1 Samuel Lesson 21
Confirmation of David/The Tormenting of Saul –
16:14-23
This is a very difficult passage.
Let’s first look at the passage and then we’ll get the background for
it. It’s talking about David’s ministry
to Saul, and I’ll say this a number of times tonight. This passage, it’s very easy to lose the
forest for the trees. So be careful, I’m
going to have to go through numerous fine details to explain what’s going on
here but after all is said and done, let’s get the big picture and I’ll start
with the big picture, we’ll go to the details and at the end we’ll come back to
the big picture again. Let’s read it.
Verse 14, “But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil
spirit from the LORD troubled him. [15] And Saul’s servants said unto him,
Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubles thee. [16] Let our lord now
command thy servants, who are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a skillful
player of an harp; and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his
hand, and thou shalt be well. [17] And Saul said into his servants, Provide me
now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. [18] Then answered one of
the servants, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is
skillful in playing, and a mighty, valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent
in matters, and an agreeable person, and the LORD is with him. [19] Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto
Jesse, and said, Send me David, they son, who is with the sheep. [20] And Jesse took an ass laden with bread,
and a skin of wine, and a kid, and sent them by David, his son, unto Saul. [21] And David came to Saul, and stood before
him; and he loved him greatly; and he became his armor-bearer. [22] And Saul
sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me; for he has
found favor in my sight. [23] And it
came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an
harp, and played with hand; so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil
spirit departed from him.”
Now this passage involves a number of phenomena which need explaining
but before we get into any of the details let’s look at the big picture of what
these verses are saying. David has been
anointed, that’s verse 13. And as I have
said, if you ever have a man anointed in the Old Testament that is a sign that
God has raised him to an office, but if God has raised a man to an office,
there ought to be some historic evidence that he has been raised to that
office. So after a man is anointed in
the Old Testament you will always have a short history of something the man
does. This short history of what the man
does is put into the text to show you that yes indeed, God has called him. So what you are seeing here is part of the
evidence. As you recall with Saul there
were two things that Saul did that the Holy Spirit recorded to prove that Saul
was called of God. The first thing that
Saul did, he was discovered under the suitcase pile in the public pulling of
the lot. Now that wasn’t a very graphic
and flattering picture of the first king.
Where did you find your first king
The second thing that Saul did was that he conquered the Ammonites; the
Ammonites were a very cruel people who have the nasty habit of conquering a
city and then punching one eye out of everybody in the city. This was how they handled an area and the
reason they did that was a military one, without two eyes you lack depth
perception and you can’t shoot weapons or handle a sword or spear. So it was grounded on an interesting thing,
if you destroy one eye, obviously, you’ve destroyed their ability to
fight. So this is how they disarmed areas,
just like they’re trying to disarm us by registering firearms and all the rest
of the left-wing propaganda. In that day
instead of registering firearms they punched out eyeballs. I don’t know which is worse but… In the Ammonite situation Saul won and that
was an evidence of Saul’s election.
Now in David’s situation we are going to have two similar instances; the
first instance in verse 14-23 is an evidence that David has been anointed
because it shows that David was able to fulfill the function of a classic
warrior in that age by playing music.
And the second thing that David does is the famous Goliath struggle in
chapter 17. To understand the role of
the evidences look at verse 18. Verse 18
is the people’s analysis of what a warrior did, notice, “who is cunning
[skillful] in playing, and a mighty, valiant man, and a man of war,” now
there’s a strange combination of being a soldier in the military arts and the
musical arts. This should ring a bell
with anyone who has studied the classics.
The musical arts and the military arts.
This was the picture that even the Greeks later used as a model of a man
who was mature in society. Plato, in his
book, The Republic suggested that men
be trained both in music and in gymnastics or the equivalent of military
training, and the gymnastics was to develop courage and the music was to
develop temperance. So throughout the
classic age these two skills were combined.
Turn to 2 Samuel 1:18 you’ll find the instruction manual that was used
in this kind of training. The instruction manual in both the musical and
military arts was called “the book of Jasher.”
“Also he ordered them to teach the children of
Dancing and instrument playing was taught to soldiers. One reason is because the soldiers fought
with their hands and they had to develop coordination; in fact, there are sound
evidences to believe that such things as karate and judo were well known as far
back as the old kingdom of
There’s one other reference to the book of Jasher, if you look at Joshua
10:13, which tell us something else about this instruction manual. “The sun stood still, the moon stayed, until
the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of
Jasher.” Apparently the book of Jasher
also recorded military victories. So the
book of Jasher, then, was the manual of military training in the ancient world. If you’ve been with us you shouldn’t have any
trouble with why the Bible authorizes military training and why men who try to
escape military training are anti-Biblical.
But in the ancient world all the young men… it was universal military
training. This was the uniform program
for the nation Israel and it was involving these two categories because they
believed when they trained their soldiers that they trained them not just to
fight with their hands and their bodies but they would train them to fight with
all their soul and they felt that music was one way of stimulating the soul,
and mental attitude and so on in war.
Actually many other civilizations have recognized the relationship
between music in battle, and if you’ve watched cowboy and Indian pictures you
know the wa-wa-wa goes on before the Indians go charging after the
cowboys. This actually goes back far
before the American Indians into ancient history, that they have long
recognized music has a powerful effect on a person’s soul, and the effect of
music on the soul can be used as a military weapon. Therefore, in military training music was
taught, how to use music to marshal the forces of the soul in combat. This is why ancient armies used to go into
battle with the trumpets playing and why it was not just something that they were
interested in having an orchestra in front of the tanks. That wasn’t the point at all. They recognized the powerful psychological
effect of this thing. So when you see
pictures of World War II and the Scots with their bagpipes it’s not just that
Scotsman are crazy, it’s just that they are perpetuating a tradition that has
gone back for centuries and centuries that the man’s mental attitude can be
stimulated by music.
Therefore the model warrior in David’s day, in the so-called heroic age
as Cyrus Gordon has pointed out, was a man who combined these two talents. Therefore the two evidences of David’s
calling are precisely in the area of music and the military. So chapter 16 deals with his ability in music
and chapter 17 deals with his ability in the military. So there’s a reason culturally why these two
areas are picked. You may have wondered
why all the story of David stroking a harp in court of Saul. It was to show his musical ability. Later on we’ll see how David had a dancing
ability. He’d never fit into
fundamentalist circles, he actually danced.
But nevertheless, that’s not considered the cardinal sin.
Let’s turn to 1 Samuel 14:16. Now
we begin with some of the details.
Please remember what’s happening here, the overall picture is the
confirmation of David, that’s the theme of the passage, and tonight we deal
with one part, next week we deal the rest of it. So no matter what the details are tonight
that’s the overall theme, to prove David’s ability. Another point in the big picture before we
get into the details and that is that in both of these we are dealing with
natural abilities, not spiritual ability. Remember what I told you about the
Holy Spirit’s operation in the Old Testament.
He gave natural talent, not supernatural talent. And I’m sure of one thing, He didn’t give the
gobbledygook that passes for the Holy Spirit today. But we have these two things; the natural
abilities were given by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, please notice
again “natural” abilities, not spiritual abilities. So when we get with what David does in music
it has nothing to do here per se with the spiritual hymns that he plucked out
on his harp to Saul; it has more to do with the very structure of music itself
whether David was playing the harp or somebody else, it was just plain good music,
period. Just because music comes out of
a Christian hymnal doesn’t mean a thing; this is talking about good music that
could be played by believer or unbeliever, a skilled artist in the area of
music, a skilled man in the area of the military. And those two talents are the ones that are
going to be seen in David.
Now the other piece of background that we want to see is Saul’s soul.
Remember what Saul’s soul has done in progress, chaos in the heart; here’s a
diagram of what happened in Saul. Saul was
a believer so don’t get the idea that he lost his salvation or something, it’s
not true. Saul was a believer, Saul grew
up on negative volition toward God, he was schooled with much etiquette and
training, he had a lot of human good, he came from a well-to-do family, the
family of
Now you have been around spiritually dull individuals, the woods are
full of them. A spiritually dull
individual can be discovered by just spending some time with them and watching
the topic of conversation. I don’t mean
it has to be hyper-spiritual all the time but if a person is genuinely
spiritually alert they can be talking about any area you want to name, music,
politics, sports; or something else and inevitably in the course of the
conversation it will be fitted into a divine viewpoint framework, that is,
divine viewpoint truth will be expressed as they talk about these particular
subjects. A dull person on the other
hand can’t wait to talk about something and it will be totally disconnected and
unrelated to the Word. That is what we
mean by a dull person. They could talk for an hour and a half about the latest
game or something else and never once bring divine viewpoint in at all. And that’s a spiritual nitwit.
Now we come to the third step in chaos in the heart and this is the rise
of human viewpoint in the soul. Human
viewpoint replaces divine viewpoint and no Christian is immune from this. Don’t think because you’ve been in the Word
of God for four or five years that you are immune from this kind of disaster;
anytime you go on negative volition you are asking for this kind of process to
set up. Yu have no insurance policy in
the Christian life, eternal security does not protect you from this thing
developing in your soul. You choose
positive or negative, and you can be a believer and the Lord loves you and the
Lord treats you in grace and you can reject, reject, reject, reject, and you’re
going to go right up the line. And when
human viewpoint gets to be large enough in the human soul it leads to a faith
shutdown. That means you will actually experience the inability to believe
where you could believe before, areas of your life that you could turn over to
the Lord before, areas of your life that caused you problems that you could
turn over to Him before you can’t do it any more. Why can’t you? Because you’re experiencing a faith shutdown,
because you’re experiencing doubt. Doubt
is always the result of human viewpoint.
So a faith shutdown is the third step and we saw how that step led to
Saul’s first failure. When the armies
were in terror before the Philistine invasion Saul sat there by the road and
watched his army dissipate in front of him.
Everybody hightailed it across the
And as hatred begins to develop you have the submission of the person to
what we call pseudo authority because God has made us in His image and
therefore when we are in His image and we hate the true authority… we do not
have a choice about submitting to authority, this is a laugh about the
so-called “free thinker” or we are the free people or something. You’re not free, you don’t have a choice
whether you’re going to be free or not; you have a choice only which authority
do you submit to. That’s the only choice
we have as men. We submit to God who is
a true authority or we submit to some pseudo authority. And whatever that pseudo authority is it’s
called an idol in Scripture. The test
verse is Romans 11:36, “Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all
things.” If you want a test for idols in
your life take Romans
So there’s the submission to pseudo authority, it can be emotions, it
can be a mob, it can be anything and Saul made his second and third mistakes
here. His second mistake was when he
gave a stupid order to pursue without any logistics for his soldiers, without
any food, and he lost the battle and subsequently lost the one opportunity he
had for completely annihilating the Philistines. The third loss that Saul experienced in his
life due to this hatred was the loss at the city of
By the way, when you start getting up here you develop compound
carnality and when you start developing compound carnality simple confession is
no longer enough to remove all of that carnality because compound carnality
consists of –R learned behavior patterns and tremendous darkness of the soul
and the only way these things can be eliminated is by confession which gets you
into fellowship, and once you are in fellowship then you have to claim the
illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit and it’s that ministry that removes
the –R learned behavior patterns and the darkness, and it is a process because
it was a process getting you there and it’s a process delivering you from
there. So when compound carnality sets in
the soul, we’re now up against a problem that takes time. And it’s no use calling the pastor on the
phone for a five minute dissertation on how to get rid of compound
carnality. The only way you can get rid
of it is through a sustaining program of being in fellowship and taking in the
Word of God like you’ve never taken in the Word of God before, a crash program,
and only that will free you from compound carnality.
Let’s go on to verse 14 with this background and see if we can
understand what’s going on here. You
remember that in verse 14 it says “the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul,
and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him,” or terrified him. The terrifying is done by an evil spirit; an
evil spirit is one of the fallen angels.
Under God’s creation we have angels whose previous head, the office is
actually Lucifer, Jesus Christ is called Lucifer and Satan is called Lucifer
because of their office, it means the one who is the light bearer for God. And Lucifer has a sinister connotation now
because Satan first held the title; he has been fired since then. But angels under God have this structure and
hierarchy. We know from Scripture, the book of Revelation, that one-third of
all the angels rebelled and went with Satan.
How many angels, we have no idea, except some theologians down through
church history have speculated that the number of fallen angels equals the
number of Christians in the entire church age.
But one-third of the angels fell and went with Satan, a very numerous
group. These were in turn divided into
three categories. The fallen angels,
category one under Genesis 6 and 2 Peter and Jude, the first group of them were
isolated in a place called Tartarus, which is the deepest place in hell. It is a place and it is not a figment of
someone’s imagination. It is a location
where all of the evil spirits under the first group have been expelled. Why?
Because these particular demons who operated in Genesis 6, mentioned
again in 2 Peter and Jude, were demons who had sexual intercourse with human
females. And that is taught, as any
Hebrew scholar will tell you, in Genesis 6.
It’s not the godly line of Seth or something else that’s involved, it is
the bena Elohim and it always means
in the Hebrew angels. You had copulation
between man and angels because the angels had temporarily assumed male bodies
and had conducted the first mass rape in history where they had intercourse
with women and produced out of the phony bodies that they had, plus the real
bodies of men, the nephalim and these
were people who had to be destroyed in the flood; they were the giants that
ruled the land.
Now that is group one, group one has been put out of commission
permanently. They are bound in Tartarus
and cannot be freed. These angels in
Tartarus are not able to see history.
They are in the lower darkness and have never been able to view history
and that is why 1 Peter says that Jesus Christ descended into hell. When Jesus
Christ died, and Jesus Christ went to hell, He went down there to proclaim that
He had made it to the cross and that they were therefore condemned. All angels
in group two and three witnessed the cross and knew that Satan was a defeated
enemy, but the demons in group one did not and therefore obliged and came down
and personally face to face told them that He made it to the cross.
Now the angels in group two are what we call the free demons and the
ones in group three are the ones we call bound.
What is the difference.
Ultimately and originally there was only one group of demons, demons in
group two. But down through the course
of history some of these have been bound in a place called the Abyss; they are
temporarily, not permanently bound.
Group one is permanently bound in Tartarus. Group 3 is only temporarily bound in the
abyss because during the tribulation God is going to open the gate and they’re
all going to come out and they’re going to be used by God during the
tribulation to bring the earth into submission to Satan. Now the group that is currently bound has
been bound there through the war of the church upon them. Down through history, as believers have
managed to fight the demon forces and the demon forces have lost they have been
put into the Abyss as Christ Himself shows in the Gospels. The second group, group two are those that
are free and working today. So Satan’s
force has been reduced throughout the Church Age partially, not wholly. During the Church Age it is these free demon
forces, the principalities and powers that are behind international politics,
their objectives are simply to malign the character of God and misrepresent God
to man. That is their fundamental
work. Up until the cross of Christ they
were to physically prevent Christ from getting to the cross and doing His
job. Since Christ has made it to the
cross they cannot stop the objective work of Christ; therefore since the cross
the free demon forces have concentrated upon distorting the gospel.
You’d better get the gospel straight; just because somebody trips down
an aisle means nothing. It is whether
that person believes in Jesus Christ as Savior, period. It’s impossible for anybody to accept Christ
as Lord of all their life because they don’t know Christ’s claims as Lord until
after they’re a believer. You accept
Christ as Savior, not as Lord in that sense of the word Lord. The reason we have confusion is because we
have people writing in Christian circles that don’t know Greek and in the Greek
there was a word called kurios; kurios
is used in the Gospels to refer to Christ translated as “Lord,” and so they say
see, Christ is Lord, Christ is Lord of all your life. Now that sounds very sweet except for the
fact that kurios is a word that comes
from the Septuagint meaning God, kurios
was Jehovah, Yahweh. That was the word
that the Greeks used to translate Yahweh.
So when you see the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament that’s not
talking about “Lord” the way you’re used to thinking of the word Lord, that’s
talking about Yahweh, Jesus Christ, Jehovah Jesus Christ, that’s what the word
means from the Septuagint. So it means
an utterly different so this stuff about if Christ is not Lord of all He’s not
Lord at all, that’s a lot of bologna.
Christ is never Lord of all and He never will be Lord of all until phase
three; you’re not going to let Christ have total lordship in your life, who are
you kidding. Not one Christian has ever
let Christ be Lord of all his life. So
remember that’s not part of the gospel, the gospel is whether Jesus Christ has
died for all your sins or not.
I’ll give you an illustration that substantiates this. When was the Law that expresses the Lordship
given in the Old Testament? Before or
after the Exodus? The Law that expresses
God’s Lordship was given after the Exodus, after the redemption then came the
insight into what God’s demands were.
And it’s the same thing in the Christian life, you don’t have any
insight, the person who trips down an aisle because he may be stimulated or
something, or maybe he has a genuine hunger for God, has no idea whatever of
God’s claims on his life; he has some, God is using some of the claims. And all of you know who have lived the
Christian life any length of time as you’ve grown you’ve seen God claim more
and more areas of your life. You
wouldn’t have known that when you became a Christian so don’t force that garbage
on somebody else. You didn’t become a
Christian because you made Christ Lord of your life, you became a Christian
because you trusted in His finished work, that’s why. So Satan in our day is interested in
distorting the gospel; the gospel centers on Christ, not the Holy Spirit. This gospel about being baptized with the
Holy Ghost, listen, nowhere in the New Testament are you ever commanded to be
baptized by the Holy Ghost. From the
time you receive Christ you have already been baptized, the Greek of 1
Corinthians 12:13 says that. So
therefore the gospel centers on Christ, not the Holy Spirit and it’s not being
baptized, it’s not flapping your tongue at both ends and it’s not doing all the
other asinine things that pass for the gospel; the gospel is simply trusting
the Lord Jesus Christ in His finished work, period, no religious garbage
added.
Now Satan is interested in doing this and we find him always distorting
the gospel because he can’t distort the objective historic events. He can’t go back in a time machine and undo
history. And therefore the only place
left for Satan to attack is to destroy the truth that impinges upon men’s
minds. And when you are in a gospel
witnessing situation you are on the fore front of spiritual conflict. Satan does
not want you to clarify the issue of the gospel. He will create a physical
disturbance in the very location where you’re doing it, just to disrupt the
communication. He does it every Sunday
here, we have a few people who have spiritual insomnia and I understand it,
they can’t sleep during the week, the only place they can sleep is in the
pew. And anyone that make it to sleep in
these pews has my congratulations because I can’t imagine how you could ever
relax in these pews; but you’ve accomplished something. The gospel, then is an object of attack in
our own generation. And be careful that
you don’t allow yourself to further Satan’s cause by giving an unclear witness.
Now let’s look at what is happening to the evil spirit here on
Saul. The spirit is terrifying Saul in
verse 14, and I want you to notice that beginning in verse 15 the servants of
Saul diagnose it. “And Saul’s servants
said unto him, Behold no, an evil spirit from God is the one who is troubling
you.” “Trouble” is a participle, it’s
actually the word terrify, it is the Hebrew participle, and it means continuous
action. It is the one who goes on and
continues to trouble Saul. Now if this
spirit that is terrifying Saul off and on, off and on, off and on, constantly,
is the source of the trouble then we have a remarkable conflict with modern
psychological theory. And I will try to
develop this in a few minutes, but the issue is this: is the human soul open or
closed, is it an open or closed system?
Is the human soul open to other spirits than the human spirit. Let’s look at what the human soul looks like;
we have used this chart a number of times; going back to the fundamental
essence of Scripture we find that God first made a body. He breathed into the body breath and that
breath was the spirit of life. When you
have the body plus the spirit you have the soul. That’s why we’ve indicated it by colors that
blend so you have the orange area that’s a mix of the red and the yellow. So the soul is a composite made up of the
human spirit in the human body.
Now modern psychology where it is not thoroughly going materialistic,
will at least allow in some ways for immaterial influences. That is, if they do not follow B.F. Skinner
and others too closely you will some immaterial influences. Now these immaterial influences are usually
spoken of in psychological theory as that of the person, so what we have is a
closed view of the soul, that is that the soul is airtight and you can’t have
other spirits than the one that is already there influencing it. That’s the closed doctrine of the human
soul. But the Bible does not hold to
that, the Bible holds that our human spirit does not fully occupy the soul and
at times our soul can be influenced by other spirits outside and other than the
human spirit, and here is a case. The
evil spirit is affecting Saul. Now in
today’s vernacular Saul was having an emotional problem. I want you to see something about this so you
don’t get snowed. He might have gone to
his shrink some place and come back with a diagnosis that son, you’ve got a bad
problem of manic depressive, or you’ve got something else that’s your
problem. Now there are these problems,
I’m not knocking the idea of labeling them but please notice they are just
labels.
Illustration: suppose we have
somebody saying I am having an emotional disturbance. Now what does that tell you about
causes? It doesn’t tell you a thing
about causes; we know you’re having an emotional disturbance, that’s not
news. So what good does just the label
do? So we think because we’ve labeled it
we’ve explained it. Now don’t fall for
that; that’s a fallacy in logic. Because
you tack a label on something doesn’t prove anything, it just says so and so is
having an emotional disturbance. But it
doesn’t say why is so and so having an emotional disturbance. How is so and so having an emotional
disturbance. And it never ceased to
amaze me that we have some of these pseudo intellectuals that have this tut-tut
attitude to the poor people in Scripture that they were so stupid they thought
an evil spirit indwelt, the idea of that; back in the middle ages we thought
that way but we don’t think that way in the 20th century. Well that’s tough for the 20th
century; that’s just too bad for the 20th century because expressed
if you’ve expressed something as schizo or you’ve expressed something as manic
depressive, those are descriptive terms, that’s all you’ve said, you’ve
described it. I know a certain car I own
has four wheels, what does that prove?
It doesn’t prove anything, it just proves that I can label it and I can
count up to four at least. So just
because you label something proves nothing.
So don’t be snowed because Saul is having an emotional disturbance. Yes, he’s having an emotional disturbance,
when you get to heaven you can talk to him about it; he’s having a tremendous
emotional disturbance but I want you to notice in verse 15 that the people who
serve him are diagnosing the causes of his emotional disturbance as an evil
spirit from God troubling him. Now if
you don’t believe it, I’m not compelling you to believe it, I’m just reporting
what the Scripture says. And I’m also
reporting to you that Jesus Christ held the same view. So either Christ was stupid and uninformed
and psychologically in error or we have something radically wrong with the
modern view of the mind in present day psychology.
So the Bible holds to the concept of the open soul, that it is open,
your soul, my soul, all souls are open to demonic influences. Now in this passage we have a known believer
influenced by a demon, an evil spirit.
At this point we have to diverge and pick up one of our “trees,” so
don’t lose the forest for the trees; this is just one of the trees in the
detail so you can understand this passage.
We have to answer two questions; the first one is very easy, the second
one is very difficult. The first
question: can demons affect believers?
Answer is yes, we’ve got a case right here.
Second question: can demons indwell believers today? That’s a more difficult question and it’s a
highly controversial question and in most fundamentalist circles it’s rejected
outright. And the usual way of rejecting
it is set up a three-fold statement called a syllogism. And it starts this way, the Holy Spirit
indwells us our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6. That’s the first step in the syllogism to
which we readily give our assent; the Scripture dogmatically teaches this,
there is no way of escape. This part of
the syllogism is absolutely correct. The
second part of the syllogism: the Holy Spirit and an evil spirit cannot coexist
in the same temple. Therefore, evil
spirits cannot indwell believers. The
weakness in the syllogism is in the second point because it can’t be proved. The first point can be proved, it is true
that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer but is it or is it not true that
Satan can coexist with God in the same temple.
There is hasty proof here and there are actually, this second statement
we must spend some time on to understand how this works.
Let’s look at examples in Scripture where an evil spirit coexists with the Holy
Spirit. Does Satan have access to God’s
very throne room? In Job 1 and 2 doesn’t
Satan come into the presence of God Himself.
In 1 Kings 22 doesn’t the evil spirit there enter into the very councils
of God Himself? Of course. So we have at least two instances from
Scripture where Satan or his demons come into the direct presence of God. We have a third illustration, it’s from the
New Testament, Matthew 4 where Satan and Christ carry on a conversation. So therefore we have at least two and
possibly three illustrations, clear cut from Scripture, unanswerable, where
Satan and the Holy Spirit or the presence of God are together at the same point
location. It is true that ultimately
this is not going to be, it’s very true that in the new heavens and the new
earth the Holy Spirit is not going to coexist with evil spirits; evil spirits
are vanished to the lake of fire and the Holy Spirit indwells the new creation
and everything is separated. That is
true in eternity, not now. So the second
step in the syllogism is not correct and my claim to you tonight cannot be
shown from Scripture. It makes a very
fine statement to make, if you repeat it enough times you’ll believe it, but it
doesn’t happen to be anchored on any solid text of Scripture. So therefore we reject the syllogism that
says believers cannot be indwelt.
However, we have a problem and that is with the word “indwell.” The word “indwell” is a technical expression
in the New Testament that refers to the Holy Spirit indwelling the human
spirit. And this theologically would say
that Satan cannot indwell the human spirit for another reason, regeneration and
so on, the human spirit of the regenerate person is part of the new creation
that can’t be indwelt by Satan. So if
we’re going to describe Satan’s ministry in believer’s lives we can’t use the
word “indwell” because the word “indwell” is a word which refers to the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit in the human spirit.
But the believer has a soul, which is his mind and emotions, and that
soul is partly the product of the human spirit and the body. Remember the formula, human spirit plus body
equals soul, and we would call… the modern word for soul that fits very well,
is personality.
Now, if we look at a person’s personality in the process of
sanctification…let’s make a square and let that square be the area of the
person’s personality just to perceive it here, the human spirit is responsible
for part of that personality. But an
unregenerate person or a new believer is called carnal in the New
Testament. And a mature believer is
called spiritual in 1 Corinthians 3 and other passages. Why is a new believer or unbeliever called
carnal? And why is a regenerate person,
one who has been born again, one in whose human spirit the Holy Spirit
indwells, why is that person called spiritual?
The reason is that a person who is unregenerate, an unbeliever, one who
has not accepted Christ as Savior, who has not had his human spirit
strengthened by the Holy Spirit at the
point of recreation, his personality basically is an outflow of his flesh. And so when he is looked at, he may be a
brilliant person but since the flesh is corrupt, it goes back to Adam, here is
the word for Adam, here is the Hebrew word for ground; do you see the
connection, adam, adamah, God placed
a curse on the adamah, chaos. Since man is made of the earth he shares part
of that noun, adam is also the word
for mankind. And so therefore all
mankind being made of the earth, share the curse. So therefore the unregenerate and the new
believer as well as the out of fellowship believer, in 1 Corinthians 3 the word
“carnal” refers both in one verse, it’s a different Greek word, one word refers
to an immature Christian and another refers to a Christian out of
fellowship.
So now let’s see what this looks like.
Here we have the soul of the individual, the unbeliever would look like
this, the human spirit very weak, the human spirit is there because of James
2:26 but it’s very weak. All the human
spirit does with an unbeliever is maintain his God-consciousness, keeps him
breathing. But at the point of
regeneration the human spirit is blown up, and gets bigger by regeneration. And now the human spirit begins to grow. [tape turns]
…a very, very enjoyable condition, and there you have an emotionally
stable person. All that because the
human spirit is blowing up like a balloon and occupying the soul like Israel occupied
the land. Now that’s the process of
Christian maturity, growth. Now when we
say that a person is indwelt demonically we’re not talking about indwelling
inside the human spirit; that’s impossible, doctrine of regeneration. An evil spirit cannot indwell the human
spirit. But if you will visualize the
illustration of the cardboard box again and visualize the human spirit as a
balloon that is gradually filling that box up, you can now visualize an evil
spirit as another balloon inside the box.
And so the evil spirit is like a balloon that resides in the soul and it
gradually is pushed out as the human spirit is strengthened.
Now in Saul’s case, and before we get to Saul again, let’s look at this;
remember the formula, body plus spirit equals soul or personality. You can have then, body plus the human
spirit, plus evil spirit in the same person equals soul and this leads to
psychological problems; the psychologist sees this but he doesn’t have the
tools for finding this out. The
psychologist can’t split the human spirit from the evil spirit and that’s
understandable. All the psychologist can
do is look over here and see the tremendous confusion of personality. He sees something he calls it schizophrenia
and he’s right, he’s observing a psychological phenomena over here but no
matter what tools the psychologist or the psychiatrist have they don’t have the
Word of God. And they don’t know how to
use it, but if the Word of God is used effectively in this situation you can
cause a split between the actual human spirit and the evil spirit, talk to one,
talk to the other and so on. And in this
case you clearly see the indwelling evil spirit but the spirit is not
indwelling in the sense of the Holy Spirit.
Don’t make the equation here, he is only residing in the body, and this
has led to many, many religious phenomena that pass for great works of
sanctification today, they’re nothing more than demonic. And we have another problem that we’ll get
into later on and that is the problem of the misuse of this information that is
also occurring today.
Let me take you to the New Testament to three passages; I want to make
four points on why the New Testament not only allows for demonic influence but
strongly suggests it. I have first shown
that the usual syllogism is not Scriptural.
I have next shown, and I’ve done that by pointing out the second line in
the syllogism is illegitimate, that it is countered by evidence in the New
Testament. Now I’m going to show you
four positive evidences from the text of the New Testament that show that
believers can come under severe demonic influence. Point one is found in Acts 5:3. In Acts 5:3 we have believers, “But Peter
said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and
to keep back part of the price of the land?”
Now these are believers and the word “filled” is the word pleroo, in the Greek, and it’s the same
word for filling of the Holy Spirit. The
filling of the Holy Spirit in Eph. 5:18 is described in the same language as
Satan, so whatever you argue with Eph. 5:18 you’ve got to argue the same thing
for Acts 5:3, it’s the same verb. So
here we have Satan filling the soul of Ananias and Sapphira, whether it was him
personally or demons under his command we don’t know.
Second positive evidence from the New Testament is found in 2
Corinthians 11:4, this is a lot of information to go through in one night, I
spent the whole summer in the angelic conflict series and if you want the
detail it’s there on tape and all we can do is summarize. I’ve tried to figure out every way under the
sun to avoid having to do this and still teach you the meaning of 1 Samuel 16
but I can’t do it, so you’ll have to stick with us as we go through and give
the background so you will understand clearly what Satan is doing to Saul. Paul warning believers, “For if he that comes
preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another
spirit which you have not received, and another gospel which you have not accepted,
you might well bear with him.” All these
are bad things in verse 4 and the word for “other spirit” is not alla, the Greek has two words for like,
one is alla, from which we get alloy,
it means one of the same kind; the other word is heteros meaning different, heterogeneous and so on comes from
that. And this is the Greek adjective
used here, a spirit heteros, another
spirit of a different kind, which would be an evil spirit. So that’s the second evidence that we have
for the interaction of the demonic with believers.
The third point is found in 2 Corinthians 12:7, talking about Paul
himself. “Lest I should be exalted above
measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn
in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted
above measure.” Now there is a physical
disease that Paul has which he labels as being due to an angel, the word
“messenger” is aggelos, “the angel of
Satan to buffet me.” So Paul experienced
a tremendous spiritual conflict in his life with an evil spirit that did
disasters in his body and please notice he wasn’t healed. It’s not God’s will that every believer be
healed. God is in the healing business,
clearly stated in James 5, but don’t ever draw the conclusion it’s God’s will
for everybody to be healed this side of the resurrection. What do you think the resurrection is for?
The resurrection is the point where all believers are healed, period. 2 Corinthians. 12:7 then, speaks of Paul
being sick due to a demonic attack on his body, and he experienced this time
and time again. So Paul himself had a
very intense spiritual struggle.
The fourth point is found in 1 Corinthians 12:3; this point is shared in
two verses, the other is 1 John 4:1-3; both these verses refer to tests, to
tests for the presence of evil spirits.
“Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the spirit
of God calls Jesus accursed, and no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by
the Holy Spirit.” So one of the tests is
whether this particular situation, the personality or the individual involved
that’s involved in this kind of a situation can confess Jesus Christ as
Lord. The other passage is 1 John 4:1-3,
confess that Christ is come in the flesh, evil spirit can never do either one
of these things and they will always blaspheme when you try to test them at
this point. [Beloved, do not believe
every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because
many false prophets have gone out into the world. [2] By this you know the
Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh is from God; [3] And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from
God’ and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it
is coming, and now it is already in the world.”]
All right, so there’s four illustrations of New Testament evidences for
demonic influence. Now comes the
important part; this is the very important part, and if you don’t get this part
you’re going to walk away from here completely distorting what I’ve told
you. I can be distorted enough without
people going around distorting what I have said, so please, if you haven’t
listened to anything, tune in for at least three minutes. The New Testament does not command
exorcism. The New Testament does not command
exorcism, that is the casting out of demons.
Nowhere in the pages of the New Testament do you ever find this; in the
Gospels yes, after Pentecost, no. The
only justification for it possibly is on the evangelistic frontier. How do we resolve these two evidences. Let’s look at them. The one evidence is that there is demonic
influence in believer’s lives. The
second problem, and how do we resolve these two is the tension here, is that
the lack, minus New Testament teaching on worrying about it. We’re told in Ephesians 6 the struggle
against the principalities and powers, we’re told in many other areas of the
New Testament about our interaction with demons but nowhere are we ever told
about casting them out of believers; nowhere is the command ever given in any
of the epistles.
How do we resolve these two apparently contradictory evidences. Here is the answer: the demonic forces
operate under Satan. And Satan operates
under the Lord, there is a chain of command.
Now, the demonic power can only serve God’s sovereign purposes. And in the lives of believers God uses the
demonic as means of chastening and teaching.
Repeat: the role of the demonic in believers as we saw in 1 Corinthians
12 and other passages is primarily to chasten and to train believers. To destroy and cast them out without dealing
with the reasons for them being there is a waste of time. I am not persuaded that God the Holy Spirit
is at work because so and so cast out demons.
That is not evidence, necessarily, of the Holy Spirit’s work. Reason: Because they act, I use this analogy
with germs, let’s look at it. That’s a
good analogy for evil spirits.
Let’s look at the role of a germ.
If you’re sick can you get well without knowing about germs? Sure, how did people get well before Louis
Pasteur? Of course you can get well, the
germ is only the mechanism used in the sickness, it’s only part of the
mechanics used. How do you beat the
germs? By fighting them
individually? No, by taking a
remedy. All you have to know to get rid
of the germs is the remedy, you don’t even have to know the germs are there to
get rid of them. Right? Same with evil spirits; evil spirits cause
various difficulties in the Christian life.
What is the remedy? The remedy is
the Word of God, period, nothing else.
And believers who constantly take in the Word are going to have their
problems resolved without all of the shenanigans that go on in certain
circles. To try to cast out germs out of
a body that is sick would invite more germs in; you cast out the germs finally
by not just destroying the germs but rebuilding the health of the body so the
body resists the germs.
Same thing over here; how do you get rid of the evil spirit? By destroying the ground under them, not
talking to them directly, that doesn’t produce anything. You could cast demons
out of a person whose involved in this kind of a thing from now until hell
freezes over and it wouldn’t do anything because you’d just get more
back. So that doesn’t prove a thing, and
this healing business where somebody plops on the floor and goes into ecstatics
and hysterics doesn’t prove a thing. The
only way there is ever going to be in the life of a believer, and I mean this
dogmatically, the only way you will ever have a true healing of the soul is by
taking in God’s Word. Now we just happen
to know about the mechanics but knowing the mechanics doesn’t produce the cure;
the cure comes from taking in the Word and you don’t have to know whether your
problem is demonic or not, all you have to know is you get in the Word and keep
taking it in and in and in and in and obeying.
There have been thousands and millions of believers in church history
who are demonically afflicted and never knew it. All they knew is they’re having problems and
it doesn’t do you any good to sit around and say I wonder if I have a
demon. Now that is ridiculous; don’t
worry about, you just get with the Word.
If you’re doing what God wants you to do you don’t have to worry, that’s
His job. So rather than count each
other’s demons, let’s just forget that problem and move on to the
solution. The solution to spiritual
health is the Word of God. And I’m very
emphatic that we avoid this thing that’s going on in evangelic circles, it’s a
big fad now, casting out demons, replace the tongues phenomenon, that was the
60s, now we’re in the 70s we need a new fad and this is becoming the new fad
and I’m not interested in it. This thing
has been going on all along and you will always meet it by the standpoint of
the Word.
Now there are four categories of demonic influence and this is the final
point before we come back to Saul and find out how the music is going with
him. Let’s draw four concentric circles. Each one of these circles represents an
increasing population of believers.
Let’s put in each circle a letter, in the center circle “R,” in the next
circle out, “RC,” in the next circle out from that “I” and the next circle out
from that “T”. Each one of these letters
stands for a kind of demonic phenomena.
The first one in the outer circle, “T” refers to temptations. This is common to all believers,
temptation. Temptation can come from the
flesh in the form of urges and past thoughts but you can personally be tempted
by Satan and his demon forces. How?
Simply, human viewpoint. So therefore
does it really matter whether it comes from Satan or your sin nature? You’d go crazy figuring out which one. All you have to know is that it conflicts
with the Word; that’s all you have to know and you can spot it because it
doesn’t line up with the Word, it’s a bad attitude and you know that attitude
is condemned by the Word of God, that’s all you have to know, human viewpoint,
never mind where it comes from or why it’s there, just deal with it on the
basis of the Word.
The second phenomena, “I,” less believers, but many, less than the
others, what I call influence and this is a higher degree of assault, usually
associated with carnality, prolonged carnality.
And here is where you can ingest massive doses of human viewpoint, it
doesn’t mean a demon is in you, it just means that demonic doctrine is in you
and you have demonic doctrine mentioned in James 3:15, “This wisdom is not that
which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.” And this is a tremendous influence, evidently
in many cases it can be the cause of severe depression and despair on the part
of believers. So we have the second
stage, the influence. Again, how do you
meet it? By speculating on whether it is
demonic or not? No, you meet it on the
basis of God’s Word, always the word.
The third phenomena inside, and that is control. That is when a demonic force actually enters
and can manipulate the personality. That
is serious, that calls for pastoral consultation and so on. And “R” type phenomena, these are all
explained in the angelic conflict tapes, the “R” type is the replacement
phenomena where the actual person’s human spirit is withdrawn and you can talk
face to face with demon forces themselves, and that is a rare phenomena and
that again is for the pastor involved; those two are complicated, the other two
are for every believer, the problem of temptation, the problem of demonic
influence, you meet it the same way you do anything, you meet it on the basis
of the Word.
Now let’s go to Saul, we’re prepared for that passage. Don’t lose the
forest for the trees; we’ve dealt with the trees, we’re going back to the
forest. David now is going to prove his
musical ability as part of a warrior of that generation. Verse 16, “Let our lord now command thy
servants, who are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a skillful player of
an harp; and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee,
that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.” Verse 16 says that
Saul’s problem was probably “I” type, it was not a tremendously serious
problem, the spirit came and went, and it “came upon him,” it came influencing
him, at times, and then would leave him.
It was not a continuous thing with Saul. And this evil spirit that terrified him
could be relieved by music, which introduces a final question which we will
answer when we get down to the end of the chapter. And they noticed in verse 16 that music could
solve his problem. Now why can music
solve the problem. And notice in verse
16 David is not on the scene and it has nothing to do with David’s music, this
has just to do with music itself, because the observation is go get anybody
that is skillful in music and they’ll help this thing. So the music has a soothing effect and
counter balances this demonic influence.
That’s a question we’ll save till we get to the end of the passage to
study why does music do that.
Verse 17, “And Saul said into his servants, Provide me now a man that
can play well, and bring him to me. [18] Then answered one of the servants,
Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in
playing,” so David’s musical ability was already manifest, even though it
appears in the text that he was anointed yesterday. But don’t forget, there’s a gap of time
between verse 13 and 14. The incident
that begins in verse 14 probably began months, maybe years after verse 13. So David has had a reputation for his musical
ability; he’s also “a mighty, valiant man,” he’s got a reputation for military
training, he was known as a soldier warrior, “and a man of war, and prudent in
matters,” means that he was expert in wise counsel. In other words, David not only combined
musical ability with military ability, but he also manifested at an early time
in his life an ability to counsel people, and “a comely [an agreeable] person,”
describes him again from verse 12 as a handsome man; the conclusion, “and the
LORD is with him.” Notice the Lord being
with him is not a metaphysical tack-on statement, it is a statement that is put
on there because of the empirical evidence of the rest of the verse.
Verse 19, “Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me
David, thy son, who is with the sheep.
[20] And Jesse took an ass laden with bread, and a skin of wine, and a
kid, and sent them by David, his son, unto Saul.” By the way, verse 20 also gives you another
insight that shows you the humble rural picture of the king at that time. It wasn’t the grand palace of Solomon, it was
a simple kingship that gradually evolved into a very powerful centralized
government but at this time it wasn’t, it was just a simple rural kingship,
that the king could be impressed by a bottle of wine and a few loaves of bread.
Verse 21, “And David came to Saul, and stood before him; and he loved
him greatly; and he became his armor-bearer.” David is loving Saul, now this is
not homosexuality as some of the liberal critics like to call David, if David
was anything he was a very strong hetero, but he wasn’t a homo. And in verse 21 loving Saul means that he
admired God’s officer. David is
responding to God’s officer. This is the
office of the Christ, regardless of the fact the guys a clod in the office,
David respects the office, regardless of the officer holder. So that’s why David is responding and he
always did love Saul, he always respected Saul.
Later on there’s going to be a very embarrassing scene that’s going to
occur in 1 Samuel, and David is going to catch Saul in a very embarrassing
situation and when he does David moves right on and doesn’t kill him because
David loved Saul and he will not touch messiah.
In fact, the boy that finally called Saul in battle and comes to David
and says ha-ha, I killed your enemy, and David said you did? Kill him.
And that’s how David loved Saul, even though Saul hated him. David, therefore, in this area, is a type of
Christ.
Verse 22, “And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand
before me; for he has found favor in my sight.”
Verse 22 ends the chronology, verse 23 is a tack on explanation. Verse 23 does not continue the chronology;
the past tense in “found favor” in verse 22 ends the chronology. David has already proved himself by the end
of verse 22. So verse 23 chronologically
fits between verse 21 and 23 and it is there to tell the reader how did David
find favor in Saul’s sight. Verse 23 is
an explanation, how did David do this.
So verse 23 is the evidence, “And it came to pass, when the evil spirit
from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with hand; so Saul
was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.” The word “refreshed” is the same word, ruach, except it’s the verb form and it
means to relax and expand. It means that
Saul was under tremendous tension during the times of terror, and David would
come in with his harp and play and Saul would relax. That’s the emphasis of the passage, it would
relax Saul, it would get rid of all this tension and terror that he would have
and the evil spirit left him.
Now we have to answer why does music do this? Because it says the evil spirit actually
departed from Saul. What is it about
music that causes this to happen, under at least the simple demon influence
situation. Why is this? I’m going to approach the answer to this
question, it’s a complicated answer but I’m going to make six points in
answering this question.
First, basic considerations of music itself. Music is used by only two categories of
creation, angels and men. Animals don’t
make music, although they make signals and sounds and so forth, it’s not music
in the sense man makes it to communicate in conceptual thought. Animals, as I have said all along, animals
have perceptual thought, not conceptual thought. In other words, only angels and men have
God-consciousness, and music is generated by both angels and men in
praise. So the fundamental role of music
is praise of God. This is what the
angels are doing before God’s throne; the first location of music, according to
Job 38, was the chorus that the angels sang while God finished the creation
work. The angels were made early in
creation week and as God finished the creation the angels sang for Him and the
angels finished accompaniment, it was a musical accompaniment to the end of
creation. So music was formulated by
angels and men. And only angels and men
have God-consciousness and therefore only angels and men can praise God. So music is related to language, not just the
lyrics of the music but itself is related to language and conceptual
thought. This is the way it’s always
viewed in Scripture, never something by itself.
It is an expression language generating being. That’s the first basic consideration of
music. Where do we first see it? With language generating creatures.
Second, music is known to have a powerful effect on the physical
body. Music has a powerful effect on the
physical body; not only does it have a powerful effect on plants as now is
being demonstrated on the organic cell tissue of plants themselves respond to
certain frequencies of music. Music can
affect the so-called living organic realm.
But in a book by the head of Bob Jones University Music Department,
Frank Garlock, in a book that discusses the effect of music he says this: “The
bodies autonomic nervous system, that network of nerve fibers and ductless
glands which regulate such involuntary responses as heart beat, temperature,
digestion and respiration begins to react at certain levels of music. At certain levels [can’t understand word] constrictive
effects are noticed; narrowing of the arteries which raises the diastolic blood
pressure and lessens the supply of blood to the heart. As the intensity of the sound increases the
effects grow stronger, dilation of the leg, abdomen and chest muscles, sudden
excess of the production of adrenalin, stoppage in the flow of gastric juices,
and excitation of the heart. These
effects are automatic, unaffected by the subject’s health, unaffected by the
subject’s annoyance, unaffected by whether the subject was accustomed to the
noise or not. Man, though amazingly
resilient in his adaptability to most environmental changes, his body shows no
signs of an ability to be ever conditioned to noise levels.”
Now this is not talking about music as such, it’s talking about noise
levels, just bare noise; noise can be in a chaotic state or an orderly
state. This by the way should also show
you why disorganized music is very disastrous for an individual. People say I don’t listen to the lyrics, I
just listen to the music; bologna, don’t you think the music itself has a
dangerous effect. Listen to this: “by
using an electro encephalogram” this measures the brain waves, “researchers
have discovered that a musician just sitting in a chair and listening to a
moving piece of music uses every muscle in his body, though he never leaves his
chair. It has also been found by the
same means that even a slight difference between a major and a minor chord
produces a different physical response on the part of the listener.” So therefore music deeply affects your body,
and notice how—to the involuntary side of the nervous system which is just the
area that missionaries for a long time have said is the area most affected by
demonic phenomenon; the involuntary side of the central nervous system. So that’s the second point, that music
profoundly affects the body.
The third point, music profoundly affects the mind or the soul. Example: Muzak, the outfit that sells music
to stores, do you think the people buy music to be piped into the stores just
to create pleasing sounds. Huh-un, it’s
more economic than that. When this music
is sold to a store the store owner is promised that his sales will increase as
a result of playing the music. Why? It breaks down sales resistance. And music is sold today economically on the
open market to produce this effect. So
music obviously has an effect on the mind.
In 1955 a group began music therapy for neurotic and psychotic people
and today there’s a group called Recording for Recovery that sends out special
music tapes to the mental institutions because they find music therapy helps;
it causes mental changes. “One of the
findings has been that reaches a person through the [not familiar with word, sounds
like: sub quar di cal] centers of the brain, and therefore may not even touch
the conscious mind at all. Music can
affect a person whether or not he is aware of it,” an important point. Music can affect you whether you are
consciously aware of it or not; you watch out the kind of music you have in the
background. You’re being affected
whether you know it or not. “The component with which we are concerned,”
Garlock here is quoting a study done by several sociologists. “The component of
music with which we are most concerned is not to be found in the specific music
style but in the thought behind the style.
It is the stature of this thought which directs the group structure and
the musical experience created by it.
For although the thought can form a musical style, the style can only
become a vital influence when it has been engendered by the power and energy of
the thought of the producer who is doing the playing of the music.
In other words, they’re finding it is something that the performer
himself puts into the music as well as what the composer puts into the
music. Therefore the conclusion of this
study was, “what does concern us most are such elements as the credos of
musicians and the world of musical thought.”
In other words, the study concluded that what they’re interested in is
what do the composers personally believe and what do the performers of that
music personally believe because it’s how they believe that influences how they
write and how they play the music.
Point four, not only does the music affect the body, not only does music
affect the mind, but therefore we conclude from this that music must be somehow
related to an expansion of our normal language communication. In other words, apparently what is happening
here is that we have one form of communication we recognize as language, it
communicates from my conscious mind to your conscious mind. Language was designed to go from one
conscious mind to the next, but apparently there’s an aurora of communication
that goes on with music that extends out beyond just the simple language; it
was generated by a language speaking being who thinks but this second area
penetrates to the subconscious of the hearer, and is related to language but
goes beyond language. And this has been
recognized, Plato observed this in the book, The Republic, the book of Jasher I presume.
I was given a book this week by a man that’s interested in music, Carlo
Farinelli who was a tremendous Italian
singer who lived between 1705 and 1782, went on a vacation around Europe and
Philip V of Spain heard this man’s voice.
Now Philip V was married to a woman who was desperate, she was the Queen
of Spain and she wanted to get her husband out of his depression. Philip V experienced tremendous mental illness
and he wasn’t even functioning as the King of Spain. And so finally his wife, the Queen, got
Farinelli to come in and she said to her husband, look, come on out and listen
to this guy. So what she did was,
because he hadn’t shaved in about three months and he looked pretty gross, so
she said okay, sit in your room, and she brought this guy in and he sang a song
right next to the wall, and she made sure it was a good thin wall so that he
had to hear it. And he gave a concert
right next to the wall with Philip V on the other side and as he got halfway
through his concert and Philip V said hey, I hear something that’s really great
and he came walking out his door without any of the depression. And the Queen thought this was so hot that
she signed a contract with Farinelli and for the rest of his life or most of it
he stayed and gave concerts to Philip V and through that was able to allow
Philip V to reign as the King of Spain and to control his mental
depression. So we then have ample
evidence that music is doing something like this.
Now if we move to the fifth point in our concluding answer, in the
matter of David and Saul we can make some deductions. First, music apparently was able to drive out
the spirit of Saul because music in some way brings the soul underneath the
human spirit of the composer or performer or both, so that as David played the
music that he played communicated not just to Saul’s conscious mind, but
communicated to Saul’s unconscious mind and was able to momentarily occupy that
mind with order, whereas Saul himself was so weak spiritually that his human
spirit couldn’t even keep occupied, he couldn’t keep that soul occupied. Remember the balloon analogy, he couldn’t
keep his balloon filling the box, and so music sort of filled the rest of the
box for him and while David played it momentarily filled his mind with order
and peace and that was why in some way I believe Saul was healed in this state.
For the sixth and last point turn to Ephesians 5:18 we have the filling
of the Holy Spirit and I want you to notice what follows the filling of the
Holy Spirit in verse 19, “Speaking among yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Doesn’t that teach that music is somehow
very related to the work of the Holy Spirit, that when the Holy Spirit moves in
an area He’s going to move through music, partially at least, and therefore
doesn’t that suggest that the local church should have an emphasis on the
correct form of music?