2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
In yesterday’s message, we got to the part of the story of the how David’s covenant with Jonathan, which transcends generations in both their families, led to David feeling honored that he would marry Saul’s daughter, Michal, and have the king as his father-in-law. On the other hand Saul, in his demented mind, is cagily devising ways that he can get David slaughtered by the Philistines. This is the classic confrontation between a God-centered view of things and a man-centered one. Saul never gives a moment’s thought to his own covenant obligations or relationship with the Lord. David’s life is profoundly led by them.
As 1 SAM 19 opens the story of the long years of David’s persecution at Saul’s hand really gets going. In verse 4, Jonathan praised David to his father, Saul, and pleads with Saul to “do not do anything wrong to David; he has never done you any wrong. On the contrary, everything he has done has been a great help to you.” Saul is convinced by what Jonathan said and made a vow in the Lord’s name that he would not kill David (6). How ironic this is! 1 SAM 19: 9-10, “One day an evil spirit from the Lord took control of Saul took control of Saul. He was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand, and David was there, playing his harp. Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear, but David dodged, and the spear stuck in the wall. David ran away and escaped.” At first, I was very bothered by the phrase “came from God” in (9)-to the point where I consulted some reliable commentaries for better understanding. My problem was my understanding that God never does evil. An explanation for this came as follows: “This statement and similar ones in Scriptures indicate that evil spirits are under God’s control. They operate only within divine boundaries [see JG 9: 23, 1 K 22: 19-23; JOB 1: 12, 2: 6; compare 2 SAM 24: 1 with 1 CH 21:1]. Saul’s disobedience continued to be punished by the assaults of an evil spirit which tormented him. Sauls increasing tendencies to despondency, jealousy, and violence were no doubt occasioned by his knowledge of his rejection as king and his awareness of David’s growing popularity. An evil spirit was also involved in these psychological aberrations.”
The next contingency for David happens in (11-20) when Michal, Saul’s daughter and David’s wife, gets wind of the fact that her father is sending someone to their home to kill David. Michal warns David, who then slips away in time to escape this fate. David goes to Ramah to visit with the prophet, Samuel. A very interesting comment is made in (13), “Then she took the household idol, laid it on the bed, put a pillow made of goat’s hair at it’s head, and put a cover over it.” When Saul sent the men to seize David, her subterfuge was discovered. Since David was never an idolater, it is likely this household god belonged to Michal. What makes this interesting is how it reveals the mixture of idol worship and Judaism that was being practiced by some people at that time, a situation that had to be upsetting at the very least to God. The lesson in this for us is to examine our lives to see if we are mixing some form of idolatry (usually materialism or the like) in with our worship of Christianity. Mankind has a tendency to rationalize all kinds of ways to make this sound acceptable. The truth is that from God’s point of view, it never is.
Saul then sends some men to Ramah to arrest David after finding out that David is there. 1 SAM 19: 20, “…They saw the group of prophets dancing and shouting, with Samuel as their leader. Then the spirit of God took control of Saul’s men, and they began to dance and shout.” I thought about this, and it is another example of God’s interactions with mankind to accomplish His agenda. The style of worship is quite interesting here too. It is my understanding that Americans of German and Scandinavian descent have the cultural habit of being quite reserved about showing their emotions. Believe me this is no judgment on my part, just an observation. Yet, here are Samuel and his prophets dancing and shouting, which must have been their style of worship. A modern example of this might be the charismatic worship style practiced in today’s Pentecostal, AME, and some other fundamentalist, charismatic churches. David himself was known to dance and sing in worship. I’m not suggesting that all of us should adopt this style of worship, but the lesson I see here is that even if different from our own choice of worship style, what right do we have to be judgmental if someone else lives a Godly life and chooses this style of worship? It is the reason why I personally have a problem with churches who ban liturgical dance, music, and song. Meditate on your own feelings in this matter, and ask God for direction.
I know that I have left us hanging, and that is due to space considerations for this message. So, you have my promise to continue in tomorrow’s message where I left off. Don’t worry that I’ve forgotten about Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth either. For the time being, consider how God is interacting here to bring about His righteousness and how He does that in our own daily lives too.
PRAYER: O Lord, the story of what happens to David, Saul, and the others in 1 SAM 19 is surely a revelation of Your magnificent sovereignty. Those of us who must face spiritual warfare, either from within or from without or both, in our lives are reminded that You are supreme over all other beings. Because we can have faith that You keep Your covenant promises, are always wise, and are wholly righteous, we can take comfort in knowing that when we are faithful, You equip us to win these battles and protect us through them. David’s experience allows us to see how very faithful to You He was and how You protected him through some very challenging difficulties. A man of lesser faith and character than David would have tried to find some easy way out-even to the point of murdering Saul. It is difficult for us to understand why You might choose to send an evil spirit to torment someone who has rejected You. We want to always think of everything You do as positive. But, when we take the time to understand both the extent of Your sovereignty and righteousness, we can understand how You must within Your divine boundaries use enemies like the evil spirit in this story to demonstrate that righteousness. From this, we learn that there are limits to the amount of evil behavior You will allow people committing sin. We also learn to stretch our limited understanding in attempting to see the bigger picture that You see. You have wisely challenged us to examine our own lives comparing them against the ideals that You teach us in the Scriptures. For that effort so patiently carried out for our benefit and so much more, we humbly offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, diligence, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
When God is choosing to punish people, we often approach Him with anger or blame. And yet, we must understand that He as a responsible Parent is forced into taking this corrective action. In Saul’s case, we know that Saul was too far gone in his sinfulness to be corrected, so we are left with a lesson about God’s ultimate sovereignty, His need to demonstrate His righteousness, and His ultimate love for those who are willing to repent of their sins. At the bottom of all of this is the greatest love any human being has ever or will ever see directly from his Creator. We are blessed every hour of every day by that love. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn