1 Samuel 18

As I was going through this study, I was convicted. And what I want to do here is I want to begin our study of 1 Samuel 18. Did I tell you that? We're in 18? Did I say that yet for Samuel 18? You're sitting there going Deuteronomy? As we begin for Samuel 18, I'm actually going to put up on the screen for you a verse from another passage in the New Testament that I want you to take a look at. I find this to be one of the most meddlesome Scriptures in all of the Bible. Speaking of meddling, God meddles with my heart more with this Scripture than I think just about anything else. Jesus is speaking here, Matthew chapter 6, verse 21. It's obviously part of the Sermon on the Mount, and He says,

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. One of the things you love to, I don't know if you love to see, but we seem to see a lot in movies is treasure hunting. Regardless of the different kinds of treasures there are. I guess it's fun for us to watch people go through the process of going through the clues and finding the treasure, because it's sometimes difficult to find a treasure. But you never have to wonder where your treasure is. And pretty much anybody can probably see it by just looking at your life or observing your life for a period of time. We know exactly where your treasure is. You know where my treasure is. It's basically where my heart is, whatever our hearts are focused on, that's where our treasure is. That's why I find this verse so meddlesome because it really convicts me of what's happening on the inside and how it is playing itself out on the outside. The things that dominate my attention, the things that take my thoughts, my energy, my money. I've heard it said you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their checkbook register. I think that's probably true as well.

But the reason I wanted to share that particular verse with you as we get started here in 1 Samuel chapter 18, is because that's what this chapter is largely about. It's about where your heart is and therefore what you treasure. What do you treasure? I want you just to think about that for a moment, will you? Just in your own heart and mind, what do you treasure in life? What do you look forward to? What gets you up in the morning? What takes your time, energy, attention? What drives you? What is your passion? As you think that through a little bit, we're going to get into this chapter. Now in order to really—remember chapter divisions didn't exist when the Bible was originally written. They were put there many, many years later for you and I, for study purposes. I want to take the last 2 verses of the previous chapter because it's going to help ease us in to our understanding of what's happening here. The last 2 verses of chapter 17, which are verses 57 and 58, go like this, 57, “And as soon as David returned from the striking down of the Philistine, (and it's talking there about defeating Goliath) 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.”” Now, as you get in then to chapter 18, it starts by saying in verse 1, “As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul,…” (ESV) Which almost gives you the impression that's all they talked about, was this question, so who's your dad? Well, he's Jesse, the Bethlehemite, your servant. Oh, okay, cool. See you later. I seriously doubt that. I think they probably had a long conversation. I think the writer here is just condensing things a little bit. And the other thing I believe is that Jonathan, the oldest son of Saul, was also in the room, or wherever they were talking, while this conversation was going on. Because it says here in verse 1 that, “As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” Wow, that's a heavy duty love. Remember though, we've been introduced to Jonathan in chapters past. Great guy, heart for the Lord, willing to take risks, ventures of faith, right? If you will. Remember he's the guy who, who came up on a contingent of Philistines and said, just with him and his armor bearer, that's all there was. He said, hey, let's do something here to get these guys attention, and if they say this, we'll run for our lives. If they say that, we'll go up and fight them, because that'll be the sign that God's given them into our hands. And you remember how that story went. It created a great victory that day for the armies of Israel. Jonathan's a great guy. Jonathan is a guy who's very similar to David in many respects. And that is why I believe that Jonathan, excuse me, David and Saul probably had a longer conversation. And Jonathan sitting and listening to this and he's just getting just tanked as he's thinking about this guy is. I just love this guy. I mean, just his heart for the Lord, his heart for faith, his heart for the battles of the Lord. I just love this guy. And he's hearing this and he's just jazzed about this whole thing. So they're probably talking— so David, tell me, give me some background, and this and that, what brought you here in the first place? And, the battle's over now we can sit down and we can talk, over a glass of whatever. And it says here in verse 1 that “the soul of Jonathan,” remember what the soul is. The soul is not the spirit. It's not the physical body. The soul is the intellect and the emotions. It says his soul was just knit with David, and he loved him as his own soul. That's an interesting phraseology. I think some other Bible translations say, he loved him as himself. Now, it goes on and it says, “2 And Saul took him (took David that is) that day and would not let him return to his father's house.” But it says in verse 3, “…Jonathan made a covenant with David, (and then it repeats it) because he loved him as his own soul.” Now, it's interesting because already in this chapter, we have the main players who we're going to be looking at here tonight as it relates to this issue of where your treasure is there your heart is also. We have David, we have Jonathan, and we have Saul. Remember Saul is Jonathan's dad. He's the king. He started off really good, but life has not been very good for Saul lately because he has strayed from the Lord. In fact, the Bible has told us that the Lord has removed His Spirit from Saul, king Saul. And so life has gotten pretty challenging for Saul. Battles have not been easy. And life has not been very good. Now David comes along and things look up here, at least for a while. But I want you to, we had a long time here a couple of weeks ago, talking about David. And we had a good character sketch of David related to his willingness to go up and battle Goliath. But now we're going to look at Saul and his son Jonathan a little bit, concerning this victory that has just been brought about in Israel. And this has been a major victory. Make no mistake about it. This has been a crazy, amazing victory. Remember what happened last time? 40 days, they've been sitting in the Valley of Elah. And they've been listening to Goliath get up morning and evening, shooting his mouth off day after day, challenging them to come out, and just send one person out to fight him. Nobody has been willing to do it up to this point. David finally hears this guy shooting his mouth off and says, what's up with this? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? I'll go up against him. He does. He defeats him, cuts off his head, and there's a battle that ensues, which Israel has a great victory in. It's been a great, great day. It's been a good day. How do the people respond to this whole process? We see Saul's response right away. We can see where his treasure is because immediately he says, he takes David and he says, dude, you've gone home for the last time. You're here with me. He takes David. He wants to possess David because this is the first time things have looked up in a long time for Saul. This is a good thing going on here. Now, eventually this is going to be a problem for Saul and you know that too because David is going to become competition, although he doesn't want to. But for right now, David is to Saul something he wants, he wants to possess. It tells us here very clearly in verse 2, “that Saul took him that day.” That's what it says. That's the language. He took him and it says he, “would not let him return to his father's house” anymore. He's probably in his upper teens, but he says, no more going home. You're going to be part of my army. You're going to be part of what we're doing around here because I see that success comes through you. And so now I want you. I want to possess you. You see. And that's right where Saul is at, because you see success and victory are his treasure. And that's where his heart is at. And so he's going to be looking for those things. Remember before David went out to the battle? David said, I'm going to go out in the strength of the Lord. What did Saul try to do? He tried to dress him in his own armor because he believed that's how victory would actually be achieved. He wasn't seeing the Lord's work in it at all. He saw this thing as a military victory or battle. It wasn't victory yet, but as a battle. And that's how you handle these sorts of things. And so he's all about this sort of thing, of victorious and success. And this is what you got to do, and this is what you got to wear. And this is how you go out to fight the battles and so forth. And of course, David, took all that stuff off and said, I can't wear that. Then he went out in the strength of the Lord. Now, Saul has an opportunity here to look at this situation and say, wow, this is amazing. God has done an incredible thing through you, young man, I am going to repent of my determination to look at victory through my singular narrow focus of military armaments and strength. And I'm going to stop being afraid of these big loud mouth giant guys that get up and shoot their mouth off, because God is the one who gives us the victory. He could have done that. He could have done that, but he didn't. He missed it. Why? Because his heart wasn't there. His heart was after other things and so he missed what the Lord did. And all he could think to do was to possess David like he's some a lucky charm, rabbit's foot, sort of a thing. Because his heart just, instead of going, oh wow, the Lord is so good. And that's what, see, that's what happens sometimes when people get their eyes off the Lord, and on to earthly things. Suddenly now people become, even though they're a tool of the Lord and God may have used people in your life as a tool to bring blessing. And what you did instead of looking to the Lord and praising God, is you look to the tool. You start looking at the person. Wow, you are so cool. No God is so cool. You with me? We've got to stop seeing things from this earthly perspective. That's where Saul is stuck. David, you're mine. You're mine. You're staying right here, buddy. I need some luck on my side. God's not talking to me anymore, so I need every positive thing here for me. And verse 3 tells us how Jonathan saw this whole thing. Jonathan just flat out loved him. Now remember something about Jonathan, and please don't misunderstand this love between these two men, because they did love each other. And later on in their relationship, one's going to say to the other, that your love is more precious to me than that of a woman. Don't even begin to go toward the homosexual idea of things because that isn’t happening. And if you suggested it to either one of those guys, they probably would have cut your head off. They were warriors. This is a love that we rarely understand culturally today. This is a spiritual love. This is a love of the heart, a love of the soul, that says we are brothers in Christ and we are one. And we have the same heart, the same desire, the same passion to serve God, to glorify God and to walk by faith, and not by sight. And that's the thing we've already seen in Jonathan. That's the thing we've already seen in David. And now they come together and Jonathan's like, I have, I found my soulmate. There's not a sexual thing here. It's a—he says, I have found someone who is like unto my own soul. It's like seeing this picture of my best self and I love you. And he said, it says that he made a covenant with David, you see. This is the interesting thing about the difference between Saul and his son, Jonathan. Saul wants to possess him. Jonathan wants to bless him. Do you see the difference? He wants to make a covenant. We are together. And a covenant, understand people. A covenant is a two way relationship of blessing and protection and honor. And just the ministry of grace. I'll cover you. You cover me. We're going to cover each other. I love you, my brother, you see. With Saul, it's all, I just want what you got. Give it to me. I'm the king. You serve me from this point on. You see the difference? That's that character sketch that I want you to see because it's very contrasting. But it's based on where your treasure is. What do you treasure the most? And please understand and do not miss what I've said earlier here, that you will miss the work of the Lord if your treasure is in earthly things. You will miss it. Just like Saul you'll miss it and people around you might see it, but you'll miss it. You just, it was like you're blind to it or something it happened. Have you ever looked at somebody who just was missing the work of the Lord? And you want to just you want to say to them, don't you see what God has done in your life? Don't you see what he's done in your marriage? Don't you see what he's done in your family? Don't you see the blessing? Don't you see He has just backed up the dump truck of blessing and just buried you in them? And yet all they can do is complain and talk about this to talk about that. And if they do see any blessing, it's what they want to possess and hang on to, rather than just accept and receive from the Lord. And they're putting their focus on something else over here. See, if we do, if I get this new job, and I get this new income, then we're going to be okay. And they got their focus down here. That's where Saul lives.

I love how Jonathan proves his heart because look what it goes on to say in verse 4. This is so beautiful. It's actually even amazing to read. It says, “And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt.” Guys, do you understand the significance of this? Who is Jonathan again? He's not just the son of Saul, the king. He's the eldest son of Saul, the king. You know what that makes him? The crown prince. Now, at this point the whole kingship is still brand new in Israel and they probably haven't even worked out all these things, but in pretty much everybody's mind, I'm willing to bet that people probably assumed that, Jonathan would take over after his dad passed away. That's essentially the way, a monarchy runs, even to this day. So here's the crown prince who takes off—is willing to take off all of the outward symbols of his special place in life and put them on David. And it's almost like, like Jonathan is confessing. And I don't know if he is or not, I don't know, but it's almost like he's confessing that David is going to be king one day. I don't know, okay. David has already been anointed king. He's not going to take the throne for a long time; probably another 10 to 13 years. We're not exactly sure. But Jonathan literally takes off what he would be recognized as, the crown prince, and gives those things to David. That's how much his heart loves this man. And what it tells you is he did not have his treasure in the kingship. Right. It wasn't there. He didn't have his treasure there. That's not where his heart was. He didn't look… Now, see, Saul is going to look at David here, out of the corner of his eye here real soon in just the next few verses. And he's going to begin to look at David as a as competition, as a threat to him maintaining what he has down here. Because he's so cut off from the whole spiritual dynamic, seeing the blessing of the Lord, seeing the things of the Lord. He's so cut off. Do you see what people have to do when they're cut off from God's blessing and God's heart and the kingdom mentality? What do they have to do? They have to possess? They have to possess what they have. It's mine and you can't touch it. David, you're a successful person, you're with me, buddy. You're mine now. I am the king.

And now when David is going to become popular in the kingdom, then he's going to start to say about the kingdom, the kingdom is mine! And we're going to see that here in the next few verses, possessiveness. People, you can be possessive about so many things in life. You can be possessive about life itself, about your life. You can be possessive with your spouse, your girlfriend, boyfriend. You can be possessive with your money. You can be possessive with your material goods. You can be possessive about your position in your job or whatever the thing might be. Whatever, wherever the treasure is, you can be possessive about it, right? But that is a sign. That possessiveness is a sign that your focus is on things below and you are not recognizing that God is the originator. He gives blessings, He bestows blessings, and that these things aren't yours to possess. The Bible tells us in very clear sort of way that your life is not something for you to possess. The world—I remember growing up hearing, people say, well, it's my life, I can do what I want. I suppose before you're a Christian, maybe you can say that to a degree, but as a believer, you can't say that anymore. It's gone. That ability to say it's my life, I'll do what I want with it is absolutely out the window. It's not your life. The Bible says you were purchased with the very blood of Jesus Christ and you are not your own. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) Right? That is what being a Christian is. It's belonging to God so you cannot act possessively about your life. You can't say it's mine and I'm going to hang on to it. Oh, but we want to do that. That's what our flesh wants to do. It's my time. It's my money. It's my pleasure. It's my thing and I'm going to hang on to it. I'm not going to give it up. I'm not going to give it away and you can't have it. And if you threaten me with it, I'm liable to do something out of anger. We're going to see that is exactly what Saul does. We're going to see a progression of devastating negative emotions that comes from this man because he felt he needed to possess what God had originally given. Let's keep reading. Verse 5.

So they were happy. But, “6 As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine,…” So now we're going back in time, okay? We just, the writer took us forward in time to say, and David was successful, and Saul kept sending him out. And Saul kept giving him more responsibility, and everything he gave him, Saul or David came back and did a great job. But now we're coming back to the day, or maybe right around that time, that they returned from, defeating Goliath and the Philistine army. And it says, “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.” We know the women used to do this. They would come and meet the men after a victory. And they would sing and dance and they would, and if you go on here in verse 7, you'll notice it says, “And the women sang to one another as they celebrated,…” What that literally means is they would do an echo chant, right? Where you have some women saying this and then the other women would answer. And so they're singing, they're doing this thing back and forth to one another. So it says they sang they, and here's the rub. Here's the lyric as they celebrated, “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” Now that's a pretty tough thing to hear when you're the king. And this snot- nosed teenage kid who just had one successful thing in battle. And that's really all there's been up to this point. And they're already crediting him tens of thousands. Because essentially he did— and he just defeated Goliath, but that started the process of a victory, a great victory that day where they slew many, many Philistines. The battle was amazing on their behalf. So they're crediting David with having done all this, right? So what's the response? What happens when you're possessive, single focused, looking at things down below, not up at God. Look at verse 8, read it there with me. It says, “And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He (even) said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, (and look at this) and what more can he have but the kingdom?”” So you see those two things. See those two things. First of all, anger. Because a heart that does not look to the blessings of the Lord is fixated on what I possess and is even possessive about those things, if I'm threatened by you or threatened by anything you bring to my possessions, I'm going to respond with anger. And it's this flashpoint of anger. Just get away from me. You're threatening me.

You're a threat. You're a threat to me maintaining the status quo. What I've got, I like what I have and I want to keep it that way. You see? And so it says that he was angry and you'll notice here what he was angry about. And he quotes him here, “what more can he have but the kingdom?” What is Saul saying? He’s saying it's mine. It's my kingdom. You cannot have it. There's a great scene in Lord of the Rings where, remember the steward Denethor, maybe you guys, some of you have seen Lord of the Rings. Some of you haven't, but there's a great actor who plays this part that feels threatened by his ability to maintain the rule and the control of the kingdom of men that he happens to be ruling over just as a steward. He's not royal, but there's this particular response in the movie where it's, he says, it's my kingdom! And I think of king Saul every time I see that scene in Lord of the Rings, it sounds just, it's that same attitude. And you know what? It drove Denethor in Lord of the rings, crazy. It absolutely drove him mad. And I believe it did no less to king Saul. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to tell you that when we are so cut off from God and recognizing the blessings of the Lord are from His hand. And when we become possessive, and when we become threatened, and when we become angry, and when we feel like we have to just protect every little thing that we have. And we see every one as a potential threat. It will drive you crazy. It will literally take your sanity. And we're going to see that just in technicolor with king Saul here. It is a form of covetousness make no mistake about it. He is coveting the kingdom. And look what it says in verse 9. Here's the result. “And Saul eyed David from that day on.” Now it doesn't just mean he was looking at him. The NIV says he kept a jealous eye on David and some of the other translations say something similar. And that's what's being conveyed. And so boy, it just goes from bad to worse. “The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the lyre, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand. 11 And Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David evaded him twice.” Wow! Wow guys. The next day. How long does it take to go from, I want to possess you, I'm galled by this lyrical refrain that I hear the women singing, to, I want to kill you? 24 hours. That's how long it takes. Okay.

So we have gone from possessiveness, to anger, into a murderous rage. And now it's going to get even wackier from there. Look what it goes on to say in verse 12. “Saul was afraid of David (why?) because the LORD was with him but had departed from Saul.” So here's really one of the last and devastatingly dangerous emotions that Saul is giving into related to this whole thing, and that is now fear. He is literally in dread. He dreads even looking at David. He doesn't want to hear David's voice spoken. He doesn't want to hear anything about David, what he has done. He's sick to death of it. He's afraid. What is he afraid of? He's afraid he's going to lose his kingdom. That's what he's afraid of. And the reason he's afraid that he's going to lose it is because he has come to the conclusion that it's his kingdom. It never was his kingdom to begin with. It was God's kingdom. He was not put on the throne by some popular vote of the people. He was put on the throne by God. God chose him for God's kingdom. Not for Saul's kingdom. We do this though people don't think this is so out of whack. Don't think well, that's then, that's him, then there's me. Listen, we create our kingdoms. We create our own kingdoms We have a kingdom of things that we're prideful about, we're possessive about, and we can begin to see other people as a threat related to those things. We can do that. It could be anything that you do. I've seen it happen in church life over how someone serves. I've seen it happen. Somebody serves some particular way in church and rather than seeing it as a blessing from the Lord, it becomes their kingdom. And they're wearing this little tinsel crown and they feel like they're ruling over their kingdom. And you know how we know it's their kingdom ,or they've created it as their kingdom, because when someone comes along to serve in that area alongside them, they're threatened. What's he doing here? Why is she here? This is my area. I've had people come to me. Don't even understand what they're saying. Pastor Paul, this is my area of ministry. What is she doing here? I do this around this church. Red alert. See, we've created a kingdom. It's like, no, no, everything you have is given from God. Now that's an interesting sort of a statement, but you have to understand the implications of that statement. He gave it. He can take it away. And you know what? It's not yours to even care. It's His business.

Remember when John the Baptist is out baptizing, he's got just scads of people coming out. And then Jesus ministry begins, they overlap for a period of time. And remember, some of his disciples got a little bit jealous for his sake. And came to him and said, John, that man whom you baptized. He's the, way, or wherever, over here and He's, they're baptizing, and people are following Him. Remember John's response? John could have pulled a Saul, I suppose. It's my ministry. We need to up our advertising. We need to get the word out. We're still available. We are, we still got, we're up here for business. John said exactly the opposite. He said, yeah, that's right. People are going to Him and

I don't think we really fully understand the significance of those words. I don't think we, I mean, we can appreciate them. I can appreciate them. I can read those words by John and go, wow, John was a good guy. I'd never say that though. It's like, I can appreciate it, but I can't relate to it really because that's a humility and brokenness before the Lord that very few people really fully understand. To be able to say, my identity is not connected to that thing, even, they even called him John the Baptist. Well, that's connecting your identity, isn't it? And there are some people in church who are put in the name the, whatever they do, and then they become connected in the same way. Or maybe you're, something else in your life is just, it's just what you begin to see it as who you are. And so somebody comes along and threatens that. And you're just, freaking out about the whole thing to the point where I think I might pin that person to the wall. And fear is what is driving this whole thing. So you remember what I said about Saul didn't even want David around at this point. Look what it says in verse 13. “So Saul removed him from his presence…” Do you understand what's going on here? Do you understand what happens when fear when anger gives way to a dread and a fear, because I'm so afraid of losing my kingdom, that I don't even want to hear that person's name. I don't want to ever see their face. If you even talk about them in front of me, I'm going to bite your head off. Right? Don't show me a picture. Don't suggest anything about them and so on and so on. You just want to be rid of them because they threaten you. Well, that's what was going on here.

Saul says, you know what, I'm going to just send him out. “So (he) …removed him from his presence and (here's what he did, he) made him a commander of a thousand.” Let's just send him out to war. “And he went out and came in before the people. (and what did happen?) 14 And David… (just kept having) success…” And everything that Saul sent him to go do, he just kept having… In fact it says, he had “success in all his undertakings, (why?) for the LORD was with him.” David was a man, again, who focused on God, his eyes were upward, he knew that this was the hand of the Lord, and he wasn't about to take the credit himself for anything. So God was free to bless him. And then it goes on and it repeats for us, and whenever the Bible repeats something, it's because the Bible wants you to know it. And so it repeats in verse 15, “And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him.” Or as the New American Standard Bible (NASB) says, he was, he dreaded him. It was a fearful dread. Again, a negative reaction. It was a fearful dread based on the blessing of the Lord that was on David. “But (verse 16 tells us that) all Israel and Judah (they) loved David,…” Oh and by the way, this, where it says, they love David, is the same verb that's used of Jonathan's love for David. They loved him that much. And it says, “for he went out and came in before them. (and) 17 Then Saul said to David, “Here is my elder daughter Merab. I will give her to you for a wife.” Now remember, that was the promise to whoever went out against Goliath and beat him. That was one of the promises that Saul had given as incentive to try to get men to go out and battle Goliath. So he's, fine, I don't know how long it's taking him to make good on this thing. But he says, okay, here's my oldest daughter Merab, I'll 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 against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him.”” See that it's basically where Saul's at right now. He's at this particular point, he's like, okay, I'm not going to lay a hand on him. I'll just let the Philistines do it. They'll kill him for me. And then I'll mourn like I'm really sad. But David, look at verse 18, “…David (comes back and) said to Saul, “Who am I, and who are my relatives, my father's clan in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?” 19 But at the time when Merab, Saul's daughter, should have been given to David, she was given to Adriel the Meholathite for a wife.” And David didn't take the opportunity but, what you see there is David's humility, right? He's already, he defeated Goliath. I would be preening my feathers, I think, at this particular point. He killed Goliath. He was sent out on many, many campaigns for the kingdom. Always came back successful. The people love him. Like Jonathan, the son of the king loves him. And yet when king Saul says, here's my daughter, Merab, go ahead, take her. She's yours. He's like, it's no small thing to be the king's son in law. I mean, who am I? I'm a nobody. Now, the rest of us are going, David, you're not a nobody. You're a somebody. That's not the point. See, it's not the way David saw himself. David was a man of humility. “Therefore…” I guess I'm in the middle of verse 21 is where I stopped, “Therefore Saul said to David a second time, “You shall now be my son-in-law.” 22 And Saul commanded his servants, “Speak to David in private and say, ‘Behold,…’”” Oh, you know what? I skipped a couple of verses. I'm sorry. Verse 20, I beg your pardon. We got to get, we got to get the deal about Michal here. “20 Now (it says) 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…” You got to wonder what he thinks about his daughter, don't you? I mean, I can't imagine saying, I'm going to give you my daughter, hopefully she'll bring you down. I don't know what he knows about Michal. Now, we know that she was a little bit of a piece of work. And we know that later on she is, her attitude is going to change toward David in such a way that God is actually going to strike her with barrenness for the rest of her life from that point on, which would be a physical reflection of her spiritual condition of barrenness. But at this particular point in time, she's over the moon for David. Yet Saul thinks there's something about her that he can use to hurt David, which is interesting. This guy brought down a Philistine giant and he thinks his daughter is good, which I don't know what he knows that we don't. There's obviously, it's like maybe in the Saul household is, I don't know, whoever marries her going to have to be a strong man sort of thing.

--- Anyway, he goes on to finish that statement by saying “…that she may be a snare for him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” So one way or another, Michal or the Philistines, we're going to get him down. “Therefore Saul (now we say) said to David a second time, “You shall now be my son-in-law.” 22 And Saul commanded his servants, (to go and talk to David) “Speak to… (him) in private and say, ‘Behold, the king has delight in you, and all his servants love you. Now then become the king's son-in-law.’” 23 And Saul's servants spoke those words in the ears of David. And David said, “Does it seem to you a little thing to become the king's son-in-law, since I am a poor man and have no reputation?”” Now, the idea of a poor man is the idea that, I can't even pay the bride price. I don't even have enough money to pay. My dad's a poor shepherd in Bethlehem. How in the world would I pay the bride price for a king's daughter? There's no way I could do that. I'm from humble family origins. There's just, this is just ridiculous and so forth. “24 And the servants of Saul told him, “Thus and so did David speak.” 25 Then Saul said, “Thus shall you say to David, (in other words, go back and tell him this) ‘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.” This is, see, he kept pushing David out to the battlefield thinking, well, the chances are against him. One of these days he's going to get hit by an arrow or a sword or something. I mean, something, right? And so he keeps sending him back to battle. So, oh, well, listen. So he's appealing to his valor here. Well, I wasn't going to give her to you for free, my son. What I want you to do is I want you to go out and kill a hundred Philistines and I hate the next thought, bring here their foreskins. That's just weird. I'm sorry, that's just weird. But anyway, what's even a little bit more creepy is that when the servants told David these words, he was pleased. Let's go get us some Philistines. Yeah. Go ahead guys. Strap on your sword. Here we go. And it says, “…it pleased David well to be the king's son-in-law.” By the way, by the way, I want you just to stop there for a minute. “…it pleased David well to be the king's son-in-law.” Did you catch that? This is the guy who tried to pin him to the wall twice. What that tells you is David had forgiven. David had moved on. He knew that an injurious spirit would come upon Saul and at times it was the most difficult thing in the world to restrain him. He knew that, but instead of having a feeling of bitterness about it, and carrying around that, just that remembrance, that guy tried to hurt me. No, he tried to kill me. He now says, you know what? I would be pleased. I would be honored to be the king's son in law. And so it tells us here middle of verse 26, “Before the time had expired, 27 David arose and went, along with his men, and killed two hundred of the Philistines.” He was only told to do 100. He thought, we'll just up this here a little bit. I mean, hey, when the success of the Lord is with you. “And David brought their foreskins, which were given in full number to the king, (don't want to see that in my mind's eye) that he might become the king's son-in-law. And Saul gave him his daughter Michal for a wife.” Yay. “28 But (look at this) when Saul saw (again) and knew that the LORD was with David, and that Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him, (she's not liable to do anything against him if she loves him) 29 Saul (and this is important) was even more afraid of David.” So his fear has now spiraled down even more, and then it goes on to say, “So Saul was David's enemy continually.” So now David's enemy is his father in law. How does that happen exactly? I mean, you go out to fight the king's battles, you go out representing the king and you're successful. And you bring him nothing but good things and now you're an enemy. How did we get here? Have you ever had a relationship that just went south and you looked at it and said, how did I get here? How did this go wrong? I don't understand. Do you know Christians? It's possible for one side of the relationship to go sour while the other one is okay. Do you know that? Sometimes we kick ourselves? And don't get me wrong. Sometimes we need to kick ourselves, but sometimes, the Bible says, in as much as it is in your power, live at peace with all men.

And what that means is, on your side of things, make sure you're living at peace with people. Now, your side is the only thing you really have control over ultimately, right? You don't have control over the other side. Somebody could hate your guts and you had nothing to do with it. It's possible. It's happening right here. ---

--- These two men are enemies, and David loves Saul. And we're going to see over the next several chapters, God is going to give Saul into David's hands to kill on some occasions, and he's not going to do it. He's going to spare him. Boy, we're going to talk about that, believe me, because there's a lot of implications related to that when we get there. Just stay tuned. But this is just, this is so important that we understand that… That's why the Bible says, as much as it is in your power, live at peace with all men. Do your best. Make sure that if there's an issue between you and somebody else, make sure it's not your fault. If it is, go to your brother. That's what the Bible says, right? If your brother has something against you, go to him, get it taken care of, get it worked out with your brother. Go to him, repent, humble yourself and say, listen, I was wrong. I was wrong for what I did, but it is possible for it not to be your fault. The last verse of the chapter, if you look with me there says, “30 Then the commanders of the Philistines came out to battle, and as often as they came out David had more success than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was highly esteemed.” Wow! And so Saul is going to go from bad to worse because David's name is highly esteemed and he keeps having success wherever he goes. Wow. The next chapters are going to show us how this relationship begins to go from bad to worse, to the point where eventually David has to run for his life. And has to live on the run for, Bible scholars aren't really sure. Somewhere between 10 and 13 years. David ran for his life, lived in caves for the most part. I mean, there was a couple of exceptions to that, but he lived out in the open. He lived on the run. He lived not knowing if his life was going to be consumed in the next minute or not except for just trusting in the Lord. But God is going to use that time to prepare a young man to be king over all of Israel. ---