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1 Samuel 18:1-16
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you would, I invite you to open your Bibles to first Samuel 18. We've been working through the gospel according to David. David is the largest ancient biography that we have. There is more written about the life of David, than any other historical figure. Just that alone should grab our attention and make us want to study this.
Joel Brooks:1st Samuel 18, I'll read the first 16 verses, 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. And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul, 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. And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war.
Joel Brooks:And this was good in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servant. As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they celebrated. Saul has struck down his 1,000, and David, his 10,000. And Saul was very angry.
Joel Brooks:And this saying displeased him. He said, they have ascribed to David 10,000, and to me, they have ascribed 1,000. And what more can he have but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day on. 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.
Joel Brooks:Saul had his spear in his hand, and Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, 'I will pin David to the wall.' But David evaded him twice. Saul was afraid of David because the lord was with him, but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a 1,000, and he went out and came in before the people. And David had success in all his undertakings, for the Lord was with him. And with Saul's with when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him.
Joel Brooks:But all Israel and Judah loved David, for he went out and came in before them. Pray with me. Our father, we thank you for the tremendous privilege we have to come and to open up your word and to hear you speak. That is why we are here to to hear you speak, not to hear any words from me, but to hear from you. So through your spirit, blow life on these words.
Joel Brooks:May the words that we have heard from your scripture already begin penetrating our hearts. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, lord, may your words remain and may they change us. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna preach I'm gonna try to preach a little shorter tonight, so we can have time for, some question and answer. I I hope to get to do that as long as, also with a time of prayer. So you could be thinking during the message of possibly some questions you would like to ask. I can remember very vividly a couple of things from when I was in college, a couple of words that I had gotten wrong. One was chest of drawers.
Joel Brooks:I I had always thought they were Chester drawers. And my whole life, I just grew up calling them Chester drawers until Lauren, we were dating at the time, said, no. It's actually chest of drawers. And it was like this epiphany. And I didn't know that.
Joel Brooks:I've been pronouncing it wrong all this time. And the other word was one I I pronounced correct, but I had completely misunderstood the meaning, and that was the word cleavage. Now you have to understand, I grew up before the internet. We didn't even have email when I was in college. And so the and the most scandalous thing on TV was Entertainment Tonight.
Joel Brooks:And so there was a I was a sheltered boy, And I always thought the word cleavage just meant skin. Just something, just skin. And it wasn't until I was in college that I found out the real definition in an awkward way. I was at somebody's house. They were having some party, and they were talking about some lotion.
Joel Brooks:I don't know what it was. And I just happened to mention that's going, yes, that's gonna make your cleavage look really good. And, they did not correct me. And I kept using the word cleavage in that sense. And so finally somebody pulled me aside and was like, that that word does not mean whatever you think it means.
Joel Brooks:Now we do this a lot with some Christian words. You know, we say them every Sunday and things, especially at the end with e's or Sean or something like that. But a lot of times we don't really know what they mean. One of those is the simple word Christ. A lot of us think that it's Jesus's last name.
Joel Brooks:You know, it's Jesus Christ. Not that it is actually a title. Christos, meaning the Messiah or the Anointed 1 or King. And the significance of this title goes back to the Old Testament. To the old testament kings.
Joel Brooks:And so when when we learn about God's anointed one, David, we're we're learning about the foundations of what it means to be a Messiah, what it means to call Jesus the Christ. And so when we study the life of David, we are studying the foundations of that title. And we're getting a first glimpse as to what a messiah is supposed to do. How a Messiah is supposed to save us from our enemies. A Messiah is supposed to fight for us.
Joel Brooks:A Messiah is supposed to establish a kingdom of justice and peace. And we see the beginnings of that in David. Now David fails. He fails. Jesus will fulfill the areas that David lacks.
Joel Brooks:He will fulfill what a Messiah is supposed to be, but we see the foundations here. We also see the foundations of how we are supposed to respond to the Messiah, How we're supposed to respond to the anointed one? What what are what is our allegiance supposed to be to this Messiah? What what emotions are we supposed to have as we come before this Messiah? And that's what this chapter here is about.
Joel Brooks:Here, we see 2 very different responses to the Lord's Anointed One. We see the response of Jonathan, which is joyful service and humility and love. And then we see the response of King Saul, which is fear, jealousy, anger, hate. Let's look at Jonathan's response. After David kills Goliath, he's brought before Saul and they have a little conversation.
Joel Brooks:And and what I love is at the end of 17, it actually describes that David is standing before Saul with Goliath's head in his hand, alright? So, he's just he's just kind of holding Goliath's head here as he is talking with David just so you you know who the man is in this conversation. When you when you're when you're holding a man's head here, he's the warrior. Obviously, he's the one who has delivered Israel. And and as they are talking and Jonathan sees David and hears David, immediately, he loves him.
Joel Brooks:His soul goes out to him, and his his soul is knit to David in this moment. He he knew that what was happening before him, that although his dad was technically king, he was looking at the real king. And although he was gonna someday be an heir to the throne, he was actually looking at the real heir to the throne right in front of him. He knew who God had chosen in this moment, and he loved him. And I think one of the reasons that Jonathan loved David was because in many ways, David reminded him of himself.
Joel Brooks:You gotta go back a few chapters, but in John or in first Samuel 14, it's Jonathan who leads the Israelites to victory. Jonathan and his armor bearer, they're, they're sneaking up on the Philistines, and they look and they see a garrison there. And hear these words from Jonathan. He says, come. Let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised.
Joel Brooks:It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or saving by a few. And so Jonathan, in this moment, he trusted the Lord for strength, and he goes and he kills 20 Philistines before they even know it. And then there's just all of this chaos in the camp, and the Philistines are defeated. And so, now, David is standing before Jonathan, and he saw how David trusted in the Lord. How David, our faith.
Joel Brooks:How David was a warrior. And he's like, yes. It's like that that resonates with him. He's saying amen when David comes. But he also realizes that David is a greater warrior, and had more faith than he ever did.
Joel Brooks:Because we just saw it when when Goliath came forth and challenged everybody, Jonathan didn't come forward. Jonathan sat behind the ranks. It was David who trusted at that moment to come and deliver. And so Jonathan knew that one greater than him was right before him. And one of the things that after this conversation that we see is you can only have one of 2 different reactions when when the anointed deliverer is in front of you.
Joel Brooks:You can either respond with it with a passionate joy or with a passionate anger. But anytime and we see this today. Anytime people are confronted with a Jesus who saves, with a Jesus who is lord, Those are gonna be your two reactions. There is no middle ground. So let's look at responding with joyful obedience.
Joel Brooks:Let's look at Jonathan. Jonathan makes a covenant with David. Look at verse 34. Says then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. 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.
Joel Brooks:Now what happens here is remarkable Because Jonathan is an heir to the throne. One day, he is going to be king, and now standing before him is a rival to the throne. And yet it says, Jonathan loved him as he loved his own soul. The the word love there, we'll look at this in a couple of weeks but it actually has some political overtones to it as well. It's throughout the Old Testament, when one king allied themselves with another king, they were said to have loved one another, and they actually use this word.
Joel Brooks:And so Jonathan is allying himself with David at this point. It is a term of affection, but it goes beyond that. This is this is making an alliance here. He realizes that David's going to rule. And so he makes a covenant with him, and he gives him his robe.
Joel Brooks:And this just isn't any robe. This is, the robe that royalty wore. This is the symbol of the king, of living in the kingly family. And he gives it to David, and then he lays down his arms, and he gives David his sword. Now this is remarkable because what you did when a rival to the throne came before you, you didn't hand him your sword.
Joel Brooks:You thrust him with the sword. You eliminated threats to your throne, but not here. And one of the things I have to find remarkable about this is when you picture David and Jonathan, likely you're picturing no 2 really young guys, maybe like each 20 or something. And that's not the case. David's under 20 at this point.
Joel Brooks:Jonathan is at least 28 years older than David at this point. He's likely 30 something years older. He's he was a warrior before this kid was even born. Alright? He he had he had earned the right to be where he was at.
Joel Brooks:Alright? And here comes David, and he disarms himself before him. He submits to him. He's essentially throwing away all the things that he have worked for. I mean, Jonathan's got a the respect of an entire army.
Joel Brooks:He's got the following of all these people. And here comes this upshot, David. Got lucky with a shot. One little shot. And yet, he submits to him.
Joel Brooks:He he knew that he must David must increase and he must decrease. That David must start receiving glory and he must begin relinquishing it. It just kinda makes me think, just as a pastor, you could think about this in your own profession, but, you know, I've been doing Redeemer Community Church now for about 5 years and I've put a lot of effort into this. Just just a lot of work in establishing this and, what if there you know came this young upshot preacher? You know, just wow.
Joel Brooks:I mean, they're really gifted, really used by the Lord. How would I feel? I I just it made me think about how would I feel. Would I feel threatened? Or would I rejoice?
Joel Brooks:Would I think I've worked really hard for 5 years so people will listen to me, buddy. You know? It's like, that's what that's what we're here for. Would I say, man, is this about the glory of god? It's about his plan.
Joel Brooks:Would would I relinquish my power to that? I don't I'm not sure if I would have the humility of Jonathan, but but it's more than humility here. That's part of it but but this goes beyond that. This is faith. Jonathan is understanding that salvation is coming through David, not him.
Joel Brooks:And so he needs to get off his throne. And this is how we are to respond to the Lord's anointed. This is the appropriate way to respond. We have to get off our throne. We have to relinquish authority, and And we have to give it to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:We have to give it to the king. When Jesus comes before us, and he has conquered sin and death, and he has been the victor, and now he is before us, all we can do is say, you get on the throne of my life. I get off it. You're the one who commands me on what I should do and where I should go. And we strip ourselves of any claim to running our own lives.
Joel Brooks:Do not think for a moment that somehow you can just accept Jesus as savior. As the one who came to deliver you from from your enemies, deliver you from sin and death, that you could just accept him as your savior, but not submit to him as Lord. Don't think for a moment that you can do that. That's what Saul is gonna try to do. Saul's gonna say, David, thank you very much, you know, for, you know, the whole Goliath thing.
Joel Brooks:Yes. I I mean, it was difficult. You really saved us here, but I'm staying on the throne. I'm still gonna call the shots. I'm still gonna rule.
Joel Brooks:And we'll see that that has disastrous consequences for Saul. We cannot respond to our messiah like that. What this teaches us about the Messiah is that He has absolute claim over our life. Jesus commands not only our next breath, He commands what we are to do with our next breath. He doesn't suggest that we love our enemies.
Joel Brooks:He commands that we love our enemies. He doesn't suggest things like forgive others as I have forgiven you. He commands that we would do that. He doesn't suggest that we would go and we would make disciples of all the nations. He commands that we go and we do this.
Joel Brooks:He is a ruling king, and we submit to him. Listen to me. Jonathan had plans. Alright? Jonathan had big plans for his future.
Joel Brooks:I mean, he he's he's already got his house. Like, I'm sure he's dreaming. Like, he's gonna build the royal palace. He's gonna get to live there. He's got everything just just mapped out, and he lays it all down, and he gives it to David.
Joel Brooks:But hear me. It was nothing compared to what he gained. Absolutely nothing. This cost Jonathan everything, and it also cost him nothing compared to what he gained. One of the key phrases in this story is in verse 1.
Joel Brooks:When it says, Jonathan was knit to the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. That word knit, He was he was bound to David. He was stitched together with David and that means when David had a victory, he considered it his victory. When when David had a hurt, it was his hurt. When David had a joy, it became his joy because his life is now bound to David's life.
Joel Brooks:And what you're seeing here is a great picture of what it means to be found in Christ, to be found in the Messiah, to be bound to him. The phrase in Christ or in Jesus is one of Paul's favorite phrases. It's used all throughout the New Testament, in which he describes our relationship with Christ. And this is the great picture of what it means to be found in somebody. Listen to these words from Paul in Philippians 3 When he says, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh, also, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more.
Joel Brooks:Circumcised on the 8th day of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, As to righteousness under the law, blameless. Basically, he's describing Jonathan. It's like I had it all. Alright? I was a good person.
Joel Brooks:I was a morally upright person. I was a passionate person. I was a very religious, faithful person. I I was also from the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew of Hebrews.
Joel Brooks:He's describing the life of Jonathan here. And then he says this. But whatever gain I had, I counted it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that a I may gain Christ and be found in him. May be found in him.
Joel Brooks:Paul gave it all up for one reason that he might bind everything he has to Christ and be found in him. It's hard to think of an illustration to communicate this. This is somewhat silly, but hopefully this comes through. I played, basketball when I was in high school and I hit one game winning shot. I will always remember this.
Joel Brooks:3 pointer on the side actually behind the backboard. Hit it as the buzzer went off and they carried me off. Just just the most amazing feeling you could have. Alright. As a dad, I take my kids and we play soccer some and they have soccer games.
Joel Brooks:And when little Caroline scores a goal and I see her little smile or when Natalie knocks down 3 kids and then kicks kicks the ball in and scores, and I and I and I see her doing this, celebrating. It doesn't compare because my joy is in them. I'm not thinking about myself for one moment, and that's actually part of the joy. But I have bound myself to my children, and when I see them celebrate, man, I have far more joy than I ever had in that moment of personal glory. That's what it means to to bind yourself to someone.
Joel Brooks:To knit yourself to someone. Someone, to be found in Christ, does that meant when he rose from the grave, when he is victorious, we celebrate in that. It is it is our joy. And so we joyfully submit to his lordship, and we bind ourselves to him. And we don't think of ourselves at all as part of the joy of it.
Joel Brooks:Now Saul here has the exact opposite reaction to David. You better not tell Saul to get off his throne because he will fight you to the death for it. He becomes envious of anyone who's gonna take any small amount of glory from him. We see this when when they're coming home from the from the battle. Saul and David are coming home.
Joel Brooks:And as they're coming home, they're parading in. And the women have lined the streets to welcome the soldiers back. And they say, Saul has slain his thousands, and David has tens of thousands. And immediately, Saul becomes envious, and anger hits him. I mean, he was just just a few seconds earlier, just a little bit earlier, he was so relieved.
Joel Brooks:Now envy hits, and he becomes furious. If you remember just a few weeks back, we talked about when Saul sinned, when he was disobedient, the reason was he listened to the voice of the people. I listened to the voice of the people. That's the voice he had in his head. That's where he got all of his affirmation.
Joel Brooks:That's where he stroked his ego. He needed to constantly be hearing from the people. And once again, when he hears that the people are giving glory to somebody else, it drives him to anger. Because the voice of the people is the dominant voice in his head. Now envy is the exact opposite of knitting your soul to someone.
Joel Brooks:When Jonathan knit his soul to David, he was most happy when David was happy. Alright. When you're envious, you you rejoice when other people weep and you weep when other people rejoice. Alright? That's what envy does it to you.
Joel Brooks:It's the opposite of what Jonathan does. Envy is a a poison or as the proverb says, it makes your bones rot. It kills you from the inside out. And we see it having disastrous effects on King Saul. Envy, you know, we looked at it when we were going through James.
Joel Brooks:It's it's one of those sins nobody ever likes to confess. Actually, in all my years of pastoring, I've never had one person come to me and say, hey, you know what? I really struggle with envy because it's so petty. You don't you don't wanna acknowledge it, but it is one of the most powerful sense. You know what got Lucifer out of heaven?
Joel Brooks:Envy. I mean, Lucifer is in heaven, But he he now man, I I gosh. I envy what god has. I wanna be like him. So he's thrown out of heaven.
Joel Brooks:Do do you know what got Adam and Eve out of the garden, out of paradise in which they have everything they want? Envy. They're they're you know what? God's withholding from me. We want to be like god.
Joel Brooks:So if if envy can is enough to get you out of heaven, to make you think that heaven's not good enough, if envy's enough to to make you think paradise in the garden is not good enough, envy is pretty powerful, and it can destroy your life. And it destroys Saul's life. He loses almost all ability to have any kind of joy. I mean, he's celebrating a victory here, but he he loses his ability really to enjoy it. He loses all of his friends.
Joel Brooks:He becomes obsessive. He can only think about how others have what he wants. It's ironic, but as much as he tries to hold on to the throne, hold on to control of his life, the more he squeezes hold of it, the more he loses every privilege that came with having the throne. His friends desert him. His family desert him, or some of them do.
Joel Brooks:He he can't celebrate even things like a wedding. Right after this, his daughter, Michael, gets married to David. Weddings are normally joyful occasions. And they or Saul is like, here. Yes.
Joel Brooks:That's a great idea. I I'm gonna give Michael to to David to get married. Why? He wants it to be a snare. He wants it to be a trap.
Joel Brooks:Maybe I can use Michael to to trap David and to kill him off. So he starts using even his own daughter as just a pawn in his little chess match here in a way to eliminate David. He loses he loses everything. He loses the respect of the people. He loses his power by trying to hold on to it.
Joel Brooks:I'm reminded of Jesus's words. He who loves loves his life loses it, but he who loses his life for my sake finds it. For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his soul? And Saul forfeits his soul. And so we see here 2 very different ways to respond to the Messiah, But one more thing here, but before we take time to, to pray and have some q and a.
Joel Brooks:David is not the only one who points us to Jesus. In this story, Jonathan points us to Jesus as well. Philippians 2 says that Christ Jesus, who was in the form of god, did not regard equality with god a thing to be grasped, but He humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant. He made Himself nothing, and He took the form of a servant. And and we see here Jonathan beautifully illustrating that.
Joel Brooks:You could say this of Jonathan, that although he was royalty and prime for the throne, he did not regard kingship as something to be grasped, but he made himself nothing taking on the form of a servant. And just as Jonathan gave up his royal robe to David in order to exalt David to the throne, exalt him to a royal position. Jesus does the exact same thing for us. Alright? Jesus humbled himself, and he, he, he, he took off his robe of righteousness, and he has put it on us that we could share in his glory.
Joel Brooks:And Christ gave the human race his sword. Christ gave us the sword, and He made Himself killable so that we would kill Him. Yeah. I mean, do you understand how crazy that is? That the king came down, and he gave the human race the sword, and we killed him.
Joel Brooks:Why? Christ allowed that to happen so that we might be exalted, so that we might share in his glorious resurrection. He did all of this so that we might be treated like a son of the king. And so we see Jonathan pointing us forward to Jesus. Some of the questions that I want us to pray through in a minute as we look at this text is when we hear those words, Jesus Christ is Lord.
Joel Brooks:What does that mean to us? Do we more resemble someone like Saul who's very happy for the victory, very happy that our enemies have been slain, but we really just want to sit on our throne. Or do we respond like Jonathan and we joyfully submit everything we have, and we say we find our joys now in you, Jesus. You rule our life. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, we thank you that you did come to this earth. You did leave your heavenly home, and you became one of us because you did not want to be there without us. You wanted to exalt us to where we would be a son of the king, and you did that at a great cost to yourself. And so we praise you, Jesus. And because of that, we know that we are accepted in your sight, and we have nothing to prove.
Joel Brooks:There is no reason we should ever try to hold on to any authority in our own lives. So in this moment, through your spirit, allow us to just joyfully submit everything we have. All of our future plans, all of our money, all of our relationships, everything we have, we lay at your feet, and we say it is yours. We surrender all of that, and we do it in great joy. And we pray this in the name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. Before we, take time to pray together as a church, I think this is now our 4th, 5th week going through, the gospel according to David. So if there's any questions so one of the things I love about the church our size, is that we do this fairly often. We'll have a q and a time. So questions of any part of First Samuel up to this point that you guys would like to ask?
Joel Brooks:Just raise your hand. Jeremy.
Speaker 2:Question based on today. In Jonathan's response and how he responded, was he aware of Samuel's Samuel's anointing on David, or was it more of the vision of his courage and he had the instinct to know that, God had special plan for me.
Joel Brooks:There's no indication in scripture that he was aware. You you have no idea. I think He just it was obvious who had the spirit and who did not. And else go ahead, Brandon.
Speaker 3:With mention of this harmful spirit from God and this idea that it seems like, it seems like God made a a bad decision putting Saul as king, where obviously that that's probably not the case. Like, how do we reconcile what what appears to be a, an incorrect decision.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. Or,
Speaker 3:this this concept of, like, God putting a harpels here on Saul in order to kind of
Joel Brooks:rectify that? The question is, it comes from 1st Samuel 15 and some other places as well, but the the idea of God had established Saul as king, and it says that then he regretted making Saul king. Yeah. If you want, if you have your Bibles and you want to look, you actually have 2 verses in First Samuel. They're very close together.
Joel Brooks:One is verse 10. It says, The word of the Lord came to Samuel. I regret that I have made Saul king. Then we come to verse 29, And also, the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret. Alright, so you hold those up side by side and you have, God regretted making Saul king or changed his mind.
Joel Brooks:Some of your translations might say that. And then you have after that it says, God regretted making him or he's not like man that he should have regret. A couple of things in working through that. One, you have to realize the author is not an idiot. Okay?
Joel Brooks:I don't say that jokingly. I think some people really think that, you know, primitive people, they don't know what they're doing. They're they're writing these things in in juxtaposition against one another for a reason because what they want you to know is God is not like man in the way he has regret, or in the way that he changes my changes his mind. Alright. So he changes his mind, but you gotta know god doesn't do it the way that man does it.
Joel Brooks:Alright? When man changes their mind, they change their mind for a number of reasons. Like I would change my mind if I had a change of heart. Like, oh man, I really shouldn't have done that or said that. I changed my mind.
Joel Brooks:Or if, if new resources are available to me, I couldn't afford that now, but now I can. So I'm going to do this. Or if I didn't know the future, you know, oh, in light of this new information, yeah, we'll we'll do this. Alright. That's why I changed my mind.
Joel Brooks:God is not limited to any of those things. God never has a change of heart. He's always good. God has unlimited resources, and God knows the future completely. Alright.
Joel Brooks:So if he changes his direction, he doesn't change it for the same reasons that I do. And that's that's one of the things that Samuel's trying to put forth here and show us why he puts those things right next to each other. Don't think of him changing his mind like you change your mind because that's not the case, and in some ways he's just limited in the language he uses. In the Bible, we say things like, you know, God's right hand or God walks and all these things yet God is Spirit. And so, we're using these human terms to describe God, but the author Samuel, he's careful enough to know, 'I've got to use this term, but I don't want you to think of it like you normally think of it.' And so that's why it puts those 2 right next to each other.
Joel Brooks:It's a good question. I hope that made sense. Anybody else? Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Harmful spirit is gonna come up some. You know, the the spirit of god departs from Saul and kind of leaves, like, this vacancy there and then is replaced by this harmful spirit. Couple of things. 1, I I think this is one of the things that David has in mind when he prays Psalm 51, he says, take not thy holy spirit from me. He saw what happened when it happened to king Saul.
Joel Brooks:Alright? This isn't don't think of this as, like, salvation, like the way we get the spirit. You know, this is this is different. This is a kingship here. That's that's what this is hap what's happening And we're actually gonna look more at this next week.
Joel Brooks:So I don't wanna I don't wanna do too much here. But I'll say this, that in in the Bible, there are no secondary causes. Okay? For instance, in Job, Satan is the one who does all these things to Job. And Job says, though god slay me, yet I will trust him.
Joel Brooks:Satan did it all. Though god slay me, yet I will trust him. There's no secondary cause. He knows that God is the one who's sovereign and control of all things. And so if the evil spirit comes, the the writer is just gonna be like it comes from the Lord because, ultimately, it does, and just left it at that.
Joel Brooks:Alright. Good question. Anybody else before we take time to pray? Go ahead, Jimmy.
Speaker 4:You mentioned, I think, earlier in the series about, God saying to Samuel that Israel had rejected him.
Joel Brooks:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Him as being king.
Joel Brooks:Yeah.
Speaker 4:How that relates to the Deuteronomy 17 when it's actually the stipulations lay out kingship and
Joel Brooks:Yeah. You have the
Speaker 4:first one?
Joel Brooks:Yeah. Kingship, you you see from early on it being part of God's plan, absolutely. And I think the reason or the question is how it was it that they rejected God as being king and yet it seemed as kingship was always part of the plan here. Kingship was always part of the plan. Yahweh the Lord was supposed to rule as king.
Joel Brooks:Now one of the things that is supposed to happen is they needed to wait for Yahweh to come at some point and to rule physically as King and Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And they wanted they needed to wait and want the Lord to reign for those reasons. They wanted a king for completely different reasons. They wanted a king that would go and fight their enemies. They wanted, the Philistines.
Joel Brooks:And the main thing is that we wanna be like the other nations. And if you read Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy is all about not being like the other nations. And they say, Make us like one of the all the rest of the nations. Give us a king. And so, when God gave them Saul, it was really a man after their own heart and then he picks David a man after his own heart.
Joel Brooks:Good question. Let's let's we'll we'll stop there. I want us to take time to pray before we close in song.