Clough Manhood Series Lesson 33

David: On the Throne – 2 Samuel 6; Psalm 30; 96; 105

In this series on the doctrine of the Christian man we have looked at various topics and I think it’s time to pause for a moment, at least at the beginning tonight and pull some of these things together in some sort of shape that we can judged and evaluate, and then go on and learn more about David’s life. We best begin by turning to a passage that doesn’t sound at all related to David but it’s 1 Corinthians 15:24. David’s life, as we are going to study it tonight, is in a period where he shows a quality Christian manhood that has fallen into disrepute and therefore to get a little perspective on what the text is pointing us as we want to look at this long-range perspective of man. It’s the same thing that we’ve studied in Genesis 1, the purpose for which man was created.

In 1 Corinthians 15:24, it talks about Jesus Christ leading the human race to its fulfillment, and it’s stated in verse 24 at the end, “Then comes the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” Now “when He shall have put down” is a future participle; it refers to a point in the future that is viewed as being completed, completed action. And once this action is complete then the future participle looks back and says all right, that action is now finished, what’s the next step that we do? So verse 24 says, “Then comes the end,” when Jesus Christ [25] “has put down all enemies,” in other words, Jesus Christ has been subduing, and the terminus or the last point in His long-range plan of history, to subdue, is the destruction of death itself. And when that point has been reached, then He has a kingdom, a finished kingdom which He then picks up and gives to the Father. Now Jesus Christ, when He’s fulfilling this, is not acting as God alone but He’s acting as God-man in one person.

In other words, what Christ is doing in verse 24 is fulfilling on a cosmic scale what mankind was designed was to do on a planetary scale, and that was subdue for God. The subduing wasn’t to be forever; the mandate of Genesis 1 was only for mortal history or temporal history and it’s a command that is fulfill-able and when it is finally fulfilled, then men have something in their hands. And when they have it in their hands they don’t keep it in their hands but they promptly turn it back to God. That sounds like everything comes full circle, but you have to see that the ultimate ultimate ULTIMATE end isn’t keeping that which we subdue, but it’s subduing and then after finishing the subduing it’s given back to God.

So we have two things here in the role of Christ that become models for understanding things that go on in the Scripture. There’s a subduing phase; that will one day be over and then there’s a giving, or what we will call a praise phase when this, whatever is subdued is finally given to the Father. And it’s given to the Father for a reason. It’s given out of gratitude. And so the end of man, as the Westminster Confession of Faith put it so eloquently, “is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The end of man isn’t to subdue; that’s the means to the end. The final ultimate end is [short blank spot on tape] and then the final offering.

Now since the fall has come in this subduing has become impossible apart from grace. And so man now, instead of subduing what would have been a natural environment and it would consist of learning how the creation functioned, making useful tools and going on this way, the baby for example has to learn coordination of its fingers, its hands, its mouth so it can speak; there’s nothing overcoming sin there. The baby is simply subduing its own flesh as a baby would have had to do before the fall. Jesus Christ had no sin nature but Jesus Christ still was a baby. Mary and Joseph had to teach Jesus how to walk. So therefore Jesus Christ in His sinless humanity shows that there is a subduing that is not related to sin at all; it’s simply the natural subduing of man. But to that natural subduing has been introduced the problem of evil. Now we have in addition to subduing nature, we have nature resisting with force and so evil is a negative force that has to be overcome; so the subduing gets harder, and then we have the problem of God’s grace.

Now where this applies in our series is the fact that one of the areas that is necessary in this subduing phase, because remember the subduing starts with a man’s soul and works from the soul outward, starts with overcoming evil which is negative volition and rebellion against God and transforming that into a positive obedience to God, and that transformation is the core of all subduing this side of the fall. Now it was the core the other side of the fall also but this side of the fall it’s changing from negative volition to positive, whereas before the fall it the case where you had some sort of a vague initiatory righteousness that was going to be confirmed by positive obedience.

So now we have the core as loyalty to God and when this loyalty is developed in time and a man dies at the end of his life, then he has something to carry into the presence of God. That’s the whole point in the Christian. The Bible speaks repeatedly of rewards and it’s kind of a sobering thing to ask yourself, if you were to die tonight what are you going to carry into the presence of God besides your lonesome. There ought to be some sign of production, there ought to be something at least that has been produced in history as a record, so that though you can’t bring the kingdom in like Jesus Christ can, and bring that kingdom and turn it over to the Father, you can bring something to turn over to the Father, some divine good accomplished at some point through God’s grace. Now when this is done this sacrifice of praise would correspond to the principle we’ve seen in 1 Corinthians 15:24. It is the giving back to God of that which we have produced.

Now let’s expand this by memory of some of the events we have studied in the Old Testament before we get to David tonight. We have watched how the male is called upon to act in this subduing role. The male primarily in Scripture is viewed as subduing in that he is leading family resources; it does not mean that he’s responsible for every phase of the subduing; we’ll get to that in a moment. But the male has been invested with the leadership of family resources. A test that every man can ask himself, just a rhetorical question but it’s a good exercise mentally, is to ask yourself whether, if God destroyed the world tonight with a great flood or something like He destroyed it in Noah’s day, would it be possible to repopulate and restructure the world with just the resources your family has, the character resources, primarily; with your children trained as you have trained them, would you like to start the human race all over with those children. Now that isn’t to say that we have to have perfect children, Noah didn’t. But the point is would you be willing to see a human race going on in the future out of your roots? Now that’s a good mental exercise and that’s a good test for a man to test to see whether he has the role down; whether he conceives of himself as a leader of family resources.

Now the evidences that we have to substantiate this thesis we’ve seen various evenings but we’ll just cite the incidents. We’ve seen that the commands of leadership were addressed to Adam, not to Eve. We have seen that when the Abrahamic Covenant was given the sign of that covenant was circumcision, a deliberately male sign. We have seen that when the Torah came to the nation Israel it was addressed to the men, because very frequently you’ll see “your wives and your children” will do this, but you never see “your husbands will do this.” So obviously the whole motif of the Law is directed to the male; not once do you ever find it directed to the woman. And you find that even when women like Deborah do attain leadership roles, if you look at the text carefully and you sympathize with the spirit of the text, in the context, you’ll see that there’s a sarcasm there, that God is saying look, look at the flakey men that were going into leadership positions at this point in time and so now I had to bring Deborah and the only thing that ought to go through your mind when you think of the Deborah’s is think of Barak saying Debbie, I’m not going to go unless you hold my hand. That’s the image from the text you have of women leaders; women aren’t put down as leaders, the men are, for being in such sad shape that the women have to become the leaders.

So I think those pictures, those four pictures, the commands addressed to Adam, not to Eve, circumcision, the Law, and the exceptional case of Deborah should form four vivid mental pictures in every man’s mind. It fixes proof beyond question that spiritual leadership is invested in the male. Now the men, according to what we’ve studied so far, males because they are given with this investiture of a desire for leadership, aren’t going to be happy unless they are leading. NO man is going to be happy unless he is basically leading. Some women haven’t caught on to that and therefore they tried to suppress any attempt at their husband to lead; even though it may be not exactly the way they want, the point is that’s a lot better than having no leadership and having a perpetually miserable man around the rest of your life because you’ve cut off his desire to lead. He’s made to lead, and yes, maybe he can’t lead just putting nuts on the end of screws on an assembly line, maybe he’s got one of those kind of jobs and there he can’t exercise his leadership but every man at least has some zone in his life where he can exercise leadership, if its only in his own home. But if he can’t exercise leadership in his own home and he can’t exercise leadership on the job you’ve got all… all the resources gathered together to smash a male, take him apart piece by piece and have a human wreck.

Now the Scriptures give us three vivid historical pictures of men that were smashed, but they were smashed, not because their leadership was reduced to a zero; evil finally really doesn’t even do that. What happens is that the male’s leadership drive is deflected; it’s not erased, it’s deflected. And we studied three illustrations of that: Cain, Lamech, and Saul, three males whose desire to subdue the earth and to lead did take them down a path but it took them down the wrong path. We find Cain desiring to build a city because he’s been thrown out of Eden and he’s going to have a place where he is safe; his going to build his own autonomous empire even if he has to shake his fist in God’s face, because the maleness in him makes him lead and makes him found a new culture. He can’t deny his maleness because it’s in his soul and he has to exercise it; so even in his apostasy the male exercises his leadership. And Cain is characterized by God as the wanderer, and there’s a characteristic of a man whose leadership has been deflected, he’s a wanderer, hopping from this to that to something else. He’s a Cain, no place to settle, always desiring some place to get his roots and he never can; always wandering, wandering, wandering, wandering. There’s a symptom of a male in spiritual trouble, following the way of Cain.

Lamech, he’s another picture of a male who is deflected, but with Lamech it’s not wandering because Lamech takes his position in a city and when he does so he becomes violent; violent sexually and violent in murder, and there is another sign of a male, even perverse violence of a male is a sign of his leadership, deflected, yes, but you can explain it by the fact that God has put in his male soul the desire to subdue, and maybe the desire to subdue is in the wrong direction but you see, it plays out. Even in his sin the male is still a male, and so therefore in his sin he subdues and it becomes a form of perverse violence.

And then the third negative illustration we’ve studied, the third key negative one, is King Saul. And Saul represents the stubborn man, who stubbornly will resist the grace of God but yet because he is a male he can’t deny his male nature and so his male nature drives him on to produce and edifice of some sort. And Saul does and his edifice falls apart and he cracks up and he becomes a classic all time illustration of what we call “mentally ill” male, a man who has cracked up because he stubbornly has resisted the grace of God. And therefore, because he has, he winds up as a Saul. Cain, Lamech and Saul, three deflected males, but always notice, though deflected, they still are males, still showing the inbred leadership principles that God placed into their souls.

Now the male needs help along the way and so he has an ‘ezer, and so the Scriptures, and we’ll get into this far more later on when we get into the Song of Songs and Ruth, the male along the way has been given a woman because the woman, like wisdom in Proverbs which is feminine, provides skills. Think of Eve; Eve this side of the fall is called [not sure of pronunciation; Evah?], the word “Eve” or Evah, means the mother of life, it’s from the Hebrew noun and verb to live, and so therefore there’s the first signal to the male, one of the tools he needs is a womb, because he can’t reproduce himself into the next generation, he can’t build a family without the womb. And God goes so far as to say that Eve is not only a womb, that womb is the source of salvation and so she’s called the mother of all life because ultimately through the womb of Eve shall come Messiah, down generations later. So Eve is an illustration of the man’s incompleteness, the fact that no matter how much a leader he is he can’t lead beyond his own generation without a womb, and the womb must be there to provide.

And then Abigail, in that great scene in 1 Samuel 25, the picture of the godly confidant and advisor to the man. When David becomes spiritually deflected, an Abigail stands in his path to correct him, not on the basis of nagging but on the basis of the authoritative Word of God; not afraid to open her mouth when called upon, or even when not called upon, but when there’s an issue that is chief she goes to him with dignity and correction, a godly woman.

And so therefore we’ve come down to the time of David and we’re citing the career of David, and we’ve pointed to two phases in David’s career; the first phase is the development of his skills; skills as a warrior, skills as a musician. As a musician David plays the harp; as a warrior he has his sling, his spear and his sword, and these are natural talents and skills that God has given to him. But David develops those skills through practice and through discipline and it’s a picture of the male early in life, in his adolescence, learning discipline. While I was out in California a friend of mine showed me a statement made by a man who has studied the issue for some time and he said this: Isn’t it interesting that up until recent years the United States was the only country that ever viewed adolescence as a problem in itself, that in the old world when puberty was reached, both the girl and the boy would be drawn closer to their parents because the time when they would go out and have to be on their own was drawing close and so therefore they wanted to get the benefit of the last few years in the home. And so the time of adolescence was always a drawing close between the children and their parents. But yet in America, said this authority, isn’t it strange we had a total role reversal and we have come in our own day to expect adolescent rebellion… expect it.

Now why is this: it’s a product of humanism in the educational system, the idea that the family unit isn’t there forever and ever and ever but you have to break away and smash and cut loose; your salvation isn’t listening to your parents, your salvation is integrating yourself with the social community, whatever that means. But it isn’t drawing close to your mother and your father, and so therefore break away and smash the relationship you have with your mother and your father. And so you have adolescent rebellion, strictly a product of the philosophy of our own public educational system. Well, it wasn’t always that way and in ancient Israel it certainly wasn’t that; the boy in reaching puberty drew close to his father because his father taught him the skills he needed and he was shortly going to have to exercise; no adolescent rebellion then.

And so David passed on to the next stage in his life, the period that frustrates so many men, the period that we have entitled the period of the blocked advance, when it seems that every external promotion stops, every door slams in the guy’s face and he’s totally, as far as the external business progress he’s frustrated; the period of the blocked advance. We raised questions in the text: what was God doing, because David had a period of blocked advance; he had developed his skills, he had developed to an A-1 warrior and an A-1 musician, and yet still, even though he had developed the skills, like a young Christian businessman might develop his finance ability, his management ability, and he’s developed them with finesse, and yet still God closes door after door after door in his face. And he becomes depressed and rejected because this goes on and on and on and on, year after year after year; it went on at least ten years in David’s live, the period of the blocked advance.

Well, we learn from Scripture God loves David and because God loves David and because God has a plan for him as a male leader, that’s why he’s going through the blocked advance, because on the outside, while he’s blocked, on the inside God is developing character, character that cannot be developed later on with tremendous business and complex responsibilities. So the period of the blocked advance is when God, in His love, restrains a man from getting too involved with too many diverse responsibilities. And in that period of time, instead of being frustrated, that period is when he ought to be thinking, how is God working in my character. Character! And that’s character that hasn’t been seen in many, many years.

During the Deuteronomy series I read this quotation, ever since I read it (I lost the sheet I read it from) I’ve sought for this quotation, it’s one of my favorites and it’s a quotation from a non-Christian writer, the man is McCauley and he wrote an essay on the Puritans, and he spoke this of the Puritan character. Now this is an evaluation of Christians of a bygone generation; a generation unlike ours, when as Time Magazine pitons out religion is becoming more and more popular and religion’s affect in society is becoming less and less. Obviously you can’t but those two statistics together without coming to a conclusion that religion is becoming impotent. But in those days it wasn’t impotent.

Listen to this description, it goes on for a while but listen carefully because you’re listening through the eyes and through the ears of a non and he hasn’t got any ax to grind about Puritans. Here’s what he says: “We would speak first of the Puritans; the most remarkable body of men which the world has ever produced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie only on the surface. He that runs may read them, nor has there been wanting malicious observers to point them out. For many years after the restoration,” this is a period when the Puritans went into very great disrepute in English history, “For many years after the restoration they were the theme of [can’t understand word] invective and derision. They were exposed to the licentiousness of the press and the stage.” Does that sound familiar?

“At the time when the press and the stage were most licentious. They were not men of letters,” that means they didn’t have many decrees, “they were as a body quite unpopular, they couldn’t even defend themselves from the public media, the public would not take them under its protection, and so therefore they were abandoned to the ‘mercies’” in quotes “of the satirists and the dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, the sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for laughers, but it isn’t from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learned. Those who rouse the people to resistance, who directed their measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed out of the most unpromising materials the finest army that Europe has ever seen.”

Now remember that, the finest army that Europe ever saw was the army that was produced by Bible-believing Christian, and then you have Eternity Magazine and a few of the other twerpy things in evangelical Christianity questioning whether it is right and biblical for a Christian to be a soldier. One of the finest armies ever saw… it’s named, for those of you who are students of history, it was called Ironsides. “…the finest army that Europe had ever seen, who trampled down king, church, aristocracy, who in the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion made the name of England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth. These men were no common fanatics; most of their absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of Free Masonry, or the Dresses of Friars. We regret that those badges were not more attractive,” and he goes on to describe some of them.

But then he describes how they got their character; think of David during the period of the blocked advance, when God is working on the inside of David’s soul, “The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character” from what? “from the daily,” daily contemplation of God and His interests. Not content with merely acknowledging in general terms and overruling providence, the Puritans habitually ascribed every event to the will of God, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was to minute, to know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him was with them the great end of existence. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of God through a little veil, they aspired to gaze full on His face. The difference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish when compared with the boundless interval between God and man. The Puritans recognized no title of superiority but God’s favor and confident of that favor they despised all the accomplishments and the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the book of life. Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their diadems crowns of glory which would never fade away. On the rich and on the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt, for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.”

And he goes on to describe, finally at the end, this point about their character. “People would laugh at them, but when the Puritan took his seat in the council, or gird on his sword for war, the tempestuous workings of his soul left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their silly visages, and head nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns might laugh at them. But those have little reason to laugh whoever encountered the Puritans in the hall of debate or on the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal but which were, in fact, the necessary affects of it. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for things of this world. It sometime might lead to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world like Sir [sounds like: Ar tig ails] iron man palace with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities; insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier.” That was the Christian character of a few generations ago; compare it with what you see now.

Now let’s look at David. Let’s turn to 2 Samuel 6; it’s the same battle in David’s day to develop character. And David at this point has finally been promoted, the period of the blocked advance has ended. David now sits secure on his throne. Beginning in 2 Samuel 6:12 we have what David does. Remember we started off by saying that when the subduing is finished the giving back to God in praise begins. David, in his life, shows this. He has subdued, he has gained his kingdom. Now watch what he does. After David has subdued here it shows the fact of his godly male character. He doesn’t subdue in a thing unto itself but the purpose and the cause and the meaning of his life is shown right here. “It was gold David, saying, The LORD has blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertains unto him, because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness.”

The story is this: the ark of God has been preserved down the road from Jerusalem, it got there through a series of events described in 1 Samuel. David has come, so that he is the political head of the kingdom; he sits on his throne, he’s unified the tribes, so he’s basically subdued. Now here’s the thing—to what does he dedicate his kingdom? You’ve got to have a higher goal than this. This is the problem of the wealthy man. He strives and he strives and he starts off right; don’t knock the productive and the wealthy, they start off right, they start off subduing because God wants them to subdue and their successes at subduing, but after they’ve gone on, they’ve concentrated on means, on means, on mean, on means, on means, they finally say hey, I lost the goal, what is this a means to. And here you find David not losing… not losing the goal after he’s worked through the means and the means. And so he brings the ark of God back, because he wants to make God the center of his kingdom and he wants to praise God.

Now in verse 12 it summarizes it in just one sentence; he brings the ark of God up to the city of David with gladness. Now the author of 2 Samuel is interested in another theme, so we have to go to a parallel text to find out what it was that David did to bring the ark of God to Jerusalem with gladness. Turn to 1 Chronicles 15; we’ll be turning back and forth between the two. This shows the other side of David. It fits very neatly with the saying that is on the inside of the prayer bulletin about the music committee needs and as you’ve been aware we’ve been trying here to get a theocentric music program, that is, music that concentrates on God and His character and His works rather than upon man and his experiences. And you’ll notice here in David, when he gets to this point in his life when he’s turning back the kingdom as a gift, like Christ is going to some day, to the Father, he wants to give it back by means of praises.

So 1 Chronicles 15:2-3… the reason why 1 Chronicles does this is because the book of Chronicles was written by the Levites and they re-wrote history and they picked up all the things that would be of interest to the Levites, so whereas the author of 2 Samuel just brushes across the parade, to the Levites they say hey, we’re not going to brush across this parade, it’s too good. So they devote a whole chapter, 1 Chronicles 15, to one verse in 2 Samuel 6. You’ll notice the details. First “David said” in verse 2, “None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites; for them has the LORD chosen to carry the ark of God….” [3] And David gathered all Israel together at Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the LORD unto its place, which he had prepared for it.” You see, he’s a man who is going to praise God and he’s going to do it with majesty. And so he gathers the people. And the list is in verse 5, verse 6, verse 7, verse 8, and he goes on and describes all the priests. Verse 11, “And David called for Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, and for the Levites,” and he describes all the Levites there.

1 Chronicles 15:12, “And he said to the, You are the chief of the fathers of the Levites; sanctify yourselves … that ye may bring up the ark…. [13] For, because you did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, because we sought Him not in the proper way.” David has a sense of propriety, there are certain things that have to be there. And [14] “So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves [to bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel.” And verse 15 describes the parade, “And the children of the Levites bore the ark of God upon their shoulders with staves, as Moses had commanded [according to the word of the LORD]. [16] And David spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint, [their brethren to be the singers, with instruments of music: psalteries, and harps, and cymbals sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy]” and you’ll notice, instruments and choirs and majesty, there’s a full orbed praise here, nothing less than this will do for David to praise God. There is, in his male soul, a desire for majestic praise.

You can get a little bit of this if you ever listen to a choir that has the two sections well developed, and you listen to the male voices; the female voices are often the accompaniment and they’re very good, but in praise of God in highly theocentric music, the man’s voice is needed, because it’s in the male’s voice where you have the power of God shown. God warrants male praise. Or said another way, God is the kind of God that a male, a real male, can praise, with all of his male soul, and not feel at all like he’s been spiritually castrated, that God is some sort of an effeminate God, that only permits worship of women to Him. But David knocks this thing into a cocked hat; he shows here, very easily that he, as a full male model of the Scriptures, considers God worthy of full male praise. And so he has a majesty, and that’s why in verse 16 you can list the instruments he assembles; He wants majestic praise, not trite praise.

1 Chronicles 15:17, carrying out his command, “So the Levites appointed Heman, the son of Joel; and of his brethren, Asaph,” and you’ll see that man’s name on many of the Psalm headings in your Bible, “…Ethan,” you’ll see his name on some of the Psalm headings,” these are the great men that organized the book that you know so well by the book of Psalms. And the singers, in verse 19, notice the singers were under the direction of men, not women, men led in the singing. Verse 20, “And Zechariah,” and the other men listed, all the way down to verse 24 you have the men with their instruments and the mighty parade.

Now it’s in that parade that something happens. So we turn back to 2 Samuel 6:13 to see what happens. “And it was so when they bore the ark of the LORD had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. [14] And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. [15] So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet,” the idea of a majestic victory parade, and it’s a male’s response to God that is shown here. [16] “And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter,” and notice when she’s called Saul’s daughter, she’s called by two titles in the text, David’s wife and Saul’s daughter; when you see the title, Saul’s daughter, she’s out of it. She “looked through the window, and she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart. [17] And they brought in the ark of the LORD, and set it in place, in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it, [and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD]” and so on.

In 1 Samuel 6:20, “Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David, and she said,” in all the sarcasm that women are so highly skilled at, they haven’t changed, “How glorious was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain idiots shamelessly uncovers himself. [21] And David said to Michal, It was before the LORD, who chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel; therefore I will play before the LORD. [22] And I will be yet more vile [contemptible] than this, I will be base in you own sight; and of the maidservants whom you hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor.” And the conclusion added by the editor of this text, [23] “Therefore Michal, [the daughter of Saul]” never had any children. She’s rendered impotent; she’s an impotent womb because she spiritually despises the outlet of praise for the man. Yes, there was some off-coloredness going on, the ephod did not completely clothe David’s body, and yes, he exposed himself before the women that were gathered around the parade, yes that did happen.

But what is the point? The point is given back in David’s answer in verse 21, he “was before the LORD.” Now why does David give this answer? What right does David have to give his wife this answer? The right he has goes back to this point. Look at this verse and notice the structure of it. He says, “it was before the LORD, who chose me before your father,” that is, ahead of your father, Saul, “and over all his house, to appoint me ruler,” do you see the rulership? David has attained his rulership, the period of the subduing and the gaining of his rulership is now finished, and he is so grateful to God for giving him subduing power that he turns it over to God, and yes, he doesn’t fit all of his wife’s expectations but it’s done with an attitude of praising to God, and the Holy Spirit says David, that’s right, I accept the praise. God accepted the praise, but Michal was more holy than God Himself; Michal had her own standards and she demanded that David, her husband, fit her stands rather than God’s standards.

And the thing that she despised most was, who like her father, she could never tolerate a simplistic adoration and enjoyment of God. She just couldn’t tolerate it; legalistic, uptight, always concentrating on details and never able to simply enjoy God and David did, and so therefore David, as he answered in verse 21, you thought that was bad, Hon, wait till tomorrow comes. That’s his answer, I’m not going to listen to you and your legalism. If you want to be legalistic like this, go home to daddy, but I am king and I am going to praise God the way I want to praise Him. David has delivered, in fact, an ultimatum to her. David is very wise in doing this because a woman at this point can cut off a very vital part of a man’s soul. A man has dreams and he has visions and women often laugh at them and they ridicule, and therefore they wonder why their man is never creative; they wonder why he’s always kind of stunted. Why did I marry a dud? Well, what have you done to encourage his dreams, which may be given to him by God out of his own nature, to be a male to subdue and to conquer? Have you laughed at them and suppressed them, made fun of them, or have you encouraged them.

Michal was despising her husband; she was like Zipporah; Zipporah, you remember, when Moses… [tape turns] …was to lead Israel out of Egypt, and the Lord required that Zipporah circumcise Moses’ son, she did, grudgingly, and then she threw the thing at Moses’ feet and said you’re a bloody husband, I despise you and your covenant, I despise all of your leadership dreams; provide me with security and a nice cloak and a nice home, but get rid of your dreams. And so what she’s asking is that Moses give up his maleness for the sake of her security. And that’s the issue here between Michal and David; David must give up his male dreams and his visions and his enjoyment of God for the sake of Michal, and David rightly refuses and it leads to a semi type divorce situation here between him and his wife.

Now this goes on, and it’s amplified further in 1 Chronicles 16, where we have the dreams of David go on. David had a dream of how he was going to praise God. It was his own private thing, he worked and he worked and he worked, all during his life but he worked with this end in mind, so when he got his riches and when he got his power, like Christ when He gets His riches and His power, turns and He gives the kingdom back to the Father. So David has this, he not only wants to dance before the Lord, he wants to set up a permanent dance before the Lord. And so in 1 Chronicles 16 we have one of the many passages in this book that show the rise of the cultists. Now don’t confuse that with a cult; we’re not talking about Jehovah’s Witnesses or something like this. The cultist is the center of worship in the Old Testament and it was David’s design; it was one of the dreams he had as a man, something he wanted to do for God. And so here’s what he did

In 1 Chronicles 16:4, “And he appointed a staff of Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, and to record,” and notice in verse 4, “to thank, and to praise the LORD God of Israel.” Look at that. That’s one of his dreams; as a man that’s what he wanted to do, and to make sure that his majestic God, a God that any male could admire, would receive his due praise; David said I want a staff twenty-four hours a day praising our God, He deserves it and I am going to see that He gets it. So here’s a man, at the peak of his career, wanting to praise God. And then as part of his thanksgiving, [3] “And he dealt to every one of Israel, both man and woman, to every one a loaf of bread, and a piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine.” [4] And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, and to record, and to praise the LORD God of Israel; [5] Asaph, the chief, with Zechariah,” and then you’ll notice many of these men’s names appear in the Psalm headings.

Now the significance of this chapter is that here is a location in the Bible that probes behind that curtain that we often like to peak behind, because I know you’ve probably asked this question many times: what was worship like and how did it all get started? Well, here is a rare chapter that shows you how the book of Psalms originated. Notice verse 7, “Then on that day, David delivered first this psalm, to thank the LORD, into the hand of Asaph and his brethren,” clearly showing David to be the author of the lyrics of the Psalms, and probably the music of the psalms. David was the man and it’s part of the male in David to want to worship God with majestic music. Music isn’t effeminate; it’s become effeminate in some circles, but music is not effeminate. There is such a thing as a effeminate music but don’t blame all music as being effeminate. You certainly, at least I can’t, imagine David’s psalm as naeahneaaaaahneahneaaah, can you imagine him with that thing going on in Jerusalem? No; these were majestic psalms and the music had a male quality to it.

And this particular psalm, if you look now in 1 Chronicles 16:8-22, just with your eyes skim verses 8-12, just so you get a feel for that psalm. I’ll read it and you follow me, and we’re going to get a little surprise in a moment. “Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon His name, make known his deeds among the people. [9] Sing unto Him, sing psalms unto Him, talk ye of all His wondrous works. [10] Glory ye in His holy name; let the heart of them rejoice who seek the LORD. [11] Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face continually.”

Turn in the book of Psalms to Psalm 105. “Oh, give thanks unto the LORD; call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples. [2] Sing unto Him, sing psalms unto Him; talk ye of all His wondrous works. [3] Glory ye in His holy name; let the heart of them rejoice who seek the LORD. [4] Seek the LORD, and His strength; seek His face forever more.” It is Psalm 105 and so recorded in the text of 1 Chronicles 16 you have the origin of one of the Psalms in the Bible, it tells you who wrote it, how it came to pass, and the context in which that Psalm originated. It originated to provide the music that would be going on before God day and night by the Levites.

Now later on in 1 Chronicles 16:23, I want you to look at 23-25, and again we’ll follow the same procedure. “Sing unto the LORD, all the earth; show forth from day to day His salvation. [24] Declare His glory among the heathen, His marvelous works among the nations. [25] For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; He is also to be feared above all gods. [26] For all the gods of the people are idols; but the LORD made the heavens.” Now those last two, verses 25-26, that is a good example of what a male does in his praise of God.

The male brings quality to theology that just simply isn’t there in the female soul. The male is the one who has led in the subduing, and therefore in the experience of history his leading function, his burn to lead, to produce, the responsibilities that have fallen upon his shoulders and the numerous times he has had to rely upon the Lord, learning at every point of frustration, at every point of application of doctrine, he has learned something about God’s character, to the point where out here, when he praises God, that quality of God that he appealed to while he was in the doldrums of subduing, it’s that quality that the male most appreciates about God. And it’s that quality that is meant. That’s why verse 25, “great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,” and greatly “to be feared.” See, he respects that, it’s a quality of God’s character, and the man who is involved in the David kind of background, and he alone can really appreciate that aspect of God’s character.

We’ve familiarized ourselves with verses 23-25, turn to Psalms 96:3, “Declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders among the people. [4] For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. [5] For all the gods of the nations are idols; but the LORD made the heavens.” So what you have in 1 Chronicles 16 is the historical origin of Psalm 96.

So what do we notice about David? We notice a man who has, as a male, perceived qualities about God and now focuses upon them, and not only focuses but he still acts as a male because what is his function here as a cultist? You don’t see Mrs. Asaph leading the choir, do you. You see Asaph doing it. So the male is still leading, even in a praise stage, he leads in praise.

We’re going to conclude by turning to a very short psalm that was written at this very point in David’s life, and reflects his inner soul. Psalm 30; it’s a short psalm. Some scholars call this a declarative praise psalm, but we’re going to use it in a little different context. We’re just trying to show tonight how David learned to appreciate God as only a man can appreciate God. The psalm is divided into several parts. Psalm 30:1-5, David here is declaring his intent to praise God, and he’s inviting to come ahead and praise with him, he’s leading in congregational praise in verses 1-5. In verses 6-12 he gives you why he wants to praise God as he does in verses 1-5. Verses 1-5 constitute his call to join with me in praise; verses 6-12 the reasons why. Let’s look at these verses quickly; this won’t be an exegesis of the psalm, we don’t have time but just the major points.

You’ll notice his vow in Psalm 30:1, “I will extol thee, O LORD; for You have lifted me up, and You have not made my foes to rejoice over me.” Now can you imagine a woman saying that? Doesn’t that sound male-ish to you? Of course it does. David has subdued; what has he subdued? His enemies. And so therefore because he has subdued he has acted the male role in this, then he says I’m going to praise you God, and I’m going to praise you out of my male experience of leading. It’s taught me something about you. [2] “O LORD, my God, I cried unto You, and You healed me. [3] O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave;” he’s had some very close calls, “Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. [4] Sing unto the LORD, O saints of His,” see, this is the appeal in verse 4 to the people who are standing around. Notice the psalm heading, “A Psalm at the dedication of the house of David.” “Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. [5] “For His anger endures but a moment; in His favor is life. Weeping my endue for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

See David, you know, had to weep and he had to cry and he had to go through those kinds of times before he could ever write something like verse 5. Verse 5 is a result of the man, pressed down like Adam, with his sweat, getting the produce out of the earth and crying and weeping about it because of the frustration. But he learns that the weeping endures for a night, but there’s joy in the morning.

Now he describes what it was that so attracted him to God. And what is described in Psalm 30:6-12 is his conversation with God. His praise, his thinking, his petitioning, why God You have to answer my prayer. Verse 6 describes the situation, we don’t know what exactly the situation it is, he’s going back in his life and he’s just giving us a model situation. “And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.” Typical male autonomy, I have a bastion like Cain, I’ve got my city and I’m no longer a wanderer, like Nimrod I’ve built my kingdom and I defy God to do anything about it. But now verse 7 is the attitude he learned, “LORD, by thy grace You have made my mountain to stand,” by Your grace. From verse 6 to verse 7 is a shift in his mental attitude. Verse 6 is his human viewpoint, as a hard working man he decides that his produce in life is strictly the result of his own efforts. But then as a mature man, having gone and coming to God battle-scared, he says, “by Your grace you have made my mountain to stand; You hid your face, and I was troubled.” There’s how he got from verse 6 to verse 7. Wrapped up in those two simple verses is a mighty step he made in his whole male soul. He started off in prosperity, and he was troubled by God and so then he found grace.

Verse 8 describes and amplifies it. “I cried to you, O LORD, and unto the LORD I made supplication,” and here is the supplication he made, and this shows you something else about the male and about he prays in Scripture. [9] “What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declared thy truth? 10] Hear O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be my ‘ezer.” Now there’s not a gentleness in here; I deliberately read that in a harsh way in verses 9-10; it’s not to be read in a gentle way, because a man in this situation isn’t gentle. See, that’s the reality of the Scriptures, the male models in Scripture aren’t gentle men in these kinds of situations; they’re harsh and they have words with God. And some of their words with God don’t sound very courteous. I just wish that some day we’d have an honest translation of some of these psalms. There’s one psalm in there where the psalmist is so mad at God he says God, get your hand out of Your pocket. Now that’s the kind of praying that men did in the Scriptures. Does it sound realistic? You know it sounds realistic. It’s not oh God, I’m so glad… there’s none of that stuff.

Notice the argument in verse 9, the sarcasm he uses. God, what are you going to do, kill me so the [can’t understand word] can praise you, going to have all those molecules walking around on the surface of the earth, maybe they can praise You. He’s mad at God this time, and men get mad at God, and David got mad at God, and it’s not wrong go get mad at God if you go to Him mad and get it settled. Where it becomes evil is when you get mad at God and you turn away, like Saul, and you sulk like Cain, and you pout like Judas Iscariot. That’s when it becomes an evil. But God has for century upon century listened to mad males. Verse 11, “Thou has turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness, [12] To the end that my glory shall sing praise to Thee, and not be silent.” Do you see his concept of where a man ought to progress. There is where we started. Remember we said Jesus, after He gets the kingdom, gives it up in an act of praise to God, and how does this Psalm end, “my glory” is a synonym in the psalms in these kinds of passages for nephesh, or soul, and what he’s saying is You’ve done all of this to the end, or to the ultimate purpose that my life can praise you and not be silent. “O LORD, my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”