Tonight we'll be in 1 Samuel
chapter 18. Now in this chapter, It begins
to detail the rise of David. And we see his rises in the love
and esteem of the people. And as a result of that, Saul's
jealousy and hatred for David becomes more and more pronounced. And it's clear. He begins to
despise David. And he wants David dead. And
this chapter, it begins with the making of a covenant between
Jonathan and David. And this covenant, it speaks
of the covenant of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which he
made with the Father. for His people. And we see it
from our perspective in what the Lord does for His people
in fulfilling that covenant and establishing that covenant of
grace for His people. And then we're taken through
a number of examples, a series of examples of where Saul's jealousy
began and how he sought to kill David in a number of ways, a
number of times. It just takes us through a whole
series of examples of him trying to kill David. Had Saul succeeded
in killing David, this covenant would have never been fulfilled.
David would never have fulfilled his covenant promise to Jonathan,
that he made with Jonathan, had Saul succeeded. But instead,
Saul failed in every attempt that he tried to destroy David.
He failed in it. And David just kept rising in
the esteem and the love of the people, God blessing David each
time. And as he went through this,
as this persecution continued after the covenant was established,
after that persecution continued, it became more and more clear
that David is the anointed of God to be the king. He is the
anointed of God to be the king. So let's pick up in the first
two verses. First Samuel 18, verse one and
two. And it came to pass, when David
had made an end of speaking unto Saul, this is right after Goliath
has been killed, he speaks to Saul, well right after that,
that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
And Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took David
that day and would let him go no more home to his father's
house. Now, at this point, everything
seems to be going wonderfully. Everything's good. Everyone's
happy. There's no issues. Jonathan loved
David. Saul received David and was happy
to have him in his service of his administration there. It says, Then, and that's when
something began to change. Then, verse 3, Then Jonathan
and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. Now, this covenant was not known
to Saul. Saul didn't know about this covenant,
and to be frank with you, it's not even known to us, the details
of this covenant, what this covenant means or what it's about. We'll
learn that a little later as we go through the other chapters.
We'll begin to understand what this covenant is. And for now,
though, we're told a few things that are worthy of our notice
in verse four. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was
upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his
sword and to his bow, and to his girdle." So these things
which were done here are given to foretell, they're to speak
to us of the covenant of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He's taken us into covenant with Him, but it doesn't depend on
us at all. It all depends on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is speaking of the covenant
between Christ, the son of God and the father. And so there's
just a few things. Let me share three things about
this covenant to begin here. For one, it says, Jonathan stripped
himself of the robe that was upon him. And we know what happened. in Adam, how that Adam, when
he sinned and rebelled against God, he was found to be naked. And we, in our sin, are found
to be naked and stripped and have nothing to glory in or boast
in. We have nothing to clothe ourselves,
and so there's nothing to boast in or glory in of what we've
done. But this looks further past into
eternity. This looks deeper into eternity
than that stripping. For Jonathan stripped himself
of the robe that was upon him and gave it to David." And what
this speaks of here is what the father did in putting all the
care, all the needs, everything that concerns us, and our salvation
and our deliverance for the fall. Everything that we needed, our
Father, before any of that happened, put all the care and trust in
His Son. And David pictures Christ here. And I'm not saying Jonathan pictures
the Lord, but what I am saying is that our Father gave everything
into the hand of Christ for the salvation, for the keeping, for
the safekeeping of His people. And so because the Father did
that, we did that. We did that in Him by His grace
and mercy. And so this is a picture of what
the Father has done for us in grace, just like He opens our
ear. He makes us to hear. He makes
us to come to the Father in mercy, seeking mercy as mercy beggars. He does that for us in grace. Well, the Father did this, and
in His grace, we did this. in Christ, submitting everything
to Christ's care so that our robe, a picture of our righteousness,
it's laid at the feet of Christ. Because whose righteousness do
we need? Christ's righteousness. Because
in the fall, we don't have a righteousness. We have a righteousness full
of holes, full of blemishes, full of spots, full of stench.
We don't have a righteousness to stand before a holy God. Our
garments are submitted to Christ, meaning we are committing and
entrusting all things to the Lord Jesus Christ to save us.
He's our inheritance. We're going to obtain that inheritance
because of the Lord Jesus Christ, not because of what we do, but
because of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we shall be raised a new
body, a heavenly body, because of the life of Christ. A body
fashioned after Christ's body because He's the maker of it.
And He shall return and raise us again in Him, in His life. Then it says even to his sword
and to his bow, that was removed from us, meaning all our warfare,
offensive and defensive weapons, we are completely dependent upon
Christ to fight for us and to save us from our enemy. It's
all in his hands. And to his girdle, so that Christ
is the one who keeps us in truth. And as we saw in the armor, that
girdle is around this area, where we put our belt, around the area
where we bear fruit. And it's a picture of our fruit
bearing is in truth in the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, we don't
bear any fruit unto God. It's dead fruit. It's dead fruit,
Romans 7, 4, and 5. And so he keeps us. And so this
is a picture of the Father putting all things into his hands. And
by his grace and power, it represents us putting all things into Christ's
hands. It's the Lord doing that in eternity. for his people. And then third,
our Lord Jesus Christ was robed in the likeness of our flesh,
and he came and accomplished our redemption. He redeemed his
people from their sins and reconciles us to the Father. Paul says it
this way in 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9, for ye know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor. that ye through his poverty might
be rich. And so, when it comes to the
covenant of grace, this is, our Lord is now showing us that,
that there is a covenant people, and because they are in the covenant,
there will be persecution, and there will be suffering. What
did Paul say? He said, all that will live godly
in this present life will suffer persecution. You will, and that's
true. If you, for Christ's sake, do
something in the world, the world's going to find some fault with
it, and they're going to persecute you for it. And it may be something
great or something small, but if it's for Christ's sake, someone's
going to find fault with it and be offended. We are told in verse 5, And David
went out, whithersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself
wisely. And Saul set him over the men
of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people,
and also in the sight of Saul's servants. and so for a brief
time things seemed fine but this covenant had been made and the
reality is we saw where Samuel had been sent and he anointed
David the king of Israel of God's own choosing. He was anointed
and so the fruits of David's coming were going to become a
stench in Saul's nostrils. He was going to to the enmity
in Saul was going to be provoked, and it's going to come out against
David in an attempt to destroy David. And this is where we begin
to see in David further likenesses of our Lord, pictures of Christ
and his coming. As he went in Israel and did
the works that the Father sent him to do, the Pharisees, the
self-righteous, Sadducees, and Herodians, and lawyers, and scribes,
and doctors, and religious men, the leaders, they hated Christ
more and more. When he came, he said, the works
which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that
I do. Bear witness of me that the Father
hath sent me. We know that the Jews did not
believe Christ, and they rejected him. And they persecuted him
more and more, and then they crucified him. And so it was
that Saul, he took notice of David. He began to notice that
the people were going after David, much the way that the religious
leaders noticed that the people were being drawn to Christ. were
being touched and amazed by his words and his works. And they
began to get jealous because of what Christ did when he came
and began to minister the gospel and to do those works the Father
sent him to do. And so look at verses six through
nine. And it came to pass, as they
came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine,
that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and
dancing, to meet King Saul with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments
of music. And the women answered one another
as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and
David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth. And
the saying displeased him. And he said, They have ascribed
unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but
thousands. And what can he have more but
the kingdom? Yes, that is true, because he
is the anointed of God, and the fruits of God, of his blessing
was upon David, and beginning to come out and be expressed
in that way. And Saul eyed David from that
day forward. And why is Saul so upset? Well, if David is king, Saul
must die. There's just not two kings in
the kingdom. If David is king, then Saul must
die. And this really gets to us in
Christ. And the work of his grace for
us. Because each of us in our own
minds, we're kings of our own bodies, of our own minds, of
our own thoughts. At least we fancy ourselves to
be that. We like to think that, that we
are rulers over our own selves, even though we're all in bondage
to sin by nature. But one of the telling marks
of a believer who's redeemed by the blood of Christ is that
we die to self, and Christ is King. He's the Lord of our hearts. He's our God, our Lord, our Christ,
our Savior, our all. And John Baptist said it best,
I must decrease, he must increase. And the believer is made happy
in that. And we do, Paul even uses that
language, we die to self, and we live to Christ. This old man
is mortified, put to death by the grace and power of God. And
yet the new man in us, born of Christ, that increases more and
more in looking to Christ and trusting Christ. And we see him
more and more. But this old man of flesh, doesn't
like that. The old man of flesh wars against
the truth. And this old man of flesh wants
the praise and the glory. But the reality is Saul was not
the one who defeated the mighty Goliath. It was David. David
defeated him. And yet Saul wanted the glory
for being the king. And he didn't like that. David
was getting that honor. And so it is with this old man.
This old man is jealous. And it wars against the truth
of God. And it sets up imaginations against
the truth of Christ. But the gospel of our Lord is
what tears it down and brings us low in ourselves. And by his
grace, he brings things that humble us and bring us low in
ourselves to see our all in Christ, to know that Christ is all. Next
we are told in verse 10, And it came to pass on the morrow
that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul. And he prophesied
in the midst of the house, and David played with his hand, as
at other times. And there was a javelin in Saul's
hand. And Saul cast the javelin, for
he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David
avoided out of his presence twice. Not once, but twice. And Saul
was afraid of David because the Lord was with him and was departed
from Saul. So you're going to see this repeated. Saul was afraid of David. Saul
feared. Saul envied David. You're going to see this throughout
this chapter. It's repeated constantly. And
so Saul's hatred of David was increasing. And anything David
did, Saul hated it more and more. And what was David doing? He
was making beautiful music, beautiful music. What was Christ doing
when the Pharisees hated him? He was preaching the glories
of God, declaring the gospel of God, preaching the sweet,
glorious, gracious, good news of the Father. And yet, men of
this world, men of the flesh, Men of religion, self-righteousness,
hated that good news. Hated Christ for preaching the
free, sovereign grace of God to save whom he will. They hated
that. And what did they do? They wanted
to, just like Saul, wanted to kill David twice, it says there. Same thing with the Pharisees. More than once, they tried to
kill him. More than once, the flesh of
man tried to kill Christ. Not once, not twice, more than
that. In Luke 4, when Christ was baptized
and came up from the wilderness of temptation by the devil there,
he began his ministry. And he went into the synagogues
preaching in Galilee and it says he went into Nazareth where he
was from and he read Isaiah and told them grace words. He told them today these words
are fulfilled in your hearing. The people wondered at the grace
words which came out of his mouth. And he told them, he declared
the gospel, how that God is sovereign to save whom he will. And to
prove that, in the scriptures, he walked past all these widows
in Israel and went and saved a Gentile widow. And he went
past all these lepers in Israel and he went and saved, he cleansed
the leprosy of a Gentile. And they hated Christ for saying
that. They hated Christ for declaring
the sovereign grace of God to save whom he will, because man
wants the glory. Man wants to boast in what he's
done. And so it says, the scriptures,
Luke 4 says, they were filled with wrath. They drove him out
of the synagogue, out of their city, up the hill, and wanted
to cast him down headlong. But he, walking right through
the midst of them, went his way. And they couldn't do it. And
then in John 5, also early on in the ministry, we're told that
the Jews sought the Moor to kill him because he not only had broken
the Sabbath, but made God his father, or said God was his father,
thereby making himself to be God. And they wanted to kill
him for that. And then John 7-1 says he stopped
walking around in Jewry because the Jews sought to kill him.
And so he stayed up in Galilee most of that time. They wanted
to kill him. They wanted to put him to death.
And then eventually, we know they did. When the time came,
when it was time for his sacrifice for the people, He willingly
went to the cross and they murdered him. They took him and killed
him, but it was all according to the grace, according to the
will and purpose, the determined purpose of God to save his people. It was all for the salvation
of his people. Then we see another case here in verse 13 where Saul
tries to get Crafty to ensnare David another way. He wanted
to kill him and so he tries to get Crafty. Verse 13, Therefore
Saul removed David from him. In other words he put him out
into another company and made him his captain over a thousand. That's pretty high. We know in
the beginning there that Jonathan had a thousand men under his
command and Saul had two thousand. Well David now has a thousand
men under his command and he went out and came in before the
people. And David behaved himself wisely
in all his ways and the Lord was with him. Wherefore, when
Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely, he was afraid of
him. But all Israel and Judah loved
David, because he went out and came in before them. And so Saul
here, he thought, I'll ruin David before the people. I'll send
him out there, and he'll start making mistakes. He'll say the
wrong thing. He'll do the wrong thing. He'll
mess up somehow. He'll stumble, and he'll fall. And then the people won't love
him anymore. And that's how I'll ruin David. Well, that's what
they tried to do with Christ. They tried to do that with our
Lord. They tried to entangle him in his words before the people
so that the people would know this isn't the Christ. They did
the same thing. We're told of, it's mostly in
Matthew 22 has it all, but first it was the Pharisees and the
Herodians, and they got together, and they tried to entangle Christ
by asking him whether it was right to pay tribute to Caesar.
And we know the wisdom of our Lord in saying whose image and
superscription is this? Caesar's, and he said, well,
render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. And they were
astonished at that. Actually, it says that they marveled
at his response because he answered wisely. He didn't make a mistake. And then the Sadducees came right
after that with their best question that would stumble and mess up
the Pharisees. They came with the question about
marriage in an effort to disprove the resurrection. But Christ's
answer left the crowd astonished at his doctrine. And then a lawyer
of the Pharisees came and asked him about the great commandment
in the law. And Christ not only answered that question satisfactorily
to them, but he asked a question which they were unable to answer.
about David saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at
my right hand. And that's David's son. Well,
how can that be that he calls him Lord? And they couldn't answer
that question. And what happened as a result?
They didn't dare ask him any other questions from that day
forward. That was it. They were done asking
questions. So it's the same thing here. David behaved himself wisely. Christ behaved himself wisely.
As they tried to let him, give him enough rope to hang himself,
it didn't happen because God was with him, because he is the
anointed of the Lord. And then this brings us to what
I think is meant to be a beautiful gospel picture, which involves
Saul's two daughters, Merab and Michal. I think it's pronounced,
but I'll say Michal, I don't know, Michael or something. But
Merab and Michal. So Saul had promised his daughter's
hand in marriage to the man that slew Goliath. And that should
have been Mirab, because Mirab was the firstborn, and she wasn't
yet married at that time. It should have been Mirab. But
Saul said to David, Saul wants to make you a son-in-law of Saul. But he said, I need you to continue
fighting the Philistines, and being brave, and going after
my enemies. But David answered very humbly. He said, well, I'm really not
worthy to be the king's son-in-law. And we really don't read of anything
occurring, no battles, nothing happening that David did at that
time for Saul. And so when it came time for
Saul to give his daughter Merab's hand in marriage, Saul gave her
to another man. It says that he gave him to Adriel,
the Maholothite. And so David didn't get his wife. But then immediately he was told
that his younger daughter, Michal, or Michal, that she loved David. She loved David. And Saul thought,
this is good. This is good. I'll tempt David. to die another way for her. And so he said in verse 21, thou
shalt this day be my son-in-law in the one of the two. In other
words, I've got a bride for you, David. I've given away Merab,
but I've got another one for you. And all David had to do
for her, for her hand in marriage, was to kill 100 Philistines and
to bring back their foreskins to prove that he had killed 100
Philistines. And we're told in verse 25 that
the reason why Saul wanted this is he thought to make David fall
by the hand of the Philistines. But David was pleased by this.
He was more than happy to do this work. And not only did he
bring back 100 foreskins, he brought back 200 foreskins of
the Philistines. He brought back abundantly, exceedingly
more than was necessary. He brought back 200. And so verse
27 says that Saul gave him Michal, his daughter, to wife. And in
verse 29, and Saul was yet the more afraid of David, and Saul
became David's enemy continually. Now, to put this a little more
simply, what happened here is Merab, her name means multiplication
or increase. So I'm multiplying and increase.
And David did not marry Merab. And the picture there is that
She's the majority, the increase of Saul. Saul's majority is his
increase of his people and his daughter there. She was given
to another. And while it seems to us like
she should have been the one given to David, she wasn't. And she was given to another
in marriage. Now, the picture there is is
that we think that the majority of people should be the lords. But in the world, it's not the
majority that are the lords. It's a small number. And now
David seems to have wanted to provoke David by doing this.
He wanted to anger David. He was trying to slight David.
But we don't read anywhere in there that David was offended
or moved or did anything about this. He didn't seem to care
at all by not having Mirev's hand. And instead, David married
Michal, whose name means a little stream of water. That's what
her name means, a little stream of water. And for her hand, he
slew the Philistines. Not the bare minimum of Philistines
that he was supposed to slay, but an abundant number, exceeding
and abundantly more than he had to do. And so the gospel picture
in this is simple. It's true, but it's very comforting
to the Lord's people. Our Lord didn't take the hand
of the many. He didn't take the majority of
people in this world. He passed the majority by. I remember when I was in college,
I was asked a lot of times when I would try to talk to people
about Jesus, and I was asked a lot of times, well, if God
is true, or if Jesus is God, and we're to believe Christ,
believe on him, why do so many people not believe? Why does
the majority believe this thing here? Why doesn't the majority
believe him? And so to the natural man, the
natural man thinks, well, the majority should be the Lord's.
If He's God, then most people should believe on Him. Most people
should be His people. But we don't see that, do we?
We don't see the majority believing on Christ. And it's just like
we would think that Mirab should have been given to David, but
she wasn't. And it didn't bother David at
all. He wasn't upset by it. He didn't
care at all that she wasn't given to him in marriage. And so the
increase was passed by. Instead, our Lord came for a
people who is small in number, a people that is like a little
stream of water. a little stream of water. She's
the remnant according to the election of grace. And that is the Lord's people
were given to Christ before the foundation of the world. That
remnant of God was given to the Lord before the foundation of
the world. And the gospel says the elder
shall serve the younger. The elder shall serve the younger.
It's a picture of the old man of flesh that serves the new
man. It's the new man of grace, that
remnant of the Lord's grace that receives the blessings of God. And so for the hand of his bride,
which was chosen of by the Father, our Lord came in the flesh and
he fought all our enemies. And he went and gave his life.
David didn't die, but that's the picture there. He went there,
Saul sent him there to die at the hand of the Philistines for
his daughter's hand. And that's what our Lord did.
He came and He gave His life. He sacrificed Himself unto the
Father for the salvation of His people when He died on the cross,
defeating all our foes, satisfying all our debts, reconciling us
to God, and establishing us in righteousness, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only did he just do the
bare minimum, having loved his own, it says he loved them unto
the end, unto the very end. He did abundantly, exceedingly
above all that we can ask or think. He did abundantly for
His people in saving us. And so His righteousness is our
robe of righteousness. His garments are our praise. We rejoice in Him. And we trust
Him and commit our inheritance into His hand, knowing whom we
have believed, knowing that He is able to keep that which we've
committed unto Him. He is our sword and our bow. That is, He's all our defense,
and He's the one who is our safekeeping. He's our keeper. He's our protector. He's our all. He's our girdle
of truth by whom we bear fruit unto God in truth. in spirit
and in truth. And so we see here in this picture
how a covenant has been established by God and all our salvation
is in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. And because of that covenant,
Christ was persecuted. And all his people in him are
persecuted by those who are outside of the covenant, the enmity of
man, because he hates the Lord's people. He wants that. He's jealous
for that. He wants that glory and to rejoice
in his own works. And so he persecutes the people
of God. And he persecutes, just like
Saul persecuted David, but we see that he just went about and
established that covenant and was delivered by the power and
glory of God through all that until the time appointed when
he went to the cross for the hand of his bride. to save her
by defeating the enemy there on the cross to establish us
in perfect righteousness and to marry us. And so that's the
rejoicing of this chapter. And that's the gospel that we
see there of the Lord Jesus Christ traced out for us in David and
all that persecution and hatred of Saul. So you that believe,
you're that little stream of water, remnant of the Lord's
people, one for whom Christ came. So I pray the Lord bless that
word to your heart forever. Amen.