Sermon extras 1 Sam 18-19
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God Usually Uses Means
God Usually Uses Means
Now, as we see throughout the Scriptures, in his providence God usually uses means in order to accomplish what he has decreed, but he doesn’t have to, because he is God. Though he usually uses means like people, prophecy, the preaching of the word, circumstances, the ordinances of the church, church discipline, and many other things, sickness, suffering, trials, God is free to work apart from them, beyond them, or against them, according to this pleasure.
We’ll see in the passage today, God will usually use means to accomplish his purposes, but at least in one instance he does not. He intervenes himself.
Recap: So we said that God is able, at any given moment, through the same circumstances, to uncover unrighteousness, adorn his anointed, and preserve his promises.
Well, let’s talk about the circumstances that we see in the passage for today.
Saul’s suspicion springs up:
Saul’s suspicion springs up:
55 As soon as Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is this youth?” And Abner said, “As your soul lives, O king, I do not know.” 56 And the king said, “Inquire whose son the boy is.” 57 And as soon as David returned from the striking down of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. 58 And Saul said to him, “Whose son are you, young man?” And David answered, “I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.”
2 And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father’s house.
Saul wants to know what tribe David came from. He then decides that he would keep David close, probably so that he can keep a close eye on him.
Saul’s envy emerges
Saul’s envy emerges
In another scene, Saul and David are returning home after David’s striking down of the Philistine. And they are met with a victory parade:
6 As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. 7 And the women sang to one another as they celebrated,
“Saul has struck down his thousands,
and David his ten thousands.”
And then Saul’s response:
8 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?”
Now, what’s interesting here is how Hebrew poetry works, think about the Psalms. Hebrew poetry often employs what is called parallelism. Often, two lines next to each other will talk about the same thing, say a certain event event, from a different perspective. But here they change the subject from Saul to David, which is typically uncommon.
Instead of celebrate David’s victory, Saul’s envy emerges, and
9 And Saul eyed David from that day on.
Saul’s Fear of David Festers
Saul’s Fear of David Festers
Saul’s fear of David grows throughout the passage as he seems to become more and more convinced that David is the “neighbor” who is going to take his kingdom from him, “because the LORD was with him” (18:12), and he demotes him in his military ranking.
After David has “great [military] success” in this new position, it says that Saul “stood in fearful awe of him” (1 Sam 18:15), or probably better, Saul stood in dread of David. Dread.
He then tries to murder David indirectly by deceiving David, having him pay bride prices for two different daughters.
He tells David he must fight the LORD’s battles agains the Philistines for him in order to have his first daughter (1 Samuel 18:17)
Why?
1 Samuel 18:17 (ESV)
17 … For Saul thought, “Let not my hand be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him.”
When it comes time for David to marry this daughter, Saul gives her to someone else. Then, seeing that his other daughter, Michael, loved David, Saul sought to take advantage of that in order to get rid of David.
20 Now Saul’s daughter Michal loved David. And they told Saul, and the thing pleased him. 21 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.”
So Saul sends his servants to David informing him of the new bride price:
25 Then Saul said, “Thus shall you say to David, ‘The king desires no bride-price except a hundred foreskins 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.
But, David is successful and he marries Michal,
28 But when Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved him, 29 Saul was even more afraid of David. So Saul was David’s enemy continually.
“Yes, the things to use that seem irregular, God makes use of to his own glory. Suppose you were in a smith’s shop, and should see there several sorts of tools, some crooked, some bowed, others hooked, would you condemn all these things, because they do not look so handsome? The smith makes use of them all for doing his work. Thus it is with the providences of God; they seem to us to be very crooked and strange, yet they all carry on God’s work. (Watson, A Body of Divinity, 121).
Recently in 1 Samuel we’ve seen that God rejected Saul as king because Saul rejected God as King, and rejected his word. And then Saul was told by God’s prophet, Samuel, that God had torn the kingdom from him and would give it to a neighbor of Saul’s that is better than him (15:28). Then, unbeknownst to Saul, God sends the prophet Samuel to anoint the shepherd David as king. The text says that “the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward (16:13), and that the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul (16:14).
There are many, throughout history, that have realized this, included C.S. Lewis
“In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.