Samuel chapter 18 beginning to read at verse 6. As they were coming home, when David returned from slaying the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul, with Timberalls, with songs of joy and with instruments of music and the women sang to one another as they made Mary. Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands and Saul was very angry and this saying displeased him. He said they have ascribed to David ten thousands and to me they have ascribed thousands. And what more can he have but the kingdom? And Saul I David from that day on. And on the morrow an evil spirit from God rushed upon Saul and he raved within his house. While David was playing the liar as he did day by day, Saul had his spear in his hand and Saul cast the spear for he thought I will pin David to the wall. But David evaded him twice. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a thousand and he went out and he came in before the people. And David had had success in all his undertakings for the Lord was with him. And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in awe of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David for he went out and came in before them. And Saul said to David here is my elder daughter Mirab, I will give her to you for a wife, only be valiant for me and fight the Lord's battles. For Saul thought let not my hand be upon him but let the hand of the Israelites be upon him. And David said to Saul, who am I and who are my kings folk? My father's family in Israel that I should be son-in-law to the king. But at the time when Mirab saws daughter should have been given to David, she was given to Adrel the Mahethalite for a wife. Now Saul's daughter Michael loved David and they told Saul and the thing pleased him. Saul thought, let me give her to him that she may be a snare for him. And that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Therefore Saul said to David, a second time, you shall now be my son-in-law and Saul commanded his servants. Speak to David in private and say, behold, the king has delighted you and all his servants love you. Now then, become the king's son-in-law and Saul's servant spoke those words in the ears of David and David say, this has seemed to you a little thing to become the king's son-in-law, seeing that I am a poor man and of no repute. And the servants of Saul told him, thus unsoated David speak. Then Saul said, thus shall you say to David, the king desires no marriage present except a hundred four skins of the Philistines that he may be avenged of the king's enemies. Now Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines and when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king's son-in-law before the time, before the time had expired. This is the word of the Lord. And this is from the New Testament section of the Bible, page 214, and it's from the book of James, beginning at the first verse, James 4, what causes wars and what causes fighting among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have, so you kill and you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, unfaithful creatures. Do you not know what that's friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is in vain that the scripture says, he yearns jealously over the spirit which he has made to dwell in us? But he gives more grace, therefore it says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Get yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Tend your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts you men of double mind. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let not your love to be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. This is the word of the Lord. Father, by your spirit open our eyes to understand more of your truth than to apply it in our lives. In Christ's name we ask it, our men. I wonder how many of us regularly feel jealous. I imagine that none of us is immune to that sort of feeling, and yet of course it's quite a serious sin, isn't it? The tenth commandment says thou shalt not covet. We shouldn't get to the stage where we long to have something someone else has, or even to be someone else. To become jealous as we know can really eat away at us, can't it? It can eat away at us emotionally, it can take up all our time and our energy. Well, in the story we're studying at the moment in 1 Samuel 18, page 256 of the few Bibles, in this story we find that news of David's victory over Goliath had spread very quickly indeed. Even as he and Saul journeyed home from the battlefield, women came out of the town just singing their praises. It must have been rather like the other day and Manchester and the footballers and people showing up for them except that this was every town they went to, every village they went to, everyone turned out to see them arrive and to cheer them on through the town or the village. And as David and Saul traveled home, each town and village had the women come out because remember the men would have been behind the king and David, they would have been further back, they would have probably not been demodgette, they would have been wrapping things up out on the battlefield. David and the leaders were going through and the women came out and they started singing these songs. Verse 7, Saul has slayed his thousands and David his tens of thousands. Now in fact what they were singing was rubbish and of course less than tactful. Saul had indeed slain his thousands but the head of the Israelite army he had slain thousands of people. But David had just begun his career and there's no indication that the route of Goliath had led to the killing of tens of thousands of Philistines, not at all. Well what could have happened? Saul could simply have put it down to their enthusiasm for this nice young man who had defeated Goliath. He could himself have publicly honoured David thus reducing the contrast that people were making between the king and his subject. There were all sorts of ways that Saul could have reacted. He could even have laughed off the stupidity of what they were singing. But the spirit of God had left Saul. You remember from previous passages from the chapters we've studied? Saul was a worried and a scared man. He was a man who felt alone and in his progressive madness that seemed to be ever more creeping up on him. He became more and more paranoid and so he saw David as the most terrible threat. Verse 8 tells us that he was very angry indeed and from that day on he began to keep an eye on this man who threatened him so much. The day after they got back to the palace the madness came on Saul again and you remember they asked David to come and to play the harp and to try and soothe him down and in fact it didn't work and Saul took a javelin and threw it at David and David evaded him twice we're told. Well what was Saul to do? The next thing he did was to make David a commander of a thousand troops. In other words not particularly important. A commander of one platoon and really he did that just to get the man out of the way. Verse 13 tells us that and after that you remember there was a sort of cat and mouse game between David and Saul. Saul trying to take David's life and Saul decided he could get rid of David. It made him a commander of still more troops because then he could send him off to head into battle and no doubt the fullest signs who were so strong would kill David and that would have done with Saul's problem and he promised David that if he won which Saul didn't expect him to do if he won then he would have Saul's daughter as a bride. Well David came to the point where he should have got married he returned from war and he found that Saul had given the girl to someone else. Eventually David was offered another daughter. David knew he was only a humble shepherd boy really and he didn't have a dowry that could pay for this girl so Saul has another bright idea to get rid of David. He says that the dowry can be bought for the lives of more fullest signs killed and so David goes off and instead of being killed in battle as Saul had hoped he returns and David had to be given Michael Saul's daughter everything that David put his hand to seem to come to success. What are we to make of all this? Why are we told this rather sordid story and scriptures? What's the point of it all? Well I think there are three main points to this chapter and the first is this the Lord was with David as it seems obvious that it's a very very important point that we have to learn. There is a distinction to be made between Saul and David. David had the Lord with him just look at how this comes out through this passage. Look at verse 12, Saul was afraid of David. Why? Because the Lord was with him but the Lord had departed from Saul or verse 14 and David had success in all his undertakings because the Lord was with him or verse 28 towards the end of that verse or beginning that verse that when Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David and that all Israel loved him. Saul was still more afraid. David was God's appointed king. David was the king of God's choosing and God's anointing. It was so important that the people of Saul's day begin to realize that the Lord is with David. Now remember most of these people who were coming out to cheer David on would not have known about that secret anointing of David to begin when Saul died. So what's happening? The Lord is taking this man and he's not saying look here is your king. He is saying here is a man with whom I am. I'm with David. And so everything he turns his hands to is successful. They had to begin to realize not just by being told look here's another king. They had to begin to realize that David was the right person for the job. He could do the job. He could win in battle. He could be a nice person and he did it all because of course he was anointed by God and it was important for later years as well when this book of Samuel was later read in among the Israelites and it's important even for us today that we realize just how the Lord himself continues you see to lead his people on after he has chosen them and given them a job to do when God has a purpose in mind for his people he will be with them and he will be with them in everything that they do. Gradually even before David it actually bit come king the Lord was preparing the ground among the people and at least to the second thing for we find that the people were beginning to get to love David. The first point was that the Lord was with David the second point that comes through strongly in this chapter is that the people were getting to love David. We've already seen of course that he was a humble person. He was a person who was prepared to let the Lord lead him on even when David was let down over the first daughter of Saul he was still humble enough to express surprise that a person like him should ever have been considered for the privilege of marrying the king's daughter. He didn't seek to insist on his right you remember of course that he should have had that right a long time back because he had killed Goliath. He should immediately have been able to marry the first daughter of Saul that you remember back in chapter 16 was the prize that awaited the one who kills Goliath but that hadn't happened and Saul had said no you got him kill a few more Philistines then you can have her then he came back and she'd been taken by somebody else and David was humble even self-effacing in this set of circumstances and that together with the fact that everything he turned his hand to prospered that led people to love him and to respect him for who he was. Jonathan who is Saul's son you remember that already seen this side of David in the first six verses of this chapter which we didn't read verse three there Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own Saul. Jonathan had already seen this side of David he comes to love David to see what he was really made of but the respect there is there for David even early on you see in the women's songs it may have been stupid for them to see David has killed his tens of thousands it wasn't true but it was poetry expressing their great admiration for him their great honor and respect for him. Even the king recognized how the people felt look at verse 22 even saw recognize what was going on Saul commanded his servants speak to David in private and say behold the king has delight in you which wasn't true and all his servants love you which of course was self evidently true and verse 28 but when Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David and that all Israel loved him and David's name in verse 30 was highly esteemed as they came out David had more success than all the servants of Saul so that his name was highly esteemed what a sad man Saul had become hadn't he jealousy had got a grip of this man he was unable to look for what the Lord wanted in the whole situation he simply wanted to continue to be the most important person in Israel he was not interested to hear about the Lord's plans or the Lord's work he could have summoned his old friend Samuel the prophet if he'd really wanted to obey the Lord he'd really got worried about this young upstart who seemed to be taking over in his position he could have gone to Samuel and he could have said Samuel talked to the Lord about this for me find out what's going on help me to be able to cope with it but he didn't do that deep down you see he knew that the problem was not with David his problem was with God his driving jealousy was a symptom of his rebellion against God and it was leaving him more and more afraid because he realized that the peace and the humility the leadership qualities that even he had once had were fast disappearing as he left God out of the picture so the story shows us that the Lord was with David and that the people were beginning to love David because the Lord was with him and thirdly it shows us that Saul could not cope with David's success he couldn't cope with David's success now there are lots of things either that we can learn from these points from this passage there are of course the direct lessons that we need to learn we need to see that we cannot and we must not be jealous of God's people God calls different people to do different jobs and he doesn't call us all to do the same thing very important point that and yet what jealousy there is in churches over just this point among Christian people sometimes for all of us whatever we do the grass looks greener on the other side doesn't it you see people being apparently prospered by God and you look at your own situation and you begin to get jealous so much so that you can't properly do the very things that God has pulled you to do and that sort of jealousy can undermine the law's work in the most terrible way
have someone in the church get the job that you feel perhaps you could do better and envy eats you up so the thing God does want you to do you can't do properly anyway sometimes we find ourselves like Saul in a rather sort of vicious circle going downwards and it just seems to get worse really we sin and we rebel against God and God disciplines us by withdrawing his blessings for a while and so we rebel still further instead of doing what we should do which is to turn back to God and being raised up by him perhaps others have to learn from David and his example of humility his complete obedience to the Lord this psalmist the shepherd boy who was able to say creating me a clean heart oh God later on we'll see that of course he too sinned he was no perfect person wasn't David not at all he broke so many commandments you lose count of them after a while but he knew that he was humble and he could come back to God and he could say Lord forgive me take me use me the Lord had called him you see and he followed if we know and love the Lord Jesus then we too have been called by him are we humbly and faithfully seeking to follow him wherever he wants us to go and finally of course we cannot leave this passage without also realizing the place that it has in that longer story that I referred to last week these are not just short stories in the Old Testament they're part of the longer story aren't they the story that leads to the greater King David to Jesus himself and the Israelites had to learn that this house of David was one that was anointed by God it was God's choice and it would prosper because the throne would have guards anointed sitting on it the word anoint in Hebrew is Mashiah which is simply translated simply put into English translated as Messiah that's where that word Messiah comes from to anoint in Hebrew Christ came as God's anointed on the throne of David David himself you see is a Messiah an anointed one of God and when Christ came comes he is the Messiah the anointed one the great one he sits on a throne that began in very humble beginnings beginnings that we've talked about as David is anointed and then has to struggle until eventually Saul dies and he can come to that throne and it ends it ends with the wonderful throne in heaven at the right hand of God a throne that lasts forever a throne from which Christ the son of David rules all people everywhere what a God we have a God who worked out salvation for all who believe and who brought salvation to us through faith in the son of David in Jesus Christ how do you respond in the presence of the great King we talked about this a bit at the service last week and the guest service didn't we how do we respond in the presence of the son of David are we like Jonathan and so many of the Israelites who recognize the Lord's work and they accepted David do you recognize Jesus as God sitting on the throne right now needing to be worshiped or are you like Saul he knew the truth this passage shows us again and again it's the fact that he knows the truth of course that gives rise to his rebellion and his jealousy that he knew the truth and he rejects the truth and he doesn't seek God's understanding of it and he rebels well we have the same option with the King on David's throne right now and whether you're a Christian or not don't let pride and jealousy in any situation eat you up we need to turn to God in repentance we need to ask for his forgiveness just as Saul should have done let's pray father we thank you for your word we thank you that from these very humble beginnings of a shepherd boy who was humble before you and did your well we thank you from that that from that you led us on and you gave us the maternal king Jesus help us to know how to respond father where our hearts are wrong and rebellious before you we ask that you will cleanse them that you will forgive us our sins and that you will help us to serve you without jealousy about us simply to do what you have called us to do but we ask it in Christ's name our man