Sunday School | David - 1 Samuel 16

Okay, so here's what we're gonna begin with: a pop quiz. Imagine a population of people who attend church. Within that population, what is the number one predictor of spiritual growth?

Bible study? Giving? I like that answer, but I don't think that's it. That's good though. What do you think it is? Number one predictor of spiritual growth. They volunteer? Character—that they're already decent people? Commitment? Commitment to what? Okay, that they're showing up to be in there. It's this, you guys: it's self-feeding. That's the number one thing.

For years, churches functioned as if the number one driver of spiritual growth would be like showing up to stuff, just participating, coming to Sunday school and sitting here. Ann, you're shaking your head. Why are you shaking your head?

Well, if you don't self-feed, you don't grow.

This is true. If you don't self-feed, you do not grow. And the risk of a class like this is that you could feel like if you come and you show up and you listen and maybe even you participate in the conversation, that somehow that's gonna have some magical value. And while I hope there is value in it, if this gathering or any gathering—you're showing up in your small group, sitting in there, sitting in a pew—if you feel like that's the thing and that's the key thing that's gonna cause you to grow, and because of that you don't take time to spend time alone in the scriptures, just you and Jesus all by yourself becoming a self-feeder, reading books because you're taking command of your own spiritual development, deciding that you are gonna grow in your skills to learn how to read God's word—if you don't do those things because you're showing up here for an hour a week, it's a net loss. It's a net loss. You're not breaking even; you're losing.

This group here is not meant to be just like, hey, let's come together and be entertained and say fun things and enjoy one another's company. But this is meant to be a catalyst for you, all by yourself, when there's nobody looking, that you're gonna be in the scriptures. If you do that, we win. Everything blows up.

I watched this happen in my own life. I was involved in a student group called Crew for a couple years when I was at JMU, and it was fine, was great, made friends. Many people were in the habit of spending time alone with Jesus, and I wasn't. My freshman year, not at all. My sophomore year, not at all. I remember where I was my junior year when I finally decided, okay, fine, and I will begin this habit of just like fifteen minutes a day, alone in the Bible, beginning to do this. And you guys, it was like that exponential curve—click, click, click, click. That's when my life began to change.

So what we're gonna be doing here, forever, I don't know how long, is we're gonna study the life of David. And it could be a gigantic, colossal waste of time if all that we're doing is sitting in here and I say a few things and you listen and maybe you speak up. But if this prompts you to get into First Samuel, to read it yourself, Second Samuel when we get there, and you learn—or you do not learn from zero, but if you improve your ability to read God's Word, if you're learning, "Oh, these are the tricks about how to take narrative apart"—then tick, tick, tick, tick. That's what happens. The whole game, all that we do, is really about catalyzing, facilitating, helping you with becoming a self-feeder of God's Word. If we do that, we win everything. If we do it not, it's a waste of our time.

So don't be satisfied to just be entertained for the next thirty-five minutes, but let's actually grow in our ability to read God's Word and engage it and apply it into our lives.

First Samuel 16

Okay? Do you remember what we said? What is David's claim to fame in the scriptures? Do you remember?

Man after God's own heart. That's good. What else? Mentioned Jesus. In the Bible more than anyone. This is true, right? There's more content about this one man than anybody else who has ever lived with the exception of Jesus. It's pretty noteworthy. So we just made the decision: let's understand if he's such a big deal, if his life is so significant, then let's find out what it is. And I'll tell you, it's not just because he's so good, although there are things about David that are truly exceptional, but it's also because he's not so good. We're gonna see an awful lot about David's failings as well as his successes. But First Samuel 16 is where David gets introduced, okay? It's not his first mention. What's the first mention of David? Do you know?

The first time David's name shows up in the Bible, you need to search for it. What's the earliest hit? Ruth? That's exactly right. So it's almost in a foreshadowing way. At the very end of Ruth, he had a kid and that kid was David. So Ruth anticipates and points to David. But when he steps on the scene for the very first time and we meet the man—which is really a boy at the time—we meet him in 1 Samuel 16. That's where we're going to be this morning.

So if you have 1 Samuel 16, turn your Bible there. I would just encourage you to read this week. If you want to, it'd be magnificent. Read 1 Samuel 16 to, I don't know, twenty-five. We're going to be laying it down. I won't give you a specific assignment each week, just be in it. Read it, and then read it again, and then read it again. We'll just kind of become immersed in the life of David.

Reading Narrative Scripture

When you read narrative, do you know what your basic unit is? What's your division? What are you looking for as a division factor in a narrative?

Think in terms of scenes. Imagine what you're reading is a movie that you're watching. What's the scene? You watch people in a location, a particular group of people in a particular place doing something, and then there's a camera change and now we're in a new place with a new group of people doing something different. You're accustomed to this in a movie. Just watch for scenes when you're reading narrative in Samuel.

We're going to watch a handful of scenes here—two main scenes and a couple of filler ones.

The Context: Saul's Rejection

What's the context when David is introduced? What's been happening right before? What do you remember from the storyline?

Samuel is grieving. Why is Samuel grieving? He loves Saul, and Saul just got the axe. That's right.

Let me recap this. Saul was the first king of Israel. He was given a particular assignment to go fight a battle, and in that battle he's supposed to kill everything—wipe out all these animals, slaughter the thing. But he doesn't. He keeps things for himself. God rebukes him for it. God makes very clear: Saul did not do what he was supposed to do. He did not do what he was explicitly told. So God says, "That's it," and He takes the kingdom away. Not quite yet, but the promise is made that it's going away. You're going to lose your kingdom.

Samuel is grieved about this. It's kind of a mess. It's a big deal for the nation of Israel. Now we have this king who's been told he's going to lose his kingdom, and God says to Samuel, "I want you to go find the next guy that's going to replace him."

In that kind of context, how do you think Saul is going to feel? He's going to be angry. How do you think Samuel is going to feel? Not only is he sad, but what else might he be when God says go get the new guy? He's going to be scared, right? Watch the way this thing is going to play out.

The Assignment and the Risk

In 1 Samuel 16, the Lord says to Samuel:

How long are you going to mourn for Saul since I've rejected him? Fill your horn, get out of here, go get the new king. — 1 Samuel 16:1

And Samuel says in verse two:

How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me. — 1 Samuel 16:2

Right out of the gate as we're introduced to David, you've got to understand that the stakes are very, very high. We're going to have a story about David killing a giant and all these things—that's probably going to come next week—but right now as this story begins, we're recognizing there's intrigue in the kingdom. There's fear and there's worry because Saul has been told he's going to lose it, but he hasn't actually lost it yet.

It would be nice if God said you're going to lose it and he lost it immediately and David was installed, but you remember how long it's going to be until David actually becomes king? About fifteen years. That's a long time.

For fifteen years we're going to live in this already-not-yet state for David's kingship, and it's going to be a very, very frightening time. The stage is being set as David is introduced, steps into—like, the music that will be playing if this was a film is ominous. He's stepping into a very frightening environment. So much so that God basically gives Samuel a cover story: "Alright, well, you go over here, you offer a sacrifice, and while you're there you can go find David." The situation is fraught, it's dangerous. The king is still the king, he still has an awful lot of power. And off they go to find this person.

Samuel goes, and even though he's afraid he's going to get killed, what happens when he gets there? Do you remember? Well, first of all, where is he going? He's going to Jesse's family, right?

It's interesting that Samuel's afraid of Saul, but when he shows up at Bethlehem, the people there are afraid of Samuel. Yes, that's true. Which I think speaks to this idea that there's just this fear in the environment, right? You perhaps have maybe lived through seasons where everybody's just kind of on edge, everybody's afraid. That's our moment right here—just an air of fear to the whole thing.

Samuel shows up to Jesse's family and God has told him that he'll recognize him when he sees him. He doesn't tell him who the new king is going to be, who he's come to anoint. He says, "You go and then I'll show you who it is, right?" And Samuel goes and he sees him and he recognizes immediately: this is the guy, this is the new king.

When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and he thought, "Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord." — 1 Samuel 16:6

Was he right? Isn't that interesting? This is Samuel. Samuel is a big deal. Samuel is a prophet. God speaks to Samuel. Samuel speaks with authority, and right out of the gate he's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Isn't that interesting?

This suggests, I think, that we might want to have just a smidge of humility, right? You fancy yourselves wise. Do you think you're as wise as Samuel? Does God speak to you as clearly as he speaks to Samuel? And Samuel blows it right out of the gate. So maybe we should say "maybe" a little more often than we do, right?

The Lord said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at things as man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." — 1 Samuel 16:7

So he asked Jesse, "Are these all the sons you have?" Jesse answered, "They're still the youngest, but he is tending the sheep."

What physical attribute is being drawn attention to here? Size, age, very good. He looks good—his outward appearance. Yeah. Do you remember what Saul's most noteworthy physical attribute was? He was tall. Dude was just tall. Right? You all know this phenomenon, right? Presidents of the United States are all tall. CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are all like six-two or better. Mike Childress is tall. You know this phenomenon. That's how it all plays out. And God's like, "You know what? No deal."

## The Smallest, Not the Youngest

When it says "they're still the youngest" in verse 11, I don't know why the NIV does this—ESV gets it right. What does ESV say for verse 11?

The Hebrew word there means "the smallest," not his age. David is small. It's interesting that he's young, that's true, but that Hebrew word means small. I don't know why they translate it that way. ESV has a footnote below it: "small." There you go. Right? So the issue is that we just like the big guys, right? And God's like, "Yeah, I'm not impressed. I don't care about that."

God is choosing, specifically choosing the one that others would not choose. David is the smaller one. And it's also true that David is young, but that's not what the word means.

Have you ever noticed that God loves to not pick the firstborn? Who are not firstborns that God likes to pick? Solomon—not the firstborn. Jacob. Esau comes out first, right? Jacob comes out grasping his brother's heel, which is weird, right? Not the firstborn. Isaac—not the firstborn. Joseph. And Moses. Did you know Moses has Aaron, who is Moses' older brother?

You think of Moses and then there's Aaron, it's like this. Okay? Ephraim and Manasseh. These are not even the sons, these are like the grandsons, right? Over and over, why does he do that? We all know what the word primogenitor means? What does that mean? The firstborn, right? So like the firstborn gets the larger share of the estate, the firstborn gets this preferred status, that's just a broad cultural thing. Who's going to be the king when the father dies? The son. Firstborn, right? We have a very deep cultural preference for the firstborn and God completely inverts it. Why does he do that you guys?

Because God looks on the heart. God looks on the heart. Over and over again it seems like God has a very distinct and pervasive preference for the disenfranchised, for the overlooked. He loves barren women. Have you noticed that? How often women that cannot have children have a special blessing from him? It's so interesting.

One of the things that you want to learn to notice when you're reading narrative is what are the patterns, what are the habits, is God revealing something here? Now, if we will watch this, we're going to see it happen over and over again throughout Samuel but you'll see it everywhere in the Scriptures, there will be something that God does that's just weird, I don't know why he does that. Why is it what's the deal with not going with the firstborn, what it what is the deal?

If you added all the weirdnesses up, and if you just attend to all the things that are like speed bumps in the road, they're just different, He's always giving us the pattern, the picture, the foreshadowing, the anticipation, this is how he works. God loves to work through the weak and the low. Right?

God's Pattern of Using the Weak

In fact, do this. Go to First Corinthians chapter one, we'll go into chapter two. Listen to what he says. Look at verse 20. This is Paul meditating on the outworking of the strangeness of how God works. He says, I'll go to verse 18, this thing goes on forever and ever and ever.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent, I will frustrate. Where's the wise man? Where's the scholar? Where's the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs, Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both to Jews and Greek, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. — 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, that's the youngest kid in the family, that's the little guy. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. Think David and Goliath, he chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. — 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

When Paul applies this to his life in chapter two, verse two:

I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came in weakness and fear and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words but with the demonstration of the spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom but on God's power. — 1 Corinthians 2:2-5

What Paul is reflecting on is this: he's just noticed that everywhere God goes in the Old Testament, he constantly does things backward, he constantly preferences the losers and not the winners. He goes for the small guys, not the big guys. He goes for the nerds, not the jocks. He goes for the despised things and the lowly things.

Just notice this as you watch through David's life, okay, just watch all throughout the Old Testament how often these patterns are laid up that are meant to teach us that when we get to the climax of the story there will be surprises. You with me? Alright, let's keep going.

So David is going to show up, he's the littlest one in the bunch but he comes, these other firstborns don't get the game, and what does God say to Samuel about him? We're still here in this first half of First Samuel 16. What's God's message when we finally get to meet David?

The Lord has not chosen this one — 1 Samuel 16:8

Not this one in verse nine, not this one in verse ten, and then we come down to verse eleven. They're still the youngest and Samuel says, send for him, we will not sit down until he arrives.

And what's the declaration in verse 12? For? Rise and anoint this—this is he. — 1 Samuel 16:12

He is the one, this is he. And so Samuel in verse 13 takes the horn of oil and anoints him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power. What does that phrase mean? This is the one, anoint him, and then now from that day on, it's going be fifteen years, fifteen years till he becomes king, but the spirit of the Lord came on him with power.

Kelly, what does that mean? Well, actually I have a question. Okay. Yeah. That's a great question. What do you guys think? Do you have any insight into this? Does David understand what's happening to him in this moment?

If the spirit of God rushed in on him, he could more out of the nation. I think Judy's right. Yeah. I think Judy's exactly right that when Samuel comes and anoints him, he knows it, but I don't know at that moment if he knew it's gonna be fifteen years. Don't you think if I came and anointed you king, don't you think he'd be like, alright, you know, by Christmas at least. So I think he knows some aspect of what is going on, but in the same way that Samuel, who is this man of God, he mistakes Eliab, he doesn't know, David understands there's something going on, but there's so many times we see this over and over again in the scriptures, that God does not light up the corridor and say, here's how it's all gonna play out. He gives these hints and then we've got to walk in faith through this dim lit corridor.

And I remember somebody telling me when I was a college student, it's like God puts candles on our shoes and it just illuminates like just this right here, and just this, and you want like boom, light it up, I'm gonna show you what's gonna happen, but that's not the way it goes. So I think he understands that he's been called into this role, but I don't think he can possibly imagine how many times spears are gonna get thrown at him before he actually becomes king, which is going to make what's about to ensue over these next fifteen years astonishingly impressive.

Can you think of somebody else who God makes a promise to and then it takes like forever for the promise to come to pass? Abraham. It is Abraham, right? You guys know this? Hey, you're going to have a baby, he's like game on. In like how long? Twenty years or whatever, long long time. Noah, yeah very good. So there's this, hey, you're going to save the people in like a hundred years or something, right? You're gonna have a baby forever.

I just think it's neat because often when you see a powerful move of the Lord when the spirit comes upon the word, the prophetic word is spoken, it's because they know they're about to go to the wilderness. And Jesus follows the pattern. He's baptized in water and spirit comes upon him and then he's driven into the wilderness. And so when you see that pattern, I feel like it's not like, oh my gosh, why is this taking so long? But this time he's perfectly patient. His timing is perfect. Remember that verse. But to be encouraged that when God doesn't speak something to you or you feel like he's leading in a particular manner, you might have been in the wilderness, just know that's the pattern. That's where you're supposed to be.

It's so lame. We're like, I don't want them like Moses, you're gonna lead my people but Moses has two forty year spans. There's the famous forty years of roaming around waiting to get into the promised land but he had to wait forty years before they even started the journey. Remember this? He had his own private time, so Moses long haul, Abraham long haul, David, it's over and over and over again, even Paul. You don't think about it, feel like when you read the book of Acts you get the impression that Paul comes to faith and it's like immediately it's go time. He says in Galatians it was like thirteen years that he spent alone in the wilderness. It's so crazy, we're like, can we please just do this? The gestation period, if you will, for the people of God is long.

But here's what—watch this play out. How well does Abraham do during his wait? Not so great, right? What kind of games is he gonna play waiting for a baby? The whole Hagar thing, that was kind of a low point I think. How many times is he just making these stupid decisions? David is going to do an unbelievably good job waiting for fifteen years and he doesn't know that it's fifteen years, he doesn't know if it's one year or fifteen or forty-five, he is faithful to wait.

That's one of the things we want to watch about his life—the exceptional patience of David during God's ordinary period of, "Hey, it's gonna be a while, I made a promise to you, I'm gonna keep it later." Oh gosh, that would drive you mad, Kelly Sue.

Yeah, the peculiar thing is that David's kingship is not made more explicit. Right, so I don't know that it's a letdown for David. And you might be right. I do think that Samuel is gonna be telling him more than is necessarily revealed in any one of these narratives. They're always going to telescope the information—we're not getting a verbatim transcript of all that happens. So I do think there's more going on. We see that there's never—I'm not aware, maybe we'll see it and I've forgotten it—but I don't think there's a time where David is going to be told this later. But he has, throughout this period, been aware that the kingdom is his, and he's waiting patiently for it. But maybe there's more. We'll see as we go through it; maybe I'll be eating those words as we go.

Okay, Catherine, you had something?

I just get this feeling about David that he spent so much time alone with God.

Oh, for sure. Out there with the sheep. Year after year, all by himself. And he did kill those beasts. There was so much preparation. To me, just the word "trust"—I think he had trust in God more than any of the others, you know?

That's right. I think that is one of the things that the Lord sees in David that he's pointing Samuel to: David has an enormous amount of faith in the Lord, right? So when he kills lions and bears, he's like, "Well, I'll kill lions and bears, and we'll see this." He's like, "I can kill Goliath. I've killed lions, let's dance"—because he's walked with Him and he lives with Him. And David's one of His. When we ask why he's a man after God's own heart, I think it is chiefly that he trusts Him, he believes in Him, and he's willing to do great things. He's got issues—we're gonna see them. David's gonna screw up a whole bunch of stuff. But he sees them.

Reading Narrative with Intention

Okay, again, when you're reading narrative, we're looking for tags, looking for meanings. Because the narrator is not going to tell us what things mean—he's just gonna tell us what happened and leave it up to us to figure out the meaning. These narratives do not have morals to the story that are made explicit. He's like, "Watch it happen." And so if we will read attentively and notice what's going on, then the meaning will come forward.

So what he says is:

From that day on, the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power. — 1 Samuel 16:13

That's worth underlining. That's a big deal.

Yeah, Bob?

In the ESV it says "rushed upon him." And if you go back to chapter 10, Samuel is anointing Saul, and the Spirit actually rushes upon him and he prophesies with the other prophets. He was given that same opportunity, and David capitalized on it with obedience in the long term.

Excellent. So what we're meant to see here is we're doing a comparison and a contrast with Saul—this is going to be chapters and chapters and chapters. We're watching a comparison and a contrast with Saul. Saul had been given the Spirit, but the spirit was taken away. And now the Spirit is going to be given to David, and it's not going to be taken away. That's why David has it. There's a psalm—you might know the lyrics of it—where he says:

Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and renew your steadfastness.

Okay, that's David saying, "Don't do to me what you did to Saul. I watched my predecessor. I watched what happened there. Don't do that to me."

And now let me just tell you this: sometimes when we sing that song, I'm like, "Oh, I love that song." However, don't misunderstand the poor theology you might think of, because the Spirit was given to you in Christ in a different way than the Spirit was given to Saul and to David. He will never take His Spirit from you. If you are in Christ, we are in a position of security that is different from what these guys had. These guys lived pre-New Covenant. They lived before the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost. It was a special, unique, unusual thing. It mattered. It was amazing. But it's not what we're experiencing now.

So if you read that—I forget what Psalm number it is. If anybody remembers it, shout it out.

Psalm 51?

Take not the Holy Spirit from me.

Okay, He's not gonna. Okay? We're living in a different time. We're under a different covenant. The Spirit has been given out to those in Christ. He's poured out to us. He's never going to lose it. But for David, it was a real option. For Saul, it wasn't only a real option—it happened.

And so we're watching this, you're watching for the contrast: Saul was given the spirit, he was taken away, then David is given the spirit. And then there's another contrast, watch for it. Here's the contrast here, verse 14:

Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, right, that's what we're talking about, and a quote evil spirit from Saul tormented him.

So let's pause there for a second. What on earth do you make of the Lord sending an evil spirit to Saul? What do you think is going on there? The Lord gave Saul an evil spirit. Anybody have a problem with that? I think that's strange. Anybody on team weird for that? Okay.

So a couple things to know. Hebrew is very rich in verbs, it's very poor in nouns, which means that nouns have broad lexical range. When you see a noun in Hebrew, there's like one word that means like twenty different things. And the word here—evil—let me show you how this word is translated in lots of places. That word shows up over 300 times in the Old Testament.

Here it is in Genesis 31:

I have the power to harm you

Same word. But:

Last night the God of your fathers said to me, be careful not to say anything to Jacob either good or bad

Same word. Genesis 37:

Now let us kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal

That word translated as evil, harm, bad, ferocious. Genesis 41:

After them seven other cows came up scrawny and very ugly. I'd never seen such ugly cows. The lean, ugly cows ate up all the ones. They looked just as ugly as before.

Same word. So it's ugly, it's ferocious, it's bad, it's harm. Genesis 44:

Do not let me see the misery

Same word.

That would come upon my father.

Exodus 33:

When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn, and no one put on any warnings.

So if you begin to get a sense of the word, no doubt it's unpleasant, right? Ferocious, misery, ugly, all these things. But it doesn't mean—it doesn't have to mean, and I don't believe in this instance that it does mean—morally depraved, right? The word evil comes to us with a sense of sin associated with it in your life, right? But the word doesn't need to mean that and I do not believe that God would send sinful spirits to Saul. But I do think that he is not just here but in other places in life, is he willing to bring pain and appeal his lives? He is. But we don't charge him with sin. This is not a sinful thing. It is miserable and Saul is going to suffer, and he does that all the time.

Suzanne, is it possible that it's miserable? I mean, he's had the Holy Spirit taken, and he has this spirit from God that's ferocious, say, instead of evil. Yeah, it's like all the time rubbing against this sinful nature that he has.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because Saul brings all the evil to the party that we need, right? It's not like we don't need to add a cup of sin into the life of Saul. The rebellion is already there but God is going to bring misery into it.

By comparison? That's a great question. Yes, that's a great question. So if he's used to the Holy Spirit living in him and the spirit has been removed, could it be the contrast here? It's just that it's just miserable. I think there's something to this—that he is lacking and he will be lacking for, again, for the next fifteen years. He is living outside of the blessing that he once enjoyed and it's gone. But he's living outside of that in a state of sin. Have you noticed that sin and suffering just kind of go hand in hand? Your sin causes you to suffer and your suffering causes you to sin? Have you noticed this phenomenon? It's my badness breaks me and my brokenness makes me bad. So these things are playing out.

God's Purpose in Saul's Suffering

For Saul, think—why would God do this? Why would God bring this spirit into his life to exemplify his misery, his sadness, his rebellion, his pain? Why do you think that is part of God's purposes here?

Well, to teach him a lesson. Maybe to make it more clear to the people of Israel over time that Saul is not God's chosen leader.

Yes, to make it clear to the people of God. All these things are true. Does God ever bring pain so that he can bring healing? Can you think of other instances where he does that?

Lily?

Jesus.

Jesus. Okay. I mean it's everywhere, right? It's just constantly all the time. And in this particular instance, what's going to be interesting—maybe you know if you know the next verse—God is going to put Saul in a place of sadness and misery, of ferocity, all these different things. Is God also going to provide a healer to Saul? And it's David. It's our guy, right? So what you've got to see is that Saul is not—we're not just comparing and contrasting here their lives, one had the spirit, one has lost the spirit—but Saul is going to become the foil for the grandeur of David, right?

What's about to happen is that Saul in his misery, in his sorrow, in his lowliness is gonna have someone who steps into his life and brings him peace. Watch it, watch it play out. Here it goes.

Whenever the spirit from God came upon Saul, this is this misery inducing spirit, came from God to Saul, David would take his harp and play, and then relief would come to Saul. He would feel better and the evil spirit would leave him. — 1 Samuel 16:23

God is doing something here. As he's replacing Saul, you have this sense—it's very different from the way John the Baptist is going to use the phrase—but one of these men is going to become lesser and the other is going to become greater. Saul in his misery and sorrow and his grief, he's going to be comforted by David over and over and over. And despite the fact that David is endlessly good to him, Saul is going to have only increasing animosity back to him.

We're just watching the narrative pattern that God brings one who is a rescuer, who brings comfort, who brings solace. But even in the midst of that solace, it only increases the rebellion. I wonder if God might be teaching something about what it's like to be the God of this group of people. Is it not true that he brings comfort into our lives, he rescues us in our sin and suffering and then we rebel from him more?

There's a pattern we're watching to see. Saul was more than unhappy. Saul was going insane. He's gonna lose his mind as he becomes more and more unhinged and more and more committed to these things that God is denying him. The separation from reality is just only gonna grow.

The Power of Music

Notice that it's in the music that helps Saul. David plays music for him and that has this calming effect. Music has some power to speak into different parts of our lives, and it shouldn't surprise us that God has used it. It seemed like it was part of his plan when he invented music, that it would be a gift to us.

David's Character and Saul's Decline

Let me read you this from one of the best commentaries on First Samuel—the New American Commentary. There's a great website called bestcommentaries.com. They rank every commentary ever made, and you can go through and see who's got the greatest insights on each book.

The three concluding verses of chapter 16 depict David's first encounter with the one who would soon devote his life to trying to kill him. The verses play an important role in the larger scheme of First and Second Samuel for they serve as the first evidence that David was a loyal, trustworthy servant of Saul who used his abilities to benefit the king. In spite of Saul's repeated efforts to kill David, Israel's next king made absolutely no efforts to bring down Saul's dynasty. In fact, David performed feats in Saul's behalf that no one else could, and the king initially appreciated David's efforts. But the relationship deteriorates, and as it deteriorates, it will never be David's fault that the relationship fails. — New American Commentary on 1 Samuel

If you're going to read chapter sixteen through twenty-one, if you're going to walk through this dynamic, the author here, as he introduces David, is creating a template for us. Watch this: What you're going to find over and over and over again, Saul is treacherous toward David. And David with great extremity has the opportunity to do him good or to do him harm every single time without fail. He will always do him good.

We're watching that pattern develop. That means something. We'll see more of what it means as the story goes on, but as you read through, just watch for that. Notice the comparison and the contrast. One man has lost the Spirit of God and is going to lose his mind. His world becomes inner and inner and inner—he spins into madness.

You're gonna watch him make some really, really foolish decisions as his sin and rebellion just decays. One man has perceived the Spirit of God, which gives him the power and the ability under extreme duress to unfailingly do the right thing until he doesn't.

Samuel is going to give us hope and hope and hope and hope and hope because we're looking for the Messiah, we're looking for the one who has come, the king, the King for whom we long. Is this him? Is he the guy? And we're gonna grow and think it's him, I think it's him. Are you seeing how well this is going? I think it's him. It's gonna break because the point is that he is not the Messiah, he is not the King but he points to the one who is.

David's gonna break your heart, right? But before he breaks your heart, watch his goodness, watch his beauty, watch his faithful suffering, and let's see where the narrator is trying to take us.

1 Samuel 16

You want to read it? Start at chapter 16, slam away at it, we'll pick it up in chapter 17 next week.