Brethren, let's be turning to
1 Samuel chapter 19. 1 Samuel 19. Now, in the previous
chapter, in chapter 18, Saul was very subtle in how he went
about to kill David. He was hoping that it would appear
to be an accident. and that he wasn't responsible
for it. But then we come to chapter 19 and Saul just comes right
out and he tells his servants and Jonathan, his family members,
that they should kill David at the end of verse 1 there. And
this chapter then, it covers that. This is Saul going right
at it, trying to kill David. In suffering this persecution
of David by Saul, our Lord is giving you and me a picture of
manifold temptations, examples of manifold temptations which
are to be experienced by those who believe the Lord Jesus Christ
is all their salvation. Now when you read this chapter,
and you read the trials that David experiences, understand
that these things are recorded here for your comfort, for your
learning and your understanding of what is happening to you when
you go through manifold temptations and all kinds of persecutions. Because what we have here is
a testimony that through every Every persecution, every attack
on David, we see the Lord delivering him from them all. Every time,
he's delivered from them all. And consider for a moment that
we're going to experience manifold temptations. We have and we do
experience manifold temptations. Our Lord said this to His disciples
in John 15 verse 19-21 He said, If ye were of the world, the
world would love his own. David wasn't of the world. Saul
was, but David was not. But because ye are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they
have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have
kept my saying, they will keep yours also. And you'll recall
that as we've been going through 1 Samuel, we've seen occasions
where Saul did not keep the word that Samuel gave him of the Lord. He broke that word. He didn't
keep the word of God. But all these things will they
do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that
sent me. You're going to see that those
who don't believe God, they don't obey God. They don't believe
Christ. They have no faith, and it's
nothing for them to turn to the works of the flesh and to treat
others by the works of the flesh, as Saul is doing here to David.
And Paul also describes the same when speaking to Timothy. He
said, You know what persecutions I endured, but out of them all
the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. So as we look at
David, we see the trials and the persecutions that await those
that believe God and that follow Christ. But we're given to see
that the Lord helped David. He sustained David time and time
again. And in so doing, he gives us
many examples of the blessings of his salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ. So as we look at the rest of
this chapter tonight, we see various examples of our deliverance
from the persecutions and the attacks of our enemies and the
enemies of the cross, the enemies of the gospel of our Savior.
We see here that the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out
of temptations, and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment
to be punished. So not only will we learn what
the scriptures say, but we're going to learn these things by
experience. If you haven't already, you see
these things. You're here. which means you've
come as believers, you've been brought through manifold temptations
and persecutions and yet here you are to hear the word of God. It's a testimony of God's grace
and God's power to keep you and deliver you time and time again. So picking up in verse eight,
and there was war again. And David went out and fought
with the Philistines, and slew them with a great slaughter,
and they fled from him." So here, back, here's David again, now
a picture of Christ, and we have a picture of the Lord bringing
His salvation blessings to the heart of His child. He goes to war in us. He deals with our sin. He deals
with our darkness. He deals with our captivity and
our bondage. And so the picture here is what
we know in the gospel that all the redeemed shall hear believe
all the redeemed shall see the light of God the Lord Jesus Christ
and all the redeemed shall hear his voice and follow him and
so he sends his spirit the Spirit of God who comes with regenerating
power and he makes effectual in our hearts the good news of
God's gospel of what he's accomplished for us in the Lord Jesus Christ
and he takes those things and reveals them to our heart so
that we hear what He has done, and we believe what He has done,
and it is effectual in our hearts to deliver us from death and
from bondage, all by His grace and power and mercy. And then
He manifests the blessings of His salvation in us, so that
we we are given the fruit of love. He bears that fruit in
us, and he bears the fruit of faith, and he bears the fruit
of hope in us, which looks to and rests in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, having done this, war
ensues between the new man born of grace, the war follows that
new man born of grace, and the old man of flesh, which is full
of Philistine encampments. It's not, we're not believers.
We're not shown the grace of God and given the grace of God
because we've thrust out the Philistine encampments. No, Christ
deals with our sin. He deals with sin and iniquity
and transgressions in us. He deals with them. And so war
follows. But as we see in the scriptures,
Peter said in 1 Peter 5, 10, but the God of all grace, who
hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle you. And so that's the purpose for
your struggling. That's the purpose for the trials
that you go through, because the Lord strengthens you. and
he teaches you, and he shows you Christ, and he shows you
how he delivers you, his purpose of grace in these things to separate
you from the world, to drive out the Philistines from you,
and to settle you in the Lord Jesus Christ. So when you have
trials and wrestlings and hard times, don't dismiss them as
bad luck or some random chance. No, it is given to you by your
God according to His gracious purpose to settle you in the
Lord Jesus Christ. They are blessings for our learning
and our instruction. These are given, Peter said,
that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than
a gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might
be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of
Jesus Christ. So there's a purpose of grace
in every trial that your God gives you. It's to train you,
it's to teach you. Thou therefore, Paul said to
Timothy, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You endure these things as a
good soldier of Jesus Christ. You bear them, bear them patiently.
Now, when Christ saves a sinner, He delivers his people from the
house of bondage, that house in which we were kept by the
strong man, who we know is the devil. And Christ is the one
who binds him, and Christ is the one who plunders him. We
saw when David defeated Goliath, there's that companion scripture
in Luke, right, Luke 11, 22, where our Lord says that when
he comes, he would bind the strong man, And he would take his armor
from him wherein he trusted. He would plunder him of his armor
and then divide the spoils with his people. And so that's what
our Lord has done. He's defeating the enemy. And
because of this, well, he has defeated the enemy and he is
defeating the enemy in us. And because of this, the scriptures
describe the evil one as seeking to destroy the righteous. He goes about seeking to destroy
God's people. Peter also speaks to this in
1 Peter 5, 8, and 9. Be sober, be vigilant, because
your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about
seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist steadfast in the
faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished
in your brethren that are in the world. And so we see these
attacks now. That's what we're seeing here
in this chapter. All these attacks coming at us by the evil one. All right, verse nine and 10.
And the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul as he sat
in his house with his javelin in his hand. And David played
with his hand. And that means David played the
harp for Saul, and he would play that music to soothe Saul when
he was troubled by an evil spirit. And David would play. And it's
a picture, I believe here, of the believer, seen in David here,
who declares praises of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. When you're
speaking to a friend or you're speaking to someone, you have
opportunity to speak to them and you declare the gospel to
them, you're singing the song of redemption, which only believers
know. Only the children of God know
that song. And so they sing and declare
to the troubled. to those yet in bondage to the
evil one in this world. We sing the song of redemption,
and that's what's pictured there. Because David would do that.
He would play with a harp, and we see that in Revelation. In
Revelation, we're given harps, and we sing the song, the new
song of redemption. because we're redeemed of the
Lord. But where there's an evil spirit present in that here,
there's going to be a fleshly, carnal, if not vengeful response
to that word. And that's what Saul does here.
Saul, verse 10, sought to smite David even to the wall with the
javelin. But David slipped away out of
Saul's presence, and he smote the javelin into the wall, and
David fled and escaped that night." And so the Lord makes known through
these persecutions, like this here, that this world is indeed
under the influence and the bondage of the evil one, the prince of
the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience. That's what's going on. That's
what the response is to those who hear you sing that beautiful
song of redemption, but have no interest, have no desire for
it. And the burge has come and take
it away. and they just trample over it
as hard ground, unhardened ground. And so for this cause, the Lord
fits us with His spiritual armor. He gives you armor, He arms you
in Christ that we may be able to withstand in the evil day. So included in our armor is what?
The fruit of faith. Our God gives us faith, and that
faith serves as a shield for us, to preserve that which our
God has given to us in Christ, to protect us against the onslaughts
and the attacks of the enemy. Saul sought to smite David to
the wall with his javelin. And that's exactly how Paul describes
the devil attacking the children of God. that he throws at us
fiery darts that seek to set ablaze the sinner, to set them
on fire, so to speak, with sin and passions and lust and just
send them down a path that destroys them and they ultimately end
up in hell. But your God has given you the
shield of faith that extinguish the fiery darts of the evil one. And that word darts, I looked
it up, that word darts is the same word, javelin, spear." It's
the same word there that Saul threw at David. And so we're
told, above all, taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be
able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And so,
how do we escape these attacks? Through faith in Christ. Looking
to Christ. Seeking Christ. Crying out to
Christ. Hearing Christ. That's how. Because
it's through hearing the Word that we're given faith. Faith
cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Next, our
Lord teaches us that everything we need is found in Christ. And we find in him that he is
sufficient for all of our troubles. So let's look at verse 11 and
12. Saul also sent messengers unto David's house to watch him
and to slay him in the morning. And Michael, David's wife, told
him, saying, If thou save not thy
life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain. let David down through a window
and he went and fled and escaped. And so this is a picture of the
grace of our Lord to provide a way of escape for his people
in every temptation which is too strong for us. And so many
a time the Lord's people have been miraculously delivered from
the workings of sin and from those that sought to destroy
them, whether it was sin in our own breast or others who desired
to destroy us. The Lord provides a way of escape
from the temptation. And so the Lord's showing is
that nothing can touch you. Nothing can touch you except
God permitted. And when he permits it, it's
for the good of his people. child, it's for our good. And
when the trial has served its purpose, our God provides a way
of escape, a way of relief out of that trial. And I know this
because Paul even said so in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13. There
hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man.
But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that year able. but will with the temptation
also make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear it. And so David escaped out the
window. The Lord made a window of escape
for David and he escaped from that persecution. He was delivered
from it. Now, I think it's worthy of our
notice that when Paul said that verse in 1 Corinthians 10, 13,
he followed it. When he was writing to the Corinthians,
he followed it saying, wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from
idolatry. flee from idolatry, because the
destruction of the wicked is their idolatry. They're deceived
by a lie, by a false god. They trust in works that cannot
save them. They trust in their religion.
They trust in their catechisms. They trust in their works. They
trust in their traditions, but they don't trust in the salvation
of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so idolatry, which all those
things are, that covetousness and those works, that cannot
save them. It's their destruction. And Philippians
3.18, for many walk, Paul said, of whom I have told you often,
and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of
the cross of Christ. And so the carnal man denies
that Christ has successfully saved his people entirely. The carnal man, the carnal mind
and reasoning of man denies that Christ has saved his people to
the uttermost by his redemption. The carnal man says, well, God
has done his best. He's given his best and done
all that he can do to save you. But now it's up to you. You've
got to make the decision whether or not you're going to let God
save you or not. And what they do by that is they
take all the power from God and they put the power in man's hand
to save himself. And that's not salvation. That's
a lie. That's not declared here in this
Word. Christ saves to the uttermost. Christ saves His people from
beginning to end. He's the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end, the first and the last. He's the
author and finisher of our faith. It's all of Him. Our Lord has
successfully redeemed His people who were given to Him by His
Father from before the foundation of the world. And they shall
hear the voice of Christ in the preaching of the gospel, and
they shall believe. They shall believe. They shall
hear what he's accomplished for them to the saving of their souls
and know that Christ has done this. Christ has done this. No
man needs to twist their arm or beg them to give their heart
to Jesus. They hear and they believe. If
they're the Lord's, they shall hear and they shall believe,
because faith is not a work of the flesh. The works of the flesh,
faith is never described as the works of the flesh. Faith is
a gift of the Spirit. And it's brought in those for
whom Christ died. It's given to those by His Spirit,
to those for whom Christ gave His blood and gave His life. And so those who understand that
salvation is something that they must do, Paul's saying they're
enemies of the cross of Christ. They're turning you away. Just
declare the gospel. Declare the gospel. Everything
else is just idolatry. It's just vain works. It's dead
letter religion. Preach Christ. And he says of
those who are enemies of the cross of Christ, in Philippians
319, their end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and
whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. But the salvation of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ delivers his people from idolatry. He
delivers his people from dead letter religion that cannot save,
which destroys the wicked, and idolatry keeps men in darkness,
because they think it's their righteousness. You've heard this
probably many times, it's not our sin that keeps us from believing
on Christ, it's our righteousness that keeps us from believing
Christ, because we think we're righteous, we think we've come
to God, we think that we are pleasing to God, by the things
that we do in our religion and who we are, what we've said,
or what we've done. And so it's our righteousness
that keeps us from God. And it's nothing more than self-righteousness. It's just idolatry. So I say
all these things because that's what's being demonstrated here.
In these men who come to take David, there's a veil of blindness
over them, and they cannot see. They cannot see. Their evil intentions
cannot be worked out. Verses 13 and 14. And Michal
took an image and laid it in the bed and put a pillow of goat's
hair for his bolster, which means for his head, and covered it
with a cloth. And when Saul sent his messengers
to take David, she said, he is sick. And they believed her.
And they went away deceived, not having David, whom they sought
to take and to put to death." And so here we see that God,
again, destroys the expectation of the wicked who sought to do
his child harm. But his child is delivered out
of the hands and the evil intent of the enemy who sought to destroy
them. And our God uses wicked man's
own inventions against them, and turns it against them. Jeremiah
50 verse 24, I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken,
O Babylon, and thou wast not aware. Thou art found, and also
caught, because thou wast driven against the Lord. We're given
a picture of great triumph and confidence in the Lord. So, and
what is our confidence? Rather, who is our confidence?
Jesus Christ is the reason for our boast and our confidence
in the Lord. Look at verse 15 and 16. And Saul sent the messengers
again to see David, saying, Bring him up to me in the bed, that
I may slay him. And when the messengers were
come in, behold, there was an image in the bed, with a pillow
of goat's hair for his bolster. So they're still deceived here
by this goat's hair, which is a picture, no doubt, of the deception
of those who think they're righteous and are separated by the Lord
at his throne onto his left hand, where the goats shall be found.
And they're deceived here. And without a doubt, the God
in whom David trusted, the God in whom David believed and was
confident that he was all my salvation, He's my keeper and
he's protecting me. He's the one that gave me the
victory over Goliath because he will not be shamed by man,
by mortal man or any creature. God will rise up and God will
deliver me. He'll deliver my enemy into my
hands. And he saw this. And so David
trusted the Lord and he was delivered. David even wrote a psalm about
this. Psalm 59, why don't you turn there, Psalm 59. He wrote this psalm on this occasion. I'll read the title for you of
the psalm. It says there, to the chief musician,
Altishith, victim of David, when Saul sent and they watched the
house to kill him. And he writes in verse 1, deliver
me from mine enemies, O my God. Defend me from them that rise
up against me. Deliver me from the workers of
iniquity, and save me from bloody men. For lo, they lie in wait
for my soul. The mighty are gathered against
me, not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. They
run and prepare themselves without my fault Awake to me and behold. So in the mind of the wicked,
David's fault was he trusts the Lord. He trusts the Lord's going
to save him. And the Lord's going to deliver
him from our hand. But we're going to destroy David.
And so they counted David's fault as his trust. He didn't. It wasn't
because he did anything wrong against them. He believed God. And God blessed him. He was God's
anointed. God chose David. And so God gave
David the victory. And he gave David faith to trust
the Lord. And the Lord blessed him because
it was the Lord's gracious purpose for David. And the people rejoiced
in David. But Saul, who was the king at
that time, was jealous. He was jealous because God blessed
David and didn't bless him. And so he was covetous. And he
hated David for it. And so David, he recounts that, he recounts the return of his
enemies, because they came back to the house. Look at verse six
and seven, sorry, back in Psalm 59, verse six and seven. He says, they return at evening,
they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city.
Behold, they belch out with their mouths, swords are in their lips,
for who, say they, doth hear? Well, the Lord shows us that
he's the one who hears. He hears the cry of His saints.
He hears His people in distress for their persecutions, for their
trials, for their troubles. He gives us these things that
we might call out to Him that we would see our own weakness
and know our infirmity and know our need of Him that we would
call upon Him and lean upon the Lord because that's how we're
going to discover that He is the God who hears and that He's
the God who delivers you Entirely. He's the one who saves you. You
don't save yourself. I don't save me. My God does. And that's why he puts us into
very trying circumstances. And when you don't hear that
one, he'll bring you into another one. Because he's showing you,
I'm your God. I'm your all. I'm your sufficiency. Lean upon me. Call upon me. He
delights. He delights to hear his people,
and he shows the wicked that he hears the cry of his people
and that he protects them, just as he did for David. Paul said
this to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 1, 8 through 10. He said, we
would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which
came to us in Asia. We're not trying to lie and say
that we have some health, wealth, and riches kind of gospel. No,
we go through difficult times. We suffer hardships, and afflictions,
and troubles, and trials, and things that we don't think should
happen, but they do. And Paul says, we wouldn't have
you ignorant of these things, that we were pressed out of measure,
above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. That's
how troubling it was for Paul. They thought they were going
to die, that this was going to be the end for them. But we have
the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God, which raiseth the dead, who delivered us from so
great a death, and doth deliver, in whom we trust that he will
yet deliver us. And so the only way you're going
to learn The trust in this God, the God who raised up the dead,
is when he puts you in those trials that bring you to the
end of yourself. And no, this is it. I'm going
to expire. This is the end here. I don't
think I can make it through this thing. And yet, if it pleases
God, you surely shall. leaning on him, calling upon
him, crying out, save me, Jesus. Have mercy on me, Lord. Don't
forget me. I need you, Lord. Save me. And he hears his people. And
this brings us to our final example in our text in which our Lord
delivers his people who trust in his salvation by defeating
all our foes. Look at verse 18. So David fled
and escaped, and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that
Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and dwelt
in Naob. Now, the reason they went to
Naoth is because that's where the prophets dwelt. And prophets
prophesy. And that means here that they
were preaching the wonders of God, the glory of God. They were
preaching the gospel of God, the good news. And it was told
Saul, saying, behold, David is at Naoth and Ramah. 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." And so what this is saying here is
that these messengers were overcome and defeated by the preaching
of the Word of God. Whatever mission they were on,
it ended when the word of God came. That was it. It ended. Verse 21, And when it was told
Saul, he sent other messengers, and they prophesied likewise.
And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they prophesied
also. And so every messenger sent to
trouble David, every assault that was sent to catch David
and to kill him and to take him and put him to death, was consistently
defeated by the word preached each time. Then went Saul also
to Ramah and came to a great well that is in Situ. And he
asked and said, where are Samuel and David? And one said, behold,
they be at Naoth and Ramah. So it's becoming obvious more
and more that when trouble is hunting you down and you're being
pursued by the enemy that seeks to destroy you, whatever the
trial is, whatever the persecution, whatever the hardship, whatever
the difficulty, the affliction, whatever it is that opposes you
and comes after you, where are you going to find rest for your
soul? The Lord's gonna meet you in Christ, in the preaching of
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's where
he meets his people, is in Christ our ark. Come into the ark, he
said to Noah. He didn't say go into the ark,
he said come into the ark, because that's where God meets his people,
is in the ark, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Saul went thither,
verse 23, to Naoth, in Ramah, And the Spirit of God was upon
him also, and he went on and prophesied until he came to Naoth
and Ramah. And he stripped off his clothes
also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down
naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore, they say, is
Saul also among the prophets. And so under the faithful preaching
of the word of God and hearing the voice of God, which is Christ,
he is the voice of God. He is the word of God. And before him, all the troubles
are put down. The Lord puts everything in perspective
for us in Christ. Now, if we're not his, We don't
hear it that way, but if we're His, if He's given you faith,
He's gonna add to that faith. He's gonna teach you and lead
you. He's gonna grow you in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so
all these troubles pursuing you are going to be conquered and
taken down by the word, the voice of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And so they couldn't touch David,
they can't touch you. in Christ, in him. For the weapons,
Paul said, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty
through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down
imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against
the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ. And so Christ is one who stripped,
he stripped Saul with all his evil intentions, he stripped
him down to nothing. He laid him bare on the ground. And that's what the Lord does
for our pursuing enemies. That's, and the message is the
message of the cross. It's what Christ has done. Brethren,
so remember when we're looking at these pictures here of David,
the Lord's teaching you. He's showing you these things
that, that were delivered by the grace of God, by his word,
by his power, to the glory, praise, and honor of his name. And Paul
reminds us, saying in Romans 15, 4, whatsoever things were
written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through
patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope. Amen.