Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Surprising News and a Surprising Response | David's Life in 22 Stories | 2 Samuel 1

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're working through the story of David's life in First and Second Samuel. There are a lot of Christmas mornings that stand out in my mind. Some of those as a kid, I remember getting cool presents or kind of being over-the-top excited about what might happen that day. And some of the Christmases that I remember are as a parent of kind of great, times when you're sitting there with your family, maybe eating something, Christmas traditions,

Starting point is 00:00:39 opening gifts, that kind of stuff. But one Christmas stands out of my mind because of something that did not go right. My two boys, younger boys at the time, I think they're about five and six somewhere in that ballpark. And they had asked for these little computers, you know, toy computers. And one of them had asked for a Batman and the other one wanted Spider-Man. But Christine and I got a mixed up. And so we gave the Batman computer to the wrong boy and the Spider-Man computer to the wrong boy. Now my younger son, he didn't really care. He was happy with either. But the older one, he was very, very disappointed. And so all of a sudden, he just burst into tears. He's not really an emotional kid, not wasn't then, it isn't now. And so for some reason, when a kid who's not

Starting point is 00:01:26 prone to much emotion or drama starts crying on Christmas morning, you're like, okay, something went terribly wrong. We finally figured out what it was and we got it all rectified, but it was an unexpected response to what we thought was good news, but instead turned out to him, in his mind, I was a kid of figuring out it was kind of bad news. The unexpected response is what I'll always remember, though. Well, here we are in the day of Samuel and David and Saul and we're getting ready to come to a really big moment, and it's the time that Saul's kingship comes to an end, and David moves a big step closer to finally becoming king. Remember, he's been anointed king for a long time, but now he's actually going to step into that

Starting point is 00:02:16 role soon as the king of Israel. The transition happens when Saul dies. Now, the transition happens between Saul and David when Saul dies in battle. But when David hears that news, he doesn't have the reaction that I would have expected him to have. Like I think I would have had if I were in that situation. And it's his unexpected response to the news of Saul's death that I think you and I can learn a lot. So, okay, here's how it happens. There's this big battle between the Philistines and the Israelites. And, you know, it's just kind of an interesting side note that the Bible doesn't give a lot of attention to the actual battle. You don't find out who punched who and who drove their sword through who. That's not the author's interest. The author focuses not on the fighting, but on how

Starting point is 00:03:10 the battle moves God's plan forward. And make no mistake about it. We've known for a while that God's plan is for David to replace Saul as the king. So in the course of the fighting with the Philistine, Saul's son, Jonathan, David's buddy, he dies, and then knowing the enemy is closing in on him and that he's all alone, Saul takes his own life. Now, in 2 Samuel chapter 1, an amylcalite runs to David and his men to tell him about Saul's death. And I think in order to make himself look good, this unnamed Amalekite, he tells David

Starting point is 00:03:51 that he helped kill Saul. Now, it's not too hard to figure out why this amyclyte does that, is that he thinks he's going to get some kind of reward from David for helping kill David's enemy. And you might think the same thing, because Saul has been making David's life miserable for a long time. He's attacked him, he's driven away from his family, he's separated him from his friend Jonathan,

Starting point is 00:04:19 he's tried to kill him. And so there's a sense that when David hears that Saul is dead, this amicalite thinks David's going to be really happy, and I want to get on that action by saying I helped kill him. And I think that's a very reasonable conclusion to draw. In other words, I think I would have thought that David would have celebrated when Saul, his chief tormentor, died. But that's not what happened. No, verse 11. So when they hear this news, here's how David responds. David and all the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them.

Starting point is 00:04:56 They mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan and for the army of the Lord and for the nation of Israel because they had fallen by the sword. So David didn't celebrate. No, on the contrary, David mourned. And we find out why in verse 14. David asks the amicalite who reported that he had helped kill Saul, why weren't you afraid to lift your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? So, he says to this amicalite, you had the audacity to raise your hand against the Lord's anointed? That's crazy.

Starting point is 00:05:41 See, David mourned instead of celebrating. And he mourned because the Lord's anointed. anointed king had been killed. Three quick things to note, and I think they all have relevance application to our life. First, David loved his enemy. Saul had attacked David, but David was gracious. David spared Saul's life on two separate occasions when he easily had the opportunity to kill Saul. He had this sense that my responsibility is to love my enemy.

Starting point is 00:06:17 Now look, we can hear Jesus say, love your enemy, and that's something that everybody, Christians and non-Christians, appreciate about Jesus, respect about Jesus, this love your enemy approach. It was big in Martin Luther King, Jr. in the civil rights movement, where King led his people in loving the enemy, led the civil rights movement in loving their enemy. There's something so attractive about it, but, but man, is it hard to do? Can you imagine in David's situation, Saul, like we already said, has driven away from his friends, his family, he's on the run for his life. And yet David loves even the one who is trying to kill him. Who is it in your life that God is calling you to love even though they oppose you, even though they gossip about you, even though they are your rival at work or in school or on a team? Who is it that is your enemy that you are called to love by God? Second, Romans 12 says that vengeance is mine, declares the Lord.

Starting point is 00:07:26 In other words, we do not have the right to take things into our own hands into exact vengeance from people, but instead we entrust that to God. Vengeance belongs to God. And so David here refuses to take matters into his own hands when he had the opportunity to kill Saul. Instead, he entrust that to God and trust his life and Saul's life to God and has this sense of hope that maybe Saul will come to his senses. Maybe Saul will change his mind. Maybe Saul will repent and get on track with God's program. But vengeance his mind declares the Lord, not ours. David doesn't take that right into his own hands and neither should we. Third, David respected

Starting point is 00:08:09 the one God placed in leadership, even when that leader wasn't the kind of leader God wanted him to be. So David says, look, Saul is God's anointed king. He's God's leader. Even when I don't like what he's doing, even though when what he's doing is out of line with God's word, he's still God's leader. And therefore, I need to respect him and follow him. There's a sense in which David is even willing to submit to Saul because that's the person that God has chosen to be the king of Israel at that time. Now, is there someone in your life that God has put an authority over you, that you need to respect even if you don't always like the way they handle themselves or the way they lead? Maybe it's a boss who is demanding.

Starting point is 00:09:02 maybe it's a parent who is stricter than you think that they should be. Maybe it's someone in your church that leads a team and you're on that team and you would do it differently if it was up to you. Maybe it's a small group leader that you could say the same thing about. You would lead the group differently. But for whatever reason, this is the person that God has put in charge of your workplace, in charge of your team, in charge of your small group. This is the one that God has made the teacher in the classroom.

Starting point is 00:09:34 And so whether or not you prefer their style, his or her style, that doesn't really matter. You can speak all of them. You can submit to their leadership because this is God's anointed. David's response is really unexpected. His enemy dies. The rival to the throne dies. The one that's standing in the way of his progress and his movement of the career ladder dies. But David doesn't celebrate because this.

Starting point is 00:10:00 This is a person made in God's image. This is a person God loves. This is a person that God had anointed his king over Israel. And so this was a time to mourn and grieve. Man, there's a lot we can learn from David's unexpected response. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Surprising News and a Surprising Response | David's Life in 22 Stories | 2 Samuel 1

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