Sunday School | David - 1 Samuel 18

So what we're doing in here, if you're just coming in or haven't been here, we're walking through the life of David. And David's life is found primarily in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel, although we get all kinds of supplemental information about him everywhere. He wrote half of the Psalms. We're going to primarily use Samuel as our guide and kind of jump to Psalms as needed.

But one of the things that I really want to impress upon you guys is not just to merely come and sit in this class and hang out with us. We're delighted to have you here, but really I hope that you might spend time daily in the habit of just reading through it. If you read a chapter a day, that'll take you about five minutes. If you want to get fifteen minutes, you can bang out three chapters a day. But maybe just read through Samuel.

There's a number of different benefits, not the least of which is that as we're studying the life of David, really, I'm just using David as a tool to help you learn how to read narrative, how to read the Old Testament, how to learn about the life of this central character. He's the most important character in the Bible apart from Jesus. But also because we want to learn how to read it in a way that discovers Jesus. And if you're learning all this stuff in class but you're not actually doing it at home, you're missing out. This class doesn't have any value if you don't apply it and do it.

So really, I hope that if you've never yet developed the habit of every day—before you go to bed or when you wake up, before you go to work, or maybe on your lunch break—take five minutes, take twenty minutes, take whatever time you can carve out and say, "I'm going to have this relentless habit of spending time in the Scriptures every day." And maybe you'd start that in 1 Samuel. And if so, we're in chapter 18 this week. It might be a good place to start if you want to pick up the story where we're going.

Now, if you do that and you're reading through his life and you understand the story, then you're going to find—and it's just going to happen. You only have to try. You're going to notice echoes. As we do this today, I want you to notice some different sorts of echoes. Sometimes we're going to find something in 1 Samuel 18 perhaps that reminds us of something that happened. Maybe I'm making this up, but you're going to begin to notice, "Oh, hang on a second. That happened before." The narrator is weaving things in on purpose. There's things that you're going to notice, things you're going to see, and just the fact of being in the text is going to help you to notice echoes that occur within the passage.

In fact, where's my wife? Kelly, see where you're at. Okay. So Kelly is sitting back here, and she wasn't here last week. She was at a reunion with her college roommates, but she listened to the talk, listened to the class. And she said, "You know, one thing I saw and noticed—I'm just going to say this because they won't be able to hear you, babe, if that's okay—is that when David shows up last week we looked at David and Goliath. And when David shows up there on the battlefield to deliver the goods, three of his brothers are named. He's got like seven or eight brothers, but three of them are named. And one of them—do you remember?—one of them was like really grumpy and really grouchy. We were talking about why David hasn't even done anything yet, his brother's already ticked at him. Well, Kelly noticed something in that passage about the naming of those three brothers that just kind of sheds light on that."

Anybody want to guess? Can you read Kelly's mind? The naming of three brothers—do you know where we saw that also?

In the anointing. Exactly right. So if you go back to chapter 16, I think—David and Goliath is 17. I think 16 is the anointing, maybe it's 15, but I think it's 16. In the anointing, those same three brothers are named. And that anointing of David is specifically a rejection of this one, a rejection of this one, a rejection of this one. And those three that are named that Samuel is like, "Not him," or God's like, "Not him. Not him. Not him." are the same three that are named there at the battlefield.

So I think the author is doing that. Kelly was pointing out that he's probably reminding us that these brothers that were passed over and then jealous of their brother who, for whatever reason, the runt of the litter is the one that gets picked—that's going to show up again. And those are the sorts of things you're going to notice if you're just immersed in the text, if you're just reading and thinking, "Hey, that reminds me of something." That's what we're looking for—those internal echoes.

We're also looking for echoes or connections that exist outside of 1 Samuel. So we're going to see this today. Some stuff is going to happen in our story about the life of David that is also part of the broader Old Testament context. Things are going to happen in David's life, particularly this week in chapter 18, that are reminiscent of things that have happened in the lives of other people. So you just click on that filter. You're just watching for: Am I seeing a pattern of the way God behaves? Are there other leaders or other characters in the Bible that had a similar circumstance with a similar result to what we're going to see in David's life? If we start to notice those, then you can begin to grow in confidence: "Oh, okay. He's saying something. This is not a one off. This is how God behaves."

And then a third filter, just to watch for, is whenever you're reading these narratives: How does this anticipate or point to what we know about Jesus? What's going on in David's life? There are things that are conspicuously similar to what Jesus is going to ultimately be and do. And if we can learn to notice those, then that's going to give us an advantage in recognizing what the Holy Spirit really meant in telling this story and including these details. He's trying to show us something. He's not just showing us what has happened, not just showing the patterns that God gives, but He's showing the ultimate fulfillment of that pattern—over and over and over and over again—is going to come to bear in the life of Christ. All of these things that God is doing are themselves foreshadowings, prefigurements, anticipations of who the Messiah will be. And we're just going to try to learn to catch those things and notice them. If we do, then my promise to you is that the Bible is going to come alive to you in a way that it never has. That's what we're trying to do. But all of it happens because you're all by yourself alone with a book, and you're reading it, and you're beginning to discover things that God has put there.

Alright, let's do 1 Samuel 18. Continuing the story of David's life with all that stuff in the back of your mind.

David and Jonathan's Covenant

Alright, starts off 18:1. So listen for echoes. Listen for where have we seen this one before? Where has this happened already, even like in the last couple chapters? Just notice.

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 to his father's house. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. And 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. — 1 Samuel 18:1-4

So there's a lot going on. We're just going to look at one thing happening here. I'm going to direct your attention to one. What is this reminiscent of? What's happening between David and Jonathan right here? Because it's not the first time we've seen this happen. Covenant. What is it? Covenant. Okay, so David is making a covenant with Jonathan. What's a covenant? It's a compact. That's not bad, Susan. It's okay, so in a covenant you're going to have two different parties and they're going to form some kind of an agreement. You are many of you are in a particular covenant right now. Marriage. Marriage is a covenant.

Why is marriage a covenant, Lois? Because, to me anyway, because I made a promise to God through love and not only the way—love and honor. Love and honor. And obedience is good, right? Because marriage is a picture of our union to Christ, right?

And in marriage, it's crazy. I'm doing a wedding today. You guests know Kyle and Whitney. Whitney Gibson, she's been leading our youth. She's a fellow. Kyle also was a fellow. They're getting married today. And in that marriage, we're going to frame it out. It is a covenant. And in that covenant, Kyle is going to play the role. It's crazy. Kyle's job, bless his heart, he is supposed to be like Jesus. He's supposed to love his bride the way Jesus loves the church—unconditionally and sacrificially and purifyingly. And I'm going to unpack that for him. I'm going to lay a heavy burden on him. And it is a big deal.

And Whitney has a role in that covenant as well. And she portrays the church. And her job is to love her husband Kyle, not the way the church loves Jesus, because that would be a train wreck, but the way the church is supposed to love Jesus. Men have a more faithful model to follow. We love the way Jesus does love. Wives are called to love the way the church ought to love. Not the same thing, right? But the way that the church should respond to Christ is mirrored in the way that a wife responds to her husband. And the way that Christ loves the church is mirrored in the way that a husband loves his wife. It is a covenant.

These two parties are going to make a commitment. Right? And so Jonathan and David, they are making this covenant, this commitment to each other, and covenant language is strong throughout the Scriptures. And there's more here going on than just that, right? But God is making a covenant with us. It's a relationship, but there are terms and there's promises and there's blessings. There's even curses. There's a punishment for failing to keep the covenant. There's a lot of things we could unpack in there. Okay? Good.

What else? There's other things that are more benign, more banal in this, but that are still significant in the story. What's happening? How does Jonathan—what is he doing with David? How about visually if you were watching it?

Stuart says he's taking the robe off the top—it's like handing the kingdom. His heir. The heir to the kingdom is handing it to David. Okay. So Jonathan, who is the son of the king, is dressing David in his clothes. Where did we see that happen? One chapter ago, in Saul and Goliath. David rejects it. That's right.

So do you guys remember? This is part of the narrative structure here. Saul tells David, "Here, put on my armor, put on my clothes." He says, "I can't do it." The next chapter, Jonathan, the son of the king, gives David his clothes. Similarly, in the David and Goliath story, what is David's artifact that he gets after the battle? A sword. He gets Saul's sword. What does Jonathan give him? His sword. His sword, right? Okay.

So let me read from a commentary. This is probably the top commentary on First Samuel. It says this:

In a single day, David had acquired the finest sword in the Philistine army as well as one of the finest swords in Israel's army. He had been permitted to wear the king's clothing in the time of conflict and was given princely clothing in times of peace. The fact that Jonathan gave David the garb and armaments originally reserved for Saul's heir—that's what he is, right—clearly possesses symbolic and thematic significance. This is the moment that David becomes a member of the royal family.

Right? Kelly Sue, is there a New Testament echo? By all means. Yeah, I'd love to hear it.

The prodigal son, Luke 15. When the sun is far off in the wilderness, yes. That's right, exactly right. So what Kelly Sue is quoting from the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, where when the son comes back and the father sees him while he's still a long way off, and he runs to him and he says, "Put a robe on him and kill the fattened calf." This imagery permeates the Scriptures. Zechariah 3 is this great story of Joshua the high priest, and they're going to clothe him. He said, "Take off his filthy clothes and dress him in new garments." Paul's going to use this image in Colossians, right, that we are dressed in the righteousness of Christ.

So we're noticing something. We're jumping ahead to conclusions, but we're noticing, "Oh wow, look, something keeps happening. They keep trying to dress David. It's more than just the garments. There's meaning behind the garments. It's an invitation into this royal position." Okay? No huge takeaway for that yet. We're just beginning to notice the echoes. Okay?

So this happens. It's a covenant. He's being dressed in. He's being part of the family. Go to chapter 18, verse 5. It says this:

Whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. And this pleased all the people and Saul's officers as well. — 1 Samuel 18:5

For this one, let's leave Samuel. This is a theme. Okay? I'll just give you this explicitly. This is a biblical theme. Where else do you see this? Where somebody who's nobody, right, some lowly position is exalted to the highest because of the supremacy and excellence with which they do everything. Joseph. Okay, we have a whole bunch of names. Joseph. Okay, give us the Joseph story. How does this work?

Well, he's sold into slavery in Egypt, and he's nobody, but he ends up—all that he does, he has this gift where it keeps happening for him, right? He gets sold into slavery and he's the best slave. You see this pattern where he goes to the lowest place, but he's such a good prisoner, he's such a good slave. And slavery and prisoner are not the places where you tend to go to find your CEOs or your prime ministers, right? But in his lowliness, he is so good in the situation where he is placed that even in that low place he's exalted to the highest. Then again, even to be the right hand of the king, the pharaoh of Egypt. Joseph is a very clear picture. The same idea is going on with David.

Who else? You guys shout out a few. Gideon. How does the Gideon story work out?

They're on the threshing floor, the angel of the Lord comes and says, "Mighty man of God," and he's kind of like, "Who am I? Yes."

And yet Gideon goes on to become one of the great judges—the great rulers of Israel in the darkest time. If you want to read an interesting book, the book of Judges is such a nightmare. Everything spins out into madness at all times. But in the midst of it, God will raise up certain people. Gideon is one of them.

Who else? Moses. How is Moses a nobody? Well, he starts as a slave, risen to the palace, then he's accused as a murderer. He lives in the desert as a shepherd. Then he comes back as the redeemed. You see the same kind of W-shaped thing. We often talk about the V-shaped gospel—we descend to the lowest place and are exalted to the highest place. Sometimes you'll see that pattern repeatedly. Moses as a baby in a basket destined to die, raised in the palace of the king. As a murderer on the run, exalted to lead the people. You see it over and over again: Moses, Joseph, Gideon. How about one more? Jesus. Well, we'll save Jesus for last. But yes. How about one more in the Old Testament, and then we'll get to the hero of the story? Rahab? How does her story play out? She's a prostitute—pretty lowly. She's Jesus' great great great great great great grandma. That's pretty cool. And she's the one who God uses to bring significant rescue to the people. Over and over and over again, we see the pattern.

Daniel—we didn't mention Daniel. He's a big one. He becomes exalted to his highest place. They give him this place of rule. And he, again, is a slave—he's a captured remnant. Then he's exalted to the place of leadership. And then when it comes to pass in the life of Jesus, we shouldn't be that surprised because this theme is so deep into the story. God is clearly giving hints. He likes to exalt the lowly. It should not shock us. He does it over and over and over again.

You could be in the lowest place, in the crummiest job with the worst circumstance, and if in that place you will be faithful with what he's entrusted to you—just be the best slave you can be. That picks up in the New Testament. The New Testament talks about the language of slaves, like owned human beings, and it kind of gives people fits because you feel like everything the New Testament should say is "cast off your chains" and "throw a rebellion." I get the impulse behind that. If I were a slave, that would probably be my default impulse as well. But it is not the biblical impulse. The biblical impulse is: take the lowest place. Descend into the lowest place because it is there, from there, that God exalts us. So wherever you're at, crush it. Do the best job you can despite there being no recognition, no compensation—crush it. Because God's pattern is: those who go to the lowest place are exalted to the highest place.

Jesus as the Ultimate Example

So when Jesus shows up, he takes the lowest place. It's Philippians 2. I've quoted this ten thousand times. Do you have the Christ hymn memorized? Do you know how it goes?

He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself of no reputation and took on the likeness of man, and being in human form, he humbled himself, became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalts him to the highest place and gives him the name that's above every name. — Philippians 2

This is the pattern. This is what we expect to see.

I just was thinking that Jesus even gives us this example as a child. When Mary and Joseph find him in the temple and he says, "Didn't you know I'd be in my Father's house?" Then as soon as he comes, he submitted to them and he obeyed. And then the scriptures say that he grew in wisdom and stature, and also in favor with God and man. The fact that even Jesus grew—God, I think that says something really cool to us about our own walk with him. Even Jesus is faithful with what is entrusted to him and therefore more is entrusted to him and more is entrusted to him even in the lowest places.

It is so backward from the way the world thinks things ought to be, but it is the way things are. And if we're paying attention to the story, you just keep seeing this over and over and over again. So maybe I shouldn't gripe if I'm given the crummy task, right? Because that's the way God works his kingdom.

David and the King's Jealousy

Eighteen:six, it says:

When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul. The king was singing and dancing with joyful songs with tambourine and lutes, and as they danced they sang. Saul has slain his thousands. He loved that. And David, his tens of thousands.

How do you think Saul liked that line? What's the next line in the text? What does it say? Angry. Dismayed. Galled. One of the translations is it galled him. This made him so mad.

So here we are. We're just watching David. David now has among all the things he has to contend with, now he must contend with the jealousy of a king. Who here wants to provoke the jealousy of a king? Nobody. It's a bad scene. It's just a really bad scene.

So what does that remind you of? Anything—where does that maybe fit within the story, within David's story, or within the Old Testament Scriptures, or even pointing to Christ? What does this evoke in your mind?

Brother's jealousy. Right. It's a theme. We saw it earlier in chapter 16. His brothers get overlooked. He gets picked. In the Goliath thing, his brothers are all snippy with him. So it sounds like maybe God is showing that the people that he loves, the people that he's placed his hand on, even if they're faithful—people are going to hate them for it, even if they haven't done anything wrong. Cain is jealous of his brother. How many times has somebody done something right and they're hated for it? So that might be a theme you're tracing through the Scriptures.

What else? Where is it again, within the story, outside the story, or pointing to Jesus? Jealousy. I've done nothing wrong, but I'm hated.

Saul's pretense. That's important. Did you hear that? You're seeing this pattern here where David is one—Michael is in love with David, and Jonathan is in love with David and wants to give him the kingdom. Now the crowds—everybody who owes properly allegiance to Saul—everybody is lining up on team David. Holy moly. How galling is that?

This is why—how does David feel about becoming the son, about marrying Saul's daughter? What's his perspective on that?

Humility. Yeah. And you know what? I think he knows this is not going to go well for me. Like, this is just one more way that I'm going to earn the ire of the king. It's a special man. If you were the king, would you have liked this? I don't think you would. I don't think you would at all.

Do you all want to be the favorite grandparent? Does it gall you that your grandchildren might like those losers? You know, this thing is just woven into us. And so David gets it. He knows it.

Where do you see that in Jesus' life? Where does this come to fruition for him? Did Jesus have to deal with jealousy of those that didn't like his crowds?

His own hometown. When he went to his own hometown, preaching in the temple, and they were rejecting his word. Yes. "Who are you to tell us? A prophet in his own hometown has no honor." And then also in the parable of the prodigal son, the son that was there got the sense that the father was going all out for the son that had been away. "That's another—you squandered your money on riotous living and you're killing a pig for him? Like, you never threw a party for me."

And with the religious leaders being jealous of Jesus—even Peter and Pilate perceived their jealousy. But I thought that was interesting because it also points back to that pattern of the firstborn, their inheritance being taken and that authority being swung upside down, from the very beginning. Jacob gets the birthright and then there's this theme throughout all these stories of, "That's my birthright." And God's like, "Oh, you may be the firstborn, you may be the firstborn, chosen people among all peoples, but God subverts it. I could raise up a leader out of these rocks."

And God subverts these expectations all the time. The Pharisees are always jealous of Jesus. I did a word study on this a couple days ago, and if you do a search for Pharisees and crowds, what you'll find is that there's this correspondence. There'll be a crowd gathering around Jesus, and then the Pharisees are all grumpy about it. And I think it's because they're like, "I wanted the crowd, you know?" This phenomenon is real.

Here's a couple examples. Matthew 9:

While they were going out, a man who was demon possessed and couldn't talk was brought to Jesus. When the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. And they said, "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel." — Matthew 9:32-33

But the Pharisees said, "It's by the prince of demons that he drives out demons." — Matthew 9:34

They've got to find a way to justify it. They've got to build their own narrative. Yeah, well sure the crowds love him. The crowds are idiots, right? They can't even tell what we can see, which he's clearly possessed by a demon. You see this thing, it happens repeatedly.

When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at Jesus' teaching. And hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. — Matthew 22

You wanna know what they do when they get together? They plot how they're gonna kill him. So it's the crowds provoked the—okay, so this is just a theme. We just see it. It's not even a biblical theme as much as it's just a human nature theme, right? Nobody likes it when the other guy is getting all the popularity.

Catherine, what would you want to say? Sarah, yeah. Now this is a great—so there's lots of jealousy. It's just funny. I don't even know how this works out, apparently if one man has multiple wives, the wives get jealous of each other. Isn't that weird? Like, what is up with that, right? I don't know how that plays out. Silly. Okay. So we're gonna see these themes of jealousy, right? And now you might know—oh, other times I've done a good job. I've been faithful with what had been entrusted to me, but I'm hated for it. What am I doing wrong? Well, maybe nothing. Maybe nothing, okay?

The Evil Spirit and Saul's Attack

How about 1 Samuel 18:10? Watch this.

The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully upon Saul. — 1 Samuel 18:10

We talked about this, right? Evil spirit. You remember this? What does it mean when it says evil spirit? Harmful. Harmful. Very good. What is this, Susan? Maybe lack of favor? Yeah. So the spirit that comes on—it's not that God is using sin. We read evil and think sinful, but when you look at that way, it's the Hebrew word Ra, and it shows up like 200 times in the Old Testament. And it doesn't mean that God is using sin to accomplish his purposes. It's a harmful spirit. It's a troubling spirit. It is specifically sent to interfere in his life. Absolutely it's happening, but I wouldn't carry into that some of the moral implications of that that we would think, okay?

So this spirit, this evil, troublesome, harmful, injurious spirit comes from God upon Saul.

Saul was prophesying in his house while David was playing the harp, as he usually did. And Saul had a spear in his hand and hurled it, saying to himself, "I'll pin David to the wall." But David eluded him twice. — 1 Samuel 18:10-11

That's weird that he stuck around long enough for it to happen a second time. Wouldn't you leave after the first spear? That's weird, okay. So I don't know. Any observations about that? Echoes? Has that happened before? Does it remind you of anything in the Old Testament? Does it point you in any way to Jesus? Chew on that.

In fact, let's do this one for just a minute at your tables. Give you guys a chance to think about this one. Where does this whole idea—I won't tell you I have a category for that, but just think about it. Anything interesting about the spirit chucking thing? Go ahead and take a minute. Chat. Work it out.

Alright, any observations, anything? And by the way, we are always, always, always allowed to get stuff wrong on the way to getting it right. We're just experimenting. We're just rolling it around. So got any theories? Why is the Spirit including this little detail? Yeah, Kathryn. Kat?

Well, makes me think about when the crowds wanted to throw Jesus over the cliff or all those things and he just eluded them, he just sort of walked through them. Excellent. That actually happened several times, right? So I think that echoes that to me. Like there's—let's see, there's—I'll read a couple of these where Jesus, something similar happens to Jesus and I'll try to see what it means.

They got up and they drove him out of the town and they took him to the brow of the hill in which the town was built in order to throw him down the cliff, but he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. — Luke 4

After Jesus said, "Before Abraham was born, I am," they picked up stones to stone him, but he hid himself slipping away from the temple grounds. — John 8

Jesus says, "Even if I do it, even though you don't believe in Me, believe in miracles that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father. And again they tried to seize him, but he escaped." — John 10

It's interesting, okay? So what do you think, Kat? Why that reminds you of that. Do you think that the author of 1 Samuel was pointing us to that? Do you have any thoughts on what that means?

Why there's that connection? It's similar because David eluded the spear. And I'm sure that had something to do with God because he didn't want David to get killed right then.

What did she just say? God didn't want David to get killed right then. Then, right? Are they going to kill Jesus? They are. Are they going to kill him by pushing him over a cliff? Are they going to kill him by stoning him to death? No. So there seems to me that God's purposes will prevail. I don't know how he keeps slipping the noose. He just keeps evading capture. But God has a purpose. It's going to end when it ends.

Does that give you any comfort—that God's purposes will prevail? There may be enormous pain in the story. There is. But God has a plan. God has a purpose.

Kat mentioned that it makes her think about the world because we think the world's gonna end all these times because of this and that. In the past, the world wars and things. The Cuban Missile Crisis, and we somehow skipped it. There's this great phrase in Galatians 4:

In the fullness of time, God sent a Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law — Galatians 4:4-5

So there is a plan that is working out. Paul says it's in conformity with the purposes of his will. Sometimes the world feels very chaotic, but God had a plan for David, and so he is going to spare him from not just two spears but a whole bunch more stuff. David's going to die, and so are you. But not yet. Right? There's a plan that's working out.

David's Pattern of Evasion

This whole idea that David eludes capture—this is going to happen over and over and over again. Saul's constantly trying to kill David. For the next 30 chapters, David's a marked man. There's this great scene where David is marching around this mountain. David is marching around this mountain and Saul and his army are coming around the mountain. They're like, right here. So you're now Saul. We're getting right to be here, we're right here, and all you've got to do is turn your head. Somebody's like, "Hey Saul, something's going on at home." And right here, Saul leaves and turns around and goes away. And there's no way that David could have ever fixed it. David couldn't have. But God just, at the right moment, intervenes, makes Saul stupid, spins him around, and off he goes.

He's going to evade it over and over again because God is in control. Just watch it. It might even be fun to look back at your life. Where has God been in control? You're on the brink of disaster, and yet for reasons you can't explain, it all worked out. Have you seen this happen? Well, maybe God is in charge.

Kat shared that she almost got run over in the parking lot the other day at Kroger's. This girl was weeping, pulling out. So she was walking behind her because she was going that way. All of a sudden she backed up quickly and to touch her, but she stopped. Seriously. Right? And you got to spare your life and us the sorrow of that one time yet. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow. You never know. Right? But not yet.

The Daughter Setup

Look at this. What's going on with this daughter thing? 1 Samuel 18:17. Saul says to David:

Here's my older daughter, Merab. I will give her to you in marriage. Only serve me bravely and fight the battles of the Lord. For Saul had said to himself, "I will not raise a hand against him. Let the Philistines do that." — 1 Samuel 18:17

I want you to get this one. Listen to this again: 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. For Saul said to himself, "I will not raise a hand against him. Let the Philistines do that."

This is the setup. This is yucky. Does this remind you of anything? We haven't gotten there yet, but you've heard about the story. What is it? What's the Bathsheba connection?

The husband was sent out to fight. Yes, right. So when David sees Bathsheba taking a bath, she was aptly named, and he gets her pregnant, and now he's got to solve this problem. He has her husband—what's Bathsheba's husband's name? Uriah. Uriah's got to come home. He's supposed to go home and sleep with his wife, so he'll think the kid is his. But he's too honorable for that. It's like, oh my gosh.

So plan B is send Uriah to the most ferocious part of the battle and let the Philistines kill him, and then I'll marry everything he has. Right? This makes it even worse, right? The exact thing that had been done to David, David was sent into battle in the hopes that he would die. Implicating this thing with this woman, and that very thing from which God graciously and miraculously spared him, he employs the exact same technique against his enemy. Maybe David thought it was a good idea. Yeah, maybe David learned, I know something that might work, right? It's awful.

And that's why we say we're watching David through two lenses. On the one hand, he is the template of the Messiah. He does so many things well. There's so many people like, "Ah, this anticipates what God is going to do." He is the man after God's own heart. There's all these things that we love about David, but the narrator is careful to say, "But hang on, don't get too excited, because he is not the Messiah. He is the template for the form of, and he is the greatest disappointment and the foil because he is going to do to Uriah exactly what God rescued him from with Saul." Bummer, right?

So this should just be like, as you get to this part of the story, you're like, "Oh, well, okay." If you get to the part of the story the first time, you won't recognize it because we haven't gotten to the Bathsheba chapter yet. But then maybe by the time you get to the Bathsheba chapter, you're like, "Hold on. This happened before. What a dirtbag. What an absolute snake in the grass." I guess maybe there's someone else that even David cannot be the son of David. Someone else is going to have to come and be him. Make sense? That's how you read this stuff.

Alright, let's keep going. 1 Samuel 18:20—alright, jump down there. Watch this.

Now, Saul's daughter Michal was in love with David. — 1 Samuel 18:20

Remember Jonathan? Winsome. Everybody has fallen in love with David. And so when they told Saul about it, he was pleased. He thought, "I will give her to him." And listen to the heart of this father. He thought, "Well, number one, she may be a snare to him, and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him."

And so Saul said to David, "Now you have a second opportunity—truly a third, but a second opportunity—to become my son-in-law." Saul's got two different angles. There's Michal is useful to him in two different ways. What are they? What are the two ways that she might blow this up for David?

Be a snare. Okay. So dowry. Like, I'll send him to the battle, right? Okay, kill him beforehand. If not, once it's over, we'll get him back. That's okay. So what's the dowry? What's he have to pay to get her? 200 circumcisions—200 Philistine foreskins. Okay. Or 100. He only needs to pay 100. He doubles the price and he just flexes and brings back 200.

I have a T-shirt. I meant to wear it, I just forgot, darn it. But I have a T-shirt. It's so awesome. Is anybody on my staff team in here? I have a T-shirt and it says, "Welcome to Church of the Holy Spirit." And it is a picture of David dropping off a bag of 200 Philistine foreskins. And it's such a great T-shirt. Everybody looks at it and nobody knows what it is. They're like, "Oh, some Bible picture." I'm like, "Yeah, look closely." I'll bring it in sometime. It's awesome. We were joking one day at staff meeting about making some new VBS T-shirts, and then one thing led to another and we thought it might be great to put that scene on a T-shirt, and then we actually did. And it's awesome. I'll bring it in.

That's the dowry. Hopefully he'll get on the ninety-ninth Philistine, he'll get his head cut off. That's the same as the first thing. But what's the other way that Michal's supposed to be a snare to him? It's not as obvious here. You're going to get more as you get to know Michal a little bit. What is it?

It's her idol. Absolutely, yeah. Later on in chapter 19, it's going to say Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed, covering it with garment, and put some goat's hair at the head. So Michal is not a godly woman. He's like, "Know what? He's married to my daughter. She's kind of worthless. Maybe that'll work out well for me." That's basically what's going on.

She is not a godly woman, and have you noticed this? If your son falls in love with a woman who's not godly, it's more likely that she'll drag him down than he'll drag her up. If your daughter marries a man who's just kind of—it's more likely that he will drag her down than she will lift him up. Have you noticed this? So that's what Saul's thinking. He's like, "Yeah, she may just take away his heart from the Lord." Because if you could do anything, if you were to take away David's magical powers, drive a wedge between him and Jesus, right?

David draws his power, his favor, because God loves him. If Saul could interfere with that, if Michael might interfere in his relationship with God, that would be good. Or maybe the Philistines will kill him. Either way, it's great, right? So that's what Michael is trying to do as he marries off the daughter, but it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Everything is being deployed against this guy. Why doesn't it work? God is with him. He is living under the favor of the Lord.

And that's exactly what we're meant to take from this, that David is surrendered to the Father. He's going to screw it up, don't worry. He's going to screw it up later. But right now, he is faithful and as he walks with the Lord, God is protecting him, gives him success in battle, gives him the favor of the people. And he's secure in that. Even when he screws up later on, God's still with him. He is.

Great news, brother. It will be costly to be sure, but God is faithful to the covenant. And it is through David, in fact, that the Messiah will come, has come, alright?

One of the big things that helps make me sure that this is true: if you're writing stories about your national heroes, are you going to write unflattering facts about them? These stories have very unflattering facts in them, and the fact that they get included in the narrative suggests the veracity of it. You can go down the line and see that everybody messes it up.

The Nature of Saul's Fear

Here's a final thought. Verse 29 is how this movement ends, this chapter ends:

And Saul became still more afraid of David, and he remained his enemy the rest of his days. — 1 Samuel 18:29

When the spears are pointed at you, you're supposed to be the one that's afraid. But no matter what Saul does, it all backfires, and he grows more and more fearful. And when that fear turns into hate, and when it says that he remains his enemy the rest of his days, that is true. We're going to watch that for chapter after chapter. It's going to play out. The rest of David's story, a huge part of it, is going to be continuing to elude the hatred and animosity of Saul.

So when you read through it, watch for this relationship, this dynamic. Watch how 1 Samuel 18:29 gets played out. What is God saying? What are we supposed to learn about the nature of these relationships? What are we learning about jealousy? Just ask questions. What does this mean? How does this point to or suggest God's plan to redeem? How he's going to accomplish it? He's going to use the lowly rather than the rich and the famous. What does it mean about you and your circumstances? How do you find yourself under the protection of this one who's come for you?

Attributes of the Messiah

And then finally, I'll just give you this. If we were to summarize all of 1 Samuel 18 and filter it for attributes of the Messiah, what do we think you might say? If we looked at this, what is God looking for? What will be true of the one to whom is given the right to rule over the cosmos based on the attributes we see?

What do you see?

Humility. Absolutely. He takes the lowest place. What else?

Faithfulness. He's faithful. Whatever he's entrusted to do, he does with excellence. He's humble. He's faithful.

And not just inherent, but what might he experience too?

Compassion. Where do you see that in this passage?

He just floods our minds. Yes, this is true. He is great, isn't he?

Yes, although I don't necessarily see it explicitly in chapter 18. David continues to faithfully serve the very one who hates him. That's a big deal. People will be jealous of him, right? Try to kill him. But he eludes it because God's hand is on his life.

He never returns fire. He never throws the spears back. David is not going to lay a hand on Saul. Despite all the things arrayed against him, he is destined to be king. He will come into his throne.

And so it is with Jesus. He will become king. He has, from our vantage point, become king. He wasn't king then. He became king through his death and his resurrection. But he most certainly—David will take up his throne no matter how many spears are thrown his way.

Alright, good enough for now? Chapter 19, and we'll keep going.

Yes. Okay. We'll talk about that next week because I'm losing the crowd.