Good morning, I have a question, where is your hiding place? Where do you go when you feel bit down by life, when you struggle with sin and temptation, when you feel like your marriage is under attack, your family, your own personal growth? You feel like everything that's going on in the world and your own personal life and around you just seems to be trouble. Where do you go? Where do you go to hide? We are reading from 1 Samuel 19 verses 1 to 7 and verses 11 to 24, if you're able to please stand as we honor the reading of God's Word this morning. And Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David and Jonathan told David, Saul, my father seeks to kill you, therefore be on your guard in the morning, staying a secret place and hide yourself. And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak to my father about you. And if I learn anything, I will tell you. And Jonathan spoke well of David to saw his father and said to him, let not let not the king sin against his servant David because he has not sinned against you. And because his deeds are brought good to you, for he took his life in his hand and he struck down the Philistine. And the Lord worked a great salvation for all Israel. You saw it and rejoice. Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing David without cause? And Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan. Saul saw, as the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death. And Jonathan called David and Jonathan reported to him all these things. And Jonathan brought David to Saul and he was in his presence as before. 8 to 10, Saul tries to kill David again. And he flees to go back home. Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him that he might kill him in the morning. The Michael, David's wife told him, if you do not escape with your life tonight tomorrow, you will be killed. So Michael let David down through the window and he fled away and escaped. Michael took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of gold tear at his head and covered it with the cloth. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, you sick. Then Saul sent messengers to see David saying, bring him up to me in the bed that I may kill him. When the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed with the pillow of gold tear at his head. Saul said to Michael, why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go so that he has escaped? And Michael answered Saul, he said to me, let me go. Why should I kill you? Now David fled and escaped and he came to Samuel at Rema and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and lived in Naya and it was told Saul. The whole David is at Naya in Rema. Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying and Samuel standing as head over them, the spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul and they also prophesied. When it was told Saul, he sent other messengers and they also prophesied. And Saul sent messengers again at the third time and they also prophesied. Then he himself went to Rema and came to the great well that is sickle and asked, where are Samuel and David? One said, behold, they are at Naya in Rema and he went there to Naya in Rema. And the spirit of God came upon him also and as he went to prophesied until he came to Naya in Rema. And he too stripped off his clothes and he too prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all day and all night. Thus it is said, it Saul also, among the prophets, the word of the Lord, this morning. Lord Jesus, help us to receive your word, to believe it and walk in light of what you're teaching. We pray this in your holy name, amen. Please be seated. You probably might remember a story that I told you before. If you do not, I will remind you just a little bit. It's a story about my older sister. When she was about eight years old, I told you a story where she was escaping from Somali rebels, that it came into our village, terrorizing people and killing many. And so my sister and several other students and teachers, they escaped, they were running away. She had no idea where she was going. She was only eight years old. She escaped into the woods and she went hiding and they thought the way in the safest of all places. As we would come to find out later, they were hiding right next to where the Somali rebels were hiding, as they were trying to run away from the police. But God graciously kept her safe. What I never mentioned to you and I told you that story is why the rest of the family was sitting at home, saying, praying for my sister. You see, this was not the first time that the Somali rebels had crossed over from the north, coming southeast to the village where my family lived. They had come to terrorize or village, steal our cattle and our goats and end sheep and everything else. And this was a story that was all too familiar to us. But there's one thing that I remember that would always happen every time we heard noises or people wanting to escape and run away from the Somali rebels. My mom always insisted that nobody in our family was going to leave our house and our comfortable home to go and hide in the woods because of Somali rebels. She would say, if the intentions are coming over not just to kill, not just to steal, but to kill us, they might as well, but I am not running away from my home. The whole village would backate our village and we would be the only ones left. It would be so quiet in our village. You know what's really funny as I think about it today is the fact that the people who escaped to go run away from the Somali rebels would take their donkeys and their cows and goats with them. Those things are so loud. And you're hiding out in the woods and thinking, oh yeah, I'm going to be safe. I'm not sure if my mom was being naive by saying, I am not running away. But there's one thing I remember to this day and I will never forget. I do remember her prayers every night as children would be sitting in bed and crying and asking, mom, are they going to come and kill us? My mom would say this, my God, that I serve as my dear than the enemy of the UIC and that made us sleep at night. The passage that we just read this morning is a great reminder for us of how God's imagination can be. God's imagination as He shows us His diverse ways in which He can protect us from harm. It was through the intercession of my mother pleading to God and saying, Lord, keep my family safe on our behalf. That made me sleep at night, my family sleep at night. And we felt as if we were safe in God's mighty arms that surrounded us. And here in this passage that we've read this morning, as I heard a few of you smile and laugh as you heard the drama that's going on here, as God's diverse means of His protection towards His people. And towards God's chosen servant, David, is in full display. Did you see that? Did you hear it? Were you able to experience it and see how diverse God's protection over us is? Look at verses 1 to 7 and see how God can use the intercession of the advocacy of others to protect us. It is in a secret meeting, a meeting that is full of conspiracy. As Saul finally, finally in chapter 19, we hear from Saul's own mouth that his intentions are to kill David. Remember all before chapter 19, it was always the narrator that it would mention that Saul intends to kill David. But never did we ever hear it from Saul's mouth. Now we hear it. And so he intends to do so by appealing to Jonathan, his own son, and appealing to his officials to help him do so. Why? Because he probably thinks that Jonathan is threatened by the success of the young David. And so he thinks, if I get him to agree with me, then he might come alongside me and join me in my evil things. His official stand to lose their job, stand to lose their prestige if David continues to succeed. But we realize here that the bond that we had seen between Jonathan and David earlier on is now being tested as Jonathan is being required to do something that is out of what he would have wanted to do. He's setting himself against his own father, but in verses 2 and 3, we see Jonathan passes that test with flying colors, showing his delight is in his friend, David. He's loyal to him. Recall again, back in chapter 11, verses 12 and 13, David was willing to kill his own son, Jonathan. Remember that story when he sets up an old, a very foolish old, so that he can set up his son and kill him? Why would Saul be intending to destroy the very people Jonathan and David, that God are so powerfully used to bring victory and salvation to his people? Remember again, in chapter 11, that Saul had in fact refused to kill the people that don't pose to him. Remember the man who had come and claimed who saw that he can be king over us? What did Saul say? Did he say, let's put them to death? He said, absolutely no. For this day, God has achieved great salvation through my son, Jonathan. And he said, we are not going to kill anybody. The proper response was celebration. But why is he wanting to kill David? Jonathan warns his friend and he tells him, my father's intentions are not good, so he sets up a meeting in a secret place. Where David is hiding, perhaps he wants David to be able to listen in, judge for himself, and see that I'm a true friend to you. But what is Jonathan's role? What is he doing here? He's playing the advocate. He's the intercessor. With arguments as one coming to the puts of the rhetorically vigorous, logically persuasive, morally convincing, and theologically powerful, John Woodhouse notes. He actually repeats himself, says, my father, my father, three times, I see that language. He's negotiating reconciliation. And we see here that David is actually brought back to for a brief time, we might say, to Saul court. But how does he negotiate David's salvation? He says, remember, father, this man is the one that has worked great salvation for us. He put his life in danger by going against Goliath when nobody wanted to go against this giant. And you saw it, and you rejoiced. He once saw, he says, your actions, my father, are not right. They are sinful versus four. And this is no small matter. That is what Jonathan is trying to make it to his father's trying to say, father, why would you want to add on to the many sins that we have seen all throughout this book? Remember the sons of Eli. Remember in chapter eight, the people of God demanding for a king, why? Why would you want to add on top of many, many sins that we have seen? But he doesn't stop, he keeps going. He says, why would you want to shed innocent blood versus five B? Because going back to, dude, run him in 1911 and 13, we learned that when you shed innocent blood, there has to be a retributive action that was required to be taken place. Saul, my father, you have no justification to take the life of an innocent man, which is what the narrator wants us to see. The guilt of Saul and the innocence of David, but he had Jonathan with his argument, with his pleading, with his advocacy is responding with grace and truth to his father's conspiracy to destroy one who has no sin. He courageously and boldly pleads for David's innocence showing his father's father his own sin. And so I ask you a question this morning, how do we respond when others approach us in gossip, in lies, wanting to conspire against those whom we love, our church, our friends and family? Do we plead for mercy and grace? Do we intercede for them? The ones being attacked and the ones planning to attack or do we join their evil parts? You ponder that. Saul is in verses six swearing. As long as I live, David is not going to be put to death. Of course, we know that that oath does not last long. He changes his mind. But remember previously, who was the person that came to intervene for Jonathan as Saul tried to kill him? The people had intervened and told his father, you're not going to kill this young man because he's achieved victory for us. Now it is Jonathan's turn to intervene, to save his own friend. What does that remind us? As Jonathan is trying to appeal to his father, who's where the Lord has departed from him, the spirit of God has departed from Saul. He doesn't see what he's doing. He doesn't see the truth of what he's doing. What is he appealing to? Jonathan is appealing to common grace, to common morality. He's appealing to the blessings of right thinking. He's saying, look, if you do this, this is not right. It is sinful. It is wrong. Why kill an innocent man? Why shed innocent blood? We must realize that this is not enough, that merely appealing to common morality, merely appealing to the right thinking that brings blessings is not enough. That the only thing that is enough to change one's heart is the saving power of God that can restrain our sin and drive us away from evil. It is the only thing Saul might have listened briefly to the voice of reason that he was shortly. He's living alive. He's making promises that he cannot heal. Again, reminding us that the spirit of the Lord is not with him. But what is Saul doing? As he tries to kill God's chosen soul? Saul is fighting God. He's involved in a battle not fighting David. His intentions are not merely just trying to kill David. Yes, he wants to, but he doesn't realize what he is doing that he is actually fighting God. And so do we sometimes. Sometimes we're involved in a battle where we're fighting God. You know how we do that? We fight God every time we refuse to obey his word. Every time we see what God tells us to do and yet run the other direction. Every time we are so caught up in our own comfort zone that we do not want to be renewed and transformed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are fighting God. Every time we're keeping our own secret sins and enjoy our fake independence and control of our lives thinking that there's a way we can determine where we are, where we go, we are fighting God. Saul is living in our repented heart because he doesn't realize. And just so as we do, sometimes they will realize that repentance is not a one-time thing where we come to the Lord and say, oh, now I've repented on my sin and I am free to walk the way I want. We don't realize that repentance is a daily occasion that has to happen every single day of our lives examining our lives and confessing our sins daily. Do you do that? David, however, has an advocate. Has one who stands in his place and defends him just like we do. And we know who a great advocate is Christ Jesus is or advocate the one who stands before us every time Satan accuses us of our sin. He stands before God and he says, I pay for that. He stands in our place and says, I made the sacrifice on that cross, that man, that woman, that child is free. He stands forgiven in Christ Jesus. He stands before us and he says, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God because I paid for it. The Holy Spirit, where we are reminded in Romans 8.26, continues to see for you, brother, sister, child, with grownings that are too weak for words. Christ is your defender. The one who rules and controls the creator of all things. The one who is mighty stands in your place and says, I am your defender. And I ask you again, where is your hiding place? The second thing we see here from verses 8 to 17, we do not read verses 8, but I will summarize it for us that God can use other instruments as protection for us. David continues to succeed in war. We are told, we don't know how long that passage from verses 7 to 8, how long that took, but there was a battle. David continues to have success and then we are told, Saul's heart continues to harden every single day. And again, he is under judgment of God through the hump of spirit that comes to him. We have talked about that a while. Saul again tries to pin David down so he throws his spear trying to pin him. This time he eludes and David runs away, never to return to the king's court. But David is fleeing, but he doesn't go far. He is only going to his wife, not that there is anything wrong with that. But he runs home. But home is no refuge for Saul because he sends his messenger to find him to watch over him so that he can kill him in the morning. And again, God is using yet another child of Saul, Michael, if it's why, to protect him. Aside note here, interesting that Michael is not like Jonathan, she is actually not a believer. You read 2 Samuel 616, she would later despise David because of his enthusiastic worship of God. Interesting. With that said, Saul, she goes ahead and warns her husband. If you do not leave here this evening, you'll be a dead man tomorrow. So she lets down David through the window. This is the stuff that movies are made of. And then she lies to the messenger that's coming. I love Ralph Davis, his commentary on this series has been so helpful to me. And he puts it this way. Michael would have plugged in the vaporizer and answered the door with a thermometer in hand. And quote, telling them that he is sick. And she lies again to a father when he shows up. You know what she says? She's actually calling David a brute. She's saying, what choice did I have? He threatened to kill me. He said, if I don't let him go, he's going to kill me. I had no choice. Of course not. But what is even more alarming here is this. I don't know what your translation says in verses 13. But Michael has an idol. She's keeping an image. She has an idol in her house, which she uses to put in bed to help her escape, to help David escape. So it's a tariff. That's the name of the idol. We find it in Genesis 31 19 and judges 17 9. This things were used for divination. It is probably not an object of worship. So it's not like an idol that she, she, you know, she bows down to, but she probably used it as a means of acquiring information. One comment in a note. It's a dummy. She uses it as a dummy with goats here. Goats have short hair. Can't imagine how many goats had to die anyway. But what is she doing with an idol anyways in a house? The presence of this idol might actually take us back puzzling as it may. It might take us back to the reasons why Saul wanted to have Michael married David. Remember we talked about it that he wanted her to be a snare to David. And we saw that that meant drawing him away from the worship of God makes sense to me. But on the other hand, I really do think that the presence of this idol here is polemical in a sense that this idol's presence shows that it's a good for nothing kind of a thing. It cannot help protect David. But if you want to do tricks on it, you can use it to use it as a dummy. There's an ethical question to be asked, isn't it? About lies and deception. This is not really the focus of the text, but I'm sure one of us is going to be wanting to ask that question, Josiah, what about the lies? She's telling lies to help someone. I'm not going to spend time on it, but I'm just going to say this. There's several Old Testament examples, one that you might know very well. They have the prostitute who hit the the spies that show people acting to protect the innocent from great evil. However, we should be very careful not to moralize this biblical institution. That our call from Scripture is to always love the truth and always love to tell the truth. Now, whether we would be required to act in such manner during a time of danger is another question altogether, but we shouldn't do so. And this should not be practiced from the reality of what's really going on here, which is this God using his instruments to protect and preserve his own. Psalm 59. I hope you can read that passage today, the whole chapter. Psalm 59 is David's reflection on this particular passage on what's really going on here. Listen to his word. He said, deliver me from those who work evil and save me from their bloodthirsty man for behold, they lie and wait for my life. Fear's man stir up strife against me explaining what is going on right here. It's a foreshadow of Israel's leaders. That's what they did to David's greater son, Jesus Christ. Those who sought to kill Jesus because they saw him as a threat. He wasn't a Messiah. He wasn't a Savior. He wasn't coming to lead us in any way. He was a threat to them. But then there are those who loved him because of his grace and his goodness. Those who hated him because of his goodness, which they couldn't deny, but they couldn't live with it. And we see the same responses in our churches and in our world today. As many people deny, but they do not want to deal with Jesus goodness. Why? Because Jesus appears to be one who comes to threaten their comfortable lives, their self-rule, especially their self, their sinful desires. And so do we, because most of the times we don't have Jesus as our Savior, I always say, but reject Him as our Lord. Sometimes as believers, we have this unwillingness in our own hearts to welcome the goodness and the grace of the Lord's anointed of Jesus Christ. You know why? I'll tell you why I'm afraid of Jesus sometimes. It is because I feel like He's coming to take the pleasure out of my own sin. He's coming to rule over my life when I would rather rule myself. He's coming to give me control over my life when I would rather be the one who determines that. And I begin to see Jesus as an enemy, not a friend, but as a Savior, as a Lord. Look at how Saul is describing David. He calls him an enemy, verses 17, the same name that he uses for the Philistines since when the David was achieving salvation for God's people had become an enemy. This verses 8 to 17 show us that God is not limited in His help to us. He's using Michael as an instrument of His protection on David, that God is reminding us this morning that He uses people in our life as a source of protection. What do I mean? Have you ever been rebuked and corrected by a friend? When you sinned, you did something wrong. Do you have a church here that loves you? It helps you to grow in your faith? That's your protection. Do your friends that love and care for you and love you through your trials and when you're facing difficult times and they are always there praying for you and interceding for you and hugging you and kissing you and loving you and you have protection. So again, I ask you, where is your hiding place? Finally, the third point is that God can protect us by rendering the enemy helpless, verses 18 to 24. The drama begins yet again. This is the final rescue and is the most remarkable and most fitting, the climax of the story of David, as he is being rescued directly by God's spirit. And as we could say that God's power is no longer behind the scenes, so to speak, but is at center stage. God's protection coming in the most weird and most strange ways. David, please, again, he's not running too far. He's only two miles away from Giber. He goes to Reyma. If he was in a hurry, he could have gotten there in 30 minutes. Being a candidate I published would have run faster than that. He's fleeing to Samuel. No kidding. He's fleeing to Samuel the prophet. The man who has the authority of God's rule over his people and somehow, somehow God keeps him safe, being in such close proximity to Saul. Until Saul's years about it, of course, I remember that God's cause is always protected by God. I know that those who seek refuge in him, I kept safe. You know, we really don't know where Nehart is and it's a name that's used here and most people argue, well, nobody really knows where Nehart is. Well, I think Nehart might have been a homestead in Reyma, of course, where Samuel lived with his prophets. So it is this place that David is about to witness one of the most intriguing and most instructive incidents of God's salvation in his life. Three times, we're told, Saul sends messages and they get there and every time they get there, they find the David and Samuel and they begin to prophesy. What were they saying? I wonder, we are no told but I can imagine. Maybe they're prophesying singing, songs of God is a great defendant and protector of his people, irony of all ironies because they were under the influence of God. The spirit of God is aimed overpowering the messages so that they couldn't carry out the message of Saul to kill David. Why? Because God has set up a protective shield around his servant, David. And so Saul hears about it and we're reminded yet again from chapter 10 of 1 Samuel. Saul knows something about the spirit of God overpowering people and prophesy. It's not the first time this has happened because Saul has experienced that. And he decides to go himself and go attack David versus 23 and 24. But even before his messages got there and they saw David and Saul, Samuel and they started prophesy. And Saul decides to go, he doesn't even get there. He starts to prophesy even before he gets there as he don't even well. The spirit of God overpowering, he's disarmed, disrobed from all his emblems of his royal office. He strips naked. Pure humiliation as he pursues God's servant. Psalm chapter 2 reminds us of a king of kings that rage and try to plot against Yahweh's anointed. Listen to Psalm 2 verses 2. Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their courts from us. And then God answers. Yahweh answers them in verses 10. He says, now, therefore, or kings be wise, be warned, or rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Saul does not see this coming. He doesn't realize that God is here directly intervening to save his people as Matthew. And Henry reminds us in his commentary says, when God pleases, he can strike all upon the worst of men by tokens of his presence in the assemblies of the faithful and force them to acknowledge that God, God is with him. And here we see a true reflection of God protecting his own directly. Let us take us back to Psalm 59, which I said is David's words reflecting on the salvation that has come upon him. It is an imprecatory Psalm which is a request for God to bring judgment against David's enemies, where God's enemies. Listen to what he says in verses 13, consume them with wrath, consume them till they are no more than they may know that God rules over Jacob and the ends of the earth. And I tell you all that to bring us to this one question, because we have to think about it. What does violent opposition against God or against us look like from God's perspective, from God's view? When we hear the raging of kings trying to attack the Lord the Lord, when we hear Satan plotting and planning and scheming against his own, against us, when we struggle with sin and temptation and all those things. And I have to admit that sometimes we don't act or feel as if the Lord's will always prevails. Do you always feel like the Lord will prevail? Because I don't. And the reality is this, that even here we see in this passage that God does not always insulate his chosen servants, his people from trouble, in danger. In fact, Jesus says in this world, you will have trials and tribulations. One thing I promise is that I will be with you, that God promises to protect us. And I think in this passage we are being called to see that it is only grace upon grace that can enable us to experience life's trials as David. See, David is going to continue to struggle. David is going to continue facing danger and harm and death. But you know one thing that David could do? He could always go back and see evidence of God's protection on his life because he will still alive. And you know sometimes, sometimes I think the clearest way, the clearest evidence that God has not deserted us from danger, from our harm is not that we are successfully passed our trial, but that we are still standing on our feet in the middle of our troubles. Are you standing? Are you here? You only have to look at the Psalms of lament. You only have to look at Isaiah 43, 1 and 2 and see God. God assuring us of his presence and protection. And if that doesn't make you yarn for the day, Christ will return and destroy all of us. I don't know what else for you. God is reminding us, this verse is here, the Jonathan Michael, Samuel, they cannot save you. He's reminding us that sometimes he, he himself comes and bypasses all these instruments that he can use for protection in order to make it very clear, to make it so clear to us that salvation belongs to the Lord. Salvation is from the Lord, from Yahweh and that the means of deliverance must never eclipse the source of that deliverance in all lives that sometimes the deliverer of himself makes that point very clear, abundantly clear to us. So I ask you again, where is your hiding place? Is David's God your God? Is he? See, if David's God is your God and my God, then we have an assurance this morning that we can enjoy God's quiet, diverse and instructive protection. We can. And we are. We can enjoy his hand guiding us through the dangers and trials of this lap. We can feel his holy presence empowering us against all our spiritual enemies. We can hear him tell us and speak to us quietly in our hearts, if my God is with you, will can be against you. And I know you're going to ask me this. But pastor, I doubt because I do too. I live in doubt in my life that God is able to protect me every single day of my life. And I hear you because I doubt as well. And you will tell me to you say, but sometimes I'm running to the wrong places. I'm seeking comfort. I'm seeking my hiding place is not always in God. And I'll tell you, I hear you and know how it feels. Because I do the same thing. I run to the wrong places instead of running to God. But I have good news for you this morning. I have to tell you that there's only one hiding place that we can have. There's only one safe place that you and I can enjoy. And it is not where you think it is not what we want. The best place that you and I will be safe is in the walls of God's mighty protective spirit because when we are with God, we are standing on the safest place that we can ever be. And that is our hiding place. Is that your hiding place this morning because if you dwell in the shelter of the most high, you will abide in the shadow of your mighty. And I will say of the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. God, you are my hiding place. Can you say, thank you Lord, that you truly are our hiding place. We do direct us and lead us to hide ourselves in you that we may be safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.