1 Samuel 19, How Are You Saved?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

Samuel chapter 19, reading the entire chapter, hear the word of the Lord. And Saul spoke to Jonathan, his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill

David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David. And Jonathan told David, Saul, my father seeks to kill you.

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, 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 David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds have brought good to you.

For he took his life in his hand, and he struck down the Philistine. And the

Lord worked a great salvation for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing

David without cause? And Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan. Saul swore, As the

Lord lives, he shall not be put to death. And Jonathan called David. And Jonathan reported to him all these things.

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 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 a spear in his hand. And David was playing the liar.

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. Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning.

But McCall, David's wife, told him, If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.

So McCall let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped. McCall took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goat's hair on his head and covered it with the clothes.

And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, He is sick. Then Saul sent the messengers to see

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 his head.

Saul said to McCall, Why have you deceived me thus, and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?

And McCall answered Saul, He said to me, Let me go. Why should I kill you? Now David fled and escaped, and he came to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him.

And he and Samuel went and lived in Naoph. And it was told Saul, Behold, David is at Naoph in Ramah.

And 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

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. And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied.

That he himself went to Ramah and came to the great well that is in Sekou. And he asked,

Where are Samuel and David? And one said, Behold, they are at Naoph in Ramah. And he went there to Naoph in Ramah, and the

Spirit of God came upon him also. And as he went, he prophesied until he came to Naoph in Ramah.

And he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all that day and all that night.

Thus it is said, Is Saul also among the prophets? May the

Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. When the Puritans came to America, 1630, they came for, in their own words, a pure worship in ordinances without the mixture of human inventions.

And soon after John Cotton arrived at 1635, a revival broke out with many new people converted and coming into the church.

And in the midst of the revival, they started to ask new members to give a testimony of their experience of salvation.

Tell the congregation how you were saved before we vote on accepting you. That became their tradition, and then the tradition of the

Baptists who came from them. Usually these testimonies followed a similar pattern.

I was comfortable in my life of unbelief, or maybe I was indulging in some sin, maybe a false assurance of salvation.

And then I awoke to my sin, I became convicted, and I knew I needed to be saved.

And then someone like a friend or a family member or a preacher or a book shared the gospel, and I prayed sometimes fervently, sometimes desperately for salvation.

And finally, like the sun rising after a dark night, grace dawned, and I was saved.

For centuries after that, Congregationalists and Baptists expected testimonies of regeneration, of conversion, like that, to become a church member.

Now, you might think, well, if the Puritans were Calvinists, which they were, then don't they believe salvation is by grace?

That is, you didn't earn it by feeling sorry or agonizing in prayer or repenting or getting baptized.

Yes, they believe that. It was the gift of God to you, but God usually works through means.

Means are ways, or it's instruments. You all came here by means of a car. God can sometimes work directly without means.

God can meet Paul on the road to Damascus and say, why are you persecuting me? And now I have a mission for you, and you're mine.

He can do that, but usually God works through things, that is, through other people to bring you to repentance, and often through a process like those

Puritans described in their testimonies. Now, for me, it was two books in my high school library,

The Late Great Planet Earth and Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth, two books that I would criticize today, but they had the gospel in them, so God used them.

God works through means or instruments to achieve what he wants, especially to save whom he wants.

Now, I wonder, how were you saved? Anyone want to share your testimony right now?

Anyone here suddenly stopped by a blinding light and a vision and the voice told you that you're chosen for a mission?

Any testimonies like that? Probably not. Probably God sent someone, maybe a parent, a Sunday school teacher, a friend or a family in Huntsville, Alabama that you live with for the summer, something like that.

Anyone like that here? Or maybe a book, maybe the Bible itself, a sermon, a song, a magazine article, a video.

Maybe he used an event like a death in the family or the trauma of being alone or abandoned or just growing up.

A lot of people get saved around the late teenage years, early 20s, because when they're just kind of growing up and they realize, what kind of person do

I want to be? Is life really all about just chasing dollars? Is that it? I'm chasing thrills?

Is that it? I want more out of life than that. And often God uses that, works through those means to get people saved.

Now, some people look at the means God uses and think the means themselves did it.

The book saved him. The sermon saved him. Mama saved him.

The Sunday school teacher led the child to Christ. Baptism saved him. She saved herself, making the right decisions.

And so they get stuck on the means, that is the instrument. They think for someone to be saved, we have to have that invitation or we have to have that revival.

We have to have the sinner's prayer. Those things make salvation happen, they think.

Some people have an idea of salvation like factories. You put in the right ingredients, you go through the process, and out comes the salvation.

That's the way they think. All focus on the means. It's like going outside and asking, well, I don't feel like I'm moving.

Why is the sun moving across the sky? And thinking the sun is revolving around us, we're the center of the universe, confusing the cause with the effects.

Here, David needs saving. Now, sure, he literally needs saving from threats to his life, to his physical life, but that's a kind, even a type of salvation.

And David is the means through which our salvation comes. Our savior is, one of his titles, the son of David.

So if David dies here, if Saul's plots are successful here, we don't have a savior.

And so we won't be saved. So our eternal destiny depends on David being saved from the plots against his life in this chapter.

So not only does David need saving, our salvation needs saving.

And God does it through four ways. First, a friend, second, responses, then a relationship, and finally, the spirit.

Well, Saul has been spiraling downward, declining, getting more and more paranoid and deranged.

In chapter 18, he begins by just kind of thinking inside that he'd like to see

David killed in action. And so he sends him on dangerous missions. He thinks the

Philistines will get him sooner or later. Now, when that doesn't work, he has a specific plan. He offers his daughter,

Michal, if David will kill 100 Philistines. And Saul is thinking for certain, one of the hundred is going to get the better of David.

But it doesn't work. David kills 200 Philistines and is alive and well on planet Earth. Saul was trying to use means, that is the means of the

Philistines, to get David killed, but it wasn't working. Now, at some point, he even throws his spear at David, at least twice.

And somehow, that's not yet obvious that he's trying to kill him. You've got to kind of use your imagination. How does David not figure out that Saul is trying to kill him?

Maybe David thought that Saul was throwing his spear and it just fits, just throwing it wildly, and it just happened to be in David's direction.

Or maybe he thought Saul was doing some kind of target practice and accidentally throwing is where he happened to be standing, like a friendly fire incidents in modern wars.

Are some of those actually intentional killings, murders of our own soldiers disguised as accidents, fragging, they called it in Vietnam?

David believes him that Saul was not intentionally trying to kill him and is still eager to marry into Saul's family.

Remember that? Even after throwing the spear at him, David is still like, wow, what a privilege to be part of Saul's family. And he still wants to play the liar for him.

Now, in chapter 19, Saul's plots from the first verse become overt. He announces to Jonathan and his staff in verse one that they should kill

David. Now, it's policy. No depending on the Philistines, no more using means.

Now, direct action. But David is saved first by a friend.

Jonathan had made a covenant with David and here he keeps it. It wasn't just a meaningless vow.

I once had someone at another church come to me and say, he wants to be my friend. I want to be your friend. And I thought, great, we'll do it.

And when the testing came, when there was opposition, he just disappeared. Wasn't anywhere to be found. I haven't seen him since 2008.

Okay, I can do pretty well without friends like that. Jonathan was not like that. He kept his covenant. First, he warns

David and up until now, David has been naive about Saul. Jonathan warns him in verse two,

Saul, my father seeks to kill you. Now, to us, that's not news because we, in chapter 18, we're told what was going on in Saul's mind.

But to David, this is news. What? What are you talking about? He's my father -in -law. Sure, there's been a couple of friendly fire near misses, but it's just a mistake.

He was just going wild or whatever. Jonathan tells him, no, he seeks to kill you. Therefore, be on your guard in the morning.

Stay in a secret place. Go hide. Go hide yourself. And he says in verse three that he'll, David, I'll keep you informed about the threat.

If it wasn't for Jonathan's warning, David would have just shown up for work as usual the next day and been ambushed.

Then Jonathan intercedes with Saul for David. And in so doing, he appeals to the law and to the gospel.

In verses four and five, the law tells us what is sin. So that we're aware of sin.

We need to be made aware of our sin. The law does that. We often need the law to shatter our pride so that we see how we've offended

God and how we need to be made right. Now, testimonies of salvation usually tell how

God broke through our illusions of how good we are and showed us our sin.

And he does that with the law. Even for Paul on the road to Damascus, Christ first told him, why are you persecuting me?

That was his introduction. Jesus said, why are you persecuting me? Paul, actually called Saul at that time, had thought he was zealous for God's law.

He's doing God's work, he thought. And Jesus tells him, you're a persecutor of me, the

Lord. You're an enemy of the Lord. Well, that's the law. The law makes that clear.

The law reveals that. The gospel, the good news, tells us what God has done to rectify that.

The Lord works great salvation. That's the gospel. Here, first, Jonathan tells his father what is sin.

He spoke well of David in verse 4. Jonathan speaks respectfully to his own father. Let not the king, he's talking to his own father, let not the king, addressing him by his title, sin against his servant,

David. What you are planning is sin, he's telling him. Now, sure, as the king, you have the right to kill guilty people.

Understand that. Saul, as the king, has the right to kill some people, but there should be guilty people.

But he says, David is innocent blood. He tells him clearly, he has not,

David has not sinned against you. So to kill him would be without cause.

As Israel's king, Saul is supposed to be bound by the law, and David hasn't done anything contrary to the law to deserve death.

So he has no right to kill him. He may have the power, he doesn't have the right. Jonathan assures his father that it's his, that David's deeds have brought good to you.

You need to remember, like the thing with Goliath, that was good for you, and you rejoiced.

Now, most kings and rulers, emperors, presidents, dictators like to have effective military leaders defending their enemies.

The past, like, month or so, I've watched a lot of World War II documentaries. I learned that a lot of the

American generals in Europe disliked Patton, George Patton. But the reason

Patton was put in his position where he could have armies and do what he did was because the ones over him in Washington, like the

Secretary of Defense and the president himself, Roosevelt, they liked Patton. They liked Patton because he was effective.

He got the job done. Patton conquered the enemy, and that's what the leaders at the top, they wanted.

So that's usually what good leaders of governments like. They want their military leaders to be successful, and that's what you would think

Saul would like David. Well, look at this guy. He's out there conquering in my name. But that's not what's driving

Saul. He's too paranoid for that. He's thinking, well, maybe he'll use his popularity and his admiration to take power, although David's not thinking of that at all.

Jonathan tells him, reminds him, he took his life in his own hands. He risked his life. He endangered himself to go out against Goliath, and the result was a great victory.

The Lord worked great salvation for all Israel in the middle of verse 5. Now, notice

God did it. The Lord worked. Jonathan didn't say David worked great salvation for all

Israel because that's what you're looking at. If you look at that story of David and Goliath, you say, David did it, right? Jonathan says, no, the

Lord did it, but God worked through means, and David was the means. Now, some people today would have tried to tell

David, don't go out against Goliath. In fact, Saul tried that at first. When God wants to kill the giant, he'll do it himself.

When William Cary was planning on being the first Protestant missionary to India in the 1790s, he wrote a little book entitled

An Inquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the

Heathens. He was arguing that God called us to use means, like missions, or preaching, evangelism, or education, books in native languages, to bring the gospel to nations that didn't have it yet, like India.

The story goes that as he was presenting his case before a gathering of ministers in England, one of them, a supporter apparently,

John Ryland, supposedly said, young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without your aid or mine.

That's often simplified as when God wants to save the heathen, he'll do it himself. Now, in college

I was told that story, as if it were true, to make the point that if you believe in God's sovereignty and salvation, what we call

Calvinism, if you believe in that, then you'll believe what that man said.

When God wants to save the heathen, he'll do it himself. So you won't do anything. You'll give up on all the means.

The reality, first, is that was probably never said. There's actually no real evidence that that was said.

It's probably maybe something fabricated later. Or if it was said, it was probably said as a joke to mimic and to really to mock those who believe

God doesn't use means. And so, you know, something like, yeah, you mean like those who think when

God wants to save the heathen, he'll do it himself, something like that. And William Carey, the father of modern missions, believed in God's sovereignty.

He was Calvinist. God here saved David and so us through the means of Jonathan.

And God could have done it himself, couldn't he? I mean, God could have just struck Saul with lightning, be done with him, given him a heart attack.

But he worked through means. And his first means was David's friend, Jonathan. Jonathan intercedes for him, first uses the law, it'll be sin to kill innocent blood.

And then the gospel, God has worked great salvation through David. So now believe.

Saul responds to the intercession in verse 6 by swearing an oath. As the

Lord lives, and notice the Lord in your Bible is all capitalized. It means it's Yahweh, it's the name of the

Lord. He's using the name of the Lord to make a vow. So he's binding himself solemnly to keep his oath.

If he breaks this oath, he's broken the third commandment. He's used the name of the

Lord in vain. And Saul's oath in the name of the Lord is he, that's

David, shall not be put to death. Okay, his oath is binding, right? So assured,

Jonathan calls out to David. Remember he said, go hide out somewhere in the field. So he calls out, you come out, come out, wherever you are.

And David comes out. He reports that Saul has dropped his plot against David, that he's vowed in the name of the

Lord to not kill him. And then Jonathan, the peacemaker, brings David to his father

Saul. So David is restored in his position in the king's court. And so it looks like perfect reconciliation, peace, harmony, but God works through means.

And God's ultimate intention isn't just in sparing David. So David lives, that's not just it, but it's to make him king.

And to do that, God will have to get rid of Saul. God is taking the kingdom away from Saul and giving it to David so that the son of David can put all his enemies under his feet and save his people.

So second part, the response, starting in verse 8. To achieve the goal of enthroning

King David, God first used the means of the Philistines. Again, the

Philistines attack. David leads Israel's counter -attack and struck them with a great blow so that they fled before him, in verse 8.

Now once again, David has proven that he's an anointed one. He's a

Messiah, like the judges before. So Saul thinks, more than likely, what more can he have than the kingdom?

Like you thought in chapter 18, David's success is a means to make

Saul jealous again. And then a second means or instrument, a harmful or evil spirit from the

Lord came upon Saul in verse 9. Here the evil spirit is God's instrument to achieve what

God wants. Not even the evil spirits are outside God's control.

Notice that here. The evil spirit achieves what God wants to achieve.

David is playing the lyre again. He's applying music therapy just to soothe Saul, but Saul responds to the evil spirit's temptation by giving in to it, attempting to do the very thing he had just solemnly pledged not to do.

He pledges it in the name of the Lord, but that didn't stop him. He threw the spear at David, hoping to impale him against the wall.

David dodged it. That was his response. So his life and our salvation depended at that moment on David's quick response.

The spear stuck in the wall, that means it's thrown with enough force so that it sticks, and David realizes that those other attempts, those weren't just accidents before, that the rumors are true that Saul has been out to kill him.

And that just like Saul has broken other promises before, he's broken this promise, he's broken the vow not to kill

David, whether he made it in the name of the Lord or not, it didn't matter. He broke it. So David responds by fleeing and escaping.

How were you saved? You're saved through how you respond.

You hear God's law, that those who do these sins, who live like that, who don't believe in Jesus, that they are condemned, and you respond by repenting and believing.

Your responses save you. Now, they aren't the ultimate source of your salvation.

If God didn't first give you grace, if He didn't give you a new heart, if He didn't give you gifts of repentance and faith, you would never respond with repentance and faith.

If He didn't give you those gifts, He didn't give you grace, you'd hear God's word that if you do these things, whatever they are, if you don't repent of these sins, this hatred, sexual immorality, or lying, whatever it is, you'll be condemned.

And if you didn't have God's grace, you wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't repent. You would respond by continuing to be a hater, maybe violent, maybe abusive, or a racist.

You'd continue to be sexually immoral or lying. You might even still be religious and claim that you could continue in those sins because of free grace, or the priest will give you absolution.

And you just keep going. You keep sinning, get absolution, and you don't really believe the sin will destroy you.

But your responses to God's law by not obeying it show that you don't really have faith, not a living faith.

And so you don't really have grace. If God first gave you grace, that is a new heart, so you're born again, then you would hear the law that this sin against the

Lord, this is sin, and you would repent and you would believe. Maybe not perfectly repent all the time, but you would head in that direction.

Yes, it is God's grace that is the source of your salvation. But if you get that grace, you respond in certain ways, like repentance and faith.

God saves you through means. Your responses are a means of your salvation.

That's why Peter says in 1 Peter 3, verse 21, that baptism now saves you. It's an appeal to God for a good conscience, clean my conscience,

Father, since only believers can appeal to God, then baptism is only for believers. And he says, now baptism saves you because it didn't used to be that way to respond to God.

Then with John the Baptist and Jesus himself baptized, then the command to baptize disciples. Baptism is the way believers respond to being saved.

You get saved, you respond to that to that by baptism.

A few weeks ago right here for gym, I was telling the kids that believers are baptized and a polite like teenage girl.

She's very polite, nice. But she would ask you, what if I do everything Jesus says, but I don't get baptized?

Am I still saved? And I said, if you're not baptized, you haven't done everything Jesus said.

That's like, what does that mean? How do you do everything Jesus said, but disobey him? But she still didn't get it.

But what if you've done all of God's commands except baptism? And I responded, if you haven't been baptized, you haven't done

God's commands. What she meant was, I think, can I pick and choose?

Can I keep the commands I like and skip the others? But no, you can't.

If you're truly saved, you receive the grace of God, then you respond by seeking to obey everything he commands.

You don't want to always do that perfectly, but you will seek to. And he commands baptism, and that's really an easy one to obey.

You're saved through your responses. Now, they're not the source of your salvation.

They're just the means. But God works through means. The third means he works through is a relationship, starting in verse 11.

Never mind his vow not to kill David. Saul is now all in to get him.

And he sends a hit squad, messengers are called, the word could be translated maybe agents. What David calls fierce men in Psalm 59, which was written at this event.

That's the reason we sang it. Psalm 59 was written at this time. It says when men were waiting outside,

Saul's men were waiting to kill him. This week I googled, I wanted to look for songs that fits 1

Samuel 19. I googled songs for 1 Samuel 19. Nothing. It comes up. We have songs for 1

Samuel generally, but nothing for 1 Samuel 19. But the Bible has a song for 1

Samuel 19. This is Psalm 59. So we sang it. But anyway, the agents come to David's house to watch him, to catch him in the morning, and wait for him to come out and jump him.

But his wife, McCall, who was Saul's daughter, she knows about it for some reason.

We're not told exactly how, but you got to believe it has something to do with the fact that she's Saul's daughter.

She apparently has connections at her father's house, maybe through sisters or through friends among the servants.

And so she knows what's going on. And she knows that mysterious black van. What's that weird black van parked down the road?

She knows that it has a hit squad in it with their top agents, Jason Bournestyle with silenced pistols, ready to pounce once David comes out in the morning.

And so that means all that transpired before, and we saw last week in chapter 18, to get

McCall to be David's wife, all that, remember that? First it was

Merab, and then the trick to try to get McCall. All that was God's means to protect

David. It was all arranged by God. Think about it. If David had gotten

Saul's oldest daughter, like he was first promised, Saul has a habit of breaking promises, but anyway,

Merab, he had gotten her, maybe she doesn't have the connections. Or maybe she wouldn't really care about David because there's no hint that she's really in love with him.

So she wouldn't care. After all, it was an arranged marriage. So maybe she hears about it, but let him die. I'll get another husband once he's gone.

But McCall was in love with David. Remember that detail? McCall is in love with David. So she wants him alive.

And she tells him in verse 11, if you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.

And so she helped him climb down from the window and he flees again. Apparently they were in the second or higher floor. And then she took an image, a statue.

The word there can literally mean idol. We don't know whose idol it was though. And laid it in the bed. It's an idol that looks like a person with a goat's hair pillow at the top.

So it looks like hair sticking out and puts a sheet over it. And it looks like a person.

Looks like David is there asleep. Now in the morning, Saul's hit squad in the black van parked down the road is waiting for David to come out.

And after a while they get, they look at their watches and what's the deal? He's usually out by now. They wait a little while and finally get tired of waiting.

And then they come knock on the door. SBI, I guess, Saul's Bureau of Investigation.

Open up. And Mrs. David McCall answers the door, tells them, well, he's sick. In verse 14.

Now her status as a princess probably had something to do with the fact that they just took her word for it. And so they go back to Saul, however many miles down the road.

But then Saul hears this story. He's asleep or he's sick. He sends the back to David's house in verse 15 with the instruction, with the order, bring him up to me in the bed that I may kill him.

In other words, I don't care if he can't get out of bed. If you have to haul the whole bed here and then

I'll execute him. So the hit squad goes back again. We have a breaks in, storms of the house, yanks off the sheet and there's a statue with goat's hair at the head.

David is gone. McCall had lied to them.

Now, is McCall's lie moral? Is it right?

A lot of people want to discuss that to get to this. It's totally not the point of the story.

It's not the point. It's not a moral story on the rightness or wrongness of lying. The point of the story is that God used it, used her lie to save David from the time that she helped him climb down out the window to the time it took them, the man outside, to wait for David and finally get tired of waiting and then to knock on the door, ask to see

David the first time and then go back to Saul and for him, Saul to tell them to go back to the house, haul him here if you have to in his bed.

To the time it takes them to do that, David has been able to get far away. He's long gone.

McCall lied because she loved David and this was her relationship and she used,

God used that to ensure that David would live so that we can live.

And she then lies again in verse 17 when Saul asked her why she deceived them and she says, well,

David threatened her. Why should I kill you? That doesn't make any sense. He's not around to kill her. They're already there.

So whatever. She's not saving anyone at that point. She's just lying.

With that, we see that McCall is a liar. She's dishonest.

Now, why did God arrange to have Saul's dishonest daughter marry David? It's obvious, isn't it?

So she would do what comes naturally to her. She would lie and give David time to get away.

Now, maybe Merib was honest and if she would tell the truth and get David killed. God works through means, even through liars.

Finally, fourth, God works through the spirit. Starting in verse 19, David is able to take advantage of all

McCall's delaying the hit squad to escape to Samuel at Ramah, just north of Gibeah. We assume that where Saul was, where a lot of this happened.

David goes to the prophet of God. That says a lot about where his heart is, doesn't it?

He's in emergencies, he's being pursued and he goes to where he can hear God's word.

When desperate, he flees to where God is speaking, where he can hear the word of God. He tells

Samuel all this happening, how Saul has turned on him, is plotting to kill him. And so they move out to the suburbs of Ramah, called a place called

Naoth here. But Naoth just means tents or abodes in Ramah, the outlying residences.

And it's called Naoth of Ramah. So it's just like their suburbs. It's the houses outside the village.

And so they didn't go very far. Saul has his spies and they tell him in verse 19, Behold, David is in Naoth of Ramah.

And so Saul sends his agents there to go get him and drag him back so Saul can have him killed.

But in verse 20, when they see the gathering of Samuel's disciples, Samuel has his disciples, he's training to be prophets.

The company or the band of the prophets, they're filled with the spirit, they're prophesying, they're overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit and Samuel is standing at their head.

He's presiding over this gathering. These agents of Saul are overwhelmed too.

Spirit of God came upon them, it says, came upon the messengers or the agents of Saul, the hit squad. And they also prophesied.

Now what they prophesied, we don't know. We don't need to know. But that they lost control of themselves, that is what we need to know.

So they couldn't do the mission Saul sent them to do. The word gets back to Saul. So he sends another squad.

They too are overwhelmed by the spirit and get caught away prophesying. Then the third time in verse 21, and the same thing happens.

And then Saul concludes, well, if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. And so in verse 22, he goes to Ramah, gets to the great well in the town and asks the people where Samuel and David are.

Where are they? And they tell him, Naoth, in the suburbs, the outskirts. You wonder why all these details suddenly about Saul when he's looking for them.

This is to slow down the story, to build suspense. What's going to happen to the king when he finally gets to Samuel and David, to the king?

Well, he finally goes out there. This time with all these details slowing down. And then verse 23, the spirit of God came upon him also.

And as he went, even before he's actually there, it just begins before he arrives.

And he prophesied until he came to Naoth and Ramah. He too was overwhelmed. He eventually loses control of himself.

And so he's unable to do anything to David, even though David is apparently right there. And in his ecstasy,

Saul stripped off his clothes. He lay naked all that day through the night, prophesying, disabled, humiliated by God's spirit.

So the people say about him now, like they said about him at the very first in chapter 10, when he was first privately anointed by Samuel, is

Saul also among the prophets? Now the first time it was, that was said, it was amazement that this obscure young man from Benjamin was now a prophet.

And now it's derision. The king is humiliated.

Can you imagine? He's supposed to be a king. He's supposed to be regal. Look how he's behaving, sprawled out of the ground, stripped out of control of his faculties.

And so his kingship, as far as God is concerned, closes. The same way it began with this bewildered question.

Is Saul also among the prophets? Saul being overwhelmed by the spirit begins and ends his proper kingship.

These two incidents of him being overtaken by the spirit serve as sort of the bookends of his reign.

They frame his reign. Oh, he'll be the official king for a while longer. But by God's decree, the kingdom has been stripped from him, just like his clothes.

In the end here, God stops using means and protects David directly.

The spirit, who is God, may use means. He may intercede through a friend, use your responses, work through a relationship, speak to people.

But the spirit can also act directly, overwhelmingly, irresistibly, drawing.

Like Jesus said, the spirit, in the same words he used for wind, the spirit blows where he wills.

You can no more control the spirit than you can control the wind. That's what he does here.

Saul is intent, he's obsessed with killing David, his vow not withstanding. And yet, when

Saul comes to David, with Samuel stationed at the head of the prophets, David is seemingly right in his grasp.

And the spirit acts directly, overcoming him so that he can't act.

And all he can do is strip himself of his clothes and God has stripped him of his kingdom.

David is saved one more time and so is our salvation. And this time, he's saved.

And we're saved by the Holy Spirit acting directly.

Yes, it's true. When God wants to save us even, he'll do it himself.

And he'll act through means. Thank God for the means of salvation, for the mother or the friend or the church or the book that told you the gospel that God used to save you.

But don't be so focused on the means that you lose sight of the source.

The Holy Spirit is the source of our salvation. He softens our hearts.

He gives us new, warm, tender, believing hearts in place of those old, cold, dead stones we had in us.

He convicts us, convinces us of our sins so we're no longer fooled by our self -righteousness, of his righteousness so we see how far we've fallen, and of his coming judgment so we tremble.

He gives us grace so now we have the ability to do what we could not do before, the ability to repent and believe.

So we have the ability to respond in a way we couldn't respond before. He's the source.

He often works through means. But when God wants to save us heathens, he does it himself through whatever means.

And directly through grace, the Spirit blows where he wills.