WWUTT 2355 Q&A Review of House of David, Biblical Accuracy, Israel Demands a King

What is the show House of David? Is it any good? Is it biblically accurate? When Israel demanded of Samuel that he give them a king, were their intentions godly? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast that we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Wisdom, Proverbs, and the Weekend Q&A Setup

Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. In Proverbs 8, beginning in verse 32, the voice of wisdom says, "'And now, O sons, listen to me. "'Blessed are those who keep my ways. "'Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.

"'Blessed is the one who listens to me, "'watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. "'For whoever finds me finds life "'and obtains favor from the Lord. "'But he who fails to find me injures himself.

"'All who hate me love death.'". Welcome to the Friday edition of When We Understand The Text, which is posting over the weekend and not on Friday. We take questions from the listeners, and you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com or send us a voicemail going to wwutt .com and click on that voicemail tab.

I am flying solo this week. Becky has had a migraine over the weekend. And the reason why this episode is posting late is also because I'm still kind of trying to catch up after my respiratory illness.

So I had to preserve my voice to be sure I was going to be able to preach on Sunday and then finish this program when I got done through all of that. So here we are. It may not be posting on Friday. It may hit the weekend, but we still want to respond to some of your questions here.

Evaluating House of David and Its Claim to Biblical Accuracy

And this first question actually has to do with something I've been asked over the last several weeks, and that is concerning the brand new show that just hit Amazon entitled House of David. It was weeks back, maybe even over a month ago, that a couple of people were emailing me the trailer of the show, the promotion for House of David, a show that is about the life of David from the Bible.

Now, I didn't get the chance to review it back then. Some of the episodes of the show have since been released. I think there's three that are out right now, and I've watched one and a half episodes of it.

So I'm going to give you kind of a brief review, even though all of the episodes of the season have not yet been released. I'd like to play the trailer and then kind of review some of the things that are said and shown in the trailer as it goes.

Unfortunately, Spotify and Facebook and YouTube and wherever else this podcast gets posted, they're really particular about the music that you use. And if I use music that's copyrighted, which most likely the music in this trailer is, I could get a copyright strike just for playing the trailer and the music that's in the trailer.

So I don't want to risk that. Therefore, I'm not going to play the trailer and review it, but I can give you what it is that I've watched so far in House of David. Now, this question, first of all, let me pull up a question and kind of lead from there.

This comes from Vitus, who says, hey, Pastor Gabe, this seems interesting. Sends me the trailer to House of David. What is your take? It seems like Pastor Greg Laurie had something to do with it. I kind of like Jesus revolution, and I hope this is better.

Grace and peace. Well, when I looked it up, Greg Laurie doesn't have anything to do with House of David directly in the sense that he's not a co-creator, not a producer, anything like that. But he has done a lot of promotion for it, and he's done some behind the scenes things, which Laurie does a lot of that.

And so there has been a big push from Laurie for this program, which he has called biblically accurate. I'm kind of skeptical about that, frankly, and I'll tell you why here in a moment. Also, I discovered that Indy Wilson had his hand in the project.

In case you're unfamiliar with Wilson, he is Doug Wilson's son, and Indy has produced a lot of content as far as like fiction novels and things like that. He's a great writer, very gifted writer. And apparently he was involved in the pitching stage of House of David, wrote some of the early drafts.

I think some of the things that he wrote was even used in the first episode and in the season finale, I believe he said. However, much of what he contributed has been cut out, and he's not been involved at all in the final project as we have it.

They still have him listed because they use some of his stuff that he presented in the very beginning. They still have him listed as an executive producer, which I happen to catch in the credits at the very end of the first episode.

But Wilson himself is not directly involved in the project as we see it, as it comes out on Amazon. Kind of interesting, some of the names that have been behind this particular show. But as I said, I don't really accept this as being biblically accurate.

From the very first scene, in fact, I will say, it was eye-rollingly bad. So what is the very first scene in this show, House of David, about the life of David, beginning with his fight with Goliath?

That, of course, is the most famous story concerning David. The second most famous, probably adultery with Bathsheba. Arguably, that might be the second most famous thing David was famous for. But with regard to his fight with Goliath, that's the way we start.

Not surprising at all, because that's the story everybody knows. Even if you're not a Christian, you know the story of the shepherd boy who fought the giant that was over nine feet tall. So they begin with that, with David coming out onto the battlefield, rushing Goliath, and he's pinned to the ground with Goliath's spear.

Yeah, I'm not kidding. That's what happens in the opening scene. David is also terrified of fighting Goliath. In the show, he's terrified. And in the trailer, if I could play the trailer, he says that to Macau, Saul's daughter, who says she believes in him.

It really has kind of a Disney-esque quality to it. But David says he's terrified of fighting this giant. Is that what we have in the Bible? Is that what scripture says to us about David's attitude regarding the fight he had with Goliath?

David's Confidence in God When Facing Goliath

No, as a matter of fact, he had no doubt whatsoever that he was going to put this giant down. When he came to visit his brothers and heard Goliath for the first time, taunt the people of Israel and blaspheme God, David said, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that defies the armies of the living God?

And nobody would go fight the champion Goliath. So David came and appeared before King Saul. And David said to Saul, I'm reading to you now from 1 Samuel 17, verse 32. Let no man's heart fail because of him.

Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine. David, maybe 16 or 17 years old, and he's gonna go out there and fight Goliath. He goes before King Saul and says, I'm gonna go fight him. Was David afraid?

He absolutely was not. He was 100 confident that he was going to kill this giant. And he said to Saul exactly how he was gonna do it and why he was so confident that he could do it. Saul said to David, you are not able to go against this Philistine and fight with him.

You are but a youth. And he has been a man of war from his youth. But David said to Saul, your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth.

And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears. And this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them for he has defied the armies of the living God.

And David said, the Lord delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear and will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. So why was it David was so confident? Because he knew God was going to give him the victory.

And then when David goes out on the battlefield, he jaws with Goliath. Well, first of all, you have the scene, of course, where Saul tries to put his armor on David. David can't wear the armor. It's too big.

It's too cumbersome. It's gonna hold him back. He won't even be able to be effective. He knows how he's gonna take out Goliath. He's a champion with a sling. He goes out to the field to watch his father's sheep.

And what does he do while he's out there? Practices with this sling. Plays a harp and sings and practices with his sling. In the book of Judges, it said of the Benjamite sling, the Benjamite slingsmen, that they could sling a stone at a hare and not miss.

You can go on YouTube, by the way, and watch people who have perfected this skill of slinging stones the same way that David did. And it is fantastic to watch. I watched one guy sling a stone through corrugated steel.

So even if Goliath had a helmet on, David's stone's gonna go through that helmet right into his head. That's how effective this stone slinging is. And David was an expert at it. Even at 17 years old, he knew he was gonna put this giant down.

He knew that God was gonna give him the victory, and he had the skills to kill and end this giant. He knew he was gonna do it. And without armor on. So he takes his shepherd's staff, he takes his sling, he goes down to the brook, and he grabs five stones.

Now, I've heard some people say, well, David grabbed five stones in case he missed. He's got a couple others in his bag. That might be the reason. I don't really think that's the reason, though. Because in Chronicles, it says that Goliath had four brothers.

So David is gonna kill Goliath with one stone and use the other four on his brothers should they decide they need to avenge their fallen brother Goliath right there on the battlefield. That was probably why David stuck five stones in his bag.

First stone, though, puts in the sling, puts it right through Goliath's head. He jaws with Goliath. A shepherd boy! How confident is David sitting out there? Was he terrified? He absolutely wasn't. And he stands out there and defies Goliath, who said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.

David said to the Philistine, this is 1 Samuel 17, verse 45, you come to me with a sword and a spear and with javelin, and I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head, and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, and all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand.

David can even out-taunt Goliath. And then of course, that's how we know the thing plays out. You have Goliath coming near to meet David. David runs quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine, puts his hand in his bag, takes out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead.

The stone sank into his forehead, it says in verse 49, and he fell on his face to the ground. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him.

There was no sword in the hand of David. Then David ran and took over the Philistine and took his sword, took Goliath's sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it.

And when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. That's the part of the story, by the way, that you didn't color in Sunday school, David holding up Goliath's head. I've seen coloring pages of it, but you probably didn't get one of those in Sunday school class.

But that's how David kills Goliath, kills him with a stone, cuts his head off. David was 100 confident that he was gonna do it because his confidence was not in himself, even though he had the skills to do it, most certainly, but his confidence was in God.

He knew the Lord was going to give Goliath into his hand. And I hated the trailer. I hated the House of David trailer where Mikal is asking, David, are you scared? And he says, I'm terrified. And then sure enough, very first scene at the start of this show is David running out on the battlefield to meet Goliath.

Goliath pins him to the ground with his spear. So stupid. And even my 13-year-old son is watching this with me and he just goes, why can't they follow what the Bible says? And I'm like, right? I mean, the story of David is fantastic.

And having a hero with confidence like that is not boring. You watch movies from the 90s with Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, they have way more courage in their characters than David does in this show.

It's not boring to have a character that has that much confidence that he can destroy his enemy. David has adversaries that he has to face that he has way more difficulty with, Saul being one of them.

So there's definitely drama there. It's not like David is Superman and he's always going to win every battle that he ever faces. There are many things that David lost. There are personal battles that he lost.

There is such compelling narrative and drama in the story of David. And so much material to use, in fact. You've got first and second Samuel, you have the Psalms, you have what's written in Chronicles as well.

There's so much written about David and a lot of drama, a lot of narrative, so much that you could use and draw from to fill up one season, fill up two, three seasons of a show. You could have this going for a while, still being able to take some creative liberties without diverting from what the Bible says.

But these show writers think the biblical narrative isn't good enough, so they've got to dress it up a little bit. And really the character of David that they present in this show is not the biblical David and is kind of a sniveling little brat.

I got to be honest, a lot of his brooding in the couple of episodes that I've seen, he's like lying on the ground, looking up into the stars and praying, show me what I was made for. Please tell me that I was made for more than this.

It's so Americanized in that way. David would not have been sitting out in the field tending his father's sheep thinking that. He cared for his father's sheep in service to his father and to the glory of the Lord.

Probably even wrote some Psalms while he was out there. And he kills this lion and this bear, like effortlessly, puts these animals down and says, God gave these animals into my hand. He's going to give Goliath into my hand as well.

David had no doubt in his mind. But the narrative that the show is making, I just don't care for it. And really I don't care for it because I know that the biblical story is way, way better. And as I said about the chosen, the reason why something like the chosen is so popular is because people just don't read their Bibles.

They don't hold the biblical narrative to reverence that they think it's actually okay for the creators of the chosen to rewrite Jesus the way that they do. It's okay for Jesus to tell Nicodemus that he doesn't have to bow to him.

It's okay for Jesus to tell Nicodemus, what does your heart tell you? These things are awful rewritings of scripture. I'm a lot more lenient on what is, the creative liberties that are taken with Old Testament stories, than what is written regarding the narrative of Jesus and his disciples and going to the cross and dying, rising again from the dead.

Those things I'm gonna take way more seriously because you're talking about the sinless son of God here. How are they portraying Jesus Christ, our savior? I think you can take a little bit more liberties with some of the Old Testament stuff and some of the extra narrative that they put in House of David is really not all that bad.

Some people say they like the show. And if you wanna watch it, that's fine, but promise me and promise yourself that you're gonna go to the Bible story and read it. Read that and be really familiar with that more so than you're familiar with some of these narratives that a show like Amazon or a network like Amazon creates.

They create it so that you'll pay for it. They do it for money. And so the show is gonna go through all of its test audiences and things like that. And they're gonna try to come up with something that they think is the most audience grabbing.

I'm telling you, the biblical narrative is way better. And people would love it if they would just stick with the biblical narrative, but that's not what they do. I have presented this before as a better way to approach this story.

I think I did this when I was teaching through 1 Samuel. This would have been several years ago now on this podcast. But I said, if you wanted to create a good narrative drama of David, you know how I would start this story?

Go to 1 Samuel 21. And you could start, you could do this with your first season of the show. If you're gonna have an eight episode first season, here's how you start it. Go to 1 Samuel 21, where David comes into the tabernacle that is being overseen by Ahimelech the priest.

And he is looking for a weapon. And Ahimelech tells him the only weapon that I have here is the sword of Goliath over there in the corner behind the ephod. And David goes over and takes up the sword of Goliath.

Do you realize the victories that David had in the rest of 1 Samuel after that, he did with Goliath's sword, the same sword that he used to cut off the giant's head, Ahimelech had it. So David goes over and he picks up the sword and he's looking at it.

And there you have the introduction to your show. And then it flashes back to Goliath coming out and taunting the armies of Israel. And David remembers when he faced the giant. You can have some of the extra narrative stuff in there about David facing a lion and a bear.

Of course, we don't have that in the narrative in the Bible, but David told Saul that he killed a lion and a bear. So show that, show adventures of him out in the field, tending sheep and having to kill a lion and a bear.

And doing it with confidence, not like the fearful brat that he is in the House of David show. That is a compelling heroic character that the viewer can absolutely relate to. He's a normal human boy. He doesn't have superpowers like Captain America or like Thor or a super armored suit like Iron Man.

He's just a young man. We can still be compelled by that character. And absolutely follow along with everything that he does and doing so to the praise and glory and honor of God. Show could have been much better.

And it's just not all it's cracked up to be. If you wanna watch it, like I said, fine, go ahead. But remember the Bible story. Go and actually read it for yourself. And if you love it and that narrative just, oh man, it just grips you.

Sometimes I will lay in bed and if I don't have anything in particular that I'm reading right now, like maybe I'm not reviewing sermon notes or the text that I'm gonna preach on on Sunday or something like that, I'll open up the Old Testament and I'll read the story of David again.

So go back and read it. It's fantastic. Read it with the family together. Make it part of your devotional night. This next question actually has something to do with this as well. This comes from Ryan.

Why Israel's Demand for a King Was Still a Rejection of God

And he says, dear Pastor Gabe, in 1 Samuel chapter eight, Israel asked that Samuel give them a king. Samuel tries to reason with them and tell them that they would be better off with God as their king.

And Israel is generally considered to have been wrong to have asked for a king. However, considering the circumstances they were in at the time when Samuel's corrupt sons were already acting as judges who would no doubt have become even worse after Samuel's death, was Israel at least somewhat correct to tell Samuel that the current plan was no good and they needed to do something different regarding human leaders?

I'm finding it hard to throw that much shade on Israel to ask for a king. Well, it's a great question, Ryan. Let's go back to Deuteronomy 17 because really it's here in the second giving of the law before the Israelites are gonna take the promised land that we have God giving Israel guidelines regarding their king, regarding a king that they will one day choose.

Now they went through several hundred years with judges before they eventually demand a king and get their first king in Saul who was of the tribe of Benjamin. But here is what God said in Deuteronomy 17 through Moses.

I'm starting in verse 14 here. When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me.

You may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers, you shall set his king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses since the Lord has said to you, you shall never return that way again.

And he shall not acquire many wives for himself lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book, a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priests.

And it shall be with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them. That his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers and that he may not turn aside from the commandment either to the right hand or to the left so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel.

Now, King Saul, who became the first king did not keep with that last part of what God said concerning this king, right? And we know even that Solomon, David's son did not keep with some of those early requirements.

Some of the requirements that were written like back up in verse 16, he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt. He shall not acquire many wives for himself. Well, we know that Solomon had over 700 wives and 300 concubines lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

And that happened with Solomon and his heart was divided and he went after his stuff and the gods of his wives instead of the Lord God. And Solomon was punished for that in that the kingdom was divided into the Northern and the Southern kingdom in the reign of his sons.

So this is really prophetically stated here in Deuteronomy 17 and then what you have in 1 Samuel chapter eight is the people of Israel demanding a king. And when they demand a king, God says to Samuel who was judge at that time, it's not you that they're rejecting, it's me.

So what this demonstrates, even though it was said of them in Deuteronomy 17, you will choose a king and here's what you must consider regarding that king. Even though it was stated that way in Deuteronomy 17, yet we understand that the heart of Israel in 1 Samuel eight was not for God.

It was actually against God. So God saying to Samuel, it's not you they've rejected,.

It's me.

This is to speak of the hearts of the Israelites that they did not really have a heart that was for God. Their intentions were not noble. It wasn't godly that they were desiring a king. It was selfish.

They were resisting a judge whom God had appointed. Yeah, Samuel's sons were bad, but it was still Samuel who had been appointed by God. And so when God says to Samuel, they're actually rejecting me, they're not rejecting you.

Again, that is a reflection of Israel's hearts. So you can't say that God was wrong to say such a thing about Israel, right? So therefore we should not see Israel's demand upon Samuel for a king as something that actually had godly, noble, even prudent intentions.

They were selfish. They desired to be like the kingdoms, the pagan kings that were around them. We want a guy like that, who's going to fight our wars for us, who is going to lead us, who is going to conquer for us and make us rich.

Let's appoint a king to be able to do that for us. Remember the judges were even appointed in Israel because the men of Israel were not doing what God had told them to do regarding how they were to cleanse the land and conquer their enemies and take over cities.

They were disobeying God. And they ended up becoming like the pagans that were around them, even though the law had warned them not to do such a thing. So this was not with pure of heart that Israel made this particular demand, though God was still merciful to Israel and gave them a man after his own heart, being David.

And through the line of David would eventually come a savior. So all of these things, both in God's sovereignty and in his providence, he had ordained and worked out to happen that would eventually be for our salvation.

For Christ would come through the line of David, die on the cross for our sins, rise again from the dead, and all who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. That's a narrative, by the way, I don't see coming into the show, House of David.

Thank you for listening to the program. If you wanna send in your questions, our email address is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. And once again, you can also send us a voicemail going to www .utt .com, click on that voicemail tab.

God bless. I hope to be able to do a longer program for you next week. Maybe my voice will be rested up and maybe Becky will join me again. We hope to hear from you soon.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word, when we understand the text.