Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Real heroes in life. You really dig down to it, and you see what sacrifices they've made, what they have gone through.
That's where your heart begins to be connected to theirs. I want you to see David today as a real hero. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Son of David, as presented at Rinaldin Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org.
Or call 877-544-4860. Now, more on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.
Here is Alan Wright. Well, let me have you turn to Psalm 22 this morning as we continue to look at the life of David in order to see the Son of David, to see Jesus. Psalm 22 is written during... it is attributed to David and therefore probably written during one of the lowest points in his life.
As we'll see, David suffered much. And a lot of the Psalms which some scholars would call the Psalms of Lament are expressions of honest pain to God. Honest reflection on how I feel during this time. And one of the things I want you to see today is that you can be real with God. And God wants you to be real. And that even if you have struggled with something for a long time, it's never too late with God.
Never too late with God. So we're going to be praying today. We're going to be praying for people who maybe you've struggled with a certain ailment for a long time or maybe you've just been through a lot of adversity for a long time. And the Lord has put it on us on our heart this morning that we're going to pray for people.
And I think there are going to be some healings today. Psalm 22, Psalm attributed to David that is one of the most explicitly messianic prophecies, a forecast almost to the very detail of what would happen with Jesus and His suffering, especially upon the cross. Verse 1, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And why are you so far from saving me? From the words of my groaning, O my God, I cry by day, but you not answer.
And by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy and thrown on the praises of Israel. Verse 6, I'm a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me.
They wag their heads. Look at verse 14, I'm poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax.
It's melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me, a company of evil duelers encircles me and they have pierced my hands and feet.
I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them.
And for my clothing, they cast lots. So you can recognize the words of Jesus that He quoted in the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You can recognize many of the details of what has happened with Jesus and His suffering. And so you can see that, amazingly, this is a text that was written down many, many centuries before Jesus. And yet it pointed to Jesus, just as the whole life of David points to Jesus. We've called it the Son of David, Shepherd, Hero, and King. And today I want to talk about David the hero, but not today as the one who so swiftly, so valiantly, and such a fun story of him defeating Goliath. But I want to talk instead today about just how real David is, how real his sufferings were, and what a real hero really, really is.
So we had a great week and got out to Dallas at the end of last week. And we had an opportunity for some leaders from our ministry, the Sharing the Light Ministries, that host the radio program around the nation. And we went specifically to meet with this expert consulting company to help us know how we could develop some better practices for the way that we relate with our listeners and developing our whole radio ministry. And it was excellent.
Just what you want when you go to something like this. You don't want them to just tell you you're doing everything just right, because then you feel like you'd wasted your time and money. And so they were very kind to let us know we were doing everything wrong.
And so we appreciated all of that. One of the things we wanted to change is that they said, I need to be more involved in social media. You know, I need to be tweeting and stuff. And so I was kind of like, you know, y'all, I don't know about that. I'm just not the kind of person that I don't think that you would be interested to know what I had for breakfast. And I don't think you want to know. And so I'm trying to understand. I said, well, why? I mean, I don't think it's that interesting. I mean, if I were to tweet something from this weekend, I mean, what would I say? Oh, okay. I went to the Carolina game yesterday down at Chapel Hill.
Yeah, there were some incredible slam dunks. I could tweet a whole lot about that, but not everybody's a Carolina fan. I don't understand that, but not everybody is. And what could I tweet?
I just don't think it's that. I said, why do I need to tweet? And they said, well, people like to know that you're real. And I was thinking about this as of, I don't know if you're into the Olympics, I'm all into watching it because I like all the stories behind it. You know, it's so weird. The Olympics, you know, for once every four years, we watch these sports that we never watch any other time. In fact, we don't even know they are a sport until we go, oh yeah, there's a sport called skeleton. And it's a sled. You go down face first.
It's kind of like the luge, but face first. And so, you know, I'm all into skeleton because they're telling the stories about this lady named Noel. And Noel, I can't remember her last name, I can't remember her last name, Pike something. And she is a mom and she had competed years ago, given it up, retired from the sport. And then she had a miscarriage. And in her grief, her husband encouraged her, why don't you take it back up?
And he said, we'll travel with you. And so she takes the sport back up and then wins a silver medal. I think that was on a Friday, wins a silver medal.
It's a great story. And so she's tweeting and the interviewers ask her, you know, what did you tweet? And she said, well, she said on the day that she won the silver medal, she woke up that morning and a funny thing happened. She had evidently months before put a reminder in her phone, you know, like a calendar appointment.
So it would pop up. And so at the beginning of the day in which she was going to compete in the finals and ultimately win the silver medal, popped a reminder that said compete in the Olympics today. And, you know, it's pretty funny.
So that's worth tweeting. But the point is that I guess I do like to know that these Olympic athletes are real people. I mean, it is good to hear the stories because you see people doing things that are just absolutely amazing. And there's a part of us that wants to be amazed with that hero.
But isn't there something that is incredibly powerful when you begin to make a connection because you realize that they're they're totally real? I mean, it wouldn't be it just wouldn't be right if, you know, afterwards, after somebody won the gold medal and they're sitting there in the studio with Bob Costas and he says, so you've won the gold medal. And and I can only imagine how much sacrifice, how many years of practice and all of the personal costs that's gone in to this moment for you to win this gold medal. It just wouldn't be right if the person said, no, not that much. Just wasn't that hard at all.
I hadn't really been practicing very much. I just kind of showed up and you go get off of the camera. No, we want a real person to tell us you have suffered in order to come to this this point. There is something that grips your heart when you realize that someone who is a hero is absolutely real, just as human as you are. A real hero is a hero that's real. See, I mean, eh, Batman's probably my choice, Spider-Man a close second, but I take that over Superman because at least Batman's real person, you know, he's got better gadgets. But real heroes in life, you really dig down to it and you see what sacrifices they've made, what they have gone through.
That's where your heart begins to be connected to theirs. I want you to see David today as a real hero, not as someone who had a shortcut to glory. Because if you could see David for who he is in all the ways that he suffered on behalf of Israel and how it was that his coronation did not come easily, you can relate to David, but more importantly, you can see Jesus, your ultimate, your real hero. He was the lone Israelite brave enough to decapitate Goliath and the sole warrior adept enough to cut off the scourge of the Philistines.
He was the stately king who established peace, expanded the borders and reigned in prosperity for 40 years. Who else could be a gentle shepherd, a glorious hero and a noble king? Would there ever be another leader like David? Yes, the son of David. His name is Jesus and he is a better David than David could ever be. He came to be your shepherd, your hero and your king. In a 12-message audio series, Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling adventure with David in order to point you to the answer for your every need, the son of David.
Discover how Christ enables you to face your biggest obstacles, deal with your fiercest persecution and live as an heir of grace. It's an audio series from Alan Wright. As our thanks for your donation, we'll be delighted to send you Pastor Alan's audio messages in either a digital download or a CD album format.
Son of David, shepherd, hero, king. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. I want today to look at a variety of texts actually that we learn about David and what a real hero looks like by comparing, contrasting him to the first king of Israel who turned out to be one that everyone hoped would be a hero but was not, King Saul. In literature, there is a literary device that is called a foil. It is when you take one character who has usually some similarities to the main character but is there for the purpose of contrast with the main character, with the protagonist. So you see some things that may be similar or parallel in these two characters but the one character, the contrast makes much more vivid vivid who this main character really is. So Sherlock Holmes and the foil is Watson.
You know, they're both interested in investigating and unraveling the clues but Watson seems to have such an ordinary intelligence which just makes Sherlock Holmes intelligent look so incredible. Maybe the ultimate expression of this is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one person actually. So yet Mr. Hyde, all that is evil and all that is sin within Dr. Jekyll gets misplaced over into Mr. Hyde so that Dr. Jekyll is seen in contrast. This is the idea of a foil and this is really the way that you read the story of David is that it is all in contrast to Saul. They bear so many similarities with one another and yet then they just totally diverge and so by seeing what Saul is, you see what David isn't. By seeing what Saul isn't, you see what David is. And these are two men that is surprising if you go back and read the stories of just how similar the texts read very similarly that how Saul was chosen appointed to be king and then he was anointed by the prophet Samuel and just like David chosen and then anointed with probably the same flask of oil from the prophet Samuel and in both cases the Bible says the Holy Spirit came upon Saul, the Holy Spirit came upon David so both were empowered by the Holy Spirit, truly empowered, truly filled with the Spirit for bold endeavors and people recognized that there was a spiritual unction on each of these men and of course both served as king of Israel. Both Saul and David had intimate connection with a man named Jonathan. Jonathan was the son of Saul so they were connected by blood and David was connected with Jonathan because they were connected by covenant in an enduring intimate friendship. So the story then even evolves around the fact that Saul is rejected from the throne of Israel while David is told he's going to have the throne and yet goes through all these years in which he's not yet coronated.
So both men experience rejection, both men experience suffering in some way so they have many many similarities and yet I want to draw for you today three really important contrasts. I wish I had time to do a lot more but I want to focus in on the way in which Saul and David, the way in which they suffered and how different they ended up through the things that they suffered. I want to focus on how differently they embraced the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit in their lives and how different how differently they experienced in their heart, what their character did when they received the power of the Holy Spirit. And I want to talk specifically also about how differently they sacrificed to the Lord. So they suffered differently, they experienced the Spirit differently, they sacrificed to the Lord differently. There are many other ways we could draw contrast but in doing this I just want you to see how real of a hero David really is by contrasting him with Saul.
So let's talk about this first part about the sufferings that they faced. One of the things that you'll notice when you read the story of David is that David is probably, we don't know for sure, he's probably 15, maybe 17 years old when he is anointed and told he's going to be king but it's not until he's age 30 that he ever gets on the throne. And basically what happens in that period of time between age 15 or 17-ish and age 30, basically what happens is he struggles, he suffers, he's persecuted, he's nearly killed, he nearly starves to death, he finds that he has to hide, he at one occasion acts like a madman just to protect himself while he's amongst the people of Gath.
He is humiliated, he associates with the distressed, the bankrupt, the bitter and this becomes his ragtag army. That's what goes on with David. But Saul's story is totally different because what happened with Saul is we pick up reading at 1 Samuel chapter 10 is that Saul is not only quickly anointed but quickly promoted and this is a glaring, glaring contrast between Saul and David and there's just a huge lesson in this for us. So this is 1 Samuel chapter 10 and verse 20, it tells the story and there's a little bit of comedy in here as well. Samuel brought, this is 1 Samuel 10 verse 20, then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by a lot and he brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans and the clan of the matrites was taken by a lot and Saul the son of Kish was taken by a lot but when they sought him he could not be found. So here they are, they are getting ready to promote him as king and it's already been declared that he's going to be, it's being confirmed through this Old Testament practice of the casting of lots and Saul is not there.
Why? And so they inquired of the Lord, is there a man still to come? And the Lord said, behold he's hidden himself among the baggage. Now we're not giving any clarification about what exactly is going on but basically Saul is afraid and he's hiding and so they have to go and take him from the baggage area, whatever's going on there, and then he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward.
You just got to get this picture, it's comical. Here he is, he's fine looking and he looks like a warrior and it looks impressive and he looks like the kind of, you know, that's the kind of person you like to be a king but he lacks confidence so much that he's hiding and they had to drag him out and so as soon as they do, and Samuel said to all the people, do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There's none like him among all the people and the people shouted long live the king. So this is how Saul got promoted, he just got yanked out of a place of his cowardice and suddenly anointed and Samuel announced, look how great this man looks and he's going to be your new king and everybody said long live the king and that's how quickly he was promoted because he was impressive. And what this is just a such an amazing contrast to David who has to flee from Saul. When Saul finds out that people are adoring David, Saul tries to kill David repeatedly. Saul is after him and David is committed to not laying a hand on Saul. He is convinced that the Lord will be the one that will promote David and David will not promote himself. David will not lay a hand on the Lord's anointed and so David just has to flee, he has to run, he has to struggle. At one point they have to just ask the priest for to eat some of the holy bread and you'll find that he is hiding out down amongst the caves at Adullam and it's just a remote area. I've been there before, it's just remote and you can just envision David there, he is having to do everything he can just to preserve his life. And listen what the text says when they're at the cave at Adullam, verse Samuel 22 verse 1. David departed from there, escaped to the cave of Adullam and when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down to them and everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was embittered and soul gathered to him and he became commander over them and there were with him about 400 men.
What I'm just pointing out here is that one of the biggest contrasts in the whole story of David, the foil of Saul contrasting with David is that Saul is anointed, he shows no evidence of character, there is no evidence in the scriptures that Saul had done anything to prove his character, there's no mention of the fruit of his life, there's no mention of any season of obscurity in which he'd been trained up in his heart and in his character, the only emphasis was on how he looked and how gifted he was. Alan Wright and today's teaching, A Tale of Two Kings, it's from the series Son of David. I encourage you to stick with us.
Alan's back in the studio here in just a moment as he shares his parting good news thought for the day. Got some giants to slay? Need some encouragement in the midst of a trial?
Wondering if God really cares? Meet David. Who can compare to him? He was the ruddy, handsome, youth-tending sheep writing psalms and worshiping God in the humble Bethlehem fields. He was the lone Israelite brave enough to decapitate Goliath and the sole warrior adept enough to cut off the scourge of the Philistines.
He was the stately king who established peace, expanded the borders and reigned in prosperity for 40 years. Who else could be a gentle shepherd, a glorious hero and a noble king? Would there ever be another leader like David? Yes, the son of David. His name is Jesus and he is a better David than David could ever be. He came to be your shepherd, your hero and your king. In a 12-message audio series, Alan Wright takes you on a thrilling adventure with David in order to point you to the answer for your every need, the son of David.
Discover how Christ enables you to face your biggest obstacles, deal with your fiercest persecution and live as an heir of grace. It's an audio series from Alan Wright. As our thanks for your donation, we'll be delighted to send you Pastor Alan's audio messages in either a digital download or a CD album format.
Son of David, shepherd, hero, king. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org. I'm back here in the studio to share Alan's parting good news thought for the day and today's takeaway is important and readily available to all who trust Jesus. Yes. Saul and David, what I call literary form is a foil, right? So as we were seeing like Watson is a foil for homes. Well, Saul and David, these first two kings of Israel, they're similar and yet they're so different. Both of them, interestingly, we'll see are anointed of the Holy Spirit. But what you see Saul do with his anointing is he abuses people and David instead serves the people. Well, David is the one who is pointing us to Jesus, who was the anointed one, the Messiah, who had the Holy Spirit without measure. And Jesus used his entire ministry in life to bless us and to save us. David is pointing to that in contrast to Saul. And there's good news for us here. Jesus is the son of David. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.
