[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Well, good evening.
I'm impressed to see you on the Wednesday night before the fourth of July.
The rest of America is vacationing somewhere and you guys evidently got left behind.
It's great to be here with you and I'm excited about the teaching tonight. I've spent a great deal of time on this.
So in any life or historical event, there's so much happening at the same time.
But there are those things which are isolated out. Like you have David and Goliath.
There are people in the world who know the phrase David and Goliath and they don't even know it's in the Bible.
There are people know David and Bathsheba, they know that, but they think it's Shakespeare.
And so those are isolated events. But this is a part of of David's life that is a tapestry of events all kind of happening at the same time. And I've tried to find a way to weave this together, make it clear in a way that makes sense.
Because it's not a television show, I can't do a flashback.
So it's a fascinating moment in his life. Some of the upcoming Wednesday nights will also be like that. Lesser known parts of David's immensely complicated life that are, that are just simply not known to people.
And this is part of that time. I want to read a brief passage to get us started. I haven't done this every week, but the beginning of the second book of Samuel 2 Samuel.
Now it came to pass after the death of Saul when David was returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites. David had abode two days at Ziklag. It came even to pass on the third day that, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul with his clothes rent torn and earth upon his head. So it was when he came to David that he fell to the earth and did obeisance.
And David said unto him, from whence comest thou? And he said unto him, out of the camp of Israel am I escaped. And David said unto him, how went the matter? In other words, how did the battle go?
I pray thee tell me. And the man answered that the people are fled from the battle. Many of the people also are fallen and dead. And Saul And Jonathan his son are dead on also.
Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this evening. We thank you for the life of your servant David. We pray that you will illumine our hearts and minds all that we are able to contain and receive through the power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, the strong Son of God.
Amen.
So we lift our hero. Last week, sort of dangling.
David is in the town of Ziklag, where he has recaptured it from the Amalekites who captured it, burned it, took all the dependants prisoner. David has recovered them and is back at Ziklag.
But now let's do one of our flashbacks.
This is important, and I saved it for this week because it reveals things about David's character that are extremely important.
So David in the wilderness before he came to Ziklag, there were two groups of people that betrayed him. One was the town of Keilah, if you remember, he rescued them from the Amalekites and they invited him to stay with them. And as soon as he stayed, then they sent word to King Saul, David is with us. And David had to flee. And then in the wilderness of Ziph, he went there to hide out from Saul.
And the Ziphites sent word to Saul that he is with us.
David has now learned at this point he cannot trust anybody in Israel, and people are weak.
And it's not necessarily that they hated David or wanted him killed or anything, but Saul is the one that's in power, and they don't want to get sideways with Saul.
David now takes his parents across the Jordan river to Moab and he leaves them with the Moabite king.
Now, why would the king of Moab be willing to receive David's family and keep them safe from Saul?
Well, I think the king of Moab is making a gamble.
What if David wins?
If he wins, he's going to be the king of Israel. And I've made an ally by keeping his family safe. And if he loses, all I'm out is taking care of David's parents for a while.
Then there are three incidents during this period in the wilderness that are revelational about Dyvet.
One is at a place called Selah Hamel Lekok. It means a rock of escape or deliverance.
And it happens in the wilderness of Moon.
The Philistines.
Are sneaking up on Saul. Saul finds out where David is, the Philistines are attacking, and so Saul has to leave David and pursue his real enemies.
The second is a cave at Ein Gedi. Travis and I have been to Engedi many times. And it is not easy to get to. So you're talking about a remote hidden area.
Saul has come to track David and a few hundred men with 3,000 soldiers.
And this is a little bit graphic, but Saul goes into a cave alone, obviously to relieve himself, to go to the bathroom.
And he takes his robe off, as one would, and throws it over a rock.
Behind the rock is David and one of his men.
And his man says, his friend says, this is your chance.
This is your chance. Kill him.
And David says, no, I won't do that. But he cuts off a piece of the robe so that when Saul puts the robe back on, there's part missing. And David is able to say to him, if I wanted to kill you, I could have.
You see how close you were alone in that cave. I could have killed you easily. And I proved it to you by cutting this piece of fabric off your robe.
Now, I say that to say this later on, this is an insight into David. He is guilt stricken over doing that.
He is not.
He doesn't congratulate himself over sparing Saul's life.
He condemns himself for cutting off Saul's robe.
He says, that was disrespectful. I should have just stayed behind the rock and let him go.
That's a real insight. This is a man that is trying consistently, persistently to kill him and everybody that attains to him. And he has such respect for the office of the king.
I don't mean to. I'm not trying to get political here. I just want to say something to you that is a thing which I pray to God we are somehow able to recapture in this country that we might find respect for the office of the President, that we might find respect for the office of the mayor, for the office of, of United States Senator. Even if there are people that fill those offices that are. That don't really even deserve our respect, that we respect. My dad, who spent so much of his life in the United States Army, I said, you always salute a captain. He said, oh, no. He said, I never salute a captain. I've met some of the most idiot captains you've won in this whole world. I said, you don't salute me. He said, no, I salute the bars.
I salute the insignia. He said, you don't salute that guy. That guy may be an idiot, but I salute the fact that he's a captain. And David respects the fact that Saul is a king. Now, there is one other part to it.
David also believes, and we could say this is self serving but that's not consistent with who David is. David believes in the divine choice of kings, that God chose Saul. And therefore it's not just to respect the office, though there is that, but it's to respect the choice of God.
And David feels this very, very strongly.
Then there is the third moment.
David and his nephew Abishai sneak up on a camp where Saul and his army are asleep. David is on a bluff overlooking it.
And David and Abishai sneak down into the camp at night. This is Hollywood stuff, isn't it?
And Saul's spear. He has stuck his spear in the ground at the end of his bedroll. And his water jar is there.
And David again could have easily killed him.
Instead, he takes his water jar and the spear and goes back up on the cliff overlooking the camp.
When they wake up the next morning, David does a surprising thing.
He rebukes Saul's top general.
He throws the spear down and throws the water bottle down. And he says to Abner, who is Saul's top general. General.
So Abner is to Saul what Joab is to David. If we can keep these names straight. And David rebukes Abner and says, you were asleep on guard duty.
I sneaked in that camp and took the water jar and the spear of the king. And you should be ashamed of yourself. Isn't it amazing that he doesn't yell at Saul? He yells at Abner for not guarding the man who was trying to kill him.
This is a remarkable human being.
And so then Saul makes this big, impassioned apology.
I'm sorry.
I want to know what's wrong with me.
You love me. I know you love me. And I love you. And I never try to kill you again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
If you want to hear a lesson for tonight, for a life lesson, here it is.
People that fly off the handle easily, that react emotionally and make emotional appeals for forgiveness and repentance.
Wait, I say. Wait. On the Lord, that bubble will also burst.
They are living at the emotional level. The apology may feel emotional and passionate and everything, just as their anger did and their unreasonable anger against you. When people make big emotional apologies over things that they were big and emotional angry about, just. Just wait and see if the plane crashes.
Now back to Ziklag.
So David has now defeated the Amalekites that burned and sacked Ziklag and took the dependents. David tracks them down. You remember his men were going to. If you were here on last week, his men were going to try to kill him and David devised the plan to defeat the Amalekites, get their people back and come back to Ziklag.
Now, at Ziklag, now there is. While David is at Ziklag, you remember the Philistines, not the Amalekites. The Philistines under King Achish were going to make one last push against Saul, and they didn't. The generals didn't want David to take part.
They were jealous of him and fearful of him. So David has gone to Ziklag. He's had this battle with the Amalekites, and the Philistines attack Saul. And this is the final great push of the Philistines against Saul. And it's a disaster for the army of Israel.
Jonathan is killed, Saul's other sons are killed, and Saul himself is wounded unto death. But he's not dying.
And he says to his armor bearer, kill me.
These.
These pagan Philistines will do horrible things to me. And I can't go through it. Just kill me. And the armor bearer won't do it.
And so Saul falls on his sword and kills himself.
Seeing that Saul does that, the armor bearer then falls on his sword and kills himself.
Now, that's the end for Saul. And I've said every time I don't want to run up rabbit trails, I don't want to get off on the life of Saul. I could teach a whole course on Saul.
But it does bear saying.
Saul is the classic case of a guy who starts well and has talents for the job and ends in disaster.
He the night before this fatal battle, Saul goes to a witch.
Saul has, in accordance with the law of Israel, has banned witchcraft in Israel.
And Saul himself now consults the witch at Endor, and she, not knowing who Saul is, conjures up the ghost of Samuel. It's a very complicated theological passage of scripture because what does it mean?
Does it mean that which witchcraft can summon the dead?
Does it? What? What is happening when Samuel arises and speaks to Saul and tells him he's going to die?
So everybody has a theory on it. Mine is no better or worse than anybody else's. But I'll tell you what my theory is.
And it is this, that God has a sense of humor.
And so this witch decides to conjure up Samuel is dead. Now for years, this witch says she's going to conjure up the ghost of Samuel.
And God says, you know what?
You want the ghost of Samuel? I think I'll do that.
And Samuel comes and prophesies correctly to Saul, and Saul is killed.
Whatever happens in that moment, it is a night of confusion and sin and witchcraft and ends ultimately in the suicide of King Saul. It is a sad and pathetic death of what began as Israel's first God appointed king.
Now, when that happens, David is at Ziklag.
Let's just pause for a moment and talk about where he is in life. At this point.
I want to try to characterize David, but I don't want to mischaracterize him in a way, if we're trying to think of a warrior king, prince, if you will, at the end of the Bronze Age.
So I think sometimes when we think about David as a king, we're thinking about King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, armor, all that, if you can put that out of your mind, David is much more like a Bedouin warlord.
This is a. He's a desert chieftain and a very, very dangerous hombre.
And he is surrounded by hundreds of private soldiers, his gibborim, that are lethal, all with bad backgrounds.
David's whole army is ex criminals or bad guys anyway. The Bible tells us they won't pay their child support, their tax dodgers, they flee, bench warrants. This is a bad group of people.
And then David's chief is Joab.
Now, I just want you to have Joab in your mind because he's going to show up throughout the rest of the story. Up to this point, we don't know much about Joab, but he's strong. In the rest of the story, Joab is David's kinsman. They're both of the tribe of Judah. They're both excellent warriors, very dangerous human beings.
But Joab does not have David's moral structure.
I always told the kids at the universities when I taught this, if David was Wyatt Earp, Joab was Doc Holliday, this guy will bust a cap in you for a quarter.
And he was a lethal human being.
David himself has come to a place of stability.
I want to give you the names of his wives.
There is Michael, of course, his first wife, who has now been given. Saul has given her to another man named Patiel.
And so his. His wife, you might call her his ex wife, but David does not think so. He just thinks that it's his wife living with another man.
So Michael is back in Gibboah.
Then there is Ahinoam. There is Abigail, the widow of Nabal. There is Micah, Hagith, Abital, Egla.
Now these are not hugely important except for their sons. So I just. If you're making notes, Ahinoam, her son is amnon if you can just mark that name down.
Maachah, her son is Absalom.
And Haggith, her son is Adonijah.
All three of them end very badly. Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah.
Now, now comes the chieftains, the, the.
What can we call them? Clan heads. Not Ku Klux Klan, Klan C. Not K Clan.
The household leaders of the tribe of Judah, they come to David and they say, look, we don't want to be in Israel anymore.
We want to be a standalone nation of Judah.
Come and be the King of Judah. Don't stay here at Ziklag in Philistine territory. Come to Hebron, the tribal capital of Judah, and be the king of Judah.
And David does.
This is very important, what I'm going to say. Now.
David knows his ultimate destiny. It has been revealed to him prophetically in his father's house by Samuel, right?
Samuel arrives, he's a boy, he anoints him with oil and tells him he's going to be the king of Israel.
David keeps that destiny as his true north.
But he does where he lands, every place he lands. He does that to the best of his ability.
This is a life lesson from the king of, from King David.
On the way to your ultimate destiny, go through the door that is open.
Do it to the best of your ability and learn and prepare yourself for the next stage.
So when I was a university president, some kid would always come to me and say, I know God has revealed to me I'm going to be a great evangelist. I know God's going to give me the gifts to do it. I'm going to be the next Billy Graham. And God has revealed this to me. And then he'd say, what do you think I ought to do? And I'd say, pass English, finish college.
You know, Billy Graham's coming, but right now, you're a sophomore in college. Do this well.
And it is a fundamental life lesson from David. When he was a shepherd boy, he was the best. A musician, the best. A warrior for King Saul. The top one he had an outlaw. Doesn't feel right.
But David said, okay, you haven't ever seen an outlaw. So David becomes the tip top outlaw. Then he becomes a mercenary selling his sword to the Philistines. He becomes the best general King Achish has.
Now they come to him and say, okay, you can't be the whole king of Israel, but come and be the king of Judah. David says, great, I'll take it.
But he does not allow himself to be distracted.
He knows that his ultimate destiny is still not to be the king of Judah.
Now, Saul is dead, Jonathan's dead, and Saul's top general is Abner.
Abner is to Saul what Joab is to David. Right? Have you got this?
So Abner now takes one of Saul's remaining sons, a nincompoop named Ish Bosheth, and makes him king of Israel. He anoints him as king of Israel.
Now, I just.
There are some things that are so stupid that you look at it and you say, what in the world was he thinking?
He is young, defenseless, surrounded by an army that doesn't respect him, and installed on his throne by a very dangerous general.
And he accuses Abner of sleeping with Saul's concubine.
There's no. Absolutely no evidence of it. There's no indication of it.
And he accuses Abner. He says, you slept with Rizpah. I know you did.
Why would he do that?
I've searched my mind. What was he thinking?
What could possibly have been his reasoning?
And Abner is the wrong guy to outrage with that kind of a false accusation. And he says, fine. You want to be the king of Israel, you got it.
And he sends a messenger to David and says, I'd like to come over to your side now. Think of what a prize this is for David.
He says, I'm the top general of the Israeli army, and I'm going to come and fight for Judah.
David says, great.
Come and see me.
Now, here's. Here's the problem.
During the civil war, there's a small battle between two little groups of soldiers.
And Joab's brother, younger brother, his little brother Esahel, is there in that battle. And so is Abner, this great, powerful, dangerous general.
And the people of Joab win the battle.
Abner runs off, and this kid chases him, and he wants to get glory by killing the great general.
And Abner says to him, he says, aren't you Joab's little brother? He said, yes, I am. I'm going to kill you.
Abner says, look, I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill Joab's little brother. Please go back.
Please go back.
I don't want to do this. This kid is absolutely bound and determined to fight a grizzled veteran.
There's no conceivable way that he's going to kill this guy. He loses his head, runs at him, and still Abner doesn't want to kill him. Abner doesn't stab him with his spear. He just tries to hit him with the butt end of the spear, and the boy is running so fast, he runs on it and kills himself.
So does the phrase blood feud strike a familiar note?
Now, Joab swears an oath that he will kill Abner.
Joab is in the field fighting. David is at Hebron. The king of Judah, Abner, has broken off with Ish Bosheth. He comes to David, and David says, all right, you're with me and I want you. You're a valuable asset to me.
But go into Hebron and stay there.
Now, that might be wasted on you, except let me explain to you.
When Moses set up the law, he set up six cities of refuge, they were called.
So if there's a blood feud on this. This guy has killed somebody in my family. I've sworn to kill him. That's a blood feud.
The hatfields and the McCoys, right?
So if you're in. If you're under attack in a blood feud, if you go into one of the cities of refuge and stay there, they cannot kill you.
So David tells Abner, stay in Hebron.
Don't come out.
Joab gets home, and he is furious with David.
It's recorded in the scripture. He says, you took my brother's murderer into the camp.
And David says, I want you to leave him alone.
Joab goes straight to Hebron and stands outside the gate, and he says to Abner, hey, I've got something for you again.
I just asked myself, what are some of these people thinking?
And Abner goes out there and says, you have something for me? And Joab says, yes, I do. And he pulls his dagger out and stabs him under his fifth rib and kills him.
So David is angry at Joab over it. But it's done now. The top general from the Israeli army is dead.
The king is weak. He's nobody. He's offended people. David is the king in Judah.
Now two young guys rise up and. And kill Ishbosheth.
Now, there are two scenes where somebody comes to David to report a death.
I just want to give you these two scenes back to back, because if you string them out, the impact of them doesn't make sense.
When Saul kills himself on Mount Gilboa, and Amalekite, who was serving in the Israeli army, comes and tells David, I killed Saul, and I just want you to know I did it for you.
Hoping to curry favor with David, David says, what in the world made you think that you could get away with the crime of regicide to kill a king?
You are guilty of regicide and he says to one of his soldiers, kill this guy. And he kills him.
So then when Ishbosheth is murdered, assassinated if you will, in office, the two men who kill him take his crown and his wristband, which are symbols of his authority as the king of Israel, and they bring them to David and they say, we killed Ishbosheth and here's the proof of it, here's his crown. And David says, why didn't you Google up that Amalekite?
Because I killed him and now I'm going to have you killed. And they kill them.
Now, as I said earlier, we could say that David's appreciation and love for the office of the king might be self serving because he's going to fill that office.
But it's deeper than that.
This has to do with the appointment of God, so that David feels deeply, passionately that it is, it is wrong to come against the king that God has put in place and to kill him. That's an absolutely beyond the pale. It shocks and horrifies David.
Now, just to give you an insight into David beyond when he gets word that Saul and Jonathan are killed, David begins a powerful, almost Shakespearean soliloquy of lamenting over the death of Saul and the death of Jonathan. Now, of course, the death of Jonathan is a tragedy. He's a wonderful person and he was David's friend, deep friend.
And David weeps over him and that's logical, that makes sense. But David weeps over Saul and he says, look, this is a tragedy and I'm sorry for his death and I'm sorry for Israel that we lost Saul.
And it's genuine. This is not a show.
He is genuinely moved for the death of Saul.
What does it mean?
It means that David has the wisdom and discernment to be able to appreciate what is good and valuable and important about a person. And he doesn't wipe people out just because of their weaknesses and foibles. Saul tried to kill David and when he died, David lamented over his death. That's an insight into the character and nature of David. I wonder if I would have the heart and the spirit and soul to genuinely weep over somebody that had been trying to kill me for years and years and years.
Now, when Abner comes to David, I just want to give you this little side trip. Before Joab kills Abner, Abner comes to David and says, I want to come work for the Judah, for the army of Judah.
So I try to give you David.
Good and confusing.
So David says, all right, you want to Come work for me. That's fine, but there's something I want you to do. I have a quest.
Go get my wife. Michael.
She's in Gibeah with her quote unquote husband who is not her husband at all. Paltiel, go and get her and bring her to me.
So he goes to get this woman. Now think, she has been married to this man for years.
Saul has foisted her off on David. She was not supposed to be the one to marry David. Her big sister was the one to marry David.
Then he sends David off. He tries to kill David. He's at war with him. And in order to humiliate David further, he takes Michal and gives her to this man named Paltiel. Now, they've been together for years.
They love each other. At least Paltiel loves her deeply. This is to him. This is his wife. This is a pathetic story.
And Abner comes and gets her and starts away, and it's described with great emotion in scripture. Paltiel follows them, weeping, weeping, give me back my wife. Give me. There's no way he can stand up against Abner. Abner Abner's one of the most dangerous men in Judah, in Israel.
So he's pleading and weeping and crying, give me back my wife. Until finally Abner turns back and says what he said to Esahel. I don't want to kill you, but I will go home.
This is David's wife.
And so Michal joins David's polygamous household.
And we won't come to her for some time, but keep Michal in your mind.
Hers is a sad, lonely and pathetic story.
It is a classic story of a woman plowed under by two men that were bigger than life.
Now let's just see about some life lessons from this complicated season.
David is now the king of all of Israel.
Ish Bosheth is dead.
Abner is dead. All the tribal heads, Benjamin, Asher, all of them come to David at Hebron. And they say, unify the tribes, make us a kingdom again, and you'd be our king. And David's destiny is fulfilled.
So he has come from shepherd boy to warrior, to reject, in exile, outlaw, mercenary, King of Judah, King of Israel.
What can we learn? What is our life lesson here?
First is this, and I mentioned it earlier, when you can do nothing to further your destiny, do what you can do and prepare for the next stage.
David's great genius was his ability to reinvent himself with excellence at every level.
Whatever door God opened for David, he did that wonderfully.
And he didn't push to try to make the next thing happen.
David never rebelled against God, saying, you told me I'm going to be king of Israel, then why? Why aren't I? He never pouted.
He just did what he could do, where he was, and prepared for the next phase.
Second, good timing in leadership is crucial.
David made one major mistake in timing. Do you remember what it was? Last week he went to gas with nothing to sell.
It was an idiotic decision.
Let me say it in a different way. It was the right decision.
David had to go to Gath.
He went in bad timing. He didn't have anything.
When he finally had an army, the Gibboriim, he came back. He did the same thing. He came to Gath.
So the secret of leadership. A secret of leadership is good timing.
The secret to learning good timing, bad timing.
You make a mistake in timing a few times and you will learn.
Wait. I say wait on the Lord.
Three, when leading out of a crisis, for example, Ziklag.
Remember when the Amalekites came and burned their town and were going to kill and took away all the dependants, the women and children, the soldiers were going to kill David.
When leading out of a crisis, the first thing to do is encourage yourself in the Lord.
That passage we talked about, just briefly. It's one of those maddening verses in the Bible that tells you everything and doesn't tell you enough.
He encouraged himself in the Lord. Great. That's what I'm going to do.
How you would just want to say, lord, couldn't you tell us what he did? He went out of town, he knelt down, he prayed the psalms, he fasted, he slaughtered a goat. Something. Is there something that he encouraged himself in the Lord.
However one does that encourage yourself in the Lord. God has not brought me here to fail to die.
I'm not in the desert to die. I'm in the desert to pursue and continue pursuing the will of God for my life.
Encourage yourself in the Lord. Second, when leading out of a crisis, follow the plan and roll up a small win.
David's men were ready to kill him.
He's got to do something to get their confidence back, capture their people back and kill the Amalekites.
He can't jump.
He can't jump from his men trying to kill him to be the king of Israel.
That's not the plan. That's the destiny.
The plan is do something small right now to get your confidence back and to get your people back.
Third, once you've done that, get back on the vision.
What Satan wants to do is destroy your long term destiny and vision.
Get back on the vision. David never lost sight of the prophecy that he was to be the king of the United Kingdom, Kingdom of Israel.
Fourth, be true to your values even when everybody around you is not true to theirs.
In the desert at Ziklag, when he had the chance to kill Saul, when he had the chance a second time to kill Saul, David remained true to his values. Now I know whenever I say anything like that, somebody's always sitting there saying, yeah, well, what about Bathsheba? Okay, we'll deal with that.
But the life lesson is true. The life lesson is true.
David remained true to his values.
Fifth, let God make the way forward.
This is one of the hardest things for young people. I wish the youth group was in here tonight.
Promotion cometh from the Lord.
If I could just impress that on young people.
Young people look at old dudes like me and they think that we spring full grown from the forehead of Zeus.
They can't believe the long, arduous, difficult, painful journey that goes in to this decrepit old body. They don't know all of that.
They don't understand the night Allison does. They don't understand preaching to some little tiny Methodist church in the remote woods of North Georgia. I preached Sunday morning, Sunday night and every night through Friday, and it was over. They gave me 32$1 bills in an envelope.
It wasn't enough money to pay the gas home. I'd preached a whole week.
I didn't have enough money to get home. That moment, that moment is involved in this moment.
That moment. Nobody, nobody just wakes up one morning and jumps to be the pastor at the church at Liberty Square or the president at Oru.
Promotion cometh from the Lord. Wait, I say. Wait on the Lord.
There's more than one person that has vaulted themselves into a situation that was not good for them.
Let God get you where he wants to get you. And if he doesn't, then don't pout.
Wait on the Lord.
David's destiny is now fulfilled.
David has come through some of the most trying, desperate, lonely, dangerous times that any man could ever live through.
He has. He has been hunted like a dog.
His wife has been taken from him and given to another man.
His.
His army that he raised up in private has turned against him. He had to get him back.
His.
His kinsmen killed a man that he was trying to protect.
His best friend, the only friend really that he has in Israel, has been killed on Mount Gilboa.
David is now king Of Israel. Yes, he's king of Israel, but king of what?
He's king of these scattered tribes that don't trust each other. He's king of an army that only the day before he became king was the enemy army.
Now he's king of what?
And yes, his destiny is fulfilled.
And that wild, circuitous, dangerous journey has brought him to be the king of Israel.
But now he's facing challenges.
What do we have to face? What are we going to face?
Is it next week? I'm gone? I'll be here next week. Be here next week. Next week we're going to talk about what does he do now to solidify the kingdom? What does he do to be king? To be king of something?
David has political, religious, tribal issues that he has to solve.
And now David has come to a whole new place.
He's been a kind of a lone wolf, okay? He's been a fighter and a general and all that, but now he's got to evolve into becoming a consummate politician.
Now he's the chief of state for a startup country.
How can he forge it together?
And to make it something that can work, he's got to forge an army.
Remember, the only army he's got is his 4, 5, 600 private soldiers. He's got to take an enemy army and make them loyal to him.
He's got to deal with.
From where will he rule?
Saul ruled from Gibeah because that's the tribal capital of Benjamin, Saul's tribe.
David has been ruling from Hebron because that's the tribal capital of Judah.
What's he going to do about a capital city?
What's he going to do about an army? Who is he going to make his people around him? He's got to build a nation now.
Now David has to evolve yet again into a whole new altitude and velocity.
Everything we've seen from David is fighting through desperate struggle against massive enemies through the strength and power and grace of God.
Now he's the king.
Can he rise to fill that role?
Can the shepherd boy who has become a warrior, who's become an outlaw, who's become a mercenary, who's become a minor king, who is now a national king, can he rise to the task?
If you'll stand, we're gonna turn our eyes to the screen and we'll read David's greatest literary accomplishment, the 23rd Psalm.
Are you ready? Let's read it together. Aloud.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil.
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
[00:48:36] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on
[email protected], or visit his website, Dr.markrutland.com, where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
