1 Samuel 23 (Part 2)

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1 Samuel 23 (Part 2)

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Father, again, we thank You for the ability to come and to worship You.
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Open Your Word, Lord, and we pray that You would bless our minds, bless our hearts, Lord, that we might be more like Christ.
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And may we see Jesus in everything that we look at in the Word of God.
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So, bless us as only You can, in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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1 Samuel 23, I'm going to read verse 15 to the end of the chapter.
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Now, David became aware that Saul had come out to seek his life while David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh.
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And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and he went to David at Horesh and he encouraged him in the Lord.
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Thus he said to him, Do not be afraid, because the hand of Saul, my father, will not find you.
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And you will be king over Israel, and I will be next to you.
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And Saul, my father, knows that also.
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So the two of them made a covenant before the Lord, and David stayed at Horesh while Jonathan went to his house.
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Then the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, Is David not hiding with us at the stronghold of Horesh, on the hills of Hilkiah, which is in the south of Jeshamon? Now then, O king, come down according to all the desire of your soul to do so, and on our part shall be to surrender him into the king's hand.
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And Saul said, May you be blessed of the Lord, for you have had compassion on me.
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Go now, make more sure, and investigate and see his place where his haunt is, and who has seen him there, for I am told he is very cunning.
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So look and learn about all the hiding places where he hides himself, and return to me with certainty, and I will go with you.
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And if he is in the land, I will search it out among all the thousands of Judah.
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Then they arose and went to Ziph before Saul.
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Now David and his men were in the wilderness of Mahom, and the Arabah, which is in the south of Jeshamon.
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When Saul and his men went to seek him, they told David, and he came to the rock and stayed at the wilderness of Mahom.
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And when Saul heard it, he pursued David into the wilderness of Mahom.
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Saul went on one side of the mountain, David and his men on the other side of the mountain, and David was hurrying to get away from Saul, for Saul and his men were surrounding David, and his men were trying to seize them.
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But a messenger came to Saul, saying, Hurry, come, for the Philistines have made a raid on the land.
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So Saul returned from pursuing David.
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He went to meet the Philistines there, therefore, when they called that place the Rock of Escape.
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And David went out from there, and he stayed in the strongholds of Engedi.
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Okay.
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Last week, we showed the contrast in 22 and 23, where we see Saul trying to, or not trying to, Saul was basically the destroyer of Israel.
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He slayed a whole Israelite city of priests, and David delivers a city from destruction.
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And then we see at the end of it, it says that, And Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hands.
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And I think we ended on the note of, Why did Saul not ever catch David? And what was the reason? Because God was with him.
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Because God was with him.
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The constant refrain through this is because God was with David, and he is no longer with Saul.
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It says here in verse 15, Now David came aware that Saul had come to seek him, seek his life, while David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh.
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Wilderness of Ziph is right in this area here.
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This is transliterated.
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It's actually Ziph.
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It's here.
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Horesh is between the cave of Adullam and around this area here, south of Hebron.
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So, it's going to be this whole section here is where David's going to be on the run.
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It's going to be, it's funny, every time I read that, we read Jeshmon.
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Every time I read that, and I know y'all are more sanctified than me, I think of Sheshmon, like Sheshmon chicken.
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Every time I read that, I go, Sheshmon.
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So, that's this whole section here.
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Actually, in Gedi, is the Jeshmon area.
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It's all of this area here.
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Remember, the stronghold was down here, which is modern day Masada.
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Originally, he's going to basically just move around like this.
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We don't know how long this takes place.
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We know it takes a long time to move that amount of time to move anywhere between four and now six hundred people.
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So, we know that he's on the run.
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But it's interesting that Saul has a very difficult time finding out where David is, but when we get to verse 16, we see, and Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and he went to David at Horesh.
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Jonathan had tabs where his best friend and fellow brother in the Lord, per se, was at.
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And he had a desire to see him.
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It's the first time we've seen Jonathan since the last time they were shooting when they shot the arrow and he had to depart from Gibeah.
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So, this is the first time we see them come together.
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And he comes there for a specific reason.
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He says that Saul's son arose and he went to David at Horesh to encourage him in the Lord.
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And then it tells us how he encouraged him in the Lord.
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In verse 17, it says, Thus he said to him, Do not be afraid.
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Was David fearful of his life? From what we know, it doesn't explicitly say that, but he is obviously on the run.
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Now, when we get to another passage towards the end of the book, he even makes the statement to himself.
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He says, Saul will surely kill me.
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That's what he says.
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Saul is surely going to kill me.
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But in this case here, Saul comes to him and he says, Don't be afraid because the hand of my Father will not find you.
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And you will be king over Israel and I will be next to you.
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That is encouraging David in the Lord.
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Look, him just coming to see David would have been an encouragement.
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Would it have not? That was his best friend.
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Encouragement? Yes.
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But he encouraged him in the Lord by doing what? How did he encourage him in the Lord? Just look at the text.
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And why is that conclusion correct? That's exactly right.
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Because you will be king.
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So all he is doing is reaffirming to David what had already been promised him by the prophet.
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That's all he is doing.
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He's not bringing him any new revelation.
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He's not bringing him anything new and exciting.
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He's just affirming that which Samuel had already told him to do.
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Did Samuel not tell him he was going to be king? If you're dead, how are you going to be king? So by default, he is going to safely make it to the throne.
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Now, is it going to be a time of tumultuousness in that time? Yes.
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A perilous journey.
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As Andy said last week, this is a perilous journey for him.
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He's going to be on the run constantly.
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And he's going to be having to take care of men.
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There's going to be times where he does things that we morally are just outright just wrong.
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But God, not overlooking those sins, in spite of David's sinfulness, God has preserved his anointed king to make it to the throne.
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And he says here, and you will be the king over Israel.
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And here, another type of encouragement, although this fails, he says, I will be next to you.
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Do you remember what he promised when he gave him his by giving him his armor, his belt, his sword, his shield? He was basically relinquishing his rights to being the crown prince.
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And what is he saying here by saying, I will be by your side? What is he saying? He's saying, look at your right hand, man.
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He's going to be loyal.
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He's going to be loyal to him.
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And that goes back to the covenant that they made.
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He says, hey, when God makes you king, because he already knew that God was going to make him king.
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When God makes you king, what did he ask him not to do? Kill his family.
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Because what did, in Middle Eastern culture, when new kings come up, what happened? If I ever get, and I certainly have the desire at some point to do chronicles and kings and do a harmonization, and I'm starting to put that framework together.
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You're going to see how many of those come in and they kill the offspring of the other so that there's no descendant for a dynasty.
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So here it is.
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He says, hey, I'm going to be by your side.
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And he did promise Jonathan that he would preserve his family and he would show loving kindness.
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And as we get into 2 Samuel, a couple of months, we get to a passage where he looks for the descendants of Saul so that he can show loving kindness.
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He says, look, I made a covenant with this man.
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Is there any of his descendants anywhere? We don't know.
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All I know is that all of Saul's sons have been killed in battle.
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Jonathan's been killed in battle.
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Somebody's got to find me a descendant left so that I can uphold the covenant that I made, not just between him, but how does David always see this covenant? As before the Lord.
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He made a covenant before the Lord.
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He made a vow before the Lord and he has to keep it.
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So in this case, he says, and Jonathan says, hey, I will be next to you.
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And then he makes this statement, and Saul, my father knows this also.
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Why was Saul angry with Jonathan? Do you remember back when he threw the spear at him? He was loyal to David.
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But why was he loyal to David? One, he was God's anointed.
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Two, David was a man of good character and David always showed loyalty to his father.
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He always showed loyalty to his father.
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He even says, why would you want to kill the very person that has been loyal to you? He's fought the battles for you.
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He's went in and out.
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He's done nothing but good for you.
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He's married your daughter.
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He's good to your daughter.
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Why would you want to kill him? But then he is mad at Jonathan because he's loyal to David.
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Did you just ask something, Caleb? No? And he says in verse 18, so the two of them made a covenant before the Lord, and David stayed at Horesh while Jonathan went to his house.
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My understanding of this is not that they made a new covenant.
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They renewed the covenant that they had already made previous chapters before.
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Remember, when he came to them, they made a covenant.
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Hey man, I'll be with you.
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I will help you.
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Then they came.
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They met each other when he shot the arrow and all of that.
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What did they do? They renewed the covenant.
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Don't kill my descendants when God makes you king.
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Show loving kindness to my generations forever.
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And here it is.
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He's saying here, the two of them made a covenant again before the Lord.
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And Jonathan went home and David stayed at Horesh.
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This is the last time on this side of eternity these two men ever see each other.
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These are best friends and this is it.
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And kind of a sad moment in the narrative because you have two men that loved Yahweh, were faithful to Yahweh.
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Hey, Jonathan was a man of faith.
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Hey, even what he is saying here, you will be king.
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My dad will not kill you.
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And I will be next to you.
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That is a man of faith saying, look, I know that God's Word is true.
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You're going to be king because God said so.
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And he was trusting in the revealed knowledge that God had given him through the prophet.
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So, Jonathan, a man of faith and he's fixing to be the last time he sees his brother in the Lord.
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And then we get to verse 19 and then it says the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah.
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So here it is.
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The Ziphites are going to make their little trip from here and come up to Gibeah which is where Saul's throne was at the time.
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You understand this area right here is where David was a tribe.
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He was from that tribe.
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Keilah.
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Where was their city located? In the land of Judah.
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Where is Ziph located? In the same place.
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Last week we saw exhaustive knowledge of God giving contingent knowledge that, hey, if you stick around here, what are these people going to do? They're going to turn you over.
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What did he just do? What did David just do and then questioning the Lord through the ephod, he had just delivered the city from the Philistines taking the threshing floor.
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He delivered them from the enemies of God.
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And then they're going to turn him over.
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Now, he was saying they would do that.
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If you stick around here, here's what's going to happen.
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They're going to turn you over.
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Now, what Keilah was going to do in their mind, the Ziphites planned to do it.
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It says here, the Ziphites came to Saul and Gibeah and they said, hey, David's not hiding with us.
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Is David not hiding with us in the stronghold of Horesh on the hill of Hekilah? Hekilah would have been right up here, by the way.
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Is he not hiding in the hill of Hekilah, which is in the south of Jeshmon? Now then, O king, come down according to all that your desire of your soul to do and on your part shall be put to the king to surrender him into your hand.
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So, what are they going to do? They're fixing to betray David.
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They're fixing to give David over to the king to do whatever he wants.
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Why would they? Has David done anything to the Ziphites? Nope, not at all.
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Now, we can say like we did with Keilah, we know that Saul is ruthless.
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He's bloodthirsty.
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He has slayed a whole city because David was there.
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His attempt was to probably go to Keilah because when he inquired of the Lord through the ephod, what was one of the questions, will Saul come here and destroy the city? And what was the answer through the ephod? He will.
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And he said, will they turn him over to me? Yes.
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And in this case, now the Ziphites are saying we want to figure out a way of turning him over to you.
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And listen to Saul's response.
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Saul said, may you be blessed of the Lord for you have had compassion on me.
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Is that not hypocrisy? Is it not? That's like saying, blessed be the Lord, the God who has rejected me as a dynasty, who has rejected me as king, whom I have gone in and slayed a hundred, well, 85 priests and hundreds of people and children.
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Blessed be of that guy, the one who is actually opposed of me.
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And he says, you be blessed of the Lord.
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That is just blatant hypocrisy.
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And in verse 22 it says, go now and make sure and investigate and see his place where his haught is and where he is hiding, for I am told he is very cunning.
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Some translations say crafty, doesn't it? Subtle.
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Yeah.
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What do we do? What do we know about David? He's slick.
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Yeah.
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He's slick.
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We know he's able to move in and out without people keeping real good wraps on him.
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But we know this, that joker will deceive somebody.
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He will deceive.
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So, Saul says, you go find out and see where he's at.
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He's slick.
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He's crafty.
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And verse 23, so look and learn about all the hiding places where he hides himself and return to me and certainly I will go with you.
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And if he is in the land, I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah.
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So look, he is willing to go wherever it is from just remember, this is the land, Gibeah is on, when they divided up all of the tribes, Gibeah is on the line between Benjamin and Judah.
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So he's saying, look, I'm willing to go as far as Ramah all the way down to where Amalek was to find David.
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Look, he went all the way to Amalek and didn't destroy it.
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But he's willing to go through all of Judah and wreak havoc till he can find David and put him to death.
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Verse 24 says, And they arose and went to Ziph before Saul and now David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon.
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That is just south of Ziph and they were in the Arabah of Jeshimon.
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And when Saul and his men went to seek him, they told David and he came down to the rock and stayed on the wilderness of Maon.
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Do you see that you've got the Ziphites playing both sides? Somebody from the Ziphites told David what? Hey, we snitched on you.
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So when David found out that he'd been snitched on, what did he do? He peeled out.
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It says, And Saul and his men seek David.
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He came to the wilderness and when Saul heard it, he pursued David into the wilderness of Maon and Saul went on one side of the mountain, David and his men on the other side of the mountain and David was hurrying to get away from Saul.
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For Saul and his men were surrounding David and his men to seize them.
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And then here, listen to this.
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But a messenger came to Saul saying, Hurry and come, for the Philistines have made a raid to the land.
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So Saul returned from pursuing David.
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He went and met the Philistines.
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Therefore, they came and called that place the Rock of Escapement.
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David went up from there and he stayed in the strongholds of Engedi.
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You see now that God uses David's own enemies to deliver him from another enemy.
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You see that? Who did he use to deliver David from the pursuit of the king? He used the Philistines.
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It's very ironic that Keilah just last week was being ravished by the Philistines.
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They were taking the threshing floor.
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They were doing whatever they wanted to to that city and Saul was unwilling to go.
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Now, they're doing this in another city and Saul decides, you know what, maybe this is an easier catch.
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He's a bloodthirsty guy.
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Maybe it's easier to go kill some Philistines than to continue to chase David across the hills of the goats or the rocks or whatever they just call it, you know, wherever he's at.
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So for whatever reason, under the providence of God, God uses this to deliver David once again.
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And once again, why was David delivered? Because God was with him.
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Because God was with him.
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Now, how long this pursuit goes on, we don't know.
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We don't have any timetable.
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We know about how long this whole, from the time that David's anointed king to the time that he comes to the throne at the death of Saul, we do have that.
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But how long is this in the middle? We have no idea.
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We have no idea.
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So David leaves at the Rock of Escape and he ends up in En Gedi.
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Obviously En Gedi is right there on the Dead Sea shores.
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We're going to go ahead and go into chapter 24, and I may try to cover this whole chapter today.
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So let's read the whole chapter.
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Now, when Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi.
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And then Saul took 3,000 chosen men from all of Israel and went to seek David and his men from the rocks of the wild goats.
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And he came to the sheepfolds on the way, and there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself.
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Now David and his men were in the recess of the cave, and the men of David said to him, Behold, this is the day in which the Lord said to you, Behold, I'm about to give your enemy into your hands, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.
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Then David arose, and he cut off the edge of Saul's robe secretly, and it came about that afterwards that David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the corner of Saul's robe.
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And he said to the men, Far be it from me because of the Lord that I should do this thing to my Lord.
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The Lord's anointed to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord's anointed.
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David persuaded his men with these words, and they did not allow him to rise up against Saul.
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And Saul arose, and he left the cave, and he went on his way.
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And afterward David arose, and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, saying, My Lord the King! And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the ground, and prostrated himself.
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David said to Saul, Why do you listen to the words of these men, saying, Behold, David seeks to harm you? Behold, this day your eyes have seen that the Lord had given you into my hand in the cave, and some said to kill you.
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But my eye had pity on you, and I said, I will not stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed, for he is the Lord's anointed.
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Now my father, see, indeed, see the edge of your robe in my hand, for in that I cut off the edge of your robe and did not kill you.
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Know and perceive that there is no evil or rebellion in my hands, and I have not sinned against you, though you are lying in wait for my life to take it.
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May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge me on you, but my hand shall not be against you.
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And as the Proverbs of the ancients say, Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness, but my hand shall not be against you.
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After whom has the King of Israel come out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog? A single flea? And the Lord therefore judge and decide between you and me that he, and may he see and plead my cause to deliver me from your hand.
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And when David had finished saying and speaking these words, Saul said, Is that your voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice, and he wept.
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And he said to David, You are more righteous than I, for you have dealt with me, while I have dealt wickedly with you.
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You have declared today that you have done nothing but good to me, and that the Lord delivered you into your hand, and yet you did not kill me.
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For if a man finds his enemies, will he let him go safely? May the Lord therefore reward you with good in return for what you have done today for me.
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Now behold, I know that you will surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hand.
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So now swear to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants after me, and that you will not destroy my name from my father's household.
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And David swore to Saul, and Saul went to him.
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I'm sorry, and Saul went to his house, and David and his men went on back to the stronghold.
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Alright.
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This is one of the famous passages where David has the opportunity to honestly, he has the opportunity here to be Saul.
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He has the opportunity.
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The choice is laid before him.
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Is he going to serve himself? Or is he going to be faithful to God? And that is the meaning of this text.
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Is he going to be faithful to what God has told him to do? Or is he going to make the decisions that Saul has made, which is to try to kill his enemy? It says that Saul took 3,000 men after him.
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And they were seeking David.
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So once again, we don't know the time frame, but he had however long this raid took to push back the Philistines, whatever time that was, he finds after that time that he's going to take choice, 3,000 men he's going to seek after David.
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And that's what they're going to chase him to the rocks of the wild goats.
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Verse 3 said, they came to the sheepfolds on the way, where there was a cave.
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Alright.
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If there was a cave, that means obviously and David's in there, they were obviously getting refuge there either from the weather, a place to hide out.
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Has anybody ever thought about how big this cave would have had to be? 600 men.
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All of their junk, okay, is obviously whatever horses that they were on had to be in there too because if Saul would have come up with his men and they would have saw all the horses and whatever they were dragging along with them outside, they would have known that's where David was at.
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So when you think about how big this cave is, it's huge.
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So it says that they get there and David and his men were sitting in the inner recesses of the cave and the men of David said to him, behold this is the day of which the Lord said, behold I am about to give your enemies into your hand.
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Is that a true statement? Is that not what the Lord had told David? Yeah.
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He said there's going to be a day when God was going to deliver all of his enemies into his hands.
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Matter of fact, Jonathan told him that very thing, did he not? He says there's coming a day that when God's going and this was in the context of his dad.
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There is coming a day when God is going to cut off all of your enemies from your face.
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And he was talking at that particular time about his dad.
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And that's when he says, but you need to be loving kindness to me.
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Make a covenant with me and my family that you don't cut us off.
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Well here it is.
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Here's the opportunity for David to be a Saul.
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An opportunity for David to take matters into his own hands, to be selfish, and to usurp the throne by bloodshed.
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It says, and behold I'm about to give your enemy into your hand and you shall do what seems good to you.
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From a human mindset, would this have been a good thing to do? You better believe it would.
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I'll tell you what man, some guy's chasing me and he's got 3,000 men and you know if you take out the head leader, then you're going to be the one that will be commanding those.
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You're next in line for the throne.
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Humanistically thinking, hey man, I should just cut this cat's head off.
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And this is not what David does.
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It says that David arose in there to cut off the edge.
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I'm sorry.
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It says do what's right in your eyes.
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It says David arose up to cut off the edge of Saul's robe secretly.
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Now, whether, Saul went in there it says to relieve himself.
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However you want to take that.
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But you know what it does not say? It does not say that Saul took the robe off.
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It does not say that.
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How often have I have heard this taught so many times.
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Oh, Saul took off that robe and he hung it up and then he walks on back in here, does his thing, and he comes back and puts his robe on.
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That's not what the text says.
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For all we know, Saul could be taking a squat right now and David just eases up.
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Cuts it off.
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All we know is he is close enough to Saul to get the corner of his robe.
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David arose up, he cut off the edge of Saul's secretly, his robe.
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And it came about afterwards that David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul's robe.
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So he had said to his men, far be it from me because of the Lord that I should do this thing to my Lord and stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed.
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Was it sinful for him to cut off the edge of his robe? Put his hand out against the Lord's anointed.
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Okay.
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You think it was a sinful action? Yeah, I think so.
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Anybody else? I don't think so.
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I don't think so.
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I agree with that.
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But here's what I want us to understand is that at this point in David's life his conscience towards God's anointed man was so tender that man, he goes, oh man, I got close enough to kill this guy and instead of killing him I did a merciful act and just cut off the edge.
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I should not even have done that though.
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But we don't.
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There was no sinful act of what he did.
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It's actually, in the providence of God, this is an object lesson because it's actually going to when we move on through this when he sees with David being merciful the king becomes broken over it.
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So now however you want to say broken I don't believe this is any way, shape, form, or fashion of a point of where he is repentant.
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I think he was just going I can't believe David did not whack my head off.
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And he should have.
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So he said, far be it that I stretch out my hand against him since he is the Lord's anointed.
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It is going to happen again.
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This very same thing will happen.
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He will have the opportunity.
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The Lord is going to put Saul and his men in his hand.
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Hey, it isn't going to be better than this.
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The next time they're going to be laying down there asleep and they're going to walk down there and him and Abishai that's where Abishai says, hey here's the opportunity the Lord's gave him to your hand.
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I'll hit him one time with this spear.
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I'll pin him right to the ground and I won't have to do it a second time.
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And he says no.
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And what did they do? They grabbed the water jug next to his head and that spear.
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I want you to look at the progression though of David's mind.
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We go to that when we get to that passage.
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Did David feel guilty about taking his spear and his jug? No.
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Matter of fact, he said, hey check it out dude.
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He gets a little prideful.
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Hey, I had the opportunity to pin you to the ground and I didn't.
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I should have.
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Now why don't you send one of them young bucks over here to get your stuff.
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That's not how David's attitude is here.
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David's actually broken that he did this.
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Do you understand? We see the progression of David when we get to the next.
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Hey, his conscience being seared through acts of deceit.
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Acts of lying.
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This will even go in.
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Maybe this is the beginning stages of him going, you know what man I've got to save faith for me.
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And he winds up sleeping with Bathsheba.
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You understand what I'm saying? His conscience here far different than when he slept with Bathsheba.
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Why didn't he have this type of conscience when he was walking on his roof and he saw another man's wife naked.
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What should he have done then? He should have done this.
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Hey man, I shouldn't look at another man's wife.
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Just like he said here.
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Should not have cut the corner of his robe off.
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And that's not what he did in the situation with Bathsheba.
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So here it is.
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It says that David persuaded his men not to raise up against Saul.
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And Saul arose and left the cave and went his own way.
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Hey, look at the men that were surrounding David.
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Okay? Same type of men that were, in theory, the same type of men that were surrounding Saul telling Saul to kill David.
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And what did Saul do? He listened to bad advice.
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He listened to bad counsel.
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And what does David do? Actually, he's going to tell Saul about here in a minute.
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Look, I was given bad counsel and I was told to kill you and I did not.
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You're listening to people who were lying about me, who were saying I've done these things against you and I've done no wrong against you and you're listening to them to kill my life.
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So, here it is.
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The confrontation.
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Now afterward, David arose and he went out of the cave and he called after Saul.
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Ever far along they got, enough that he could cry out to him.
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And he said, My Lord the King! And when Saul looked back, hey, look at David's submission still to the king.
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David bowed his face to the ground and prostrated himself.
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David said to Saul, Why do you listen to the words of men saying, Behold, David seeks harm to you? Did David ever seek his harm? Why was Saul listening to them? Because he was jealous and he was fearful because of what? The Lord was with David.
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You remember? That was the reason why Saul hated him.
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Why was he fearful of David? Because the Lord was with him.
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It said that back earlier, five chapters ago.
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And he says, Why do you listen to those men? Behold, David seeks your life and behold this day your eyes have seen the Lord had given you today into my hand in this cave.
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And some said to kill you, but I had pity on you.
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And I said, I will not stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed for he is the Lord's anointed.
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Was Saul the Lord's anointed king? He was.
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There is no doubt.
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Although he had been rejected by disobedience, had there been a coronation yet of the new anointed king, therefore the anointed king was still God's man.
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Was Saul for this particular purpose? And he said, I will not stretch out my hand.
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Now, my father.
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Look how he addresses him.
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Is that not one? He bows down in submission to the king as he looks.
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Then how does he answer? Or does he call out to him? Yes, familial.
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Yeah.
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Now my father, see indeed the edge of your robe is in my hand for in that I cut off the edge of your robe, I did not kill you.
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That was a merciful act.
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Hey, can you imagine the guys with him? David, you are an idiot.
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I mean, I can imagine Joab and Abishai and Ahithahel.
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Those guys were absolute mad men for killing people.
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And them going, dude, here it is.
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You had the opportunity and you missed it.
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You had the opportunity to take the throne here and you didn't.
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He said, I tried to cut, and know and perceive that there is no evil or rebellion in my hands and I have not sinned against you.
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Was there rebellion in his hand against the king? Did he ever try to raise a coup against Saul to take the throne? When those men, when the riffraff came out to him, the indebted, the discontented, the basically the rejects of society, the 400 came to him in the cave of Adullam, did he raise them up and say, hey, let's go back in and overthrow the kingdom? No, he did not.
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He never once did anything to raise his hand against Saul, either by action or by deed, or in thought.
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He said, I have not sinned against you, though you are lying in wait for my life to take it.
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Is that true? Yeah.
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Saul's life was given over to trying to kill David.
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From when? Anybody remember? David killed 10,000 and Saul killed 10,000.
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That's it.
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He couldn't stand the number one billboard chart on the Hebrew radio.
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Yeah.
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He couldn't stand it.
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He'd get in his chariot, try to put in an eight track, and what did it play? David's killed 10,000.
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And he hated him.
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So he spent the rest of his life pursuing the killing.
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And it says here, whom are you pursuing? Are you pursuing a dead dog or a single flea? And what would be the answer? No.
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David wasn't no dog.
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David wasn't a single flea.
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Matter of fact, if you go back, who was David in his court? One, he was his bodyguard at the beginning.
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He was an armor bearer.
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And then after that, he was the leader of the armies, most likely, under Abner.
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He says, who are you chasing? A dead dog? A single flea? And the Lord, therefore, will be judge and will decide between you and me that he may see and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.
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When I read that a number of years ago, and every time I read it now, I think of the first Peter passage where it says, when Jesus was reviled, when he was spoke bad against, when he had all deceit was brought against him, he did not speak deceitfully.
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He did not revile back.
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What did he do? He entrusted himself to the one who judges righteously, knowing that God was going to take care of that.
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That is exactly what the anointed king David, future king of Israel, would do.
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And it says, when David had finished speaking these words, Saul said, is this your voice, my son David? Ironically now, how has he addressed David so far for the last what, eight chapters? How has he addressed him? Son of Jesse.
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He hated his name.
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He hated him so much he didn't want to say his name.
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But now in this act of contrition and brokenness, he cries out and he says, is this your voice, my son David? And Saul lifted up his voice and he wept and he said to David, you are more righteous than I.
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Is that right? Yes, he is.
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He is more righteous than you.
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For you have dealt with me while I have dealt wickedly with you.
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Reading that as well, if you remember what Tamar said to Judah when she tricked him, do you remember to get impregnated because he wouldn't give him, he wouldn't give her another son.
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She tricked him to sleep with a prostitute and when she said, well you're going to have to give me some down payment.
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You ain't got no cash on you, so you're going to have to give me your credentials.
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So he gave him his signet ring and he gave him his staff.
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And then when he finds out she's pregnant and he wants to have her burned, she comes to him and says, well hold on, before you start lighting the torch and getting the rope, let me show you who this man was that I'm holding his baby.
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And when he shows basically his credit cards and his ID, he says, you're more righteous than I.
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You have dealt with me more righteous than I have dealt with you.
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It's almost verbatim the same.
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And he says here, you have declared today that you have done, I have declared to you that you have done good to me.
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And that the Lord delivered me into your hand and yet you did not kill me.
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It is amazing that he understands that God is the one that put him in that cave and then he went in there to relieve himself and it was the Lord that delivered him into the hand of David.
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The test for David was, is he going to be like Saul and kill and usurp the kingdom? Or will he not? So he had to choose whom you serve today David.
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Is it going to be yourself? Or are you going to follow the Lord? And what did David do? He followed the Lord.
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And he says in verse 19, for if any man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safely? Would he? We just said that humanistically speaking, hey, if somebody is seeking your life and you have the opportunity to pop a calf in his back with no hesitation, what are you going to do? Blow that mug away.
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He says, may the Lord therefore reward you with good in return for what you have done to me this day.
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Now behold, I know that you will surely be king.
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The confession that he already knows in his heart is exactly what's going to happen.
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He actually says, I know that you're going to be king.
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And what did Jonathan tell him? His father already knew.
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So imagine the conversation that was going on.
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Remember when he came in and he was here on Hebrew radio, the song, what was the eye he was keeping on David? He's killed all these people.
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What else could he take? He's already got the heart of the people.
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What else would he take? He says, kingdom.
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He'll be the king.
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So now he says, surely you will be king and the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hand.
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He affirms the establishment of the kingdom of David based on his righteous actions.
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You see that? Was Saul a righteous king? Did he judge righteously? No.
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He didn't even do whatever he wanted.
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Taxing the mess out of people, taking vineyards, taking donkeys, everything that Samuel said he was going to do, he was been doing.
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What has David done? Has David taken anything from anybody? They joined themselves.
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They attached themselves to him.
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Even though it was under the guise of deception, even when he goes into Himalaya, did he say, hey man, if you don't give me some food, I'm going to throw down on you.
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That's not what he said.
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He says, hey man, I'm hungry.
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Do you have anything here? And he said only the consecrated bread.
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It was willingly given to him.
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And then when he asked, hey man, do you have a weapon here? Because I'm hurrying out of here.
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Can you give me something? He didn't forcefully take anything.
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He said, no, I'll give you the weapon of Goliath.
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So understand that he never went and forcefully took anything.
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We're going to see next week, in contrast again, that he has the opportunity to act like king Saul again, with Nabal, and he does not.
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He looks like he's going to at the beginning.
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And rightfully so.
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Tell you what, man, we got to go.
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We can talk about how many times we have helped people, continually helped people, and they spurn their mercy, spurn your good gifts, and then it makes you angry, right? And rightfully so.
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And we're going to see that with David next week.
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David did nothing but good to Nabal's people.
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He protected them.
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And he's going to get very angry, and then he's going to in a fit of rage go do what Saul did, which was to slay a whole city.
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And we're going to see David's repentance, and we're going to see David's heart being more of God's chosen man versus the people's chosen king.
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Alright? Tim, you'll pray for us? Lead us and guide us that we will not make decisions when we are in rough places or difficulties or facing enemies.
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The Lord, that we will lay hold of your promises and trust your word, Lord God.
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Thank you for reminding us of that again today, Lord God.
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Help us to take it to heart, and help us to walk in the surety of your promise, knowing that you are sovereign, and that you love us, and know that they will hold from your people.
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And we just thank you.
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And we ask that you will bless us now as we approach you in worship, as we lift up our voices in song.
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Bless the man of God as he comes to his final moment of truth.
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We ask that you, Jesus, stand with us.
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Amen.