“A Temper Too Well Known” – FBC Morning Light (5/9/2023)

Saul’s Jealousy and the Attempt on David’s Life

Well, a good Tuesday morning. Hope your week got off to a good start yesterday, and today we're continuing our reading in 1 Samuel chapters 19 and 20, Acts chapter 3, and the 92nd Psalm. Well, yesterday in our reading in 1 Samuel, we left the situation with Saul seeing David as his enemy continually.

Now, the strange thing is, of course, that by that time, David had married Saul's daughter Michal, or Michael, as it's often pronounced. David had married Saul's daughter, so that made David Saul's son-in-law.

Well, you know, there are all kinds of stories about fathers-in-laws and sons-in-law not getting along, but this is ridiculous, isn't it? Well, by the time you come to chapter 19, Jonathan, Saul's son, and therefore David's brother-in-law, serves as a mediator between Saul and David.

He goes to Saul and says, look man, David hasn't done you any harm, David has helped you. He's killed your enemies, he's done all this good stuff, he's helped the kingdom, he's been nothing but a blessing to you.

Why in the world are you trying to kill him? And Saul comes to the point of contrition, and he says, you're right. You can see him hanging his head before his son and say, yeah, you know, you're right, you're right, I never should have done that, never should have tried to kill him.

And then he says this, as the Lord lives, he shall not be killed. He makes that commitment to Jonathan. So, that brings David back into the throne room, playing the harp again, playing music for his father-in-law again, and kind of assuaging him.

Saul’s Violent Outburst and Michal’s Rescue of David

But, there was war again. War broke out, and David is a warrior, so he's sent out to battle, and again, he experiences great success. And all that does is just agitate that jealous spirit in Saul's heart.

And again, David is playing an instrument with his hand in verse 9 of chapter 19, and Saul has his spear in his hand, and he tries to pin David to the wall with his spear. David gets the message that jealous heart is really not converted.

He hasn't really repented and left that all behind. So, he flees, and he goes home and tries to find refuge at home with his wife, Saul's daughter, Michal. Then she says something that's really interesting here.

By the way, you notice the point that a person who has a jealous heart, that heart is not long assuaged when the object of my jealousy is successful again and again and again. That success just becomes fuel for the fire of my jealous rage.

That's what Saul's problem is. All right, so David runs home and lets Michal know what's going on, and listen to what Michal says, or Michal, in verse 11. It says, Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him and to kill him in the morning, and Michal, David's wife, told him, saying, if you do not save your wife tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.

Isn't that an interesting conclusion on her part? Now, remember, this is the daughter of Saul, the daughter of the man who's wanting to kill her husband. It seems that she knows all too well the extent of her father's bad temper, and just how violent he can be.

I wonder how she knows that. Perhaps she knows that by personal experience, and I say that because of the response. Michal helps David flee, she lets him down out the window, and he gets away, and she creates this ruse of putting the proverbial dummy in the bed and covering it with a blanket, so that it looks like David is asleep in bed.

David gets away. The messengers go back to Saul, and Saul says, go kill him on his bed, take him off the bed, I don't care, I don't care, just go get him. They come back, and they take the cover off, and they find out it's just goat's hair for a head and some image that was laid in the bed, and they were deceived.

They were deceived by Saul's daughter. Saul himself comes on the scene, and he says to his daughter, get this, why have you deceived me like this and sent my enemy away so that he has escaped? There's a whole bunch that could be said about that question, and Michal could have responded to that question and put her father in his place, couldn't she?

For example, let's see who's talking about deception. This is like the pot calling the kettle black. Talk about a deceiver. Dad, you're the deceiver, you're the prince of deception. You are. No, she doesn't do that, and then he says, you sent my enemy away.

Dad, he's not your enemy. He's not your enemy, he's done nothing bad, just like Jonathan did, but no, Michal doesn't do that. She also could have said, your enemy happens to be my husband. You're trying to kill my husband, Dad.

Who do you think you are? What in the world do you think you're doing? She doesn't do any of that, and perhaps quite understandably so. What she does say, though, in response is, he said to me, let me go, why should I kill you?

Which is probably exactly the kind of thing Saul would want to hear. Why would Michal say that, knowing that it wasn't true, and say that not because she has anything against David. She loved David. She's the one that first showed that love interest, remember?

It was told Saul that Michal loved David, and David was more than happy to reciprocate that love and marry her. So she loves David, and nothing has changed about that. She was the one who said to David, you need to get out of here, or my dad's going to kill you.

She knows her father, and she knows him so well. She knows his temper, she knows his rage so well, that she won't confront him, she won't speak the truth to him. She's afraid of her father. She knows what Jonathan is going to experience when Saul tries to kill her brother Jonathan, Saul tries to kill his own son Jonathan.

She knows just how bad his temper is. I think it's a tragic testimony of some of the dysfunction in many families. Children grow up in total fear of being abused or being hurt by their parent. They know how bad their parents' tempers are.

Christian Parenting Without Provoking Fear

We're challenged as Christian parents and dads to bring up our children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, to nurture our children. We're not to exasperate them and incite them to anger, and we should not provoke within them a servile fear that they have to cower in front of us, or else they're going to get it.

It's not the kind of response we want to instill in our children. Saul did that to his kids, and what a mess he made of his life and his family. Our Father and our God, we are grateful for this warning this morning, challenging us in our parenting to be gracious and kind, firm, disciplinarians to be sure, but not to provoke such fear in our children that they have to lie to us out of fear that they're going to suffer greatly themselves from our abuse.

Oh, deliver us from that, we pray. So, Lord, bless us now as we go into this day, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, listen, have a great Tuesday. May the Lord bless you in it. Good day.