Sunday School | David - 1 Samuel 30

Good morning, everybody. Pleasure to be with you today. We're almost done, almost. We're getting there on the first half of David's story. So we're close. This morning, we're gonna be in 1 Samuel chapter 30. So if you wanna turn your way there. But I'm gonna give you two quick announcements beforehand.

Number one, the week before Memorial Day, right before officially summer starts, Kelly and I take our fellows to the lake—Smith Mountain Lake—for a week, and we need a lake house. So if you have a lake house and you're not using it that week, let me know. I would be grateful. Every year, it's amazing—for six, seven, eight years, whatever it is—people at this church just have lake homes, and they're so gracious and generous. We need a lake. Well, there's a lake. We just need the house that week before Memorial Day. Tuesday through Friday, the week before Memorial Day. So we'd love to talk about that. If you have a lake house or if you have a friend that loves Jesus and might like Fellows, then we would be so grateful.

Second, next week, we're gonna do something special. Just want you to know, it's in the announcements already, but in case you didn't capture it yet, this hour next week, I will be gone. We're heading to Belize with the fellows—all for Jesus, so back up off me. But we're gonna be doing an ordination, and it won't be in this room. It'll be in the main sanctuary. A friend of Quiggs, some Scottish dude with a great Scottish brogue in a kilt—we're gonna ordain him into the ministry. We'd love to invite you to come into the sanctuary for that ceremony. Then the following week, we'll be back in here to finish 1 Samuel. Cool?

David's Crisis at Ziklag

All right, so we're gonna be in 1 Samuel this morning, chapter 30, and this is a rough passage for David. As we unpack it and see, we're gonna watch him walk through something that had to be just excruciatingly difficult. You might recall, for months on end, he's trying to just not get killed. He's trying to avoid Saul's spear, and he trusts the Lord and he trusts the Lord, then his faith kind of falters, and he's like, "I gotta leave." And he goes off to hide in this Philistine land, and then he kind of rallies there. You might think that it's gonna let up, but it doesn't let up. This is a really tough moment, and it's long. We've got a lot to say, so we're gonna jump into it.

David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now, the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it. They had taken captive the women who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went their way. — 1 Samuel 30:1–2

Now, pause. This means they just got home. Ziklag is their camp. It's where their wives and their children are. So when it says that the Amalekites had come and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old, that's not like random women. This is their wives. This is David and all of his men. They show up and their families are gone. Can you just imagine? You come home and everybody's gone. Your wife's gone, your daughter's gone, your son's gone. Everybody's gone.

When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. David's two wives had been captured, Ahinoam and Abigail, widow of Nabal. — 1 Samuel 30:3–5

What is your impression of David's men, this fighting force? If you were to place them on a spectrum from sissies to rugged, tough guys, where do you put them? These are men. Monster trip. These are tough guys who'll kill you with a look. These are a bunch of rugged, tough, out in the wilderness, walk long distances, kill a lot of people, guys. And what does it say about them in this text? They wept until they were exhausted. They come back, and these are like William Wallace's men. These are a bunch of tough guys, and they are totally devastated because everything and everyone that they love is gone—maybe forever. Lord knows what is happening to their wives this very minute. It is just miserable.

So how do you think they're going to respond? Once they're done weeping, what do you think comes next? Yeah. But who do they want to get before they get them? Do you know? David. This is bad. Watch what happens. This is rough. This attack on David's base—oh, by the way, why did it happen? Why do they come in and wipe everybody out? Because David's been kicking their butt forever. This is retaliation, and it's retaliation against David.

So they're gonna put two and two together and they're gonna realize this sense of victory that they've had just evaporates in a heartbeat. And it says in verse six, David was greatly distressed. Look at verse six.

David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him. Each one was bitter in spirit. — 1 Samuel 30:6

Why? What does it say? Kids. Yeah, because interesting. I'm sure they were distressed about their wives as well, but the more vulnerable, their children. Like, what are you doing? Can you just literally think about this. You have children, Mike? You have kids? Can you imagine? This would be miserable.

So they want to stone David to death. So now David—by the way, his family's also gone. He's constantly being chased by Saul. His family's just been eradicated, and now his men, his protection, his guys all want to stone him to death. He is in a dark and desperate place.

Now, do you remember a chapter or two ago, Saul was in a dark and desperate place, and he had no hope, and he was anxious, and he was worried, and didn't know what to do. What did he do? He goes to the witch of Endor. He goes to this medium. Well, you're supposed to think about that. You're to think, when Saul was in this thing, and he's miserable and hopeless, he's terrified and he's frightened, everybody hates him, he goes to the witch of Endor. Think about that when we read the next line.

David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him, and each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters, but David found strength in the Lord his God. — 1 Samuel 30:6

What's he going to do? You know what he's gonna do? What is it? Somebody loud. He's gonna—what on earth is the ephod? Can you remind us, Bob? It's got a couple—we think—stones on it. It was a way that the high priest would allow to discern what God's will was. That's right. As far as we know, it's like funky rocks, some kind of dice, some kind of a yes or no question. Not quite as goofy as like a magic eight ball, but some limited ability that the Lord really speaks through it, right? There's something to it.

And so David said to Abiathar the priest, son of Ahimelech, Bring me the ephod. And so Abiathar brought it to him, and David inquired of the Lord, and what's the question?

Shall I pursue the raiding party? Will I overtake them? — 1 Samuel 30:8

And the answer is, go get them. Pursue them. You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue. Okay?

David and Saul: Finding Strength

So why is it that David is able to find strength in the Lord his God, but Saul wasn't? As we're trying to stare at this guy's life and make sense of it, what's going on? What's the difference between these two men? Why does he find strength?

John? God has totally abandoned. Okay. So to a certain extent, it's because Saul has already disqualified himself from the game and not in a way from David. That is true.

Dan? I was just gonna say because the Spirit of God led David to do that, it was through his strength that David could turn to him and Saul didn't have that. That's right. Saul had cast away this access to the Lord, and so the Lord cast him away. And David—even though he's gonna stumble, he's gonna fall—your life will always be this pattern. It's never gonna change. There will always be a sign curve to your life. It's sin and repentance. Sin and repentance. Sin and repentance.

Nobody lives in a state of constant repentance, but you also don't want to live in a state of constant sin, and what you want to do is change that interval from sin, repentance, sin, repentance, to more of like sin, repent, sin, repent. And David is not—you're gonna see David screw up all the time, but he's always maintaining this connection to the Lord. He has yielded to the Spirit. God has been generous to give him his Spirit, and so he stays in it.

Other differences you wanted to observe between Saul and David? There were a handful of hands on him. Didn't get to everybody. We good, good, good? No, okay, keep going.

So David, he's not gonna reach out to the Philistine army, right? He's been there, he's done this, but he can't. He's not gonna go get them, they're not gonna go with. And so he has to reach out to Yahweh, and he does. He gets out these weird rocks, and he summons and he asks a question, Lord, what do you want me to do?

And it's interesting, isn't it? Both times—both of these men—it's a great big contrast game. Both men seek supernatural means. Like, don't know what to do. It's beyond my skill. They both reach into the supernatural, but David's gonna reach after Yahweh and Saul's gonna go after this witch. He's gonna go consult the dead on behalf of the living.

You're meant to see like, I wanna be like this guy, not like that guy. And you're meant to see this guy, David, is anticipating the Godly one, is anticipating the Anointed One. He is setting the pattern for what the Messiah will be when he comes. We're not playing some big morality game. We're trying to learn to see what Messiah will be like.

Zach?

Outside of the intent of using these things to communicate to whether God or the dead, is there any specific reason why these ephods in themselves seem to be the exception to the rule as opposed to using other forms of items of divination or something?

Great question. So there's one ephod, and it has been given to the priest. There's like this one person who is the chief representative for God to speak to the people. What's different is all these other divination tools. I would not classify the ephod as a divination tool, but all these other supernatural communication devices are not talking to the Lord. They're consulting the dead, and the Lord has said, "No, if you want to reach me, this is how I want you to do it. Through the priest, through the one that I have set aside, that I have called, that I have placed my hand on him and anointed him. You can trust him as opposed to all the sea of phonies."

The Pursuit and the Egyptian

Let's take a look at chapter 30, verse 9.

David and the 600 men came to the Besor Ravine, where some stayed behind. 200 of them were too exhausted to cross the ravine. But David and the 400 men continued the pursuit. — 1 Samuel 30:9

Notice those 200. They're going to be significant later. Just kind of setting the story. The 600 guys, 400 are going to go, 200 are to stay, and they stick around.

And then in verse 11:

They found an Egyptian in a field and brought him to David. They gave him water to drink and food to eat, part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins. He ate and was revived, for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three days and three nights. David asked him, "To whom do you belong and where do you come from?" "I'm an Egyptian," he said, "a slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned me when I became ill three days ago. We raided the Negev and the Kerethites and the territory belonging to Judah and the Negev of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag." David asked him, "Can you lead me down to this raiding party?" He answered, "Swear to me before God that you will not kill me or hand me over to my master, and I will take you down to them." — 1 Samuel 30:11-15

I don't know if it felt to you like I was reading a lot there, but it felt to me like I was reading a lot. I'm thinking as I'm reading it, "Blah, blah, blah. I don't care what you fed him." Do you have that sense that sometimes in the Bible you read—John is very fond of this. John will give all these details and you're like, "Dude, I'm not sure that really advances the story." Why so many details? But I'm not God. God is, and he's got his purposes.

So why do you imagine in this story—imagine all your wives are dead, maybe. All your children have been taken into slavery. We don't know if we're going to see them again. But curiously, they ate figs made out of raisin cakes. Why in the midst of this tension and this eagerness do we slow down and give us all the details about this Egyptian guy? There is a reason. But what is it? The bogging down in the details?

I thought it's sometimes used contextually to show the context that you're in. Yes, and then saying, "Hey, we're going to show you good community and commune with you so that you know that we're being very genuine in our seeking for some sort of way out of this terrible mess with you."

So yes, there's in these details—despite the fact that I am like, just have impatience built into my very soul—he's giving us information being conveyed that is meaningful, that he wants us to get. There's something about the context there.

Could it just be strategic? I mean, you're going through the wilderness and you find a random person and it's like, "Alright, which way did they go?" But if he's so faint, first you've got to get him revived. Alright, can you direct us because we need help because we're not sure which way they went?

That's right. But it does show community and kindness. They could have just killed him, but maybe it's strategic. It's all of that. Everything you said, so there's a strategic value. This guy, this Egyptian guy, might be our best hope to find them. And so the more satiated, the more alive, the less parched he is, the better information we may get. There's absolutely a strategic value in that. But you said something else that I think was really significant. It's also just that he's being kind to him. And remember, everything about this book is not about the history of Israel. This book is about the person of David.

The author wants to show us that even when David could put a sword to this man's temple and demand answers—especially with his wives and children on the line—that's not his orientation. God has been very clear about how we are to treat the foreigner and the orphan and the widow. And when the author tells us where this guy is from, he's from Egypt. What's the meaning of Egypt to the Israelites? Slavery. This is where we were slaves. And it's when God talks about it, he says: "You be nice. You be nice when you've got a foreigner among you, because do you remember what it was like when you were the foreigner?"

So to this Egyptian from the land where they were slaves, David shows an inordinate level of kindness and care and concern. We're meant to watch this story and think, "Man, David is like—even in distress, even when his men want to stone him, even when his wives and children's lives hang in the balance—he is obedient to the Torah, which says, 'You be nice to the foreigners among you.'" We're supposed to see that David is being unusually kind in a situation where he could be excused not to be. There's a lavishness to the grace of this man even under these terrible conditions.

There's also a literary device working here. The guys were undoubtedly thinking, "We gotta get those nasty Amalekites. Come on. Let's go. Go kill some people." But we have to wait. We the reader have to wait. The 600, or 400, have to wait. And there's a parallel here that actually takes us emotionally a little more into the experience of David's men. It's not even clear if the 400 guys are getting raisin cakes either. Is he being kinder to this near-dead Egyptian than he is to his own men because he's a foreigner, because he's weak, because he's needy? It's amazing.

There's the strategic value—this is our best hope to find the Amalekites and therefore everyone and everything that we love. But there's also a lavishness to it. You could take the Jack Bauer approach: just put a sword to his neck and say, "Tell us." But he takes a different approach. In contrast to the fact that his master left him behind for three days because he was ill, David is kinder to his enemies than his enemies are to their own.

All of that is meant to elevate David in our mind—this guy has kindness and gentleness even in the midst of crisis. And remember, we're looking to understand what the Messiah will be like.

Even though David's men want to stone him, they still brought the Egyptian to David. There's a sense that they still respected his leadership. They may want to kill him, but they also know that he's probably their best hope to get back their wives and kids.

The Battle with the Amalekites

So verse 16: "So this Egyptian dude leads David down to where they were. They scatter over the countries, and they find them, the Amalekites, scattered over the countryside, eating, drinking, and reveling because of the great amount of plunder they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from Judah."

You've got to recognize this. We come in with 400 men that are exhausted and despairing, and they've traveled for however long to get there. And then we've got an uncounted number of drunk guys that are reveling because of their party. So what's going to win? If you've got a battle between a bunch of exhausted men and a bunch of drunk men, who's going to win? We'll see.

David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day. That's like all night—dusk to sunset to sunset. From dusk until evening of the next day, and none of them got away except for 400 young men who rode off on camels and fled.

How many are in the party that's attacking? One. Okay. And in the other party, they kill everybody except for 400. So how big was the party? Right? 400 is the leftovers, nobody escaped. Yeah, it's 400 people. But you only had 400 people in your army, right? So I think we're saying that they whooped up on them, right?

And in verse 18, David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives. Nothing was missing, young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back. He took all the flocks and herds, and his men drove them ahead of the other livestock, saying, "This is David's plunder." — 1 Samuel 30:18-19

So you got some drunk guys, you got some exhausted guys, and the exhausted guys win because they care more, right? In their drunken and celebratory state, those guys were out of battle formation. They weren't ready. They were scattered over the countryside, it says, and so they just blow them up. They wipe them out.

So back to verse 8. David had asked the Lord, "Should I go? Shall we do it?" And you will go and you'll certainly overtake them. So David had to have that already in his mind. That's right. It's so helpful to know that, right? Don't you wish, like, "Yeah, it's gonna happen. It's gonna be good." You're like, "All right, let's go."

So David goes in, and he wins, and they slaughter them. And it's interesting because you've got to remember, everything that David is doing here, there's always this two level. Why is David fighting the Amalekites? What's his immediate motive? Get his family back, right, and all the men, and also keep himself from getting stoned to death, right? But there is this older, higher obligation that he's living out. Do you remember this? The Amalekites, they're not supposed to be any Amalekites. We're in this mess because you didn't kill the Amalekites last time when we tried. And so David is not only gonna wipe out the Amalekites so he can get his people, but he's gonna wipe out the Amalekites because they are the long standing enemies of God, and it's time to get it done.

And so he's always functioning, not just at his immediate level, but he's not yet been inaugurated, but he's been anointed the king of Israel. So he's gonna accomplish God's purposes, even though he's beat, even though he's wiped out.

Remind me who was supposed to kill Saul. Yeah, Saul was supposed to do it, and he didn't. So they're supposed to clear the land of all these enemies because they're just gonna keep coming. It's still 400, God. Yeah. But here's what's interesting. One of the commentaries I looked at said this is basically the last time you're gonna hear mention of the Amalekites as the enemies of God for a long, long, long, long time. They show up way down the road later, but this is it—David doesn't just win the skirmish. It's not just the battle victory. This is the war, and he wipes them out. He gets his people back, awesome, but he also is accomplishing what God had called the kings to accomplish, but Saul wouldn't do.

I just noticed it says 400 young men. It doesn't say 400 young Amalekites, and the person they found was a young man, so maybe those were 400 of the slaves. That's interesting. That could be. It could be other Egyptian slaves that they had. That's a good point. I had not noticed that, but that might be so. That's a good word.

So they get everybody, and did you notice what does David get for booty? Everything. He just takes it all, right? So you get your own wife, you get your own sons and daughters, which is, yeah, that's fair. But all the sheep, all the—I don't know, what are there, camels, does it say? The flocks and herds, whatever they are, David gets it all. Notice that, okay? It's David's army, it's David's battle, David gets it all. But that's not gonna be the end of the story. He gets it all, it's all his, and once it's his, he can do with it whatever he wants. We'll get a little more insight into that as we go.

You all doing alright? I know there's a lot we're just kind of chopping through this.

So David came back to the 200 men who had been too exhausted to follow him and who were left behind at the Soar Ravine, and they came out to meet David and the people with him. And as David and his men approached, he greeted them. But all the evil men and troublemakers among David's followers... — 1 Samuel 30:21-22

Okay, time out. Those evil men and troublemakers, what have they been doing? Fighting the battle. They've been out there in the grime and in the sweat. They've been doing it, but the rabble rousers.

Remember, these are all the tough guys. The evil men and troublemakers among David's followers said, "Well, they didn't go out with us. We're not going to share with them the plunder we recovered. They can have their wives and kids and go."

And look what David does. Everything he does here is this upside down kingdom. David replied:

No, no, my brothers, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He has protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us. Who will listen to what you say? The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.

And David made this a statute and ordinance for Israel from that day to this.

So let's talk about this. What is behind David's conciliatory attitude here? Two hundred guys needed a nap, four hundred guys went and risked their lives, and David's like, "Even Steven." What's going on with that?

Kat? Mercy of God.

Okay. Mercy of God. Unpack that.

Well, David had the mercy, and he always has mercy and grace from the Lord. So he wants to give that out to the other people.

Okay. That's exactly right. But I'm not sure that the implications are as clear as I want to be. So we're going to try to unpack. Chris and then Catherine.

Chris? Close to "love your neighbor as yourself"—in the fact that in those words by Christ, I think it's more speaking about the church as a whole and that everyone's assigned different roles. Regardless of your role, if you are one church, you ought to work together and split the bounty accordingly.

Yes, that is absolutely true. The body is a unit made up of many parts. We have different body parts and we do different things. And we dignify, we honor those that stay back to protect the gear, those that stay back to do other things. We honor them. That is absolutely true. I think that's in the second position, so there's something that comes before it, but it's absolutely true that there is this Christian thing of, like, you could say, "This one does all the work." Well, hang on a second. Hang on a second. There are parts of the body behind the scenes that are accomplishing things that we don't see. So yes. But I want to leapfrog that with something else.

Catherine? They got the same thing.

Yes. And then—okay. So this is also Jesus is very strong on this principle: God is gracious and he can distribute his wealth any way he sees fit. And we who are recipients of grace have no place to stand and complain that they got, quote, "more grace." Right? We don't get to do that.

But there's something else that's in the text, and it's embedded in what you said, Kat, but I want to make sure that it's as clear as we can. Isn't David nation building?

What do you mean? He realizes that he's the anointed.

Yes. He's going to have to bring people together again.

Oh, yeah. And he has to give his people the understanding at that point that you're going to have to merge and everyone's going to have to be—okay, yes. And we're going to see that more in the next paragraph. We're going to see a little bit more of that.

But there is this Lincoln-esque thing. Remember, what was so famous about Lincoln as he wins the Civil War? "Bind the wounds." All men. That's right. "With malice toward none and charity toward all." Right? There's this—the tragedy, probably, of Lincoln's assassination is that his vision of Reconstruction in the South was infinitely more compassionate and merciful than what actually happened. When Lincoln was dead, it's so crazy. Lincoln was killed by a Southern sympathizer, but he did not realize that when he did, he killed their best hope for a gracious Reconstruction. If you read the second inaugural address, it does not reflect what happens after his death.

So David has this perspective. We're going to see more of that in a second. But here's the key idea that I want you to grab. Look at what he says. There's theology embedded in this. In verse 23:

David replied, "No, my brothers, you must not do that, meaning hoard for yourself and restrict from others, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He has protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us."

Did the four hundred think that's what just happened?

No. What do they think just happened?

We kicked their butts. It was my sword. Right? It was my sweat. It was my effort. It was my work. Do you not think that? Are you ever grateful for your paycheck? Or do you think, "Am I grateful to anybody? I busted my butt for this money"? Are you grateful for whatever you have in your life? Or do you think, "No, no, no, no. I am the self-made man." Right? That's how we think. "I won the war, it's mine!" And David says, and I quote:

No, no, no. You must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us.

Real quick, go to Deuteronomy eight. Flip over.

This is my favorite passage about money in the whole Bible. In Deuteronomy eight, he says this. Let's hit it and go on.

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years to humble you, to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger, and then feeding you with manna which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from God, that your clothes didn't wear out, your feet didn't swell. — Deuteronomy 8:2-4

Isn't that weird? Did you notice that? Stuff lasted for a long time. And then toward the end, he says, now we're bringing you into a place of prosperity, where there will be wealth and you can dig copper out of the hills and everything's gonna be amazing.

He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth and win battles. — Deuteronomy 8:16-18

That's exactly where David's men are. It's mine, I did it, I made it. But David is saying to these guys, listen, these other men are gonna get a share just the same as yours. They feel like it's coming out of their pockets, and they're losing what belongs to them. And David is saying, no, no, no, no, no. It was never yours. It was the Lord's, and he has seen fit to give you this and to give them as well this.

There's deep theology embedded in what he's doing. They survived, right? You should be happy that you're alive and you can get your wife back. There's a lot going on here, and everything else is bonus because God is gracious and kind to you.

The Upside-Down Kingdom

David is upside down. And have you noticed that Jesus is weird? Jesus always does the weird thing, just endlessly. That is very much like David. What would Jesus do? You have no idea. What would Jesus do if he's at a wedding and they run out of wine? Make like 120 gallons of wine when everybody's already lit. That's what he would do. You never know.

The kingdom is upside down and everything's strange, and David is doing that. At every turn, he's like, you know what? Here's an Egyptian. Let's give him a bunch of figs. Let's take care of him. Let's just be unspeakably gracious to him. These guys that were too sleepy to come to fight the battle, they can get as much as everything too. There's an upside downness to the way that he leads. It drives people crazy, and it kind of drove people crazy about Jesus as well.

Those men had a job. They were to stay by the stuff. They weren't just having nappy time. They had a role in the game.

The share of the men who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. — 1 Samuel 30:24

David is honoring their work. The body's a unit made up of many parts. There's different roles. And David is honoring, I mean, the language here, he honors their work. This is kind of like what was done when the nation came into the country. They're resetting. God got his tithe. The warriors have gotten theirs. Now we're sharing evenly across that.

And we're about to see the reference to David's even broader kind of liberality and distribution of wealth. David consistently shows a very high consciousness of what the law demands, what the Torah demands, of how we treat people. Now we're going to see not just those who stay with supplies, but remember how he took all the booty? He took it all for himself? He's about to give it all away.

Take a look in verse 26:

When David arrives in Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were his friends, saying, "Here's a present for you from the plunder of the Lord's enemies." — 1 Samuel 30:26

It was never David's either. He takes it all, but he's just holding onto it. It's the Lord's. This is plentiful from the Lord's enemies. And he sent it to those who are in Bethel, Ramoth Negeb, and Jeter, and to those in Aror, and Siphmoth, and Eshtemoah, and Rachol, to those who are in the towns of the Jer Hamelites and the Kenites and to those in Hormah and Borshan and Athatch and Hebron, to those in other places where David and his men had roamed.

Besides the fact that I undoubtedly butchered all those names, what you're meant to see is just lavish distribution. It's not David's. He's not lining his own pockets. He goes out and the Lord uses him to defeat the enemies and then to bless the people of God.

The share of those who stay with the supplies is the same as this, and he is going to be lavish and generous. This is also really politically expedient as he is building a caucus within the nation to support kingship. So we have him being gracious and kind, and he's being strategic and shrewd. He's establishing it's about time to go, and he is currying favor everywhere he goes. He's going to be the sort of king that blesses the people, and people like kings that bless them. He's wise, and he's getting it all done.

It also says in all the places where David and his men had roamed. He had been to those places, and I'm sure that they had helped. If 100 men show up in town, you're bound to need help. A massive hoard of large men shows up in town, and they start eating your sheep. So now he's paying them all back. There's wisdom and strategy and graciousness to all of this.

Pointing to Messiah

Now we've got about three or four minutes, so here's your job. This whole thing points us to Messiah. We've mentioned a couple of different things, but how does this story teach us? What is the Spirit of God meaning to reveal about what Messiah will be like? Maybe we hit a couple. There may be others that you're thinking of we haven't said out loud. How does this anticipate Messiah?

Love your enemies. How is he like loving your enemies? Very much so. This kindness to the Egyptian—does Jesus have anything to do with loving your enemies? My goodness.

You'll be rewarded for your suffering. How would you see that? Well, they fought, so this is victory that he brings. The people that supported him probably didn't have that easy either. We'll suffer in our lives, but we'll be rewarded when we go be with the chief.

Jesus rescues those who are captured, enslaved, and he brings us home. Just as the Messiah, just as David goes to bring them back, he is on a giant rescue mission. He's going to go win the victory. David risks his life to make the captives free, and Jesus, when he shows up, is going to give his life to make the captives free.

Whatever these pictures of Messiah are, they're always diminished compared to the reality. Jesus fulfills and overfills the pictures over and over and over again. He is not merely like David, he is the greater David. He fills up and overfills the picture that David gives.

The other man on the cross received basically the same salvation that the disciples received. The equality of grace. Peter struggles through this. Like, "Man, what about us? We've been busting our butts. We left home and family and everything for you." His graciousness to others is kind of annoying to us. Very much fulfilled in Jesus' life.

The devil belongs to us. It's His! It's all of Him. We are so quick to take credit and to think that it's us, but the Lord is the one who wins the victory.

Whatever else it is that we're doing, it is the spirit of God alive in us bringing it about, and we must never step away from that.

So David's been anointed king, but he has not been coronated yet. Even though he's David and he's the king, he still recognizes God's authority. Jesus did that same thing. He said, "I have to do what God says. I'm under his authority."

We see in David not only the dominant victorious one, but the humble one who doesn't even take credit. It's the Lord who has done this. And you see that in Jesus in a way that's almost bizarre. Jesus is like, "I can do nothing. Father does it." Really, Jesus? You really don't think that you might be able to pull this off? But he lives an absolutely dependent life of humility. Crazy. And David absolutely is an image, an anticipation of that.

I just want to point out the rephrasing we see here with Moses within Deuteronomy—we've already heard these words. We already know these. And given that David doesn't have all of the Israelites with him, he's still just focused on these same words. But then when Christ comes, he uses parable after parable to show us that we have no idea. Despite how long we've referenced the Bible, we don't know anything. He needs to rephrase it again. It's already been said, but the slowness to learn, right? David is going to demonstrate this pattern over and over again, and his followers don't—they still haven't caught on. And Jesus, you're going to see in his life as well. He'll teach things to the people, to his disciples even, and they're like, "Slow of heart to hear it, to believe it, to understand it." That same thing. David is really playing a different game than any of his men are playing.

I'll give you one more. I love this. This is Ephesians 4:

To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned this. This is why it says, "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." — Ephesians 4

This is what Messiah does. David wins the victory, and then he takes all the spoils of war and distributes them to others. And when Christ comes and wins the victory, he turns to us who have been rescued by him and he gives us gifts. Just this generous liberality that dominates his life.

You guys did a really good job. We've been at this for weeks and weeks and weeks because I just want to learn as a community how do we read this book in a way that reminds us, that points us to Christ. You guys just crushed that. That was glorious.

We're going to stop here. Next week there's ordination in the sanctuary, so don't come to this room. Week after that, we'll be back to the Samuel story, the David story. See you guys.