The God of Windows

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Don Filcek; 1 Samuel 19 The God of Windows

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listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in 1
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Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in. Thanks, Dave.
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Good morning, Recast. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and just want to welcome you all.
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It's a great day to gather together to worship our great God, and I hope that's the reason that you're here. I hope also equally that you've been worshiping
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God all week long, that it's not like I just showed up to church this Sunday and this is my act of worship for the week, but that you've been actually worshiping
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God in the way that you've driven your car, in the way that you've worked for your employer, in the way that you've interacted with your family and with others and friends around you.
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All of it can be worshiped to God with the right attitude and the right spirit and the right heart, and so I hope that that's been a reality for you, and that our gathering together is just a reflection of what's already been going on in your week, and an opportunity to corporately gather together as God has told us to, to do that together as well.
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There's something rich and awesome when we realize we're not the only ones out there worshiping God. Sometimes you feel like an island.
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Sometimes you feel alone. Sometimes it's very easy to feel like I'm the only one out here who gets this thing, and it's refreshing to gather together, oh, there's other people out there in this community who are worshiping
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God together. Now, I'm going to give an introduction to the text this morning that we're looking at in 1 Samuel 19, and then we're going to get a chance to listen to God's word because I'm going to read that text, and then we're going to sing some songs, and Dave's going to lead us in some singing.
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I want to say that some people actually think of singing as a preparation, just kind of almost kind of preparatory for hearing from the
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Bible, hearing from the word, but I think hearing from the Bible, hear me carefully, I think hearing from the
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Bible is preparation for singing. It's preparation for worshiping God. Worshiping God is the thing.
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Praising God is often commanded in Scripture, and I believe that we must first see God as He has revealed
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Himself in the word, and only once we come to know Him, only once we see
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Him through the lens of Scripture and His majesty and His glory and His righteousness and His holiness and His power and His authority and the way that He works in our lives for protection, once we take in that truth in our lives, then our hearts can worship
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Him in spirit and in truth. So that's one of the reasons we come to the word of God before we read that every
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Sunday, before we come to a time of singing and praising, and I want to get our minds' juices flowing towards God before we open our mouths and praise
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Him because I want us to praise Him accurately according to the way that He truly is. I'm entitled to a sermon this morning, The God of Windows.
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Now that's not Microsoft Windows, that's like windows like you see up there on the wall. This morning we're going to see
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God provide escape, deliverance, and protection for His chosen servant, King David, or the one who is anointed eventually to become
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King David, in the text of 1 Samuel. And I want to point out that God doesn't always provide a doorway out, but in Scripture we often see
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Him provide a window. The Israelite spies in Jericho were lowered out of a window.
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The apostle Paul in Damascus lowered out of a window. And here in our text this morning,
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David is lowered out of a window. Now the window isn't the point of the text, but I'd like to use it as a metaphor for the main point of the message this morning, and that is that God does indeed protect those that He calls.
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His protective hand is powerful to provide escape to His people when we feel, and there are times when we feel, like there's no way out.
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Now we're not going to leave that as a generalized principle, because already that's forming questions in your mind. What about the times that He doesn't provide a way out?
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Does He always have to, Don? And many of our minds start to spin right away, and we'll get there, we'll talk about that.
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But for now, as we're about to read this passage and then come to praise our great God by lifting up our voices together,
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I want us all to have in mind that amazing reality. Our God is mighty to save, is mighty to save.
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He is mighty to rescue. He can use the words of a friend, as we're going to see in the text, the loyalty of family.
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He can use a window. He can even just step in personally from time to time to rescue you miraculously, as we will see by the end of this text.
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So if you're not already there, I ask you to please open up your Bibles or to navigate in a device to 1 Samuel chapter 19.
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1 Samuel 19, it's funny, somebody told me one time, the first time they visited Recast, they actually thought, how rude, everybody had their device out while you were reading the
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Bible. And I thought, just like, what are they doing? They're Googling stuff or whatever? And no, they're reading the Bible. So 1
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Samuel 19, whatever it takes to get there. If you don't have a Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible, you can grab the
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Bible that's under the seat in front of you and turn to page 138 in that Bible. That's an easy way to find 1
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Samuel 19. But I am going to read it in its entirety. Please follow along and read in whatever means you have there and really try to focus on the words.
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If you don't have a Bible in front of you, listen, meditate, contemplate, consider and think about this. This is awesome.
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It's a narrative, it's a story, but it's history. And Saul spoke to Jonathan, his son, and to all his servants that they should kill
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David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David. And Jonathan told David, Saul, my father seeks to kill you.
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Therefore, be on your guard in the morning. Stay in a secret place and hide yourself. And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are.
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And I will speak to my father about you. And if I learn anything, I will tell you. And Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul, his father, and said to him, let not the king sin against his servant
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David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds have brought good to you.
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For he took his life in his hand, and he struck down the Philistine, and the Lord worked a great salvation for all
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Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing
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David without cause? And Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan. Saul swore, as the
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Lord lives, he shall not be put to death. And Jonathan called David, and Jonathan reported to him all these things.
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And Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as before. And there was war again, and David went out and fought with the
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Philistines and struck them with a great blow so that they fled before him. Then a harmful spirit from the Lord came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand, and David was playing the liar.
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And Saul sought to pin David to the wall with a spear, but he eluded Saul so that he struck the spear into the wall, and David fled and escaped that night.
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Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michael, David's wife, told him, if you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.
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So Michael let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped. Michael took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goat's hair at its head and covered it with the clothes.
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And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, he is sick. And Saul sent the messengers to see
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David, saying, bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him. And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed with a pillow of goat's hair at its head.
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Saul said to Michael, why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go so that he has escaped? And Michael answered
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Saul, he said to me, let me go, why should I kill you? And David fled and escaped, and he came to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him.
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And he and Samuel went and lived at Naoth, and it was told Saul, behold, David is at Naoth and Ramah.
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Then Saul sent messengers to take David, and when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying and Samuel standing his head over them, the
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Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. When it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied.
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And he sent messengers again a third time, and they also prophesied. Then he himself went to Ramah and came to the great well that is in Sekou, and he asked, where are
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Samuel and David? And one said, behold, they are at Naoth and Ramah. And he went there to Naoth and Ramah, and the
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Spirit of God came upon him also. And he went, as he went, he prophesied until he came to Naoth and Ramah, and he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all that day and all that night.
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Thus it is said, is Saul also among the prophets? Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you that we see in this text probably a variety of things as we read it, and there are certain things that stand out to us, but at the end of the day,
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Father, it really is about your hand of protection, the way that you can provide for your people, and that in miraculous ways, in simple ways, in common ways, you have all types of means at your hands, at your fingertips to protect your people.
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Father, you are so gracious, and I can look back at my life and see your hand of protection over me, and I'm sure everybody in this room could tell stories.
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We could just spend the rest of the day telling stories about the way that you've protected us and your hand has been on us.
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But Father, as we just contemplate and consider that, we can't help but reflect on the greatest protection, the greatest gift, the greatest deliverance that's been given to us in your
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Son, Jesus Christ. And Father, I pray that from that place of being redeemed and being reconciled to you through the blood of Jesus and having hope and an ultimate rescue, it will one day belong to anybody who is yours.
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Father, I pray that from that place of being set free from the consequences of our sin that we would lift up our voices before you in praise and worship of your great name.
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Father, I thank you that you are indeed mighty to save. You've proven that in the small picture of our everyday lives, but you are only giving us a foretaste of the great salvation that is coming at the return of your
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Son. So Father, I pray that you would help us to put our hope and our trust in that future king and that future kingdom that is coming for us.
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And Father, that we would live different now because of that future that belongs to us in Christ. And I ask this in Jesus' name.
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Yeah, you can go ahead and be seated and just make sure that you're comfortable over the next half an hour or so as we dig into God's word.
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Open your Bibles if you're not already there to 1 Samuel 19 and then keep your place there so that you can see that the flow of our sermon this morning and the message is going to come from that text.
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And so having it open there, I'll reference that from time to time and you can actually see where I'm at and where I'm going.
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And then if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, you don't need to raise your hand or anything, just go back there and you're not going to distract me.
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So whatever it takes to be comfortable and keep your focus on God's word here. Last week, just kind of set the stage for those of you that maybe weren't here or haven't been keeping up with the series as we've been marching through the book of 1
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Samuel. Last week, we saw Saul's jealous anger and his illogical hatred from David really kind of come fruition.
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It's like the blossom was there and it opened. And so his hatred and animosity and jealousy and his rage came out in chapter 18.
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Saul, the current king of Israel, declared David to be his enemy.
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Now, David is his servant. David is a commander in his military. And at the same time, Saul has this fear, a fear and a jealousy that the people love
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David more. And he's afraid he's going to become the next king. He's going to take over from him. And so at first glance, we may think that this text, as I read it this morning, is just a continuation of the same thing, the same theme that we had last week.
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But last week, the focus was on a contrast between the love that the entire nation and everybody had for David.
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Remember, we kind of said that a good, if we were making it into a TV series, it'd be Everybody Loves David. But except for Saul.
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And there was that contrast between the love that everybody had for David and the jealousy and hatred that Saul had for him.
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But that theme remains and is going to remain throughout the remainder of this book. There's 31 chapters.
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We're in chapter 19. So you do the math. And all the course of the rest of this book, there's going to be this theme of the jealous animosity and anger of Saul towards David.
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That remains in this text. But there's another theme that comes over the top and overpowers that in our text here in chapter 19.
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Our text this morning is primarily about protection. The protection of the Almighty for the one that he has chosen.
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The protection of the Almighty towards his chosen people. And so the text is organized into three main means of protection.
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The ways that God chooses to protect David, particularly in this text. And we'll kind of tease out some application and figure out what
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God means for us here in Matawan in light of the way that he protected
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David. So the first thing that God uses, the first means, is the words of a friend. You see that. Jonathan, his friend, his words are a protective force in the life of David.
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That's verses 1 through 10 if you're taking notes. And verses 11 through 17, you're going to see the window of a wife.
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Michael is going to be used, David's wife. And the window in their house is going to be used as a means of deliverance.
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And then the third thing is the revelation of the Spirit. Now sometimes you just got to go with alliteration and you just have to make it happen.
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Anybody? Okay. You got it. I mean, I can alliterate. I can put all of them in order there and stuff.
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So that's verses 18 through 25, really obviously it's revelation in case you're maybe going, what's that word?
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What is this? You're looking it up in Google right now. What's revelation? Revelation. But I want to point out the way that perspective works in looking at scripture.
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How many of you know that when you read these narrative accounts, when you just read a historical account, sometimes it's hard to see the moral of the story.
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Do you know what I'm saying? It depends on your perspective. You bring some bias to the text. You look at it from a certain set of eyes.
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And so I want to just betray and let you all know inside me that there is a way that I look at the text.
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There's a bias that I look at God as sovereign. He is in charge. He is ruling.
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So I'm always looking at the text for the way that he is moving, for the things that God is doing, primarily because I believe he's the author of this book.
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So I believe he's telling us something about himself. So I'm always looking at it from that perspective. So as we read 1
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Samuel, we see, and I can't help but think of the book as primarily a raising up of King David.
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And so we know that the things that are happening in his life are preparing him towards being
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God's chosen king over Israel, the one that God would choose to rule the people instead of Saul.
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But I want to suggest to you that if Saul were to read the very same text as us, if he were to sit down and read just the words that we have recorded for us,
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I'm convinced that he would outline this differently. I think that Saul would have an outline for this text.
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It would follow our three points, but it would be a different perspective. It wouldn't be the words of a friend, the window of a wife, the revelation of the
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Spirit. It would be, first, the disobedient son, second, the lying daughter, third, the meddling prophets.
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I believe that he would have an outline for this, and I believe that that's the way. And do you see how the way that we look at God, the way that we have a heart towards God impacts the way that we read
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Scripture. Did you know an atheist can read this and get nothing out of it? Partly because of what their heart brings to the text.
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How many of you have ever just had your heart softened and you read the word and it comes alive to you in a powerful and mighty way?
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Where you could have read it a month ago and it wouldn't have impacted you, but because of the circumstances that God is softening and bringing to your heart, then it starts to make sense.
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It starts to come together for you. And I'm saying this here at the start of this sermon because the
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Bible sometimes reads like a soap opera, and it's actually dynamic, and there's power in the relationships and the way that all this is going down, but we often rush through it.
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We just read it really quick, letting the people we're reading about remain flat and lifeless and relationless.
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And this is one of those texts that we could do that to if we're not careful. We could read through it and forget that Jonathan is
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Saul's son. There's some drama here. Michael is
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Saul's daughter. There's some drama here, right? And then there's this whole, he wants to kill his son -in -law.
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Drama here. This is crazy stuff. This is like, Maury couldn't book this stuff. Verse one tells us that Saul commanded his son,
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Jonathan. Right off the bat, this is how we start this text. Saul commanded his son,
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Jonathan, to kill his best friend, David. He tells all of his servants, all of those in his inner circle, all of those who attend to the king of Israel, he says,
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I want to put out a hit on David. He issued a command to his son, one that his son will disobey.
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Last week we saw a pledge of loyalty between David and Jonathan. They became fast friends. They were connected in battle.
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They were connected in faith in God, and they're watching out for each other. And yet,
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Saul is asking that same Jonathan to kill David. Well, the first movement of this text, then, is the protection that comes through the words of a friend.
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We see that here in the text. And so, Jonathan went to David and warned him of the danger. He says, my father asked me to kill you.
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I'm not going to do it, don't worry, but he asked me to kill you, and I kind of want you to know that you probably ought to run for your life.
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We ought to probably get to the bottom of this. By the way, Jonathan, always throughout the text, has even such a great attitude that I think he even has a hard time throwing his dad, who's kind of off his rocker, he has a hard time throwing him under the bus.
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Jonathan always wants reconciliation. We see that here even in this text. So Jonathan wanted David to hear it for himself, so he came up with a plan.
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He said, David, hide along the pathway, maybe behind a rock wall or something, but hide out in the field, behind a pathway.
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I'm going to strike up a conversation with my dad, try to take him on a walk, and try to get you to be able to hear some of the stuff that my dad is saying about you, and we'll see if we can get some reconciliation here, if we can get this figured out.
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So he says, I'm going to take my dad for a walk along this pathway and this field, and you hide out and listen.
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And you might not be able to hear the entire conversation. You're going to see that Jonathan has to go back and report to David all the words. He's not able to hear the entire conversation, but probably gets the gist of it.
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And here in this first section, we see God using a friend as a shield of protection around David. God has brought
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David into a relationship with a good ally, and Jonathan shines very brightly throughout the pages of 1
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Samuel. He's one of the only characters, as a matter of fact, only one of the historical characters in an account that we don't really see a downside to.
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Even David, it's going to be declared that he had an adulterous relationship and affair and all of that stuff. But Jonathan just shines throughout the pages of Scripture.
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He has a winsome conversation with his father that is respectful but full of truth and logic.
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In verses four and five, Jonathan lays out three facts to his father to avoid the sin. He says,
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Dad, do you really want to murder someone? Someone who's innocent? Somebody who hasn't done wrong? And he gives three reasons.
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He says, Dad, here's why you don't want to take David's life. Here's why you don't want to kill him in cold blood.
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He says, David hasn't done anything wrong to you. He's innocent. Second of all, not only has he not done anything wrong, but he's brought you good.
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He's blessed you, Dad. Can't you see it? Don't you have eyes to see this? There's a son pleading with his father, who is the king of Israel?
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It's a very powerful man, but Jonathan's like, man, can I speak some sense to you here for a second? He's brought you good, and not only has he brought you good, but God has used
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David to bring great salvation to Israel. Remember, Dad? He killed that giant for us. Do you remember that?
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And he says further, didn't you rejoice? I was there, Dad, when you rejoiced that David was used by God to do these miraculous and amazing things.
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And this first protection of God that comes through the words of a friend results in a short -term restoration.
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Saul, in verse six, interestingly enough, it shows something of his character. Here in the text, he swears an oath by the very life of God, if, in other words, to say, as much as God is alive,
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I pledge to never put David to death. I pledge that David will not be put to death under my watch, if the
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Lord lives. We'll get to that here in a little bit, but the result of this first deliverance is that David was restored, he's in earshot, and he's like, oh,
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I'm protected, I'm safe. So he thinks that Saul's gonna be a man of his word and is not gonna put him to death, and so he's restored to the service of King Saul, goes back in, begins to play the harp for Saul and all of that stuff that he was doing before, probably leading military and all of that.
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But let's take the application from this text as we go and kind of think about it right now. What does this first movement of the text about the words of a friend have to do with us?
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Now, how many of you know that you were made for community? Did you know that? You were made to be in relationship with others.
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We all wanna be islands. We live in a culture and a society that is becoming more and more independent, more and more individualized, more and more isolated.
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But we need relationships and we need each other. Without Jonathan's friendship, David may well have been killed by Jonathan himself or someone else under his father's orders, but God gives us relationships and friendships for our strength, for our accountability, for our enjoyment.
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We live in a time where you can have a thousand Facebook friends and no one to get together with on a Friday night. Is that true?
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Do you guys see that? It may seem like a stretch for me to say that God has given you friendships for protection.
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And part of that is it seems like a stretch because very few of us have a jealous, raging king trying to kill us, right?
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So, I mean, you look at the text and you're like, oh, that's not quite my circumstance or my situation, but friendships do protect us in many ways.
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Friendships protect us in a lot of ways. Friends can tell when you're down or when you're off, they ask, they're the ones to pick you up when you're stumbling, be a shoulder to lean on.
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Friends ask tougher questions than just acquaintances, don't they? A good friend asks tough questions.
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Friends listen when you answer. Friends give advice that takes your personality and your relationship with God into account, and most importantly, friends celebrate with us when things are going well.
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I've always said this, it's one thing to have somebody to mourn with you when you're down. What's worse is when you have no one to celebrate with you when things are up.
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That can be the most discouraging thing in life is when something's going well and you turn around and there's nobody there to clap with you, there's nobody to celebrate with you.
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We need that. So in this first movement of our text, protection from God comes through the words of a friend.
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The words both warn David, the initial words, David, watch out, my dad has it out for you. But also those words go to bat for David and intercede on his behalf.
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So ask yourself this as a fundamental application, what kind of a friend are you? What kind of a friend are you?
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And further, what kind of friends do you have? What kind of friends do you seek out? I would encourage you to connect this fall with our community groups, and this is not just a shameless plug, at the end of the day,
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I want to confess I can't guarantee that you're going to develop lifelong friendships through that program, but it is the main program that we offer here at Recast in order to connect in community with others.
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And I can tell you that if you sit back and remain disengaged, if you take this in as a show, if church is nothing more than a
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Sunday morning event that you attend, then you will not develop the relationships within the church that you need in order to remain strong and even protected in your faith.
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We need to be reaching out, and that's, some of you are sitting here going, Don, I'm an introvert, connection time is the most miserable thing in the world for me,
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I don't like to go out of my comfort zone, I don't like to reach out. All of us need relationship, and for some of us, it's finding the right one, for some of us, it's finding the right dozen, okay, and it just depends on how
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God has made you, whether you're going to have a bunch of friendships, or whether you're going to have one or two really stable, strong people that you can go to, but everybody needs someone.
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And furthermore, to flip that on its head, someone needs you.
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Someone needs you. You have something to offer. You have something to offer in relationship and connection with others, and so think in terms of friendship.
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Are you a safe place for people to go? Whose back are you watching? Who are you looking out for to protect and to care for them, and who are you noticing when they're off or they're down?
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The second way that protection comes to David is through the window of a wife here, the window of their house, but also through his wife and her suggestion.
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First, we need to establish the fact that the first protection didn't last, and that's not to say that it was subpar or that friends don't come through for you.
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I mean, there was a real protection that happened there, but it was limited. Real life is full of ups and downs, and we see that especially in the life of Saul, and David is restored to the court of Saul only to have
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Saul go into another fit of rage. Well, I see a connection, by the way.
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Through this text, there's often jealousy as mentioned. Jealousy is mentioned in the same context as this harmful spirit, or some texts have translations, have evil spirit coming from the
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Lord, and so we talked about that back in chapter 16, if that phrase, an evil spirit or a harmful spirit from the
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Lord has you kind of tripped up, go back and listen to that message on 16. I know I don't have time to cover it every time that it's mentioned in the text, but we see that this fit of rage and the spirit comes upon Saul as David is successful.
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So David was victorious in battle over the Philistines again in verse 8, and the harmful spirit came upon Saul once again, and Saul tried to pin
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David to the wall. Once again, we have the same image that we had last week of Saul brooding, angry, almost foaming at the mouth, kind of just raging with dark, and his eyebrows are down and his face is stirred, and he's skulking and just going through the halls of his palace carrying a spear.
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That's not a safe way to live. I wouldn't want to serve King Saul, and that would be pretty scary.
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So he tries to pin David to the wall, and I guess you could technically say I should have another point in here, a sub -point about the protection of David, because you could say that the second thing that provided protection for David wasn't the window, but it was his own agility.
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I would want David on my team for dodgeball. So far he's dodged three spears.
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You can dodge a spear, you can dodge a ball, right? So some of you know exactly ... Hey, who's that guy?
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Check that out. But really, now the third time that Saul has chucked a spear at David's head, and he's dodged it, and how many of you think you might be getting a clue by now that the dude wants you dead?
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Three times he chucked a spear at you, would you maybe get a clue? Three strikes and you're out? And David is out, and what we're going to see here in our text is the final departure of David from the court of Saul.
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He's still going to love King Saul, he's still going to see him as God's anointed, he's still going to say things like, how could
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I strike down the Lord's anointed and take his throne from him? He's still going to have respect for the office despite the fact that he's going to run for the rest of Saul's life from him, but he departs, and this is a serious departing.
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But David fled the raging king's presence and went to his home that night, but Saul sent messengers to watch his house that night so that Saul could come and kill
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David himself in the morning. You see that in verse 11, and verse 11 made me chuckle a little bit when I first read it.
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Sometimes you read through the Bible in a year, or I've read through the Bible dozens of times, but I never noticed verse 11 until I was studying it this week, and apparently
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Saul was too tired, and he says something like, the dread pirate Roberts, good night
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Wesley, good work, sleep well, most likely kill you in the morning, and this day he actually intends to make good on that promise.
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A handful of you got it, the rest of you go watch The Princess Bride this afternoon.
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You got to bleep out that one word, there's that one word in there, but other than that, this is pretty good. But now God will use
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David's wife and a window. Michael caught wind of her daddy's plot to kill her husband, and proves herself to be more loyal to her husband than to her father, and there's another sermon in this, a whole separate sermon, a whole separate message, wrapped up in the way that Michael here shows correct loyalties.
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She shows that she shifted loyalties to a new family. The Bible says, the two will leave father and mother and will become one flesh together.
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Loyalties must shift to the spouse when marriage vows have been taken. Many marriages struggle over the inability to forge this exclusive loyalty that's required of us in marriage, but Michael let down, let
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David down through the window, and he fled and he escaped, and I want to point out to you what's obvious here in the text, and that's just that sometimes
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God provides a window. Sometimes he provides a window. Doors are much better suited for escape, but sometimes they're guarded, and sometimes stealth is required.
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We will see a lot of close calls in the life of David in the coming weeks as we go through the rest of this book.
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He often will be just two steps away from getting caught and killed by King Saul, who rages across the countryside, chasing
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David from place to place, and I want to point out that the window reminds us that often the deliverance of God comes at just the right moment.
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The one who has been anointed to be the next king must be let down through a window by his own wife.
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Her daddy wants her husband dead. Like I said earlier, that's like Maury's stuff, right? So Michael gave her husband,
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David, some time to escape by making a ruse. She says that David is sick, and even goes all
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Ferris Bueller on Saul by making a dummy out of a household idol, and she tells Saul that David is sick.
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We need to take a side note here and address what in the world an idol was doing in David's house. Anybody ever wonder that here in the text?
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There's an image. That's one of the most troubling things that I read as I was studying this text. I'm like, how in the world? The word is teraphim.
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There's no question about what the Hebrew word means here. It's household idol, translated image in the
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English Standard Version. And most scholars imagine, and I think rightly, they're getting on the right track at least. Most scholars imagine a tug of war in this household between Michael and David.
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She will despise, we're going to see her later, despise his fervor and enthusiasm for worshiping the one true and living
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God, while I believe that she has household idols, teraphim, that she worships, maybe even inheriting that habit from her father.
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Michael here in the text lies to her father to save the life of her husband. Saul was such a wicked and cowardly man that he literally says, hey,
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David's on his sick bed, if he can't get out of bed and come to me so I can kill him, sends messengers, says come and carry him in the bed so that I might slay him.
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And this is after. I'm going to point out this is after he has sworn an oath by the life of the Lord God Almighty that David would not be put to death.
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Do you see how he just said, I swear an oath by the living God that I will not have him put to death.
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And now what's he doing? Trying to put him to death. You see, what I believe is happening in this oath is kind of fundamental to understanding the character and life of King Saul.
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Saul revealed in this oath what is true in his heart. He did not really believe that there was a living
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God. You see, what he says is, as the Lord lives, I won't kill
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David, but by implication he whispers under his breath, but I don't believe the
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Lord lives, so I'm going to try to kill him. You see, the living
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God in this text though, the true and living God gets the final declaration in this equation.
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He gets the final statement because try as he might, Saul will not be able to kill the
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Lord's anointed one. His hand, God's hand of protection is sovereign for those who he plans to use for his purposes.
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You see, I believe this firmly and I believe you can take comfort in it. I believe there's another way you could look at this in a self -centered way and not take comfort in it.
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It just depends on your perspective, how much you trust God, how much you love him, how much you believe he is for you. But if God has a purpose for you, you can't be killed.
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If God has a reason for you to be breathing tomorrow, you can't be killed today. He has your hand fully in his life, or has your life fully in his hands.
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He has your hands too, hopefully. I like the idea that I'm immortal as long as God has further things for me to accomplish on this earth, and I take genuine comfort in that, not some kind of theoretical comfort in it.
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I think of it this way, when I have completed the last prayer he wants me to pray, when
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I've completed or reached the last person he wants me to reach, when I've preached the last sermon he wants me to preach, when
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I've encouraged the last person he wants me to encourage, then he will take me home.
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It's in his plan. It's in his timing. And over the years as I've had a chance to get to know him,
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I rejoice that my end is in his hands. My end is in his hands. I'm comforted by that.
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And as you get older, some of you are younger in here, you haven't even thought about that. And there's coming a day where you realize that it's just a matter that we,
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I mean, how do you know that you're dying? Did you already know that? You don't need a diagnosis to know that. One day they're going to name it for us,
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I don't know what that matters, they're going to call it liver cancer, or they're going to call it heart failure, or they're going to call it congestive heart failure, they're going to call it a brain tumor, they're going to call it whatever they want to call it, but at the end of the day, we're all dying.
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Let me be the doctor for you and just tell you that that's reality over your lives. But God is in charge of that.
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The one who loves us and sent his son to die for us is in charge of that. I love that we actually have a
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Psalm of David that is written during this event. I'd encourage you to go there and read it this week, it's Psalm 59.
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It probably was written, I'm guessing, just knowing this story and studying it this week, it probably is he sat in the dark on his way to Ramah that night.
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Probably didn't get all the way to Ramah in one jog, and so he actually camps out someplace hiding in the darkness alone that night, and I believe he penned
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Psalm 59 during that context because the text actually says, when Saul sent messengers to guard his house.
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That's the subtitle for Psalm 59. Psalm 59 is interspersed with please for God to deliver him, to protect him, but David in faith wrote in this dire circumstance these words, and I love it, it's so beautiful and it's so ironic.
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He says, but I will sing of your strength, I will sing aloud of your steadfast love when?
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In the morning. In the morning I will sing of your steadfast love, and what's beautiful about that is
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Saul plans to kill David when? In the morning. You see,
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Saul, an evil, has a plan, but that plan can never come to fruition against God.
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See, Saul fully expected to kill David in the morning, but David by faith expected to be loudly singing of God's steadfast love that same morning.
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Well Michael lied to her father twice in this account, you see it. How many of you already noticed that? Did you already see that in the text as you were reading it?
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Anybody kind of go, oh, we look at the text and we go, oh, she lied, what's going to happen to her?
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Is God going to smoke her? Is he going to, you know, what's up with this? Isn't that one of the Ten Commandments? You know, she broke it, and now how can she get off scot -free for that, or is he endorsing it, or what's going on there?
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But she told David, she told Saul that David was sick, and then she further lied and said that David had threatened to kill her if she didn't let him escape.
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Now, I don't have a lot of time to get into a long, drawn -out biblical ethics on honesty and lying, a field that I actually really enjoy reading up on, and I really enjoy biblical ethics, but there's some old guys that basically have written a lot of stuff.
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Old dead guys are the place to go for the foundations of biblical ethics. There's a guy named Thomas Aquinas, he identified three types of deception,
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I'm going to use his words, they're old, ancient English words that need some definition, but he defined three types of deception.
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He said there's officious deception, officious means deception intended to the help of another.
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Nope, there's no Jews in this house, okay, that type of lie. You get what I'm saying? How many of you can kind of imagine in your mind a lie that might be in the heart of hearts intended to assist someone, to protect someone, like Michael's lie?
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There's another second one called jokos, think a word, this is a word we don't use very often, but think in terms of joke, it's like a joke kind of thing, it's deception that's socially understood for pleasure or entertainment, surprise party, hiding the presence, hiding the football, poker face, all of those kinds of socially acceptable kind of deception where everybody knows that you're deceiving intentionally because that's the rules of the game.
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Of course, you're not going to tell everybody where your battleships are, right?
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So it's okay to hide your battleships, but it's not okay to tell the other person that B4 is a miss when
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B4 is a hit, okay? The one is jokos and the other is the third category, it's mischievous or mischievous.
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It's deception with the intent of harming another or gaining advantage for oneself. This is the thou shalt not lie.
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And really, ultimately, what even the Old Testament law is getting at is to bear false witness.
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The implication is even in a court of law where you would get somebody murdered by saying they did such and such and I saw them, bearing false witness.
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The words that Aquinas used are outdated, but they form reasonable categories from Scripture and really reasonable categories from Scripture which commends
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Rahab for hiding the Hebrew spies and then in the book of Hebrews in the
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New Testament says, commends her, commends her for deceiving the soldiers who came.
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Anybody ever scratch your head over that one? There's a difference going on here. Lying is always a sin, but not every form of deception is lying.
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Words matter, categories matter. If you have any concern or question about this potentially slippery slope, then
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I'd encourage you to come and talk with me before you launch out into a life of lies and deceit saying Pastor Don said it's okie -dokie, don't go do that.
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Come and talk with me if you're thinking, I think my lie is justified, I think my lie is helpful to others.
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Be very careful, that's a very, very steep, slippery slope. But let's wrap up with our final point here.
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God has protected David through the words of a friend, through the window of a wife, and now through the revelation of the word.
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That's the last time I'm going to say that, it's that cheesy. Remember that we're talking about means that God uses to protect his servants, and here he uses a very strange means at the end of this text, something that's even more bizarre than a wife's lying and all of that different stuff, because he's going to directly intervene by his spirit to protect
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David. See, David fled to Samuel and he went to a religious leader for guidance and to pour out his heart.
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David goes to one who understands the ins and outs of Saul's life, Samuel, the one who anointed Saul, Samuel, the one who was his counselor and advisor, up until the point where God left
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Saul and said, I'm not working with you anymore. But Saul caught wind that David was hanging out at the prophet's compound in Ramah.
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The word naoth there looks like a proper noun, but it actually means compound or encampment, and so it's probably outside of the village of Ramah, there was this encampment of the prophets where people would go to get prophecy and different things.
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And so Saul sends his thugs to arrest David, but when they arrive, the spirit comes upon them with ecstatic power.
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There's supposed to be irony in this text. We're supposed to chuckle a little bit when we read this. We miss it a little bit, but there's some irony and some humor in this.
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They go to arrest the pastor and end up getting caught up in the worship service. That's what happens.
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They're like in the back raising their hands, tears coming down, they're like, oh, Jesus, we need you. And it's like, what did we come here for again?
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They came to arrest the pastor, right? They came to arrest David, and it's like they get caught up in this thing, and that happens three times.
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And so after sending three groups, Saul decides that if you want something done, and you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.
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That's right. So he takes off for Ramah himself, the spirit of God came upon him also, and he also went into this trance -like state, prophesied.
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We were told in the text, we didn't even know it about the other servants, but apparently they all stripped off their clothes too, and Saul passes out naked all that day and night.
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Bizarre behavior, right? But the main point of this strange behavior is that Saul was placed in a humbled and out of control state by the
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Holy Spirit, God intervening directly by his spirit in the life of Saul to protect
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David. How many of you know that God's got a lot of means, a lot of ways that he can protect his people?
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This was not the last time, by the way, that a prophet would go about naked. We see other prophets do that throughout the books of the prophets, and they do so under the spirit's direction, which you're kind of like, well, isn't that a sin?
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Isn't that wrong? Isn't that bad? But it was always a symbol of poverty, weakness, shame, or destitution.
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Saul, by the way, don't miss the fact that this is just as humiliating as it sounds.
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This is humiliating for the king of Israel. Saul is humiliated and thwarted in his attempts to arrest and kill
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David by the spirit himself. And one of the commentators that I read, or one of the commentators that I like,
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Walter Brueggemann, gets it right when he explains that Saul, quote, was clearly not in control, ashamed, now rendered powerless in a posture of submissiveness.
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And I would only add to Brueggemann's assessment that this humbling came to him through the very spirit of the Almighty God who
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Saul has rejected. And for the second time, we find that the statement, is
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Saul also among the prophets? Was a popular phrase used among the people all the way down to the writing of 1
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Samuel, they would still say it. It became an expression of surprise. People probably liked this phrase in Israel because it was a dig at this failed king who didn't honor their
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God. It was a way of saying God can do everything. He can even make
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Saul a prophet. You would say it when you found a ring that had been lost for five years and you thought you'd never see it again.
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You'd say, is Saul also among the prophets? You would say it when your five -year -old finally ate his broccoli after a long standoff at the dinner table.
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Is Saul also among the prophets? You see, it was a surprising thing because everyone knew that King Saul, everybody who knew him knew that he was not prophet material.
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So, we see that God is able to protect his people. That's the point. He will take you to the good plans that he has for you.
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Anyone in this room who is all in with Jesus, he's taking you to good.
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He's taking you to good. And I want to camp on the protective power of God in a way that's going to make some of you uncomfortable. You see, because for many of us, we want to stab hope with our jaded and cynical pessimistic reality.
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But Don, aren't you going to say exceptions? Aren't you going to say, well, not everything turns out good.
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Not everything is great. You're not always protected, are you? Sometimes bad things happen to you. You want me to give all the caveats, but I don't want to do that this morning.
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You can do that on your own. But let me just caution you, don't feel compelled that you've got to fix everybody and that you've got to be the wet blanket on everybody's parade.
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I think many of us have served in that role. I think I have at times served that role. But let me be careful to say this, because you might say,
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Don, you're not saying God will always deliver His people right. I am saying that God will indeed faithfully, will indeed faithfully deliver
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His people. Faithfully deliver His people. He will deliver every single one of you from all infirmity.
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I said that right. He will deliver every single one of you from all of your enemies and from all of His enemies.
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He will deliver every single one of you in here who is in Christ from all sin, and He will remove us all away from all sorrow and all suffering and all who would oppose
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Him. Your destiny is a completed protection, an awesome and comprehensive protection that will be yours when
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Christ returns for His church. That is your destiny. That is your loving
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Father acting on your behalf. And if that's not enough for you, you're going,
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Well, what about my circumstances right now? What about where I live? Well, the beauty is that He's also very gracious to promise that even the hardships and difficulties that you will face in this world are light and momentary afflictions compared to the glory that awaits those who are
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His. He's working all things for the good, for those who love
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Him and are called according to His purposes. So let's all come to communion together to remember that Jesus was not shielded from the wrath of the
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Father so that we would have an eternal hope, so that we would be protected from the wrath of the
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Father. Let's remember that friendship with Christ, the first model, the first point, friendship with Christ gives us protection from our enemies.
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Let's remember that Jesus is the window through which our escape has been secured. And let's remember that the
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Spirit of God has worked a mighty and powerful victory, silencing our enemies and putting them to shame in Christ.
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Come to the tables in the back if you belong to Jesus Christ this morning and celebrate together the great deliverance that Jesus has given to you through His broken body and His shed blood.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank You so much that we have protection in You.
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And I know that our minds turn to all of the temporary mini -salvations that we long for in our day.
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There are things that we'd like to be delivered from today, next week, next month, next year. Father, You have given us the greatest victory of all.
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You have given us the greatest promise and pledge of deliverance that there is indeed something that goes far beyond this world, far beyond the things that we experience here in the day in and day out.
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That these are truly light and momentary afflictions compared to the glory, the incomprehensible glory that will be ours on that day of the return of Your Son.
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When our great King comes, a King better than Saul, a King better than David, a
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King better than any ruler of this world. Father, I pray that for everybody in this room who has pledged loyalty to Jesus Christ, the true and living
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King, and everyone who has been saved by His blood, Father, that we would come to these tables with joy, with thankfulness, with glad hearts that say,
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Wow, I don't deserve this, but You've done this for me. Father, give us hearts that rejoice in You this week, hearts that seek to honor