Well, let's go ahead and pick up our Bible study.
We are in 1st Samuel, chapter 19.
We've been verse by verse going through this book and it has
been a blessing to see God's hand as he's worked through various
individuals lives.
We've seen him work through the life of Samuel and even prior
to that his mom and in her prayers for having a son.
And then obviously we saw God working through Saul.
Even though Saul does not obey God in most instances, we do see
God's providential hands in his life.
And then we've now seen a God working through the life of David.
And now at this point in time we're, we're following after David
slays Goliath.
And David now at this point in time has become very famous in the
land of Israel.
And many people are following him, many people are celebrating
him, and many people are seeing God's power working through
the life of David.
And for most people that's a blessing.
But for Saul it's not because Saul feels threatened.
And, and Saul has a lot of negative characteristics that we
can see in these passages, but obviously one of the main ones that
is highlighted here in First Samuel is his jealousy against David.
He sees God working in David's life and there's jealousy.
Now we know that even in the New Testament, the Bible tells us
to celebrate with those that are celebrating too, to be joyful
with those that are joyful.
And in many cases, even within our own Christian life, we get into
places that maybe we see somebody else having victories, we
see someone else having blessings, and we're tempted in the
flesh to fall into a sense of jealousy.
And the jealousy that Saul has here in 1st Samuel chapter 19 and
in many other places, it doesn't just stop with jealousy,
it goes further.
His jealousy turns to bitterness, his bitterness turns
to anger, his anger turns to hatred.
His turn.
And we know what the New Testament says about hatred.
Hatred eventually leads to murder.
And now Saul is in this place where he is seeking to kill David
and whatever it takes, basically.
And we just got off of the first part of 1st Samuel chapter
19.
David is in there playing music to Saul to calm him down.
Saul throws a spear at him, almost kills David.
David escapes, he runs to his house and Saul says, okay, everything
that I have, I'm going to come at David, I'm going to send my men
and I'm going to go myself.
And the Bible tells us that in that process David relied on the
Lord.
And we saw a parallel in Psalm 59.
So if you have A chance at some point, go back and read Psalm
59.
Because it's a great parallel passage to this.
Because it really tells us what David's heart was all about
in the midst of this struggle, in the midst of running, in the midst
of fear, in the midst of being persecuted.
And it gives us a guide of how we should really respond in the midst
of pain and fear and struggles within our own life.
And we see that David's wife helps him.
She escorts him out the window and basically puts this doll of goat
fur underneath the sheets there and delays Saul's people.
And then Saul comes, and Saul is obviously upset because that's
his daughter.
And he gets upset with her because she doesn't pick him, she
picks her husband.
And that's what we're going to pick up here.
Now we're going to see Saul pursuing David and Saul's men pursuing
David.
And we're going to see God do something really amazing here.
And this passage is very strange.
If you were just to read this passage, you might not, on the first
read, understand what's going on here.
Because in.
In one side of the passage, we see Saul going after David.
And at the end of this passage, we're actually going to
see Saul prophesying.
It's not going to make a lot of sense for us because we're going
to say, I thought that Saul was filled with evil.
How could he end this passage prophesying for the Lord?
And we're going to see, really, that this passage, among
many others in Scripture, speak to God's providence, God's
sovereignty.
Now, sometimes when we think about God's sovereignty, we get a
lot of different viewpoints in our mind.
Sometimes people take God's sovereignty and move it to a place
of determinism.
Basically, I don't have a choice in what I'm going to do.
I don't have a choice in my salvation.
I don't have a choice in my obedience.
Basically, everyone's robotic and God is overly sovereign over
all of us.
And there really isn't any free will or any responsibility or
any choice.
And I don't believe that that's a proper viewpoint of sovereignty.
What I do see within Scripture is that God certainly in many cases
intervenes in the life of individuals who have certain intentions.
But God is overpowering them and shifts their plan and stops their
plan.
And that's exactly what we see here.
Saul is completely focused, completely given over to killing
David here.
And we're going to see that God comes on the scene and changes
the heart of Saul, even for just a temporary moment, and really
preserves David.
Why?
Because God had already made a promise to David.
And it's good to know this as we study this.
But remember what Saul's or God's promise was to David.
God's promise to David was that he would be king one day, and
he was not king yet.
So this is an opportunity for David to see God's faithfulness so
that his faith will grow.
Remember, faith and confidence and hope is wrapped up in trusting
what God has said and believing that he will keep his word.
So for David, his faith is being tested here.
It would be similar to us understanding something in our life
that God has promised us in Scripture.
Maybe it's a passage that says that God will never leave us nor
forsake us.
Or maybe it's a passage of Scripture that says that nothing
can separate us from the love of God.
And then we have an instance in our life where that is tested.
We have a decision to make.
Am I going to trust what God has said and promised to me?
Or am I going to trust the way that I feel?
Or what I see before me?
So David, what he sees before him is.
Psalm 59 describes this.
There's these men that were working for Saul, these soldiers,
and they're basically standing outside of his house growling and
coming after him and saying they're going to kill him in the
morning.
And then he sees the king of Israel, very powerful man, coming
after him.
So for David, it could have been this.
This is what I see.
I can't see God's promise coming to pass because I know that
I'm going to get killed.
But he could have said a lot of different things.
But what does he do?
He trusts that God will preserve him.
And that's faith.
Faith is believing in something that we don't see, but
it's trusting in what God has said.
So for David, he knows that God has told him that he would be
king.
And so this is God providentially protecting David despite
all these people that want him dead.
So let's go to this passage and let's see where we left off last
week.
We left off last week with David, fleeing to a place called
Ramah.
Now, why is Ramah so important?
Ramah was the place where Samuel is from.
Why is Samuel important?
Samuel is important.
Why?
Because he was the mouthpiece of God to bring the promise to David.
Remember who told David that he would be the next king?
It was Samuel.
Now, obviously, Samuel was the prophet, which meant he was the one
to speak for The Lord, and he anointed David.
And that is where David is, associating this promise from God
through Samuel.
And so he goes to Samuel, there in Ramah, and he seeks the
Lord's word, he seeks the Lord's will.
And he comes to Samuel for spiritual advice.
And he tells him in verse 18 what Saul had done to him.
And he and Samuel went and dwelt in Naioth.
Naoth means residence.
So basically they're dwelling in Samuel's residence here in Rama.
And then it says in verse number 19, and it was told Saul saying,
behold, David is at Naoth in Rama.
So Saul hears what's going on.
Saul knows where David is.
And again, we're going to see the heart of Saul.
In his bitterness and his anger, he's going to chase after
David.
Verse 20.
And Saul sent messengers to take David.
And when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying and Samuel
standing as appointed over them, the Spirit of God was upon
the messengers of Saul.
And they also prophesied.
This is where for most people, this passage goes off the rails,
because it doesn't make a lot of sense.
There's these guys that are doing Saul's bidding.
They run to get David.
They're about to kill David, or at least take him back to Saul
so that Saul will kill David.
And they witnessed something.
What do they witness?
Well, it says here that they witnessed the prophets prophesying.
This actually says the company of prophets.
So most commentators believe that this would have been essentially
the students of Samuel.
Samuel would have been teaching other people to do what
he was doing.
And obviously it was an anointing from the Lord.
And this company of prophets, the school of prophets were prophesying.
Now we see this word prophesying.
And what usually comes to our mind when we hear the word prophesying
is people talking about the future.
And certainly that's part of prophecy.
Part of prophecy is obviously predicting what is to come.
But also, even in the Hebrew and in the Greek, the word prophesy
has a bigger meaning, which also means speaking forth the word
of God.
So whether or not they were talking about the future or whether
or not they were just prophesying or preaching the word
of God, it basically says in this passage that they were doing
it.
And then Samuel was standing as appointed over them.
Basically, he was preaching as they were preaching.
They.
They were all prophesying.
And we see something amazing happen at the end of verse 20.
The spirit of God was upon the messengers of Saul.
So we see that this is not a work of man.
We see that what happens here in this miracle is beyond what we
could understand as human beings.
It's.
It's a work of God.
And I think that's important to note because any experience that
we have in our life that is a spiritual experience or a miracle
that we witness, we have to understand that it's only through
God that these things can happen.
These men are changed here temporarily, and it's because of
the Spirit of God.
Oftentimes we try to attribute wonderful things happening to things
that we do as humans.
Like, well, you know what?
This church is good because this person does this or.
Or this happened in this person's life because this person
stepped in.
And though we know that God uses us as humans as vessels of honor
and dishonor, he uses us for good things.
He uses us when we make good decisions.
He uses us when we make bad decisions.
By the way, Romans chapter 9 says that God is glorified in obedience
and God is glorified in rebellion, meaning God can use whatever
is done in this world for his glory.
But we see that no matter what we do as humans, God is still going
to win.
And in this case, God oversees all of this and he allows for these
messengers who had a heart of evil.
And eventually we're going to see Saul having this heart of evil.
They come in and the spirit of God changes them.
So let's talk about a life lesson here for us in 2026 within
the church.
As Christians, anytime we see anything happen beyond our explanation,
anytime we see God doing things beyond what we would expect,
or maybe something that's against our normal character as humans,
we have to attribute it to the fact that God is more powerful than
us.
He knows more than us.
He is all, all present in our lives.
He's omnipresent, and he's able to do these things beyond our
comprehension.
So that's what's happening here.
And verse 21.
And when it was told Saul, he sent other messengers.
So Saul is hearing what's happened.
He hears that God stops this process.
And this is typical Saul.
This is typical anyone who's walking in the flesh, angry, jealous,
bitter.
We don't listen to God's plan here.
He doesn't heed God's plan.
God's plan is for David to be preserved.
And that's what happens here.
But Saul hears it, and he sends other messengers.
And the same thing happens.
And they prophesied.
Likewise, Saul should be understanding that it is not God's
plan for him to chase after David and to kill him, but he doesn't
listen to the Lord.
He's listening to himself here.
So what happens once, it happens twice.
And at the end of this verse, and Saul sent messengers again the
third time.
So it's three times that Saul is in rebellion here.
He's not taking the hint.
And it's not really a subtle hint.
It's a very open, broad, clear message to Saul that he is not doing
the right thing.
He's going against the Lord.
And they prophesied also.
So three times Saul sends these messengers to take David.
Three times God responds with, no, I'm changing their hearts.
I'm changing this plan.
And I don't know about you guys, but this passage of Scripture
again reminds me of all the times in my life where I have my
plans and I'm working on my emotions, I'm working on my feelings.
And then it gets to a place where God changes the script, that
God totally changes the way that I expected something to happen.
And oftentimes I read passages of scripture and I want to see myself
as the David like I. I'm the one who's the hero of the story.
But oftentimes we as people are the ones in the story that need
to learn a lesson.
And the lesson really here for Saul is you need to listen to the
Lord.
You need to see what God is doing.
You need to follow the work of the Lord.
And for us in our life, I think a point of introspection, a
point of evaluation would be, how many times in my life am I trying
to push forward with something because I feel a certain way about
somebody or because this is what I've experienced and this is
what I want and this is what makes sense to me.
And then God totally puts a roadblock there.
And I say, okay, yeah, but I need to do that.
I need.
I have to do this.
This happens a lot, even in our own home.
And my wife is a voice of reason.
In many situations in my life, there'll be something that I'm doing
and it just does not seem to be working out.
It is not happening.
And I'm like, well, I got to get this done.
And I'm.
I'm very perseverant in that.
Like, I'm just going to keep going, going to keep trying to figure
this out.
I'm a problem solver.
And Alicia speaks in with her wisdom and she says, maybe this is
God telling you that you're not supposed to do this.
Maybe this is God stopping us from doing this.
And I have to say, and typically, I Wish I could tell you.
Every time I'm like, yep, you're right.
But a lot of times I'm like, no, it just means I got to try harder.
And there is a time for perseverance.
There is a time for endurance.
There's a time to push ahead.
But there's also a time to be still and know that God is God.
And Saul does not heed that warning.
So what does Saul do?
He could have sent more messengers, but now he says, okay,
the big guy's got to come in.
I've got to take care of this.
You know, you can't find any good help anywhere.
I got to go ahead and just do this myself.
And that's what he's going to try to do here.
Verse 22.
Then went he also to Rama.
So now he takes it upon himself, and he came to a great well
that is in Senshu.
And he asked and said, where are Samuel and David?
And one said, behold, there at Naoth and Rama.
So he finds out where they are.
He recognizes that he is with Samuel.
He knew that he was with Samuel, but now he knows specifically
where he is.
Verse 23.
And he went thither to Naoth and Ramah, and the Spirit of God
was upon him also.
The very same thing that happened with the messengers happens
with Saul.
And he went on and prophesied until he came to Naoth and Ramah.
So as he's going along, like, even in the process of him trying
to do something bad, God intervenes, and he begins through
the Spirit of God to prophesy.
Now, we don't know specifically what he's saying, but
we do know that he's speaking the word of God and verse 24.
And a lot of times we read verse 24, and we might not understand
exactly what's going on here.
I know I had to read it many times and actually read a few commentaries
to get some type of context of what Saul is doing here.
So verse 24, he gets to Rama, he gets to Samuel, he gets to David.
And it says he stripped off his clothes also and prophesied before
Samuel in like manner, and laid down naked all that day and
all.
All that night.
And we'll stop there, because that's weird enough.
Okay, so what.
What.
What is he doing here?
Why did he do this?
Again, we have to understand the culture and the context.
I don't believe, and most commentators don't believe that he
stripped off all of his clothes.
The word there essentially means that he took off his outer
garments.
Now, there's A couple of reasons why he would have done that.
One is it was a very humbling thing for someone to take their outer
garments off.
And so this is a picture of God humbling Saul.
We don't believe that Saul does this in his own will because
we see that the Spirit of God comes upon him.
So this isn't a conscious decision that Saul is making to say,
well, you know what?
God is so powerful, I'm so weak, I'm in repentance.
Because the reason why we know that Saul doesn't do this is because
there is no indication.
But prior to this or after this instance where he is repentant
in his heart, there is no change in his lifestyle.
There is this intervention of God in this prophesying.
But really what this is, is that God is coming upon Saul and
humbling him.
And sometimes that's what happens to people, is that God has
to come in and humble them.
They won't humble themselves.
And so God humbles him here.
So that could be one explanation for the outer garments
to be removed.
Another way that we could look at this is that he was wearing his
kingly garments.
Okay?
So it would have been very evident that Saul was king because
of what he was wearing.
He would have marked himself as king as he was traveling.
And so for him to take off the garments also is a recognition of
that he is not the long term king, even though he will still be
king.
For a time, his kingship was being taken away from him and being
passed on to David.
So many commentators believe that this was God's way of showing
Saul that you know what it is going to come to pass, that you are
not going to be king, your family will not continue on, and
this is a way to humble him.
So if the most conservative way to see this passage in verse
24 is that God is humbling Saul, despite his heart, despite
his rebellion, despite his desire to take out David, he must
recognize that God is powerful because God essentially forces him
to come before him and allow himself to see the power of God.
So God stops Saul, and through God stopping Saul and the Spirit
intervening, we see that Saul comes to a place where he is humbled
and God demonstrates his power over Saul.
And really what it is is that God demonstrates that Saul cannot
accomplish what God has determined to prevent.
And I think that's a lesson for all of us.
Whatever walk we are in life, we might have our own determination
of what we think should happen, but God will always demonstrate
that we cannot accomplish what God has already determined to prevent
or bring in to pass.
And I think that what I have worked through within this passage,
as I've studied it, is that I certainly have plans that I want
to have happen in my life.
You know, I. I have goals, I. I have aspirations.
I have certainly a will that I want to have come about in my own
life.
But there is a time and a place that all of us as believers,
if we're walking with the Lord, have to submit ourselves to
God's plan.
Because no matter what our plans are, God is going to intervene.
And God might change the things that we are looking for in
our life.
And this fits right into the way that God has been protecting
David.
Think about all the instances in which David could have messed
this up, either on his own decisions or by the decisions of
others.
Saul could have killed him on many occasions.
David could have messed it up in many occasions.
But yet God preserves him.
Now, not all of us are called to be the king of Israel.
I don't think any of us are called to be the king of Israel.
So how does that work for me then?
Okay, so you're Christian 2026.
What does God promising David and preserving him to be king mean
for me today?
Well, it means that as children of God, even though we're
not called to be the king, physical king of Israel, God has
called us to something within our life.
All of us, as Christians, are called as children of God, to be
preserved until the end.
The Bible says that Philippians, chapter one, that we're
sealed unto the day of redemption.
And so as Christians, though we won't be sitting on a physical
throne necessarily, we'll all be one day with our Savior in a glorified
body, walking with him, serving him, worshiping him forever.
And the Bible says that God will preserve us in that.
That nobody can pluck us out of his hand, that nothing can separate
us from the love of God.
So as a Christian today, I can look at it from the perspective of,
though I might make mistakes, though others might come against
me, though others might want to steal away what I have, nobody
can take this away because God is protecting me and preserving me
throughout this life.
And so the overwhelming point that we see is that God stops Saul
and God preserves David.
And so what was Saul actually prophesying?
I think about that in this passage, and there's a.
If you read up on this, there's commentators that say all
different things.
And though we don't know specifically what he was prophesying,
we certainly do know that he was speaking forth, what God wanted
him to Speak.
And we even see at the very end.
This is so interesting.
At the end of verse 21, there's the statement, or excuse
me, at the end of verse 24, there's the statement.
And this is actually a statement that's restated from 1st
Samuel, chapter 10, verse 10.
So at the very beginning of Saul's ministry, if you will, God
calling him to be king, is anointing as king.
There was a statement back then that people were so shocked
that Saul was prophesying that they said, is Saul among the prophets?
Is Saul actually.
Could he actually be a prophet?
And that's exactly what's being said about him here at the
end of this passage.
And so there's a parallel here.
They.
They ask this question.
They say, is Saul also among the prophets?
And that actually became like a proverb in Israel at that time.
Basically, chapter 10 was Saul was newly anointed.
God's Spirit came upon him.
He prophesied, and people were shocked.
Now, chapter 19, Saul has now become a rebellious man.
God's spirit comes upon him again.
He's prophesying, and people are still shocked that God would
be speaking through him.
Now, that's a sad testimony for Saul that people would be shocked
that God would speak through him.
That's showing that his testimony was not about following
God.
His testimony was all about him.
Saul would never talk about God.
And so for the fact that Saul is talking about God shocks the people.
And they say, how could Saul do this?
You know, why would Saul do this?
Only because it's the power of God working through a broken vessel.
And we can even see that within our own culture, we can see
people who are broken, we can see people who are flawed, but God
can still speak through them.
And so the.
The story here is taking us back to the beginning of Saul's ministry.
But then we see that it's a reminder at the very end that it's
only because of the Spirit of God that anything good could come
from Saul as a broken vessel.
So there's a big question that a lot of people have, you know, is
this the moment where Saul comes before God in faith and is
restored because the Spirit comes upon him?
Here is this saying that Saul then is a believer, that he's walking
with God forever?
Well, if you've read the rest of the story, it's not that case.
He's not staying in the Spirit of God.
And that's one of the distinctions in the Old Testament
versus the New Testament is that the New Testament, when the
Holy Spirit comes upon an individual and indwells them, he
stays.
We're sealed.
The Bible says that we're secured in the Spirit.
And actually the Spirit is the earnest or the down payment and the
confirmation that one day we will be with the Lord forever.
But that's not how it worked in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament very clearly indicates that the Spirit of God
comes upon people and then leaves people.
And so in this case, this is an instance where God is intervening
in the life of Saul.
But it does not mean that God is giving him saving grace or allowing
him to enter into heaven because of this experience.
Because we see other experiences where God speaks to individuals
temporarily.
Think about Balaam and if you know anything about the story of
Balaam, Balaam speaks prophetically.
Um, there was an instance where Caiaphas actually, in the New
Testament with Jesus, prophesies about something in the
future.
Though I don't believe Caiaphas was a believer in the Lord.
It was an instance in which God spoke through a rebellious person.
Saul prophesies here and many other instances where this would
happen.
So what does this mean?
This means that God, in his ultimate power, will use the Spirit
of God to restrain individuals to accomplish his purposes, and even
in some cases, allow people to go the path of their choosing and
use that for his glory.
There's a lot of people that struggle with the fact that God used
a pagan nation to judge his own people.
Think about that.
Remember Babylon?
God can use.
And I don't think God forced Babylon to do that.
And Babylon sitting there going, we really wanted to serve
the one true God, but now God's forcing us to go do this.
No, God is using the rebellious heart of Babylon for his
glory, for his purpose.
It's the same thing with Saul.
God is using this rebellious heart of Saul to be used for his
glory by elevating David to the position that he had planned
for him.
And so that's a very interesting theological thing to
discuss.
And that might be for another day.
But the question that many people ask is that this is.
Is this Saul's change?
And we certainly don't see that because of the lack of repentance.
And by the way, repentance.
And that's an important thing to talk about as well.
And I know we're throwing out a lot of words here this evening,
but I think it's important for us to note repentance is not just
having a religious or spiritual experience.
Okay?
That's really what's happening here.
They have this spirit of God come upon them.
They're Very emotional.
They prophesy, but yet it doesn't change their lifestyle.
And that's not repentance.
I mean, we could have a service here and everyone could have
a lot of emotions running.
We could even feel the spirit of God in the room and feel certain
aspects of conviction in our life and comfort in our life.
But that doesn't mean that when we walk out of these walls that
everything's going to be right and where we need to be.
The Bible speaks of repentance is not just a feeling, but it's actually
a choice of turning away from something.
And so it's not just remorse, because you can feel remorse but
not have repentance.
There's plenty of people that can feel that remorse and say, yeah,
I shouldn't have done that.
I really don't want to get caught.
I really don't want to have this pain in my life.
I don't want to have this guilt in my life.
That's one thing.
But repentance is saying, I don't want this anymore.
I'm turning away from this thing my way, and I'm turning to
God's way, and I'm now going to turn my back and retreat from
that very thing.
We don't see that happening in the life of Saul, at least in this
instance.
We certainly don't see it.
And so the overall point that I think that all of us can take in
this passage, and I hope that it's something that can help us in
any other way, is that Saul had an intention.
His goal was to kill David.
But God intervenes and God works through Saul.
God preserves David and God has a plan for David, and he puts
David, obviously into a place of leadership later on.
And this isn't the last time that Saul and David are going to
have an interaction.
And though I think that Saul shows some level of having a spiritual
experience here, we don't see Saul repenting.
We don't see Saul confessing any sin.
By the way, I do believe that if our, you know, we talk about we
want rebel or we want revival.
Right?
Everyone talks about that.
You know, we need a revival in America.
And by the way, I think we do.
Okay?
So I'm not denying the fact that we need revival in America.
We need revival within our churches.
But I want to tell you that without repentance and confession,
we will never have revival.
Because what confession is, by the way, first John 1:9, if we confess
our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse
us from all Unrighteousness.
That doesn't mean that we keep getting saved over and over again
every time we sin.
That word confess is a very interesting word in the Greek.
It's actually made up of two words, homo, which means the same,
logeo, which means word saying the same thing, basically.
And so what confession is.
It's not just telling someone something, though in our English
language, that's the understanding of confession.
Like, I'm going to confess that, you know, I ate an extra brownie
to you.
Okay, I was only going to eat one, but I ate two.
So there I'm going to confess that to you.
But biblical confession is agreeing with God about the thing
that I did.
So my sin is egregious.
God, I know that this is something that you don't want me
to do.
I know that this is harmful to me.
I know that this is what you saved me from.
And I know that I should not be bound by this.
And so confession is understanding and agreeing with God
and seeing it the way that God sees it.
And therefore, that confession brings repentance, and that repentance
of turning away from brings revival and renewal in our spirit.
So that's really what Saul needed to do here.
Saul could have had this experience, right?
And this should have changed his life.
Saul should have been at a place in his life where he said,
you know what, God?
You've told me one time after another time, this is not right for
me, Lord.
This is wrong.
I want you in my life.
I want to be right with you.
Who knows what God would have done, obviously, beyond what the
plan was here.
But ultimately, Saul does not do that.
Saul does not come to a place of repentance.
He does not come to a place of confession.
And I don't believe that Saul comes to a place of forgiveness because
of his lack of repentance and his rebellion against God.
So I think that that's something to think about when it
comes to this passage.
And so, as we conclude our thoughts here, what was Saul really
prophesying?
Was he really prophesying?
Yes.
I believe that God was working through him as a supernatural influence.
Was it evidence for salvation?
No.
I don't believe that every religious experience means that someone
is saved.
I do believe that there are many people in our world today that
have religious experiences, but they are not on the same level
as aligning themselves in faith with God.
The Bible actually says in the New Testament to test every spirit,
whether they come from God or from somewhere else.
That means theologically, what that means is that there can be Spiritual
experiences that are outside of an experience with God.
People can.
You've heard someone say, we've even heard some people say
this at the peach festival when we were talking to them about,
you know, do they go to church?
You know, are you a believer?
And they say, well, I don't go to church.
I'm not a Christian, but I'm spiritual.
Okay, well, first of all, what does that mean?
But I think we understand what people are meaning by that.
They don't want to admit that there is a God, but they do believe
that there is a spirit realm.
At least if they say they're spiritual, they believe that there's
something more than this physical body.
And if there's something more than this physical body and we're
not appealing to the one and true God, that must mean that there's
spiritual influences coming from other places.
Now, I would just caution you to think that a lot of times people
think that, well, God's working when there's this experience.
And though experiences are evident within God working, God's
work is always going to be aligned with truth.
God's work is always going to be grounded in something from his
word.
So let's say, for example, I got up here tonight, and I'll just
say that my favorite speakers, when I went, I went to a Christian
school and we had chapel twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9
o', clock, I think it was 9 o', clock, something like that.
But my favorite speakers are the ones who are the most entertaining,
of course, right?
The ones that told the best stories, the ones that had the best
jokes, the ones that yelled the loudest, the ones that ran.
We had people running on the pew.
So, like, there'd be a guy here and he would jump to the pew
to pew and get in our face.
Those are always the best for me.
Like, wow, they were great speakers.
And they say, okay, what do they talk to you about?
Well, I have no idea what they talked about.
It was just fun.
It was good.
And I think that sometimes we equate the work of God with activity
and movement and motion and volume.
And though certainly volume and motion and activity can happen
in the work of God, it must be aligned with truth.
So tonight I could come up here and do something amazing.
Maybe do a magic trick for you or maybe tell you a very interesting
story.
Maybe run around the room and chase you around the room and you'd
remember that experience.
But if I never brought a truth of God to tie it back to a heart
of repentance, a heart of faith, a heart of, of.
Of revival or anything within Scripture.
We're not doing anything.
We're just spinning our wheels.
And so for Saul here, there's this emotional experience, but there's
nothing, truth.
There's no truth that's linked to it.
There's no substance linked to it.
And so we have to have substance with our spiritual experiences.
And that is, I believe the lesson that we see here is that the
power of God is working in their midst, but yet nothing has
changed.
God confronts Saul.
We see that here.
We see that God stops him, he restrains him, he humbles him, and
he gives Saul a, a divine revelation, really, a, a, A whole
truth here to see God working through him.
But the text doesn't point to anything about Saul genuinely changing
or coming to God and staying in that humble state.
And the New Testament principle is found in First Peter,
Chapter 5, and in other places that God resists the proud but gives
grace to the humble.
And that's always a verse that I think about all the time in my
own life.
Anytime I'm tempted to think that I have a reason to be prideful.
And sometimes I do.
I mean, all of us, I think to some degree can understand that.
Like we do something or someone attributes success to us.
We in our flesh want to say, yeah, you know what?
I did really well there.
I did accomplish that.
Anytime I feel that coming up in my life and I perceive it, I try
to go back to that verse that says, God resists the prideful and
gives grace to the humble.
And folks, I am in desperate need of God's grace.
And I hope that you understand that you are in desperate need of
God's grace, too.
I want to know God's grace more.
I want to live in God's grace more.
Therefore, I have to die to that pride.
And Saul had that pride.
I mean, it's evident in his life.
And Saul had every reason to be prideful in the human perspective.
Remember, he was head and shoulders above everybody.
I mean, Saul physically was a specimen there in Israel.
The interesting part about that is that he was a specimen until
he met Goliath.
And he didn't match up to Goliath.
And that was kind of aligned to a lesson that my dad used to teach
me.
He says, anytime you think that you're the best in something,
you're always going to find someone that's going to be better
than you.
And sometimes that's how it is as Christians.
Sometimes we think that we're pretty good Christians and we should
strive to be Good Christians.
But at the end of the day, there's always.
If I'm judging myself and how good I am, I'm always going to find
a Christian who's read more than me.
I'm always going to find a Christian who.
Who went to Christian school longer or prays longer.
And then we shouldn't judge ourselves off that.
We should judge ourselves off of how much our heart is growing
to the Lord.
And so in First Samuel, we see Saul elevating himself.
God puts him in a place of leadership, and instead of using
that as a.
As a mechanism to elevate the Lord, he elevates himself and gets
to a place in his life where that pride takes over.
And guess what?
Pride is very fragile.
And the reason why Saul is so fragile is because his pride, his
ego, kept getting hurt through David.
And up to this point, David had not been rubbing in his face
even.
We saw earlier on in this passage that David was in no way
sinning against Saul.
And still he wanted.
He wanted David dead.
And there's a lesson here for.
For David.
The lesson for David is that God would preserve him, that God
would keep his word.
We're going to talk about it In Romans, chapter 12 on Sunday,
there's a verse that says, vengeance is mine, I will repay,
saith the Lord.
Oftentimes we want to get even with someone who wrongs us.
And we.
If this was a Hollywood movie, we would completely understand David,
like, right here.
Just, like, take him out.
David, you know, you.
You have the right to do it.
Saul wants to get you.
And we know later on we're going to talk about this later on.
David has a chance to take out Saul.
He does.
He's like, I have him right here.
But he recognizes the principle, that it's God's timing.
It's.
That's God's plan.
And I think it's a New Testament principle for us.
Vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord.
And I'm not saying that we should sit back and go, all right,
God, I'm waiting for you to take out all my enemies.
Why aren't they gone yet?
That's not really the heart, and we're going to talk about that
more on Sunday.
But the heart is love on them, pray that they're changed.
And that's what we see with David.
David was always wanting Saul to come back.
And that's really what the whole lesson Here is in 1st Samuel.
But as God stopped Saul, we certainly see God continuously blessing
David's life and God repeatedly protecting David without
David needing to take vengeance against Saul.
And Saul had an army.
Saul had weapons.
Saul had authority.
He had resources.
Really, in this context, there was no one more powerful than Saul,
at least on the human side of things.
And so Saul had it all.
Saul could have done anything he wanted to David, but God had the
final word.
God is the one who has all the resources that we ever need in our
life for victory.
So if you feel overwhelmed, if you feel like there's someone against
you, if you feel like maybe God's plan isn't going to work out
in your life, just recognize that you might not have all of the
tools that you think you need, but God is in control.
And that God, if God is in control, he's preserving us and protecting
us and providing for us.
And I hope that that is a blessing for all of us as we continue
to study 1 Samuel, chapter number 20.
As we go into this passage and what we're going to be doing, and
this is something we've never done here, at least since I've been
here, we've never done this.
But what Pastor Ethan and I are going to be doing is as we go
through One Samuel, we're going to just be bouncing back and
forth between these chapters.
And, uh, so I did.
He did chapter 18.
I'm going to do.
I did chapter 19, and he's going to come back and do chapter
20 for you if all the plans go to pass.
And this way you can get different perspectives.
Now, we're not going to tell you contradictory perspectives.
Okay, so.
So, you know, you might think Pastor Ethan, he sees it from a different
perspective, so he's going to preach something else.
We're going to be aligned on the theological side.
But I do know that every person comes with maybe a different
angle on the spiritual lesson that we see within Scripture.
So I hope that it'll be a blessing for you as you come back
as.
As I know it will be.
And so David is going to have an opportunity to make a covenant
with Jonathan.
And that's a whole other beautiful story.
I'd love to get into that, but we'll talk more about that as we
go along.
But I hope that as we study David, that it.
It opens your eyes to more than just, you know, David is.
Is really popular.
David has movies, David has TV shows.
You know, a lot of times we know about David and Goliath.
We know about David and Bathsheba.
But there's so much more to David than just those highlight points.
They're highlight points for a reason.
But as we study this, I hope that we can see it through a new
lens, a new perspective, and really see that God is one who keeps
his promises.
And he makes a promise to David and he keeps that promise.
And we're going to see that there's a lot of ups and downs to
it.
And we're also going to see that in the life of David, God uses
flawed people.
We've already mentioned that David is not the type of guy that
even we see.
Like, you know, I don't know if you've ever read the book of Genesis
and read about Joseph or read even the book of Daniel.
The Bible doesn't bring up negative things about Joseph and
Daniel.
So I always look at them like, man, I could never be like Joseph
and Daniel.
Even though we know that Joseph and Daniel sinned because
the Bible says for all have sinned, we just don't see it that
highlighted.
But I don't want to say poor David, but David gets a lot of negative
things highlighted, particularly later on in his life.
And he didn't get it all right, But God certainly blesses
him.
And why?
Not because David was perfect, but because David sought after that
relationship with God.
And we'll talk more about that as we go along and go into 2 Samuel.
So this is going to be a long, extended study, but I hope that it'll
be a blessing for you.