1 Samuel Lesson 27
First Attempt on David’s life – 18:5-16
We are in a major section beginning in 1 Samuel 16:1 which extends from
that point to the end of 2 Samuel 1; that is the large overall section which we
have entitled, Saul decreases, David increases.
We have divided that large section into various subsections: the first
one we dealt with was 16:1-18:4, and this subsection dealt with God picking the
second incumbent to walk as a king, David.
God chose the second incumbent to the office of king. And so this entire section is dealing with
how David was anointed, Samuel came to him.
After God got through the anointing then what empirical historical
evidences did you have that God really was the man that God picked, and the
chapter dealt with those problems.
Now in chapter 18:5 on down to
So we have now the beginning of what I have entitled the Satan/Christ
motif. And from this point in the book
of Samuel we have a mild typology that deals with Christ and Satan. Now this is a mild one and you have to be
careful. Typology is one of the most
dangerous things in theology because we have had in church history people who
have been extreme in both ways, against it and for it, so typology has always
traditionally been a very dangerous area to work with. But we can at least say in this situation the
Satan/Christ motif is pictured in Saul and David. This is important because if you are a Psalm
lover and you like to read the Psalms you are not going to understand those
Psalms unless you understand the Satan/Christ motif operating in the
background. It is this motif that leads
to the writing of the Psalms.
We have about ten Psalms that have in the title of the Psalm a note from
the Holy Spirit telling us when that Psalm was written. We have ten of these and as we work through
these sections and we encounter the area of history for which that Psalm was
written I will exegete the Psalm too. So
in addition to 1 & 2 Samuel we will be running through ten Psalms in the
book of Psalms. These Psalms are very
interesting to study because when you read first the history of 1 Samuel you
will see the background in the field of reality and then you’ll read the Psalm
about it and it’ll help you understand how these Psalms were written.
But before we go any further I’d like to give five points on the
Satan/Christ motif. This is the
comparison of the lives of Saul and David and the lives of Satan and Jesus
Christ. Both of these types fulfill in a
partial way the functions and office and work of Satan and Christ.
The first parallel between Satan and Saul and Christ and David is that
Saul is rejected as king; 1 Samuel
The second point is that Saul is left on the throne, even though he
legally is no longer king. And Satan
remains as god of this world, even though he has no legal claim to the
title. Saul is left on the throne in
power; Satan is left on his throne in power.
Matthew 4:9, 2 Cor. 4:4. So we
have this analogy that we have both Saul and Satan left on their throne; they
exercise power even though the base for the exercise of power is being eroded
and has been rejected. So that’s the
second parallel between Saul and Satan.
Satan is the god of this world, Matthew 4:9, 2 Cor. 4:4. When you hear somebody pray “O God Almighty,”
don’t buy it; the word “god almighty” can be used of Satan, it can be used as a
god over all and everything else. There’s
only one title that you can use that distinguishes which god you are praying to
and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And
if you are a member of some civic club and they ask you to get up and pray but
don’t end your prayer in Christ’s name because you may offend someone, you can
politely tell them that you therefore do not intend to pray, because if you do
not use the name of the Lord Jesus Christ then you are not telling the people
which God you are praying to and there are many gods in this world; Satan is
one of them.
The third point is that Saul persecutes and tries to prevent David from
becoming his successor. Saul persecutes
David and tries to prevent David from becoming his successor. Satan persecutes Christ and tries to prevent
Christ from becoming his successor. So
you have an exact analogy, the persecution of David extends on to the time when
Saul dies, and Satan’s persecution extends on to Christ until he’s thrown in
the abyss at the beginning of the millennium.
You might argue that it continues on down to the end of the millennium
until he’s thrown in the lake of fire.
So both Saul and Satan persecute their replacements and try to prevent
the person that is designated as their replacement from assuming office.
The fourth point in the Satan/Christ motif: David must endure the
persecution until God the Father eliminates Saul, as he does in 2 Samuel
1. Similarly, Jesus Christ must endure
His persecution until God the Father completes operation footstool, Hebrews
1:13. “But to which of the angels said
he at any time, Sit on My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy
footstool?” In other words, Jesus Christ
is seated at the Father’s hand and we who are members of His body throughout
the Church Age must patiently endure the persecution until the body is complete
and it stops, and the Father make all enemies the footstool under Jesus
Christ. So point 4 is we must patiently
endure, David patiently endured and it was during this patient endurance that
David spoke of the Psalms, which is point 5.
The period of the persecution of David is reflected in the book of
Psalms. Therefore the book of Psalms
applies to the body of Christ today in a similar position. Point 5, the period of persecution is the
time of the book of Psalms, the Davidic Psalms, and that is why many of you
find the book of Psalms so helpful in a devotional way. The book of Psalms is a very fantastic source
of encouragement in the face of despair, it has many, many promises you can
claim, and seems written for many of life’s situations and you may have
wondered why. Why the book of Psalms
more than other books? Because the book
of Psalms was written during a period of history analogous to the one you now
live in, that is, the body of Christ is enduring persecution.
1 Samuel 18:5, this is a summary statement and the real details begin at
verse 6, but verse 5 is a summary statement as I have told you over and over
again, when you read the Old Testament the Hebrews always put summary
statements first and after that they deal with the details. So verse 5 is a summary statement. “And David went whithersoever Saul sent him,
and behaved himself wisely; and Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted
in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.” So this is a follow up to the previous
section that ended in verse 4, that David has been selected and is anointed,
and now the force of the empirical evidence makes itself felt on the community
of people and one by one, up to the thousands and thousands, people begin to
recognize this is the coming leader of the nation; David is going to be a
tremendous believer. He already is a
tremendous believer and he is going to be the savior of the nation. David is a hero; you have heard of hero
worshiping; in a way that is valid.
One of the sad states that we find ourselves in as a nation in our
present time is that we have no heroes on a national scale. We have no one that young people can look to
and pattern their lives after as an inspiration. We have no one of that caliber on the horizon
today. We have not national heroes, the
reason being we have no great believers who are in high places. The people who are in high places who are
believers are getting disciplined because they have failed to appropriate the
Word of God, they have violated the Word of God, and so believers who are in
high public offices today are associated with scandal, they are associated with
liberalism, they are associated with all sorts of asinine situations simply
because they have been disobedient sheep.
And the Father will not permit a disobedient sheep to be blessed
wherever he is. We don’t need any more
believers in high office, we’ve got enough of them; what we need is believers
who know doctrine. So until we have a
concerted attempt to build the local church into a strong Bible teaching area
on a national scale we will not have great believers in high places.
David was a hero and he was a national hero. And this is interesting because that says,
since David is a type of Christ, that Jesus Christ is a hero, and one day Jesus
Christ is going to be a world-wide hero and people are going to worship him as
a hero. You’ve often heard it said that
hero worship is wrong; hero worship is the worship of men. Not when the man is also God, and Jesus
Christ is both God and man and therefore that is one case where hero worship is
bona fide and legitimate. And we have an
adumbration of that here in this passage when David has become the national
hero.
“And David went out whithersoever Saul sent him,” he is learning
obedience, please notice. Remember man
and how he is made; man must have learned behavior patterns; obedience does not
come naturally. Now put that one in your
head, there is no such thing as natural obedience. Jesus Christ did not naturally obey the
Father. At no point in His life did
Christ naturally obey the Father.
Hebrews 2 is one of the great sections of that epistle; it says Jesus
Christ over a process of time learned obedience, which means if Christ did not
have a sin nature, and had to learn obedience, how much more do we, who have a
sin nature, must learn obedience, and you cannot learn obedience by taking a
five minute devotional in the morning or going to some hot-shot conference and
walking away with a spiritual high that is supposed to last till the next
conference next year. That is no way to
do it; the only way is systematic teaching of the Word, day after day after day
after day and application day after day after day after day, and that is the
only way you can possibly work this situation out. So we have a learning of obedience and that
is what is mentioned here with David.
David knows he is anointed to the office, David knows that Saul has no
right to that office, but what does it say?
“David went whithersoever Saul sent him.” And the verb “sent” is imperfect which means
habitually sent, wherever it was, Saul sent him here, Saul sent him there,
David said “yes Sir” and went. David
said “yes Sir” and went. David said “yes
Sir” and went. David said “Yes Sir” and
went. So David was learning obedience
under Saul, a king who was illegitimate.
Incidentally, this is why we have to be careful of types; Jesus Christ
does not do what Satan tells him to do.
Actually Satan does what Jesus Christ tells him to do. So here we have the type violated and there’s
no such thing as a perfect type so be careful.
“...and behaved himself wisely,” the word “wisely” is sakal, now watch this one because this
is one, if you have paid attention in the Psalm series, you’ve seen
before. sakal is a Hebrew word that refers to successful behavior because
of skill. It indicates a person who is
skillful, yes, but it refers to the success that comes about because of the
skill. The emphasis is more on the
success here. Now does that ring a
bell? What is the title of some of the
Psalms in the book of Psalms. You put an
“M” before this word, so you have Maschil, and a Maschil is a successful Psalm,
it is a Psalm that deals with the details of life and how we can have spiritual
success and prosperity in following that.
So there’s the background of a Maschil Psalm.
“...and behaved himself wisely,” now what does this mean? This is a summary statement and it means that
during this time, of the summary statement, David is having many attempts made
on his life. During this time David is
going to try to be killed, Saul is going to try to kill him, and all during
this first phase of his life which is going to end soon and he goes off into
the gorilla phase of his life when he is a reject and in exile, but right now,
the first part of David’s career is as a hero under Saul. All during that time
there are five attempts on his life, and when it says David “behaved himself
wisely” it means that David was able to stay under Saul’s authority and yet at
the same time be protected from the violence of this man. Now that is a believer who knows what is
going on. David could have killed Saul
on a number of occasions and I will point this out, but David doesn’t kill
Saul. David knows he has the right to
the throne but he trusts the Lord.
Here’s the use of the faith technique.
And David is a master at the use of the faith technique. David is a master because even though he
knows he can get the throne by his own works, he says no, the Lord was the One
who anointed me and the Lord is the One that’s going to get me into the
office. So therefore I am going to trust
and relax in Him, I’m going to cast my cares “upon Him for He cares for me.” “All things work together for good to them
that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose.” So if this is the situation, then we can
trust the Lord in everything. So this is
why David is a great believer, He “behaved himself wisely.”
As a result, “Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted,”
now the setting over the men of war means that he probably was the equivalent
of a Major in the army today. He was a
commissioned officer and he had command of a fairly large group of men. He was a Major at this point. “...and he was accepted in the sight of all
the people,” all right, let’s look at this.
Again, part of the summary statement, “accepted in the sight of all the
people.” What does this mean? Notice the two parts of verse 5, “the sight
of all the people” and who else? What
special group of people are picked out, and that’s going to introduce us to the
trouble that we’re going to face here.
What is the second group of people mentioned in verse 5, “and also in
the sight of Saul’s servants.” So the
second area of the ministry of David is that as the evidences of his anointing,
remember the king issue is his anointing; his anointing has become historically
visible and the result is that the people inherently recognize it. People inherently recognize greatness; they
gravitate toward a great person. And
here you see it and here’s the danger.
The people who are gravitating toward David are the people who are in
Saul’s personal entourage, and this is going to set up some very strained
relationships as we are now going to see in verse 6.
“And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the
slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel,
singing and dancing to meet King Saul, with tabrets [timbrels], with joy, and with
instruments of music. [7] And the women spoke to one another as they played,
and said, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. [8] And
Saul was very angry, and the saying displeased him, and he said, They have
ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they’ve ascribed but thousands;
and what can he have more, but the kingdom? [9] And Saul watched enviously
David, from that day and onward.”
So here you have a very interesting reaction and we must study it in
detail. Back to verse 6, “And it came to
pass as they came,” ...as they came, this is a return, a triumphal march; it
may the national celebration due to the slaughter of Goliath, but it doesn’t
have to be. They were killing Philistines
all during this period; it could have been a later campaign. But any way, at some campaign, when they
returned from some slaughter of the Philistines, “that the women came out of
all cities,” notice they came out of all the cities. This means they had a military procession
through the major metropolitan areas of Israel.
They didn’t have all the people that we have today that if you suggest
that the Marines, the Army or the Air Force are marching down town or something
they say, oh, we don’t have that here, that is too militaristic. They didn’t believe that way, they honored
their military force.
And notice who it is that comes out of the cities to do the honoring; it
is the women, and as Bob Thieme has pointed out in this passage, this is a very
interesting commentary on women and their recognition of the means of national
freedom, because when there is national defeat, who is it that is going to
suffer the worst? It will always be the
women. Women down through history, where
there’s been a maximum of divine viewpoint, have always been women who honored
the military because they inherently and instinctively realize that their
freedom to enjoy themselves as women depended on their army securing victory in
war. Here you have a tremendous response
on the part of the women of the country, in verse 6, they come out
spontaneously, this isn’t some sort of a program, this is the natural response
of the women to military victory and they honor their men.
“...the women came out ...singing and dancing to meet King Saul,” he is
the man who is at the head of the army, “with tabrets [timbrels], with joy, and
with instruments of music.” I have here
a picture of an Assyrian; “tabret” is translated a psaltery, it should be a
psaltery and a timbrel. The girl on the
left is an Assyrian dancer, and you’ll notice this is the first case of hot
pants; Solomon said under the sun there’s nothing new and now you see it; the
Assyrian women wore hot pants when they used their psalteries and they danced
in the streets when their armies were victorious and here’s one that’s got the
long modern look all the way down to her ankles and she’s banging on a
timbrel. And these are actual
archeological pictures of what the Assyrians did, and that’s what a psaltery
looks like, it has strings across it and they played this thing. That is probably what is happening here in
verse 6, these ladies are out by the thousands singing this thing “with
instruments of music.” Singing and so
forth should be accompanied by instruments; I don’t know how they derived that
but they got that straight.
And then they made a mistake, at least it was a mistake as far as Saul
was concerned, because when they sang their lyrics, “And the women answered
[spoke to] one another,” that shows you the way they sang, there would be one
group of women would sing and they’d have a second group of women responding to
them. One group sang, group A, then
group B, group A, group B, group A, group B, and somewhere in the middle of the
song somebody dropped this lyric in. Now
this is not the whole song in verse 7; verse 7 is only part of the song, verse
7 is just one verse. But as they were
singing this, it must have been maybe twenty or thirty verses that they sang
over and over as the parade went by, they stuck this verse in and this is the
verse the Holy Spirit has preserved out of that song because it explains what
is going to happen.
“Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” It is a very embarrassing scene because you
have the king; the king rides at the head of the procession and along with the
king would ride his field commander, which would be Abner, and behind them
would be the heroic officers, and down to the junior officer by the name of
David. Now it’s very embarrassing to
have the king and the field commander go by and everybody sings, Saul, you’ve
killed your thousands; Saul you’ve killed your thousands; Saul you’ve killed
your thousands and so on; this was directed at Saul and Abner. Then as David would come the music would
increase in volume and David has killed his ten thousands; David has killed his
ten thousands; David has killed his ten thousands. And during the parade Saul says what are they
singing back there? And so he gets mad.
And in verse 8 he hears this thing, and he’s probably sent for a report,
what’s this, they seem to be changing lyrics after we go by, what’s all this
about. “And Saul became very angry, and
the saying displeased him.” Now at this
point we’re going to watch a man who is in compound carnality blow it
completely. Again let’s look at chaos in
the heart. It starts out with negative
volition, the Holy Spirit decreases His illuminating work in the soul which
leads to a blackout of the soul. The
next thing that happens is that you begin to suck in human viewpoint or
vanity. As a result of this you have a
faith shutdown in the soul, the soul can no longer believe because there’s
nothing to believe. All the doctrine
that has been learned is tubed, and all the great evidences for the faith are
forgotten and so you have a faith shutdown and the person cannot believe,
literally, no matter how hard they try they can’t believe at this point unless
the Holy Spirit works some more in their soul.
And here you have the introduction of compound carnality. Up to this point if a person confesses their
sin by 1 John 1:9 then that person can be restored to fellowship, then he can
positive volition, he can have an enlightened ministry of the Holy Spirit and
we can have the correct of human viewpoint by divine viewpoint.
But beyond this point things get so bad that besides 1 John 1:9 you get
back in fellowship, you never need more than 1 John 1:9 to get back in
fellowship. But after you’re in
fellowship you’ve got a battle to fight and you have to start pushing back the
enemy at this point. Just like the nation
Israel, after they got back in fellowship, had to fight to secure their
land. And at this point Saul, remember,
has begun to hate. We saw that in his
previous failures throughout the book of 1 Samuel and now we begin to notice
something. A believer who has arrived at
this stage of carnality is always victim to pseudo authority, authority of the
mob or authority of his emotions. And
one of the outward manifestations of a believer who has reached this fourth
stage where he hates and changes the glory of the incorruptible God into an
idol, one of the outward signs is jealousy.
And here is where we have jealousy.
Saul becomes fantastically jealous, tremendously jealous and it is this
which leads to the most powerful word in the Hebrew vocabulary for anger in
verse 8, very extremely angry. It is not
a legitimate anger; there are some cases where anger is legitimate, Ephesians 4
explains them. And Saul, right at this
point, heads into this final phase of chaos.
He leads into the frustration phase.
And in the frustration phase the Father withdraws part of his grace from
the believer, opening that believer up to full scale demonic assault. And at this point Saul is going to... we’ve
seen demonic assault before but we’ve seen nothing like what’s coming because
at this point he is in rebellion against God.
He hates David because David stands in God’s will. Now let’s look at it.
Verse 8, “And Saul was very wroth [angry], and the saying displeased
him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they
have ascribed but thousands;;;; and what can he have more, but the
kingdom?” Now do you think Saul knew
that it was David’s right to have the kingdom?
I think he did. I think at this
time it dawned on him what God was doing.
He saw that, first of all, by Samuel he had been rejected from the
office, he knew that, this was not a doubt in his mind. But now he began to see this young officer
back in the parade, getting all of this glory, all of this acclaim, something
he sought for all his life. Believers on
human good always seek for approbation and never get it, and they’re always
frustrated because they never have approbation of other believers, and yet here
is a man back there who could care less about getting approbation, and he gets
it all. The grace oriented believer who
is relaxed, who has cast his cares upon the Lord because the Lord cares for
him, he enjoys all this acclaim. David
is having a ball in this parade. All
these nice looking women coming out, David, you’ve killed your ten thousands;
he’s having a fantastic time in this parade and he doesn’t realized up how
steamed up Saul is up ahead. He’s going
along and enjoying himself, at this point anyway.
Verse 8 is the Holy Spirit’s depiction of the mental attitude inside
Saul’s soul. Saul is saying I know that
I have been rejected from the kingdom but I am not going to give it up to this
man. That’s the force of this question,
“What can he have more, but the kingdom?”
In other words, I know that the Lord is working in that man’s life, he
has been anointed to take my place, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let him have my
office. Now when Saul has that attitude,
who’s he rebelling against? The Lord, so
basically this is not hatred directed at David so much as it’s hatred against
the Lord, and it comes out of this phrase.
Verse 9, “Now Saul eyed [watched enviously] David, from that day and
forward [onward].” The word “eyed” is a
participle, it means that this continually happened, that Saul was constantly
watching David, day after day after day after day Saul would watch David during
this time, looking for opportunities.
And now in verse 10 we have the first of the assassination
attempts. Now please notice what is also
going on in Saul’s soul and you’ll recognize this process in your own
soul. We have our mind and our
conscience; our conscience informs our mind of the standards of God. Our mind, under negative volition, can’t stop
the conscience; there’s no way the conscience can be destroyed, Proverbs
20:27. But the mind can erect a shield
against the conscience. And these we
call psychological defense mechanisms.
We have isolated several, there are many more but I usually refer to the
acrostic, FRISP, Fantasy, Rationalization, Isolation, Suppression and
Projection. And in this case Saul is
using projection; he is projecting responsibility from himself onto David. And this is what happens when you get in
carnality, you go on negative volition, immediately we develop sin, we have
some –R learned behavior pattern; we don’t like that and our conscience says
that is wrong. So what do we do? Instead of using 1 John 1:9, if we stay in
carnality we cover it up by building another sin on top of that one. In other words, we replace the first one with
the second one, and that’s what happened here.
Saul has been out of it an rejects it, and instead of acknowledging that
and moving with it, he’s going to say all right, my trouble is this young officer I’ve got, I can get rid of my
trouble by getting rid of David.
Now that method of thought shouldn’t be too foreign to most of us,
because in a system of carnality isn’t that what we would usually do. Here the Lord has a big problem and it’s
especially designed for us, 1 Cor. 10:13, and it has a particular shape, some
particular area of life. Now God has
dropped that particular problem right in your lap and you start immediately
saying well look, the real cause of this problem is this; maybe you are
unhappy, or just perpetually unhappy, you’re really unhappy because you’re not
positive for the Lord, everything you do turns to dust, you gripe, no one likes
to work with you on the job and so forth, you’re always chronically unhappy,
nothing satisfies, always complaining. It’s
always something else, it’s because my employer didn’t give me a raise, that is
why I am unhappy. Or it is because I
can’t get a new car when I want to get a new car. Or it is because I married the wrong
person... well who was it that tripped up to the altar and made the vow? You did, don’t blame God for that one. God is not the blame for these things but you
are projecting responsibility from yourself back on God’s shoulders and saying
it is all God’s fault.
Or you say I am unhappy because of my environment. Your environment doesn’t mean boom, Paul was
happy in a Philippian jail, and do you know what that was? He was in the third floor down which was the
sewage collection floor. All the sewage
from the prison dropped in the basement; that is where they put Paul; so in the
middle of the slush, flush, flush on third floor below Paul was perfectly happy
singing hymns, so much so that half the prison was almost converted. Now if Saul can be perfectly happy three
floors down in a cesspool then can’t you be happy in your situation? Sure you can, if you’re in fellowship with
the Lord; if you’re out of fellowship you’re not going to be happy doing
anything. You can have all the money in
the world and you’re still not going to be happy. You will be frustrated wherever you turn when
you are out of fellowship like this and Saul was. But he was blaming it on David. In other words, what we find beginning in
verse 10 is human good now trying to defend itself by human works and human
works begins to take over, I can eliminate my problems by eliminating
David. And we’ll see how successful he
is.
Verse 10, “And it came to pass on the next day, that the evil spirit
from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house; and David
played with his hand, as at other times; and there was a javelin in Saul’s
hand. [11] And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to
the wall with it. And David escaped from
his presence twice.” There are two
assassination attempts made against David in verses 10-11.
Let’s look at verse 10 in detail.
“And it came to pass on the next day, that the evil spirit from God came
upon Saul,” now we have to remember there are apparently four degrees of
demonic infection or spiritual infection in the believer. One we all suffer from is temptation. Every believer is tempted, in some way, shape
or form, demon power has the right and the privilege and the means of sowing
their thoughts in Christian’s minds. So
you have temptation. It can also come
from the flesh, so it comes from both sides, it comes from the material side,
the soul side and it comes from the spiritual side. That’s the first degree.
The second degree is the influence stage and this is when you are out of
fellowship and if you are out of fellowship on an extended time period, you are
obviously on negative volition and your heart is slowly but surely lining up
with Satan and his plans. So Satan has
increasing influence in your life the longer you stay out of fellowship; you’re
asking for it and you’ll become a very good agent of Satan in this situation.
The third type, the next degree, is control and here is where we
actually have demonic residency in the body of the person and here’s where they
convince the person to do all sorts of things.
And then we have the final, the replacement situation which we dealt
with in the angelic conflict series, where the demon takes complete control of
the individual.
Now those are the degrees; we cannot tell from verse 10 what degree it
is; we know it is not number one; apparently from the middle phrase “he
prophesied in the midst of the house” would indicate that this is the fourth
degree. Now this is the first evidence
that we’ve seen anything worse than the second degree. Saul has been under second degree up to this
point; now he goes to the fourth degree and the demon actually begins to
prophesy. [tape turns]
Satan can do all sorts of miracles and so you have counterfeit miracles
that can be performed that are truly miracles.
Because the thing is a miracle does not mean God is behind it. You must use the test of Deuteronomy 13 and
18 that were given to Israel to analyze all miracles before they can be
tolerated or accepted in any way. We
have this prophesying here and it’s obviously demonic, as much of the
prophesying today is. The charismatic
movement is filled with this kind of counterfeit type of spirit beings who are
pretending the work of the Holy Spirit and they are not the work of the Holy
Spirit. So here we have the counterfeit
prophesy here. “...and he prophesied in
the midst of his house,” so we have a genuine prophesy that is totally
satanic. So David plays his harp, David
was called in for music therapy, and he plays his harp as at other times. And then there’s a Hebrew note that there’s a
javelin in Saul’s hand.
Verse 11, “And Saul threw [cast] the javelin; for he said, I will smite
David even to the wall with it.” And
this is a case where he is going to just pin David up against the wall. I want you to notice, the next time you read
your newspapers, remember verse 11 when you deal with some of these articles
about so and so was declared temporarily insane while he murdered somebody;
here’s a verse right on that. Nobody is
temporarily insane when they murder somebody, because what does it say? “Saul said it in his mind,” he knew what he
was doing. Now there are cases where
this is a possibility but verse 11 shows you that most of the time it’s completely
fake because verse 10 tells you the demon’s power has come into Saul and is
exercising himself through Saul and yet Saul says, verse 11, “Saul says,” Saul
is responsible for the murder of David if David was killed at this point. Of course if Saul had a modern lawyer he’d
say well I could plead insanity, I didn’t know what I was doing. And then he would get off after two weeks in
jail.
Verse 12, after the two assassination attempts we have a summary of what
happened, this expands verse 5, “And Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD
was with him, and was departed from Saul.”
This tells you the inner fear of a believer who is in the intense stage
of compound carnality. He’s on negative
volition, he’s had the darkening of the Holy Spirit, he’s had human viewpoint
develop in his soul, he’s had hatred of God and now he has frustration, and
part of the characteristic of a totally frustrated person is that they are
perpetually in fear, fear of something; it is a [not sure of word, think it’s:
mind] fear that occurs anytime they are around someone who is in fellowship. You mark that because this explains a lot of
behavior. In verse 12 Saul was deeply
afraid of David. Was he afraid that
David was going to kill him? No, he was
not afraid David was going to kill him.
Then what was he afraid of in verse 12?
What is Saul afraid of? That
David is going to physically assault him?
No, he’s got evidence to know that David’s not that kind of a man.
Well then why is Saul afraid of David?
Saul is afraid of David because David is acting as a conscience for him.
You see, in this stage of carnality the person’s conscience is pretty well
shot. In this stage we have the
conscience of the individual being shorted out and he has no norms here, that
we would have of disobeying God. So what
happens? The Lord will surround that
person with another believer who is fellowship, and so this person who is out
of it feels the pressure of the conscience of the believer who’s next to him,
and that is the fear. And this is why people in compound carnality love to
isolate themselves. Why do they love to
isolate themselves? Because they don’t
like to be around believers who are in fellowship because there’s a presence of
another conscience. Now they can wipe
out their own with scar tissue but they can’t get to the other person’s
conscience. And so the other person is just always around there as a rebuke to
them. He doesn’t have to say anything,
there’s no bad remarks passed here.
David was a very gracious man, he never made this an issue. David was extremely gracious, and I doubt
that David ever had a bad word for Saul face to face, but Saul [can’t
understand word] the fate of this man and what [can’t understand words].
Therefore, verse 13, this tells you how David got his commission. Remember verse 5 was an overall statement,
and where it said “Saul set him over the men of war,” this tells you how that
happened. “Therefore Saul removed him
from him, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in
before the people.” In other words, get
David out of my way. He’s tried to kill
him twice, and it didn’t work, and so now he’s going to try to kill him another
time which will come up next week, by making him an officer over the army and
he’ll deliberately give him dangerous assignments.
Verse 14, “And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways,” look at
verse 14, there’s a tremendous model for anyone in this situation, where you
have an employer, someone over you who is just completely anti-Christian to the
core, where you are a student who has a professor over you that is completely
anti-Christian to the core, you can have a woman who is married to a husband
who is completely anti-Christian to the core, or visa verse, a man who is
married to a woman, anyway you want to look at it, children in a home dominated
this way. Look at this model. “David behaved himself wisely,” and the word
“behaved wisely” is a participle and means continuously wisely. And we’re going to learn about “wisely” in
Proverbs, David sachil, “David behaved himself wisely in all his ways, and the
LORD was with him.” That is the Holy
Spirit pointing out why David survived.
David was able to survive under a king who wanted to assassinate him,
because “he behaved himself wisely.”
Verse 15, “Wherefore, when Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely,
he was afraid of him,” and the Hebrew indicates more afraid of him. Saul is more afraid here of David. The more wise David is, the more frustrated
Saul becomes, the more terrified Saul becomes.
But, verse 16, “But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he went
out and came in before them.” The idiom
“going out and coming in” simply means to live your life in public view. That’s the point, it’s the normal details and
activities of life. David did not
hide.
But verse 16 also implies something else is happening; Saul is isolating
himself from the nation. He is a silent
king; the public at large no longer sees Saul in the parades any more, no
longer is Saul leading with Abner in the great celebrations, the great parties
in Jerusalem, Saul is not there now.
Where is Saul? He’s at home in
his palace. Saul has begun to isolate
himself, he is a miserable person. He is
a believer who has fallen apart in situation after situation. He is a believer who has rebelled against
God’s will in his life. And now he is
reaping a living hell on earth. He is,
in terms we would say today, he is psychotic.
Saul is insane at this point due to his rebellion against God. And Saul is a model of Satan and I want you
to watch this.
Here is Saul, he tries to kill David, and David behaves himself wisely
and David escapes. Let’s look at our
analogy; who is Saul corresponding to?
Satan. Who’s David corresponding
to? Christ. Do you think Satan wanted to kill
Christ? Sure he did, we know that from
the Gospels. What did Jesus Christ
do? He behaved Himself wisely. He got to the cross and it was so wise, so
beautifully wise, that Satan undid his whole kingdom by trying to murder
Christ.
Now, lesson for us as believers: we are identified with Christ in
Satan’s world. Turn to John 15:18, Jesus
warns us about this very thing, and it’s the Satan/Christ motif. “If the world hate you, you know that it
hated Me before it hated you. [19] If you were of the world, the world would
love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out
of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Now we are therefore identified with Christ just in the same way as a
target as Christ Himself was before Satan.
How did Christ survive Satan’s assaults?
By acting wisely. How do
believers survive Satan’s assault? The
same way, acting wisely.
How can we act wisely? By
following doctrine, by taking Bible doctrine in systematically, not at a
conference every year or in some hand-holding group where you share everybody’s
ignorance, you take it in under and authoritative trained pastor-teacher. That is what Jesus Christ has provided for
the church. That is the legitimate way
teaching should be accomplished. Bible
doctrine continually and application.
Bible doctrine, application; Bible doctrine, application; Bible
doctrine, more application, Bible application, more application, and finally
out of that you become wise in some area of life, and then you expand your wisdom out into various other
areas. That is acting wisely. And the fringe benefit is you too can survive
under Satan, as David survived under Saul.
With our heads bowed...