The Regime is Fragile

So I've titled this sermon, The Regime is Fragile, because what we primarily see in chapter 19 is the state, or the king, and his rule unraveling.

And the reason it unravels is because of sin. And I think, as I was studying this week, what

I was trying to do with this text was to not look at it dispassionately as a scholar, but to try to think about what's going on with these characters, and what was their life really like?

And I think that's not hard for us, because if you were a run -of -the -mill Israelite in this time, you didn't even, at this point, know what's going on.

You had a king, he's got a great general who goes out and he's licking the enemies all the time, he's bringing back prizes to the king that we learned last week, and over and over again.

So the Israelites have to be thinking, like, things are pretty good here. And it's the tendency of man to look at the state and to think, it's never going to change, this is the ultimate expression of human power, and what we have is what we have.

But what we need to know from this text is that when kings, princes, presidents, parliaments, dictators, any other expression of the state, when they align themselves against God, their rule is on a timer.

There is only one way out for wicked rulers in a wicked estate, and that's given to us in 2

Chronicles 32. This is King Hezekiah, picking it up in verse 24, it says,

In those days Hezekiah became sick to the point of death. And he prayed to Yahweh, and Yahweh spoke to him and gave him a miraculous sign.

But Hezekiah gave no return for the benefit he received, because his heart was proud.

Therefore wrath came on him and on Judah and Jerusalem. However, Hezekiah humbled the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of Yahweh did not come on them in the days of Hezekiah.

So what we're going to look at today is the increasing weakening and fragility of the reign of Saul that increases because of his own deeds and because of the wickedness and stupidity and madness of his own sin.

And it seems always like the way out is so close, all you have to do is repent.

That's what Hezekiah did. All he had to do was humble himself. It was the pride of his heart that saw the miraculous sign of God, and he gave no benefit to his people.

But he humbled himself, and so his reign was saved, and the people prospered. But I think it gets to us, and before I even get into the text, this is dangerous for me, but before we even get into the text,

I think that we often misunderstand the very nature of repentance. And we think to ourselves that repentance is something that we conjure up in our own brain and with our own willpower.

And I think what we're going to see from this text over and over again is that the reason Saul does not repent is because he cannot repent.

Because what's happened is, two times the word of God has come and said, I have taken your kingdom away,

Saul, and I have taken your dynasty away. And so what we're seeing is the unraveling of Saul's kingdom as it was decreed by God, and repentance is not near to Saul because it's not in God's purposes for Saul to repent.

And so I want you, before we get started, and just pastorally to think, that every time that you've repented in your life, have you thought of that as being a gift from God?

Because it is. The human heart is wicked and does not desire repentance.

But when the Holy Spirit regenerates our heart and He gives us the gift of repentance, we should not only repent of our sins, we should praise

God that He's illuminated those sins, brought us conviction, and brought us repentance.

It's all because of God. And it's all because of His mercy on a people. All right, so there we go.

Into the text. Where we start, we pick up where we left off last week, and Saul is now growing in his plans.

If you'll remember last week, he was trying to murder David, and he was doing it through scheming.

And unfortunately, we would see that scheming come about in David's kingdom later, really almost the same kind, where throw him into this hot military battle and hope that he dies on the battlefield.

So then Saul would be absolved of any guilt in killing this great champion, and he also throws a spear twice.

And now we see that it's starting to get more bold. And this is what sinful regimes do, is that the sin and the wickedness gets more out in the open, not less, as time goes on.

And the fragility is that their wicked schemes and their wicked plans start to become more bold and more obvious, so that all it takes is somebody out to go, oh, yeah, the emperor's got no clothes.

And so Saul winds up here, and he's using what little bit of secrecy he has left at the start of this chapter, and he's talking to the prince, and he has to think, we've got self -interest in this together.

This is your throne, Jonathan, so let's do this. What's David going to have? They're singing songs about him.

Remember, what does he have left but to take the kingdom? That's what Saul is thinking of David.

And so Saul brings the plan about, and he tells Jonathan and all of the servants that they need to go execute

David. What Saul doesn't understand is that Jonathan already has divided loyalty, and it doesn't have to be divided, and that's the madness of the sin.

This loyalty is divided because of Saul's sin, because Jonathan and David should have shown the greatness of Saul's kingdom.

What kind of king has two men like this as his commanders and as his prince -in -waiting?

What a joy it would be for Israel if Saul was a righteous king, and if Jonathan was to ascend to that throne, the righteous man that he is, and have a best friend like David.

But that's not to be, because Saul is a king that looks like the people. He's a king that the people asked for. And so over and over again, he's going to do this, and I think right away we start to navigate a type of ethical tension that today in Christianity we have a very difficult time navigating.

And that is, Jonathan is going to go about, and he's going to be put between a rock and a hard place. Do I obey my dad, or do

I not murder? Do I obey my dad, or do I not murder? And he would say, no, that's not murder, that's execution.

Does the state not have the sword? Can the king not appoint someone to death? And Jonathan doesn't see it this way.

And so at this point, what Jonathan's going to do is we're going to see escalating family tension in this chapter. And so what

Jonathan does is he goes to his father, and he really, in many ways, he acts like Christ.

But before we get there, I want to look at the law of God never sets itself against itself.

It always goes down to an objective standard. And so, yes, the king does have the sword, but the king does not get to use the sword unjustly.

He doesn't get to murder his enemies just because he's the king. And so Jonathan sees right through it.

And if you look at the discourse that we just read before we started here, the discourse is this. Jonathan appeals to the objectivity of the law.

What he does is he says, dad, you don't want to sin against your servant

David, who's only brought you good things. You don't want to sin by taking his innocent blood, which is an appeal back to Genesis 9.

Right? The appeal is that when innocent blood is shed, that God's going to demand blood.

Jonathan is making appeal that if you go through with this, then it's going to be your blood that's required by God. And so Jonathan is not, it's not against honor your father and mother or interpose.

What Jonathan is doing is he is honoring his father by telling him the truth and by doing it in such a way that he appeals to the objectivity of the law.

That's what he's doing here. And he acts as a peacemaker. And also we're going to see that this is another aspect of interposition in this chapter.

So what Jonathan is, is he is a lesser magistrate. He is underneath the King. He does not have the King's authority, but what he does is he hears an unrighteous decree from the

King. And so he steps up to the King and he says, you can't do this. This is not right.

We need those kinds of people. Every kingdom needs those kinds of people because man is fallen.

And every time that a ruler gets into place, if he does not have people that will have the courage to stand up, then we're going to make bad decrees.

Magistrates are going to do sinful things. And so Jonathan bravely interposes. And we see it in verses four through six where he appeals back.

He says, and he uses Saul's own words against him in this discourse. Note it in verse five.

Look at it real quick. It says, Yahweh brought about a great salvation for all Israel. That's what

Saul said in the Nahash incident in chapter 11. In chapter 11 verse 13,

Saul said, today God has brought about a great salvation in Israel. And what was the context that Saul was saying that?

I hope you remember. The context was that there was a bunch of people when Saul was appointed, initiated, they were like, nah,

Saul, we don't want him. And when he defeats Nahash, the people say, who are those people that didn't want

Saul? Let's go bring them out here so that we can kill them. So Jonathan is using the exact same situation where he's trying to interpose and save someone's life by using

Saul's own words against him. And what Saul is going to do here is double, double, double down.

Because what he's going to do is he's actually going to increase his condemnation so much in this chapter.

Because it seems like he listens to Jonathan, right? In fact, there's really no way that he can not listen to it.

Jonathan makes an airtight case. Hey, dad, what has David brought you except peace and victory?

Was David heralding his ascension to the throne when he took out Goliath? No. He was the boy who went out for you.

He was bringing victory to Israel. You are the king of Israel. Whatever David is doing that's great lifts you up.

You're the king. Are you going to sin against God by taking this man out? That's not going to be good.

And so Saul, Saul swears an oath.

He swears an oath. As Yahweh lives, he shall not be put to death.

And he fools Jonathan for a time. Because it is very difficult when somebody looks you straight in the eye and lies to you.

This is why lying is so caustic for relationships is because when a person looks you in the eye and lies to you, you get put on your back foot and you think there's no way that they would say something so outrageous.

There's no way that they would lie that way. And it starts to destroy relationships because once the lie gets found out, you can't believe anything they say and you know that they would say anything.

So in this case, that's what Saul has done. He has set a trap for himself that he's going to fall into time and time again.

Saul showed mercy before to his naysayers, but he shows no mercy to his champion.

And that is the unraveling of a kingdom. Because what Saul is going to do is, he is so insecure and he's so jealous for power that what he's going to do is try to destroy anyone who he looks at as a threat for that.

Because what Saul fundamentally thinks is Saul thinks that he got the kingship on his own merits.

He's forgotten how he got there. And so he looks to himself as the solution to his own problems.

And his counterpart is going to look to God as the author of everything that's going to be.

And so as we transition here into the next section, we see that lies make regimes fragile.

Saul's kingdom is going to fall apart because of his lies. If he had just told Jonathan the truth, and it should have been the case, even if Saul was wavering, right?

Even if Saul was wavering and he still wanted to kill David, when he swears an oath to Yahweh, that should have been the end of the deal.

Well, I can't do anything about it now. So I guess we're just going to have to see this play out.

If Saul had done that, his kingdom would have been a lot better. But the problem is, what we have to understand is that God is appointing all circumstances for his glory and to accomplish his purposes.

And so while God does not make Saul lie, Saul's lying is used by God to bring about the very thing that God had decreed.

So let's look at how this starts to happen. It always happens with some pressure, right? So what Saul does is he gives an oath, and it seems like the situation's resolved, right?

Everybody goes home. It's good. Saul, Jonathan tells David, hey, he's sworn an oath.

This is not going to happen. It's okay. Go play the harp again. It's going to be great. It'll be fine. Then there was a war again.

Oh, you can see the excuses brewing, can't you? There was a war again, verse 8. And David went out and fought with the

Philistines and struck them with a great slaughter so that they fled before him. Now there was an evil spirit from Yahweh on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand, and David was playing the harp with his hand.

And Saul tried to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away out of Saul's so that he struck the spear into the wall, and David fled and escaped that night.

So now Saul's plan is not going to be able to be kept within closed doors for very long because word of this is surely going to get back to Jonathan at some point.

And what Saul has done is he has just become an oath breaker. So he's an attempted murderer.

He is a man of, what was it in chapter 15? He's a man of divination.

And what happens is, is really what we don't see, I think, from our perspective, is that God is giving

Saul everything he wants. Saul wants to have power, and so he's got his spear with him, and Saul is going to be sent an evil spirit from Yahweh.

This is an astounding thing when you think about it. Look at it. An evil spirit from Yahweh. So God sent a demon to go on to Saul and to turn him into a raving lunatic again and to throw the spear.

And Saul really seems like he could have a plausible argument. The devil made me do it. The devil made me do it.

But no, because what Saul has done is through his insubordination and through his disobedience, he has opened the door wide open to be controlled by any evil spirit that comes because Saul wants this.

And we're going to see it as 1 Samuel plays out, that Saul starts to seek evil spirits. He wants to be talked to by someone supernatural because what's happened is

God has closed his ears to Saul. He's not listening to him anymore. And for us,

I think there's a big reminder here that we think oftentimes that we battle against flesh and blood. We see wicked magistrates,

Jonathan and David see the king Saul, and they see, man, he's got this spear. He keeps trying to spear me with it.

He said, Jonathan told me it was safe. He had sworn an oath. What's going on here? And I think that what we can often forget is that magistrates are the domain of principalities and authorities.

The war is being played out in the state by demons and angels.

We know this explicitly. Hebrews 6, or sorry, Ephesians 6, 12 says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

So if you are Satan and you want to destroy the people of God and you want to lie and deceive and to cause as much carnage as possible, what you do is you attack the biggest targets.

You attack the most strategic targets. And so that's where when we say the devil made me do it, the devil's probably not too worried about you.

He's worried about bigger targets where he can kill more people. So when we look around and we see that here's

Saul, it was probably a chieftain of the evil spirits that comes on Saul because Saul is a king and he has the power to wreck a lot of people and to cause a lot of destruction.

And so we're going to see under the surface here in this chapter, we see nods to the spiritual battle going on.

And the first marker there is to look what happens when the enemy gets involved.

The first thing that we see is a lie. The first thing the enemy does is he deceives and he lies.

And so Saul breaks his oath. But the second thing that's right behind it is we see that the enemy wants to murder.

He's full of malice. Jesus says that he was a murderer from the beginning. So when we see lying, wrathful, insane, murderous, vile magistrates, we have to remember that this is a war that's playing out in the spiritual domain.

And not only is God aware, but he's ordaining it for his purposes. God is the

God of kings and kingdoms. And God uses kings and kingdoms to accomplish his purposes for mercy, for justice, but also for judgment and condemnation.

And so when we're told in the New Testament to pray for our leaders, that means very literally that we are to pray for the spiritual activities that are going on, but we also should not become ethereal pietists where we think that the whole battle is being fought in the spiritual realm.

The majority, the main thrust of the battle is being played out in the spiritual realm, but it uses means, and the means that it uses are wicked men.

And so, yes, in a very real sense, Saul is David's enemy, and we're going to see that play out through the rest of the book.

Saul, the man flesh and blood, is David's enemy. But also, there is a spiritual battle going on that has set itself up against God, and both of these things are true.

And when I say that Christians, we have to start threading these needles, God never puts his law against itself, and God often puts us in situations where we have to understand that we do have enemies.

You remember the great command, right? Jesus said that we are to love our enemies as ourself.

But in modern Christianity, we think we don't even have any enemies, because we have to love everyone.

See, notice what it says, love your enemy as yourself. That indicates the existence of an enemy.

And I don't think we're talking about Satan and demons there. We're talking about people. People have enemies.

How do you love your enemy? By treating them exactly how Jonathan treated his dad, is you direct them to God's standards, we pray for them, and we stand against the wickedness.

The best thing that we can do to love our enemy is to stand against their wickedness. The best thing that we can do to love our neighbor is to stand against wickedness, and to teach them what

God says. I know this is a difficult thing. There might be brains rattled right now. We have enemies?

I thought we're supposed to love everyone. Yeah, love is by following God's law. That's how it works out.

Read Romans 13 if you need a reference on that. I don't have time to get into that right now. All right, so now we see

Jonathan, he's going to go off the scene. And I think, you know, Bart and I were talking about this last night. I think what happens is, is that Jonathan is a man of action.

And so Jonathan comes in, and he has this conversation with his dad, and he hears the oath, and he says, okay, this is good.

Now I'm going to go out and advance the kingdom wherever I am at, because that's what Jonathan's doing, right? He's not sitting around in the palace.

He's going out advancing the kingdom. And so he disappears from the story. And I don't think, he doesn't know what happens in this next part, because we'll see that next week.

But now it's not going to, it's not going to end there. And now we have a girl who gets brought into the mix.

I guess I'll just say Michael. It sounds cooler maybe to say Michal. I'll say,

I'll say Michael. I'll stick with that. Remember here, remember, Michael shouldn't even be in this story, because that's another lie, right?

David should not be married to Michael. He should have been married to Saul's oldest. But Saul reneged on that deal and brings

Michael into the picture. And as Bart said, Michael has a picture of David on the wall. She's, she's like the fan.

She's been looking at him for years now, just loving him, like, oh, I can't wait. It's hero worship kind of stuff.

And so Michael comes on the scene and we're going to see even more turmoil. Let's pick it up. And I'm going to read this in full. We're going to,

I've called this section the loss of dynasty in action. And there's a lot here. Then Saul sent in messengers to David's house to keep watch over him in order to put him to death in the morning.

But Michael, David's wife, told him saying, if you do not make an escape for your life tonight, tomorrow you will be put to death.

That's treason. So Michael let David down through a window and he went out and fled and escaped.

Then Michael took the household idol and laid it on the bed and put a quilt of goat's hair at its head and covered it with clothes.

What? Then Saul sent messengers to take David, but she said, he is sick. So Saul sent messengers to see

David saying, bring him up to me on this bed that I may put him to death. The messengers came and behold, the household idol was on the bed with the quilt of goat's hair at its head.

So Saul said to Michael, why have you deceived me like this and let me, I almost can't get through it without, why did you deceive me,

Michael? Why would you tell me lies? I wonder. And Michael said to Saul, he said to me, let me go.

Why should I put you to death? Oh man, what a messed up family. So Saul is widening the net now and he's brought

David's wife into it and he's spying out his son -in -law's house like a big creepy weirdo.

All right. And he's got his messengers out there looking around and he's waiting to in the morning to go like a man and send his boys out there to kill

David in the morning, right? When he's not paying any attention. And so now understand we're living in the real world here, right?

We know from previous chapters that all of Saul's servants, they held David in great esteem.

And so there's a lot of turmoil going on here. Saul sent this order out, go kill David. And these executioners, these servants have got to be going, why?

All he's doing is killing Philistines. That's all David's done for like two chapters now. Played harp, killed

Philistines. That's what he's doing. Okay. And the executioner, these servants are like, why is this a bad place?

What's going on here? What's happening? And so now this madness is becoming more public.

And then there's a theme in this story and you don't want to miss it. It started as a curiosity and then it became kind of an obsession with me this week.

There's this note here. There is a household idol. There's a household idol.

So the obvious question is, why does David have an idol in his house? Well let's take a step back and let's talk about why we're here.

So Saul has started this thing in motion, right? He's tried to murder. He's lied.

Everything that David does is good for his kingdom and it's not good for Saul. And Saul is going to try to murder him.

And he's brought his son and now his daughter into it. And both of them have interposed on David's behalf, albeit in very different ways.

Okay. Notice what Jonathan did was went right at the problem and went and brought the law to bear.

And what Michael does is sneaks around and lies and brings an idol into it, although I'm not going to be harsh about the lying.

Well, I'll be harsh about the last lie because she tries to save her own worthless skin by saying David said he was going to kill her if he didn't let him out, if she didn't let him out.

And I think we read these and we think, oh man, how could they do that? And I just ask you, what if you were in this situation and the king with his executioners is beating on your door and says, hey,

I need David. He's wanted for high treason and we're going to execute him. And you know that if you stand between that and David, you're probably going down too.

So there's a lot of calculation going on in here. There's a lot of difficulty. And so what we have to understand is from the very start of 1

Samuel, the amazing thing that Barnab knows time and time again is the author is doing stuff under the surface and he's doing it with words.

And this word idol here, man, it's interesting. So let's get back to that. Why does David have an idol in his house?

So I'm going to do this lightly, but as I do, I'm going to do it very firmly. Okay. Look, I don't know this for sure, but I'm going to act like I do.

Okay. Most, most definitely here. So I'm almost certain that David did not know about the idol and there's three reasons why.

Reason number one, the story, this story is put in here. It mirrors the story in Genesis 31.

This is where Rachel steals her father's household idols and brings them out.

If you remember, Laban's mad at Jacob because, because Jacob basically stole all his flock.

Okay. With like this weird breeding thing with speckled lambs and black goats and all this kind of thing.

And he goes out and Laban comes out and he's like, I'm going to get you Jacob and you stole my household idols.

You creep. What's wrong with you? And Jacob's like, I didn't steal anything from you. Every one of these sheep is speckled.

We made a deal, Laban, you know, you play to win the game. Right. And so Laban goes out there and he's like, well,

I'm going to search him. I'm going to search everything. And Laban does. He searches everything and he does not find the household idols.

There's one place they don't search and that's underneath the steed that Rachel is riding.

The household idols are underneath Rachel's clothing and Rachel says, you can't search there.

It's my time of the month. So the idols are not found. And Jacob gets hopping mad at Laban and says, get out of here.

I didn't steal anything. What are you going to do now? And Laban's like, no, okay, I'm out. And they leave. So I think this is here as a callback to where even deceitful, wicked things.

There was no reason for Rachel to take the household idols, right? That was a wicked thing to do.

And yet God delivers straight legs with crooked sticks and he saves Jacob from a dust up there.

Now, second reason, and I think this is the weakest reason, but it's still curious. It seems that the inclusion here is that David trusts in God.

We're going to see where David goes next. David goes to the man of God. But what the house of Saul does, which is personified in Michael, Michael trusts in this word, and it's important for us, this word is teraphim.

That's what is translated household idol. Michael trusts in the teraphim. David is safely gone before the idol even comes into the story, right?

The idol is here not for David's safety, but for Michael's safety. David's already gone. Now the third reason, this was going to take some time.

It's tougher, but it's more convincing. All right, so a little Hebrew nerd stuff here.

All right, I was so excited when I found this out. I don't know how to package it. So here we go.

The word teraphim, translated household idol, it's like an anthropomorphic idol. It looks like a human, okay?

And this one's obviously a big one because it's going into the bed like Lord of the Rings style. So when the

Nazgul come in the village of Bree and they see the wool mats with all the stuff underneath and they stab the beds, no, the hobbits aren't there.

Helps to be able to see Nazgul, all right? But in this case, this is like the weakest ruse ever, right?

Because if Saul really wants to kill David, what's this going to fool him for like three seconds? This is going to be like knocking something down in the doorway.

They just jump right over it, right? So they go in there and like, yeah, that's not a person. That's an idol, right? And Saul's like, why'd you do this?

This is dumb. Why did you do this? Well, I think there's, first of all, Michael is pretty dumb, okay?

But second of all, this word put here, it's really important because it's used 15 times in the Old Testament and every single time it's used except one, it means just what it is in our story here, which is a physical idol, right?

A physical idol. There is one time where it's not talking about that.

And that one time is in 1 Samuel 15 verse 23. You'll remember, it's the most famous part of that passage.

For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as wickedness and idolatry.

That word idolatry is teraphim. So what is going on with Saul?

Your insubordination is like a teraphim. Why did the author use that word when he's talking about the judgment of Saul?

There has to be a reason. And here's, I think, the reason, and let's bring it home to bear. Michael is the same sort of idolater as her father.

It doesn't fall far from the tree. He is demented. He's holding a spear in the safest place in Israel.

You understand, there will be no attack on Saul in his palace of Gibeah. There's nowhere safer from him.

And he's sitting there listening to music, holding a spear like a lunatic. Why is he doing that?

It's only the closest people to him in there, right? And his rebellion, his rebellion, and his trust in his own strength more than once has opened the door for in -your -face idolatry.

And that's what we get here. Notice in chapter 15, what Samuel is doing is he's talking about the future.

Your rebellion here is like divination. Your wickedness is like idolatry.

And Saul could have very easily said, I'm not worth being idols. That hasn't come into the story, but now we know it has.

Where did Michael learn this? Where did this come from? I think that what's going on here is that there is a pattern of idolatry.

And what's happened is what started with rebellion and wickedness has transferred into full -blown demon worshiping.

That's what Saul's doing. You ask the demons to come, and they're coming. They want there, right?

And so he has opened the door, and Michael loved David, quotations, just like Saul did in chapter 16.

Remember, it says that Saul greatly loved David. But ultimately, she will share in the curse of Saul, not because of Saul's sins, but because of her own sins.

See, she throws David under the bus in verse 17 that we just read. Does she not? She says, in the hearing of all the servants, she says, he told me that he would kill me if I didn't let him go.

All of Saul's servants now hear this, right? So what did David say? According to Michael, David threatened to kill his own wife to save his own skin, right?

And now there's a little bit of doubt within the courts. David, the great man killing Philistines, is also violent in the home, right?

That's not very good. And this lie does damage, right?

But also, we see that her love is very fleeting. Her love is the Greek Eros kind of love.

It's very romantic. She was fangirl and she was crushing on him. Remember, he was ruddy and beautiful in appearance, was he not?

And he's killed all the Philistines. So he's like, he's the number one guy. He's trending everywhere, right?

Everybody loves him. They're singing songs about him. But then in 2 Samuel 6, 21, when he comes to power, it says, so David said to Michael, it was before Yahweh who chose me above your father and above all his house to appoint me ruler over all the people of Yahweh over Israel.

Therefore, I will celebrate before Yahweh. And I will be esteemed even more lightly than this and will be humble in my own eyes.

But with the maids of whom you have spoken, with them I will be glorified. And Michael, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death.

God's promise to Saul was true. And God said to Saul that his dynasty would be over, that his kingdom was over.

And so his daughter, Michael, is barren and she has no children. And this all comes about because Michael sees

David dancing to the Lord and she despises him in her heart. Because that love was fleeting, because Michael is wicked.

Dynasty lost, wickedness abounds, and now Saul has lost his own family, right?

His daughter stood in between, and so now we get to the last part. And we get a repeat of a derisive question.

Does Saul now prophesy? But this one's really ugly, a lot uglier than before, okay?

So David escapes. It's kind of like Moses. It's kind of like in Jericho with the spies getting out.

There's all these allusions all over the place to things that have happened in Israel's past. And so David gets out of there and he runs straight to Samuel.

So what is David doing? He's running towards the Lord. Because what do we remember about Samuel?

Samuel is remembered for not one word of his dropping to the ground. Samuel has the word of God. And David goes to the word of God for safety.

And he would write numerous times, the Lord is his rock and his fortress.

He finds his shelter under the wings of the Lord. And so David instinctually almost goes to Samuel.

What does Saul do? Well, Saul comes to Samuel in order to step aside the decree of God by seeking to murder, clearly satanic, clearly.

Let's pick it up in verse 20. Saul sent messengers to take David. But they saw the company of the prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing and presiding over them.

And the spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. This was told to Saul, and he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied.

So Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied. What is going on here?

Well, thanks, Bart, to this. Thank you, Bart. He sent me my second piece of Hebrew nerd stuff, okay?

So there's a nuance in this word prophecy that's going on here. And the nuance is this.

There's only one mention. Prophecy in verse 20, when it says that the company of prophets was prophesying, they actually were, okay?

Those people, they're doing what we would think of with prophesying. They are declaring the word of God, okay?

Declaring the word of God, talking about future events, that sort of thing. Now, a little barb at you cessationist people out there, a little barb, we don't know what they were prophesying.

So maybe there is some room for prophetic things that don't get written in the word of God. There it is, a little barb.

I'll stop there. If you know, you know. All the other mentions of prophecy in this text, all the other mentions of prophecy are talking about being in a trance and delusional.

This kind of goes back to verse 18, 10, chapter 18, verse 10, where the evil spirit comes on and we get the word translated, raving.

That's the same word that we're getting with prophesying here over and over again. So what's happening? David's with Samuel.

They go down to Samuel's dwellings. That's what naoph means. That's just his dwelling place. That's the tents and all this stuff.

And Samuel, the man of God, has developed a congregation that he's presiding over of prophets, and they're out prophesying.

They are joyously proclaiming the word of God. And so Saul sends men in there to kill

David, and they come in, and they get stricken with a trance three times.

Three different sets of executioners come in, and they start raving like lunatics because God is with David over and over again.

Imagine, imagine being so desperate that you send your hit men into the house of God to try to get around what

God has declared. But, and Saul's doing this because he's afraid to go himself, right?

He's afraid of Samuel. He doesn't want to talk to Samuel. Samuel delivered him the blow back in chapter 15, and he doesn't want to see him again.

But eventually, as with all wicked magistrates, it's going to escalate. There is no repentance.

There's only escalation. And so Saul is afraid to go, but his fear of David eventually overcomes his fear of the

Lord. Let's put it that way. Saul is more afraid of David than he is of the Lord, and that's insane.

So I want to stop for a minute here before we land the plane here. I think what we should see very clearly in this text is this.

We think, always, we think that we can play in a squishy middle, right?

What we think that we can do is honor God with our lips, but our hearts being far from him.

We think that we can stack our moral deeds up and say, hey, it's for the good of a fellow man and all that kind of stuff, while not regarding God in our heart.

And I think what this chapter should tell us very clearly is there's no room for that. There's no room whatsoever.

Our wickedness, if we do not have faith in God, if we have looked at his son and his sacrifice, if we looked at the perfect life of Christ and we've looked at his crucifixion and his resurrection, and we know that he has bought with his son a people.

And if we look at that and go, yeah, you know, like, that's a great story, but I really like kind of what

I'm doing, and there's parts of the law that are pretty embarrassing, and I don't really enjoy those. So I'm going to say, yeah,

Jesus is good. He was a good guy, but I'm going to go do my thing. What you have to understand is that your wicked heart has looked at the provision that God has given for the elect and snubbed it.

And Hebrews says that no rain is going to come to that ground. It says there will be no mercy for those who look at the cross of Christ and think, not good enough for me.

That is a dangerous place to be, friend. And so what happens is, in your insanity, you will think that you have some moral goodness that comes from common grace, that we are depraved, but we're not as depraved as we possibly could be.

But what we'll do is we'll work on it. And that's what Saul's doing. He's working on it. He's getting better and better at being wicked.

Notice where he started. He started with just not killing the king and all the livestock of the people that he was supposed to cleanse.

That's where it starts. And what's he doing now? He's trying to murder his son's best friend, his son -in -law.

And he's sending Hitman out to Samuel's place to do it. And sin is always going to work that way.

Sin abounds. But the good news for us is so does righteousness. For those that God has saved, for those who have faith in Christ, righteousness abounds.

And we become conformed from one degree to another into more of the image of our

Savior. So the good news of the gospel is this, Christ has died for you. Put your faith in him.

Cry out to him. Realize that when we repent of our sin, that is a spiritual blessing. That is not something that comes from the flesh that we can take credit for.

We can't boast in that. God's given us that. And so we thank him, and we understand that what he's going to do is he is going to conform us to himself.

And we're going to love his law more and more, and we're going to trust in his gospel more and more. And so five years from now, 10 years from now,

Lord willing, you will look more like his son as you put your faith in him. But if you don't, be not deceived.

You're going to look more and more like Saul, and it's going to be ugly. And we know this.

I'm a public school teacher, and I see every day the horrific effects of sin.

And I know this. I know that the parents of these children don't hate their children. It's not a vicious hatred. They don't want to do evil things, and yet they do evil things, and they destroy families over and over again.

Because if you don't have Christ, all you have is pure wickedness following the designs of Satan himself.

You don't think you are, but you are. And so today, if you think, I don't want that,

I want to follow Christ, praise God, that's him calling, not me. And that's definitely not your wicked, deceitful little heart, who wants nothing of Christ.

But for those of us who are saved, the gospel is the power of salvation. And it is the wisdom and the greatness of God that he looks at us and he saves us.

So let's end it here. What does Saul do? He crawls out of his hole, because now he's very afraid of David, and his priorities are all messed up.

He's not afraid of God as he should be, and he's still not going to learn his lesson. But here he goes.

What does Saul do? He went there. I love that. Verse 23, so he went there to Naoth and Ramah, and the

Spirit of God came upon him also, so that he went along prophesying continually until he came to Naoth and Ramah.

What's that happening? Saul goes mad. The Spirit of God comes upon Saul, and he starts raving like a lunatic.

I think the reflection that we get here, you have to think of King Nebuchadnezzar, right? That what God does is he puts a decree on Nebuchadnezzar, and so Nebuchadnezzar roams around like a beast of the field.

The most powerful man in the world running around eating grass and looking like some kind of weird griffin or something with his fingernails growing like talons and his hair all over the place.

Just absolute crazy person, okay? A nutcase. So Saul looks like that, and then to make it complete, look at verse 24.

This is important. God humiliates him, but Saul's too stupid and blind in his sin to understand that he's just been humiliated.

He stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel.

He doesn't even know he's doing it. Samuel never talks to Saul again. But Saul's laying down with his kingly robes on the ground just saying gibberish.

I think Charlotte in the picture drew it as, blah, blah, blah. If you got your kids, well, you can see it there.

Blah, blah, blah. And all the people look at him, and they say, is

Saul also among the prophets? The answer being, no way.

No way. Saul is not among the prophets. So I want you to think, and just trying to land this, let's think about the average

Israelite here and what's happened in their life in this chapter. Their king is laying down, stripped of his clothing, in shame, raving like a lunatic.

They asked for a king, and they were given the tallest, handsomest man who immediately won a battle and solidified power.

Saul owns the military, and so it looks like his rule is sure. He's acted erratically, sure.

Yeah, sometimes he acts crazy. But man, look at his generals, and he still looks good.

And he's got that spear. Man, look at him. So what does God do? He strips that away. Now he looks like, ugh.

If you'd seen Saul laying there prophesying, you'd be like, that's the king? Yikes.

Yikes. And look at what God has done since he decreed the end of Saul's reign. Saul rashly issued the death penalty against his own son and had all the people interposed.

He has shortchanged a hero of Israel by reneging on a public promise to give him his first daughter.

All the people in the military knew that. They all heard it. Remember, David asked several of them, why does the author include that?

You know, in that lengthy David and Goliath sermon, I probably didn't get there. Why does he ask him so many times?

Probably because of this, everybody knows. Everybody knows. He has cunningly tried to murder this hero in secret several times.

And now the plans are spiraling out of control. And every time Saul tries to murder David, David just gets more popular.

It's kind of like those movies we like with Gladiator, like Braveheart, those sort of things. Every time the bad guys try to kill the hero, it just makes the hero more popular.

And they start singing songs. And now Saul's had to order a public execution.

And everything that Saul is doing is hastening his own demise. So now,

O kings, show insight. Take warning, O judges of the earth. Serve Yahweh with fear and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the son, lest he become angry and you perish on the way. For his wrath may soon be kindled.

How blessed are all who take refuge in him. Saul, by his own hand, has raised up David to be a courtier, to be a general, to be a big man in Israel.

And David ends this chapter looking good. And a covenant is strengthened between David and Jonathan, as we'll see next week.

And Saul ends this chapter lying stripped down on the ground, raving like a lunatic.

There's a story in this somewhere. I'm not going to connect the dots for you.

But let's walk away with this. It looks all day long like the wicked prosper.

They grow fat. The psalmist says that they're smooth in their skin, right?

That everything they do, it looks like it's working out for them. And we call out and we say, how long is this going to happen?

The wicked prosper, Lord. They defame your name. And what we get is we understand that what the wicked are doing is they are storing up judgment and wrath above themselves.

And it's a weight suspended above their head. And it's going to fall.

And so, Christian, I urge you, when the count is done, don't be counted among the wicked.

Be counted among the righteous. And trust in the Lord because the Lord shows all the paths and he lights the way and he will always protect his people.