The victory over evil slipped away from Saul. Why did the victory slip away from Saul? Because he used the music to escape the conviction, the feeling of being wrong. Instead of Facing the truth. Imagine coming to the church and you're singing praises to God and you're singing about His holiness and righteousness, but you have no intention whatsoever of abiding by any of that.
You just want to feel good about yourself. That's a step backwards. Mm. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville.
Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
Now, here is Pastor Rick as he continues teaching verse by verse through 1 Samuel chapter 16 on this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Paul writes to these believers, he says, Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And how you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time? What is restraining the revelation of the Antichrist? This is Antichrist.
How will the world know when he comes forward? What is keeping him back?
Well, the Holy Spirit. He says, for the mystery of lawlessness, as we see in Saul and so many others, already at work. Only He, that's the Holy Spirit. who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. And then what happens?
And then the lawless one will be revealed. whom the Lord will Consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming, and be no match. In other words, God take care of this just with a blink, and it's done. He's in total control. Continuing, he says, The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power.
signs and fake wonders. Lying wonders. Then he continues, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perished because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. It's all about receiving the truth. He says, for this reason, God will send strong delusion that they should believe the lie.
And Saul was believing his own lie.
Now we look at verse fifteen. Hey, we got one verse done. And Saul's servant said to him, Surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you.
Well, he's observing him, and he's saying, This is not natural. This is heavy melancholy. I mean, this is not just I'm bummed out. This is going beyond that. Perhaps they hoped that maybe if we can bring a musician in and he listens to some music.
That he'll come out of this and seek God. Maybe that was their hope. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Because the number one saint in Israel wanted nothing any more to do with This king. A distressing spirit.
I think part of it was a spirit of conviction. Saul knew his own guilt. And rather than, rather than. Repenting, he resented. That he dared be corrected even by God.
Maybe you felt that way. Maybe you have felt so justified in a complaint before God that you could feel welling up in you a defiant spirit. But Because of the Holy Spirit, you check it. You put it in its place. It may flash out and you check it.
And those that don't may suffer. Big consequences. And We've come to this question that is asked in the Robinson Caruso story. By Friday to Carrusso is why doesn't God kill the devil? That would be nice.
Well, he will eventually, as far as we're concerned, I don't you know, they're going to be thrown into the abyss, the lake of fire, and there that'll be it for them. We won't ever see them again. I'd stand in line to see that.
Well, anyway Obedience is a test of love. And there are degrees of obedience. As we've been hitting on with David's life, when we get to 2 Samuel, God's going to say: before you get to thinking David is. All of this, let me just show you that he's human like everybody else, as much as I love him. And out of that we're supposed to be emboldened in the faith.
Otherwise, if obedience Well, while obedience is has to be measured in the presence of temptation, Or otherwise, it's just a philosophy. It's a good idea. But or a you know a figure of speech How does obedience become something that's actually meaningful to God and to me, and harmful to the enemies of God? By standing in the face of temptation. God uses the devil to filter out of creation.
Rebellious souls, the ones that he doesn't want in heaven because they don't really want to be under his authority. And so God uses Satan as an alternative choice between himself. Or not. And that's why God does not kill the devil. Satan does not show up.
In the first two chapters of the Bible, it doesn't show up in the last two chapters of the Bible. He's not in the beginning, he's not in the end. Because he's not the beginning, and he is not the end. He's not the alpha, he's not the omega. And he is barred.
He is contained like the sea. The borders of Satan are fixed. God knows what He's doing when He makes such lessons plain to us. Revelation 20, and anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. Where Antichrist and His sidekick will go?
We're Satan We'll go also. But God uses Satan. He uses him to judge sinners. to expose unbelievers, distinguish between believers and unbelievers? to refine the saints.
To encourage the saints, as is the story of Job. To discipline those in the church. Purify. Believers? Quest to be Obedient to God.
God has his uses for Satan, and when we get to heaven, we're going to. have not one complaint. God will wipe away every tear from our eye. I am so looking forward to that. and I won't have spectacles, either.
And I won't have sunglasses either, because the Lord will be the light, and there will be no desire to filter that light out.
So it says here in verse 15, God is troubling you. Again, what God permits, he is often said to do in the Old Testament because of his sovereignty. And this is the consequent of the defiant, self, overly self-important. Spirit Which leads to Self-exaltation which God will not stand for. Was it too late for someone in this court to say, Saul, let's go to God?
You know, people can get there. You can't even bring God up with some people, they'll go off. Can we just mind if I just pray for you? What do you mean, pray for you? What are you saying?
Oh, brother, if you've ever experienced that. You know that's just not God's will. Anyway, verse 16. Let our master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is a skilful player on the harp, And it shall be that He will play Play it with his hand and the distressing spirit from God. is upon you, when it is upon you.
and you shall be well.
Well This uh Is a spiritual ailment. and there's no physical treatment for this. You can buy a little time with a physical treatment, but it's going to fail. And that's what happened with Sol. It's sort of like losing your keys.
Um you know Outside In the dark, and then going in the house and looking for them because that's where the light is. It's goofy, it sounds like it's gonna work. Hey, let's go look where the light is, we can see things there. But it's absurd, but this is standard practice with human beings. Depression is not uncommon to sinners.
Don't be surprised if you find yourself going through depression. I don't want to overplay the saying, but if you I don't want to just trivialize it, say deal with it, but that's what it's going to come down to. In the end, you have to face it, look it in the face, and deal with it. After and get sick of it. and redirect your energies elsewhere.
It doesn't mean you have an evil spirit because you you deal with depression. It does mean that when you do have an evil spirit, there can be heightened forms of depression, as we're considering here with Saul. But the key thing with Saul is he didn't want God. And that's not the devil necessarily, just the flesh and. the weakness of the flesh, of being born in a cursed world as a sinner under the curse.
Anyway, 2 Corinthians 10, for we know this one, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Because the spiritual forces are not carnal. It is a case of fighting fire with fire. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. But then Paul also said earlier to the Corinthians, but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
Nor can he know them. Because they're foolishness to him. He just doesn't buy it. Because they're spiritually discerned, they don't have the spirit.
So you tell someone, listen, dawg. This is a spiritual situation. If they're not a believer, they're very likely going to scoff at that or believe in the world too and try to mingle it together, which we call leaven. Spiritual conditions. If you are a Christian and you're dealing with a spiritual struggle, it may just be a long time that you have to deal with it.
You'll come out of it. You stay the course. David wrote Psalms about his. Why are you cast down, my soul? We're going to come to that in some of that in a minute.
Verse 17.
So Saul said to his servants, Provide me now a man who can play well, and bring him to me. Yeah.
Well, after it was suggested, look how it's worded. Saul said to his servants, after his servants were the ones that brought it up. I think it's on purpose. The writer says this is typical Saul. He claims everything is his doing, it's all self-centered.
He personifies the flesh, this man, so he outsources his solution. Hire somebody. Just don't ask me to go to God. Contrasting David. Psalm sixty one, David wrote For the end of the earth I will cry to you.
from the end of the earth. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. You know, you come to church, you sing songs like this to God. Psalm three, verse two. Many or they who say to say of me, There is no help for For him in God.
Selah He said, There are people that try to take me away. And he goes on, verse 3: But you, O Yahweh, are a shield for me. My glory and The one who lifts up my head. How many people have told you, you can't go to God for that? I mean there's some things you you just as a rule you don't go to God for.
Uh you go to Tylenol. Granted. But spiritual problems. We go to God, and there are those that are going to scoff, and that's what David wrote about. There are those that tell me, don't go to God, there's no help from Him.
Even the sons of Korah. Their ancestor Korah was a rebel against Moses, and the ground opened and swallowed him and his goods and his home up. But his offspring We find them in the temple writing these beautiful psalms because of the mercy of God. God said that was Korah. That's not you.
It's nonsense about cyclical sin. Oh, I'm in the cycle of sin, and I have an excuse to be evil because I'm on this cycle. Anyway, Uh Psalm 42 verse 5. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him. For the help. of his countenance Yeah, there's a The psalmist was depressed. As a deer pants for the water, so my soul longs for you. I'm not sensing you, God.
That's why I'm so thirsty for you. And how long do I cry on my bed? Day and night, I cry out for you. God says, I've got everyone down, and by faith, you're going to see what happens. Maybe not in this life, maybe in this life Verse 18.
Then one of the servants answered and said, Look, I have seen a son of Jesse a Bethlemite who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person. And Yahweh is with him.
Well, I'm glad he's not ugly, because he never would have.
So that's just. Why does he put the mighty man of value? He's really selling it. Uh it's It's not by accident that this Courtier of Saul previously noticed David. And his ability, his musical skills.
This is God as it was with Joseph in Pharaoh's court. Remember the butler? Oh, by the way, I remember a few years back. Genesis 41, verse 12.
Now there was a young Hebrew man with us there, a servant of The captain of the guard and we Uh and we told him, and he interpreted our dreams for us. To each man he interpreted according to his own dream, not by accident. That that Butler made it into the jail with Joseph and was one day used as a tool of God. To get Joseph out, although Joseph had to be saying Why does he not do it today? Why do I have to wake his?
Because Joseph wanted out of that jail. Uh these are heavy stories. Anyway, He continues in verse 18, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person. I said, oh, this is so silly. What if he was ugly?
I mean seriously, what if he what if David was a Cyclops? Would he have still recommended him? The kind of guys you got in your court. Samuel would have never said anything like that. Anyway.
What is meant by this mighty man of valor? When we hear valor, we think of someone who's been tested. Their bravery has been tested in the face of danger.
Well, David has not to anyone's knowledge at this point.
Well, it means he's healthy enough and old enough. for military service. And then he pours it on a little thick with these prudent speech. He's just right for the court. You don't want dumb people around you saying stupid things.
And this guy would be a good fit. That's what he's saying. David is probably. Late 15, 16 years old. We're trying to chart that back from when he was 30 years old, he became king.
So that's where he he is likely. And the Lord is with him. In contrast to Saul in his melancholy That Is engulfing him and will will get worse. Again, he's in the early stages. And so the one without the Lord needed one with the Lord to help him.
to rescue him, and I think it is very sad when it's the other way around. It's very sad when believers go to the world to get rescued from themselves. Unfortunately, in modern days, the church has helped believers do that. Instead of saying staying strong and The church has often been influenced out of the spirit. and into the world.
I mean Even how they put board members and select them and do other things. Much of it is because they've been influenced by the world and not by the word. Verse 19. Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me your son David, who is But with the sheep, Yes, can I Kind of funny how that's worded.
Well, here for the first time, the two names Saul and David find themselves in the same sentence. They are. If you gather up all the references to Saul and David, the stories that go with their lives, and you put them side by side, you come away saying, David's a far better man. And that is for us to feast on as Christians in the Spirit. Verse 20.
And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul. Jesse is his his generosity is noticeable. Part of his social skills. Later, he's going to send David. to the battle line Not the fight, because there was no fight going on.
where Goliath is strutting back and forth for forty days, Blaspheming, and David's brothers are there, and he sends him with dried grain, and ten loaves of bread, and ten cheeses. To uh for his brothers a care package. That's just Jesse. Earlier, we saw him. We'll also see him while we see him here.
Sending uh Gifts. Don't go empty-handed. Make sure you take the entermins with you. Verse twenty-one. It used to be when you when you were invited to someone's house for dinner, you'd you'd bring something voluntarily.
If they said, Hey, could you bring that would no, that's tasteless. We don't do it like that. We just I'll bring the entramens and everybody will be happy once they see those chocolate doughnuts. How can you be anything other than happy? Verse twenty.
So David came to Saul, stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he became his armor bearer. Again, there's no way David can see what's coming. That this man will chase him.
So, where it says, And he, that is, Saul loved him, he loved. David. But Well, David loved God, Saul loved Saul. He loves what David is doing for him. He likes the choice.
Yeah, I see he's not an ugly person, whatever that may mean, and he's not a Cyclops, and he can handle himself. And so he's accepting him into the court. It is a useless kind of love. It's the kind of love you have for a snack. And it's brief.
And it makes me happy and then I move on. And I may want a different snack to morrow night. This is the kind of love that again attempted to kill David. over at least sixteen times and perhaps more His obsession with murdering David and using his army. To help him do it, personifies what?
What does that personify? As on a normal day, Saul personifies the flesh. But on a heightened day, he personifies hatred, sheer hatred. He was obsessed with killing David. He had nothing else to do.
Here's a conversation with Saul. Let's go kill David. Hi, Saul. How are you? Let's go kill David.
Saul, what time do you have? Let's go kill David. He was obsessed. And he would get out of every conversation to attack David in some way until he has a whole army slapping around with him. David Could have killed him twice and did not.
You would think that would be proof. You would think that everybody would say, you know what? David's a good guy. They don't. Um, anyway, well not it's Story West, we have to read it.
It's so much to it. And he, David, became his, that is, Saul's armor-bearer. And the armor-bearers would be usually more than one attendants of the king. Saul was vaguely familiar with David. In the early stages, so much so after David drops the giant, Saul says, Whose boy is this again?
What family did he come from? I should have paid more attention to him. Wait till you see what happens. Anyway, verse 16 now, 22, sorry. That was deja vu.
If we read it again, do you believe it, Eja Vu? Do you believe in dejaw? Freshwise also. High school stuff. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Please let David stand before me, for he has found favour in my sight.
And no doubt an aide wrote this. Uh but David's in for what At least when I was in the military, they would use this phrase, it always proved to be true, you're in for a rude awakening. And uh, you know, I never heard that before until then. What does it mean, a rude awakening?
Well, it's not nice. It's not like a happy mom. Hey, come on, get up. Time for breakfast. Put your little booties on.
And that's not a rude awakening, but. When you have to deal with something you didn't see coming, that's rude. Verse 23, and so it was whenever the Spirit of God was upon Saul that David would take a harp and play it. With his hand. Does he have to say that?
What else? If he played it with his feet, I would have wanted to know that. Yeah.
And Saul, we better move on because I can feel it coming. Then Saul would become refreshed as well. Yeah.
He's refreshed because he Cause he used his hands. Not his feet. Hey, get your feet off of that. Oh. Can we go to a commercial?
Okay. Um Okay. David Plate. Then Saul would become refreshed as well. And the distressing spirit would depart from him.
So He played that music and Saul was happy again like a little boy. Uh David played the liar to a liar. is really how it turns out. Uh Then Saul would become refreshed as well. And the spirit would depart from him, but he'll be back.
This was a temporary fix. As I mentioned, it's going to fail, it's going to fail miserably. Anyone who had their hopes up high. Going to have them all.
Well, they'll have that rude awakening I was talking about. But again, it was this excessive self-love that created these conditions. and his ruin. That when triggered, his jealousy triggered an explosion that put everything on a completely different level. And this man is just a a walking textbook of how not to be.
And that's, I think, why God spends so much time with Saul. And there are other characters he could have done this with, with lessons, but Saul is the better choice, evidently. And this is the extended hand of God. saying to Saul, I'm still trying to reach you. I have a godly lad here.
He's singing these songs. We don't know if they're all godly, some of them are probably folk songs. about the harvest and things like that.
Some of them were probably songs about God. And uh God is trying to still minister to him. Matthew 26, 25. Judas, if you look at Jerusalem, if you stand at the Mount of Olives, and you look across at Jerusalem, You know it's quite a bit of a walk, said From the city gates. Up the hill, down the hill and up the hill.
Uh to get to Uh Gethsemane.
So Judas had all that time to contemplate. to meditate his transgression.
So then when he finally gets face to face with Jesus, who is waiting for them. We read Matthew 26, verse 50. But Jesus said to him, Friend, why have you come? Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took him. What's the last?
thing that Jesus said to Judas. Called him a friend. He's giving him a chance still. Maybe you think Judas would walk away.
Now, God knew he wouldn't, but God also knows others would read this and say, yes, this is the mercy of God. His betrayer is still treated with some level of decency And I need to learn how to do some of this. And so by using music to escape Conviction Instead of facing the truth, and that's what's happening here. The victory over evil slipped away from Saul. Why did the victory slip away from Saul?
because he used the music To escape the conviction, the feeling of being wrong. Instead of Facing the truth. Imagine coming to the church and you're singing praises to God and you're singing about His holiness and righteousness, but you have no intention whatsoever of abiding by any of that. You just want to feel good about yourself. That's a step backwards.
Uh Uh Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Rick is in the book of 1 Samuel. If you'd like to listen again to this or other messages or share it with someone you know, please visit crossreference radio.com. Here, you can also listen to interviews with Pastor Rick to learn more about his life and ministry.
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