Episode Transcript
[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.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: If you have your Bibles now, if you'll take those and turn to 2 Samuel chapter 5 as we continue this series on the life and leadership of King David. While you're looking for that passage, if this is your first time in this series on David, will you raise your hand so I can see where you are? Okay, that's a fair number. I won't do this every week, but I'm just going to give a brief little sort of catch up to see where we are.
But first let's read this scripture, 2 Samuel, chapter 5. I want to read 1 through 5. Then came all the tribes of Israel to David, to Hebron or Hebron and spoke, saying, behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh also in time past when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest us out and broughtest in Israel. And the Lord said to thee, thou shalt feed my people Israel, thou shalt be a captain over Israel.
So all the elders of Israel pause just a moment. That means all the other tribes remember last week Judah made David tribe over Judah. Now all the other tribal chieftains, the elders if you will have now come and they're going to anoint David as the king of the unified kingdom reunified. So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron. And King David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord.
And they anointed David king over Israel.
David was 30 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 40 years in Hebron he reigned over Judah seven and a half years.
And in Jerusalem he reigned 30 and three years over all Israel and Judah. Let's pray. Lord, in the next few moments, I pray that your spirit will will come and speak to us, O Lord, that we may gain hearts of wisdom in Jesus. Mighty name, the strong Son of God. Amen.
So David, born in Bethlehem, raised up to the right hand of King Saul the first king of Israel, especially particularly through his defeat of the Philistine giant Goliath. David is married to Saul's second daughter Michael. Instead of the first daughter whom he was promised. David becomes a great general, the top military man in Israel. Saul despises him. He's Jealous of him, envious, he tries to send him on suicide missions to get him killed. David not only doesn't get killed, he wins all of those battles and becomes more and more famous, more and more beloved of the people of Israel, more and more hated by the Philistines.
Finally, Saul tries to kill David. He flees first to Samuel at Ramah, then to Gath inexplicably. And there he has to escape by feigning madness. He goes into the Judean wilderness, particularly to the network of caverns called the caves. And it's not properly a cave, but a network of caverns called Adullam. And from there he builds an outlaw band called, in Hebrew, the Gibborim. Gibor is Hebrew for mighty. So they're the mighty ones. There are 4, 5, 600 of them at various times in David's leadership. But they are devoted to David. And of them there are 37 that are the top 37. And they are also called the Gibboriim, the mighty of the mighty.
David then sells his sword to the Philistines as a mercenary, he and all of his cavalry unit, and they raid into Amalekite territory. Then the Philistines make one more attack against Saul and. And Saul's army is devastated. Jonathan and Saul die, Jonathan by the sword and Saul by suicide on Mount Gilboa. Word of that comes to David at Ziklag. And soon after that, the elders of the tribe of Judah, David's tribe, come to David and say, we're going to break away from Israel and just be Judah. Will you come and be our king? And David agrees, moves to Hebron with his men, and he becomes the king of Judah.
Then subsequently, Saul's son, who's an out and out nincompoop named Ish Bosheth.
He squanders his position by falsely accusing Abner, his top military man. You're a weak king with not much of an army in a middle of a civil war with Israel's most famous warrior. The thing to do is accuse your own general of something.
So Abner leaves him, goes to David.
David's top man is Joab.
Joab is David's kinsman. They're related, and Joab is throughout the rest of David's story.
So have Joab in your mind. Joab is, is a real serious warrior and long on military skill, short on morals, and he kills Abner because of a blood feud. Abner had killed Joab's younger brother.
David grieves over Abner and feels that Joab has acted wrongly and in opposition to him, but he needs Joab and he keeps Joab on as the head of his army.
And then the other, the civil war basically fizzles out and Ishbosheth is murdered by two of his people. They come to David and try to brag, we've killed Ishbosheth for you and here's his crown.
And David says, I'm not going to have a league with people that kill kings.
And so he has them executed. And then soon after that, as we read just now, the other tribes elders come to David at Hebron and say, let's put the kingdom back together again.
And that's where we just read. Now here are some questions as we start tonight. Why didn't David just seize the throne?
He could have. He really could have defeated Saul at any time and twice in the wilderness as we saw last night. He certainly could have killed him and he resisted. First is it was God's promise that he would be the king. When Samuel came and anointed him in Bethlehem, God spoke over him. You will be the king. You will quote unquote, lead Israel out and lead Israel in. You will be the chief over Israel. As the, as the tribes leader said.
So David felt if it's God's promise, then God's power should bring it to pass. I'm not going just because I have the promise of God. I'm not going to force it to happen.
And if it's God's promise and God's power, then it ought to be God's timing.
David is willing to wait.
Second, he refuses to touch Saul. He has a strong, strong ethos against dislodging the God appointed king the third.
If he had taken the throne, this is a political reality. If he had taken the throne by the sword, half of his subjects would have been enemies.
So he wanted to wait until they came to him.
So he didn't kill Saul or win the civil war, unify the kingdom against its will. He waited till the other 10 tribes came to him, all of them, the 11, including Judah.
Now then there is this mathematical issue that we just read. So we just have it.
This is proof that David was 70 when he died.
Which is not as old as I used to think it was, but it was older for that day and time. Remember, we're not talking about the, the 21st century. We're talking about a rugged agrarian military world. There's lots of fighting, bloodshed, war and all of the struggles of that David ruled.
He was 30 when he came to the throne. In hebron he ruled there as the king of Judah seven years and six months, and then 33 years over all of the unified kingdom for 40 years altogether as king. And he was 70 when he died.
Now, at this point, let's just talk about David's life. I'm gonna get into tonight's details, but let's deal with this first.
I see David's life divided up into three sections.
The first is his childhood up until his flight from Saul when he had to flee because Saul was trying to kill him.
In other words, I call that section from celebrity to outlaw.
The second is his wilderness phase.
That is from his from his fleeing of Saul to become an outlaw until he becomes king of Judah.
The third phase is the 40 years of his reign until his death.
Celebrity to outlaw, outlaw to king, King until his death. Those are the three sections of David's life.
Now that brings us to tonight. David is now king of the unified Israel.
He makes an immediate decision that is politically savvy and militarily as well.
Though David is not an elected politician, we still have to remember that even a king has political implications.
So if David continues to make his his capital at Hebron, that's the capital of the tribe of Judah.
So if he stays there, the other tribes will eventually say he favors Judah if he moves to Gibeah.
Gibeah is where Saul's capital was, but Gibeah is the capital of Benjamin, Saul's tribe.
So if he goes back to the first capital, then he knows that the people at Judah will say, he's forsaken us.
So he makes the decision that our forefathers here in the United States made 250 years ago.
They said to themselves, the founders of the nation of United States said, if we make the capitol in Virginia, where that produced the first five presidents, Virginia will always be the prime state. It'll always lord it over. The other states will be. Virginia will be the state where the capital is, but temporarily, during the early documents and all that, the capitol was at New York.
Well, thank God it's not in New York anymore.
So they said, we'll get Maryland and Virginia to carve off part of their property and we'll declare it as a non state district and it will be the District of Columbia, so that no state can claim the capital as being part of that state.
And they made the District of Columbia the capital of the new nation. David says, I need to do the same thing.
Now. David's childhood was in Bethlehem.
About eight miles north of David's childhood home is a Fortress, a stronghold, if you will, that is owned by the Jebusite people, and it is named appropriately, Jebus.
Now, there are times where it is referred to as Jerusalem before it becomes Jerusalem, but it's simply the writer trying to identify it.
So, for example, if I said to you that Quanah Parker, the great Comanche chief, was in West Texas, that's not exactly true, because it wasn't the state of Texas at that time.
So.
But it's but a way to identify it so you'll know where it all happened.
So he says, I'm going to conquer Jebus and make it the new capital.
The Jebusites have a saying. They feel so strong.
They have a water shaft that leads up into this fortress area on Mount Zion, and they.
They feel so absolutely unconquerable that they have this little proverb.
Whoever attacks us, we could be defended by the blind and the lame.
It's just a Jebusite saying. Unless they beat the blind and the lame, they can't come in.
So David says to his men, whoever can get up the water shaft, find it, crawl up this wet, dark tunnel up into the area where Jebus is, and then come and open the gate. Whoever climbs up there, you'll be the head of my army. So, of course, Joab does, and they defeat Jebus and take.
Basically, that's the end of the Jebusite tribe, people, and David renames it Jerusalem.
David.
It's. I think it is more.
I think I can state this.
David's affection for Jerusalem is greater than simply the fact that he founded it.
There is a spiritual connection between Jerusalem, Israel, David and God.
God has a special.
Some people say God doesn't have a special affection for real estate. Well, yes, he does.
He loves Israel. He loves the people of Israel. He loves Jerusalem, and he loves Texas.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: But
[00:16:38] Speaker B: there is a connection. There is a link, and it is a deep spiritual and emotional connection. And it's important to bear that in mind.
Now, let me just talk to you for a moment about some of the tribes. This is a.
This is hard because we tend to think of countries, say this is the United States, and that's Canada, and that's Mexico, and the parameters are defined by the borders.
But when David takes over Israel, that Israel is scattered, these tribes and the tribal centers, and then intermingled among them.
So there's an Israeli village here, and right a half mile down the road may be a Hittite village. And down the road just a little ways more may be a whole area where the. Where the Amorites Live.
So it's all intermingled. It's not like now. It became more like now under David. At the end of his reign, he secured the borders. But at this time, it's all just sort of tribalism mixed in.
There were these tribes, the Canaanites. So remember Canaan, or Canaan as some people call it. But Canaan is the original sort of name of the. Of the Holy Land before it becomes Israel.
Remember, Abraham was not a Canaanite. He was not from Canaan. He was from Iraq.
And he came to Canaan under the guidance of God.
Then there were the Hittites. They are the descendants of Heth, the grandson of Noah.
They're the Amorites, the Perizzites. The Perizzites were a rural people, not really very warlike as some of the others.
The Hivites in the north of Israel, the Jebusites and their stronghold at Jebus, the Amalekites.
They were very brutal and warlike people. They were descended from Esau's grandson.
They lived largely in the Negev.
And the Negev means the southern desert of Israel.
And Negev means desert. It can also just mean south.
They are totally warlike and irreconcilable enemies of Israel. And the Amalekites hate the Israelis. And they are the first tribe to attack Moses and his people when they leave Egypt.
From them may very well be descended the Arabs and the Bedouins.
Then there are geographical tribes. The Moabites, those are the people from Moab.
And the Ammonites, they're the people from the region of Ammon.
They are descended from the sons of Lot.
If you remember that grimy story where Lot impregnated both his daughters and those two bore sons. They are the heads of the Moabites and the Ammonites.
So these peoples were the constant enemies.
And the command of God to Joshua. And the generation that came in was to drive them all out, get them all out.
And they failed to do so. And they suffered for it always up until David finally, through the judges, they were constantly fighting these people.
The number one resistance at this time, Philistines.
The Philistines are different than all the other tribes.
They. They are on the coastal region, particularly toward the south of the Mediterranean coastline of modern day Israel.
And they were not native, they were not indigenous like these tribes that I've just read.
They were seafaring people.
They came by ships out of the Mediterranean, probably from the island, maybe from the island of Crete. They may have been Cretan people. We don't know. But they were warlike, violent, and they ruled up and down the western seaboard of modern day Israel.
And it was that group of people that produced Goliath and Achish, the king that hired David and his tribes.
Now David. Now back to David.
David is now the king and unified and he's been anointed by all the tribes.
So immediately the Philistines say, we have to attack him now while he's weak.
And so they attack up through the valley of Rephaim.
So the. There are two valleys that lead from the west coast, the Mediterranean coast, over toward Jerusalem. One is the valley of Rephaim, One is the valley of Aijalon, or Ayulon, if you remember the valley of Aijalon. That's where Joshua got God to make the sun stand still.
So the Philistines bring their whole army and they're going to attack.
So first of all, they don't want a unified kingdom.
Second of all, they hate David.
You have to get this in your mind.
He is despised.
You have to remember he killed and mutilated the body of their most favorous person, Goliath.
Then he killed 200 Philistines and mutilated their bodies in a particularly horrifying way to them. Basically, he made them Jews. He circumcised their dead bodies. They hate him. Then later he became mercenaries, hired out to Achish and he tricked them and. And now he's turned against them. And there's nobody in the world that the Philistines hate as bad as David.
Now they. Achish brings the whole army, this massive Philistine army up into the valley at Rephaim and they camp there.
The Bible describes that they cover the valley with their tents. That's how huge they are.
And David. This is a critical verse. It says, and David inquired of the Lord.
That's a powerful verse.
He goes first.
What should I do?
David had this for all of his weaknesses. And we're going to deal with a lot of those. David's conviction that he was king by God's will and would be sustained as king by God's grace.
What should I do?
Should I go up? Should I attack them?
And God says, attack straight ahead.
Just go straight at them. They're not expecting it.
And so David takes the gibboriim and the soldiers that he's assembled from the other tribes, and. And David attacks the Philistines at the valley at Rephaim. And he routes them. Absolutely. They're shocked. They thought they were going to pin David up Capture him, kill him, torture him. And David and this small army of Jewish soldiers just drives right through the camp. And it's horrifying.
The next verse, very important, it says, and David said, burn all their idols.
And his men burned the. The idols of the Philistines.
This is a critical insight for us in our lives and in leadership. And that is when God elevates you to the next level of leadership.
Make sure that you don't worship what was worshiped by the people who were there ahead of you.
You. You be with God.
You worship God. Burn the idols of everybody that lived there ahead of you.
So the Philistines go back to Gath, and they say to themselves, okay, we got this guy figured out.
If we go back to the valley at Rephaim, he's going to attack us straight ahead.
We're going to be ready. We'll get the whole army facing right, straight toward Jerusalem, and we'll be ready. When he attacks, we'll just back up, let him come in, and we'll. We'll just collapse on him. Because now we know his strategy. Now we know his strategy.
And when they come back into the valley of Rephaim, it says, david goes to the Lord again.
Very important.
He doesn't take last time's direction every time. Seek God.
He says, should I attack them again?
And God says, no, this time don't attack them. Take your men, circle quietly around the hills, go around to the back of their camp and. And there's a mulberry forest back there. And just have all your men squat down in the mulberry forest and wait.
And David says, okay, wait for what?
And there's this passage of Scripture which is not quite clear.
It says, when you hear the sound of going the trees.
Now what does that mean?
So could it mean a sound that sounds like an army marching?
Could it mean angels moving through the forest attacking? Go ahead. Going ahead of you into battle?
Or could it just mean the wind going through the trees?
Wind blowing through a forest, the leaves rattle.
Maybe God just says, wait, when I make the wind blow, you attack.
So I always think of these things as being a leader or something like Joshua marching around Jericho.
Joshua is the only one that heard from God say, we're going to march.
When do we attack? Okay, someday, how many we're going to march around? And what are we supposed to do? Nothing, Just walk around?
Don't you know enough about soldiers to know that they're marching along saying, this is the stupidest thing.
Six days.
And then the seventh day, what are we going to do now? Are we going to charge noise and say yellow? Oh, good.
I think of it from Abraham. God spoke to Abraham.
Get up and go to the land that I will show you. He didn't speak to Sarah.
Abraham says to Sarah, pack the camels, we're leaving in the morning. Where are we going?
Okay, we're not clear on that.
So David's army, they're all.
All these armed soldiers, they're squatting down in this mulberry forest and they say, when do we attack?
David says, okay, I'll know.
That has to be a moment of supreme confidence.
They had to really believe in David to just sit there and wait.
And then there is this sound, whatever that sound is in the mulberries, whatever that is. It's the sound of angels, the wind blowing, the sound of marching, whatever it is. When David hears that, he says, now.
And he defeats the Philistines again in the valley of Rephaim. Let me take just a moment and deal with the word Rephaim.
It's one of those words in Hebrew that is kind of obscure. It can mean several different things. It can mean to sink as, to go, just to go underground.
But it can mean people, not corpses that are under there, corpses underground as they sank.
And it can mean kind of the spirits of those that have been underground. Like a valley where there's a spirit of dead people around. It's kind. It's an obscure word.
I've often wondered, and I have no insight into this particularly that it may have. If you go to Israel, if one goes to Israel, they will take you to a valley where they say, this is the valley of the Shadow of Death. There's no real reason that that is. It's just a nice place to show you for the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I have often wondered if it wasn't actually the valley Rephaim, the Valley of Shades goes the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
It is. It is something that has always occurred to me. But when we see David, we can clear that.
So now David has a kingdom, he has a capital, and he has a victorious army.
It is extremely impos. Important. This is hard for us to see in this, where we have this civilian government in a republic.
In ancient kingdoms, the king was expected to be a warrior leader.
So in the valley at Rephaim, David was securing his brand.
He had always been the guy. He had been the one that killed Goliath. He had been the one that won those early battles. He had been the hero. Saul has slain his thousands. David has tens of thousands now. He's the king. And everybody may have been wondering, yeah, but is he still got the goods?
Can he still win the clutch game?
And David wins both battles at Rephaim with creative military tactics. And he secures his
[00:32:20] Speaker A: brand.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Warrior king, political leader. And now with a capital.
So what does David need now?
What can he do to further solidify his hold on Israel?
He makes a decision now which is both political and spiritual.
The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts is at Shiloh.
You remember the whole thing. When the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant under Eli, and Phinehas and Hophni were killed and the Ark was taken, and then the Philistines sent it back and everything. So it's at Shiloh and it's important, but there is. It's not really the center of Israeli life and culture at this point.
At this point, frankly, it's David.
And so David decides to go to Shiloh and get the Ark of the Covenant and bring it to Jerusalem. You see what this does for him and what it does for the country. It now makes the capital city, not just the geopolitical and military capital, but the religious capital as well.
It means that everything, the Ark of the Covenant, military headquarters, and by the way, the king, are all at Jerusalem. So it is a spiritual decision. It's also a very savvy political decision.
And David decides to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem with a parade.
It's a great moment for a parade. He's got floats and cheerleaders, and he gets the marching band from local high schools. And they're going to have. They're going to have a parade.
And David takes the Ark of the Covenant and puts it up into a cart to bring it back. And as they come through the villages and along through the countryside, David will be waving to the people and they'll say, oh, David's bringing the Ark of the Covenant. This is great. There's the Ark of the Covenant and there.
It's gonna be great. This is the 4th of July. This is wonderful. And they're marching along, and the Ark of the Covenant is up in the back of this cart.
Now, let's just recall one thing. This is extremely important.
It was against God's law to put the Ark of the Covenant in a cart.
The only way the Ark of the Covenant could be transported was staves that were put through the silver brackets and carried on the shoulders of the priests.
So David is doing the right thing the wrong way.
He's got a clear good plan. He's right. It's right politically. It's right religiously. And he puts the Ark of the Covenant up in this ox cart and. And they're marching along and the band's playing and people are cheering and the girls are twirling their batons, and it's exciting. And the ox cart hits a little dip like that, and the Ark of the Covenant looks like it's going to fall out.
And this guy at the back of the ox cart, it's the most innocent kind of thing in the world.
He just puts his hands up to, oh, that thing's going to fall.
Well, that's the second rule about the Ark of the Covenant. Not only do you not put it in an Oscar, what you don't do is touch it.
And Uzzah is his name. Uzzah falls dead in the bottom of the creek. And the parade is, like, over.
This is a very discouraging moment in a parade.
And David doesn't know what to do.
The Ark of the Covenant has now become. It's clear to him this is dangerous.
He can't take this into Jerusalem.
So what's he gonna do?
Standing on the side of the road is a farmer named Obed Edom.
And David says, you. What's your name?
He says, obedidom, you, Majesty. He said, okay, we're going to put this at your house.
You can just see this guy.
Really? Really? You maj just kill this guy.
You gonna put it at my house? Yep, we're gonna put it at your house.
He says, okay, I'll put it in the basement and put a tarp over it, and I'll try to keep the kids off of it. But are you going to come back?
And David says, oh, yeah, I'll be back.
Isn't that just the kind of way politicians talk? We'll remember you and David and the rest of the parade go into Jerusalem. Now. Let me talk to you just briefly about Uzzah for a moment. The guy that's killed. This is so.
Somebody asked me one time, do you think Uzzah got to go to be with the Lord?
I said, yes, I think so.
And I think when he arrived, he said to the Lord, really?
Cause I was trying to help.
It's the most. There's not something wicked here.
This is not an evil thing. It's a spontaneous gesture. The Ark of the Covenant is going to fall in the mud. What's the most natural thing in the world is to do that?
But the point is powerful, and it Is this.
You don't prop God up. God props you up.
It's a very important lesson. And it's an important lesson for us in the evangelical world.
God doesn't need us to take care of him.
We don't. We don't have to defend God all the time. God defends us.
We don't prop God up. We don't keep God out of the mud by his grace, maybe he can keep some of us out of the mud.
It's not an evil thing.
A very realistic and pointed thing. You don't prop me up. God says, I prop you up.
Now the Ark of the Covenant is at Obedidom's house.
Somebody cleverer than I said one time, they wonder what they called Obedidom for short.
I bet it wasn't Obed. I bet it was dumb.
And some months later, David says, what about that guy?
Oh, he said, oh, my gosh, we put that thing at Obed Edom's house. Oh my gosh, I bet there's a crater in the earth.
Oh, and he sends some people down there. He says, go check on that guy and see if he's okay.
And they come back and they say, you, Majesty, you're not going to believe it. And David says, oh, yes, I will.
Oh, tell me, tell me. They said, well, he is blessed.
He is blessed. His fields are growing bushels more than the fields next to it.
His cow herds are growing. He's got money in the bank. His wife is pregnant with twins. It's this. It's. Everything he touches is turned into gold.
And David says, I told him I'd come back.
And so David goes back.
This time he brings the Ark of the Covenant the right way.
So the, the real bottom line issue with the first attempt with the Ark of the Covenant is not that David did something evil. He operated in the flesh. He operated in a way that he thought would be showy and modern and contemporary. He would put the Ark of the Covenant in a cart. This will be a new thing. He's going to have a parade. It was. It was not an evil thing. It was a. It was a showy flow, fleshy thing.
Now David brings the Ark of the Covenant the right way.
And as they enter Jerusalem, one of the most misunderstood passages of scripture in David's life happens.
I don't know how many preachers I've heard say David took off his clothes and danced in his underwear. There is absolutely not one. What happened?
David is wearing priestly, kingly, excuse me, kingly robes. His royal robes are upon him, all he takes off are his royal robes. He is wearing under it, a linen ephod is not underwear. It's simple clothing, like a common, ordinary man would wear.
So he's got regular clothes on, street clothes.
And over it, he's wearing his king garments.
As they enter Jerusalem, he takes off not his clothes. He's not doing anything obscene. He takes off his kingly garments.
And overcome with the joy.
Look, just think for a moment. Try, if we can, can we dilate our imagination to get into the mind of David?
The war, the struggle, how close he came to death over and over again. The years as an outlaw. The civil war, the betrayal by Saul, the attempted murder.
The years and years of it. Now he's a king. Now he's a unified king. Now he's got this new capital. He's defeated the Philistines, and now God has come into the city. The ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts.
It's not just a religious relic.
It is to the people. Israel, as a statement of the presence of God, has come to Jerusalem. And David is overcome with joy, and he casts off his kingly garments and he says, not as a king, but as a human being.
Not as a king, but like everybody else. And he worships God in abandon.
There's a couple of things about it. One is, this is very important.
David doesn't make anybody else dance.
I just need you all to hear that.
Nothing wrong with dancing.
Kids at the university used to ask me, said President Rutland, do you ever. You ever dance? I said, the day you see me dancing, Jesus is in the house.
I said. They said, don't you like to dance? I said, it's in my heart. It's not in my hips in my 70s.
So I'm.
I'm fine with you dancing. But David didn't make anybody else dance.
He didn't impose his style of worship on anybody else in the crowd.
He didn't go around the side and say, if you're really with me, come on and dance. It was a spontaneous, joyful expression of jo of worship by David, but he wasn't expecting anybody else.
Then David slaughters the oxen and begins to give sacrifices to all the people.
A flagon of wine.
One translation.
I guess it was translated by Pentecostals. They can't stand flagon of wine, so they translated it a cake of raisins.
But.
So he gives a flagon of wine and a loaf of bread and a portion of beef to everybody in Israel.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: Think.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: Think.
So the second thing is, not only does he not force anybody else to worship his way?
He doesn't worship his way. He doesn't understand worship apart from generosity.
I hear our pastor say it every Sunday.
Worship is giving, and giving is worship. It's something I love to hear him say, and he says it every week. The joy of worship separated from liberality in giving. Generosity. He gives to God. He sacrifices the oxen to God. He gives to people.
Generosity. He just pours it out.
And the people are so happy. The people are so. Not only for what they've received, but they've seen David through a war and alone in the wilderness. And they see him dancing and the people are playing the shofar horns. And David said, don't you know those old soldiers? They said, look at. Look at the king.
Isn't he happy?
Look at the king. Look at the great.
Nobody's mad. Everything's great until he goes home.
When David gets up to the house, his wife, Michal. Now, let's just remember. Do you remember from last week?
Michal was David's first wife.
He now has seven and concubines. But Michael was David's first wife, Saul's second daughter.
When David had to flee from Saul, Saul, in order to humiliate David, gave Michal to another man named Palti or Paltiel.
And she lives with him as husband and wife. For 10 years, she has not seen David. When David becomes the king of Judah, Abner from Saul's camp comes to him and says, I want to serve with you. And David said, remember last week?
David said, you want to be with me? You got one task. Go back and get my wife Michal and bring her. And he brings her back. But it is a pathetic scene.
Palti follows them along, weeping and crying, give me a wife. He give my wife back. Give my wife back. Until Abner, who's a very dangerous hombre, turns and says, now listen, I've had it. Turn back or I'll kill you.
And Palti goes home and loses his wife. So Michal has now been taken back to David, whom she hasn't seen for 10 years.
And she is living with him now, one of his wives in Jerusalem. And David comes dancing up the steps.
And she says, isn't this a great day?
Isn't this just great? You take off the royal robes and dance in the street like a nobody.
Just like a nobody dancing in the street.
Listen to what David says.
You're mad because God took the throne away from your father and gave it to me. You've never gotten over that.
There are women that can't become queens because they won't quit being a princess.
At some point or another, a woman's got to move out from underneath her father and be married to her husband. And Michal never could get over the fact that she was the spoiled daughter of King Saul and she resented David because Saul came to such a disaster. She also was hurt with David over this mess of her life. My heart goes out to her.
My heart goes out to her. What a mess.
I agree with that. But listen to me. When your husband is giving away Cadillacs, don't gripe at him all she he would have given her anything. He would have given her anything. He's given everybody in Israel stuff. He comes home and says, what do you want? She said, look at you.
Look at you dancing in the street.
And David says, you're still mad because God took the kingdom away from your father and gave it to me.
And Michael is never mentioned again except for the next verse.
It says, and Michal never had another child the rest of her life.
We don't know what that means.
Does it mean that David never went to her again?
He's got all these wives.
I don't know that he ever visited Michael again.
But that may not be what it means.
It can mean, in a spiritual sense that her bitterness dried her up, that she just simply became dried up, an angry, bitter old woman and lost her femininity and her capacity for birth.
In any way, Michael is a collateral damage in the lives of Saul, King Saul and King David.
I may have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating.
In Ghana, West Africa, where Travis and I spent so much of our lives, they have this saying. When two elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers.
And I. My heart goes out to Michael. But at the same time, there has to come a point where you get well and get over it and enjoy the life that you have. And she could have been. She was the wife of a king of a new kingdom, of a new capital, and a generous king who was willing to bless her life. And she lost it all.
Now, what can we say to these things as we close tonight?
And it is this.
If there's one verse of scripture that I could leave you with, it's this.
Wait, I say.
Wait on the Lord.
That is one of the most strenuous of all spiritual disciplines, is to let God do his work, fulfill his promises, his way, by his power, in his timing.
It's strenuous psychologically, emotionally, spiritually. Wait.
David waited when he was an outlaw. He became the best outlaw he could when he was a mercenary, the best mercenary he could when he was the opportunity to kill Saul in the wilderness, he could have killed him, and who would have blamed him? He said, no, I'm going to wait on God.
When he could have fled elsewhere, the King of Moab was taken, as his mother and father are in the Moabites instead. David said, no, I'm going to stay right here.
I'm going to do what God has called me to do, do it the best I can do, and I'm going to wait on God to fulfill his promise.
If there is one great strength in the life and leadership of King David, it is that he believed God. He consulted God, he listened to God, he obeyed God, and he waited on God.
He was just as Samuel said he would be. A man after God's own heart.
Next week, I'll not be here. Pastor Travis will be doing this wonderful vision night. Allison and I will be in Mobile, Alabama. Our dear, dear friend of many, many, many years is retiring as the general overseer of the Pentecostal Holiness Church and will be there for his retirement. I'll miss being here with you.
The next Wednesday. I'll be back.
More importantly, King David will be back. Pastor.
[00:53:23] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: The Lord's prayer in the 23rd Psalm.
I didn't forget it. This time.
Let's stand together.
In two weeks, we don't have any books for sale here.
But two weeks from now, when we come back, I'll have the David books. I'll also have books on the 23rd Psalm. So we'll have those two in two weeks. So we'll turn and. And say this out loud before Pastor comes. You ready? 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.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on X at Dr. Mark Rutland or visit his website, drmarkrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
