"Don't Attack the Lord's Anointed"

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We are going to read 1 Samuel 24, which is on page 2 9 6 of the church Vibles. 1 Samuel 24. Page 2 9 6. After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told David is in the desert of Angedi. So Saul took 3000 able young men from all Israel and set out to look for David and his men near the crags of the wild goats.

He came to the sheepfolds along the way, a cave was there and saw went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave. The man said, this is the day the Lord spoke of when he said to you, I will give your enemy into your hands for you to do with as you wish. Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul's robe. Afterwards, David was conscience stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe.

He said to his men, the lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the lord's anointed or lay my hand on him for he is the anointed of the lord. With these words, Dave David sharply rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack saul and Saul left the cave and went to his way. Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul, my lord, the king, when Saul looked behind him, David bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground. He set us all. Why do you listen when men say David is bent on harming you?

This day, you have seen with your own eyes how the lord gave you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you. I said I will not lay my hand on my lord because he is the lord's anointed See, my father. Look at this piece of your robe in my hand. I cut off the corner of your robe, but did not kill you.

See that there is nothing in my hand to indicate that I am guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion. I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life. May the lord judge between you and me? And may the lord arrange the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you as the old saying goes, from evil doers, come evil deeds. So my hand will not touch you.

Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Who are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flee? May the lord be our judge and decide between us?

May he consider my cause and uphold it? May he vindicate me by delivering me from your hand. When David finished saying this, Saul asked, is that your voice, David, my son? And he wept aloud. You are more righteous than I.

He said, you have treated me well, but I have treated you badly. You have just now told me about the good you did to me. The lord gave me into your hands, but you did not kill me. When a man finds his enemy, does he let him get away unharmed? May the lord reward you well for the way you treated me today?

I know that you will surely be king. And that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hands. Now swear to me by the lord that you will not kill off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father's family. So David gave his oath to Saul. Then Saul returned home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold.

Thank you, Jackie. Can I encourage you to have that passage open in front of you? If you've got a Bible near you, if you haven't got it open yet, please, can I encourage you to open it? So, in the bibles that are on the chair, this page 2 9 6. And I'm gonna pray for us that the lord would help us as we've come to his work.

I haven't father. We need your help now as we come to your word. Please help us to understand it. And please would you help us to see what difference it should make to us and to our lives. Please use this time you pray for your glory and our good amen.

Well, we said before, it is a great joy to have today to give thanks for Teddy and ASHA. And I hope it was clear as we were praying for them as we went through the promises that 1 of the things that we and their parents really want is for them to center their lives on Jesus. That Jesus would be their king. Alright. I put questions to them and the parents said that they want Teddy and ASHA to receive Christ as lord and say, now Christ is a kingdom term.

It means anointed 1. And for them to receive Jesus as lord is to bow before Jesus. Have Jesus at the center on the throne of their lives. Now some of you may be feeling even some maybe who are Christian might feel, but that's quite an extreme way of expressing it. To say you want Jesus to be king.

After all, can can you just say, well, we want Teddy and Ashha to have Christian values? That kind of thing. For them to be nice, that would be good. And some will say, well, are the religions basically the same? You know, at at at heart, aren't they all just saying the kind of golden rule of due to others as you would have them do to you.

Just do that and you'll be alright. Are you like why this need to have Jesus as king? Well, it makes a huge difference as to who or what is king of our lives. We all have something or someone as king. I don't just mean king of the country.

I mean king of your life. After all, for most of us, That position is taken by, well, yourself. After all, think about what will be the answer to these questions for you? Who who decides for you? What you do with your time or with your money?

Who decides what's right and wrong in your life? Who decides what your dreams are? What your goals are? What you would love to happen in your life? For most of us, it's not me.

Is my life. I get to live it. I get to decide those things. No 1 else has the right to tell me what to do. And that's another way of saying.

I'm king. I'm the king of my life. And yet to be a Christian is to step down from the throne of our lives. To vacate that throne and for Jesus to be king. To submit to him.

Now if that feels a bit extreme or even if it doesn't, we're gonna think a bit more about that and to look at the passage that we've just had read. And in that passage, 1 Samuel 24, we see 2 main characters. We've got Saul, and we've got David. And we've been working our way through 1 Samuel, and we've got to this chapter, but it's a very relevant 1 for us today. Because what we see in Seoul is someone who is king of Israel.

Right? They've both been anointed by god, by the way. They're both anointed by God. Anointed to be king. By the way, this is a bit of a weird time in the sort of history of Israel.

That you've got 2 anointed 1. A bit like if you if you're a fan of doctor who, I used to be a fan when I was a child. If you're not, don't worry. It'll still make sense. But there there are points in the history of doctor who, where when things are really bad, more than 1 doctor appears.

And you've got more than 1 doctor who or doctor. And that's a weird time, isn't it? Where you've got more than 1 doctor. They're both responding to the angle. This is a weird time.

That's where the illustration ends. This is a weird time because this you've got 2 anointed ones. It's a strange time in the history of Israel. 2 have been anointed to be king. But 1 of them saw is as it were on the throne of Israel on his own.

It's just him. Really? And then you've got David. He's not yet king. Actually, he's been a 90 percent, but he's not yet there.

And he rules and reign when he does. Under a higher throne. There's someone over here. Do you see there's a kind of parallel here, saw in charge and sort of king of himself, king of his own way? He's he's got no 1 above him really and David's It was very recu it it recognizes that there is a higher throne.

We'll see them as we go through it. And we'll see the difference it makes it makes a huge difference. So we're going to start with saul and I'm calling this saul alone on the throne. Let me just give you a little bit more about these 2 characters, saul and David. Saul, you see, was anointed king of Israel.

That means that Samuel, the prophet, came and poured oil on his head. That's the anointing and said that that saul would be king of Israel. But saul then rejected god, disobeyed god, turned away from God. And so God said to saul, I'm gonna take the kingship away from you and give it to another. Someone better.

And so David was anointed to be his successor, and Saul hated David hates David and is out to get David. And in our passage that we've got here today, we see the 2 of them meeting in very interesting circumstance. See at the beginning of the chapter, Saul came anointed king, ruling, reigning over Israel, but rejected God and rejected by God is pursuing David. He's apt to get David because he knows David is his rival, and he's apt to kill David. And so he takes 3000 men as his army to go and pursue David.

And in their pursuit, they come to a cave and saul needs the loo. Even kings need the loo sometimes. And so he goes into the cave And what we're told is that it was the very cave that David and his men are hiding it. Now earlier on in previous chapters, we know David's got about 600 men with him, this seems to be an enormous case. If he doesn't spot that there are 600 men watching him going to Peru, it must have been a big case.

Maybe they weren't all there. But anyway, David and his men are at the back of the cave. And his men say to him, David, this is your moment. This is your chance. To take hold of the kingship because here is saul, your enemy verse 4.

Have a look. The men said, this is the day the Lord spoke of when he said to you, I will give your enemy into your hand. You to you to deal with as you wish. This is your moment. This is the day.

I know the song some will know this is the day. This is the day. This is the day of the lord. Maybe they were singing that to him. Come on.

This is the day. This is the moment, seize it, David, kill him. And the kingdom is yours. God said it would be. And so David creeps forward.

In the case. Verse end of verse 4. David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Salisbury. And after that, David is conscience stricken. We'll come back to that in a minute.

His conscience stricken, but he lets saul go. Saul leaves the cave, and David comes out. This is quite a brave move because saul's men are all outside the cave presumably. David comes out of the cave and calls out to saul and says to him verse 6. The lord oh, sorry.

Verse 6, he says to his men, rewind. I've gone ahead of myself. Rewind back in the case. Okay. David says to his men, the lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the lord's anointed.

Or they might hand on him for he is the lord's anointed. And with these words, David sharply rebuked his man. Okay. What's he saying there? Is the repeated thing.

That's the important thing that the writer wants to get across to us. The fact that Saul is the law's anointed means that David will not attack you. And then when he comes out of the cave, saul comes out, David comes out, David shouts out to him and says verse 8, my lord the king. And when saul looked behind him, David bowed down, prostrated himself with his face to the ground. Now I just want you to spot the obvious difference between Saul and David here for our 1st point.

The obvious difference is that David will not attack saul. Why not? Because saul is the lord's among it. And yet, saul is quite prepared to attack and kill daily. Why the difference?

Well, because Saul is alone on the throne. All these God is himself. He's rejected God as being over him, and he is now just living for himself. He is king, and David represents a threat to his kingship. It doesn't matter that David is also the Lord's anointed.

For saul, the point is he is a threat and must be dealt with. And that is a big obvious difference between the 2. But the thing is if we put ourselves as king over our own lives, if we are alone on the throne of our lives, I'm not saying that you're gonna go about killing other people. But yet, this heart will nevertheless still be in us. Why?

Because if you're alone on the throne of your life and you think you've just gotta grab whatever you can, you will be grasping whatever you can for yourself or for your family. You'll get whatever it take you'll do whatever it takes to get it. And if that means pushing other people down, well so be it. Because I've got a graph. I've got a grasp.

And we see this, don't you see this around you in the world? Then we see it in the world around as you might think, oh, you're you're exaggerating, but don't we see this on the world scene? Rulers, leaders who will do immoral things, who will do terrible things, and if they feel threatened, particularly will do terrible things. Why? Because their kingdom and their power, their kinship as it were is under threat?

But we see this in our own lives too. If we are king of our lives, what happens if someone else threatens it? We see this in marriage, What if I'm not getting what I want? You see it in family life? Oh, you see it in the detail.

Just look this week. When you have your eyes open to see where you see people as it were acting as of their own lives. Just imagine when you see it, just imagine a little crown on their head, you see it all around you. I said, you shot I saw it this last week. Just I mean, you see it in so many moments.

There was a point where I was crossing the road of cars stopped to let me cross. And because they stopped the person behind on a bike, they just had to slow down a bit, but they didn't just slow down. They swore at her. Yeah. Why are you doing that?

You know, you just delayed your bike a fraction of a 2nd. Why do that? Because we're king of our lives. Kinda lot of people get in our way. But the thing is we do this.

We actually encourage this in children as well. 1 of the schoolmans near here. Has, for its motto, preparing you for a world of opportunities. Maybe you know which school it is. To be honest, I can't remember.

I think it's coo, 1 of the coooms. And it's not a bad motto preparing you for a world of change if that's alright, didn't it? Well, look, opportunities. Go out there. Go get them.

You go get them. We'll prepare you. You go to the world. Get what you can. All those opportunities.

The thing is they're saying to all the other children in the school as well. Not just an orchard. And when you come out the other end of school, you've got all those opportunities, but everyone else is trying to grab them as well. And what do you do if actually there are thousands of people going for the jobs that you want? You've gotta get competitive.

There's gotta be rivalry. And you find this, don't you that, therefore, you are prepared to push other people down. That means I will get those opportunities. If I can grab them, if I can grasp them. And actually, I'll be a bit vengeful and I'll be whatever it takes if I'm gonna be king of my life.

And actually, we see this in our culture, don't we? Although for years, we have talked about tolerance as a British value, We see actually as a culture we have more and more divided, less and less tolerant, more fearful, more suspicious than others, and particularly if others not like me. See when we live as king of our own markets, it sets us on a course of to be against other people. It's what you see in soil. And if we're honest, it's what's in our own market.

Well, we're not going to stop at all. We need to go on to David. David is a huge contrast. David is under a higher throne. And he's a wonderful relief as we come to him in the chapter.

Most of the chapter really is about him, isn't it? What do we see in David? We're gonna have to skim through a little bit. We won't go through into every detail. But let's just come back to that realm.

Why is David cut to the heart? About cutting a rope? Well, we need to know that robes in the book of 1 Samuel, her are significant. If you go back through 1 Samuel, you'll you'll see there is significance to them. When Saul king saul is told he's no longer gonna be king of Israel that it's gonna be taken from him.

It's Samuel that tells him this, who's the prophet, and saul grabs his robe and the robe rips. And Samuel says to saul, so will the kingdom be ripped? From your hands. So when David comes forward in the cave and cuts off the corner of the road, it's far more symbolic than just cutting a road. I mean, it's pretty big anyway that it's a royal road that he's cutting.

But actually this is a grasping of the kingdom. It's a claim to the kingdom. And for David to say, I shouldn't do it. I shouldn't have done that. Why does he feel like that?

It's because he knows that the kingdom is not his kingdom. It's not Saul's kingdom. It's god's kingdom. And so for him to grab it like that is to say I'm going to take hold of it, to be a bit sword like. But what he's saying is no I'm under a higher throne.

It's god's kingdom. And if he's gonna give it to me, he's gonna have to give it to you. I'm not gonna grasp it. I'm not gonna take it. Right.

So he's not grasping. But also he's trusting in the lord's justice. He knows that saul has done wrong to him. And when he speaks to saul outside the cave, He says, look, I'm innocent. I've I've I've not coming after you.

People who tell you I am a a wrong, but then he says verse 12, would you cast your eyes down? He says, may the lord judge between you and me? May the lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you. As the old saying goes from evil doers, come evil deeds so my hand will not touch you. He's saying I trust God in this.

You've wronged me. You shouldn't have come out against me. You shouldn't be doing this, but I'm not gonna take vengeance on you. I'm gonna trust this to the lord that the lord will do what is right. It's not that David doesn't care about justice.

Oh, no. He goes on to say, may the lord judge in my favor because you have done me wrong. He does care about justice, but he's saying now it's not the moment, and I am not a person to do this to you. But I trust that the lord will had healed. So in David, you've got someone who is not grasping after the kingdom, and he's not out for revenge.

He's able to leave that to the lord. Very different from soul. But lastly, and most significant, he's merciful. This is what cuts soul to the heart again. I mean, it's cut David's cut to the heart.

Saul's now cut to the heart. By what? By David's mercy. He says 1st 16, and Nate says he doesn't. It's almost like saul is coming ground.

It's like he's waking up. Says verse 16. When David finished saying this, Saul asked, is that your voice? David, my son? And that's significant.

Saul hasn't called David anything affectionate for chapters He's just called him son of Jesse. He can't bring himself even to say his name, but now he's saying, Saul is saying, David, my son. Is that you? Let's brought him to tears. 1st 17 you're more righteous than I.

You've treated me well, but I've treated you badly. You've just now told me about the good you did to me. The Lord gave me into your hands, but you didn't kill me when a man finds his enemy, doesn't he let does he let him get away unharmed? Otherwise, he's saying, Dave, you're a bit weird. Why'd you let me go?

It's not what people do. That's not what people do. They don't let their enemies go. I've been pursuing you. I've been trying to kill you.

I was at your mercy. What are you doing? Letting me go. And he's in tears. You've been good to me.

I've been so bad to you. And yet David can be merciful. Can show nursing to his own. Now, just compare these 2 characters. Saul and David.

Saul, firmly on the throne of his life, grasping. Gotta have the kingdom. Any threat's gotta be squashed. Gotta be vengeful. Gotta deal with David.

Vicious. I'm not saying everyone's like that again who's got themselves as king of their own mind, but this is the tendency. This is where it leads. And then David, not grasping, not vengeful, full of mercy and great. What makes the difference?

David is not the 1 on the throne of his life. He acknowledges the lord. The lord is Saul is the Lord's a nun. I'm not gonna attack. The Lord is the 1 in control.

He's the judge, so I don't need. And God is merciful, so I can be merced. And you might think, well, the answer is therefore just be like David, ASHA, Teddy, be like David. But that's to miss a vital step. David here is pointing us forward to the ultimate and 90 to king.

You see David here has the right character, but he doesn't have it permanently. There is a point later on and if you keep reading through 1 samuel, then into 2 samuel, you'll see a point where David himself commits adultery and murder. And at that point, he's not really with God as king over his life. He's now as if he's on the throne of his life, and he's going, I'm gonna grasp. I'm gonna grab.

I'm gonna grab what I want. So David doesn't do this perfectly, but he points us forward to the 1 who does. Can Jesus who came along about 1000 years later is the ultimate king of god's king. He didn't grasp it with power. Of people expected that Jesus would.

If you know of the incident in the in the new testament, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, the people were expecting that Jesus would would dominate Jerusalem that he would smash the Romans and start to rule and reign. But he didn't come with power. He didn't grasp the kingdom in that way. No. The route to the kingdom for him was through the cross through death through resurrection.

And through being exalted and rolling and raining. That's how Jesus got to the kingdom. He didn't grasp. He was killed. And He entrusted himself to the 1 who judges justly when people were attacking him, when people were hating him.

He didn't seek vengeance. We're told in the book of 1 Peter, when they hurled their insults at him he did not retaliate. When he suffered he made no threats, instead he entrusted himself to him who judges justice. Do you see David is pointing us forward to Jesus? And above all, In Jesus, there is a nurse.

Nursing to those who don't deserve it. Because we're as vulnerable as soul was in that cave. As those who put ourselves on the thrones of our lives, we've rebelled against God. You see being on the throne of your life isn't doesn't just it's not just that it leads to selfish behavior, although it happens. It's also wrong because that is actually a throne for this design for god, not for you, not for me.

And God would be right to destroy us. But instead, Jesus came and was destroyed at the cross, killed. So we could be shown mercy. He took the rebels' death for us. Jesus, you see, is the ultimate anointed 1.

That's what we said. We say Christ means anointed 1. Jesus is the ultimate anointed 1. And how are we to relate to him as the anointed 1? Well, do you remember what David said?

You don't touch the Lord's anointed. And if that was true of saul, he wasn't really not a good king. It's even more true of Jesus. You don't touch him. You don't lay your hand on him.

And yet we as mankind did, we killed. But nevertheless, we can still bow before him. And as David said to saul, my lord the king and bowed before him, we can bow before Jesus. And receive his mercy and know his mercy. And as we do, as we bow before him and have Jesus as king over our lives, So he starts changing us so that we don't have to be those who grasp and grab because we can trust the lord out.

We can still Look for opportunities, but it's all under the law under his leaning under his guiding and see what he will provide. We don't need to grab and grasp, but we don't need vengeance. We don't need to have revenge for every injustice done to us because Jesus is king. He's lord. He will bring us.

And we can show mercy to others because we know the mercy of our king. So above all, we pray for Teddy and Ash that they would submit to Jesus. Not to sit on their throne of their lives. Because it's both wrong and it leads to selfish behavior. But to have Jesus as king.

It is the greatest joy, the most wonderful, of things to have Jesus as king. And it produces a wonderful chain of people. And maybe there are others here today who you would say, well, I know Jesus is not on the throne of my life. Can I encourage you? Get to know Jesus.

He is the most wonderful of kings, merciful, kind, proration, but you do need to get to know him and to put him on the throne of your life. And if you're a Christian, let the kingship of Jesus continue to change you every day and in every area of life. Where you see the kingship itself, ask what? Does difference does it make that Jesus is actually my king? Let me pray for this.

How many father? We thank you for what we see here in King David. That he recognized he was under you, and that that made a huge difference because he didn't have to grab or grasp that the king him. He didn't need revenge, and he was able to be merciful. And we thank you that he points us to Jesus, the ultimate anointed 1.

And we pray you would help each 1 of us and all of the children and hope kids and Teddy and Nash have to bow before Jesus the most wonderful king to enthrone him in their lives. Living day by day, not for self. Doctor. Jesus.