David vs Saul
David • Sermon • Submitted
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Inorder to learn from David we need to understand Saul.
Saul’s life is pure tradgy.
He was Israels first King.
He was chosen for the position based only his outward identity.
2 He had a son whose name was Saul, a young and handsome man, and there was not a more handsome man than he among the sons of Israel; from his shoulders and up he was taller than any of the people.
Saul is perhaps the very first example of what we today call Identity Polotics.
Identity Politics is when the value of an individual is based on nothing but external, genetic indicators. Most often sex and ethnicity.
The thing about these external, genetic marjers is that they are not the result of any effort or work of the individual - they were just born that way.
And thing that we never earned or worked for cannot add or subtrcat from our worth.
That Saul was born Tall, strong and handsome is irelevant in the position of king. Those attributes are not to Saul praise or glory because he did nothing to have them.
Yet, these totally irrelevant markers became the whole basis for his election as king.
And the result was national disaster.
This is always the result of identity politics.
Any system that basis its value of a peron on their external markers and not on their internal skill, charicter and dedication is destine to fall.
This makes Saul’s failures very intresting to think about: Did he even want th position?
When Samual called for him to anncounce his election as king, Saul was hiding behand barrels. Not exacally a motivating start.
And Saul did not start ou as an evil person.
He was a good son to his father. A hard worker. He was loyal worshiper of God.
It is not obvious to me that Saul dimise was not simply because he was not right for the job and suffered the consequence.
He is not treated like an enemy by David. David wept and lamented over the death of Saul.
What exacally was wrong with Saul?
Was it that he was not perfect and sinned? No, David was far from perfect and also commited terrible sins.
Other than Saul NOT having the positive requirments for the position was negative qualities DID he have that brought him to raun?
We have a fasnanting passage to look at:
14 Now the Spirit of the Lord left Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrified him.
16 May our lord now command your servants who are before you. Have them search for a man who is a skillful musician on the harp; and it shall come about whenever the evil spirit from God is upon you, that he shall play the harp with his hand, and you will become well.”
23 So it came about whenever the evil spirit from God came to Saul, David would take the harp and play it with his hand; and Saul would feel relieved and become well, and the evil spirit would leave him.
Let take a moment to unpack this:
God does not posess people with demonic spirits.
Evil - sad
7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were with him in confinement in his master’s house, “Why are your faces so sad today?”
spirit - casual agency - ones own passive nature.
Saul was man who was led by his emotion and not by the spirit of truth.
Saul is an unsable man.
The bible tells us something about human beings:
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Human beings are multilayered. Spirt, soul and body.
Each of these parts is not seperate but all three are interconnected.
Paul shows us this when he says:
15 For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate.
Here is this in modern laungage and in ORDER.
Body
Emotions
Rationality.
Rational thought is the key to being stable.
Rational thought is simply thought based on logic and order.
1-5
The problem is that rational thought is at the bottom of the system.
The body is first.
Your body is the most complex machine in th known universe. And your body has a kind of will and mind of its own, a will and mind that ingortes all your conscient thought.
You dont think about making your body work.
All your organs and system work “on their own”, and if a syatem does not work oproperly, you can forget about rational thought.
You cannot be rational when you are starving. You cannot be rational if you re sleep deprived.
But there are even more ubtle body problem that impare our abilty to think and act rationally.
Your hormones and various brain changing chemicals like dopamine and seratonum and gaba just to name a few are all needed to work properly for you to maintain rational thought.
Even the food you eat to give energy to your brain to work can effect your rationality.
Depressed people cannot see past their problems.
People sufering from anxiets disorder cannot see past their fears.
But depression and AD are in 99% of the time, not truma related but simply the result of chemical imblances in their bodies.
So my first advice is: Look after you body.
Excersise 3 hours a week, minimum. Do weight training.
Eat properly, low carb and high protien. If you can follow a ketogenic diet all the better, keytones have been proved to even cure depression.
Follow a routine. Order you life.
And, if there is a problem, go to a doctor and get it sorted too.
It s not a sin to take mental health medication anymore than it is a sin to take body health medication.
If you are happy taking vitamin C to prevent the flu because your body does not have enoufgh vitamin C, then you can tak a seratonim inhibator to prevent anxiets because your body does not have enough seratonim.
The emotions.
Emotions are evil or bad. Our emotions are an expression of how we feel.
David was a man deeply in touch and aware of his emotions.
The problem is when our emotions are so powerful that again they prevent ratioal thought.
You cannot be rationl when you are angry.
You cannot be rational when you are in shock.
You cannot be rational when you are broken hearted.
So what can we do about this?
You have to force rationality on your emotions. And the best way to do this is to write.
A diary is not a tool that helkps you remeber dates and apointmnets.
A diary is a tool that forces you to take your emotions and articulate them.
Articulation is the very basis of rtionality.
Here is what happens:
1-5
You need to go rationlly from 1-2-3-4-5
Your emotion want to take you straight to 5.
By articulating your feelings you can force rationallity through the logical sequence as you logically articulat your feelings.
Thats why David wrote so many psalms.
The Psalms are examples of David, not being controlled by his emotions, but rather him controling them htrough articulation.
ps 88 is an excellnt example.
Once you break through the automation o your physical body and learn to think through and articulate your emotions, rational thought be the result.
Look how Saul failed:
1: He took on the role of priest
8 Now he waited for seven days, until the appointed time that Samuel had set, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattering from him.
9 So Saul said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering.
10 But as soon as he finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him and to greet him.
11 But Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “Since I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come at the appointed time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash,
12 I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not asked the favor of the Lord.’ So I worked up the courage and offered the burnt offering.”
13 But Samuel said to Saul, “You have acted foolishly! You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, for the Lord would now have established your kingdom over Israel forever.
2: He let his emotions limithis obedience
10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying,
11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands.” And Samuel was furious and cried out to the Lord all night.
12 Samuel got up early in the morning to meet Saul; and it was reported to Samuel, saying, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, then turned and proceeded on down to Gilgal.”
13 So Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have carried out the command of the Lord.”
14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the bellowing of the oxen which I hear?”
15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have completely destroyed.”
Saul’s biggest problm was that of Envy.
Saul was envious of david and compared himself to david.
Envy is a terrible sin.
29 people having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, and evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice; they are gossips,
gal 5 21
21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
look at
4 he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a sick craving for controversial questions and disputes about words, from which come envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions,
Envy leds to trife, leads to abusive laugage leads to evil suspictions.
Text book Saul with regards to David.
Let me tell you a few things about the foolishness of envy.
1: You know nothing about the person you are envying. All you see the shiny ouide.
In cat the word eny comes from a latin word which means simply “to look”.
Saul envied David, but knew nothing about him.
When David came to defeat giolath Saul said to him:
55 Now when Saul had seen David going out against the Philistine, he said to Abner the commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is this young man?” And Abner said, “By your life, O king, I do not know.”
Saul did not know of David’s family struggles, Saul was well respected in his family, David was dispised.
Saul did not know how many times David was almost killed by wild animals.
You do not know the secret life of the person you envy.
And in fcat comparing yourself o anyone else is a rescpie for envy and self distruction.
12 For we do not presume to rank or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they have no understanding.
You should compare yourelf today with yourself yesterday.
but did not know the detailes of davids life.
Instead of looking where he(saul) was weak and inefficient he looked at davids sucsess as a threat to himself.
the best peson to compare youself is you yesterday not someone else today.
Saul was better esteemed by his family than david was by his.
Saul never had to fight for his life against wild animals like david did.
Cain and able:
Cain kills able not because able made cain suffer, cain suffers because of cain, but instead of killing the cause of his suffering (himself) he kill Able so that his own failure seems less, instead of making himself better.
Cain could have learned from Able but instead killed him.
Sal could have learned from David but instead tried to kill him.