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Bible Reading
1 Samuel 18:1-17
Good morning, everyone. If you've got the Red Pew Bibles, we're flipping to page 445, and we are reading 1 Samuel chapter 18, verses 1 to 17.
After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. From that day, Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic and even his sword, his bow, and his belt.
Whatever mission Saul sent him on, David was so successful that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the troops and Saul's officers as well. When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all of the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with timbrels and lyres. As they danced, they sang, Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands.
Saul was very angry. This refrain displeased him greatly. They have credited David with tens of thousands, he thought, but me with only thousands. What more can you get but the kingdom? And from that time on, Saul kept a close eye on David.
The next day, an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand and he hurled it, saying to himself, I'll pin David to the wall. But David eluded him twice. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with David but had departed from Saul. So he sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men and David led the troops in their campaigns.
In everything he did, he had great success because the Lord was with him. When Saul saw how successful he was, he was afraid of him. But all of Israel and Judah loved David because he led them in their campaigns. Saul said to David, here is my older daughter, Merab, I will give her to you in marriage. Only serve me bravely and fight the battles of the Lord. And Saul said to himself, I will not raise a hand against him. Let the Philistines do that.
This is the word of the Lord.
Opening Prayer
Thank you, Sarah. Scheming and plotting. Right, it's getting political. Let's take time to pray.
Gracious Father, thank you that we have this account recorded in our scriptures that we can see how you dealt with David and how you dealt with Saul and how you led your people.
We are your people. Thank you, Lord, for our leaders. Thank you, Lord, for those who watch over and direct us both here in our church and in our diocese and in the Christian world.
For our leaders in public life, much maligned though they are, yet Lord, we pray for them, that they might be public servants in your service.
Father, for those who lead industry, for those who lead our homes, Lord, for those who have influence wherever they may be, would you be so gracious as to work with them for the good of all and the glory of your name.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
God Doesn't Do Overnight Successes
Well, we're moving along pretty quickly. Have you got your Bible open in front of you? It must be about page 444. I think that's going to be easy to find. It's in 1 Samuel 18.
And we've seen David sort of requisitioned from caring for the sheep, anointed by Samuel the prophet and proclaimed future king. And then we get the episode with Goliath. That was very exciting last week. I enjoyed that. How about you?
And here we are. It's kind of the aftermath.
And in fact, just to back up a couple of verses, we get this. As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him, the leader of Saul's army, and brought him before Saul with David still holding the Philistine's head. So you've got to have this picture of David holding this guy's head and his hands holding onto their hair probably, standing before the king. This boy, you don't see that every day.
From the excitement of David being anointed king by Samuel to his triumph over Goliath, the champion of the Philistine army, David is plunged today into the trial of persecution because who is his enemy?
Did you hear it in the reading? Who is his enemy? And who's Saul? He's the king.
So you're in a land, Israel, and the king of the land becomes your enemy. So let's just think about it.
So we begin with David standing before King Saul, still holding Goliath's head, 13, maybe, 14 years old. What's he thinking? What's he thinking?
Well, I mean, first, this old guy came to our place and anointed him with oil and told me I was going to be a king in front of my brothers. And then I bring some cheeses to my brothers, and there's this giant, and God gets me to kill him.
And now I'm standing before the king, like this is just an escalator, right? And in his mind's eye, I think he can see the headlines in tomorrow's Herald Sun, right? Shepherd boy slays giant.
It's going to be good. It's going to be good. Come on. It's going to be great.
David is an overnight success, isn't he? Just kind of comes from nowhere, out of the blue.
But it doesn't roll that way. If you listen carefully, as Sarah read, there's this kind of discordant note. There's another theme being introduced here, and I think we need to pick it up straight away.
It's that God doesn't deal with overnight successes. I mean, I know that's what your heart wants. I know that if you're doing your violin practice at home, that you're going to be Yehudi Menuhin.
Next week it's going to happen, and I'm going to be on the stage, right? It doesn't work that way. God doesn't vote for overnight successes, even though our hearts want it.
Oh Lord, please make me an overnight success.
Think about it. Look at the life of David. Someone once said, it took me a lifetime to become an overnight success.
God's in the discipleship business. What he grows, grows slow and deep, requiring effort and patience and endurance if it's going to last.
The trouble with winning the lottery or having a sudden promotion or having an inheritance or some other kind of miraculous favor from the sky is that you are not prepared for that, and quite often winning the lottery destroys people. You know that. You've heard that story many times.
Something that promises to be so good actually ends up being a catastrophe because they're just not prepared.
What is David going to be when he grows up? He's going to be king.
How do you take a young man and shape him, temper him, prepare him for such a position of responsibility? Well, it's about to unfold before our eyes.
Unbeknown to David, in the midst of all that promise, he has some suffering before him. And God does this for David because he believes our character is more important than our comfort.
And our character is more important than our comfort.
And I just invite you to do an inventory of this week's prayers, the sorts of things that you've chatted with God about. Just have a think.
Mostly, I hazard a guess, that's a wild stab in the dark, but mostly I would suggest that they've been prayers for your comfort. Oh Lord, please help me find a parking space. That's the level that I pray at. Mostly.
Something's gone wrong. Lord, help us fix the thing that's gone wrong.
His focus is on your discipleship. His focus is on your character. His focus is on your person.
Because, remember, God is looking for people he can trust. With a marriage. With a family. Perhaps a business or a ministry or a room full of school children or maybe a ward full of patients.
God is looking for someone he can trust with great responsibility. Perhaps the care of an elderly relative or the confidence of a friend.
Are you trustworthy? Have you been tempered, tried, proven?
If we're going to be able to hand the serious responsibilities that come our way, just as people, let alone believers, we will need to take time and effort in the preparation. We will have to learn our lessons well. Please take David's hand as God leads him on a journey. There are three things. First David's success, then David's loss, and then God's support. Three things.
When Jealousy Sets Up Shop in the Heart
David's success. Friends, David's success excites everybody except the king he will one day replace. You heard it in the reading, verses 12 and 15. Saul becomes afraid of David.
And the trouble starts, of course, when David does well, even better than his boss. Be careful about that if you're working somewhere and you do better than your boss, because this boss has trouble with that.
That silly song that the women sang, Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands, became an international hit. Did you know that?
And when David runs away from Saul and goes into Philistine territory to the town of Gath, actually, you can see it in chapter 21. We have in view chapter 18 all the way to the end of the book.
This is what we're talking about this morning. It's all years of trial, 13 in fact. And so go to chapter 21. David is hiding from Saul.
He goes to enemy territory and the guys in the gate go to the ruler of the town. Hang on a minute.
The day David fled from Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath, the servants of Achish said to him, Is David the king of the land? Isn't he the one that they sing about in their dances? Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands?
Isn't this the guy? Oh, they'd heard the song, all right. They knew about him. And Saul obviously takes this to heart. Here's the first thing for us to notice. Did you hear him?
What more can he get than the kingdom? What's happening inside Saul? He makes the fatal mistake of letting jealousy set up shop in his heart. Jealousy.
Oh, that's a perfectly normal reaction, you might think. Beware.
Did you notice verse 10? The text is difficult here. But it makes very clear the link between Saul's jealous anger and the evil spirit that comes into him, okay?
Whatever, however you understand that verse, and it's repeated in verse 19 and verse nine and chapter 16, verse 14. There's another reference to that.
Well, whenever the spirit from God, particularly an evil spirit and jealousy come together, here's this junction. Notice that in verse 10. That much is clear.
It should remind you, perhaps, of Ephesians chapter four in verse 26.
Do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil a foothold.
Okay.
So something about holding on to anger gives the devil right of entry. Did you know that?
So you can prepare a dwelling place in your heart for the Holy Spirit, and you can prepare a dwelling place in your heart for other spirits. You can do that.
And we know that a foothold quickly becomes a stronghold and then a stranglehold. Friends, jealousy is poison. It will destroy you.
If you open yourself up to it, if you make room for jealousy in your life, the devil will indeed move in and make life hell for you.
James chapter three.
For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every kind of evil practice.
And in many ways, I think the demise of Saul is a lesson in what happens when you entertain jealous thoughts, when you let that kind of percolate, when you let that seed take root in your heart, when you fail to root it out, when you don't bring it under the discipline of the Holy Spirit, when you entertain it, when you justify it, because they deserve it, don't they?
Oh no. Oh no. And so if jealousy is something that you have let slip in, perhaps under your guard, the invitation today is to just watch Saul. Here we go. Just watch him. And you will follow him unless you repent.
You have the power to do that. The Holy Spirit can help you. You can repent of that. You can apologize to God, and then he will lead you in any other apologies you might need to make.
If the Westgate Bridge Can Fall Down, You Can Fall Down
David's success and Saul's agony with that leads to David's loss, his suffering. Remember, David's done no wrong. He's only loved God and served his king faithfully, but if he's going to be a great man, I keep on saying this, if you've heard it, it's gonna take great preparation.
He's gotta go the long way around, and so the refining process begins. If you like, the heat is turned up in his life.
From chapter 18, where we are now, all the way through to chapter 31, Saul is trying to kill him. The king is trying to kill him.
Chapter 18, verses 28 and 29.
When Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, Saul became still more afraid of him, and he remained his enemy the rest of his days.
That's the script for the rest of the book.
I've mentioned this before, but just to clarify, that means 13 years on the run for David. It means, flipping through these pages, in chapter 19 and verse 12, he will lose his wife. In chapter 20, verse one, he loses his greatest friend, the prophet Samuel. In chapter 20 and verse 24, he loses access to his best friend, Jonathan.
We heard that relationship begin when our reading began today. It's over by chapter 20. Chapter 21, verse 13, he loses his country. He has to flee for his life. And in chapter 21, verse 10, he ends up living in a cave in the wilderness, living in a cave, where all the malcontents in Israel join him.
Rachel read it so well. Psalm 57, I lie in the midst of lions. In chapter 20 and verse three, look at it. There is only one step between me and death. And towards the end of the book, chapter 27 and verse one, one of these days, I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul.
It's a story of pressure building up in one man's life and the supports that he's relied on taken away.
Can I go to my slideshow? That'd be great. Here's a question. What is that? Just have a good look at it. What is that?
Try the next slide. What is that? Which? Which bridge? Thank you, Westgate Bridge. Go back to the first slide. What's that? Westgate Bridge. Westgate Bridge. 1970, it fell down.
So my dad used to work on the Westgate Bridge after the collapse, and I can remember standing, can we go to the second slide? Sorry, you're not really helpful today. I can remember standing on an uncompleted span, so out over the river.
This thing's pretty wide. What, we've got 16 lanes plus a bit, right? So it's a football field, basically, and I'm standing on this structure, and the other end is kind of over the other side of the Yarra. It's going like this.
So what do you think I was doing? It's like two boats at sea, right? All the forces at work on this structure. Just an incredible thing. By the end of Dad's time there, he was responsible for the maintenance pretty much of the whole thing.
Just let's go through a couple more slides. What have we got? If you go to Monash University, they've preserved pieces of the wreckage, just so you can see how much stress was applied to that structure, and the damage it did.
Maybe, you know, if you tear a sheet of A4, you know, like that, it's kind of still pretty neat, right? But what about tissue paper, and you just pull it till it breaks? Okay, that was what happened. And this steel is like thicker than my arm.
So it's a concrete structure up until the main pier, and then it's steel across. And they were trying to fit one section to another. And they used a bunch of bolts. Can you see any bolts there? There's a bunch of them.
And they wouldn't line up properly, because as I said, like the thing's doing this, and they thought, well, we'll stick some concrete on, you know, the end of it, to try and bring the metal down, so that we can line up the bolt holes, and that didn't work.
So they thought, oh, maybe we'll take out some bolts. Uh-oh. Bang. 22, 23 people died. Next slide. Tells you about it.
Okay, so you can go to this thing at Monash, and it tells you all about, you know, what buckled, and it's actually, the pieces are there, and we'll go to the next one, which shows you a cross-section of the structure. Oh, no, no, it doesn't.
Okay, that's what the display looks like. Maybe the next one shows a cross-section of the structure. There it is. Okay, so they were going across the bridge. Okay, that's the bit you recognise. The cross-section at the bottom is what you don't understand.
It is essentially a box with wings. Right, yeah? And they were trying to fit box to box, so they could kind of segue out over the, and that's what fell down. I think the newspaper article comes next.
Oh, yeah, that's them examining the wreckage. You can see the structures now on the ground. Now, the force applied to that piece of metal. Look at that. And then the newspaper headline. How much was the herald? Four cents. Okay, those were the days. Hmm. October, 1970.
Thank you, I think that's the last slide.
Okay, my point is that if something like the Westgate Bridge which you drive across blithely without even thinking about it, like, you know, I don't know how many times a day, stands there so strong, right? Can just be gone in an instant.
How are you doing? Stronger than the Westgate Bridge?
Here is King David in a cave. Psalm 142, a maskil of David when he was in the cave, right, he's hiding from Saul, he's in a cave. Everything's gone.
I cry aloud to the Lord. I lift up my voice. I cry aloud to the Lord. I lift up my voice. I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him. Before him, I tell my trouble. When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way.
Rachel read from Psalm 57.
For the director of music to the tune of, do not destroy, of David, a miktam, when he had fled from Saul into the cave. Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me. For in you, my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.
And then of course, though not written in a cave,
my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you don't answer. And by night, I'm not silent.
God Is in the Cave
Have you hit bottom? Have you been there? Have you run out of options? Have you been teetering on the verge of collapse? Has the stress, the weight, the worry just become too much?
I can remember standing in my driveway at night time when I was the vicar of Upwey, just looking up through the trees to the stars and having this reasonably frank conversation with God. It went something like this, you said, ask, seek and knock. Here I am. Not funny at the time, I'd used up all my tricks, nothing was working.
Do you know that place? Because God does. And notice David in the Psalms, who's he yelling at? Who's he yelling at? Come on, I want to know. Who's he yelling at? God. Have you done that? Have you had it out with God? He's really good for it. He can take it.
Tell him exactly what you think of him and what a hash he's making of, you know, the world and while you're at it, your life, right? Blame the vicar. That's my favorite kind of thing. You should blame God. You should do more of that, okay? Because when you start banging heads with God, we're really talking real stuff. Okay? No more manners.
No more, oh Lord, you know, in your majesty, you know, kindly grant my request. It's what are you doing, you idiot? Look at this mess we're in. David in the cave. Did you notice that? Who's he talking to? Who's he yelling at? It's God. Okay, God is in the cave. You need to know that.
You need to know God is on a cross. The persecution of the Jews in Germany was terrible. It was all torture. One day they were hanging three young men before the inmates of a concentration camp and one Jewish person turned to the next and said, where is God? The other said, I'm up there. This is what we've done to him.
You need to know that God was on the cross. He went there first. He went there for us so that we wouldn't have to. You're in the cave. You're in a hole. You're at your limit. You're on the verge. He's there too. Tell him.
Sometimes because of our pride, things have to get broken so that we can know the truth about ourselves and the truth about him. Sometimes there's no other way to learn. If the Westgate Bridge can fall down, friend, you can fall down. Know the God who strengthens you. Know the God who strengthens King David. Know the God who raised his son from the dead.
Just Stick Up Your Hands and Hope
King David's success. King David's loss. God's support. How does he do it? How does this kid handle, first of all, all the success, like that's hard. And then all the approbation from the King. I mean, he's hunted down. The army is looking for him to kill him. How does he endure?
Well God graciously provides. You should be reading these chapters. It's great bedtime reading, the drama and so on. And one stage Saul and his army are coming around a hill this way and David and his men are running around the opposite way like it's just nuts. But he survives.
And those rabble rousers who joined him in the cave, those malcontents become King David's mighty men and they've been through trial together. And when he comes into the kingdom, who does he trust? Them. So God provides.
That guy Jonathan, the heir apparent, by the way, the King's son, sticks by David. I mean, they can't always, you know, David's exiled now. Jonathan finds him, they're lifelong friends. God grants David success. We heard that in the reading.
They have the adulation of the masses. There's that crazy song they sing. We heard that too. The Lord is with him. We hear that many times. And all Judah and Israel love David and all these things are true.
And in these and many other ways, the Lord encourages David during his time of suffering, but he still has to wait. And that's hard. And you know it's hard because you've had to wait too. And sometimes faith is just hanging on.
Up St. Jude's in Carlton where I grew up, we used to do communion in a circle. We should do that here one day. That's fun. You can see everybody receiving the communion.
And we'll talk about, you know, what we were doing and so on. And there was a mother with three young kids hanging off her. I don't know what their ages were. I was too young to care at that stage.
But we were talking about receiving communion and what that meant for her. And she said, I just stick up my hands and hope. She's so exhausted. I just stick up my hands and hope.
So it doesn't even have to be a bad thing. It can just be too much of everything. God is so faithful. Just hang on. Watch him come through for you.
And just, you know, think of this. Another character I love in the scriptures is Joseph, you know, the guy with the coat of many colors. And he spends years in prison and all that stuff. And you've got Daniel and all the Jews are exiled and he's in Babylon and he's serving Nebuchadnezzar or whatever his name was. You know, he's trying to be faithful there. But these guys go through hell.
And you know, what if somebody came to David and said, look, kid, how would you like to be king? Boy, have I got a deal for you. And you get to slay a giant. And it's going to be great. You're going to have this great army and Israel is going to be bigger than it's ever been before. People are going to love you. 1500, 2000 years from now, they're still going to be talking about you. Do you want in?
And David goes, man, where do I sign? And he said, look, you should know there's going to be some years of suffering in there. David said, I'm up for it. Let me at them. Okay. If you knew the end, it would all be okay. You know, the problem with being you is you don't know the end. God does. And you do not know.
Which one of those little children out there in kids' church is going to be the grandparent of the next Billy Graham? You don't know that. You don't know about that person on the bus that you talked to and maybe encouraged or offered a kind word to. What effect that will have on their life and how that will knock on and what will come from that.
You don't know what your endurance in your workplace or in your family life or your family, immediate or extended, you don't know what your endurance there is going to allow God to do. You, we can't see the end. All I can see that, you know, today life's difficult or, you know, this sucks. So the faithful thing is to trust God anyway. And just hang on.
You know, like that woman at church, just stick your hands out and hope. He's good for it. If you're really upset with the process, tell him about it and you might learn a few things on the way through, okay?
The reason we're doing David is we're watching how faithful God is when we're not. How strong he is when we're not. How patient with us he is when we are not.
David isn't, you know, kind of a hero. You don't want a pin-up of David, and we haven't got to Bathsheba yet. You don't want to know David by the time we get to the end of this series, but God loved him because he was a man after his own heart and he used him for his glory.
And we're the recipients. I mean, that's where the Lord Jesus came from. So it's kind of a hang on Harvey moment, you know, in the story.
But believe it when God says,
never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you. So we can say with confidence, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can people do to me?
Hebrews 13. And again,
we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, have been called according to his purpose.
One of the reasons that Deep Creek is here is that you'll have people to stand by you in your trial. People you can go up to and say, life sucks right now.
And they'll say something smart like, can I pray for you? And what have you got? A threefold cord is not easily broken, right?
You've got people you can rely on, who will be safe to share your junk with, who will walk with you on the road. Let's pray.
Father, you not only walk beside us, you put your spirit within us. You call us your own. You have only good in store for us.
But in between now and then, there's work to do. And we don't like that.
So Lord, help us lean on you, depend on you, trust you, and be honest with one another. That this might be a church where people grow and are found useful when you call.
Father, have your way. We sang it already. Father, have your way, that we would rejoice to see what you will do. Amen.
