1 Samuel 17 - 2 Samuel 10 - David: From Shepherd to King

When the Son of Man comeeth shall he find faith on the earth. Lord, I believe help thou mine unbelief. May our testimonies be as deep to the strong as that of Jacob. When confronted by one who sought to destroy his faith declared, I could not be shaken. [Music] Hello my friends and welcome back to Unshaken. I'm beard Halverson. And today we are covering all the rest of the first Samuel. Well, now we know David, and I just want to know him even better. And no better place to do it than in the Valley of E-Law with a giant ahead of him. For Samuel 17, the incredibly famous chapter, I want to set this one up, not with music, but with art. I had a student years and years ago when I first taught seminaries. The first time I ever taught the Old Testament. So the first chance I got to teach the story of David and Goliath in a church setting. And I love this story. For Samuel 17 is so rich in detail that goes beyond the veggie tail. Okay? Goes beyond the simplistic depictions of a boy with a sling and a giant with a sword. And that's kind of all you see. So we got into the details here. And little did I know that I had an artist extraordinary in that class that was envisioning every detail that we discussed. Later, when he graduated and was in college, we became close friends through those seminary years. And where he still keep in touch, he's a great, great soul. Incredibly gifted artistically. And he said that in college, he was in an art class. And the assignment was to paint a page to take something from literature and depict it in art. So that was going to be the challenge of reading closely enough and critically enough to really paint the picture, literally, of what an author was describing in literature. Well, he decided to paint first Samuel 17. And he gave me a copy of this masterpiece. It was amazing. It's still the most detailed David and Goliath picture I've ever seen. He even included so many details that were so shocking. At one point, he includes a third figure and he even writes very faintly across the chest. Who's this? Basically calling out what everybody's wondering. Like, wait, I thought this was David and Goliath. Who's the third guy in between them? Well, we'll see that. There were so many added extras, but they're, they all find their source on this scriptural page. And when he gave me a copy of that painting, he also gave me a note to explain it. And this is part of what he said. I remember as a little punk sophomore walking mindlessly into my second semester Old Testament seminary class. He'd been greeted with a handshake by a happy, go lucky seminary teacher that liked to talk about his wife a lot. Well, go figure. Gilt is charged. As he proceeded to teach the class, the story of David and Goliath, which I had been told since the days of flannel board figures in sending class, I began to wonder why I even went to seminary. Furthermore, I felt the previous semester had taught me nothing. And that the seminary stuff was a waste of my time when I could be so much more productive at the skate park. And I'd actually seen him skate at the skate park and he's amazing at it. I had heard this stuff over and over and over again. But then, for the first time, I started to listen, truly listen to the words on the pages and the words speaking to my heart. I began to realize that this story I had been subject to since my childhood was so much more than had been recited in the past. I began to see the scriptures as not just a hard to understand historical bore, but rather something very significant and wonderful that appealed to me on a personal level. Because of what this story means to me, I wanted to show throughout the painting my interpretation of its symbolic meaning, and any personal insight that I felt while reading it. The outcome of this painting is the outcome you've shown me how to get on every page of scripture I finish reading. That was incredibly kind of him to say. Had it not been for this, the illustration would merely be some big guy, a small guy, and a rock. You've shown me how to see and hear the scriptures with my heart. And words cannot express the things I have for the light you have turned on. Now, I just happen to be the one with my hand on the light switch at the time. And what an honor it was for me to see this young man truly just blossom when it came to his love of scripture, his testimony of truth. He has done incredible things artistically and professionally, and just a sweet friend in the celestial soul. And so I treasure this note as well as the painting that accompanied it. And what did he depict? Well, let's jump to the page. Verse 3. The Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side. Israel stood on a mountain on the other side. There was a valley between them. Yeah, that's how valleys work. But remember when we were talking about the pep rally at Ebo and Gareth Zee, and there's the law at the base and blessings shouted from one side and curses shouted from the other. This is the Valley of Decision, to borrow Joel's phrase, or Abraham setting up an altar with Bethel on one side and I on the other, House of God, versus ruined world, which mountain will I climb? Well, here from the very beginning of this story, this chapter, you have a choice before you. You lean in the Israelite direction, or you pandering to the Philistines, which one is calling you. We saw that before with the Philistines are stronger. We don't even have any smiths on our side. We have to go back down to the Philistines to even sharpen our farming implements. And so some do just join the Philistines. Some simply hide from them, but end up hiding from their potential in Israel too. Now, there's our in Israel, but they're not actually fighting, though they're supposed to be. You kind of start seeing all of that displayed across this spectrum in the Valley of Elah. Then, verse four, through seven, here's our depiction of the giant. There went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six qubits in a span. That's nine and a half feet tall. He had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. According to some estimates, that's near 125 pounds, just the chainmail. He had grieves of brass upon his legs, there's some leg protection, a target of brass between his shoulders. The staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, think very heavy, think very large, and his spear's head weighed 600 shekels of iron, which is around 16 pounds by most estimates. And here's the detail of who's this third guy in the scene, and one bearing a shield went before him. Now, the picture our author is painting for us is that of an insurmountable foe, an opponent that no one's going to be able to beat. There's no way around, there's certainly no way over him. Nobody's getting through him or past him. No wonder the Israelites don't want to fight. I mean, I looked up body armor for the modern military, and some accounts say it's about 40 pounds, and then you add weapons and ammunition and gear, and you could be marching around with 100 pounds. And yet the Philistines would say, "Oh, I know big deal. That's just a start." My chainmail weighs more than that. Add to that the plates between my shoulders, the helmet on my head, the grieves upon my legs. That's nothing. Oh, and my spear and weavers being, you probably can't even wrap your hand around it, let alone throw the thing, because it has a 16 pound give or take head point on it. Actually, I mean, that's more than any bowling ball I would ever just roll down the lane, let alone try to throw it at somebody. I actually looked up the weight of an Olympic shot put, and it's amazingly about the same 16 pounds. And the world record for that is 76 feet, which is amazing. But to put that on the end of a weavers beam and then try to throw it at a moving target, a good luck. Okay? Nobody's going to beat the Philistine. But did you notice the tactical error among all these advantages? He had someone bearing a shield that went before him? Maybe he wanted both hands free for hand-to-hand combat. Maybe he used two hands to thrust or throw the spear. I don't know, but talk about a mistake. Let trust someone else with your protection. We talk about the shield of faith in the armor of God. You better be holding your own. Because if you're trying to hide behind somebody else's faith, that might be sufficient for a time, but not within the heat of battle. Well, keep reading. Reliath calls out the armies of Israel every day. He asks them to send somebody to fight with, and it's going to be a winner take all fight to the death. If I win, Philistines beat the Israelites. I'm like, "I'm not going to win." Israelites, you beat me, then you take all, but nobody wants to volunteer for that post. Now, verse 11, "When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed." You know, you think? They were greatly afraid and for good reason. Now, all Israel was probably justifiably afraid because our whole, the outcome is going to rest on somebody else. I don't know if I want to have the whole team based on one-on-one. Nobody can beat Goliath in one-on-one, but maybe there's enough of us to defeat all of them, but no-who else is dismayed and greatly afraid is Saul. And he ought to be, because if you look to cross the army of the Philistines and you see one giant head and shoulders above the rest, we'll turn around and do the same with Israel and who are you going to find? A giant in Israel. One who repeatedly has been described as head and shoulders taller than anyone else in Israel, that's Saul. Who should have fought Goliath? The giant of Israel, but he's quaking in his boots. In verse 12 says that Jesse had eight sons. It says he had seven. So there's some discrepancy there. We don't totally know. Either way he's the youngest. In verse 13 and 14, the story says that the three eldest sons of Jesse went and followed Saul to the battle. The names of the three sons that went to the battle were Ellie Ab, the firstborn, and the next unto him had been a dab in the third Shama. David was the youngest. In case you forgot, the three eldest followed Saul. Now where does that put Sun 4, 5, 6, maybe 7? However many sons there are. There's at least three boys between these eldest three and David. And I don't know if it's age-based or if it's different responsibilities or they just didn't make muster or whatever, but if it is age-based and only the oldest three are old enough to go out to battle, that means number four. We can't quite make the ranks. And number five is too young, which means number six is definitely off limits, which means David number seven. I think too often we overestimate his age thinking that, oh yeah, he's got this. He can handle this. Mighty man of war. Wasn't that what how he was introduced earlier? He's like, no, you must have got that wrong. That must have been some kind of conflation of information. It's kind of like stripling warriors. And you see a very young Captain Moroni and Heliman that still are so distant and age from them that they can call them my sons or my little sons. These are sometimes joked like, is this the Deacon's quorum, like rushing off to battle? Has David even graduated from primary yet? I don't know. Okay, I don't know his age, but again, the last of the sons when only the oldest three are at war, keep that in mind. For 16 Goliath keeps tunting the people of Israel. He does it for 40 days. That number should ring some bells in terms of the flood, in terms of the wandering in the wilderness, in terms of Moses fasting on Sinai. Forty becomes a great symbol of purification, of preparation, of cleansing. And you wonder, is Israel having this time of this gut check, cleansing my heart? Am I prepared? Am I worthy? Can I do this? Can anyone? Well, no one feels like the 40 days have been sufficient to purify them or to prepare them. And so it just keeps going on and on. Meanwhile, Jesse is concerned about his boys. And so he takes his youngest, I guess the one he can spare and gives him some cheese and some bread. And he visits your big brothers in the battlefield and see how things are going for them. So verse 20, David rose up early in the morning. He doesn't wait to accomplish his father's will. He left the sheep with a keeper and went to the battlefield to find his brothers. Left the sheep with a keeper. Oh, I said he was a good shepherd. He's maybe even better than I thought. In the parable of the last sheep, we just talk about leaving the 99 to go after the one. That's good for the one. Where does that leave the 99? Well, I think the detail that's missing from the parable that David would have supplied is it's okay. No good shepherd is going to leave the 99 shepherdless. They'll definitely be under-shepherds. There'll be someone else that's taking care of them because otherwise what's going to happen? He's going to come back with one and find 99 now lost. No, a good shepherd is better than that. And so David makes sure that all of the sheep are taken care of. And in his own absence. David gets to the battlefield to visit his brothers just in time to hear one more round of taunting from the Philistine giant. But when he hears it, instead of quaking in his boots, he's looking around, confused like, "Why are we letting this guy get away with this? How come nobody's taking him on? Is this the first time he's done this? I mean, must be." Or otherwise, somebody would have defeated him long ago. There's the confidence on David's part. Verse 26, he looks around, asks the men, "What shall be done to the man that killeth the Philistine? And take it away the reproach from Israel. He's talking smack. He's mocking us." And then he asks, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God to catch the repetition of what we saw from Jonathan's experience back in chapter 14?" He had said, "Who's going to take on these uncircumcised Philistines in the garrison?" And here David's doing the same thing. For both parties, it's a religious issue. This is covenant against non-covenant. This is not Israel against the Philistines. This is the God of Israel against the God of the Philistines. And we saw that last week, this stomp of day gone with no head and no hands, bowing before the ark of the covenant. Come on, let's do this thing. He was ready to defend the honor of Israel and Israel's God. Verse 28, "David's oldest brother. Over here's this. Comes the David chastens him." That's what big brothers are for, right? He says, "Why came us thou down hither, with whom has thou left those few sheep in the wilderness?" So this was not 99 and 1. This was some negligible flock, but one that David still thought was worth defending. His big brother goes on, "I know thy pride, the nautiness of thine heart, but thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle." That's it. Now, I wonder if Eliab, this oldest son, is just bitter. It's said earlier that when Samuel anointed David to be the next king, he did it in the presence of his brother. And wait a minute, if it was supposed to be a son of Jesse, and even Samuel assumed it would be the first born Eliab, then you better believe that Eliab would have assumed the same. And I wonder if there's some envy, some bitterness on Eliab's part, like it should have been me. I'm out here ready to take on the enemy. I'm ready to lead Israel. Are you? Even here for 40 days doing nothing. But he's angry. And he assumes, I mean, if there's pride, he's feeling no wonder it's pride he's assuming or assigning to his little brother. You just came to watch. Well, again, there's an irony. Isn't that all you're doing, big brother? You're just sitting around watching. No battles take place. No, he's wrong in accusing his brother of any of these things. And David knows it. So he responds in 29. What have I now done? Is there not a cause? I love that he says that. We've got a reason to be courageous. We've got a reason to fight. There is a cause here and it is the cause of Israel. So gather your courage and let's start running forward and on onto the victory. Sound like another leader of Israel, we know. That was Joseph Smith's words back in the NC128. Tell we not go forward in such a cause. That was Captain Roni's words in the work chapters. This is the cause of Christians and he's emblazoning that cause upon the title of liberty. It's let the cause inspire you and it will inspire courage within you. If you're struggling, if you're hesitant, if you're feeling inadequate, then internalize the cause of Christ. And you will roar back to David's question. Oh, you better believe there is and it's one worth fighting for. David knows it. Now Saul overhears this and he's shocked. Who's saying this? Who actually has the guts to go face the giant? And somebody taller than me? And instead of looking up to someone, he looks way down at someone that is incredibly small compared to what Saul is. In fact, Saul tries to dissuade the boy, David. In verse 33, he says, "That weren't able to go against this Philistine to fight with him for that weren't but a youth and he a man of war from his youth." The giant's been fighting since before you were born. He has more experience in the battlefield than you have in life, little boy. And so I don't think you quite understand what you would be up against. There's no way you should do this. That actually reminds me of Paul's counsel to Timothy, who was also young, but in leadership in the early church. And Paul says to him, "Let no man despise thy youth." Oh, you young listeners out there. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do something just because you're too young Unless it's like drive a car or things like that. Okay But in terms of making a difference in the kingdom of God let no man despise the youth God called Samuel as a boy David as a boy Mary as a young girl Esther young The stripling warriors Joseph Smith you name it when God wants to change the world. He usually calls someone young to do it Young enough that they don't yet know any better that they shouldn't have so much confidence It's the older ones that get jaded and think ah, there's no chance It's the young ones that feel invincible and with God's help in a way you are David knows it and so we respond in 34 and 35 by servant kept his father's sheep good shepherd all along There came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock now a lamb notice these details here. It's just one of Of a flock that was barely worth protecting in its entirety just a few sheep, but no a lamb If it were me, I'd say well, I only lost one dad. We got the rest But not David. I went out after him. How's that for being proactive not considering it too late by any stretch He went out and smote him and delivered it out of his mouth now how that has that for a detail Again, if I thought it was too late because they'd been dragged out of the out of the flock It's in the lion's mouth It's definitely too late. It's definitely a lost cause. Well, David didn't agree So when he arose up against me. So now I'm willing to put my life on the line For a mere lamb out of a flock of just a few sheep this animal this this predator is now coming after me Well, no worries David says I caught him by his beard There's hand-to-hand combat with a ferocious animal and I smote him and slough him now those are some impressive credentials and I would simply say based on David's experience that before we face Goliath I hope we have some prior experience beating lions and bears God will give us opportunities to test our spiritual strength to try our faith to develop some righteous reflexes I just hope we take advantage of those opportunities and pass those preliminary tests David did But notice what he says next 36 They servants slew both the lion and the bear and this uncircumcised philistine There's the religious dig again Shelby is one of them seeing he had to fight the armies of the living God David said more over the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear He will deliver me out of the hand of this philistine And that makes all the difference Notice he's not just saying I have amazing experience. I've got credentials. I can do this. I've done it before No, it's God has the credentials God got me through that. I was scared to death if he was probably being honest But God's strength and I don't know if this is a adrenaline rush and I jumped in and then I did the impossible because because God preserved me I trust he will do the same Because I am simply trying to take care of the lost sheep of Israel I am facing the lions and bears among the philistines and They are God's enemies because they have mocked the living God and he was alive and well with me then he will be alive and well with me now So let me do it In 37 Saul agrees he relents he says the David go Can't believe I'm doing this and the Lord be with the I'm afraid the Lord is no longer with me, but if he's with you then go Saul armed David with his armor put an helmet of brass upon his head Also, he armed him with a coat of mail. Uh-oh. You're sounding more and more like Goliath here David David's gonna see that in a moment David girded his sword upon his armor and he is saved to go He's ready to go march across the battlefield and then he realizes No, no, no, no, not a good not a good idea For he had not proved all this equipment he was wearing David says to Saul I cannot go with these for I have not proved them And David put them off him There's a couple lessons there one again this this similarity to Goliath. Why would I fight the enemy with the enemy's weapons? I'm just lowering myself to their level And if all they have is the armor flesh You think I'm gonna take off the armor of God and settle for the armor flesh Just so it's a fair fight Huh Oh with God on my side it would never be a fair fight nor should it be And I trust in him I see that sometimes when people attack the faith from a position of complete absence of faith In terms of God speaking to the mind in the heart and then Shifting to a completely empirical Secular epistemology in other words. How do we know what we know? We only know it through the mind We can only know it through scientific measurements It has to be completely rational and anytime you hint at the non-rational I'm gonna mock it to make it the irrational and laugh it off the stage Anybody that trusts in spiritual experience is is a fool and feeling that pressure And feeling ashamed of what we cannot convey in purely rational terms I can't wait I can't measure it I can't prove it Then we lower ourselves to that merely rational epistemology And that's an abdication of the most important weapon God has ever given us the sword of the spirit Until he that sword Because the enemy doesn't believe in one Not wise Humbly we can wield it and wield it well we can Hold to testimony of truth The very end of a great book by a German theologian from the early 20th century Rudolph Otto to book called the idea of the holy and he's simply trying to defend the non-rational aspect of religion namely the religious experience The spirit the transcendent the power of God and as he ends this beautiful book he simply says Of course Someone who cannot allow for spiritual experience none of this will make sense from the beginning It's speaking a foreign language. I mean it's again. That's not a weapon in their arsenal And so they'll look at you and think you're why would you even pick that thing up? It does no good But he also points out on the other hand Again, there's we're not seeing eye to eye here. What I'm testifying of my spiritual experience will do nothing to convince you and Otto admits Yeah, that's true All the bearing of testimony in the world will not convince someone who's not open to spiritual experience for themselves But what auto adds at the end is the reverse is also true I can't convince them but they can't disarm me Because they're unwilling to come close enough in real He the way he puts it is they're always outside the battlefield Their weapons are too short to reach their target Because they can't say anything against the power and wisdom of God I love that statement at the end of that book. I need to memorize this so I can do better justice to it I apologize But to me, there's something very powerful about that sense of security that comes When you realize God has given you arms and armor Beyond anything the world can produce David is getting a sense of that. I don't want to look and dress and act and fight like the Philistine Because in that battle he'll eat me alive What am I left with? I'm left with the arms of God And those are arms I trust in the other side of this is I am not going to make the mistake the Philistine is making Remember who's this guy? The Philistine has an armor, a shield bearer to go before him And I will not trust my safety to someone else's shield I'm not gonna do it In the parable of the soul where it talks about one of the seeds that can't grow Well grows and then faints you know just withers and shrivels and dies in the in the sun Is because it had no root in themselves important detail For David here. No, I need root in myself. I need my own armor of God And I'm grateful for everyone who helps me Forge the implements and all the smiths out there that are hammering iron and letting sparks fly But I have to make it fit to myself exact specifications And so I've got some work to do. I need to become a smith of my own To create my own armor of God and David is not going to trust someone else to do that dirty work. Instead, what does he do? Verse 40, "He took his staff in his hand." That's another thing we never see. We always see him with a sling. We don't see him with a staff. What kind of staff would that be? Ah, the staff of a good shepherd. This is a shepherd's crook. The one he uses to help lost sheep come back. The one he uses to fight off attacking lions and bears. He never wants to be without the tools of the good shepherd. And then what? He chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, ah, stones, rocks of Israel, smooth, ah, rocks that were shaped by the running of living water. How many of those do I have? Have I shaped them with time? Have I had enough of the living water run over me to smooth out some of my rough edges? He put them in a shepherd's bag. There's that element again. Every time you look, David is the good shepherd. The into the shepherd's bag which he had, even in a script, and his sling was in his hand. Now, this is artillery over infantry. Malcolm Gladwell has talked about this. This is going to be safer distance than the lion or the bear. And with all of that, David now draws near to the Philistine. We didn't see the sling before. Back then he grabbed the lion or the bear by the beard. Remember that was hand-to-hand combat. But he's progressed. And he realizes that the weapons that helped me through one fight might be insufficient for the next one. So I keep getting stronger. I keep developing deeper habits of spiritual strength. And I'm ready for whatever comes next because I'm not reliant on what came before. If things are getting harder and harder or we're up against bigger and bigger enemies, then we need to up our game. And David has done just that. In verse 41, the Philistine came on, drew near on to David. And the man that bear the shield went before him. There's our third figure. When the Philistine looked about, he's like, "Wait, where's the guy? I can't even look down that far." He saw David, and he disdained him. In other words, he despised. I mean, he looked down on him literally as well as figuratively. For he was but a youth and ruddy and a fair countenance. His face is still flush. He probably doesn't even know enough to shave. The Philistine said unto David, "Am I a dog that they'll come us to me with staves?" There he is, still holding his shepherd's staff. And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. Oh, let no man despise their youth. Goliath's doing exactly that. They're not just despising this youth of Israel, but despising the God of Israel too. He's cursing David by Deagon. So this isn't just Goliath versus David. This is Deagon versus Jehovah. Who's going to win that battle? Well, we've seen it before. Unfazed David starts talking smack back to the Philisties. Maybe that's why he had to be young because young people are better at talking smack than old people usually are. He says in verse 45, "Thou come us to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield, although you're not even holding it." In other words, it looks to me like you're trusting the arm of flesh and boy, do you have mountains of it? Meanwhile, how about me? I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. So this is not going to be man against man because I'm going to lose that one. And everybody knows that. This is man against God. And God's on my side. Verse 46, "This day will the Lord deliver the into my hand. And I will smite the and take thine head from thee and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth." And here's why, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. That's the same kind of language we saw in Exodus. Jehovah beating the Egyptian pantheon, that they may know a God they refuse to acknowledge. In the next verse 47, he expands to be on that. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveeth not the sword and spear for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands. It's not enough that the world will know. Israel has to know too. And do we? Do we trust that the battle is the Lord's and are we willing to go in the power of his might in any direction he sends us? Well, what direction did David go in? Verse 48 and 49, it came to pass when the Philistines arose. He's ticked. This little boy's talking smack. He came and drew Nye to meet David. So picture Goliath lumbering across the valley rushing towards David. Well, what would I do? I'd run to and I'd run away, but not David. David hasted and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. Remember Joseph statement about the cause go forward, brethren, and not backwards and on, on to the victory. That's what David's doing. David put his hand in his bag. He took then s a stone and sling it and smote the Philistine in his forehead, one spot that wasn't covered, a chink in the armor, and the stone sunk into his forehead and he fell upon his face to the earth. By the way, so high that and so fast, the stone was flying, that there was no chance for this armor, this shield bearer to get between. And there's again the danger of letting somebody else hold it for you. You got to hold it yourself. But notice also speaking of directions, Goliath running forward, David running forward, and then getting hit so hard in the forehead that it knocks you down, but he fell on his face. You'd think if you got hit by a stone so hard in the forehead, it would knock you back and you'd fall on your back, but no, fall on his face. That lets you know just how fast he's rumbling forward. And David's running forward just as fast himself. There is courage among this hour in that within this boy. In verse 50, so David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and with a stone and smote the Philistine and slough him, but there was no sword in the hand of David. You see how David won? Oh, no sword in the hand of David. David might have disagreed. I said, Oh, I had a sword, not the visible kind though. Sword of the spirit and the word of God. Oh, I wielded well. And then the sling and the stone. Again, I think I mentioned it. Malcolm Gladwell talks about a difference in military technology. And Goliath was old school. He trusted in swords and spears and shields. And David was ready to go from infantry to artillery. And forget the hand-to-hand combat. That worked with a lion and a bearer. And there's no way I'm getting out of the grasp of this Goliath. But if I keep my distance and stay far enough away that this heavy spirit can't be thrown in my direction and then let the stone fly, then this artillery will beat infantry any day. In some ways, it's a matter again, spirit over flesh that Goliath's weapons in some ways were earth-bound, far more than what David had in his shepherd's bag. And the trust in the spirit, to trust in what was in something further developed. I'm not going to fight today's battles with yesterday's weapons. I have to be better prepared than that. But since he had no sword of his own literal one anyway, he unsheathed the sword of Goliath and with it, he cut off the Gagiant's own head. We see that elsewhere in scripture that the enemy that has dug a pit for their neighbor has fallen into the pit themselves. The sword you intended to use on me actually caused your own destruction, your own ultimate death. Verse 51 and 52 then, "And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. And the men of Israel and of Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines. And as the chapter comes to its close a few verses later, it's a route." I don't know what happened to the winner takes all approach that they had talked about to begin with, but once Goliath fell, the Israelite army arose. He went down, they came up and came rushing across the valley to take on the Philistine army. Completely confident that God would be with them too. What did it take to get them from inaction to action? What did it take to move them from fear to faith? It took the faith of one little boy. And I think sometimes if we're willing to be the one and stand alone just long enough to prove that we're willing to do so before we know it, we won't be alone anymore. Actually, we were never alone to begin with and David knew it. God was with him. But in terms of more personal companions, lead the charge and the army will come running. That among so many other things is one of the lessons of David and Goliath. Oh, the masterpiece that my student painted. I am grateful for all that he saw. I'm grateful for all of the spirit depicts for us and I'm sure that you are painting masterpieces in your own mind. That's the case of real Scripture study. When the Son of Man comeeth, shall he find faith on your own? Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. May our testimony be as deep as strong as that of Jacob, who in confederate by one who sought to destroy his faith declared, I could not be shaken. Now with the battle of David versus Goliath behind us, there are many battles yet to take place, but the one that means the most is the one taking place within Saul's soul. From this moment forward, we see a death there at the end of chapter 17, the death of Goliath. It should have been Saul's counterpart, it should have been Saul slaying him. For the second half of this book, for Samuel, we'll go from chapter 18 to chapter 31, and it ends with another death and it's Saul's, because he never fully conquered the enemy of his soul. He didn't beat Goliath in 17, he didn't beat his own inner demons from this moment forward, and it spelled his own death and destruction by the end of the book. That's what we'll see from this moment forward. So verse 1, it came to pass, "When he had made an end of speaking unto Saul that the soul of Jonathan was met with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul, then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul, and Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and gave it to David and his garments, even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle." Now we're going to see more of Jonathan. Again, I hope you fell in love with Jonathan back in chapter 14. His mad scramble up the hill to take on the Philistine garrison. But he saw in David not a competitor, but a companion, not a foe, but a friend. And this is not a threat to my authority. I'd rather have let him have the authority, and I will build him up. This is, we are cut from the same cloth. And if God wants a heart like his to lead Israel, well, my heart is with him all the way. I love the description of all of this. Their souls were knit together. There's no seams in knitting, right? It's just, it all is interwoven, and that's the soul to soul of these two wonderful friends. Love your neighbor as yourself. That sounds like loved him as his own soul. Were they felt good about themselves? They were confident in God and confident in themselves. So there's no, in some ways, there's nothing missing in their sense of self. So they don't need to, I don't know, fill in empty holes by taking from other people. That was Saul's problem. But with Jonathan, with David, there's enough end to spare. Enough love that God has poured into me, that it's pouring out into you, and I can love you just as much. To the point that Jonathan would strip himself of his robe, we've talked a bit about the Prodigal Son already today. And there is that older brother that was next in line and should have inherited everything, and never left the father's side, and I'm the good guy, and you could kind of put a Jonathan in that place. And yet, you know what I mean? You can definitely put a Jesus in that place. He's the elder brother of every Prodigal child, and he's the one that's never left the father's side. But unlike the older brother in the parable, who is bitter that his little brother has returned, his angry that dad is taking a fatted calf out of a half that eventually will belong to him to be able to celebrate his little brother's return? No. He was dead. We were dead to him. He's still dead to me. That's not the case with Jesus. Certainly not the case with Jonathan. And you see in him, just like the father gives this Prodigal Son a robe, a ring, and the fatted calf, Christ will give the robes of his righteousness, and give the ring of his authority and power. He will not just allow for the death of a fatted calf. He'll provide himself as the lamb without blemish. And I see similar things here in Jonathan, a beautiful type of Christ. Here is my robe, the regal royal ones. Here are my garments. The garments of praise, the mantle of charity. Here is my sword, my bow, my girdle. Here's my armor of God. I know you don't need it. You've got your own, at least spiritually speaking. But literally, let me help you out a little bit. I don't know if you know any Smiths, I do. And so take mine absolutely no jealousy on Jonathan's part, which juxtaposes him with his father, who becomes jealous and prideful to the very court. Now as David returns triumphant from the battle, the women of Israel come out and they're singing and they're dancing and they're playing music. This is like the song of Miriam after the Red Sea, the song of Deborah, after Cicero's defeat, verse 7 and 8, the women answered one another as they played. So they're kind of singing back and forth, call and response. They say, Saul has slain his thousands and here's the response. And David, his ten thousands and as beautiful as these echoes of praise would sound from these female voices, Saul didn't feel that way. He was very wroth and the saying displeased him. He hated the lyrics and here's why. He said, "Wait a minute. They have a scribe unto David ten thousands. To me they have a scribe but thousands and what can he have more but the kingdom?" Remember President Benson's famous talk on pride? Where he said, "Pride doesn't care about having something and only cares about having more than somebody else. It's all comparison and competition. That's what Saul is dealing with." He killed your thousands. It's amazing. But he's, you're talking about tens of thousands for him and I can't handle that. And what he says at the end there, what's left for him to take but the kingdom, that's Saul's biggest concern. It's the one thing I want to hold on to. And yes, Samuel has warned me that the kingdom had already passed to somebody else. It better not be David. I will not allow that to happen. Verse 9, "Sall I to David from that day and forward." That's about fixating upon the object of your jealousy. And it came to pass on the marrow that the evil spirit from God, yep, there's a JST to correct it. It came upon Saul and he prophesied in the midst of the house. Now other translations don't say he prophesied. It says he raved like a mad man and that sounds more accurate. In other words, what spirit is moving you? Spirit of God or this evil spirit that isn't from him. Either way, David is playing with his hand as at other times. He's trying to calm down and soothe the mad king and any chance he can. And there was a javelin in Saul's hand. Now, this is a dangerous situation. Well David and Saul have something in their hands. David's is a harp. Saul's is a javelin. And remember one of his motivating emotions is anger. And it's not the spirit of God that is moving it right now. Now if you know your emotional state, your mental state, your spiritual state, be very careful what you hold in your hand. Be very careful about what temptations you keep handy in a moment of weakness. Because you may end up doing things that you never intended. This is God warning Adam and Eve. Don't even touch the fruit. Let alone eat it. Well what's Saul doing with the javelin in his hand? Oh, careful. It's not going to stay there very long. Sure enough, verse 11, Saul cast the javelin. For he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. Now, I'm not going to do it for you, but try to keep track of how many attempts Saul makes on David's life. Here we see one and two in quick succession. And at some point I lose track after about 12. Okay, from this point forward. But notice this detail. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him and was departed from Saul. Saul afraid of David? If anything, David has every reason to fear Saul. Although that's only physical. And it looks like David and young David's got some quick reflexes. That's good. Save his life. But Saul fearing David because he sees in David what he once had himself, namely the power and spirit of God. Oh, it's interesting. Even to see, we'll see more of this. When Joseph Smith talks about all the persecution he suffered through life and he said, it seems that I was prone to the envy and wrath of man. The envy, how they're jealous of me, they're angry at me. Is it they fear me? Just because I'm trying to live a righteous life and have the spirit of God. There's something else here about self-deception. There's some great material in bonds that make us free, for example. Some work from the Arbanger Institute, which is this great LDS think tank that tries to work on conflict resolution. And they often talk about in terms of self-deception, we end up attacking and blame, well, we end up blaming the person we want to attack. That's kind of how they say it. Where we make the person that we are offending, we make them guilty in our own minds, and that is what makes us feel justified in attacking them. That seems to be what Saul is doing. Oh, I have things to fear in him. No, you don't. You have nothing to fear in David. David has everything to fear in you. And yet if I can paint him as the monster, make him appear to be the enemy, then I'm justified in attacking him, even though it makes no sense, but in terms of real logic. This is the perpetrator blaming the victim, and we'll see Saul do a lot of that. Meanwhile, verse 14, David behaved himself wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. Well, of course, he'll be wise if God's source of all wisdom is with you. Wherefore, when Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely, he was afraid of him. There it is happening again. But all Israel and Judah loved David because he went out and came in before them. David seems to be a man of God and a man of the people. And Joseph Smith was the same, just really good with keeping both great commandments. And David's out among them. He doesn't feel like he's better than them or higher than them. Or needs to be distinct from them. It's just, can you believe what God is doing for all of us? The Saul then offers David his daughter, Merab. As a wife. I mean, okay, so Saul is turning things around, or is this a chance of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? Because here's what he does. He says in verse 17, "You can have my daughter if you will fight the Lord's battles." For Saul said to himself, "Let not mine hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him." See, there's no way, I guess the guy got lucky from a distance with his sling and beat the Philistine giant. But go take on more Philistines like my amazing son did. There's no way that David deserves to kingdom over Jonathan. Jonathan's way better. I'll take 1 Samuel 14 over 17 any day. So yeah, let's have him go take on a garrison, scrambling up the hillside and hand-to-hand combat. Now, go fight. Go fight the Lord's battles. Let's put it that way. And that way, he'll die at the Philistines' hands. And my hands will be free. And the picture pilot washing his hands of the blood of Jesus. Now, sadly, do you see a later David sending Eureia off to battle so that David doesn't have to slay himself? There's going to be some parallels we'll see between this week and next that are heart-breaking. But at this moment, it's Saul is the evil one. And he's trying to trick David into wanting to marry his daughter and sending him off to his own death to do so. Well, as usual, Saul underestimates David and underestimates the power of God to preserve him. So he goes out and fights and everything's great. Although meanwhile, Saul has given that daughter to someone else. Though he never, apparently never meant it anyway. It was just a ruse. And it didn't work. But I don't want him to actually marry into the family. So a quick got a, got a marry of Maryab off to somebody else. Saul does have another daughter. Her name is Michal or Michael, as she is sometimes pronounced. And Saul promises her to David also, but under these conditions, verse 21, "I will give him her that she may be a snare to him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him." So he hasn't changed tactics. He's only changed daughters. Meanwhile, David protests humbly. He says, "I'm my family's way too poor to even marry into the royal family. I have nothing to give my way of dowry. I don't have the ten camels that Abraham or Serbant brought for Rebecca. I've got nothing to give. I've got just a few poor sheep. That's nothing." And didn't Saul is like, "I know." But since this is a snare and a trap, he, I'm just using my daughter as bait. And this is what I'm asking for. Go bring back a hundred four skins from the Philistines. Now there's some symbolism there. Remember the uncircumcised Philistines is how John the referred to them, how David referred to them, no covenant there. And they're not going to take it upon themselves willingly. So let's go force something. This is a little like Simeon and Levi and the town of Shekom that they trick into taking the covenant, right? But basically, in some ways you could take this as Ammon and the servants of King Lomonai when he cuts off all these arms and the servants pack them up in a bag and bring them and dump them at Lomonai's feet because this is evidence. This is proof and you can count the casualties that fell to the sword or the sling of Ammon because here they are. Well, in this case, it's a more specific or a different body part, but it has some symbolism in itself as well. And there's no way that David's going to survive if he's trying to take on an army and fight a hundred Philistines. Well once again, Saul has underestimated the power of David and the power of God to be with David and pretty soon David has gathered an army to go with him. They go out, fight in battles against the Philistines and come back with a dowry of not one hundred but two hundred Philistine force gets. Strange gift, but we'll move forward. Well, that kind of backfired on Saul. But verse 28, Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David and that Michael or Mikhail Saul's daughter loved him just like Jonathan did. And this is a family favorite to everyone but Saul that is. Saul was yet the more afraid of David and Saul became David's enemy continually. Again, why do people fear righteousness? Why do they make goodness their enemy when there's no sense of enemy ship in return? Why do that? Why do we sometimes want to drag down people we consider too perfect? My daughter said that she was bullied at a certain time of her life and the complaint people said, the derision they threw in her face was that she was a molly of Mormon. And that speaks more of the people throwing that out than the person that's being targeted. What's wrong with trying to be good? What's wrong with trying to be faithful and righteous and pure? And yet that goes against, well, I was going to say it goes against everything Saul stands for. No, it's all used to stand for it, but he fell short of it. And that's why he feels that he's fallen short of David's standard. This is the crab making his way out of the pot and everyone else drags it back down. Again, it's a matter of comparison. Pride is always that way. So turn to chapter 19 and we can add a few more tick marks or tally marks on the number of the counts of attempted murder against David, innocent David. Saul in chapter 19 commands Jonathan, his son, to kill David and wrong one to ask because his soul is knit to David's fast, fast friends. So Jonathan, instead of obeying Father's command, warns David about it. And in fact, promises him, I will be your eyes and ears within the royal palace. So whatever adds up to him, whatever scheme he's concocting, I'll give you the heads up. Jonathan even defends David to his father. Stands up to someone who obviously is kind of unhinged and is chucking javelins and yet Jonathan would rather preserve his friendship and try to keep his father from committing such evil against him. So verse four, Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his father. Again, a dangerous thing to do. And set unto him, let not the king sin against his servant against David, which is exactly what it would be because he hath not sinned against thee. And because his works have been to thee were very good for he put his life in his hand and slew the Philistine and the Lord brought a great salvation for all Israel, including you, dad, you should have been the one to do it. Thou sawest it and didst rejoice. Therefore then will thou sin against innocent blood to slay David without a cause. Do we have the courage to stand up for people that are being misjudged or spoken ill about, especially in their absence? Do we have the courage to speak truth to power? Do we have the courage and love to try to reconcile people that one there's anger in one direction, but not in the other and it doesn't have to be in either direction? I love what Jonathan is doing here. In fact, he's trying to remind his father of all the good that David has done, including the good he's done to Saul. And actually for a time it works. In verse 6, Saul harkened unto the voice of Jonathan, and Saul swear, "As the Lord liveth, he shall not be slain." And Jonathan called David and Jonathan showed him all those things and Jonathan brought David to Saul and he was in his presence as in times past. This is forgiveness, reconciliation, trust, friendship, reforming, and Jonathan gets to be in the middle of it all. I love this. If I remember correctly in American history, Jefferson and Adams were so tight in the revolutionary period trying to just develop a nation and gain freedom from Britain and then there was this massive falling out that lasted for decades. But Benjamin Rush, if I remember correctly, who was a mutual friend, one of the unsung founding fathers, worked tirelessly to try to reconcile the two. They said, "You two founding fathers are among the oldest men around that remember those days and you don't have to be foes. You can be friends. You once were." And he would drop kind hints from one to the other and say things like, "Hey, Thomas, you know John was saying some really amazing things about things you did in the presidency." And Jefferson was like, "Wait, what? Adams would say something nice about me? No, no way." And then Rush is dropping hints on the other side. Like, you know Thomas was so amazed with what you've been writing lately and Adams is like, "Jefferson, nice thing to say about me." Well, near the end of their lives, those two friends took up a correspondence to each other that is worth, worth its weight in gold. And their shared perspective on things they went through together is beautiful. It's amazing to see their reconciliation. Here, Jonathan is performing that role between Saul and David. And I hope we can do that when we see people that, it's like Joseph Smith and W.W. Phelps, "Come to your brother and now the war is past and friends at first shall be friends again at last." I wish we could end the story there, but we can't. Unfortunately, another battle ensues another victory for David and that triggers Saul's jealousy and anger and pride all over again. He can hear echoes of tens of thousands instead of my mere thousands. And so once again, he throws a javelin at David who then flees for his life. Is that our third direct time? But then you got to add the two times with the Philistines that he's trying to use as daughters to snare it. Again, I loose track, but there's a lot, okay? Saul then sends messengers to kill David, another direct approach. This time, Michal, Michael, helps him escape, lets him down through a window. Sounds a little like Rahab helping the spies that came to scope out Jericho. Is that now who we see Saul as a wicked king that the righteous people of Israel need to help, need help in escaping from? We've gotten that to that point. Michal even puts a dummy in David's bed. I remember his wife and she just kind of sets this thing up and puts the stuff there and, oh, he's just, no, I wasn't feeling well. He's still there and the servants of Saul come and realize what they've done and they're angry and a report to Saul who's very angry. David runs away, he ends up staying with Samuel and Saul keeps sending messenger after messenger in search to apprehend him. But at one point, he sends a group and they come and once they get close to David and Samuel, the spirit of God descends upon them and they begin prophesying. Remember that happened to Saul when he was in the company of the prophets? Well, now it's happened to Saul's servants and I don't, it doesn't say what they prophesied but I'm guessing it was good things about David and bad things about Saul. And Saul catches one to this and says, well, that didn't work and he sends another group of servants and they go through the same thing and a third group and finally, the fourth time, Saul is like, this is not working the way I plan. He goes to try to take down David himself and has he approaches even he feels the spirit of the Lord descend upon him. And he prophesies just like everybody else, saying, reminds me of the old story of early Mormon missionaries in England when enemies of the church would tell the constable, this is a disruption of the peace, this is a nuisance. And so go after them and they go and they're like, well, I don't want to rest him in the middle of a sermon. I'll just wait till they're done and by the end, they're not arresting them. They're asking to be baptized at their hands. Now that seems to be the case of what's happening here. Well, chapter 19 then turns to 20 and here again, you see this, the souls of Jonathan and David knit together. And verse one, David's on the run. He comes back to Jonathan and he asks, what have I done? What is mine? Aniquity? What is my sin before they father that he seek of my life? Talk about, Lord, is it I? David's done nothing wrong. Jonathan's already reminded it's all of that. But John, but David looks inward instead of outward and assumes, he gives, saw the benefit of the doubt, I must have done something to offend him. What could it possibly be? In fact, in verse eight, he says to Jonathan, if there be in me aniquity, slay me by self. I'm not afraid of justice. I'm not afraid of facing the music of it. If I've done something wrong, I'd rather face it from your hand. But how do I think I've done anything? Can you help me see my blind spot? Well, there aren't any. Jonathan tries to reassure David, but David honestly fears for his life and for a very good reason. So they renew their covenant of friendship and they come up with a game plan. Here's their covenant. Verse 13, Jonathan says, the Lord be with thee as he hath been with my father. Jonathan's in such a rough place. He loves his dad. He loves his friend. He knows one is guilty, and the other is innocent. And he's trying to reconcile the two and it worked, but now it isn't. But he still remembers his father's good years when the spirit of God was upon him. Now he sees it upon his friend and prays that it may remain there. In verse 17, for he loved him as he loved his own soul. There it is again, loving his neighbor as himself. Or 23, the Lord be between thee and me forever. Now there's no better connection in terms of a friendship or a marriage or a relationship. If God is the only thing between you, then in some ways there's nothing between you or nothing that will ever come between you that would separate you because God is making you at one with him and at one with one another. You want a good relationship? Make sure God is the connective tissue and nothing can ever come between you. Well, that's the covenant. How about the plan? Jonathan's still going to be the eyes and ears of David in the palace. And he comes up with his idea. Why don't you go out and hide in the woods? And I will try to get a sense of where my dad's at. Is he ready to reconcile? Or is he still as angry and prone to throwing javelins as before? And I'll tell you what, as you're waiting out in the woods, once I find out for my father, I'll take a bone arrow and I'll shoot arrows out into the field. There are the woods near where you might be. Careful, make sure you can dodge your javelins hopefully. You dodge arrows in case I don't know where I'm shooting. I'll send a servant out around there and I'll tell the servant, oh, the arrows are farther out. Keep going. And that's code for you, David, should keep going. Get out of here. It's unsafe. If on the other hand, I say, oh, you went too far, servant. The arrows are on this side of you. So please come back home. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, David. Come back and you'll find the arrows along the way. Sound good? Sure. Sounds good. And so that's exactly what they do. Now, David's away in hiding. Saul starts missing him, but not for good reasons. He asks Jonathan. So where's David? Haven't seen him in a while. And Jonathan tries to excuse him. So he had to go back to Bethlehem, offering sacrifice. That was kind of the same excuse that Samuel came up with to try to escape the angry Saul before. And how does Saul respond? Like, oh, okay, well, miss the guy. You know, haven't heard of the harpoon a while. And life's around here's a little calmer, a little more peaceful with him. No, verse 30, Saul's anger was kindled, but notice its target. It was kindled against Jonathan. And he said unto him, thou son of a perverse rebellious woman, wait, what, now you're blaming Jonathan's mother throwing your own wife under the bus? Whoa, he says, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion and unto the confusion of thy mother's nakedness? Now that's a weird way to describe things. I think he's saying, don't you get that David's success will mean your failure? And even my failure as a parent, I think that's where he's getting out with my mother's nakedness. It's like, why did we ever give birth to you if you're not going to grow up to be king? This is about the dynasty. This is about you taking my place. And as long as that punk David is alive, you'll never ascend to the throne. See what he's getting at here? He's so jealous for himself that he's beginning to envy for Jonathan's sake. And Jonathan feels no envy for himself. No, I won't. I'd support David in the throne any day. I'll be his right hand man. Saul goes on, as long as the son of Jesse lived upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom, wherefore now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die. It wasn't Jonathan's kingdom. Saul was worried about. It was still his own. Still, he was right. You'll never be king. But like I said, Jonathan was okay with that. Verse 32, Jonathan answers, Saul his father and said unto him, wherefore shall he be slain? What have he done? See, he's still thinking of David, not of himself. He's still defending a friend. Or maybe he's giving his father the benefit of the doubt and allowing him to explain himself. What do you see in him? What, what am I missing? I don't see any cause, but if you do, I'll allow you to explain. Well, Saul's got nothing to explain. And so all he's got is the javelin in his hand. And this time Saul casts the javelin at him, at Jonathan, to smite him. Now he's turned on his own son. Obviously not concerned that his son will actually inherit the kingdom, like he just said, because it's not just David's life that would get in the way of that. It's Jonathan's death that would get in the way of that too. Come on, Dad. Come on, Saul. But now Dad's intentions are crystal clear. Whereby, Jonathan knew that it was determined of his father to slay David. So what's Jonathan do? He arose from the table in fierce anger, anger towards his father. And if Eaton will meet the second day of the month for he was grieved for David, because his father had done him shame. I'm so amazed that Jonathan is able to hold two different emotions simultaneously. And to feel this anger towards his father, this righteous indignation, but at the same time hold nothing but sorrow for David. And trying to navigate that. Jonathan then acts according to the plan. He shoots the arrows, sends his servant after them and says they are way past you. Keep on going. And ultimately when the servant returns, he says, well, thanks for your help. Go back home. I'm going to stay out here in the woods a while. Don't worry about me. And he does that so he can there say goodbye to his friend David. Verse 41, "As soon as the lab was gone, David arose out of the place toward the south and fell on his face to the ground and bowed himself three times. And they kissed one another and wept one with another until David exceeded just overcome with emotion." Jonathan said to David, go in peace for as much as we have sworn in both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, "The Lord be between me and thee and between my seed and thy seed forever." And he arose and departed. And Jonathan went into the city. This was as painful a departure as two friends could ever undergo. Their souls were knit and now the knitting is being torn apart because of Saul. To get in the way of true friendships, friendships that exalted and supported and helped one another. Now I do need to share that in modern times there have been interpreters out there that have read passages like this to suggest that, "Oh, surely, David and Jonathan must have been engaged in some kind of homosexual relationship." Words like that couldn't possibly describe platonic love. And I just want to point out that there's nothing in the text that requires that kind of interpretation. And in fact, there's so much that is in the text that would cast doubt upon that interpretation. First and foremost, David's plural marriages, his heterosexual experiences, his lasting after Bathsheba next week outside of marriage. Be careful. I would simply say in terms of biblical interpretation and interpreting and understanding scripture. Be careful that you don't read too much of what you're hoping to see into what is actually there. At least, especially not in areas that would be as controversial as something like that. Often in the history of biblical interpretation, what is being said about the Bible often says more about the person speaking than about the scriptures being studied. So, just keep that in mind. Now, let's pick up speed and keep moving forward. Chapter 21, David is now on the run. He knows the arrows flew, and so he's got to fly as well. And so he takes off, leaves Jonathan behind in tears. Tears himself. He comes to a town called Nob. And apparently, the tabernacle had been moved there at some point from Shiloh. It's a priestly city. That's not too far away. And David is on the lamb, so to speak. He's trying to escape what a friend that has become his enemy. Saul. And so he rushes in, and he and his men are hungry and tired. And again, just running for their lives. And so they go to the priest that's there at the tabernacle. His name is a Himalek. And they beg for him. Ask him, "Do you have any bread that you can spare for us?" And I mean, it's a good person to ask, right? They're kind of in charge of the Lord's storehouse, so to speak. And people are coming to give offerings and sacrifices until there's food for the priest, and it's there enough to spare, and they've got nothing. Which means either the priests are sure enough feasting upon themselves, or perhaps the people have lost confidence in priests and aren't offering much. Either one's a possibility based on what we saw with Eli's sons and Samuel's sons, right? Well, what ends up happening is a Himalek does say to him, "Well, we do have the bread on the table of showbred, the bread of the presence, as it's called, the bread of faces. This is the presence of God. This is kind of the sacrament table, so to speak. But that's holy bread. That's been sanctified. Do you have anything to spare?" Now, some have wondered, "What's going on in this story? Is he just asking for food?" Or, "Is he actually asking for allegiance from the ecclesiastical authority since he has no more connections to the political authority? And if there's a separation of church and state, can I get the church on my side since the state is totally against me?" Interesting things to think about is David trying to gather some some allies on his side. Well, whatever the reason, hungram, sure, is part of it, literally. And a Himalek, it's interesting. He says, "Well, have your men done anything to become ritually impure?" And David says, "No, we've just been running for our lives." And he says, "Okay, then. Why don't we take the bread from the table of showbred and I'll give that to you?" And that actually begs the question, "Where is the locus of holiness when it comes to something like the sacrament?" My son, when he was a teacher, he used to ask, "What do you do with the leftover bread when we're putting away the trays after sacrament meeting?" And for Latter-day Saints, it's simply a matter. These are tokens. These are symbols. These are meant to help us remember. It's still bread, okay? It's still water. And so if it needs to be, it can be eaten, it can be thrown away. It's not the locus of holiness is in the ordinance itself, and the ordinance is over. Now Catholics would not agree because of the doctrine of transubstantiation. And for them, no, this has become the body and blood of Jesus. And so there's actually some fascinating Catholic history and wrestling with questions like, let me say Thomas Aquinas, for example, wrestled with the question of what would happen if a dog or a mouse happened to accidentally eat the wafer, the Eucharist? And he was wrestling with that because what does that mean? And again, the question is where is holiness centered? I think it's worth pondering as we partake of the sacrament, as we engage in works of holiness. Is it in the object? Is it in the officiator? Maybe a little closer. Is it in the recipient with their attitudes and where their heart happens to be? Is it in the act of participating in that sacrament or in that ordinance itself? I don't have clear answers on this. I am grateful though that a Himalek must have been wrestling with this and deciding, no, this bread has served its holy purpose. And it can now serve a more human one. To me, there's an interesting contrary to prove when it comes to piety and pragmatism. And the piety would say, no, it's holy and must ever remain. And the pragmatic would say, I'm dying here. Do you have anything I can eat? And I think that's worth for us to wrestle with also and strive to strike a balance between piety and pragmatism. Well, David also asks after he's had the bread, thank you for that. Do you also happen to have any weapons? I know that's an odd thing to ask a Levite priest. But do you happen to have anything? And because we're unarmed, which tells you something, I've got my heart. It doesn't, it doesn't, not much protection. And, and so a Himalek says, actually, yes, surprisingly, here we have, you say, you'll get a kick out of this. We've got the sword of Goliath. Remember that one? You're the one that first unsheathed it from, from Goliath and used it to cut off his head. But here we have it. He says in verse nine, the sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom thou sluest in the valley of Ilat, just in case you forgot in all of your humility. Behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If that will take that, take it, for there is no other save that here. And David said, Oh, there is none like that. Give it me. On the one hand, I'm amazed that David didn't keep it like a trophy. I think I'd have that thing hanging over my, my fireplace, like, see what I did. But for him, it was like, I didn't do really anything. It would look what God did. And in fact, maybe that's where we should put the this sword in the house of God, because God deserves the credit for everything that's been done. Now that's best case scenario. Worst case scenario, what if the people, 'cause again, David doesn't know that it's there, it comes as a shock to him. Maybe the people were thinking, we beat the Philistines. And this is our evidence, this is our trophy. So let's put it in the tabernacle where the other trophies belong. And my worry there is, if it's not a matter of giving God credit, if it's instead, are we just turning the tabernacle into a trophy case? For memories of past triumphs, have we turned it into a relicary of the past instead of a house for the living God? And my worry about those kinds of things, again, I've talked about the three shelves. If shelf one is just so dusty and there's nothing going on in shelf two, 'cause I don't think God will, I'll never have those experiences again. I do wonder, they wrapped it in a cloth. It's just like a now a holy kind of thing. We're gonna put it next to the ephod, that the priestly robes or tunic. I do worry, in fact it even makes me wonder about what's their attitude toward the bread on the table of show bread. Remember, it's also called the bread of the presence. Well, is there no presence anymore? Has God long since abandoned his so-called house? Because his people, his so-called people have long since abandoned him? I'm wrestling with this. I didn't think there's some interesting food for thought, no pun intended, with a story about bread. But interesting to think is God's presence even here anymore. And I'm just putting up souvenirs of past experiences. I'm no longer worthy of having in my presence. Where's the presence now? Well, verse 10, David arose. He fled that day for fear of Saul and went to Aakish, the King of Gath. Now, if you know your details, this is a shocking verse. Where was Goliath from again? Goliath of Gath? When my son was little, my Jonathan turned Jacob. When he was little, he couldn't make the TH sound. It was hilarious. He always thought there was an F that was supposed to come first. So anything that ended in TH would end in FTH. So Arthur, the little TV show he used to watch as a boy, he would call it Arthur, Arthur. And when he learned the story of Goliath of Gath, we couldn't wait for him to tell the story 'cause he talked about Goliath of Gath. And we just tried to keep a straight face and said, you know, tell it again, who was he? What was he from? Goliath of Gath. Well, now here's where David going. He's going to the King of Gath. The hometown of the champion of the Philistines that David himself slew and spelled disaster to the Philistine army. Now, this should tell you something about how David feels in the presence of Saul. If he feels safer in the hometown of his old enemy, well, he's got a worse enemy now and it's Saul. So David goes there and when he gets there, the King's servants look at him and like, this guy kind of looks familiar. Maybe a little older, but you see the, they have a shepherd's bag and shepherd's staff. What's he carrying? If he's got the sort of Goliath, do they recognize that? I mean, again, it's shocking that David would put himself in a harm's way like this. They feel like they recognize him. So they run back to the King and they say, I think this guy's David that beat our hometown hero and David is so concerned about this. Like now I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place. I can't go back, but I can't stay here. What do I do? Well, genius. This is what he does, verse 13. He changed his behavior before them. He feigned himself mad in their hands and scrambled on the doors of the gate and let his spit will fall down upon his beard. This is the Old Testament insanity plea. And he's not pleading it. He's pretending it. He's acting it out. And they're looking at this guy as he drools down his beard. So yeah, he's grown up a bit. He's no longer just the ready face. He's got some beard there. Some stubble at least. And he's scratching at the door of the gate and people like, oh, there's no way this guy beat our champion. Maybe a look alike, an older brother maybe, but there's no way. Now you could end that story there and move on to cover 22, but before we do, to me there is another lesson here. David pretended to be less than what he was. Why? So he could fit in in a place he wasn't meant to be. Now it's not his fault he has to go there. He's just looking for some place of safety. And maybe that's like, well, the last place they'd ever expect me to go is gaff. The last place that Saul would ever look for me is there. And so maybe my most dangerous place is my safest place ironically. But think about that in terms of, oh, Zion versus Babylon, for example, Israel versus Felistia, in which side of the mountain you're gonna climb, right? Which, whose side are you on? And I worry, again, those that want to have kings like all of the other nations, those that want to fit in in Felistine territory. Too often are forced to act like someone they're not. And compared to having the wisdom of God, they have to feign mere madness. They have to hold to mere humanity and separate themselves from the higher light and truth that comes in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do worry about those who lower themselves to that level just so they can fit in. Because chances are you've chosen a place that you were never meant to go to begin with. We can be better. We can be higher. We can be holier than that. Well, David is rising in holiness. Saul is lowering in, along those lions. And you see that clearly in chapter 22. After a time in Gath, Felistine's territory, David then returns to Israel. And here he's hiding for his life in a cave. Verse one, when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down, they there to him. And everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in debt and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him and he became a captain over them. And there were with him about 400 men. This actually sounds a lot like Robin Hood to me, to be honest. His band of Mary men and the, but who's coming? Those in distress, in debt and in discontent. These are the marginalized and the vulnerable. These are the ones that have slipped through the social safety nets. These are the have-nots that are looking to have something better. And they see in David someone like themselves, he's a man of the people, but someone that is higher and can lift them higher as well. This actually forget Robin Hood. This sounds like Jesus who was constantly surrounded by those in distress and debt and discontented, looking for a better life. Many of those find their way into the church of Jesus Christ as well. Well, they're coming. They would still on the move though. Can't stay in one spot for too long. And so he then goes to Moab. Philistines were one enemy, but I'm safe for there. Moab, Moabites are another enemy, but safe for there too. And when he gets there, he asks the king in verse three, "Let my father and my mother, I pray thee come forth and be with you till I know what God will do for me." And the king lets them. He brought them before the king of Moab and they dwelt with him all the while the David was in the hold. There you see David carrying for those that perhaps he feels unable to care for himself directly, because if they're with me, then they're in danger with me. So again, he turns to an enemy, turns that enemy into a friend and says, "Please, can you take care of my family?" And so it goes. I also love the way he said that. And at least until I know what God will do for me, I don't know all of God's plans. I know they're good. I trust him. But until I see a little more clearly what that's going to look like, I just want to take care of those that matter most to me. Saul, meanwhile, what's he up to? He's back home in Ghibbia. And in verse six, it says, "Having his spear in his hand." Uh-oh. And all his servants were standing about him. He ends up scolding those same servants. He says in verse seven, "Here now you benjamites." So now we're appealing to tribalism. You're one of my tribe. I'm one of yours. Come on, we got to stick together in this. Will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards and make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds? Sounds like he's bribing them to keep their allegiance. So then why this? That all of you have conspired against me. Now he's falsely accusing them of disloyalty. There's none that show with me that my son have made a league with the son of Jesse. Now he's accusing his own son of treason. And there's none of you that is sorry for me. Now he's throwing himself at his own pity party. Or show with unto me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie and wait as at this day. Wow. Talk about total self-deception. in every direction, Saul. You're paranoid. You're turning every friend into an enemy. You're seeing trees in every place you look, among your son, among your servants. No, none of that has happened. Now, one of Saul's servants, however, does chime in. He pipes up. I mean, Saul's got his javelin in his hand, right? And his spear. And he's like, "Okay, I've got a lookin' out for number one." You know, Saul, now that you mentioned it, I did see, I was in knob a while back. And I heard that David had come through and that the priest, a Himalach, had fed him and given him the sword of Goliath. The servant ends up saying, "Virce 10, that he, a Himalach, inquired of the Lord for him, and gave him vitals and gave him the sword of Goliath, the Philistine." You know, sounds, if you have eyes to see, like he presided, provided, and protected. Hmm, he's living the proclamation to the world on the family. Preside, he inquired of the Lord, provide, he gave him food, protect, he gave him a sword. In some ways, he gave him the sword of the Spirit and the word of God and the bread of life and the presence of God and just. Now, it sounds like quite the gift from a Himalach. That's music to David's ears, but that's a sour song for Saul. And so he ends up calling for a Himalach and all of his fellow priests brings them, says, "What have you done?" He accuses them of treason. And verse 14, a Himalach answered the king and said, "Whoa, whoa, who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king's son-in-law, and goeth it thy bidding and his honorable inline house?" He's protesting and saying, "Wait, why would I ever assume that David is turning against you? Nobody thinks that." Except you, king. "No one's more faithful. He's your own son-in-law for crying out loud." "Most honorable guy, I know. He'll do anything you ask. No one is more loyal." So by serving him, I thought I was serving you. Well, that's not how Saul takes it. In fact, Saul jumps to the opposite conclusion and says, "No, you are in alliance with him. And since I want to kill him and you're on his side, I am here to kill you." In fact, I'll kill all the priests of knob. And he turns to his servants that were scared of his spear a moment ago and they say, "Fall upon them, slaughter them all." And even that is too much for, or that is too much for even his servants. They refuse to do it, which again puts their own lives in jeopardy. He wants to kill anybody he sees, and there's anybody that goes against him, and now we're going to go against him, but no, I'm grateful for this moment among the servants. We will not slaughter these priests. Unfortunately, there is one servant, the same one that was there in knob to overhear all this. He was not an Israelite himself, and so I don't care about Israel or the people of Israel or the God of Israel. I'm just working for the King of Israel because I don't know, I have to help to get something for myself out of this. And this one, Edamite, turns and slays them all. 85 of them. And then goes back to knob and lights the town on fire. And slays every one and everything that is there. Men, women, children, babies, flocks, herds, complete annihilation. Because they did a good deed. And had no idea that there would ever be negative consequences as a result. This is a horrifying story. One of a Himalax Suns escapes. Only safe place for him, he knows, he runs to David. And he tells David everything that happened, and how does David respond versus 22 and 23? David says to Abiyah Thar, that's that son. I knew it that day when Doeag, the Edamite, was there, that he would surely tell Saul, "I have occasioned the death of all the persons of my father's house. Abide that with me, fear not, for he that seeketh my life, seeketh thy life. But with me thou shalt be in safe guard. I will protect you like I protect myself. Your mind now, I'll be yours. But the way he said it earlier, "It's my fault. I knew it. I knew it that day. Something was wrong. Why did nice? You sense David blaming himself? This is a Lord is it I moment for him yet again. And it's the madness of Saul. But here David takes it upon himself. I can't believe I put them in harm's way. I did not mean to. And I will do everything I can to. To make it up, at least to you, a beeth are. Come and be with us. Chapter 23, then, you see David continuing to fight with his enemies, but also fleeing from his friends, such an irony. In verse 1, they told David, saying, "Behold the Philistines fight against Keelah." And they robbed the Threshing floors. Therefore David inquired of the Lord, seeking divine direction, saying, "Shall I go and smite these Philistines?" And the Lord said unto David, "Go, smite the Philistines, save Keelah." Now, that should have been Saul's responsibility. The Philistines are coming. That's Israel's enemy. They're attacking Israelites and Saul's the King of Israel still, at least ostensibly. Why aren't you the one doing it? And here's David struggling with his own safety, but now trying to do what Saul refuses to do himself. Do you sense the shift of authority and sense of responsibility from one to the other? The Spirit's already shifted. Now everything else is too. David is proactive. He feels the weight of responsibility. He's still as caring for the vulnerable. In verse 3, though, David's men saying to him, "Behold, we be afraid here in Judah. How much more than if we come to Keelah against the armies of the Philistines?" It's like, "We've got our own problems, David. We can't afford to take on somebody else's problems, too." So every man from self, and I'm sorry, but let the people of Keelah fight for themselves. We can't afford to do it. Now, David, meanwhile, inquires of the Lord yet again. Maybe they're right. Maybe they've got a point. I'm going to double check here. I may be understood incorrectly the first time. But again, the Lord answered him and said, "A rise, go down to Keelah. For I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand." And David had plenty of experience with that. So he goes and defeats the Philistines, saves the people of the city. But he's afraid that Saul may have heard about the battle. And now I'm in this city that I'm trying to defend. Will Saul come and try to attack me here? Instead of attacking the enemy and saving the city, he's going to attack me and maybe destroy the city. Again, talk about role reversals, everything's upside down. So again, he turns to the Lord for direction. He asks if Saul is going to come and attack the city, and God says, "Yes." Then he asks an interesting follow-up question. "And will the people of Keelah deliver me into his hands?" Well, they like hand me over so they stay safe. And the Lord says, "Yep." Which again, says something about the people of Keelah. I talk about no gratitude to your deliverer. Of course, that might say more about their fear of Saul. We know what he did to the people of Nob. And he'll do that to us as well. And so I'm sorry, David, just run. And he does. With the Lord's direction, he gathers his men and escapes before Saul can even come. David and his men then hide in the woods. And Jonathan, here he pops in again. He hears about it and he comes in search of them. Verse 16, Jonathan Saul's son arose and went to David into the wood and strengthened his hand in God. Talk about true celestial friendship. He said unto him, "Fear not, for the hand of Saul, my Father shall not find thee, and thou shall be king over Israel. I shall be next unto thee, and that also Saul, my Father, knoweth, and they too made a covenant before the Lord." I hear his friendship offering encouragement. I'm not going to abandon you in your time of need, even though that puts me in harm's way. If my dad ever found out about this. And again, no jealousy. Putting God between them at the center of their friendship, going to strengthen his friend in the Lord. I can only do so much, but I know all that God can do for you, and I know you're worthy of his companionship. He was always there between the two of us, making us one. The inhabitants of the area where David is hiding, though, they're in the woods. They start to be concerned, just like the people of Kila had been. And so they go to Saul and they rat out David. They say, "He's hiding in our neck of the woods." Again, they probably feared, like the people of Kila had, what would happen to the people of knob? I mean, Saul's ready to just mow down anybody in his path. And so in verse 21, Saul says, "Blessed be ye of the Lord." Oh, so blasphemous coming out of his mouth. So hypocritical. But he says to them, "You have compassion on me, even though he never had compassion on anybody else. Go, I pray you, prepare yet, and know and see his place where his haunt is and who had seen him there. For it is told me that he dealeth very subtly." Oh, look who's talking, Saul. But he says, "See therefore, take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideth himself and come ye again to me with the certainty, and I will go with you." You see, Saul was tired of wild goose chases and wanted to make sure. You make sure to m-no for him. for sure that where he is, and then I'll come and attack. Well, David catches wind of that and he keeps running through the rest of the chapter. Until he has another opportunity in chapter 24 to show what he's really made of. You see, David again is hiding in a cave and so, as always, is on the prowl, on the hunt for him. And lo and behold, he happens to enter the same cave that David is hiding in to rest. I don't know who gets more tired of the prey or the predator, but here's the predator coming into the cave of the prey and the predator falls asleep. And the prey does have some weapons in his hand by now. Verse four, "The men of David say to him, very quietly, I'm sure. Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee, behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand. This is exactly what the Lord's been preparing us for. That that will may as do to him as it shall seem good unto thee." They say, "Our chance, go, David, just like the Lord promised." And David arose and pulled out his sword, but what's he do? He cut off the skirt of Saul's robe, privily. Now, we learned in the story of Ruth and Boaz that skirt can also mean wing, it's the edge, the extreme. And what's David just done? He just clipped Saul's wings. He just cut off the hem of his garment. Well, no virtue flowing out of him to help anybody, so no loss there. Then again, since the hem is supposed to remind Israel of God, maybe that's a sign too of just how much Saul has forgotten God. Well, that be a reminder of his own forgetfulness, perhaps. But then, verse five, it came to pass afterwards that David's heart smote him. He felt guilty here. He hadn't even done anything. But his heart smote him because he had cut off Saul's skirt. And he said unto his men, "The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed to stretch forth my hand against him, seeing his the anointed of the Lord." Talk about a sensitive conscience. Like in Peter's men going, "What did you call him? Your master, you deserve the mastery over him any day." And the Lord's anointed, "Are you kidding me?" That ship sailed a long time ago. There's no oil on his head anymore, but there is on yours, your the Lord's anointed. And he is trying to lay his hand upon the Lord's anointed. He should be punished as a result, but David wouldn't have anything to do with it. So no, not until God has made it clear that I'm to take command in the meantime, Saul is still in charge. And I will not, I'll put it this way. I will honor the position, even if the person in that position no longer deserves to be honored. David is so good to the core. This is what happens next. We'll Saul eventually wakes up and leaves the cave. And once he's far enough off in the distance that David can feel safe about it, David pokes his head out of the cave too, and then comes out into the light of day and calls across that distance to Saul. That's what had been a shocking moment. That Saul wheels around and recognizing the sound of his voice. In verse eight, David says, "My Lord the King, and when Saul looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed himself, how's that for humility before him?" David says to Saul, "Wherefore hear us thou men's words, saying behold, David, see if I hurt." You see there he's getting Saul the benefit of the doubt. "Who has turned you against me? Who has told you false reports saying that I am, that I'm after the throne or I'm trying to usurp authority or that I'm trying, I'm not your enemy?" And whoever told you that I am is lying, do not believe them. In verse 10, "Behold this day thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had delivered thee today into mine hand in the cave. Some bade me kill thee, but mine I spared thee, and I said I will not put forth my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed." It was not just a good reminder to his men, that this perhaps was a good reminder to Saul. Don't you remember who you are and who's you are? Can you live back into that? Will you be the Lord's anointed and act like it? Please don't listen to those who have pitted you against me because I wouldn't listen to those that wanted to pit me against you. My own servants wanted me to attack you. I don't know if that's what's happening on your end, but let's both ignore those things and come to know each other. Quit listening to other people, plant doubt in your mind, come to know things for yourself. That's what David is encouraging. He then says in verse 11, "Moreover my Father, I did marry your daughter after all." See, yay, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand? Here it is, exhibit a of my ability to administer justice, but of my choice to administer mercy instead. I cut off the skirt of thy robe and killed thee not, no vow and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in my hand. I have not sinned against thee yet thou hentest my soul to take it. Thanks be wonder if we have evidence that we can provide to others that we hold no ill will to them. Do we have enough proof on our side to say, "I'm trying to be a good neighbor, I'm trying to be a good friend?" If people attack you or say negative things about you, is the evidence on their side or on yours? Then verse 13, excuse me, 12, "The Lord judge between me and thee." And the Lord avenge me of thee, but mine hand shall not be upon thee. You see, David leaving things completely in the Lord's hands. I say at the proverb of the ancients, so David knows the wisdom literature of his people. He's going to add some in himself. He's quoting the ancients, wickedness, proceedeth from the wicked. But mine hand shall not be upon thee. In other words, there may be problems out there. Wickedness is going to come, but I'm not going to be the source of it. Let that come from the wicked. He keeps going, "After whom is the King of Israel come out? After whom does thou pursue, and then talk about abject humility on his part? Who are you after? What are you hunting? You're after a dead dog. After a flea. I'm nothing, I'm not worth your worry. The Lord therefore be judge and judge between me and thee, and see and plead my cause and deliver me out of thy hand. David is seeking God's help, not Saul's mercy. He's not asking Saul to be merciful. He's wondering why he's being so unjust, but he's trusting God more than his enemy. May God deliver me. May God judge me. May God plead my cause. May God judge you and avenge me if that's what is needed. I don't know if there's a better example in a scripture of someone trying to live what doctrine covenant 64 tells us we should all be living. This is verses 10 and 11. "I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but if you it is required to forgive all men, and ye ought to say in your hearts, that's more than just lip service, let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds." That's exactly what David just said. The Lord judge between me and thee, the Lord avenge. To me what's powerful about that is sometimes our failure to forgive is not because of our weakness, or that happens too, but sometimes it's out of our strength. Our strength in terms of knowing justice is demanded, and we don't want that person to get away with it. But the irony there is what you think you can give better justice than God can? God isn't saying forgive and I will too. He's saying you've got to forgive, because that gives me the opportunity to exercise the right judgment in terms of justice and mercy. And if they deserve justice, they'll get it from me. And if you deserve mercy, you'll get it from me as well. David understands it perfectly and trusts in that we should too. And then Saul's response to this incredibly humble plea, for 16 through 21's the whole thing, but each verse has something interesting. In 16, "Is this thy voice, my son, David, and Saul lifted up his voice and wept? Was that enough to prick his conscience? When the other person gives you no way to justify your anger? It really is me. All this self-deception just kind of fades away, and I am the guilty one, not you. You have evidence on your side. I know that now. More in 17, thou art more righteous than I, for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil." Amazing acknowledgement there. We're 19. For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go well away? You didn't treat me like an enemy, even though I'd given you every reason to. In 20, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, a huge admission there, and then to 21, swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my Father's house. Please don't take it out on my children. I'm deserving of God's punishment. I admit it, but please do not avenge all that I've done against you. Don't avenge that upon my posterity. I'm not destroying my house. He's asking a lot of David. He's asking for forgiveness. David's already offered it. But the next chapter, first Samuel 25, to me is one of the most profound chapters on forgiveness and reconciliation that you could ask for. It's incredible. Again, one that I am sad that is getting skipped this week and come follow me. This is worth our time. You go by the time you get here, Samuel has passed away. Samuel has. David feeling more alone than ever is back on the move. The story then shifts to a very wealthy man in Israel named Nabal. In verse three, the name of the man was Nabal and the name of his wife Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance, so good inside and out. But the man was churlish and evil in his doings and he was of the house of Caleb. Sad that last note, talk about the fruit falling far from the tree. Oh, Caleb, give me this mountain. I'll keep the covenant, keep the faith. Nabal was more, give me this mountain because I want to get rich on it. Nabal, in fact, this is one of those examples that there's no way that was his real name. This must have been added later to assign him his character type because Nabal means fool. And I doubt any well-meaning mother would say, "Oh, look at this cute little fool. Let's name him that." Nabal unfortunately lived up to his name. Abigail did too, but that's fortunate. Abigail means cause of joy or father's joy or my father rejoices. Either way, there's a lot of joy in Abigail and we'll see why in a moment. Now, Nabal is rich, like I said. And David, who had the beg for bread from the tabernacle, has all these men and he's trying to flee for their lives and they come to this incredible area of prosperity and he sends messengers to Nabal asking for hospitality, which if you remember the stories of Abraham and of Lot is something that in the ancient Near East you never deny. I mean, this, I'm just asking for common courtesy. Will you provide for some people passing through? But Nabal doesn't want to have anything to do with that. He says that he treated them roughly and sent them away with nothing and this is what he asked, "Who's David? Who's the son of Jesse?" In other words, why should I help a no-namer? Oh, careful. If you only knew who it was that was asking you, I mean, this is the poor way, fair amount of grief. This is in as much as you've done into one of the least of these my brethren, right? You could have helped David and David would have surely come back to help you. Instead, you're treating him horribly, then I, for an I, too, for a tooth. He gets to treat you horribly as well and he is livid, David is. Furious over this mistreatment. So he gathers 400 of his men to attack Nabal as retribution. Now meanwhile, Nabal's servants who have heard about this and they know what Nabal has said and how he's mistreated the servants of David. By the way, these servants of Nabal also knew how kind David was all along the way. It has an army of 400. If I was a servant in the fields, I'd be like, "Uh, nervous." But David and his men did nothing. They weren't, didn't feel entitled, didn't attack to just provide for themselves. These were no spoils of war. They were seeking hospitality and being hospitable themselves, okay? Good neighbors. And so they rush back. These servants rush back not to Nabal, who they know is a fool. Maybe they named him that behind his back. Did they rush back to Abigail because she is a woman of good understanding? She's one of my favorite people to talk about in women in the Scripture's classes. She is as good as gold. They explained to her what happened and in verse 18, Abigail made haste. No hesitation. This is a proactive woman of action, decisive. She took 200 loaves, two bottles of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five measures of parched corn, a hundred clusters of raisins, two hundred cakes of figs, laid them on asses, and booked it as quickly as she could to David. Now that's a lot. You can see how extremely wealthy Nabal is and how extremely generous Abigail is. That's the irony. When one person has the purse strings and will never loosen them and the other, can't we just give? She finally does. Meanwhile David is saying to himself, kind of muttering under his breath in verse 21, "Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him, and he has required me evil for good." It's like, "Fat lot of good, it did me to be a good neighbor. He was not a good neighbor to me." It actually makes me wonder if David is rethinking his earlier philosophy. He's always been kind and generous and turning the other cheek and giving people the benefit of the doubt. Because here it seems like no good deed is going unpunished. I should have just taken it and given food to my people. This guy had plenty and despair and he wouldn't spare it. So I'm not going to, I'm going to spare him. So picture him in this moment where his vengeance, the best way to go, is just taking what you want. That's what Saul's been doing. It seems like everybody's been doing that but me. Am I an idiot here? Am I in the ball? Am I a fool? Because I'm not going the world's way and just looking out for number one. I do wonder. Just know that brief statement is he rethinking his philosophy on righteousness and altruism. Well, is his vengeance on the ball a way of taking out his frustration on Saul? I do wonder that one too. I've been so kind to Saul he kept trying to kill me. Well, I'm done with that. This guy's been a jerk. I'm bald. I'll eye for eye him. I'll tooth for tooth him. So David gets his men and decides we are going to kill every male in the ball's household. He's got some really strong language to describe that. But then in the midst of his anger, Apagelin writes, "This beautiful woman, this wise and understanding woman comes with Donkeys heavy laden with all the gifts that she has to offer and she gives them to him. Not only that, she bows down before David. She makes no excuses for her husband. In fact, she says, "Yeah, his name's in the ball and he lives up to his name." It's like you think it's bad. You've only had to put up with him like one day. I got to live with the guy. Okay? It's kind of a nightmare. And so I'm not trying to make excuses for him. I know he's guilty, but I'm asking him for your mercy. I know he deserves justice. And you can feel completely justified in giving it to him, but I am begging you for mercy upon my husband. That doesn't deserve it. This actually reminds me of another great quote from G.K. Chesterton. I love him. And he said this in a book called Orthodoxy. Some stupid people started the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through everything, namely their husbands, therefore women are blind and do not see anything. Well, they can hardly have known any women. The same women who are ready to defend their men through thick and thin are in their personal association with the man, almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of his excuses or the thickness of his head. A man's friend likes him, but leaves him as he is. His wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else. Love is not blind. That's the last thing that it is. Love is bound and the more it is bound, the less it is blind. You see, Abigail was bound to Nabal, not blind to his foolishness, but trying to plead his cause, even though she could not make a case for it. So since she can't make a case, what's she going to do? What's she going to say? to read the whole part of it there in Peace Giver, it's totally worth your time. But notice this, verse 24, Abigail falls at David's feet and says, "Upon me, my Lord, upon me, let this iniquity be." You see what's happening here? When I read the Peace Giver, it gave me insight into the Atonement that had never crossed my mind. Thank you, Brother Feral. And there he points out, here's Abigail as the Christ figure, trying to heal broken relationships between David and the ball. And the ball deserves punishment, but she intercedes and says, "Instead of guilty no ball, she says guilty me." She says, "Upon me, let this iniquity be." And the irony there is, but you're not guilty, Abigail. You're anything but you are innocence personified. Ah, there's the Christ figure. And the Christ figure is saying, "Can are you willing to let me take their sins upon myself?" Because notice what happens next, verse 25, "Now therefore, my Lord, as the Lord liveeth, and as thy soul liveeth, seeing the Lord hath withholdened thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with I known hand." Now, what's she saying there? This is like how David had acted towards Saul. You wouldn't shed his blood, even though you know who was guilty. He still saw him as the Lord is anointed, and that put you in a place of total innocence, even though you would have been justified in what you did. You'd equally be justified in taking out your frustration on the ball. But if you don't, then you have not shed blood. Now, the blood you would have shed was not innocent, but this gives you a chance to be even more innocent than ever, because you're not. Here's the irony. You're not sinning against the person who's sinned. Well, would it even be sin on my part? Ah, probably not. Again, you're justified. But to be so far away from guilt, I mean, several steps removed that you can honestly say there is no blood on my hands because no blood has been shed. And therefore, I never have to second guess my kindness, my compassion, my mercy. And again, that's part of what Christ does by taking someone else's sins upon us. It frees us from the burden of blame. It frees us from the hell of our own hatred and says, you don't have to feel that way about the other person because the sins aren't theirs anymore, they're mine. So if you want to get angry, take it out on me. Wait, but I can't. You haven't done anything. I know. I know. And since I haven't done anything to you, my prayer is that you won't do anything to me or anything to them. And that frees you from the burden, from the pain by forgiving. My atonement isn't just to forgive the sinner. It's to forgive. It's to help. It's to heal the sinned against. And David, you've been sinned against. But if I can intercede, I can draw the poison out of you, the poison of hatred, of vengeance, of anger and and you can be free of it all. Sovers 28, I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid. It's mine. I took it upon myself. For the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house because my Lord fighteth the battles of the Lord. An evil have not been found in the all thy days. And it doesn't have to be found in the today either. Abigail is appealing to the better angels of David's nature. You've always been good. You can stay good today and have nothing to ever regret later in life. Like I said earlier, I wonder what I wondered is David rethinking his philosophy? Abigail comes at just the right moment to say no. That goodness, even when you get burned sometimes, that kindness, when you keep turning the bruised cheeks, it's worth it. So be forgiving for your sake, not just for the sake of the person who sinned against you. Then in verse 29, "Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul. But the soul of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God. And the souls of my enemies, them shall he sling out as out of the middle of a sling." I think David knows a thing or two about slings. And how far they can send rocks flying away from them? That's how far God will send your enemies away from you. And God is the one who will do it. You don't have to do it yourself. And I just don't want there to be any hatred towards others that would end up, again, struggling in the second great commandment, might make you struggle in the first. We can end that bond. And I don't want to weaken that. I want you to be bound in the bundle of life with God. I don't know if there's a more poetic phrase to describe the atonement, the atonement than that. Doesn't it make you just want to be bound up in the bundle of life with the way the truth and the life himself? And that's what Abigail is offering. Just let it go. And stay with me. Verse 30, "And it shall come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my Lord according to all the good that He has spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed the ruler over Israel, so she knew David's future as well, that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my Lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my Lord hath avenged himself. Doesn't matter if it's justified or not, if you're innocent or guilty either way to stay that far away from any sense of regret, no grief, no offence, because you offered no offence against the person that offended you. Again, I am trying to protect you from blood, even when you wouldn't have been shedding it unrighteously. Still, maybe someday of that loss of innocence would cause sorrow. And I want to save you from that. David seems to understand it, because in verse 32, he says to Abigail, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me, and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which the hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand." You're right. I get what you've done. And I'm so grateful for what you did, not just for your husband, for what you did for me. Thank you. Bless you, bless your advice, bless God for putting you in my path, and for being the, what stood in my way from becoming vengeful and angry and losing my way. In verse 35, so David received of her hand that way she had brought him, and said unto her, "Go up in peace to thine house. See, I have harkened to thy voice. I have accepted thy person. I've accepted you in place of your husband. And as a result, I have accepted the grace that God is offering them. The grace that he's offering me, I'm accepting the help he's providing for me to forgive. I'm accepting his at-onement. Abigail then goes home, relieved. She finds her husband, the ball feasting, completely oblivious to what just happened, or what just might have happened. This guy is living up to his name as usual. He's feasting like a king. There were obviously plenty. He could have spared to feed the true king of Israel. He's actually totally drunk, Mary, all the way that he's going through. He's just saved the fortune by not being hospitable to these guests, sent them away, and they went packing. Well, she waits until he's a little more sober. And the next day when he sobers up, she explains everything that happened, and everything that might have happened if she had not interceded. And he, for 37, his heart died within him. He became as a stone, which is about how hard his heart had always been. It came to pass about 10 days after. Still hasn't recovered. The Lord smote the ball that he died. So justice was indeed administered. But guess what? David didn't have to do the administering. David was able to keep his hands clean. What had he said to Saul? I'm going to let God judge between us. I'm going to let God avenge me if that's what needs to happen. What was the phrase in section 64? Let God judge between me and thee and reward thee according to the IDs that is exactly what just happened. The ball deserved to deserve to justice, and he got it from God. David deserve mercy, and he got it from God with the help of Abigail. And recognizing that help, and now recognizing that she was a widow, David turns, and in verse 39 says, "Blessed be the Lord that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil, wasn't me that did any of it? For the Lord hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head, and then he sent for Abigail." No doubt thanked her again, and then proposed, and they were married. Abigail was provided for a true king instead of one who treated himself like one. A man of mercy rather than a man of selfishness and a man of wisdom rather than a fool. By the way, yes, this is plural marriage, and it was authorized at the time, but one of the details, Saul, just like he had switched things out on David and had not allowed him to marry his first daughter, by then he had given his daughter a michal to someone else as well. Sounds like he's trying to cut all ties with David. Let me give you one last insight from chapter 25, again with the help of Brother Ferrell from Peacegiver. Hopefully, again, to put in perspective what we've learned from this chapter about Abigail. He writes, "When people think of the atonement, they most often think about how the Savior filled in the gaps for their own sins, which he surely did. That is, we are all sinners, and someone had to bridge for each of us the otherwise impassable chasm between us and eternal life that we have created through sin. So normally we think of the atonement as something that Christ has done for us, for ourselves. But Abigail invites us to look at the atonement from a different angle. Not from the perspective of how Christ has atoned for our own sins, but rather from the equally true perspective that he has atoned for the sins of others." And part of that atonement, Abigail suggests, "Is the idea that the Lord offers to those who have been harmed or potentially harmed by the sins of others the help and sustenance they need to be made whole? Those deprived of love can receive his love. The companionless can find a companion in him. Those with a cross to bear can find another who carries and makes it right. With their burdens lifted in this way, the sinned against are saved from the provocation to sin, and are therefore redeemed from their own sins." Later he adds, "Abogales' message was that forgiveness was for the one who was forgiving, not the one who was being forgiven. David needed to forgive so that, in the words of Abigail, he would continue to be found without evil, so that the Lord could make him a sure house. David might have felt justified in withholding this forgiveness from the ball. However sinful such withholding might have been." But from Abigail? No. Her offering on behalf of another obliterated every justification David might otherwise have had. She freed him from the blind comfort of his grudges. Through this merciful act, she created for David the most forgiveness-friendly environment that could possibly be created. David was never more able to do what he needed most to do, forgive, or more precisely repent of his failing to forgive than when the request for forgiveness was made by one who had a toned in full for the sin David was raging against. No, it's hard to imagine a more beautiful story of atonement in the Old Testament than here. Here at the feet of Abigail, the joy of her Father. For Samuel 26, we're back to David. And another chance for him to spare Saul's life. In fact, the chapter on Abigail is bookended by stories of David's sparing Saul. But if you compared the two, the second there is a maturity, there is a depth more than in the first. Saul, as usual, is still seeking David's life. He's got his army with him. Now David and a servant sneak into Saul's camp. This is a commando raid, they do it quietly enough that it doesn't awaken a single soul. Even those that are sleeping right next to Saul, mainly his main bodyguards and chief captains. That's there there, the servant whispers again, very quietly to David. Verse 8, "God have delivered din enemy into thine hand this day. Now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee with the spear. Even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time. All of them is to job with one blow. It'll be the Tiancom's first commando raid with the javelin that the king can't even wake up the troops to let them know what's happened. And I'll be the one that does it, so if you're trying to keep your hands clean, even though I think you're totally justified, well I'd be totally justified and then you're even a step removed. But no, David responds in verse 9, "Destroy him not, for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless. As the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall descend into battle and perish." David's saying there at the end, "But he's learned from his experience with the ball and Abigail." No, I'm still not going to do it, just like I wasn't going to do it in the cave. But I trust God even more than ever. The ball died and I didn't do it. Sometimes if Saul deserves capital punishment for his crimes, then I will leave that in the hands of the Almighty judge himself. And God will take care of it, because I know he's taking care of me. Once again, let God judge between me and they and reward thee according to their deeds. So instead of slaying him and not cutting off the skirt of his, or the hem of his skirt, instead they take Saul's ever-present spear and they remove it and they sneak back out of enemy territory to friendly lines without waking a soul. And then again, from safe distance, David repeats what he did outside the cave. He yells across the intervening space and tells Saul what he's done. In fact, this time he even kind of questions the loyalty of his servants, saying to Abner, the captain of Saul's host, "Some bodyguard you turned out to be. We could have killed you." So in some ways, and we could definitely could have killed the king, in some ways we're more trustworthy servants than you are. This, the king was safe in our hands, but if we had decided to attack, he was not safe in yours. Hmm, that's interesting. David then again asks, "What have I done wrong?" Again, he wonders, "Who is poisoning your mind, Saul?" And again, he says, "I'm only a flea. Why would you hunt me?" David then says of those that are against him in verse 19. "I'm cursed to be they before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord." Saying, "Go, serve other gods." Now, that's an interesting detail. I think what David is saying, "Why are you driving me away from Saul because in doing so?" Again, he's giving Saul the benefit of the doubt, "Who's the one that's doing this?" You've driven me out of Israel. That's the promised land. And I'm trying to keep God's promises. It's unfair that you're keeping me from the inheritance of the Lord and in the other half. It's as if you're saying, "Go, serve other gods." You've forced me into Philistine territory, but I refuse to worship Dagon. You've forced me into Edemite territory. I will not worship the gods of the Edemites. Please let me stay. And I think tragically, sometimes the way we mistreat people, especially members of the church that we might have offended, are we forcing them out in some way from the inheritance of the Lord? Are we in a weird way suggesting they go, "Serve other gods?" But when that's not what they want, we can be kinder. We can be better than that. In verse 21, then said Saul. Again, confession, back to his right mind, "I have sinned, return my son, David, for I will no more do the harm." Really? Because my soul was precious in line eyes this day. And then notice what he says, "Behold, I have played the fool and have aired exceedingly." Could we make it a little more obvious who the Neball is in this story? And just as Abigail helped David spare her Neball, I think her influence is helping David spare this Neball. But again, continue with the foreshadowing. God took care of Neball with justice. God will take care of Saul with justice as well. Hold on and we'll see it. David then allows one of Saul's servants to come back and retrieve Saul's spear, which is again shocking. Saul even returned the weapon that you keep throwing at me. I disarmed you and now I will rearm you because I'm showing you a certain level of respect, of trust. I'm trying to honor your intent despite all the fact, all the times that you've shown that you're not trustworthy. He then says in verse 24, "Behold, as the my life was much set by this day in mine eyes. Please let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord, and let him deliver me out of altrubulation. Again, he wasn't asking Saul for mercy. Otherwise, he would have said, "I was merciful to you. Will you be merciful to me?" No. "May God be merciful to me." I trust him far more than I trust you. And then, verse 25, Saul says to David, "Blessed be thou, my son David, thou shalt both do great things and also shalt still prevail." Saul knew it, but could he fully accept it? We'll see. They go their separate ways. Chapter 27, David finds himself once again among Philistines. And verse 1, he says in his heart, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul." So yes, I gave him the benefit that it out, but I've got to protect myself now. Yes, we need to forgive, but we also need to honor personal boundaries. And that's the contrary that's really hard to prove as well. David's trying, "I'll leave Saul to himself, but I'm going to take myself away from his potential anger." And he says, "There is nothing better for me than I should speedily escape into that land of the Philistines." So just like before, safer with my enemies than with my former friends. "And Saul shall despair of me. He'll just give up. I hope to seek me any more in any coast of Israel, so shall I escape out of his hand. I'll protect myself from Saul and I'll protect Saul from himself." Just like Abigail protected me from myself. I'll remove the temptation from Saul. I'll get out of his way. And so David goes back to Gath, same place he'd been back in chapter 21. This time he has 600 men with him, so I don't know if it's going to work to drool on your beard and pretend that you're insane. Then again, maybe I don't need to, since I have an army with me. Then again, maybe I don't need to because I can show the king of Gath. I feel no ill will toward him, which is amazing. Verse 5, David says to the king, "If I have now found grace in thine eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country that I may dwell there, for why should I serve in dwell in the royal city with thee?" And the king agreed. Good idea. Stay close, but not too close, and I'll give you this country town to dwell in. And all your people can dwell there too. David ends up staying there for 16 months, and the whole time, great relationships with the king of Gath and the king of Goliath. He trusted David even when an Israelite king would not. Chapter 28, then, "weird chapter," because we get to meet the witch of Endor. By now, the Philistines have gathered their armies so they want to go up against Israel, and the Philistine king asks David to accompany him. And the fact he says, "Will you be my body, guard?" Talk about trustworthy. Saul sees them coming off in the distance and is scared to death. There's all my enemies. Philistines and David of all people. Now, let's set the stage for that to happen. Verse 3, Samuel was dead, so now there's no true prophet for Saul to go to. And Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land. And that's exactly as required by the love Moses. No false gods, no false prophets, no false priests. These would have been soothsayers and, oh, the psychic hotline, or the tarot card reader, or the palm reader, whatever it might be, those kinds of people. And so maybe that happened in one of Saul's good moments. He wanted to live the love of Moses, and so he cleansed the kingdom of that kind of false prophecy. But now he's left with no true prophets and no false prophets. And the Spirit of God left him a long time ago. So what am I going to do against the Philistines and against David, and who do I even have to turn to? So, over six, he tries God first. But when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not. Either by dreams, nor by year-em, nor by prophets, he's just unworthy of the Lord's direction. And I think he knew it. Verse 7 then said Saul into his servants. Okay, different options. Seek me a woman that hath a familiar Spirit. Then I may go to her and inquire of her. And his servant said to him, "Well, behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar Spirit at Endor." And this is now affectionately known as of the witch of Endor. Now, if they knew about her, makes me wonder, why hadn't they put an end to her false prophecy? Or was she kind of doing it on the slide? Or again, how serious were they about rooting out evil from Israel? Well, I guess in Saul's case, glad we didn't clean up the whole house, because it's like avoiding sin, but not sending it too far away. I want to be able to go back to it when I want to succumb the next time. Saul then dresses up, disguises himself. He doesn't want to freak out this woman. Either that or I don't want to be outed. That's probably more likely for him. I don't want her to think that I am lowering myself to her lowly level. That's. I wouldn't fit with his pride. So he goes to her and says, "Will you conjure the Spirit of the dead so I can have a conversation?" And specifically, I want to talk to Samuel. He's gone. We used to be friends. Can you bring him back? So it's some kind of say-ons that he's asking her to perform. He believes she can do it, but here's the irony. I believe you can conjure the dead, but I don't believe you can see through my disguise and know who I am. There's a lot of illogic here. Anyway, verse 12, "When the woman saw Samuel." Now, this is where the story gets weird. Like, wait a minute. Did she pull it off? Did she or say, "Anson's real? Can she really draw back the Spirit of Samuel?" We would say no. That can't be the case. Then what is it then? Well, is it someone she pictures? Because here it says she saw Samuel, but when she talks about it, she doesn't name him. Is this a figment of her own imagination? Is it something she's trying to conjure up in her mind and in the mind of Saul as well? Well, she says what she cries with a loud voice, first of all, "The woman speaks to Saul," saying, "Why has thou deceived me? That weren't Saul." Now, this is a perceptive woman. Evidently, at least to some degree, as she's seen through to the skies, as she's putting two and two together, again, is this has to be miraculous? Or is it simply she's figuring out some things? Then again, even if God can talk to Balaam's donkey, or talk through, Balaam's donkey, then I have no problem with him speaking here. But again, she's not calling and conjuring up the Spirit of Samuel. Saul reassures her, "You're not under arrest, okay? It's fine." But he asks, "What do you see?" And this is what she says, verse 14, "An old man coming up, and he is covered with a mantle." That's it. She didn't say Samuel. Saul does. Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed himself. So, again, Saul here is assuming it must be Samuel. The woman never directly said it was. Then, verse 15, Samuel, or whoever it was, said to Saul, "Why has thou disquieted me to bring me up?" And Saul answered, "I'm sort of stressed. The philist things make war against me, and God is departed from me." Well, because you departed from him, duh. "He answered me no more." Well, because you're not worthy of the answers, neither by prophets nor by dreams. Therefore, I have called the, "Thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do." It's sad to realize that people who can't connect with God will often turn to other things to connect with, and hopes of finding direction, or meaning, or purpose, or relief, or release. That's where alcoholism comes in. It's where drug addiction comes in. Often, it's where trying to find anything out there that will get me out of my reality, and nothing else will work. My wife and son see it all the time at their addiction recovery center, and it's tragic. That's why my wife is trying to infuse that place with spirituality. But the real answer is not to turn to lesser things, but to turn back to God with full purpose of heart. That's repentance. So he can begin speaking to you again, and begin giving you the guidance that you need. And verse 16 then said Samuel, quote unquote, "Whoever this is, wherefore then does thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee and has become thy enemy? You really think I can help you if God is unwilling to? And the Lord had done to him as he spake by me for the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thy hand and given it to thy neighbor, even to David." Again, makes me wonder, is this Samuel really speaking to Saul? Or is this Saul? I can think it's Samuel, because that's why I want to see. And I'm at the end of my rope in this woman supposedly has these gifts. And she sees this old man and he stooped down, he's got a mantle, and it's got to be him. And so what's his message to me? What would what would Samuel say to me? Oh, he's already said to me and his Saul bringing back these memories and oh, last time I was with him, Samuel told me that God has rent the kingdom away and is going to go to someone else. And is this David? Is this what's going to happen? You better believe it. It's ironic that this deception on the part of the woman or this self-deception on the part of Saul is actually breaking through his earlier self-deception and he's starting to see things more clearly. There's a Ironic. And verse 19, "Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines." That's put on his mind. Do I fight against them? Again, he has no confidence in himself. He's not connected to God. So what's going to happen if I fight the Philistines? This could very well just be him talking to himself. I'm going to lose. God's going to deliver me into the hand of the Philistines. Keep going, though. And tomorrow, shout thou and thy sons be with me. The Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. What has this dead figure just to say? You're coming my way, Saul, and you're bringing your boys with you. Again, this is just a saw hunted by his own inner demons and afraid of worst case scenario because he knows God is nowhere near to being on his side. And we're going to lose. And I'm going to die. And my son's going to be lost and talk about paranoia eating him up. Chapter 29, it starts to happen. Israel and the Philistines are at war and the Philistines march into battle. David is accompanying them right alongside the King of Gath. They're in the back in the rear. Now the other Philistines leaders, they start to worry and they think, "Wait, wait, Saul's ahead of us and David's behind us. This doesn't look good. Are we marching into harm's way?" and as David just kind of embedded himself in the last 16 months and kind of, is this like spy and trying to ingratiate himself just so that at this point they can surround us and destroy our people? No. King of Gath, I don't care what you think about him, how you feel about him. He's got to go. And it's really interesting in the conversation that then ensues. You see, the King of Gath is like, "No, he's been with me for 16 months and he's awesome. I completely trust him with my life. That's what, why do you think he's my bodyguard?" He was kinder than the bodyguards of Saul. Then I'm sure I can trust him to be my bodyguard. In verse 3, he says to his fellow Philistine princes, "I have found no fault in him since he fell unto me unto this day. Again, can we live in such a way that even our enemies have nothing negative to say about us?" It's like Pilate saying, "I find no guilt in this man. Jesus is good. I don't know what you have against him. Can we be that way?" Still, the King of Gath relents. He understands where his fellow Philistines are coming from. He says to David in verse 6 and 7, "Surely as the Lord liveeth." Wow, he's invoking the God of Israel now as he gained faith in him along the, or in the meantime. As the Lord liveeth, thou hast been upright. And I going out and I coming in with me in the host is good in my sight, for I have not found evil in me since the day of thy coming unto me unto this day. Nevertheless, the Lord's favor they not, wherefore now return and go in peace, that thou displeased not the Lord's of the Philistine. It really pains me to send you away, but I see where they're coming from, and just please know that my heart isn't in this. I wish you could stay. My wife and I actually had this experience with our neighbors in Tennessee that were just solid gold. Best people you could imagine. Lutherans, deep conviction, faith in the Lord, wonderful, wonderful people. And when they gave birth to another child, we were so close to them, they asked, "Would you be the God of parents of our child?" Now, that's not something we do as Latter-day Saints, but it was something that Lutherans did. They were so flattered and honored and anything we can do to be a part of your family's life, we are honored to do it. And they were thrilled with that. Then they went to their pastor and said, "We have, we've got it all figured out and set up." And they said, "Oh, who are the God parents going to be?" Our neighbors and I, "Oh, wonderful. Are they members of the parish?" And they're like, "No." "Well, what Lutheran Church do they go to?" "Actually, they're Latter-day Saints." "Wait, what? Mormons?" But man, they're the most Christ-like people we know. They're so great and we just love them and they love us. And the pastor was like, "Absolutely not. You cannot have LDS God parents for this child." And they very apologetically and kindly came back to us. And I think of them when I see the King of Gath just, "I'm sorry, David. It's not how I feel. It's about how my people feel." And David was okay with that and we were okay with that and all as well. Now David reaffirms his trustworthiness. The King says, "I know I get it." Verse 9, "I know that thou art good in my sight." As an angel of God, notwithstanding the princes of the Philistines have said, "He shall not go up with us to the battle." So you may not convince everyone, especially those who don't know you personally. But if you can convince those that truly know who you are, then they can work on other people. And I love that thought. That was my hope at Divinity School. I'm not going to convert these pastors in training. But if I can convince them that as a Latter-day Saint, I really am a Christian and that I love the Bible, then hopefully as time goes on, people that don't know Latter-day Saints, but know someone who does just might change their perspective in a more positive way. For 30 then, David leaves that bow, he solves on his own to take on the Philistines. David, meanwhile, takes on the Amalakites, which had been the enemy that Saul hadn't completely ended and Samuel had to take care of Aegag himself. Now, that was just one Amalakite city and there were others to fight. So David is marching to war alongside the Philistines and as a, as this is part of it, so this is happening during chapter 29. The Amalakites take advantage of the chance. And David has abandoned his little Philistines city where he's been living the last 16 months. And these punk Amalakites, remember they were the ones that jumped out and attacked the Israelites right when they crossed the Red Sea? That's what ticked off Samuel, it's what ticked off God. And so here, if they're doing it again, they are attacking the vulnerable, the undefended and they're looking kind of willing and lying in wait and as soon as David and his men have left, like now's our chance and they sneak out and they burn their city down to the ground and take all the women and children captives. David's men find out about it. We can't go fight Philistines. They come home and there's no home to come home to and their women and children have been taken and slaved by the Amalakites and they are so angry. But unfortunately, they're not just angry at the Amalakites, they're angry at David. They start turning on him, thinking if you hadn't gone on this fool's errand with the Philistines, we would have stayed here. Why are you, why can't you just make people your enemy? Why are you friends to everyone? Saul, king of gath, everywhere you go, why can't you just take it out on people or just let other people take it out on each other? Why do you have to be such a peacemaker? They talk about stoning David to death and in verse 6, David was greatly distressed but also David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. It's the best thing to do when you're distressed, the best thing to do when you're afraid. That's what Jonathan had done for him when he came to visit him in the woods, encouraged him in the Lord. Now, David's doing that for himself. David then asks a priest that's there to bring him to Ephod, just a revelatory aid. You're kind of year-of-year-old and thumb-um, just anything to help me understand what God's will would be. Compare what David is doing here to what Saul did back in chapter 28 with the witch of Endor. And he went to false prophecy and now David is seeking true prophecy through the Ephod. Verse 8, David inquired at the Lord saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them and God answered him? So David is worthy of divine direction. Pursue. For thou shalt surely overtake them and without fail recover all. Talk about a promise and filled with faith in that promise, David gathered 600 armed men and goes out in this raid to gather his people back. Now, eventually, I guess a long trip to get there and by the time they get to this one river, this brook, 200 of his 600 men are absolutely exhausted and can't keep going. They are so faint that he leaves them there. As they're trying to regroup and things, he finds a slave that had escaped from the Amalakites, he was an Egyptian, and he asks them, Do you know where the Amalakites are camping? And he promises, We will protect you from your former masters. You can be free with us. And so this former slave says, All by all means, I'll show you exactly where the Amalakites are. And David is an army, go, they fall upon the Amalakites and they destroy them all. The Amalakites are all celebrating their great victory, rejoicing in the spoils of war. And David comes in and reverses the fortunes of this army. He slays everybody except for 400 men that jumped on camels and booked it out of town. We don't hear any more about it then. But then, verse 18 and 19, David recovered all that the Amalakites had carried away. Just like God had promised him, David rescued his two wives and there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil nor anything that they had taken to them. David recovered all. And the son of David, Jesus Christ, would do the same. He doesn't lose anything. He can recover anything that is lost, including the people that matter most to us. Well, the 400 are coming back with all of their spoil and they passed the 200 that have been resting and recovering beside the brook. And the 400 say, "None of this spoil belongs to you." I mean, yes, take your wives and children back, but as far as flocks and herds and everything else, you weren't part of the battle. So you don't deserve any of the reward. But David won't stand for that. In verse 23, he says, "You shall not do so, my brethren, with that which the Lord hath given us and wasn't us, it was God, who hath preserved us and delivered the company that came against us into our hand. For who will harken unto you in this matter? But as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarryeth by the stuff. They shall part alike." I love what David does there. Every one of this is important. Some were able to complete the mission. Others went as far as they possibly could. I'll accept both as full measure. Some were in the battle front and others were all troop support, back at home base. We're still all soldiers in the Lord's army. We're still all veterans. To me, there's something about treating everyone equally here. There reminds me of the parable of the laborers in the vineyard that every single one gets their penny appointed, no matter how long or short they happened to serve, because their heart was there in the right place. And they would have served longer if they'd had the chance. They would have been hired earlier if I'd come earlier to hire them. They would have gone all the way through the battle if they had been able to do so. I'll do Jeffery Arhalland once said to missionaries, "Especially those who have been in the service that had come home early because of physical or mental health challenges." He said, "There's no asterisk next to the title RM after your name. You are a return missionary in every sense of the word. There's no second-class citizen here. There's no difference between a service mission and a process lighting mission." And the apostles have made that clear as well, the prophets have. There's no difference between if your mission was cut short because of circumstances outside of your control, including a global pandemic if we've had one of those lately. You can be grateful for your service and God will not treat you differently. They shall part alike. And that is a beautiful principle. Then, verse 26, "When David came to Ziklag, that's the city that had been destroyed." He sent of the spoil unto the elders of Judah, even to his friends, saying, "Behold a present for you of the spoil of the enemies of the Lord." Now David was of the tribal Judah. And he still has friends there and extended family. And again, can you sense the shift of authority and power from the house of Saul, the Benjamin to the house of David of Judah, loyalty and leadership is passing from one to the other. And then we get our final chapter where it all comes crashing down on Saul. As he knew, again, I'm not saying as Samuel prophesied, as whatever was going on in Saul's troubled mind, he saw it coming. And yet he marched headlong into his own destruction. The Philistines are still on their march, and David's not there. They come upon Saul and his armies, and in verse 2, the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons. They know who they're really after. And the Philistines slew Jonathan. This incredibly valiant soul had joined his father, a loyal son, just as he'd been a loyal friend. Also they slew Abinadab and Makishua, all of Saul's sons. The battle went sore against Saul. Of course it did. He was on his own. No divine help, no abin ease or. And the archers hit him. And he was so wounded of the archers. Saul is losing everything that matters. After all the first thing he'd lost long ago was the spirit of the Lord and the assistance he could have gotten from God. But now he's hit and he's mortally wounded. He knows it, but he can't handle, again, pride speaking. I can't allow the Philistines to take credit for this. I can't allow the Philistines to come and desecrate my body or actually end my life. And so he commands his armor bearer to kill him. So the Philistines can't. And his armor bearer is horrified by the thought. He says, I can't do it. I won't. And so instead what a Saul do, he takes his sword and he falls upon it himself, thus ending his own life and horrified by that, his armor bearer then follows suit and falls upon his own sword as well. The one that was supposed to protect him, I couldn't. I certainly won't kill him and he kills himself and he kills himself too. This is everything is falling apart. You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. The law of the harvest has come back to haunt you. Sovers, six, Saul died and his three sons and his armor bearer and all his men that same day together. With no leader at the head, the Israelites then flee. They abandon their cities and the Philistines take over all kinds of territory, which next week we'll have to watch David try to regain. The Philistines also find Saul's body and sure enough they desecrate it. They cut off his head, they strip him of his armor. Again, symbolically Saul had long since lost his head to pride, to envy. He long since been stripped of the armor of God and left himself fully exposed to the arrows of the adversary. They then publicize their victory over Saul. They place his armor in one of their pagan temples. They put his head in the temple of De'Gon, their God, and they fastened his body to the wall of one of the cities, cautionary tale. And then verse 11, "When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose, more valiant than Saul had been, but still honoring the position, even if the person was not worthy of it. They arose, they went all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bethchand. They put their own lives on the line to do this. And then they came to Jabesh and burnt them there, cremation. They took their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh and fasted seven days, a proper burial within the land of promise. One last chance to pay respects to the Lord's anointed. I think David would be proud of them. In fact, next week we'll see that he was proud of them and rewarded for them for that. You see when the NC64 says, "You ought to say within your hearts, let God take care of things," David had done that in his heart. No hard feelings, no rejoicing over his fallen enemy, rather sorrow over his fallen friend. Samuel would do the same, I'm sure. Samuel, if we rewind and end where we started, way back in chapter 8 to Samuel's principle, I tried. I protested solemnly as best as I could. You ignored that. I tried to show you the manner of the king that you would have, and I even underestimated that. It ended up far worse. I gave you the best we could find, the king that was head and shoulders above, but that head, it didn't bow in humility, it was lifted up in pride. Those shoulders, they didn't bear the mantle of authority, worthyly. That mantle was ripped from off him and placed upon someone better. Next week we will see more of what we've learned today as far as cautionary tales from kings of Israel. Falling from the high to the low and crashing down in self-destruction, because they couldn't hold on to their new heart. I am so grateful for God's patience with us and His mercy towards us, His forgiveness. He is the ultimate Abigail. But it's our own self-destruction that we bring upon ourselves when we turn away from him. I pray as we look back through this long history in First Samuel, and as we look forward to what we'll see next week in Second Samuel in First Kings, that we will do our very best to knit our hearts with righteous friends, Johnathons, they're out there all around us. And as we live into that Second Great Commandment, that we will also live into the First and knit our hearts with God. I am grateful for the new hearts that He is giving us. It's now up to us to choose to retain them. Now like I said, we've only got three kings of united Israel. And next week we'll see the split and the chaos that ensues in its aftermath. But to me there's something powerful about that. And we'll see this unfold today and last week when we were with Saul. David Solomon, all 12 tribes are behind them, well, off and on. But for the most part, these are kings of United Israel. And what's interesting is you'll see these incredible servants of God with so much potential, head and shoulders above the rest, literally, physically, if you're thinking of Saul spiritually, if you're thinking of David, intellectually, if you're thinking of Solomon, in terms of growing in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man, these three are as good as they come. Sadly, in fact, that's not a strong enough adverb. Tragically, we also see in these stories their downfall. And I remember it striking me once as I was very quickly reading through the entire Old Testament, and having Saul David's Solomon in close enough proximity to one another, it hit me that Saul's main downfall was pride. Remember last week, it was Saul has killed his thousands, isn't that good enough? Well, not if David's killed his 10,000s, I can't handle that. And so the pride, when he was no longer little in his own sight, that was Saul's challenge. David's challenge, as we'll see today with the story of Beshiva, is succumbing to the lusts of the flesh, the physical appetites. And as we'll see by the end of today's lesson, Solomon's downfall was worgliness and materialism. He just got caught up in the things of the world and it led him away from the things of God. Now, you could stop there and think, "Oh, okay, I better guard against those three." But add to that realization, this realization from Matthew chapter four, when Jesus is in the mount of temptations in the wilderness, and Satan comes to try to stop his ministry before it even begins, his first temptation was change the stones to bread so that you can satisfy your physical appetite. This, well, I wouldn't know if I'd call it lusts of the flesh, but the needs of the flesh, at least in that case. And Jesus said, "No, I've got more important things on my mind." The second was throw yourself from the temple because you're so important that God, of course, wouldn't allow you to get hurt. He'll send your angels sweeping in to make sure you don't strike your foot against the stone. There's an attempt to or an appeal to Christ's pride. If you're really that important, the world should know and God will prove it. And Jesus said, "No, I already know who I am. I don't need to announce it in that way." The third temptation then, as Satan said, "Worship me and I'll give you all the kingdoms of the earth." Oh, do you see what he's offering there? Whoridliness, materialism, prosperity, fame, fortune, you name it? And Jesus said, "No, it'll all be mine eventually in the millennium and I'm patient. I can wait." What struck me as you put these two together is the three temptations of Christ are the three temptations of the three kings of Israel. It's powerful to realize that the king of kings did not succumb to what brought down the kings of Israel. But lust of the flesh, stones to bread, that's David. Pride, throw yourself from the temple mount, that's Saul. And materialism and worldliness worship me and take all these kingdoms, that's Solomon. And as we talked two years ago in the Old Testament, excuse me, in the book of Mormon, and that last year in the doctrine of Kevin, it's almost always when you see temptation, sin described in the Scriptures, they fall under those three headings. Maybe that's why Satan unleashed them on Christ because that's kind of all he's got. Different manifestations of those three. Little variations on a theme, but those are the three themes. And we saw pride last week, we will see physical appetite today and we will see materialism and worldliness today as well. So keep an eye out for those things and may we all individually and collectively guard against them. So let's dive in. In 2 Samuel 1, if you remember the end of last week, 1 Samuel ended with Saul and his sons, dead on the battlefield against the Philistines. The Philistines have desecrated their bodies, nailed them up to the wall or hung them before their cities so that it becomes a cautionary tale to anyone that dare take on the Philistines. Some major issues here, but you also saw at the end of last week the men of J. Gilead, a commando raid, so to speak, rushing in and recovering the dead bodies of these fallen heroes and then giving them a proper burial in the Promised Land. Meanwhile, David has just returned from defeating the Amalakites. That's where we're now here in 2 Samuel 1, and he's returned. He's brought everyone home. Remember that story from the end of last week also. And they're all relieved and rejoicing, but a servant comes running in. He happens to be in Amalakite himself and David doesn't have very good feelings about Amalakites after what he's just been through. But this man comes in and he has dirt on his head. His clothes are torn, which suggests you're either, oh, just to escape from a battlefield somewhere, or perhaps you are in mourning because of some news that you've received or in his case in some ways, perhaps both. He bows before King David. David asks him to report on what he's seen, specifically Saul's battle. And the man tells him that Israel is defeated and Saul and Jonathan are both dead. Tragic news. On one hand, you could think, well, good news and bad news. Good news, Saul, my enemy, who keeps chucking javelins in my way. Now he's gone. But Jonathan, whose soul was knit to mine, he's gone. Now in David's case, he mourned over both. Because as you remember last week, he never came to see Saul as his enemy. Still as the Lord's anointed, even as misguided as Saul had become by then. Well, in 2 Samuel 1 verse 5, notice David's immediate response to this young messenger. He said unto the young man that told him, how knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan, his son, be dead. Why is David here? I'm not going to just believe a rumor or jump to conclusions. I need some evidence because this is major news here. It's going to affect the kingdom. This young man ends up lying to David. And this I wonder again about the fact he's in a malachite. And as we saw with the battle last week, but also saw back in Exodus 17 in the battle with Joshua, the malachites seem to be opportunists. I don't want to generalize. And so if anyone here has a malachite ancestry, I apologize. But they seem to be the type that just are looking for some easy victory. We'll take on the Israelites when they're fresh out of Egypt and unprepared to defend themselves. We'll take down a city when its inhabitants are gone trying to help other people. These opportunists looking for easy victories, that seems to be the case for this malachite messenger as well. Because he says to David in verse 6, well, here's the story. Here's how it happened. As I happen by chance, I just happen to be there, strangest thing. As I happen by chance upon Mount Gilboah, behold Saul leaned upon his spear and low the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him. In this version, Saul is uninjured, but he's being chased down by a superior force. Now last week we learned that wasn't the case. He was hit by a Philistine arrow and knowing that he was about to die anyway and not wanting to give the enemy credit for it. He asked his servant to fall upon him, which he refused to do and then Saul ended up falling upon his own sword and taking his own life. So this story is not what happened. This malachite is making something up. In verse 9, he goes on, "He said unto me again, stand, I pray the upon me and slay me, for anguish has come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me." Now what's this lie trying to do? It's trying to portray Saul in a way that is negative, derogatory, critical. It's basically painting him as a coward. Instead of rushing into battle and happening to be hit by a Philistine arrow, someone shot it from far away. Now it's Saul who is far away from the enemy, but they're closing ground. He's in perfect health, so yes, he could turn around and fight the enemy, or he could continue to retreat and then regroup his men to go live and fight another day. But in this version, this malachite is saying, "Oh no, no, he anguish came upon him. My life is whole and I'm scared of what might happen to me if I have to actually fight my enemy in close combat. So please will you just end it for me right now?" And unfortunately, again, like I said, it's portraying him as a weak coward who would rather fall to a non-combatant who happens to be walking by the battlefield instead of taking it like a man and going to fight the enemy. Well, in verse 10, this messenger goes on with his explanation, "So I stood upon him and slew him because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen. So he was going to be a goner one way or another anyway. And since he wasn't man enough to fight, I helped him out. And I took the crown that was upon his head and the bracelet that was on his arm and have brought them hither unto my Lord." So this messenger seemed to have no more hope for Saul's survival, then Saul himself supposedly had. So fine, well, I'm happy to oblige you. Now I do wonder how did you get the crown and the bracelet? And the only guess I have is is he some kind of battlefield scavenger? Maybe he was right about, "I happened upon the battlefield." Maybe it was fresh when it was done. Maybe it was even before the Philistines got there to to collect the bodies of their fallen enemy. Maybe he just did see it and there's Saul, and he's gone, and his bracelet and crown. This is my chance not only to get a bracelet and crown, but maybe even beyond that, here's my quote-unquote evidence that I was the one that did it. And if I can bring that to David as my proof, then surely the new rising king will reward me since I was so instrumental in having this crown pass to David. I mean, now he's literally bringing it from one king to the next. Like I said, this seems to be a malachite opportunism at its finest. In verse 11 and 12, then, how's David going to react? Well, thank you so much for finishing off my enemy and bringing me evidence of the fact. No, David took hold on his clothes and rent them. He tore them apart, like as his, let me give you an outward example of what's happening on the inside. My heart is breaking here. And not just for the news of the death of Jonathan, but even for the death, the news of the death of Saul. He runs his clothes. That's a sign of mourning. And likewise, all the men that were with him, and they mourned and wept and fasted until even for Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel because they were fallen by the sword. David sees all of this as loss. None of it is gain. And he's willing, more than willing. He can't help himself. He mourns over his enemies as much as over his friends. Because in his mind, they weren't enemies. They were friends. And now they are fallen. After he mourns for the dead, he then says to this malachite messenger, verse 13, "Whence art thou?" And he answered, "I'm the son of a stranger, not from these parts. I'm a foreigner. I'm a malachite." And again, that's going to trigger that David, like, "The people that just try to take advantage of my absence." "Ah." So David asks him, "How was thou not afraid to stretch forth in hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?" I mean, I had the chance to do it twice, right? In the cave and in the battlefield, both times I refrained. I cared more about the position than the person. And you seemed to care little about either. David called one of the young men and said, "Go near and fall upon him." And he smote him that he died. As far as David was concerned, this was a capital crime. And that he had just confessed to out of his own mouth, and therefore received or was deserving of capital punishment. David then says in verse 16, "Unto this dead man, thy blood be upon thy head." It's not our mind. "For thy mouth have testified against thee," say, "And I have slain the Lord's anointed." "You were your own chief witness, your own prosecuting attorney." I simply turned executioner to follow the demands of the law. David then does two things as a result of what he's just heard. The first, verse 18, "He bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow." Now that seems pretty irrelevant. What's that all about? But think about it. He's just gotten news of Saul and Jonathan's death. Now according to this story from the Emelecide, it was just a sword. He fell upon him and slu him. But I wonder if by the time this verse rolls around, he's gotten the real news. Here's this, it's like, "I could that really be?" That doesn't sound like the Saul that I know. And that doesn't explain Jonathan at all. So I need to hear the whole story. Or is it when they bring the bodies back, maybe before they are burned and buried, does he see an arrow wound, and not just the sword wound from Saul's own weapon? However it happens, I sense in David, how did they die? And how can I help others guard themselves against it? What is the enemy using to defeat us? And is there any way I can become better prepared in this brave new world of military tactics? Jonathan himself seemed to be ahead of his time. Remember, he's the one that's like, "I'm going to shoot some arrows and then send my servant to go fetch them." And I'll send a little coded message to you, David, "Do you go further and leave us or do you come home because it's safe?" So again, I love that about Jonathan. He was a master at Hand-to-Hand Combat when he took on the Philistine garrison. But he's also learning the mastery of the bow. And here David wants to make sure that everybody learns how to do it. We cannot afford to lose battles like that again. And to be honest, if anybody should have known the value of a projectile weapon, artillery instead of mere infantry, it would have been David, who defeated Goliath, not Hand-to-Hand, but with a flying stone, an artillery missile of his own. So that's the first thing that David does. And again, even in our own situation, I hope we realize what the adversary is using to attack us. Think about technology, think about social media, think about worldly ideas and ideologies, philosophies, moral relativism, even just you do you. And I'm not here to be judgmental at all. And we've completely gone against the Samuel principle. We've talked about last week as well. If it's arrows that are being shot these days, as opposed to what attacked our ancestors, we better be better prepared for that. That was the first. The second thing David does is, man of war and man of peace, he writes a song. Lays aside his weapons and picks up his harp. Perhaps if you remember last week, this is what he did to try to calm the troubled soul of Saul. Let me play for you upon my harp and let the spirit of music soothe you. I wonder if it's now it's my turn to need soothing after the bad news I just received. And so let me play upon my harp and put my feelings and my thoughts into words and into music. And you see a beautiful solemn of David through the rest of this chapter. In some ways, it's the opposite of the song of Hannah or the song of Debra or the song of Miriam or the song of Mary because those were all rejoicing in a victorious outcome. This is David lamenting. We won't read it all, but here's a few amazing examples of what he's feeling. Verse 19, "The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places. How are the mighty fallen?" In David's eyes, Jonathan and even Saul were beautiful. They were mighty and what a loss to Israel. I wonder if, oh, if only David had let these words echo in his mind later when he was the mightiest man of Israel. Would it have kept him from falling if he was a little bit more careful? In verse 20, "Tell it not in gath." That's where Goliath was from. "Publish it not in the streets of Ascolon." That's another Philistine city. Samson had some time there. "Less the daughters of the Philistines rejoice. Less the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph." That verse is Philistine through and through, and David does not want to give his enemies anything to rejoice over. Do not spread our bad news to people who will take it as good news when it isn't. In verse 21, "The mountains of Gilboa let there be no dew, and either let there be rain upon you. Nor fields of offerings. He's basically calling for a fast enforced by famine." And here's why. "For there the shield of the mighty is vitally cast away. The shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil. To the very end, David was honoring position. Regardless of the person that occupied it, regardless of their behavior, he is still the Lord's anointed. The Philistines did not treat him as such. Sadly, Saul himself did not act as such, but this should be a cause for mourning not rejoicing. And so seal the heavens, Father." In verse 22, "From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back. The sword of Saul returned not empty." There again, there's Jonathan ahead of his time with his bow. Similarly, we better be ahead of the curve. In verse 23, Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives. And in their death, they were not divided. That says something since they had major disagreements near the end of their lives. Jonathan coming to David's defense, every chance that he could, pushing back against his Father's misplaced anger. And yet he also realized this is still my Father. And there is goodness in him I know I've seen. And I want him to snap out of this. I want him to be better. I want to reconcile my Father and my friend, Saul and David. He tried every chance that he could. Then 25 and 26. Again, where he began, how are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle? Oh, Jonathan, that was slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee. My brother Jonathan, very pleasant, has thou been unto me. Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. And as we talked about last week, no, this does not require an interpretation that suggests homosexual relationships between Jonathan and David. This is simply an elevation of brotherly love over romantic love. This is This is Philia over Eros. If you go with the Greek words, there's so much better than we are in terms of defining love much more clearly into what kind are we talking about? And that's an important thing to do here. But that, I think that's really where David's deepest emotion breaks through in this song, right here at the end. More than Saul and the honor that he paid the man that happened to be in the position, this knitting of soul, this second half of himself, this kindred spirit, that had been ripped away from him. And that was heartbreaking for David. He then closes again with another echo of that first line, verse 27, "How are the mighty fallen?" And the weapons of war perished. You can get a sense there that the man of war and the man of peace would rather only be the second and never again the first. If we could just let these weapons perish, if we could pound our swords into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks, just looking this son of David, David himself, excuse me, looking forward to the day when the son of David would establish his millennial reign. May these weapons perish. Now this is a blessing that would come, but not in David's day. That will come in the day of Solomon, where we'll end this week's study. We have a long ways to go to get there. And so there is war ahead to get to that place of peace. And we see the story begin to unfold in chapter 2, in which David is no longer the boy David or the fugitive David. It's now David the king. In verse 1, it came to pass after this, the David inquired of the Lord saying, "Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? Is it time to go home? In fact, where should I call home if I go? I've been on the run for so long. The Lord says unto him, "Go up." So the answer to your question is yes. And David said, "Will there shall I go up?" And the Lord's response unto Hebron. Now if you recall from Genesis, Hebron is where the tomb of the patriarchs is found. The burial places of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, of Jacob and Leah. And to go there, it's almost as if the Lord is suggesting, let's restart things. Let's begin again. And we'll go back to the final resting place of the patriarchs and matriarchs. And me as the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in a way, can we skip over some of that difficult intervening history and have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob passed the baton to you, David, and you will start where they ended. Living into the Abrahamic covenant, promised land, I want it all to be yours in your posterities forever. The sands of the sea shore will see more of that in first kings with Solomon's reign. And the blessings of priesthood and gospel and exaltation. Let's see how we do it living up to and into those things. In verse two, David went up with her. His two wives also, Ahanoham, the Jehovaheolitis, we don't know much about her. And Abigail, Nabal's wife, the Carmelite, I hope we know a lot about her after last week's experience. We wonder here, what about Michal, the one that the Saul's daughter that he had given to David, now, or at least tricked David into putting himself in harm's way in hopes of marrying her? Well, Saul, who had pulled a switcheroo on David earlier and given his older daughter to someone else, had also given Michal to some other man as well. And so she's not with him. Keep going, verse three, and his men that were with him did David bring up every man with his household, and they dwelt in the cities of Hebron. And the men of Judah came and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. Now, this sounds like, okay, we've got a new king, and yes and no, be more specific there. Who came up? It was the men of Judah. They anointed him king over what? Over the house of Judah. David is from the tribe of Judah. And for the most part, so far in Israelite history, it's kind of been colonial America, so to speak, with each colony doing their own thing. It's not till the revolution that they become a true united states. Actually, some would say it's not till the Civil War that really happens. I won't get lost in those weeks. But in terms of 12 separate tribes largely doing their own thing and sometimes ganging up on one another, remember the Benjimites and their problems with the Levi Conkybond. Here, it's not, Saul united them against their enemies. He was the one that chopped up the Yoke of oxen into 12 parts and sent them around and said, you better get come, you better come to battle and join us. We better hang together or we'll all hang separately. And, but it's then started to split. And we had some followers of David by the end of first Samuel. And we still have people that are loyal to Saul. And here, it's only the Judahites that are deciding to be loyal to David and to announce an anoint him, king. But anointing, we've seen it before, there's oil, there's gasemony, there's light and health and healing all rolled into one beautiful symbol. You, you anoint kings and priests. Christ will be the king of kings and the Lord of lords, the great high priest of things to come. Good things. And so here you see this new Messiah. That's what anointed one is in Hebrew. You see this this type and shadow of Christ. That's what anointed one means in Greek. So yes, David is king, but he's the king of a tribe, not the king of a kingdom, a nation. His men then tell him that the men of jabish gillied were the ones who rescued the bodies of Saul and his sons. And David sends messengers there to say, this is now verse 5, blessed be ye of the Lord, that ye have showed this kindness unto your Lord, even unto Saul, and have buried him. And now, as a result, the Lord show kindness and truth unto you. And I also will require you this kindness, because you have done this thing. Therefore now let your hands be strengthened and be valiant for your master's Saul is dead, and also the house of Judah have anointed me king over them. You did a good deed, and it deserves to be recognized and rewarded. May God bless you, I will bless you, and I'm actually in a position to be able to do so. I've been anointed king. So let me strengthen you. Now there were others that didn't feel quite that way. In verse 8 through 10, Abner, the son of Nure, captain of Saul's host, took Ish Bosheth, the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanayim, and made him king over Gilead and over the Asherites and over Jezreel and over E from and over Benjamin and over all Israel. Ish Bosheth, Saul's son, was 40 years old, began to rain over Israel and rained two years. But the house of Judah followed David. There's the split I was talking about. This is in some ways of foreshadowing of what was seen next week with Jeroboam and Rehoboam, but here you have David ruling in the South, tribe of Judah. And you have Saul's old general, can't just let this war die. We've got to keep it going. He takes one of Saul's sons, Ish Bosheth, and pronounces him king over all that's left. Fine. So we lost a tribe. Big deal. Let David take Judah, but we'll have all the rest. That explains verse 11. The time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah, so much more narrowly confined to kingdom, was seven years and six months after that is when he moves the capital to Jerusalem, which we'll see in a moment. Now Abner, again, he's the captain of Ish Bosheth's army, the son of Saul, and Joab, who's the captain of David's army. There's so many names here the next couple of weeks, so we're going to try to keep them straight. You have Abner versus Joab, because you have Saul versus David, or in this case Ish Bosheth versus David. And what ends up happening, they bring some of their men and meet together. In verse 14, Abner says to Joab, "Let the young men now arise and play before us." And Joab said, "Fine, let them arise." Now play there will be better translated as compete. Let's have some war games, shall we? And we're going to just show that we can get along, okay? And we're not going to be at war. You can have the tribe of Judah. We'll have the rest of Israel. It's fine, but let's get together and have a little military exercise. And focus on the exercise rather than the military. And this will not be a fight to the death. We'll just kind of have a wrestling match, so to speak, between some soldiers from Judah and some soldiers from Israel. Unfortunately, that's not how it ended up. Twelve men from each side come forward. In verse 16, they caught everyone his fellow by the head and thrust his sword in his fellow's side. So they fell down together. Wherefore that place was called, "Helkat, Hazl-Rim," which is imgibiant. That name means "field of foes." Now, in some ways, this is going to foreshadow what we're going to see in later wars, where Northern versus Southern, their own Civil War, rages between the people of Israel and the people of Judah. Tragically here, what was meant to just be this exercise, this wrestling match. Oh, be careful about putting people in close quarters. We in a pretend fight when they really do want to have a real one. And that's what ends up happening. They end up killing each other simultaneously. And I don't know of a better visual aid for what we call today mutually assured destruction. The acronyms even better than the title. It M-A-D, it is mad. It is complete madness to be in a time where we can grab each other by the head and pull out our swords and kill the other in the process of them killing us. No wonder we need to be shifting from war to peace and lay down our swords and our bows and arrows and take up our harps and proclaim peace. That what ends up happening here then it begins to spread and expand from there. And now you do have a full fledged war going on between North and South, at least a battle between Joab's armies and Abner's armies. Now Joab has a brother named Azo, Asaiel if you want to pronounce it that way. He's famous for his foot speed. This is the road runner. He starts chasing after Abner as Abner is taking his men and trying to retreat to be able to live to fight another day. But Abner, it's interesting here because yes, he was Saul's chief captain and Saul had issues but that doesn't necessarily mean that Abner did. Perhaps Abner is just trying to continue the dynasty and elevate this next son of his commander in chief. But Abner doesn't want to fight. Originally it was just meant to be a wrestling match. And here he doesn't want to fight. And so he says as he's running away from Azo, he shouts behind him, turn away. Or at least get some armor to defend yourself. Because if you're going to actually catch up to me, which you probably will, your fast fleet of foot, I just don't want to kill you. And sadly, As I L, Azo doesn't heed that warning and does catch up to him and ends up dying in the battle in the fight that ensues with Abner. And that to me begs the question, why do we do like Azo and run headlong into our own destruction? There are times when people say, I don't want to fight you. I really know the Lord says that to us. My dooks are down. I want peace. I want mercy. I'm asking for obedience. Will you just come unto me? And yet whether it's kicking against the pricks as Saul/Paul was guilty of, whether it's trying to chase down the sins that will come back to bite us, to see what we end up doing something similar, running headlong toward our own destruction. Or being our brother's destroyers when we should have simply been our brothers keepers. That's what Abner was trying to say as he sprinted away from a fight that he knew he would win. Not the fight he was afraid he would lose. Why be foes when we can be friends? Contention is of the devil. I'm trying to run away from it. Not out of fear for me. Out of fear for you. That's big of Abner. Well, Joab finds out what just happened to Aizel. So he and his other brother go after Abner, who's just been joined by an army of Benjamites. That's Saul's main most loyal tribe. That was the tribe he was from. In verse 26, then Abner called to Joab and said, "Shall the sword devour forever?" Don't you realize that was trying to end this thing? Know us now not that it will be bitterness in the latter end. How long shall it be then? Erdobe the people returned from following their brethren. So much in what Abner just said to Joab, their brethren, we're all members of the House of Israel. Yes, different tribes and now different leaders, but that doesn't have to make us enemies. Can we agree to get along there? Or will the sword just keep devouring? I love the way he warned it. It will be bitterness in the latter end. And that is so true of animosity and anger and hatred towards other people. It will get worse before it will ever get better. So can we try to avoid the battle before it even begins? Can we stop things? And beautifully, verse 27, Joab says in response, yes. As God liveeth, unless thou had spoken, surely then in the morning the people had gone up everyone from following his brother. So Joab blew a trumpet and all the people stood still. And pursued after Israel no more, neither fought them anymore. Bless Joab for that. But bless Abner even more because he's the one that started the call mean. He started the peace talk. And he tried to do it with Azoys, he sprinting away. And now as Joab was ready to come down after him and avenge the death. Instead Abner just says, this is gonna last forever. It's only gonna get worse. And Joab thankfully responds in kind. I think that actually often happens. I think sometimes neither party wants to fight but both parties think the other one does. And so their pride, their perceived pride from the other is raising pride within myself. And I can't look like the weak one. When honestly, yes, both of you are strong to fight. But which one is strong enough to speak up that they don't want to? And to be big enough to be small, as we've said before. Abner was big enough to be small. And Joab was grateful and reciprocated. And I think so often when feelings are hurt or when relationships are strained, we're gonna see more of this with David and Absalom. Sometimes both parties do want to reconcile. They do want to lay down their weapons, but it takes a peacemaker to start that process. And just let the other person know, I'm past this, I want this to end and pray that the other person does too. In this case, that's exactly what happens. Now, Chapter three in verse one, there is still war going on. That was a good symbol of the kind of peace that could come if you could just talk about what's going on, share where you're really coming from and be able to resolve things. Verse one though, now there was long war between the House of Saul and the House of David. But David waxed stronger and stronger and the House of Saul waxed weaker and weaker. You've ever been in a situation where you watch two people or two families or even sometimes within a family, two siblings part ways and start heading in different directions, some indifferent trajectories. And watching one stay close to God and wax stronger and stronger and to watch others, oh, leave him and grow weaker and weaker as a result. Hopefully that's helping us see which kingdom do I want to be a part of? Now, speaking of David's kingdom, his sons are next listed. Each one seems to come from a different mother. The David lived plural marriage. But most of those women and most of those sons, we know nothing about. And verse seven though, we switched to the Saul side of things and meet a concubine we didn't know about before either. Saul had a concubine whose name was Rizpa, the daughter of Aya and Ish Bosheth said to Abner, wherefore has Thalgun in unto my father's concubine? Now we don't need to know about Rizpa or about Aya. We really don't need to know much of this story at all, except for the fact that Ish Bosheth, Saul's son and apparent heir has just falsely accused Abner of trying to go in unto his father's concubine. We'll see more examples of that today also. It seems to be a way of saying, I'm going to take over for my predecessor. I'm going to take his throne, I'm going to take his kingdom and to prove that, I'm going to take his own wives and concubines. And here you see Ish Bosheth, new king of the north of Israel, worried about his own, holding on to the kingdom. He's paranoid. And so he's looking around, even at people that are on his side. He wouldn't be king if it weren't for Abner backing him up. And yet he's so concerned that this follower is trying to leapfrog him and become leader in his place. Does that sound like anybody else that happens to be related to Ish Bosheth? Sound like Saul, as he's trumping up accusations, false charges, worried paranoid about David? No, I'm your most trustworthy servant. Why would you accuse me? Now Abner is in David's shoes in this case, doesn't react quite as well as David does. He's frustrated, he's angry. I'm on your side and you come out of the blue and you accuse me of insurrection, of treason? No, well, then fine, let's make this a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm no longer on your side. And I'm not going to take your throne because someone else already deserves it. David does, and I'm going to go join him. And so that's what he does. Abner leaves the side of Saul, Ish Bosheth, and goes and joins the side of David. And he says this in verse 12, "Make thy league with me to David, "and behold my hand shall be with thee, "to bring about all Israel unto thee." After all, I've got a pretty good track record of uniting tribes behind the king. If I can do it for Ish Bosheth, I'm sure I can do it for you. And I want to, I'm on your side now. David agrees and says, come aboard them. We need our money. the help that we can get. He says, though, before you completely leave the Salis side, could you find my wife, Mikhail, Michael, and bring her? I want to reunite with my spouse. And so he does. And then Abner begins his work. And verse 17, Abner had communication with the elders of Israel saying, ye sought for David in times past to be king over you. Now then do it. For the Lord have spoken of David saying, by the hand of my servant David, I will save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines and out of the hand of all their enemies. When David was young, you saying his praises right alongside the praises of Saul will Saul is gone. But because of the trust you had in David, then why not put your trust in David now? He's even better now than he was then. And he's in a position to be able to lead in righteousness. So do it. I love the way he says it. At some time in the past, you wanted this now then do it. And for each of us, if we knew it was right at some point, then act on it now. Even if you've been procrastinating, procrastinating your repentance, procrastinating your commitment, your conversion, your putting in your mission papers, your reconciliation with someone that you love and miss, whatever it is now then do it. And they do. They start to unite to David's side. Abner keeps working hard on this, especially on the tribe of Benjamin, since they're the ones that are going to be hardest as the tribe of Saul himself. But he starts to coax them into David's circle and says to David in verse 21, "I will arise and go and will gather all Israel unto my Lord the King, that they may make a league with thee. I make a league with thee. We would call that a covenant, and that thou mayest reign over all that thine heart, desirath." Now, yes, this is a military general saying this to a political king. But imagine all of us soldiers in the army of the Lord of hosts saying this to our sovereign. I will arise, lift myself up above my lower level of living. I will go and do the things which the Lord had command of. I will gather all Israel unto my Lord the King. I would take this verse a little bit out of context to put it into your own circumstance. And if this is one of the most beautiful, oh, acts of righteous commitment, of covenant making. Father, King of kings, I will make a league with thee. I promise I covenant to do what to gather all of Israel. That's what we're saying to him when we decide to serve a mission. To gather those on this side of the veil. It's what we're saying to him when we go through the temple. To gather Israel on the other side of the veil. And at the end there, that thou mayest reign over all that thine heart, desirath. The heart of our Savior wants to rule over each of us, not for his sake, but for ours. He wants to bring every single lost sheep back into the fold. And so I don't know of a better way we can say to the Lord, "Here am I saying me, I want to do this. I just want to gather Israel home. Put me to work." Now he goes and is doing this. Joe Ab, meanwhile, finds out that this is what's been happening. And Joe Ab, speaking of making false assumptions or faulty assumptions against Abner, Joe Ab is guilty of that too. He starts worrying. After all we've been through, oh, is that the only reason that he was saying, let's let bygones be bygones and let's lay down our weapons of war. Just so you could try to ingratiate yourself with my king. You've switched sides. What are you? A double agent? That's his concern. He's only come over here to spy on David. And it's my job to protect him. So I will. And unfortunately based on that faulty assumption, Joe Ab finds out where Abner's going on the king's errand. But without the king's wish, Joe Ab goes and finds him and kills him. He does it without David knowing about it. It's not under express wishes or David would have rained him in and held him back. I trust Abner. It's fine. How part of that was to protect David? I'm sure. But part of it too was probably just to get that vengeance out of him since his brother Azal is the one who had rushed headlong into his own destruction at Abner's hand. Whatever the case, when the news comes back to King David that Abner has died, a former enemy that never felt like one and instead was a friend. David's response in verse 31 and 32, "Rend your clothes and gird you with sat cloth." It's actually telling Joe Ab to do this. You're the guilty one. So act repentant, broken heart, contrite spirit. Morn before Abner, he says, because David was going to do the same. King David himself followed the beer. In other words, the funeral procession. And they buried Abner in Hebron and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner and all the people wept. Sound a little like what the Lord said in the sermon on the Mount? I know the law says to hate your enemies. I don't say that. I say to love them. I say to bless those that curse you and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you. David here is an amazing example of exactly that. Now what's happening on Saul's side of the lion? Chapter four will let us know. This is the death of Ishbosha. Saul's side, they're dropping like flies. Saul was gone. Jonathan is gone. Now their old general, Abner is gone. What about the air? What about Ishbosha? Now he has two captains and there's maybe Ishboshaath was right to be worried about somebody. It just wasn't Abner. He should have been worried about these two. These two captains turn on him and end up slaying him. They cut off his head and they bring it to David, thinking that, "Hey, I've done you a favor. Your chief rival is now out of the picture." Well, these guys must not have been paying attention to Second Samuel yet. That were very well. Because what have we seen so far in these three chapters we've studied? Chapter one, David gets the news of Saul's death and how does he react? He mourns. And instead of congratulating the person who claimed to be the cause of Saul's death, he has him executed. Then chapter three, what we just saw, David gets the news of Abner's death. Saul's chief captain. And instead of rejoicing, what's he do? He mourns. And he curses the man who killed him. He had some strong words for Joab, you should not have done that. Then here in chapter four, David gets the news of another fallen enemy. That wasn't his enemy. And so any guess how he's going to react? Do we have enough precedent to let us know? In verses nine through eleven, he says to the man who came in with Ishbosheth's head. As the Lord liveeth, who redeemed my soul out of all adversity, including the kind that Saul's family and side were trying to inflict upon me. When one told me saying, "Behold, Saul is dead," thinking to have brought good tidings, "I took hold of him and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings." So there's my review of chapter one. You should have read that, my friend. How much more when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? Ishbosheth had done nothing wrong? Shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand and take you away from the earth? And he has the two men executed. You see, the death of an enemy should never be good news. This is not rejoicing over someone. This is not rubbing it in. Charity, suffereth long. David was willing to suffer. Charity rejoices not in aniquity, not in anyone's, not in your enemies, not in those that supposedly are your friends in taking it out on your enemies? No, not rejoicing in any of that at all. He always seems to care more about the other person than he cared about his own honor, his own reputation, his own safety, even. And that's a good thing because now he can come to a much larger throne with a clear conscience. If we have anyone to thank for that, I have a feeling it is Abigail. Don't sin against others, even if they've sinned against you. And so you see this unfold in 2 Samuel chapter 5. David is now anointed king on a much larger stage. Verse 1 and 2. Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron. And Spake, saying, "Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. Even though you're different tribes, we're all House of Israel." Also in time passed, when Saul was king over us, Thou wasthee that let us out and brought us in Israel. And the Lord said to the Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and Thou shalt be a captain over Israel. So here is where we see all of Israel uniting to anoint David their king, their collective king. And we should be okay with that. We should be prepared. In fact, we should be rejoicing over this. So let's go ahead and rejoice. You weren't against Saul. I'm sorry that we assumed that was the case. You were always one of Saul's most trusted servants. And even when it looked like that, when Saul was okay with you, you were the one that was always a man of the people coming and going among us. This is so much like Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, for example, as the mantle passes. It was so much easier for the saints to follow Brigham Young as their prophet because they had been following him for a long time when he was president of the Corps of the Twelve Apostles. His work with Zion's camp, his work during the Exodus from Missouri, since Joseph was in Liberty Jail and couldn't help with any of that. Finding refuge in Illinois, that thank you, Brigham. So much of what he would do as president of the church, he was well prepared to do and they'd seen it because he'd already done it before. Now there's a similar sense when it comes to David here. You're the same kid who slew Goliath and we love you then. We love you now. So verse 3, "All the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron, and King David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel. King over united Israel. Only Saul had been that before." Verse 4, "David was 30 years old when he began to reign." Hmm. Same age when Jesus began his ministry. That seems fitting. And he reigned 40 years. That seems fitting too. If you think about the wilderness wanderings, if you think about times of purification and preparation, these 40 years, seven and a half of them were in Hebron over just the tribe of Judah. And then 33 years were leading in all the house of Israel collectively as their king. Verse 6, "Then the king and his men went to Jerusalem." Now this seemed to be the one unconquerable city during the conquest of Canaan. You conquered most of the promised land, but that loan hold out. He went to Jerusalem onto the Jebiusites, the inhabitants of the land, which spaken to David's saying, say they know their history of success also, "Except that take away the blind and the lame thou shalt not come in hither." Thinking David cannot come in hither. Now that's a tricky translation. A better one is it says this, "You'll never get in here. Even the blind and the lame can keep you out." That's kind of what they're getting across with that. They're like, "You, Joshua couldn't do it. No judge of Israel could do it." Do I really? Okay, yeah, you're the giant slayer. Big deal. We're bigger than that. Okay, there's going to be no way. There's something, again, I mentioned this earlier when we learned that they couldn't know one could conquer Jerusalem. Jerusalem for Israelites ever since and for Jews today. How it's the eternal city. Christians can be added to that mix of fans of Jerusalem. This place of inherent holiness, it was felt directly beneath the heavenly throne of God. Well, how are we ever going to be able to establish an earthly throne that lines up with the heavenly one? Well, you're going to have to do something you've never done before. You're going to have to conquer the unconquerable. You're going to have to become someone you've never been. David, this is your chance to live up to this purpose. And he does. Jerusalem, as we'll see today, is where the temple's going to be. It seems fitting that temple ground would be that final and greatest conquest. But David conquers it. We don't see much of the explanation, but it says in verse 7, "Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion. The same as the city of David. He did it." He conquered the unconquerable. He used to it by now. He did it to Goliath. He escaped Saul for all those years when Saul had an army behind him. He can do these things. And then, verse 10, David went on and grew great. And the Lord God of hosts was with him. Then wonder, he grew great. The source of true greatness was on his side. Verse 11, "Hyoryam, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David and cedar trees and carpenters and masons, and they built David and house. We're actually seeing now the foreshadowing of building the Lord a house because Hyoryam is going to help with that as well. We'll learn more about him later on." And David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel's sake. I love the ending there. This isn't about me. It's about my subjects. Customer is king, as they say in business, for a ruler to feel that honestly. This my rulership, my authority is simply meant to be a blessing to all of you. And if leaders honestly feel that and act upon it, then it will prove true. It will be for the best, for the sake of those that they lead. But I also love the phrase earlier, David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel. You think you've got the anointing oil on your head. You've got the 12 tribes all behind you now. You made it. It's so weird. I've started to hit me that like, I'm king. I'm perceiving. Now, don't think that too odd. Haven't you ever had similar experiences? Where maybe it's a place that you've been for a long time suddenly kind of clicks or not suddenly gradually. You get to a point where it's starting to make sense that, no, I really am in a position where I can lead and help and serve and bless. And maybe even better is the perception of what the Lord's been doing for a long, long time to get you there. That's the sense I get from David here at the end of chapter five. It's starting to click in his mind and he's, does he go back and rethink the David and Goliath's story like, wow, I don't have duh. I think the Lord was preparing me for this. Going out and coming in among the people, no wonder he was preparing me for this. Having so much reverence and respect for the Lord's anointed, of course, the Lord was preparing me to take this responsibility so carefully, seriously, sacredly, because now it's the position that I happen to hold. I really do think in that moment, David is having a long flashback through his whole life as he starts to see the hand of God throughout, molding him, shaping him, preparing and pointing him forward to this date with destiny. I actually remember after a day of seminary teaching, I don't know, 20 years ago, having just a great experience with these high school kids, loved them, still do. And just, there was a connection. And I was driving home from seminary and just praying out loud in my car, just thanking Heavenly Father for a glorious day. I got to teach the gospel today. You let me do that. I got to connect with students. You let me do that. And all of the sudden is like the Lord hijacked the prayer. It's the best hijacking ever because he knows what we should be thanking him for better than we do. And I found myself saying to Heavenly Father, thank you for my high school experience. Here I am surrounded by high school kids and unlike so many people that it's high school is a, I would never go back. I had just an amazing high school experience, incredible friends, wonderful teachers, great experiences. And I remember as in that prayer, just saying to Heavenly Father, thank you for helping me do well in sports. Thanks for letting me be a jock in high school because guess what? And how I can relate to the jocks in my class. And we can talk football or other sports and just I can relate to them and give analogies that fit. And all of a sudden, even these guys that I don't care, I guess I do. And I, maybe the gospel is cool after all. And then I found myself saying and thank you for thanks for making me a nerd. So I can relate to the nerds in my class. I don't think I use these terms, by the way. Neither we shouldn't. But it was just weird to kind of go through all these clicks and realize that in high school, I didn't feel like I was in a click because maybe I was in all of them. And I did well in school and connected with the people that did well in school. But I loved sports and was connected with people in sports. And I had friends in the did drama and friends in band and friends in choir. And it was, I was a jack of all trades, but a master of none. And but just had connections with like, I loved walking through the high school and just, Hey, how you doing? What's up? And just friends everywhere in every little corner in group. And in my pride as a high school kid, I probably thought it was about me. In my greater understanding and humility in adulthood, I realized that was never God's intent. I even hesitated to even share this story because it does it seem I don't want the focus on me here. But in that prayer, it totally the spotlight spun around. And I perceived the real reason why God had ever blessed me. As I was just gushing and ingratitude of the high school experiences that I had in the context of my seminary teaching world. It's as if the spirit whispered to me, of course, I blessed you in high school. I knew you were going to be in high school for a long, long time. I know I've been in college for a long, long time. And I'm grateful for the experiences God gave me there to just for the chance to connect with God's children. I wish I could do a better job of it. But I pray my friends that we come to have experiences where we look at our past and perceive our present. And we realize that as we'll see in the story of Esther, maybe just maybe God did prepare me for such a time as this. In whatever sphere, whatever circle of influence we happen to be in, may we do a little more perceiving. That's my prayer. This beautiful chapter that ends with the Philistines coming back for some more battles, they just can't get enough of it. They attack the Lord, or David seeks the Lord's direction, wise thing to do. He knows exactly how to defend himself and he pushed back the Philistines and went. That happens twice by the end of that chapter. But now that things have settled down a bit, and nothing like attacking a king right like on the day of his coronation, but darn it, he's. This really is still the same kid that defeated Goliath years ago. We just should let sleeping dogs lie. But now that things are a little bit sleepier, a little more peaceful. The first thought that David has is the only reason I've been pursuing peace is I want there to be a place of peace for the Prince of Peace himself. I want to build a temple. I want to make this city of David, this city of Zion, a place of real holiness. I want city of Enic 2.0. I want it here on earth, but I want it to reach as close to heaven as we can make it. So can we do this? He tries in chapter 6. He's conquered Jerusalem. He's established Zion as the city of David, and he wants to bring the Ark of the Covenant there. I'm clearing out space so that God can have a home. So let's bring the Ark. In verse 3, they set the Ark of God upon a new cart and brought it out of the house of a binadab that was in Gibbia, and Uza and Ahio, the sons of a binadab drove the new cart. Now we saw when a weird story, remember, the emirads and the golden mice and all these strange things. When the Philistines had conquered because Israel thought that the Ark was God instead of pointing them to him, they cared about the Ark and not about the Covenant, so they only had the box and not the God that it was pointing them to. And so it's conquered by the Philistines and they keep it, but then they return it on a cart, with milk cows leading the way. Now a strange story, but here it's time to bring it home. God's home. And let's take it to the city of David. Now verse 6, "When they came to Nazhaan's thrushing floor, Uza put forth his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of it for the oxen's chuket." Now that seems like the smart thing to do, right? It seems prudent. It seems more than justifiable. Oh, thank you. That could have overturned. And the last thing we want is a broken covenant. And so we don't want to crack the box. Well, what happens? This is a very famous story. Let's try to make sense of it. Verse 7, "The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uza." Wow, for trying to help. And God smote him there for his error. And there he died by the Ark of God. Yikes. Now what did he, what had he done wrong? I was just trying to help. But what was happening? He was steadying the Ark and that has become a phrase, a metaphor that describes anytime someone tries to put the stick their head into business that isn't theirs, some would say, at that way, or to correct those in positions of authority, to push back against prophets, for example, and say, "You're leading the kingdom incorrectly. You're doing this all wrong." And my way would be so much superior to yours. It's interesting because I think when we're young, we view the church as absolutely perfect. And the Ark of God would never wobble. It would never tip. It's absolutely perfect. And then as we grow up and grapple with our own humanity and start to see other people's humanity, we realize that there's even humanity in people that are called by divinity, to be their very best selves. And so sometimes we think, "Come on, Bishop, there's a better way to run this." Or, "Ah, my state president is this," or that, "I never feel that, by the way. Love you, love you, Bishop Williams, love you, President Cofford." What's interesting, though, is sometimes people will do it on a bigger scale of the prophets are not prophetic and they're leading the church in the wrong direction. And so I'm going to put my hand in and try to correct things. And Uza becomes your ultimate cautionary tale. Now, what again, is the challenge here? And the real, I think concern I would raise also is, "So do I never speak up?" It's like, there's a contrary here, a Goldilocks zone we're going to have to try to find, of being proactive and speaking up. I think actually the one of the best places to see it is last year the doctrine of governance when we have the revelations to the counselors in the first presidency. When it says things like, "Be faithful in counsel, so speak up, give your very best advice." But isn't that steady in the arc? Well, no, not if you do the second part, which is, stand in the office to which you've been appointed. It's like, if you're a counselor, then counsel. Speak up, but also your only, quote unquote, a counselor. You're not the one that's going to have to make the final decision and live with those consequences. So to me, there's something about that fine line of, "Yes, being speaking the truth, but in kindness, being bold, but not overbearing, opening your mouth, but also opening your ears, and your heart." I have found in my own experience, because, in fact, now that I mention it, I wonder if some of my colleagues or direct or supervisors might wonder, "Is Jared an arc steadier?" Because I do speak up and say, "I wonder if we could do this," or, "I wonder if we change this. This might be. " I'm pretty vocal in those kinds of things. I try to be a fixer, where can I say? Not always successfully. But I think what allows me to do that is my colleagues and supervisors know of my absolute loyalty to the kingdom of God and my absolute love for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Letterday Saints. The earthly repository of that, that is, it is the arc. It's not the covenant. The covenant is higher and holier than that. The covenant is Christ. The covenant is God. It's, their promises, their relationship with us. But the Church is an incredible box to convey it, to deliver it to people. And if I can prove my love and loyalty, then I'm amazed at how open people are to, "I want to hear where you're coming from." Now, that's a lot to get out of just this weird story of "Uza." I want to get a little bit more close to the actual account. That discussion was more for, "How do we navigate this ourselves?" When we see things, we'd love to change. Sometimes actually God calls you on it and puts you into the next position of leadership and it's like, "Okay, if you still think that's the best idea to go for it. But make sure you're counseling with your counselors and get the big picture, just like your predecessor was trying to do." Okay? Might be some poetic justice there. But here's something bigger to me as far as the immediate context is concerned. It's said there that they put the arc in a cart and "Uza was driving it." I don't know if he and his buddy were taking turns and is like, "Okay, I'm going to walk alongside or this is a little tricky part and be careful with the oxen up there." I put my hand and steady it. The real problem to me is not steady in the arc. It was putting the arc into a position where it would need to be steady like that in the first place. And what I mean by that is, what on earth is the arc doing in a cart? That's what the Philistines did. It's not what the Israelites are supposed to do. Go back to Exodus. Go back to Joshua. How do you move the arc of the covenant? You do not farm it out to farm animals. You do not delegate to beasts of burden. You carry it yourself, Levites. And I don't know if Uza is a Levite. But even if he is, you're supposed to be bearing the burden on your own shoulders. You remember the high priest with those precious stones on the shoulder with the six names of on each 12 tribes of Israel? I'm here to bear your burdens that they may be light. And I'm here to minister before the Lord and bear the burdens that God places upon me. He will strengthen the back. But it's not something we stick on a cart and let the oxen take care of. To me, the biggest breakthrough as I've studied and pondered this is that idea of we end up trying to steady the art usually when we should have been bearing it beforehand. We should, I'll give you another example, in the Book of Mormon when Nephys building a ship and layman, let me come and start complaining about it. You're the biggest idiot. I can't believe you think this is going to work. And the irony there is they're complaining about a construction project that they're not participating in. You sense that irony? I think it was other Maxwell, or perhaps someone else that was talking about people who complain about the use of tithing when they're not contributing any tithing to the cause. Or are frustrated with the way someone is serving in the ward or the stake when that person, the person complaining, isn't doing much serving in the ward or stake themselves. And that's not always the case, but I have found that by and large, we complain about ships we're not constructed. And one of the best ways to overcome that sense of complaint or criticism is to roll up your sleeves, to round up your backs and to begin burying a portion of the burden. You'll be amazed number one at how easy it is to control the arc. Because you're carrying it. It doesn't slip and fall because you have all these people that are there and side by side, you're in single file, you're there holding the arc itself. I love that about word counsel. I love that about serving in a presidency or a bishop break. There's something about shouldering a burden together where you feel it. It's right there. You're a little more agile. You're a little less likely to slip. I don't want to be the dead horse or in this case a fallen oxen or a fallen ox driver. But I do hope that we see in this a call to fully participate in building the kingdom of God. I have a feeling, down deep, that as we do so, there won't be much arc steadying necessary. It'll be close enough to the covenant that will know exactly how to carry it, how to shoulder it, and how to move it to its eventual destination, which is exactly what happens in the subsequent verses. In verse 9, David is concerned about this. He's afraid of the Lord that day and said, "How shall the Ark of the Lord come to me?" So David would not remove the Ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David. But David carried it aside into the house of Obed Edom to get tight. In other words, "Whoa, if I guess I did a bad thing, I wasn't supposed to bring the Ark here because this guy is trying to help and look what happened to him. I really see David here wrestling with his story the same as you and I have." Now, like, what did he do wrong? He was only trying to help. And that's all I'm doing. I'm only trying to help. So God, what's up with this? What's up with you? I'm afraid of you right now. How on earth am I going to bring this thing? And what I love here is you've missed into. You were perceptive last chapter. You're a little less perceptive here, David. This wasn't about me. This is about Usa. It was about doing things correctly and burying the burden as you should. So don't let God's justice scare you away. I'm not being capricious. I thought it was good, but he was. I guess God's in a bad mood today. No. I'm being just as always. And I'm merciful as always too. So it's not about me having a good or bad day. It's about you doing things righteously or not so righteously. You can bank on my responses to those. And in fact, he's going to show it because how is Obed Edom treated? In some ways, it's like, "I got stuck with the hapotato? Yikes." Right? I don't want emarads. I don't want to be struck down by God. What's going to happen? Well, having the ark there in his household ends up blessing them incredibly. It's like this is the best thing that ever happened to us. It's like God. The presence of God is here. Or at least the box that reminds us of it. And for us to have God in constant remembrance, how can you not help it be blessed when that's the case? David hears about this. They say to him in verse 12, "The Lord have blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that pertaineth unto it 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. It's like, "Okay. So it wasn't about God being harsh or kind. It was about us being obedient or disobedient. Let's do this in the obedient way." And just as the ark's presence allowed God to bless that small house, the ark's presence in the capital of Israel can bless all of Israel as well. So that's what they do. Verse 13, "It was so that when they that bear the ark of the Lord had gone six paces. So they that bear the ark." Ah, you're doing it right this time. You learn from your mistake. That's good. Six paces. It's the number one. They're not letting the ox cut, carry it. But number two, we're barely even going to begin this journey again before we turn it all over to God. So what happens next? He sacrificed oxen and fatlings. The oxen are meant to be our sacrifices, not our beasts of burden. And David danced before the Lord. With all his might, David was girded with a linen ephod. David is overcome by so much emotion that he just has to glory in his God. At times that will come forth in talking smack to a Philistine and defeating an enemy army. Here it's the dance. And he is dancing with all his might. He just can't keep it in. But someone sees this and misinterpret it. Sadly, it's David's own wife, Michal, Michael, Saul's daughter. Remember that Abner had brought back for him? She sees David dancing. And in verse 16, she despised him in her heart. He's seen someone else in the way they respond to the Holy Ghost. And you think it's inappropriate? David doesn't feel it's inappropriate. She does, though. And so when he gets home, she scolds him and you can just sense the sarcasm dripping off her tongue. Verse 20, "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 fellows shamelessly uncover it himself." You dancing around in your little linen ephod, this robe, dancing with all your might. What are you trying to expose yourself? I don't know physically or just exposing yourself to their scorn. That's what I felt. You were embarrassing today. You embarrassed me. Now, the tragedy here is that wasn't David's intent. It certainly wasn't his. It's not what he was feeling at all. No, I didn't care what people thought of me. I was moved by the Spirit to just rejoice in the God of my salvation. And if you think that was over the top, just wait till you start reading the book of Psalms. If you thought the Psalm of mourning and lamentation for Saul and Jonathan was intense, just wait for my Psalms of praise and we get to read 150. They weren't all by David, but the Psalms are amazing. I will sing. I will dance. I will weep. I am an emotional person and I lean into those. That's what David's saying. In some ways, it reminds me of Aaron chasing in Ammon after their missions among the Lamanites. And say, "Well, careful, little brother. I think you are boasting." And Ammon's like, "You better believe I am, but I'm not boasting in me. I'm boasting in my God. Look at what he's done and what he's done through us. That's incredible." And here David feels all of that. The way she says it, "You were uncovered." Talk about irony. I picture David responding, "No, no, my love. I was so covered, covered by the mercy seat, the lid on the ark of the covenant, covered by the tender mercies of the Lord. There's the tent of covering the tabernacle that's now going to become a temple in my own city." In God's own city, we've never felt more covered in all my life. Covering was the word for atonement, recall. And we are going to be covered by the atonement of Christ, of the God of Israel. And verse 21, David responds to her, "It was before the Lord, so it wasn't before the people. I wasn't doing it to be seen of men. I don't care what they think. It was before the Lord which chose me, before thy father and before all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord over Israel. So I'm not going to do it your way. I'm going to do it mine. Therefore will I play?" And the word there is better translated, "Selibrate before the Lord." And I will yet be more vile than thus. So honey, you ain't seen nothing yet. You think I was happy today? Just wait till the temple itself is finished. I will be base in my own sight." Sounds a little like when Saul was little in his own eyes. David's willing to be that. And of the maid servants which thou hast spoken of, David keeps saying, "Of them shall I be had in honor of lowering yourself in appropriate ways once you realize how exalted God happens to be." Now, there's no comparison. There's true joy that bursts forth in dance. How can I keep from singing, famous song? David might add a verse, "How can I keep from dancing?" I just, I'm so grateful. In some ways, if you think about temple dedications, and again, they're bringing the arcane, moving in this direction, David won't be able to do it, but Solomon will. What do we do at temple dedications? We move our bodies. We lift our voices. We allow the physical to rejoice alongside the spiritual, and we participate in what we call the Hosena shout. Sadly, and many of the temple dedications I have participated in. I look around and see people looking around nervously like, "Are we really doing this?" Because it seems so out of character. We're so pure at the church. Okay, we're just that this is work quiet and reverent and that's good. Those are good. But when it's a time to rejoice, do we let ourselves? We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven. That's the song they sang before that original Hosenna shout in Kirtland. But I sometimes look or see it or hear it or experience it as more of a Hosenna whisper. Or a Hosenna awkward participation. When I'll put it this way, Lorenzo Snow was tasked with the Hosenna shout during the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple. And in 1893, when the Salt Lake Temple was dedicated, that was after 40 years of labor started in 1853. And a whole generation had grown up watching the stones stack, watching the temple rise. And you want to talk about pint up emotion 40 years worth. When Lorenzo Snow explained how the Zana shout was supposed to proceed, he told them that basically give it all you got. And they did. According to some spectators or some participants, I should say, they said you could hear the shouting echoing off the mountains surrounding the Salt Lake Valley. Can you imagine that? That's real rejoicing. So no more Hosenna mumble. That's not to be a Hosenna scream or Hosenna shriek. No, there is a strong reverence. That's an interesting paradox. But it's a beautiful thing to be a part of when you know that we're inviting God to come in to his home. That's what David's hoping for. You see that desire in chapter 7, I just want to build God a house to call his own. In verse 1, it came to pass when the king sat in his house. And the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies, that the king sat into Nathan the prophet. Now we don't know much about Nathan. We don't have his backstory. But he is God's prophet at this time period at what Samuel was to Saul here and what Samuel was to David. Now Nathan is to David. And David comes to him and says, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar high room of tire helped build this beautiful place for me." But the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. It's in a tent in the tavernacle. And Nathan said to the king, "Okay, I see where you're coming from. Go do all that is in line heart for the Lord is with thee." David had a house of rest. What about God? He deserves a house of rest. And now that he's given rest to all of us, a time of peace, no better time to move forward and give the Prince of Peace a place to call his own. Nathan's response is an interesting one though, where he just says, "Oh yeah, I get it. I see where you're coming from. I can already tell what you want to do. Awesome desire. Very righteous desire." And the Lord is with you. So go apt on it. I trust the spirit that has been giving you these impressions all this time if I just want to build a temple to God. But notice the Lord's response, this is fascinating to me. Verse four and five, it came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came unto Nathan, saying, "Go and tell my servant David thus sayeth the Lord." And then it's his long message. It's everything from verse five through verse 16. It starts with this, "Shout thou build me a house for me to dwell in." And here's the Lord's response to David's hope, his intention. What we saw in the first few verses was Nathan's response. Now we're going to see the Lord's response. And ironically, it wasn't the one that Nathan assumed it to be, which lets you know, wait a minute. Wait, Nathan was wrong. And in a way, David was wrong to desire it. I wouldn't say that. But Nathan did jump to a conclusion prematurely. And yes, he's a prophet, but yes, he's a human. And so let's cut him some slack. And what what I love about it is this assumption on his part, David's a good guy. He's got the spirit of the Lord with him. The Lord is with thee, he says. And David's got a heart of gold. We saw that back in first Samuel 16. And young David just as good as they come, a heart like his, like gods. And so giving God a house to call his own. Who would say no to that? And you've got this king that's willing and able and wanting to do it, then move forward, full speed ahead. But the Lord is going to reign in Nathan. So Nathan can then go reign in David. Actually, it reminds me of Moses, the banks of the Red Sea, when he says to the people, "Stand still and see the salvation of God." And God's like, "Nice try. Good intent." You got your wires crossed. Don't look at me. Look at them. And don't tell them to stand still, tell them to march forward. There's a similar course correction here. And I think if we're open to the spirits, guidance, then we should be open to the spirits, spirits, continued guidance. If we're open to his course, then hopefully we're open to his course correction. Well, Nathan was. So he keeps going. Verse 6, "The Lord says to him, 'Whereas I have not dwelt in any house, since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle.' So so far, it's been portability over permanence. It's better for people that are on the move. I'm willing to adjust my circumstances to meet the needs and circumstances of my people." So if Israel is on the move, then God, I want to be on the move. So I can be with them. We're headed towards our promised land. So a portable tabernacle is the best possible thing. So far so good. I haven't complained a bit about my living quarters. Okay? In verse 7, he says, "In all the places wherein I have walked with all the children of Israel, spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people Israel, saying, 'Why build ye not me in house of cedar?'" What the Lord is saying here, "Have I, did I ever ask for this? I mean, I know David really wants to give me the gift, the ultimate offering. I didn't ask for it." Okay? I've had prophets and judges from Moses on down and not a single time did I tell any one of them. What do you do in building your own houses when I don't have one? No, I did have one. And the tabernacle was sufficient for me. I think sometimes in our seeking to do gods will, we need to understand not just what he's told us to do, but sometimes what he hasn't told us to do. And not that we have to be compelled in all things. That's not what I'm saying. The power is in us. We're agents unto ourselves. David was acting like an agent. Nathan was acting like an agent, but here God is raining them in saying, "Actually, no, that's not what I want you to do." Awesome goal. We'll get there. Just not on your watch. It reminds me of Nephi having these visions of history unfold before and he's writing them all down. He's getting right to the climax, the end, the end of the world and the Lord says, "Put the pen down." Nephi, what? This is the good stuff. I know. And I already revealed it to John, the revelator, and he already wrote it down, or sorry, history, prophecy, I get him mixed up. He will write it down 600 years from now. And that's the version that I want to help guide the people through the last days. Okay? It's going to be richly symbolic. You're a little too straightforward. You glory and planeness. I don't want to be that plain about the last days because it might defeat some purposes I have in mind. Okay? As far as faith is concerned. So hold off and let somebody. It's a good thing. Your goal was righteous. You had a good idea. It's just I'm not asking you to do it. I want someone else to do it. And sometimes honoring the Lord's will is honoring the Lord's time in. And sometimes it's honoring the Lord's choice as far as who is he delegating what portion of it to. I've said this before that the building up of the kingdom of God is such a long process that it outlives everyone except its original author, which means God who is the author and finisher of our faith is the only one they're present long enough to deserve the credit. Okay? The rest of us only take the wheel for a turn or two. And I think we see that beautifully in in presidents of the church in our day. And things that Joseph Smith did. But other things that he didn't do and that waited for Wilford Woodruff, for example, or a Lorenzo snow. Or things that President Hinkley hoped for but weren't accomplished until President Nelson, for example, or just different approaches because of different circumstances on the ground. And it's a beautiful thing to see that yes, on the one hand prophets are men for all seasons. To borrow that beautiful phrase. They are each one is a man for all seasons, but they each man is also a man for his season, first and foremost. And this is the portion of the project I have assigned to you. Keep going now. Verse 8, the Lord continues to Nathan. Now therefore, so shall thou say unto my servant David. So all these things I didn't tell you, here's what I am telling you. Thus, say, the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheep coat, from following the sheep to be ruler over my people over Israel. And I was with thee wither so ever thou wentest. And have cut off all the enemies out of thy sight and have made the a great name like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth. Notice the Lord's focus there is on David's homie. beginnates. In fact, his shepherd beginnings. We saw that in the Battle of David and Goliath. So much was focused on David's role as a good shepherd. You were that when you were young. You're still that now that you're old. You have a much larger flock and it's people rather than cheap. But I chose you before you had any of that. I chose you when you didn't care. You're out in the fields keeping watch over your flocks by night. You didn't have a roof over your head for much of the time. And you were okay with it. I was okay with it. I certainly hope that Israel has been okay with me just living in the tent of testimony. So don't worry. I'm okay with my humble beginnings. I was okay with years as well. There's even a hint there of I was with you then. I'm still with you now. And that's important to realize when we sometimes get a course correction from God. Sometimes we second guess those beginnings. We second guess the impressions. I guess I was totally wrong in all of that. I wasn't supposed to care about building God a house. I don't know. I planted those seeds too. I just want someone that they're going to grow up on somebody else's watch just because you have a course correction doesn't mean you were wrong before. The goal might have been inspired. The direction came from God. The implementation though is something he's waiting on. Does that make sense? I hope that we're okay for that past, present, and future as God leads us along every step of the way. In verse 10 he goes on, "Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel." There again, there's that confirmation. You were right about your goal. Just you weren't clear on my timetable. So I will appoint a place for my people Israel. I will plant them that they made dwell in a place of their own and move no more. Neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them anymore as before time. You see priorities will shift from the portable to the permanent. The day will come. In fact, we're right just about there that peace will reign and the people can be planted right where they are. Thank you, David. In fact, for helping to establish that. That's actually your role. I needed to give you a goal as glorious as the temple to get you moving in that direction. It's like Moses, you've been fixated on the promised land the whole time. That's good. You're just not the one that's going to get there. That one's for Joshua. David, you are establishing peace. Thank you. Your son will actually build the place of peace. In fact, his name is going to be Solomon, which comes from Shalom, Shalom is how you say it. So Shalom, his name is peace. You've been a man of war and it's a necessary evil. But to bring in the peace that Shalom, Shalom, Solomon himself will be able to enjoy how you've done your part in beautiful ways. The day will come when they're planted and then the temple will grow. I actually love the thought of portable times in our lives versus permanent times of our lives or portable parts of the gospel, the kinds that can pick up a move, they're a little light on their feet. They might be here today and gone tomorrow. Programs are often like that versus the permanent things in the gospel of Jesus Christ, these eternal doctrines that will never change. How's this for a chart for you, visual learners? Put the portable on one side and the permanent on the other and you have Tabernacle versus Temple. You have Leahona versus Iron Rod. Iron Rods, the permanent one, right? Fixed in the ground somehow. Leahona, oh it's changing and spindles are moving and words are altering all along the way. On the portable side, there's the programs of the church, but on the permanent side there's the principles of the gospel. You could even differentiate it as policy on the one hand and doctrine on the other. Portable, there's a full-time mission. Permanent, there's a lifetime of dedicated discipleship. Portable, callings that come and go, but permanent consecration. That's actually what keeps me fixed in the non-fixed side. I'm going to stay here no matter how much it changes because my commitment to Christ doesn't change. That's what consecration is all about. Even with the ebbs and flows of responsibility and the comeings and goliens of callings or of places or whatever it might be. To me, it's a beautiful country to try to balance the portable and the permanent. And the Lord knows just when you need to shift in either direction. Now keep going. Verse 12, the Lord's inspiration continues to Nathan. "When thy days be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. Some successes will be left to your successors. Your desires will righteous, David, and they will be fulfilled. They'll be fulfilled through your Son." It makes me actually wonder if David's even more excited about that. Like, whoa, that sounds awesome. Share the wealth. Pass the baton and let oh, my posterity, perform what I've always been preparing myself and them for. Thy ways are higher than my ways. God, that sounds great. Now something else about Solomon here, verse 14, "I will be his father. He shall be my son. If he commit aiquity." Yeah, actually, do you have to say that? There's some sad foreshadowing. And he will. But the Lord says, "If it happens, I will chase in him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men. But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee." Now that's interesting because in some ways, you can picture David going, "But Saul committed an equity, and you took the kingdom away from him, and put gave it to me. What if my son commits an equity?" Well, in his case, I'll continue to show mercy. Now is God being fickle here? No. He's a perfect prover of countries, especially the justice and mercy one. His perfect judgment balances the two. The problem with Saul evidently was that the center of gravity shifted to the side of justice to the point that justice demanded that he lose the kingdom. Whereas in Solomon's case, the center of gravity for himself at least will remain on the side of mercy, and we'll see that by the end of this week's material. Okay? The kingdom's going to split after his reign is already over. It'll stay with him as long as he's there. Okay? Keep going. In verse 16, "And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee, thy throne shall be established forever." And like I said, next week we'll see the aftermath of Solomon's reign, and it doesn't seem to happen that way, which actually means then that this prophecy is not a literal fulfillment in terms of the Davidic dynasty being passed down and unbroken. But rather, let me show you the real son of David. Let me show you the true heir to the throne. And that is Jesus Christ. And his house will be established forever. His kingdom will be an eternal one. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Handles Messiah said it well. Verse 18, "Then went that King David in." So he's received this word. He's heard it from his priesthood leader. This gentle course correction, and notice how he responds to it. He sat before the Lord. It seems like he's trying to wrap his head around this new direction. Like, was I wrong? I guess, but not totally. And I'm just going to sit with this for a while, because this is coming like news. I always thought I'd be the one to build the temple. So let me just sit with this for a while. And I'm grateful that God gives us the chance to do that, to recalibrate and get our bearings. And like, was I wrong? Was I right? I guess yes and no on both. And where do I go from here? As he's sitting there before the Lord, David says, "Who am I, O Lord God?" And what is the house that thou has brought me hither to? Now, I don't think this is the HOOMI of inadequacy. Instead, I think it's the HOOMI of humility and of gratitude. Now, like, of course, yeah, who am I to think that I could do such a thing? It's like, no, who am I to realize that God honored that righteous desire and planted it in me so deeply that I would do anything to that get to that point. And then to know that he's going to fulfill it through my son, that this is a project that will outlive me and be bigger than me. And I can't believe you would use me to push forward thy work. This is a beautiful HOOMI. This is a beautiful what is thy house. He goes on, and this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God, small for you, huge for me. But thou has spoken also of thy servant's house for a great while to come. Is this the manner of man? Oh, Lord God. Now, that last line is really hard to translate. So I looked up like every alternate that I could find, and there's so many different possibilities, and they don't all agree with each other. But I think, if you sense the spirit of what David is saying there, then some of these other translations will help make sense of that. That this is the manner of man, O Lord God. The new international version says, "And this decree, sovereign Lord, is for a mere human," again, mind-blowing, that you give this word, this promise to little old me, or the new living translation. Do you deal with everyone this way? Oh, sovereign, Lord. Love that one too. Like you really work with our human desires and you sanctify them and extend them and make it work and bless us beyond what we could imagine. Is that really how you do things? In the English standard version. And this is instruction for mankind, oh Lord God. Are we all learning something from this lesson? Or the new American standard Bible? And this is the custom of mankind, Lord God. I'm thinking that we all have to do it ourselves, but it's bigger than us. And later generations can continue the process. Or this one from the contemporary English version. Is this the way you usually treat people? I just love that again, this disbelief. Like, wow, you, I'm blown away by the generosity of God. It is so far beyond anything I expect it. That's the sense I get from David here. So beautiful. In verse 20, he continues, "And what can David say more unto thee, for thou Lord God knowest thy servant?" I'm just going to close my mouth because my jaw just keeps dropping in awe. He says in the next verse, "For thy words sake, and according to thine own heart has thou done all these great things to make thy servants know them." Seeing the greatness of God, of his word, of his heart, it leaves David's speechless, which is saying something considering all the Psalms that he wrote. It's just, wow, all these great things. Verse 22, "He goes on in his praise, wherefore thou art great, oh Lord God. For there is none like thee. Neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself and to make him a name and to do for you great things and terrible." There's nothing like thee, oh God. There's nothing like thy people, Israel. I hope people feel that when they come to know the God-we worship, when they come to see the church that we belong to. I hope that we're not seeing these kinds of things in pride, but rather in a way that we live up to this and that people will come and realize you're everything, actually, you're above and beyond anything I expect it. Do investigators feel that when they, after they've met the missionaries and actually start meeting us members, or is it kind of a letdown? Do they come back to the missionaries and say, "False advertising." This isn't Zion, or do they come in and think these people, yeah, they're not perfect, but they're as good as gold, they're trying, and they're going to help me try as well. I hope that they feel this way. If not, then what misperceptions do we need to clear up? What can we do to change about ourselves so that people actually feel this way? Then in verse 25, David adds, "And now, O Lord God, the Word that thou has spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it forever. And do as thou hast said, what I love about the end of this prayer is a complete, absolute, how unconditional acceptance of God's will, but more than just acceptance, he's applauding, he's grateful, he's in awe of it. And I think honestly, once we understand God's will, it's so much easier to accept it. Once we know that God's ways are not just different than our ways, but higher than our ways, better than our ways, then boys it easy to submit and go, wow, you had a way better plan than I did." I've said this before that often it's a prayer I've offered of Heavenly Father, thank you for not listening to me. Thank you for not convincing my wife to marry me as early as I wanted it to happen. It was better to have to wait. Thank you for not giving us children as soon as we wanted to have them. We learned incredible things through that period of infertility. Thanks for sending me to Nashville instead of the places I had dreamed of going, because it was better than the places I intended for myself. I love what David was doing here. I appreciate that your plan was different than mine. In fact, I'm so excited for it. I felt that when I was called in Nashville. I told the secretary, I was working with, if the church called me back and said, "Actually, your first choice just opened up. You can have it if you want it." I would call him, I'd say, "No, I know I'm supposed to be in Nashville. It's better than the plans I made for myself." That's the realization that David has here. So where do we go? Where do we go from this point of just rejoicing? Chapter 8, David is, "Okay, so I'm not going to build the temple." I all of my eggs were in that basket and I was preparing and ready to go. I've still got energy and desire and consecration. What do you want? Again, it's a sense of, "Then set up my son for success. Set up my successor to be able to do the things that God wants done but doesn't want me to do." Let's try this. In chapter 8, David continues to extend his kingdom. I want to establish peace in the land. So my son, peace personified. That can build the place of peace. Chapter 8, verse 1, "After this, it came to pass that David smote the Philistines and subdued them." So cross them off the enemy list. Verse 2, "He smote Moab and measured them with a line." Basically executing those on one side of the line and sparing those on the other. Verse 5, "He defeats the Syrians and takes their gold as spoils of war." It's just, he's marching around taking out enemy after enemy through this chapter. Verse 10, "There's other nations that instead of, please don't destroy us, can we offer you tribute instead?" Oh, sure. This sounds a lot like plundering the riches of Egypt, which was meant to make tabernacle for Nishins. This might come in handy. So sure enough, they are offering silver and browns and gold and all the things that they're going to need. Again, with the decision to make, "Do I make a tabernacle or a golden calf? Do I build God a house or build myself one?" Here's some foreshadowing for Solomon later on. But notice this in verse 11, "Which also King David did dedicate unto the Lord with the silver and gold that he had dedicated of all nations which he subdued of Syria, of Moab, the children of Ammon and the Philistines and of Amolec and of the spoil of Hadad-Ezer, son of Rehob, King of Zoba, which is an Aramae and Kingdom of the Northeast of Israel." Notice that he is conquering kingdoms, he's subduing kingdoms, and the wealth of those kingdoms is pouring into Israel's coffers, not to enrich Israel alone, but to build God a house through which his blessings could flow to all nations. Yes, we gather Israel, but Israel is supposed to gather everyone else, right? The chosen are meant to go choose everyone else to be chosen alongside them. That's our purpose. And that's all happening. This I see as I see this echo in doctrine in Covenant 124. When Joseph Smith is trying to establish a Zion, I don't know where originally intended in Missouri, but there on the banks of the Mississippi, and at least we're going to build a temple here, and the Navu temple is going to be glorious. He says in section 124 verse 11, "Awake, O kings of the earth, come ye, O come ye, with your gold and your silver to the help of my people, to the house of the daughters of Zion." It's essentially what David was saying to all of these kingdoms he was subduing. Come help. Section 124 goes on, says in 26 and 27, "Come ye, with all your gold and your silver and your precious stones and with all your antiquities, with all who have knowledge of antiquities that will come, may come, and bring the box tree, the fur tree, the pine tree, together with all the precious trees of the earth, with iron, with copper, with brass, with zinc, with all your precious things of the earth. Why? To build a house to my name for the most high to dwell therein." That's what we're trying to do. That's what we're inviting the world to help us with. That's actually what I love about what David is doing. I'm dedicating these things to build the kingdom of God. That's going to end up blessing the entire world. So, of course, I want to invite the world to participate, to make a contribution. It's going to come back to bless you, believing. Can we do that as members of the church? Do we see the surrounding kingdoms, whether those are nations other than our own, whether those are better yet? Religions that we aren't a part of, other denominations within Christianity, non-Christian religions, just good people of faith of whatever flavor that faith might be. Do we see that they have things to offer us? Not us. They have things to offer God and God's kingdom, which is bigger than solely the Church of Jesus Christ of Letterday Saints. I think there's something powerful. In fact, this has become one of my favorite verses lately, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 10, where it says that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ. In David's case, Israel doesn't have enough gold and silver in bronze and all the good trees and everything else that we're going to need to build God's house. But surrounding nations do, and they can contribute. Orson F. Whitney said, "There's too much work to do on the world for just a lot of these saints to do it." So of course God's going to use all kinds of churches and faiths and peoples. And He does. He always has. And for us to have the openness to invite their participation, that's why I love Ephesians one. The dispensation of the fullness of times. That's ours. And if we are the custodians of this final dispensation, then what's our job? It's this dispensation's job, which is what? To gather in one all things in Christ. So to gather the gold and the silver of the Aramaians and the Moabites and everyone else, or in our case, to gather together the truths that God has revealed throughout time and throughout the earth, that other churches live so beautifully. I think we have a lot of gathering to do. And I see David doing just that with the temple as its ultimate goal. I hope that is you sense the desire to be more inviting and more grateful for the goodness. Smell the flowers and other people's gardens. It's amazing. Leave you some room for holy envy. Well, the borders of Israel are expanding. In verse 14 of chapter 8, "To the Lord preserved David withers, so ever he went." I guess Goliath had a physical shield bearer. That's all right. David has a spiritual bodyguard. He's been with him everywhere he's gone. And David reigned over all Israel. And David executed judgment and justice unto all his people. He's not just a Judahite anymore. He's the king of Israel. And every tribe season him someone that he can. Someone that they connect to, someone that has their best interests at heart. In a recent talk, I'll present Nelson gave a list of his identities as he was talking to the rising generation about identities that they sometimes struggle with or argue over. And he said, "The big one is I'm a child of God. The big one is I'm a child of the covenant. The big one is I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ. All those other ones, surgeon or doctor or. I mean, there's some really important ones. Husband, father, for example. But the professional ones, and in his long list, the last one he mentioned was American, which is interesting. And I thought, "Ah, yes, he's the prophet of God to the world." And trying to bless all of God's children everywhere. And that's what David is doing here for the entire house of Israel, reigning over all. And then the rest of the chapter, he describes some other authorities to whom he delegates responsibilities. Soldiers, scribes, priests, and so on. Now chapter nine, then, David, he's established his own house. "Ah, but what about the house of Saul? I'm not trying to eclipse him. I'm not trying to step on toes, even though he tried to crush mine." This is a good shepherd. I worry it even about lost sheep. And so David wants to honor the house of Saul. Still loves his enemy. Still doesn't see them as enemies at all. And in chapter nine verse one, David says, "Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake, especially for dear Jonathan?" I just want a way to honor others. Even those that have been that are lost or have been left behind, can I bless their posterity in some way? No more than flowers at the funeral. How can I love those that they love? And are no longer here to help show that love to quite so directly? Well David finds out from one of Saul's former servants that one of Jonathan's sons is still alive. Now there's some strange names here. Remember Saul had a son named Ish Bochev? Well Jonathan had a son named Mephi Bochev. The name means "from the mouth of shame," which seems strange. He can also mean a destroyer of shame or some kind of shame idol breaker. So that's a better kind of name, an image breaker and idol breaker. We don't know really anything about him, other than the fact he's Jonathan's son, and that he is lame in both of his feet. He just can't walk. In an earlier chapter it gave just a quick verse about him that said when he was five years old and his father and grandfather were often battle and being killed. His nurse grabs this five-year-old child and starts running away and all of the confusion, but they end up falling and he becomes lame in both of his feet. I don't know if you broke his feet or his legs and they never healed correctly, but he can't walk. But that's great. That's exactly the kind of person that could use a little extra help in David's mind. And so he sends for Mephi Bochev and has him brought to the palace. But it says to him in verse seven, "Fear not." When Mephi Bochev first comes, he bows before David like, "Oh great, he's going to take out his frustration upon me because I'm one of the few remaining descendants of Saul." But no, fear not. For I will surely show the kindness for Jonathan and my father's sake. I don't know if you knew our relationship. He was the closest friend I've ever had. I will restore the all the land of Saul by Father. And thou shalt eat bread that my table continually. So I want to honor the inheritance of Saul and restore it to his actual family. Oh, that tribal inheritance within the tribe of Benjamin that belongs to your father. It now belongs to you. It's all yours. But also I want you to be able to eat here in my own palace. Eat at my table. In verse eight, he, Mephi Bochev, bows himself. And he says to David, "What is thy servant that thou shaltest look upon such a dead dog as I am?" It's a beautifully fitting phrase, by the way, since that's basically what David had said to Saul earlier, "I'm a dead dog. I'm a flea. Why would you come after me?" So here his son, "I'm the dead dog now." It suggests a humility from below on his part, which was probably easy to come by because there was a humility from above on David's part. You see, so often we respond to what's been given. And if we, if someone gives us humility, we respond with humility. If someone leads out with pride, we usually snap back with pride of our own. But not David and Mephi Bochev here. There's just understanding and humility on both parts. David, so what Mephi Bochev accepts the offer, the gift, and David brings him into the palace. He assigns some of his own servants to go back out and actually till and care for the land that Mephi Bochev is going to have, which is important because he's, as a lame man, isn't going to be able to do that work himself. In verse 11, "As for Mephi Bochev said the King, 'He shall eat at my table as one of the King's sons.'" You see, he's basically adopting him here. The son of Jonathan is now essentially the son of David. And I can't imagine a more fitting relationship from these two soulmates, these two, this band of brothers as close as they could be, and I want to care for your son since you're not here to care for him yourself. I do also, again, like I said, but I love the fact he sent servants. I want to give you something that's rightfully yours, but I also want to make sure that it's a gift that you can, that's actually usable. I think sometimes we're guilty of giving gifts because that's what I would like or what I would want to give. As opposed to, can they even use it? And for him to combine the gift that really does belong in your family with, let me help make it possible for you to gain some benefit from it. I'll even send some servants out. To me, there's something above and beyond in that as far as David is concerned. One more chapter before tragedy strikes, okay? Bear with me. Chapter 10 of Second Samuel, Israel is now going out against the Ammonites, a one more enemy that still needs to be conquered. The King of the Ammonites has died, okay? And David decides to honor the deceased king's son. You see, remember when David was just trying to escape from Saul every chance that he could and sometimes he'd hang out with the Philistines and sometimes he'd hang out in other areas, just I'm trying to avoid a king that's trying to kill me. And he had no problem with the Ammonites and actually had a good relationship with this Ammonite King. When he hears the news that he dies, he sends servants to honor that partying. In verse 2, he says, "I will show kindness unto Hanun the son of Nehosh, as his father showed kindness unto me, and David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father." This is the flip side of an eye for an eye. He was actually kind to my eye. So I'll be kind to his, okay? He was helpful on this tooth. I'll be helpful on that one. And so he does it that way. I want to remember the kindness shown me. I will reciprocate in kind. Unfortunately, the other Ammonite princes think there's got to be a catch. There's got to be. He's expanding his kingdom and conquering all these other places. He's probably trying to send some people over to spy out the land and see what our weaknesses are so he can come and exploit them. And so what they end up doing is horrible because they totally misjudged, misinterpreted, mistook somebody else's motives. We got to be more careful than that, okay? Don't jump to those kinds of conclusions. What they do though, the King, the new King, is convinced about this. And so. "Oh, come to comfort me, whatever. "I'm going to go shame you." And he ends up taking these messengers, cutting off half of their beard. Imagine how foolish you would look with half a beard there and the rest of your face, shaving. But he does that, then he takes their robes, which are typically down to the ankle and he cuts them just south of the waist, which means that some of their back sides are exposed, which again is as humiliating as you can imagine. And then he kind of just sends them packing. And they come back, David catches wind of it and he's so horrified for them. He's like, "Why don't you stay in this other city "before coming back into kind of public view?" And that way your beards have time to grow and I'll send some more garments for you. He's shocked by the way that the M&I King has, I sent goodness and I come back with evil thrown in my face. Well, he's frustrated, understandably. The M&I's probably know what's coming, so they freak out and they hire some Syrian mercenaries to help them fight against the Israelites and so they assume they're coming. And they were right about that. David sends his armies against them. Joab and a brother of his, Abishai, they divide their troops into, and Joab says to his brother, "I love this verse, it's 11, "if the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me. But if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, then I will come and help thee." I love that. We're in the same together brother. And we got two enemies and now we got two groups on our side and we're both gonna fight, kind of divide and conquer, or at least hopefully conquer. But if they start conquering us and quit dividing, come to my rescue. I'll come to yours. And I hope we have that kind of attitude when we see someone, a brother or sister in arms that is struggling. Are we willing to take on their enemy as if it were our own? 'Cause it is. Are we willing to come to their aid? And that's exactly what they do. In verse 12, he says to them, "Be of good courage." Sounds like what T'Jasha was told over and over and over again. "Be of good courage and let us play the men for our people, for the cities of our God, and the Lord do that which seemeth him good." What a great combination of courage and zeal on his part, but also submission to God on the other, that we're gonna do everything we can. We're gonna be courageous. We're gonna fight. We're gonna play the men. I hope that doesn't come across as sexist. For a while I would tell my kid, my son's especially, go be a man, take it like a man. And yet, as I've seen my wife through childbirth, I will often say to my children male or female, take it like a mom instead of take it like a man because moms take it incredibly well. It's amazing what your mothers have done. So whether it's play the men or play the mom, whatever it might be, just go take the bull by the horns and be strong in a good courage and go do it. That's our part. There's the proactive, the agency. But then the other, the submission, I'd love the way it ends it. Well then we'll just let it, God do it, seem with him good. Do your best and then let the chips fall where they may. Let God's will be done 'cause you've done the very best you could and be okay with the results. Well, the Israelites fight the aminites and the Syrians together and defeat them as you might expect. In verse 19, "And when all the kings that were servants to how to reason saw that they were smitten before Israel, they made peace with Israel and served them." Yeah, good idea. You see, yes David is going to war, but what's even after all along? Just peace. Trying to seek that, establish it so that a temple can finally be built. Well, I guess we're ready. Let's turn the page and see the temple built. Well, tragically, we turn the page and see something else. (gentle music) (gentle music)