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: Well, if you have your Bibles, if you'll take those and turn, if you will, to two Samuel Going to continue this series on the life and leadership of King David and I want to try as much as possible so that there is a part at the very end that I want to spend some time on and not hurry.
So here's I just want to tell you this, if I don't get to it, I'm not going to rush it, then I'm going to abide by the clock. I'm very faithful on the time. I may not be the best pilot in the world, but I know when to land the plane.
And so if I don't get to it, I'll put it till next week because it's very important.
But I don't want to jump to it because it gets the order of the teaching out. So I'm not going to hurry. But I want to divide it into two sections almost. The first is some military and political issues and then a more spiritual issue. So 2 Samuel, chapter 7. I'll read verses 1 through 3. And it came to pass when the king sat in his house and the Lord had given him rest round about him from all his enemies, that the king said unto Nathan, that is Nathan the prophet.
Now see, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains, meaning in a tabernacle, in a tent, in if you will. And Nathan said to the king, go do all that is in thine heart, for the Lord is with thee.
When at the end of last week or two weeks ago, excuse me, we talked about David retrieving the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts.
The false or the mistaken approach, bringing it the wrong way, doing the right thing the wrong way. It got a man killed, Uzzah who was killed.
They left the Ark of the Covenant at Obediadom's house.
And then David went back and got it, brought it the right way in a second parade is the way I used it. And then David set the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts in a tabernacle, a tent, as it had been in the wilderness, Jerusalem, but still in a tabernacle.
Now there are two Insights that bring us to the point of David wanting the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts. There, the one is more spiritual, and that is David wants the presence and power of God in Jerusalem. It's the new capital city.
All of the governmental offices are there. It's the Washington D.C. of the new nation of Israel. It's the capital city.
But it is more than that. It is an effort also to solidify David's leadership so he doesn't have the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts at Shiloh.
It's all in Jerusalem. Everything is in Jerusalem so that there is almost a.
A unified thought.
David becomes Israel in a way, and he is now that landmark person.
He's got the government, the capital city, the military, and now the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts. In a tabernacle in Jerusalem, David then fought, if you'll remember, I'm not going to reiterate every week, but you remember the two battles in the valley at Rephaim.
The Philistines attack.
David hears from the Lord, attack straight at them, go at them. He catches them completely off guard. He devastates them, routes them, they reassemble, and they come back later, some years later, to the valley Rephaim.
And they say, now we know how David works. We know his military strategy. He'll come straight down the valley at us. David prays and God says, circle around behind them. Hide in the mulberry grove and wait till I give you the signal. You remember this? How many of you remember from two weeks ago? I'm so proud of you, I can barely remember where I had breakfast.
And David then attacks from behind them, routes them again. Those two huge battles now begin to position David as one of the dominant geopolitical and military strengths of the Middle east at this time.
If you'll remember, I pointed out that when Saul came to the throne and then it prevailed in David's early reign, the cultures and people, the ites, all of them are kind of mixed in. You might be one village is Israeli and the next village is Amorite, and the next village is Hittite. And. And so you don't have a. You don't have a clear national identity.
Now David is beginning to carve that out.
David has around him three important names that I'm going to mention several names tonight, but I want you to make a note of these in your notes. And these are the three prophets that had very serious parts in David's life.
One is Samuel, who is by this time passed away.
Samuel is he who anointed both Saul and David king.
He was that mysterious guest at Jesse's house that called David in out of the sheepfold, anointed him with oil, and it was to Samuel that David fled. When he first fled from Saul, Samuel was that mysterious prophetic judge figure that was almost a king and not quite a king in the. In the time of the Judges.
Then there is Nathan. And it is Nathan we're going to deal with tonight.
And then there is Gad.
Gad is a thing third prophet. And we're going to deal with Gad later on in David's. In the darkest moment of David's life, which I'm willing to say almost none of you will identify the correct darkest moment in David's life.
Now let's talk about Nathan. Nathan is close to David during his reign, during his life, even at the time of his death.
Saul at the beginning, Gad at a crisis point.
But Nathan is more than a prophet. He is an advisor, a spiritual confidant.
So it is Nathan whom David calls and says, I feel bad living in a palace, a cedar palace, and the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts is in a tent.
The implication is, I want to build a building a temple, not a tabernacle.
And Nathan says, do it. That's a great idea.
But then that night, God speaks to Nathan and he says, you didn't ask me.
You just answered David, but you didn't ask me. And I don't want David to build that. I'm gonna let his son build it, but not him.
David doesn't. Isn't the right choice.
2 Samuel doesn't deal with it, but later on, Chronicles deals with it.
Part of the reason is because David is a man of war.
If you'll remember, on one of the previous Wednesdays, I told you that David and his extended agencies were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
And God says, I'm going to find a man of peace who will build the temple.
There is also this lesson for David, and it is this.
I don't need you to build a house for me.
If you'll remember the lesson that Uzzah learned when the Ark of the Covenant started to fall out of the ox cart, and Uzzah's gonna prop God up. It struck him dead. He fell dead in the ditch.
The lesson is we don't prop God up. He props us up.
That's very important in the way we think about ministry.
We don't build a church because God needs a church.
God can speak churches into existence.
The temptation can even get greater.
People can try to prop God up with a buttressed testimony.
They think if they make the testimony bigger, grander, more, it helps God.
You don't help God with your testimony that if you succeed more in ministry.
There is a phrase that is used now in contemporary, highly contemporary Christian nomenclature, and I find it offensive. If you use it, then great.
I'm just telling you I don't like it. And it is. I hear it all the time. And. And it is. It's my job to make God famous. Well, actually, no, it isn't. If God chooses to make you famous, that's up to him. That's what he's saying. That's what God is saying to David.
I made you famous, and I need you to remain humble in my doing so. But I don't need you to make me famous.
I don't need you to build me a house.
So Nathan has to go back to David.
This is that awkward moment for any preacher.
Somebody comes to you for counseling, and you say, I think you should do this and this and this.
And the next day you call them up and you say, okay.
Remember that counseling session yesterday? The aliens hijacked my brain.
I was not myself.
And Nathan has to do that. It's very humbling. He says, I jumped. I'm sorry.
God says, no.
And David doesn't fight. David says, great, that's all I need. That's what I needed to hear.
It is.
It speaks well of both of them.
They both have to act in humility.
Now, if you will, I want to give you one more verse of scripture before we move into this. And that is in chapter 8, 2 Samuel, chapter 8, verses 15 through 18.
And David reigned over all Israel. And David executed judgment and justice unto all his people. And Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the host. And Jehoshaphat the son of Ahaib was. Was the recorder. And Zadok the son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were the priests, and Seraiah was the scribe. And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Parathites. And David's sons were chief rulers. I just want to go through it for a minute so we don't get lost.
David is solidifying the nation, building the government. Remember, after Saul's death, there's civil war, and then it's scattered and the tribes are everywhere. David is solidifying the government. He is getting the right people in the right place.
And he has these people that are around him that are extremely important.
David has the justice and wisdom as king. Joab is his top general.
He is David's kinsman.
He is a great warrior. Write down Joab is a great warrior, but he is a dangerous commodity.
Joab. I used to joke with the kids at the universities, if David was Wyatt Earp, Joab was Doc Holliday.
This is a very scary guy.
Jehoshaphat is the recorder, or we might call it historian.
Zadok and Abiathar are the priests, or Abiathar.
Abiar and Zedok both show up later in the story, and they both are important.
Benaiah oversees the Cherethites and the parasites. Those are obscure names, but here's what they mean.
The Cherethites were foreign mercenaries that were hired as a private strike force force.
They were like the.
Like the Marines.
But suppose the United States Marines were not Americans. We had. The United States Marines were people that we hired from, say, you know, some really dangerous country, Denmark or something. And, and. And so they're. They're the strike force of David's private army. And then the Pelethites, they were Philistines that worked in the Israeli army. And those men were all under Benaiah. They were a very serious military strike force. And then David's sons were the chief rulers.
Now David now begins to move militarily to solidify both the David Incorporated brand.
So he's solidifying his own name as the king of Israel. And that Israel is not some little, tiny, easily defeated country that everybody around them can raid. Remember, until David, the Amalekites raided them, the Philistines raided them, the Amorites raided them, and the Hittites raided them. And David is now saying, we're going to be the dominant political and military force of the Middle East. So he begins one military campaign after another.
He has defeated the Philistines twice. At the valley at Rephaim, he finally defeats them. Pretty much is the end of the Philistines at Methegamah.
At Zobah, he defeats the king of Zobah and extends Israel all the way to the Euphrates River.
He conquers the Moabites, the Moabites.
He particularly devastates the Moabite army. This is kind of hard to hear, but here it is.
After David defeated the Moabites, he had all their soldiers, the whole army, lie down next to each other.
He took a piece of string and he stretched that string out, and everybody under that string got to live.
He Stretched the string out again and again, and all those men were executed. So in other words, he executed two thirds of the Moabite army.
That, that is. It sounds and it is hard to hear, but you have to remember these are evil nations that have preyed on Israel for years.
Furthermore, the Moabite. The issue between Israel and the Moabites goes all the way back to Moses.
If you remember, it was the Moabites that hired Balaam the prophet, to prophesy over them.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: And.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: And God has never forgotten it. And so he wants this wicked nation, the Moabites, to be destroyed.
David then turns against Syria.
He kills 22,000 Syrian soldiers in two battles. He occupies Syria. He builds forts on Syria. He takes the gold shields that belong to the Syrian king.
There is a third battle at the valley of salt.
18,000 Syrians are killed there.
Toi, the king of Hamath, hears about all of this and he says, I don't want this to happen to me.
What can we do to avoid it? And David takes tribute. So he begins to simply send money to David at Jerusalem, send treasure to keep them. David occupies Edom, the Edomites, that is southern Jordan now.
And he occupies them, and they begin to pay tribute.
The Edomites later disappear, and they are followed by the Nabataeans and they build Petra.
The Ammonites are in Jordan and David defeats them.
It's interesting to me, and I wanted to point this out tonight, these ancient names we.
Atlanta has only been called Atlanta in some level of recent history.
Right before, right before the civil war, Atlanta became Atlanta. Before that it was called Terminus. Before that it was called Marthasville.
I'm glad we avoided that.
And.
And that. We talk about old history. Old history, Marthasville way back in 1830, but we're talking about 3,000 years ago.
We talk about the Ammonites.
Who can tell me what is the capital of Jordan, the country of Jordan today?
Anybody?
It's Amman, Ammon for the Ammonites.
Syria is still called Syria. Damascus is still called Damascus. Jerusalem was founded 3,000 years ago. It's still Jerusalem.
It's just always fascinating to me. Travis and I have traveled in Israel, in the Middle east so much. It's fascinating to just be driving down a road in Israel and the road sign points to, you know, some ancient city turned here for Bethlehem. It's never been anything else. It was Bethlehem a thousand years before Jesus.
And so all of these names are still there, and we still know where they are.
So David has solidified the kingdom.
He has defeated his armies he has established David Inc.
He's established his brand. He is the most feared, beloved, established, powerful military king and warrior in the Middle East.
Other nations around them that used to terrorize Israel now send him tribute.
Every month, they raise tax money and send it to David.
He is beginning to build wealth and power and reputation, and he is safe from his enemies.
So this is the part I wanted to get to, but I need to build all that to get to this.
So in this moment of prosperity and wealth and political power, David calls his people together into court, and he says, look, I look back on the civil war with Saul, and I hate that.
It wasn't my fault. We had to have it. We fought.
But I want to know now, is there anybody left in Saul's entire household that I can bless them?
I want to bless anybody that's lived over the civil war.
Everybody laughs behind their hands.
They're saying, oh, yeah, he's going to bless them, Because the household of Saul would be the only family that would have a legitimate claim on his throne.
So every other emperor, every other king in David's position now would say, all right, now I've got peace with my enemies. I'm ready to solidify. I got to find out if there's any pockets of sedition anywhere in Israel, and I'll have them killed. Is there anybody from the household of Saul that's alive?
And one guy raises his hand and says, I know where one is.
His name is Mephibosheth.
And if you'll remember, weeks ago, I told you, on the night of the civil war, when Saul died, the maid carrying Jonathan's little baby, Mephibosheth, ran down the steps, and when she ran, she lost her footing and dropped the baby. He fell on the edge of a. Of a stone step and severed his spine, and he's crippled for life.
That's Mephibosheth, Saul's grandson, Jonathan's son.
This guy says, I know where Mephibosheth is.
He's hiding out at Lo Debar.
Now, Lo Debar is an odd word in Hebrew. It actually just means a desert place.
So maybe it's a specific place named Lo Debar. And maybe he just says, I know where he's hiding out in the desert.
What it probably means is an oasis named Lo Debar.
He says, I know where he is.
And David says, all right, you and you go to Lo Debar and get Mephibosheth and bring him to me. But I want him alive.
And they say, yes, get him.
So they go out to their jeep. They put their guns up in the gun rack.
They ride out across the desert. They pull up on the hill, the sand dunes, looking down on Lo Debar. They see the little adobe house down there. It's just before dawn. Right at dawn, they drop a little box barrage of mortars down. The people run out.
They run down there, and there's Mephibosheth on the floor, crippled. Everybody that's watching out for him runs for their lives. They throw the cuffs on Mephibosheth, throw him up in the back of the Land Rover. Mephibosheth's crying. He knows he's going to die. They said, we're here to get you and take you to David, and you are not going to see another sunrise. He's laying in the back of that Land Rover, handcuffed, crippled, nothing to hope for, nothing to live for. And no, there's nothing he can say.
There's nothing he can say. I can't rebel against you. David can't take that kind of a chance.
David can't take that kind of a chance. Furthermore, this is not exactly a merciful guy.
Remember, two thirds of the Moabite army that are stabbed to death laying on the ground.
This is not an easy person.
Mephibosheth knows he's a dead duck.
They drive back in to Jerusalem.
Sun comes up, everybody gathers in the king's court, and they drag Mephibosheth in. And they just know what's going to happen. Everybody is kind of there, like while you go to a NASCAR race. It's not to see the race, it's to see the crash.
And they're all there. They're saying, he is going to gut Mephibosheth like a fish.
They throw the little crippled prince on the floor at the foot of David's throne.
And David says, are you Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son? He says, yes.
David gets up from his throne, goes down in the floor, picks the little crippled prince up, sets him in a throne beside his throne, puts his robe around him, and he says, from now on, Mephibosheth lives in my house.
He lives in my house. He sits by me.
He eats at my table.
He eats at my table.
And if anybody touches Mephibosheth, they touch the king.
Nobody in the room understands, least of all Mephibosheth.
He's just sitting there saying, little Jack Horner sat in the corner eating his Christmas pie, stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, oh, God, I'm still alive.
He has no concept of what's just happened. Nobody in the room does. Oh, they come up with all kind of explanations.
Well, look at the old king.
He's got blood to his elbows. He's sick of killing people.
He's. He's not afraid of this little crippled prince.
He's just being nice.
Nobody understands except David.
When David looks at the little crippled prince on the floor before him with no hope, no help, nothing to say, no plea to make under a sentence of absolute death because he is born into a rebellious household, David doesn't see Mephibosheth.
He sees Jonathan.
If you'll remember, I know from Wednesday to Wednesday to Wednesday, it's hard to remember these things, but you'll remember. Before David left Saul's household and fled to Ramah, he and Jonathan struck covenant.
Do you remember this?
They walked covenant.
Jonathan put his robe on David. Jonathan gave David his weapons.
Jonathan said, I know you're going to be the king. I know you are.
And when you become the king, will you remember my household?
And David remembers his covenant with Jonathan.
Now, there is so much in that I'm not going to. I don't want anybody to panic, but I could preach for two hours on our covenant relationship with God.
But let me just say this.
That is a pre figurement of our relationship with God Almighty through our intercessor, even this same Jesus.
That we are in covenant relationship through Jesus Christ when we come before God Almighty.
In our woundedness, in our inability, in our sin, we are born of a rebellious household.
We are of the race that crucified Jesus.
When we come before God, we have no. We have no real plea to make.
What are you gonna. I went to Sunday school.
That's it.
You know, I did some bad stuff. I didn't kill anybody.
You think that's gonna work?
It is only the blood covenant of Jesus Christ that has any hope of saving us before the judgment throne of God.
When God looks at us in our weakness and failure and sin, he doesn't see us. He sees Jesus.
He sees his son. We are in covenant relationship with God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. A new covenant. A new sacrifice.
A new high priest, a new intercessor. We are now in a relationship with God the Father Almighty through. Through the covenant relationship of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And nothing else will work.
Nothing else will work.
There's only one name that saved Mephibosheth. Jonathan.
That's the only name that saved Mephibosheth. Not Saul, not Mephibosheth, Jonathan.
Your name isn't going to save you.
Only one name will save you, and that's the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is the blood of a new covenant.
That we are now in covenant with God Almighty through the grace and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and not of works.
It is. One of the most powerful and beautiful little passages of scripture in the whole Bible is the deliverance of. Of Mephibosheth. And it speaks to us.
It doesn't come early in the time of David. It comes when David is king.
Full authority is in him life and death.
This is not some kind of a republic. There's not going to be a Senate hearing.
All David has to do is snap his fingers and they will kill that boy. They want to. They're ready to see blood.
They fought in the civil war, too.
And when Mephibosheth lies crippled and hopeless on the floor before David.
David remembers his covenant.
And he sees Jonathan.
He loves Mephibosheth as if he were Jonathan himself.
God loves us as if we are now his children, his sons and daughters, because he sees his firstborn.
Firstborn, not lastborn.
Jesus is the firstborn from the dead.
He now sees us as his children and remembers his covenant.
Now I want to say a word about remembering his covenant, which is remembering God's promises. It's a phrase that's repeated throughout the Bible and it is even now in a couple of modern chorus praise courses. Remember your covenant, O Lord.
We use remember to mean. For example, I got to the grocery store and I can't remember why I'm here.
I made a list out and I didn't remember to take the list with me.
But that's not what it means in the Old Testament.
It means not remember in the sense that God forgot it and he said, oh, yeah, that covenant thing.
It's not that.
It is that he honors his covenant.
It presides over his decisions.
That covenant is our hope because God will never forget his covenant. God will never ignore his covenant. God will never abrogate his covenant. It will always be because that covenant is in the name and blood of. Of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It is through him, by him, that we are saved. We are. When we see ourselves, we ought to see ourselves as Mephibosheth. We are not the wealthy, prominent, healthy, successful people that everybody thinks that we are.
We are actually the little crippled child of a rebellious people who tried to kill the true king.
And it is through that same covenant sacrifice that we are saved and redeemed.
So this same David now Judge.
As a judge, he now becomes the source of mercy.
Do you see how that speaks to us?
The judgment seat of God.
When the blood is poured on the judgment seat, it becomes a mercy seat.
God is the righteous judge of the universe.
He sees every sin. Nothing is hidden from him. He knows our most depraved thoughts. He knows our wickedest moments. He knows our petty little jealousies and envies. He sees it all. Nothing is hidden from God.
When we fall before him, wounded and sinful, what will we say?
Only one name. Jesus.
The blood of Jesus and that blood that's on the mercy seat. As David, the righteous judge of Israel, becomes the merciful father of Mephibosheth, he adopts Mephibosheth, he says. He sits by me. He eats at my table.
So years and years ago, I was in the Kodaka airport in Accra, and I was waiting for my flight.
A Ghanaian, a young man, came over and sat beside me. And he said, osofu pastor. Are you a priest? Are you a Catholic priest?
Are you a priest? I said, are you a Catholic?
He said, yes, I'm a Catholic. I said, I'm all the priest you need.
So he said, I've been having a dream.
I have it. Not every night, but I have it most nights. It's the same dream. I dream it night after night after night after night.
And he said, it has begun to occur to me that if I could just tell this dream to a no Sofu, he would be able to tell me what it means.
I said, well, I don't know how handy I am with dream interpretation, but tell me your dream.
He said, I dream I'm walking through a beautiful garden, and all of a sudden a snake, a mamba, comes to me. And he's coming after me and he's trying to get me, but it's as though he's only trying to strike the back of my leg, like at my heel or something.
And he just. So I jump out of the way and the snake keeps coming. This mamba's striking at me and I'm running, and it just looks like I can't escape and I can't escape. And all of a sudden he said, I can't see who it is, but hands reach down and pick me up and set me in a throne, a stool. It doesn't make sense in English, but a stool would be like, for the Asante, like a king of Ghana.
He says, he sets me in a stool, like the stool of the Asantehene. He sets me in the Stool. And then I watch him. And he. And he steps on the serpent, right on his head.
He said, do you think that means anything?
I thought he was having me on.
I know. I'm serious. I said, oh, come on.
I said, you know what that means, don't you? He said, no. I dream at night after night after night. I can't get it out of my head.
And I began with the Garden of Eden. Talked about the seed of the woman that would come and bruise the serpent's head. And that the serpent wanted to wound the sons and daughters of Adam. And that finally, that according to the book of Ephesians, that he will come who will lift us up to sit together with him in heavenly places.
And he began to weep. He's just crying.
Never forget it.
He said, God showed me all this in a dream.
Why would he do that?
I said, why did he do it at all?
Why did he do it in the Bible?
Why did Jesus do it?
Why does he do it at all?
Do you have any answer for that? Why would he do that for you?
And he looked up at me, and I'll never forget it. He said, oh, he must love me.
It was a beautiful, beautiful moment. Alone, sitting in an airport.
That young guy prayed with me to receive Christ as his savior.
But I have thought to myself over and over again, if we could just get that vision, that image that we are like Mephibosheth, hiding out in some desert place, lonely and broken and diseased and hopeless.
And that somebody drags us before the throne of judgment, which we deserve.
And Jesus says, judgment becomes mercy here.
Judgment becomes mercy here.
And he lifts us up to sit together with him in heavenly places.
And he says, now feast with me.
From now on, eats at my table.
David was a prophet, a king, a man of violence and bloodshed and a complicated, complex human being the like of which we may never see again.
Well, let me.
Let me just finish with this.
David then calls a man named Ziba, and he says, you were Saul's servant.
Now, this is Saul's grandson, Mephibosheth.
As you serve Saul, I want you to serve Mephibosheth.
He's crippled.
He owns a farm. He can't plow his farm.
I want you to be his farm manager. I want you to watch over him, take care of him, and I'll hold you accountable for it.
Take care of his. Of his farm, of his life, of his person. I entrust him to you.
I want you to have Ziba in your mind as we move through the next Couple of weeks.
Mephibosheth and Ziba rise again.
All right, let me say this about the structure, and then we'll be pretty much ready to go in. 1:2 Samuel. 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles.
Do any of you ever. I'm not saying if you particularly like it, but have any of you ever been to or seen a part of an opera? Anybody? Raise your hand. I have a weakness for opera. It's crazy. I know. I know. I like opera the same way I like physics. I like to read physics. I can't understand a word of it, but it amuses me. And the same is true with opera. I can't tell you the distinctive of the aria of such and such an opera, but there's something about. I like opera. I like the. I like Wagnerian opera. You know, the Valkyries swooping in and the fat lady with the steel brassiere and the pitchfork.
I like the whole. I like the wildness of opera.
But here's something I learned about opera. And it's also true of symphonic music. When you're going to hear a whole symphony in the prelude, as the music goes along, you hear this little flute solo. It'll just sound for just a bar, half a bar, a little flute solo. And you don't even quite hear it at first. And then it plays a little bit again over here and then a little bit over here. And then in the third act, the flute becomes the dominant thing. And that music rises and it comes and it's huge. And you say, oh, I heard that in the opening movement. I heard that, but I didn't realize it was important. But here it is. The life of David is like that.
There are things that happen back here, and you almost can't imagine that they're significant. And then you get to a place that's 20 or 30 years later, and you say, oh, like the covenant with Jonathan.
That happens years and years before David manifests it with Mephibosheth.
Mephibosheth. We're not finished with Mephibosheth. It's the flute solo. Okay?
We're not finished with Ziba.
We are also not finished with Joab.
Joab figures huge in the life of David and in the death of David.
We're not finished with any of these people. They're all there. They keep coming back again until we reach the crescendo at the end of David's life.
So I'd like, if you will, as we close tonight, we're going to say the 23rd Psalm. I just want to say a word about it as we do it.
Can you.
Can any of us. Can we get our minds around a guy who can stretch thousands of Moabite soldiers out in the dirt and stretch a string out and say, okay, you guys, get up.
Kill all these guys?
Who can then show mercy to a crippled prince whose grandfather tried to kill him multiple occasions?
Who then can write a psalm that sounds as real and fresh and new? The 23rd Psalm is 3,000 years old, and it is probably read at more funerals in the 21st century than any other single piece. It's probably read and wept over early in the morning of people that are grieving. It's probably comforted more of us than we would possibly have any idea of.
This. This David, who was not allowed to build the temple because he had killed so many people. God said, I'm going to use you, and I honor you, and I lifted you up and made you the king. But you can't build my temple with those bloody hands.
But he could write the 23rd Psalm.
Che hombre.
What a man. Will you stand? We'll turn our eyes to the 23rd Psalm, and let's read it aloud together.
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. Now, if you'll just remain standing for one moment.
How many of you were here on Sunday and heard the sermon on worship?
I wasn't here Sunday. I listened to watch these sermons online later on.
I was deeply moved.
I was deeply moved. And I thought to myself, I want to try to end this a little early tonight.
Something Pastor said was very important.
Christian music ought to be worship, but all worship isn't music.
That's a very important and profound statement without benefit of a piano or singing or any other thing, standing right where you are seated. If you need to remain seated, I'd like to invite you for just 30 seconds.
Would you close your eyes and lift your hands up and begin to worship God, Let's Fill this place with worship.
Go on. Magnify the Lord.
[00:47:39] Speaker A: Sa.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: Bless the Lord, O my soul, all that is within me. Bless his holy name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord most High.
Blessed be the Lord, our redeemer, our Savior, our King.
Blessed be the Lord who is merciful and kind. Blessed be the Lord who remembers his judgment, who remembers his covenant. Blessed be the Lord who remembers his children and knows that we're made of dust.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. With the angels and with the archangels and with all the company of heaven. We laud and magnify your holy name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. We worship you. We worship you. We bless you, O Lord. Hallelujah to the Lamb. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. We worship you. We worship you.
We lift our hands up. We lift up our hearts. Merciful God, loving father, Kind, gracious King of kings. We worship you. We worship you, Lord. We worship you. When things are good, we worship you. When things are hard for us to understand. We worship you, God. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Praise you, God. Praise you, God. Praise you, God.
Now David says we can worship him on a 10 stringed instrument. Lift up that hand. Lift up your right hand. That's five strings. Lift up that hand. There's the other five. Now let's worship God on a ten string instrument. Hallelujah to the Lamb.
Praise his holy name. Praise his holy name.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on x@drmark rutland, 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.
