can see there's an occasion when the Psalm was written.

3:35 Psalm 56, Psalm 57, when David was in the cave, Psalm 59 and Psalm 60. So there's many Psalms that refer us back to the history of David. So that's what we're going to look at today. Turn to one Samuel 16. We'll try to, come back to those Psalms as they come up in the life of David.

4:15 Let's ask the Lord to help us today with his word. Father, we come to you with our needs, our needs to understand and to respond to your word. Help us, Lord, to hear what you have for us today. We know that each one of us may hear something a little different according to the needs of the day and of the moment. So we ask that you would bless, that you would speak, that you would teach, Lord, by your Holy Spirit.

5:27 And so Samuel was sent to the house of Jesse and Jesse had eight sons and he paraded them all before Samuel. Samuel thought in verse six, so it was when they came that he looked at Eliab and said, surely the Lord's anointed is before him. David's older brother looked the part. He looked like a king, he was either handsome or tall. Because in verse seven it says, But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him.

6:05 For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Then down, skipping down to verse 11, Samuel said to Jesse, Are all the young men here? Then he said, There remains yet the youngest, and there he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, Send and bring him, for we will not sit down till he comes here. So he sent and brought him in.

6:35 Now he was ruddy with bright eyes and good looking. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him for this is the one. So there it is, just a normal day in David's life looking after the sheep and Samuel the prophet shows up Gandalf like and sets David on a journey for the rest of his time on earth. A journey that culminated in being a king. I know we're so used to this story, but it would be so shocking for a shepherd boy to become a king.

7:15 It's like a rickshaw driver in Shanghai becoming an emperor. It's just not something that two people put together, right? A chimney sweep in the eighteen hundreds in England becoming the next king. A shepherd boy in the backwaters of Judah becoming a king. But that's what God does.

7:37 He lays holds on the lowly, on the humble, on the base, on the things that the world despises, and he makes a marvel for the world to see. I've always been enamored with Michelangelo's statue of David, which would reach past the ceiling when you look at it, a six ton piece of marble that Michelangelo worked on for three and a half years, from 1501 to 1504. And he chiseled the statue of David out of a chunk of marble, and he worked on it unseen to the human eye for three and a half years until he unveiled it to the public. And I think that's a metaphor for our lives. God is chinking away at us all the time, sometimes we're more aware of it than not, until he can unveil the character and the image of Christ that he's trying to make the imprint of on every Christian.

8:53 So I find that statue of David, I continue to think about my life in that same way. Hopefully, you've seen Michelangelo's statue of David, at least a picture of it. He has David standing with the sling over his back, looking off in the direction of the giant, I assume, with determination in his eye and faith and courage ready to strike. And again, that's what God wants to work into our hearts. A heart full of faith and courage ready to meet the conflicts and the problems of this world.

10:23 And so those chapters that intervene, we are watching his growth or we are privileged to watch his growth throughout those chapters. And I think that's why the book resonates with us so much is because we get to enter sort of the life of another saint of God and watch him get kicked and knocked around, in the problems of life, and we can relate. Because although we're not facing a giant in a battle, we do face some pretty big problems with some pretty small odds in our favor. And so we relate to David's story. And in the first half of the story, David's adversary is of course after Goliath is Saul, the king of Israel, a very unlikely adversary.

11:16 You would think that Saul would be his best friend because David was winning battles for the king, but envy doesn't work that way. Saul became envious of David and ended up wanting to kill him, wanting to get rid of him so that Saul could be center stage. In the second half of the narrative, the main enemy becomes one of David's own children. Again, another unlikely adversary, David's own son, Absalom. And if you look at the life of David in the whole way it's laid out, and again, it's not just first Samuel, it's first and second Samuel, which in the Hebrew Bible is one book, the way, not two.

12:03 So it's one story across two books, and the turning point is David's sin with Bathsheba. The adultery that he committed and the subsequent murder that took place of Joab, sorry, of Uriah, when Joab was told to place Uriah at the front of the army so he'd be killed. And so we have sort of a narrative arc. David, right here in chapter 16 begins his journey, having fantastic victories with God, all the way up until he's crowned, and then when he commits adultery, everything begins to unravel and fall apart. And David really doesn't attain to the character and stature that he once had before that event.

12:56 He was forgiven for that adultery, and we should take heart that God does allow us to repent and start again with him, but the consequences of our sins we sometimes reap for the rest of our lives on earth. After David's sin with Bathsheba, he experienced tragedy in his family. His daughter was raped. His son was murdered. And the son who was murdered was murdered by his other son.

13:33 So just try to put yourself in David's family. It was tragic and triumphant all in one lifetime. Sometimes we look at David as a superstar and think we could never attain to who he was, but look at how he started. He was just Joe Blow from anywhere. He was just a shepherd boy, a rickshaw driver, a chimney sweep.

14:02 That's us. We are Joe Blows that God picks up and uses for his glory. You may not be called to be, the president of The United States or me, the prime minister of Canada, but we're called to be something higher. We are a priest of the most high God. We are an ambassador of the king of kings.

14:31 We are a son of the holy father, and on and on we could go about the privileges that are ours in Christ. We are the light of the world. We are the salt of the earth. These are no small titles and they were conferred upon us when we were saved. By the way, we didn't ask for these things.

14:56 When you got saved, you didn't say, Lord, can I be a priest to you? Can I be an ambassador to the nations? No, you found that out after you were saved. He made you that. He crowned you as that.

15:08 When you got saved, you said, can you save me from hell because I've sinned against you so that I go to heaven when I die? That's what you asked for. He said, yes, I will do that if you trusted Christ as your savior that he died on the cross for you. But then he threw in all this other stuff. He heaped on all these other blessings, all these other roles and responsibilities that we are now to fulfill.

15:36 And so we are like David. And God is trying to conform us to those roles and build us to perform those roles for him in this earth so that when the world looks at us, they see God's work in our lives. Just like when people looked at the unveiling of Michelangelo's Statue of David, they marveled at the skill and the care that was put into a piece of rock to make a magnificent statue. God is doing the same in our lives. Well, let's look now at chapter 18, after David, slays Goliath.

17:05 Chapter 18, verse one down to verse eight. Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan, that's Saul's son, was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and will not let him go home to his father's house anymore. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt.

17:48 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 all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. Now what happened as they were coming home when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women had come out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet king Saul with tambourines and with joy and with musical instruments. So the women sang as they danced and said, Saul has slain his thousands and David his 10 thousands. Then Saul was very angry, and the saying displeased him.

18:31 And he said, they have ascribed to David 10 thousands, and to me they have ascribed only thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom? When I look at this story, I see the reflection of the Christian life. When you're newly saved, everything is wonderful. All the people of God are amazing, and you just love the Christian life.

19:04 And then, at some point, the honeymoon is over, and you realize that the people of God have some growing up to do. And you yourself also have some growing up to do, but you just assume coming into it that everybody's already grown up, and you're the only immature one. And that's not the case. So the honeymoon ends and reality begins that sometimes the very people that we expect the best from can end up hurting us, and that can throw young Christians for a loop. I'm sure David was thrown for a loop with King Saul and the reversal that King Saul made.

19:49 Because look at how quick it came. In verse, five, Saul sets him over the army, all the people love him, and David is accepted by all Saul's civil servants. But it was that song that changed everything. Those women sang David's praises and not Saul's. And so envy entered the heart of Saul and changed his relationship with David.

20:22 Verse nine, So that Saul eyed David from that day forward and ended up wanting to kill him, persecuted him, exiled him out of the country, and so on and so forth. And that takes us through the next 10 chapters of the book. What I want to say about David's life is a few things. First of all, we'll talk about his relationship with Jonathan. Because I think everyone needs a Jonathan in their lives.

20:58 Even though Saul was David's thorn in his side, he had Jonathan as a comfort and refreshment in hard times. So we have Jonathan here, the king's son by the way, who would have inherited his father's, throne, selflessly giving himself in friendship and covenant to David. I believe Jonathan was just as much a man of faith as David was. You can read about his exploits in chapter 14 of one Samuel, when Jonathan took it on himself to go face the Philistines. It wasn't a giant, but it was a field full of them, and Jonathan went alone with his armor bearer and took back some of that field, and it started a bit of a revival in the army.

21:53 So Jonathan and David had kindred spirits right away, and we all need Jonathan's in our lives. If you just look at a verse in chapter 23 and then come back to chapter 18, you'll see the value of Jonathan and David's life. In chapter 23 verse 15, says, so David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life, and David was in the wilderness of Ziph in a forest. Then Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David in the woods and strengthened his hand in God. That's what a Jonathan can do.

22:40 And we can be a Jonathan to someone else. We can be one that encourages and gives of ourselves. Jonathan gave his robe, gave his armor, gave his sword, gave his bow, obviously looking out for David's best. We would say Jonathan had his back. Everyone on their journey needs a Samwise Gamgee, for our Lord of the Rings fans out there.

23:07 And in the Christian life, how much more so do we need a Samwise who will wake us out of it when we're being tempted to do something stupid and sinful, and who will rescue us when we get in over our heads. That's what Jonathan was to David. Well, now let's look at what Saul was to David. I'm not going to read it there. I'll just summarize the story for you.

24:05 Or had something drastically changed? David was in a state of confusion. Because at the same time he tried to kill him, he was offering him his daughter in marriage. Saul first did this with his older daughter in verse 17, you can read of that, but really this was a ploy, and this is where some of David's Psalms are reflected now when he says something like, outwardly they bless, but inwardly they curse in their hearts. Their words are as smooth as butter, things like that, but war is in their hearts, David wrote.

24:45 So here, Saul says, you can have my oldest daughter, because I want you to be valiant for me. Go fight the Lord's battles. But Saul's real thought was, let my hand not be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him. So Saul had a double motive there, a hidden motive that he wanted Saul dead. And then when that didn't work, he offered him his second daughter, who was younger and she was in love with David, it says in verse 20, and gruesomely enough, the dowry price was a 100 foreskins of the Philistines.

25:29 And so David went out and killed 200 of them, and came back and delivered them to the king, and won his daughter's hand in marriage. And again, this was just a ploy of Saul's to kill David. Interestingly enough, when David sins with Bathsheba, on the other half of the book, when David is the king, the roles are totally reversed. Now David is the new Saul. Such is the character of sin.

26:03 We become the person we hate. David was now in the position of authority. David told Uriah to go fight the battle, and Uriah ended up dying in battle, just like Saul had planned for David. Interesting how sin can turn us into the very person we don't want to be. Usually happens generationally, You hate the sins that your mom or your dad did to you, and then you end up doing them yourself to your own kids.

26:38 Watch out for that. That's the insidious nature of sin, and that's also the way God allows sin to correct us. He allows us to reap the natural consequences of our own behavior and choices. And we become the very people we despise and hate. Well, we're going to have to fast forward a little bit in this story now.

27:07 In chapter 19, Saul continues to seek David's life. And in this scenario, the first half of the chapter, Jonathan tries to confirm if this is indeed the case. He talks to his dad. He says, are you trying to kill David? Saul says, no.

27:26 Jonathan says, well, you shouldn't because he's so good to you. He's fought the Lord's battles. And so everything's hunky dory again. So it seems. But that night, while David is sleeping with his, in his home with his wife, Saul surrounds the house with his men and wants to kill David.

27:45 David's wife realizes what's happening, says you got to get out of here now or you're going be dead by the morning, and she lowers him out of a window and he escapes to kiss his wife goodbye and never see her again. More of the hardships of David. In fact, the next time we see her, she's been given to another man. She has a new husband. So David and her never get back together after this night.

28:11 My heart goes out to some of these pastors in some of these countries where the church is persecuted, and the pastor's been in jail for a year or longer, and his family and his children are without him. Again, these stories resonate with us because it happens in our world. It might happen in a different way, but it happens. The separation that David experienced from his family. Well, the reason I wanted to get to this part here, chapter 19 verse 10, when Saul surrounds the house and David has to jump out the window is because he wrote a Psalm about it.

29:11 They're so full of emotion without any proviso statements given. It just says, you know, Lord, smash their teeth. You know, can't really pray that out loud today. It just doesn't seem right, but you can feel that way sometimes. So here in Psalm 59, it says there at the top of the Psalm, Mikdim of David when Saul sent men and they watched the house in order to kill him.

29:47 So we know what was happening and here's what he prayed. Deliver me from my enemies, oh my God. Defend me from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity and save me from bloodthirsty men. For look, they lie in wait for my life, the mighty gather against me, not for my transgression nor for my sin, oh Lord.

30:10 They run and prepare themselves through no fault of mine. Awake to help me and behold, you therefore, oh Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to punish the nations. Do not be merciful to any wicked transgressors. At evening, they return, they growl like a dog and go all around the city. Indeed, they belch with their mouth.

30:34 Swords are in their lips for they say, who hears? But you, oh Lord shall laugh at them. You should have all the nations in derision. I will wait for you, oh you his strength, for God is my defense. My God of mercy, love that phrase, my God of mercy shall come to meet me.

30:55 God shall let me see my desire on my enemies. Skipping down to verse 14, and at evening they return, they growl like a dog and go all around the city. They wander up and down for food and howl if they are not satisfied. But I will sing of your power. Yes, I will sing aloud of your mercy in the morning.

31:22 Remember, he's supposed to be dead by morning. I will sing aloud of your mercy in the morning, for you have been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble. To you, oh my strength, will sing praises, for God is my defense, my God of mercy. So you see that his heart was full of trust and faith in this episode of his life. It doesn't look like it from the story, because he's scurrying out a back window and running away.

32:34 I think of Corrie ten Boom and the stories there of her hiding Jews in her home. So here, David took the route of escape that was given to him and climbed out the window, and he attributes it all to God. When these servants of Saul were circling the city like, hungry dogs, he says in metaphor here. God, he says, awake to help me. You know, it seems like God's not awake sometimes.

33:07 So the Psalmist says, awake to help me. But he knew in faith that God would come to meet him in verse 10. God would come and help him. Psalms, if you, want a little formula to understand most of them, you just think of the three Ps. They usually start with a problem.

33:32 In this case, David was surrounded by his enemies. Then they usually have a prayer, and you have the prayer right there in the beginning, deliver me. And then you have the praise at the end. Verse sixteen and seventeen. When we pray to the Lord, we should tell Him our problems, pour out our complaint before Him.

34:00 We should tell him about it. Sorry, we should first of all come to him with it. Sometimes we don't even do that. We just stew about it and worry about it and fret about it and talk to our spouses about it, but we don't come to him with it. So the first is coming to him with it, the problem, then pray about the problem, and then don't forget to praise him in the problem.

34:26 That is the same thing it says in the New Testament, Philippians chapter four, verse six and seven. It says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything, make your requests known to God with thanksgiving. See that thanksgiving part? That's the praise. Make your requests known to God.

34:48 Lord, I don't have a job. My family, I'm worried about us. We might lose our home or have to downsize. But I thank you that you're going to provide for me. Something like that, right?

35:04 And if you do it that way, if you end your prayers with praise and believe it, it says that the peace that passes understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. But that guarantee only comes when we actually come God's way. Well, the next episode in David's life, turn back to, first Samuel, is at the end of chapter 21, the next Psalm that we intersect with the history of David. In the meantime, David has had to say goodbye to yet another person he loves. He has to say goodbye to Jonathan, his best friend.

35:50 I liken that to having to move away, far away from a good friend. My wife went through that when she moved to Canada. Had to say goodbye to a lot of people here. That meant a lot to her. And she did weep a lot for the first year of our marriage in the loss of her family and chapel and friends.

36:11 But the Lord has given new friends. The Lord has new Jonathan's there in Canada for her. One that just lives now five minutes down the street, who used to live a half hour away. The Lord is good, but sometimes tears last for the night, and joy comes in the morning. Here in chapter 21, I wanted to, share this one as well, because look at the irony here in the story starting in verse nine.

37:08 For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me because the king's business required haste. So the priest said, the sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley Of Elah, there it is, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none other except that one here. And David said, there is none like it. Give it to me.

37:30 Okay. So there's a sword of Goliath who you killed. You would think that that would just bolster his faith, just rocket it right up there. But look at the next verse. Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath.

37:52 By the way, Goliath was from Gath. So he's gone to Goliath's hometown and Goliath has three brothers or something like that. And the servants of Akish said to him, is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing to him to one another in dances saying, Saul has slain his thousands and David has 10 thousands. Now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Akish, the king of Gath.

38:19 So he changed his behavior before them, pretending madness in their hands, scratched on the doors of the gate and let his saliva fall down on his beard. Then Akish said to his servants, look, you see the man is insane. Why have you brought him to me? Have I need of madmen that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?

38:44 So here we see David acting very differently than he did in the presence of Goliath the giant. Now David is a scribbling, drooling madman to save himself. Doesn't really look like faith or trust, so that reflects our lives, right? Sometimes we can have the greatest week or the greatest month and the next month be groveling and scrubbing around living in our sinful nature. How can that be?

39:17 We can be filled with faith through one experience and then paralyzed with fear in the next. Well, that's us. That's us. It's not a pretty picture, the sinful nature. It's not a romantic idea, the life of faith.

39:35 It can be, but sometimes we falter. Sometimes we take one step forward and three steps back. Let's look at the Psalm that reflects this episode in David's life. It's Psalm 56. Actually, the interesting thing about this Psalm, this episode is there's two Psalms written about it.

39:58 Psalm 56 and Psalm 34. I want to highlight two verses from this Psalm, which I love. And that's verse three. Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you. Let's be honest with God, when we're afraid.

40:23 I know we're not always honest with each other. How you doing today? Oh, fine. But don't do that to God. If you are worried and constantly fretting about your future, about your predicament, let your request be made known to God.

40:42 Talk to him about it. When I am afraid, I will trust. The other verse I wanna share with you is verse eight. You number my wanderings, Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?

40:59 You know, God is so tender. He's got a bottle of our tears. He knows everything we've been through, everything we're going through, and everything we will have to go through. Some people that Shelley and I recently know must have a bottle that's half full. Because their 14 old son swallowed a peanut, got blocked in his airway, and he's been in the hospital for the last month.

41:32 And they're going through the ringer with it. Not only, you know, the tragedy of possibly losing him or what he might be like after this event, but living outside of their home, they have four or five other children visiting the hospital. Everyday one person stays with him every night. Been a tough month for them. All their tears are in a bottle.

42:01 God knows. God knows. And he knows all our wanderings too. If you've ever had to leave home or move out of state or relocate because your company messed up and is shutting down, or somebody sabotaged your job and made you move out of there. Psalm 56 is for you.

42:29 Hopefully you don't deal with it by pretending you're insane for a while, but hopefully you can hold on to God through it all. Look at Psalm 34 for one other verse, just so that you can come back to these Psalms and look at them again. Psalm 34 says at the top, a Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed. So many, good verses in here. I'm thinking, David wrote it much after the event.

43:06 I think that because this psalm is alphabetically arranged, like Psalm 119 that you heard last week from Bob Markovich, and because of technology, I heard it too. This Psalm is arranged alphabetically. And so David was careful on how he composed this Psalm. And it says in verse 19, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. That's what we see in David's life, many afflictions.

43:48 That's what we are promised in this life, many afflictions. It says in Acts chapter 14 verse 22, that we must, through many trials enter the kingdom of God. There's no other way. And so David's life is one that we can connect with seeing all his afflictions. We can apply to our own situations.

44:17 But don't lose sight of the other half of verse 19. The Lord delivers him out of them all. Doesn't matter if it's in this life or the next, God will make all those afflictions count. That's what two Corinthians chapter four verse eighteen's all about. Our light and momentary affliction does not compare with the eternal weight of glory that's coming.

44:42 Listen, I would love to be delivered of all my troubles in this lifetime now. But you know what, I don't have to be. God is good all the time, and He can bring deliverance in this lifetime or the next. If He wants to make that compensation eternal because it lasted the whole length of my time on earth, that's His prerogative. Yet if he wants to show his miraculous power and heal of the sickness or save of the situation, save me in the situation, so be it.

45:17 As for you and I, we just need to trust him. And we need to let the master potter of our soul form us and shape us into his image. Let him chink away on our sinful nature, stone hard heart, and make the image of his son there. Let us trust him for whatever may come in our days. Father, we turn to you now as we just read a little bit about the story of David and we thank you that you have given it to us to read and to identify with, to realize that we too have been anointed and called by God to be a testimony in this world.

46:11 To be a witness against angels and men that the Most High God rules in heaven, and that there is a way to know him. We thank you that you've given Jesus Christ to be our savior, and that you have saved us through his sacrifice on the cross. We thank you that he rose from the dead and he lives. We thank you for his spirit that he sent to be in our hearts. Again, that we would be a testimony to this world and show them the way to Christ.

46:52 In his precious name we pray, amen.