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.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: If you have your Bibles, if you'll take those, if you will please.
And turn to 1 Kings, chapter 2, verses 10 and 11. 1 Kings, chapter 2, Verses 10 and 11.
So David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David.
And the days that David reigned over Israel were 40 years.
Seven years reigned he in Hebron and 30 and three years reigned he in Jerusalem.
Tonight is the death of David and the transition to Solomon.
David died at 70.
And the older I get, the younger 70. Seems somebody said they died at 70. I said, oh, so young.
Pastor Chris said he can hardly believe it's the end of August. I can't believe it's the 21st century, but 70.
There are people who've lived a hundred years in 70 years.
And that was a Dyvet. He had a lot of miles on his odometer and they were rough miles.
He was in failing health, bad circulation.
I don't know the cause of that precisely, but it made him cold.
And I know that older people often suffer from being cold. David was cold to the point of painfulness.
He was cold. Nothing could happen. They couldn't.
You have to remember that living in a time, there's no, there's nothing. The only thing they have is fire. They can put like a fireplace, but there's no stoves, there's no heat. There's nothing like that. They couldn't warm him up, so they made the decision to use a bedmate, a young girl named Abishag.
She is described only as being beautiful and that she was a Shunammite.
Now that's an interesting thing. Shunem is the village. Somebody from the village of Shunem is a Shunammite.
Just interestingly enough, coincidentally in 2 Kings, chapter 4, Elisha raises a young boy from the dead in the village of Shunem and the mother is described as a Shunammite.
So Abishai comes to be basically a human bed warmer. In David's bed. He is beyond sexual practice, so there's nothing like that.
She is just strictly to. To warm him up.
I wrote a novel years ago on, before I wrote David the Great, the non fiction book about David, I wrote a novel, fiction novel on the life of David.
I called it the lion at Sundown.
And the whole concept of the book, David is in bed with Abishag telling about his life.
So the whole novel is a.
Is a conversation between David and Abishag.
So I sent it to a Christian publisher publishing company. The publisher himself called me.
He said, Dr. Utland, I got your book. I said, you did? Are you interested? He said, well, I just want to make sure I'm understanding. He said, does this whole book happen with David in bed with a teenage girl?
And I said, yes, it's abishag. He said, Dr. Otland, I can't publish this.
I said, it's in the Bible. He said, what world do you live in? There's a lot of stuff in the Bible I can't publish.
So that book went in the fireplace. But David the Great was the resulting. I decided to make it nonfiction and only make a passing reference to Abishag.
But the reason I mention it tonight. Hold the name Abishag in your mind because she.
As so many of these stories as I've told you, remember this name. It'll surface again. Remember that. It'll come again. And Abishag is one of those.
If you'll turn to 2 Samuel, chapter 23, I want to just read seven verses, two Samuel 23, 1, 7.
Now, I've pointed this out before, and I don't mean to be repetitive with it, but the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, they're. They're not precise chronological books. So they often weave things. And they say, somebody gets over here. And they say, oh, yeah, that happened back there. I've told you this before.
This is one of those things that actually belongs later in the story.
But somebody, whoever wrote to Samuel will puts it here.
And it is David's, what they call David's last words. It's his final official address to the nation.
It's David's goodbye to the nation.
Now, these be the last words of David. David, the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high and the anointed of the God of Jacob. And the sweet psalmist of Israel said, now stop there.
I just read today a commentary on this. And they were talking about David referring to himself as the sweet psalmist of Israel. David is not talking there.
That is the preamble to his goodbye speech. David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, so now here is what he said. The spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and his word was in my tongue.
The God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spoke to me. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds, as the tender grass springeth out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. For this is all my salvation and all my desire, Although he make it not to grow.
But the sons of Belial, remember, that's a phrase we talked about last week. It means twisted people. But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away because they cannot be taken with hands.
But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear, and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.
So that's David's sort of summary of his life and of the sense of God's leadership. Call upon his life. Though I haven't been perfect, I've heard from God and I've led the best that I can. My house is not perfect, my perfect, my family's not perfect. But I've led the best I can in the light of God as he spoke to me, and this is what we'll deal with next week. And spoke through me.
Then there is a list that follows, and from verse 8 on is a list of David's mighty men.
So David evidently said, I'm making a final formal address to the nation, but I'm not taking all the glory for the success that we've had. I want to list everybody on the team. And he lists 37 champions who were with him. The gibboriim, the mighty ones, the powerful ones. He lists all 37 of them from verse 8 all the way to verse 39. If you have your Bibles with you, would you look at verse 39?
It's fascinating.
It lists all of these great 36 other great warriors who worked with David and fought with David. And look at the last one.
And Uriah the Hittite, 30 and 7 in all.
Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, whom he betrayed and had killed on the battlefield.
He lists last.
I don't know this, but I think I know what happened.
He said, list all the guys that worked with me.
And they came in with it and gave him the list. And David read the list and he said, you left the name off.
You left the name off. They said, no, this is.
This is really what's important. No, he said, you Left a name off.
You left off Uriah.
And they said, you, Majesty, we don't have to do that. He said, you put it on there.
That's the reason I think it's last.
David was a fascinating human being and his sense of ethics.
Despite his sins, both the census and the adultery, David was in possession of a deep and profound ethos that guided him, particularly with regard to his team.
Now, as David lays dying, David's first, his oldest living son is Adonijah.
He is the son of the wife named Haggith.
And Adonijah is only described in these terms. It's fascinating.
There are very few people in the Bible that are described physically. By the way, the Bible doesn't really care too much what people look like, except for a few people.
Absalom, you remember, is described as being handsome with long hair. Adonijah is also described as being handsome, but he's also described as being never disciplined. That David never. It says David never called him out.
David never disciplined. So he's undisciplined, handsome, vain.
And he is the oldest son because Absalom, who was the firstborn, is dead.
So Adonijah might be in line for the throne.
The only problem is it's no secret that David has chosen Solomon, who is not at the line of that he's down in the list.
So this young guy Adonijah, entitled, feels special, handsome, talented and spoiled.
He begins to assemble allies as David lays dying.
He's in the bed dying, and Adonijah begins to assemble allies.
He goes first of all to an unlikely choice.
Joab, I've tried to tell you, hold on to this name. Hold on to that name. Joab, David's kinsman. He has been with David militarily the whole way. He has been loyal. He didn't go off with Absalom. He helped David fight Absalom. He is the one who fought the wars with David. He went into the wilderness with David and he has been loyal. He's David's kinsman and has never failed. Now, I've told you, Joab is a dangerous guy.
But his personal loyalty to David has never been questioned.
He only did two things that David didn't approve of. I mean, not the only two. There are two things that are noted in Scripture that David did not approve of.
He killed Abner.
Can you go all the way back, like seven weeks?
And remember, Abner was the general for Saul who left when Saul was killed, left Saul's idiot son and came to work with David. And David told him to go stay in Hebron, in a city of refuge and.
But he had killed Joab's brother.
And Joab killed him, murdered him, called him out of the city, said, I have a message for you. He came out and he killed him. Then Joab killed Amasa. We talked about it last Wednesday night, if you can remember that. That he killed Amasa on the roadside because he showed up at the military rendezvous late.
David felt bad about both of those killings.
So Adonijah goes to Joab and says, I want to be king. I don't want Solomon to be king.
And after all of the journey, after all of the fighting, after all of the loyal years of loyalty, Joab deserts David and goes with Adonijah. It's absolutely inexplicable why he did that. The only thing I could think of is that he has been the top guy to the king. He's been the king's guy, his go to man.
With Solomon coming to the throne, Solomon is known as a man of peace.
So he's. Maybe he's worried Solomon won't need a lethal killer like me to sit next to him.
But this weak, vain pup named Adonijah, he'll need me.
I'm projecting onto Joab motivation.
But regardless of his motivation, he goes. He unites with Adonijah, the second person. And I urge you to remember this name.
Abiathar or Abiathar, David's priest, one of his priests.
Let's go back, back, back.
Do you remember when Saul came and slaughtered all the priests at Nob because David had taken bread and a sword.
Remember that? And the head of all the priests at the city of Nob was Ahimelech.
And Saul wiped him. He got Doeg the Edomite to wipe them out, killed all those priests, a whole village of priests. But one person escaped. The son of the high priest, Ahimelech. His name was Abiathar, or Abiathar, some people say. But Abiathar came to David at the cave of Adullam, and David made him his priest.
But David said, you remember this quote?
I welcome you.
Your father would be alive if it weren't for me.
And I believe that that laid in Abiathar's heart all those years, 40 years.
That wound, that anger. David got my beloved father murdered.
And so Abiathar goes with Joab and Adonijah.
Spoiled, disaffected people who are unhappy about the future direction of leadership and feel entitled are willing to rupture leadership, kingdoms, churches, nations, in order to get their own way they bring forward wounds out of the past. This happened. That happened. I remember this. I remember that. And they. They zero in on it. And they are willing to rupture Israel, cause a coup d' etat with David dying in his bed, and probably start a third civil war.
They figure we have to beat Solomon to the punch.
Once Solomon is declared to be king, it's too late.
So, Jo. So Adonijah, Joab and Abiathar have a big banquet in Jerusalem. And at this banquet, the intention is that Joab will get up and stand behind Adonijah and say, long live King Adonijah. And all those people will cheer, and it'll all be done before David can get Solomon on the throne. Once that's done, then if Solomon is announced as king, they can denounce him as a usurper. He's not the oldest. Adonijah's the oldest. He's not been announced as king. Adonijah has.
So they're going to beat Solomon to the punch.
Nathan, now let's just rehearse in our minds the prophet Nathan, okay?
When David sinned with Bathsheba, it was Nathan who came and said, thou art the man, remember?
And it was Nathan who said, because you and Bathsheba have sinned, this baby that you conceived in adultery will die.
That's the last time, as far as we know, that Bathsheba has seen Nathan.
Now Nathan finds out about Adonijah and the plot.
So Nathan comes to see Bathsheba.
I've tried to get that moment in my mind that her lady in waiting, her servant girl, whatever, comes to her and says, lady Bathsheba, Nathan the prophet is at the door. He wants to see you. It must have sent a chill down her spine.
The last time she saw him, he said, you, baby's going to die.
She must say, oh, I don't want to see that old man.
Don't bring him in here. I don't want to see him.
And Nathan insists, and he comes in and he says, this is his opening line.
Did not David tell you Solomon would be on the throne?
Solomon is the second baby born after the baby from adultery that died. The next baby is Solomon Shlomo in Hebrew, which is a derivative of shalom of peace.
So the king of war is followed by the king of peace.
And he says to Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan says, didn't David promise you that Absalom, that Solomon would be on the throne? Didn't he promise you that Solomon would be on the throne? And she says, yes. And he says, now, listen to me. Unless we act now, right this minute, you, me, Solomon are all going to be dead. And Adonijah is going to be on the throne.
So he's crafty. Here's what he says.
You go in and see David. And when she goes, When Bathsheba goes in, the Bible records, he's in bed with Abishag.
So he says, you go into David's bedroom and you say to him.
Nathan is telling her, is this a strange alliance, isn't it, between this adulterous wife and the prophet to put her son on the throne? It's interesting.
So he says, you go into David, and the first thing you say to him is, didn't you promise me that Solomon would be on the throne? That's all you have to do.
And when you're finished, then I'll knock and they'll say, nathan's at the door and I'll come in.
So they have this little theater that they do on Dyvat.
And so Nathan comes in and he says, unless you act now, Adonijah is going to be on the throne.
So, David, I just want you to think about this.
He's dying.
He's so old and feeble and his circulation is so bad, he's dying. You think to yourself, surely they'll let the old man just die in peace, not to the end of his life.
From the day that Solomon, that Samuel, showed up at Bethlehem and anointed him king in his father Jesse's house until the day of his death, David's life was one struggle after another.
It's something I always tell young leaders, or I try to remember to tell young leaders.
Leadership is great. I'm a big believer in leadership. I teach leadership.
I've spent my life in it. But you have to remember it's one dog fight after another, one struggle after another. If you keep. You keep thinking, there'll be a season of peace, there'll be a season of peace.
No, there won't.
Do you know why?
Because every organization, every company, every nation, every church is full of people.
As long as there are people that you lead, there will always be people, problems.
People cause problems. They are problems.
So David rouses himself from his deathbed, and he says, all right, here's the strategy Adonijah has. They tell him. Adonijah's got this banquet. They're about to announce this.
David says, we've got to beat him to the punch. We've got to make the announcement first, but we've got to have extra authority laid on it.
So he tells Nathan and Zadok, the other priest, take Solomon to the spring at Gihon and anoint him and then put him on my royal mule. Now, that sounds funny to us because we think of mules as work animals and horses as the fancy creatures. But in ancient Israel, only the top level people were allowed to have mules.
And so David's royal mule is to be riding. That basically says only the king can ride on the king's mule.
So they take Solomon down to the spring at Gihon, they anoint him, they put him on the mule, and they start through the streets of Jerusalem leading that mule. Solomon sitting there and the prophet and the priest. So prophetic authority and religious authority and political authority. The mule is political authority.
Nathan is prophetic authority. Zidoc is religious authority. They come through the streets of Jerusalem and they say, hail, King Solomon. Hail King Solomon.
Now you're at a banquet. Just want you to get this in your mind.
You're sitting there having barbecue and pork and beans, waiting. Any moment they're going to anoint the guy at the head table as king.
And the word comes in from the streets.
David has put Solomon on the throne. Solomon is the king. And you say to yourself, I should not be in this room.
And the Bible says, they went out the windows, they ran for it, because by their presence, they lend authority to the rebellion.
So it's a great law of leadership.
You don't want to be labeled as a rebel. Don't hang around with rebels.
You don't want to be part of the rebellion. Don't go to rebellious banquets.
And they flee for it.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: None.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: None of them, by the way, suffer. Solomon doesn't do that.
Now the banquet ends.
They run like mafia dons when the cops show up.
And Solomon is now declared to be the king.
So David calls Solomon to him and he says, I want to give you some advice.
He said, listen to me.
Joab is a scary guy.
You better pay attention to the situation with Joab.
And he says, I'm going to tell you about two things that he did that were that will tell you the kind of guy he is.
He killed Abner when he was under my protection.
I've always held that against him.
And he gutted Amasa like a fish because he showed up late at a rendezvous.
And he said, he was one of my top generals. And I left him in. I kept him there. But you and David puts it this way. I wouldn't let his head go down in peace.
So in effect, David tells him, you better kill Joab So the next thing is, he says, let me tell you about a guy named Shimei.
Now, I wonder if there's anybody here. When we talked about Shimei, I told you, I said, remember the name of Shimei in. It'll come up later. Does anybody remember when David fled Jerusalem? When the first civil war, when Absalom attacked Jerusalem, David and his little army fled Jerusalem. And Shimei came out and threw rocks at him and cursed him. And Joab wanted to kill him. And David said, no, don't kill him. Don't kill him yet.
Look, my own son has turned against me. Why would I kill him?
And they don't. When David comes back into Jerusalem, Shimei comes to David and he says, hey, I didn't mean the rocks.
Oh, man, I was joking about them rocks.
And David says, listen to it. He says, I will never kill you.
Has anybody in here? I know you Pentecostals don't go to the movies, but has anybody in here ever seen the Godfather? Come on, you heathens.
Oh, Travis has got his work cut out for him.
That many hands raised on the Godfather, I can't tell you how disappointed I am.
But if you remember, after the. After the civil war and the Mafia, there, the Godfather says, on the souls of my grandchildren, I will never be the one to break the peace. Do you remember that?
When he. When he's getting ready to die, he says to his son Michael, he says, listen to me. I told him I would never hurt him.
Dying hurt them.
So you may find it blasphemous for me to compare King David to a Mafia don, but I will say this.
He gives his son a hit list.
He says, you better kill Joab.
And he says, I'm not telling you what to do about Shimei, but I'm just telling you I hate that little rat.
And then he says, who you really better watch is Adonijah.
Once. Once a rebel, always a rebel. And he's older than you are. He thinks he's better than you are, and he thinks he deserves it. So you better watch him.
And he says, you better watch Abiathar the priest.
Don't let him continue to be high priest.
You better get him out of here.
So when Solomon comes to power, the first thing he does is call Shimei in.
And he says, I'm not going to kill you. I ought to kill you for what you did to my father. I'm not going to kill you. But here's what I'm going to say. I don't trust you.
And if you will stay here in Jerusalem, let you live. If you leave the city, I'll have you killed.
It is.
Isn't it remarkable when people can look you in the eye and tell you that they're obeying you and they're not? Shimei said, oh, I'll never leave.
I'll never leave. I'll stay right here in the city.
Solomon says, if you ever leave the city, because I want to be able to watch you. If you ever leave Jerusalem, I'll have you killed.
So everything's fine for a while. And then one of Shimei's slaves escapes and goes down to Gath.
And shimei goes down there to recapture him and bring him back.
And Solomon says, didn't I tell you you can't leave Jerusalem? He said, oh, I didn't leave Jerusalem. I just went to Gath.
No.
Haven't you ever heard anybody like that say, I told you to make your bed up? Oh, I made it up. How come it's all messed up? Well, I mean, I made it up in my mind.
It's just an incredible discussion, he says. He says, well, now you've done it. And so he has. He has him killed.
Then he sends his top soldier, his top soldier, and he says, go kill Joab.
Joab runs into the tabernacle. Remember, the temple has not yet been built.
Joab runs into the tabernacle, goes to the horns of the altar and grabs hold of the horns of the altar, and he thinks, they'll never kill him.
Hanging on the altar, he's claiming sanctuary.
And so the soldier goes back to Solomon and says, he's on the horns of the altar. He says, if you're going to kill me, kill me right here. And Solomon makes a remarkable decision. He says, well, okay, kill him on the altar.
So the soldier goes back in and kills Joab hanging on the horns of the altar.
I'm going to come back through these people just a little bit, but I want to give you this.
Then he banishes Abiathar, the former high priest. He says, you can't be the priest anymore. You're out, and sends him away.
But then he deals with Adonijah, his older brother, who thinks he ought to be king.
And he says, look, I'm not going to kill you. You're my brother. I don't want to start my reign with a fratricide.
If you'll behave yourself. All I'm asking, just behave yourself. Don't get involved in the rebellion.
Just stay here. You're rich, you're handsome. Everything's fine.
Just behave yourself. And it's all over.
And Adonija says, the great. This is great. This is great.
After Solomon goes through the coronation, Solomon's mother, Bathsheba comes to him and she says, king Solomon, I have a request to make for someone else.
And he says, whatever you want, Mother. What do you want? She says, not for me. It's not for me. It's for somebody else. He says, who?
She says, it's for your half brother Adonijah.
And Solomon says, well, what does he want?
And she said, he wants Abishag.
Who is Abishag?
Abishag is the last woman to be in David's bed.
So he is trying to insinuate himself into. Into some claim of authority, some claim of access to be able to. People would say David must have wanted him.
Solomon came and got the throne, but Adonijah is the oldest. Adonijah even got David's last woman hit. What's going on?
So Solomon says to his mother, basically he rebukes her. He says, mother, are you crazy?
Are you crazy? Are you going to give him. You want me to give him something that can. Cause if he becomes king, he's going to kill you and me.
We're going to be dead.
Are you crazy?
And so he calls Adonijah in and he says, I told you, just behave.
All you had to do was behave. And this is not behaving. This was a plot.
You used my mother to try to manipulate me in order to.
In order to gain some kind of authority for a reclaim on the. On the throne.
And he has his brother killed.
Now, let's just look at these people for just a moment.
The first is Shimei.
Shimei is that kind of emotionally weak person.
No real ethic. David is losing.
You know, he hates David. David's winning. I'm sorry.
He just.
Just a sorry type that just goes whichever the wind blows. And he's emotional and just a bad guy.
Joab is a contradiction. This is the one guy that I struggle with.
He has been loyal to David the whole way, for 40 years.
For 40 years of David's kingdom. In fact, even before that, while they were in the wilderness, Joab was with him.
Now at the end.
Now at the end he fails. Now at the end, he betrays him.
That is the one guy in the story that I can't quite make sense of. I can impose on him a motivation that he was afraid for his job, but he doesn't know that if you're gonna cause a rebellion over your job, your job is More important to you than God or the kingdom or the ministry or anything.
And he causes this. Basically.
It would have been another civil war because he's afraid of losing his job.
And he doesn't know that he would have.
Joab is the hardest one of all for me to explain.
And I will tell you that wound hurt David.
I pastored a church in Orlando years ago.
Thousands, thousands of members.
And we had a break off.
A few hundred people left. And when you got 8,000 members, a few hundred people, it's not even statistically significant. It just, you know, they got mad at me over something and they left.
Hundreds of people left. Didn't bother me, except one guy.
This is funny how things like this will wound you.
We had a prayer meeting every Sunday morning in my office before the morning service.
And it was kind of unique. We would lay down on our stomachs with our feet out like the spokes of a wheel, like this, with our Bibles in front of us. And then we'd lay on the ground there and pray for the service. And they would pray for me.
And the man that led that rebellion had laid by my side for three years.
And, you know, out of 300 people that left, you know, the only one that hurt me was that guy.
David said, it's not my enemy, O Lord. It's him that eateth at my right hand.
And Joab is the hardest one for me in this whole story.
Then there is Adonijah. He's simply.
He's simply ambitious and greedy. He just wants what God is not willing to give him.
And then there is Abiathar.
He is operating out of a deeply buried wound.
There are people that suppress a wound, an anger, a resentment, for years, decades.
And then at the end of everything, he said, david got my dad killed and burst into the outside. He didn't deal with it and get healed, and it destroyed him.
But let's deal with Bathsheba.
This is interesting.
Bathsheba is an easy target. I don't mean to the sin with David, the adultery with David, that's on David, really.
I mean, he's a man of power and prosperity and big, strong, handsome, powerful king who calls a vulnerable, lonely wife over to the throne to the palace and seduces her. And David takes the blame. David totally takes the blame. He never even mentions her in Psalm 51.
But it does reveal her to be a woman who is weak and emotional.
David, you're not going to tell me that David D. Said, didn't say to her, I love you.
He didn't Tell her all the romantic stuff.
But she didn't learn her lesson.
When Adonijah comes to her with something that is an obvious ploy to undercut her own son, she's overwhelmed by the emotional story. Oh, isn't this romantic? She thinks it's a Hallmark movie.
He's going to get her killed.
She's overcome with the fact of this sweet love story. Oh, she says to David, Adonai, you got the throne. He doesn't have anything, poor guy. And all he wants is this little Shunammite girl so that he can tell the whole nation he now has a rightful claim on the throne and kill you and me both.
But she. She just can't see it.
And her and her son rebukes her firmly.
So what do. What do we say to all these things?
It is this.
That.
Leadership.
It doesn't matter what it is.
A Cub Scout pack.
Do we still have Cub Scouts? Is that a thing anymore? I've lost track.
Cub Scout pack. You want to be the leader of a Cub Scout pack?
Just need to say to yourself, this may be fun and nice and take care of the little boys and everything's fine, but you're going to have one little boy that writes stuff on the wall of your house and then tells you he didn't. And the mother who will be mad at you over it, and the father who will sue you if you can't deal with that, you can't lead a Cub Scout pack.
That's it.
It's the law.
Leadership involves people and all this stuff.
The higher the altitude of leadership, the faster the velocity, the more difficult it becomes.
So I was.
The title of this course was the Life and Leadership of King David. We've concentrated mostly on life, but I was with a group of young preachers in Lagrange teaching a course down there for Point University.
And I was telling them that leadership is like a video game, that when you first start and the. Whatever they are, the goblins, or whatever it is, they're coming at you.
You learn how to dodge them.
When you get really good at it, the goblins don't go away.
There's more of them, and they come faster.
So I said it's fine to increase your leadership. That's great. But remember, the goblins you dealt with at the last level, they're gone.
You got new goblins, more of them, and they're coming faster.
And I wish you could have seen the looks on their darling little faces.
I feel like I kicked puppies.
But that.
That is certainly the life of King David, when we, when we think back over these past eight or nine weeks of the.
That really, we thought the crisis moment of his life was a giant, it was nothing.
It was nothing. It wasn't just later on there's four giants and they're bigger.
Later on, it's not just a giant, it's whole armies.
Later on, it's not just a giant, it's his father in law who tries to murder him with a spear.
Later on, it's not just his father in law. Later on, it's the Philistines. Later on, it's not just the Philistines, it's the Philistines twice, three times, four major battles with the Philistines.
Then he finally gets the Philistines defeated and his own son rebels against him. He gets that rebellion dealt with and his second son rebels against him.
David's life. From the moment Samuel shows up at his father's house in Bethlehem, David's life is filled with hardship, difficulty, stress, fatigue, everything that goes with the complications of leadership.
And that's the reason that David is worn out, beat down, old man at 70, dying in his bed, and still has to raise up on his deathbed and deal with a rebellion and a controversy.
So next week I want to deal with some of the writings of David.
This is the end of the historicity of David's life.
I do implore you, don't, don't miss next week, I want to deal with some of the psalms. I want to get to the soul of the man.
I want to deal with writings that he wrote that are still relevant in the 21st century.
So at the end of this historical part of David's life, we are left with the question with which we began.
What was it, 11, 12 weeks ago?
Why is David called a man after God's own heart?
You remember the first week I said, that's what I wanted to know.
I mean, David's got some minor issues here.
Adultery, murder, an egotistical sin that caused the death of 70,000 people, war. He's got blood to his elbows.
Samuel calls him a man after God's own heart. Before, when he's a little boy, he speaks prophetically. He says God is going to raise up a man after his own heart. That's fine. We haven't seen all of David's complications.
But a thousand years after David's death, St. Paul refers to him as David, a man after God's own heart. And he knows everything David did.
So how do we.
Am I the only one?
How do we put that Together.
And I don't know that this is the best explanation. It's the explanation I have now.
If the pastor will have me back next summer, maybe I have a better explanation. But this is the best explanation I have now.
I think most people misunderstand when it says man after God's own heart.
I think that they think it means a man like God's own heart.
I think it means a man in pursuit of God's heart, a man after it.
I could be after a prize.
David is like one of these great big, bruising Southeastern Conference fullbacks.
They come through that line at you like a freight train.
You can tackle them, you can get them down. They'll fall, but they're going to fall for three and a half yards.
And you know what?
That's not the end of them. They're going to get up and they're going to hit you again and again and again. Because what they're after is that goal line.
They're not concerned about you. They're not concerned about the defense.
They're not concerned about teams from godforsaken foreign countries like Michigan and Illinois.
They're concerned about one thing. They're a man after the goal line.
They're a man after the goal line.
That's the way.
Maybe if I ever see him, David will say, you know, you really misrepresented me.
But that's the way I see David.
Focused.
Okay. He falls. Okay, I fell. Okay, I fell. I'm going to get up and go again. I fell again. I'm going to get up and go again.
Philistines, giants, the desert, betrayal, defeat.
I'm after God's heart right to the end.
God told me Solomon was to be on the throne, and I'm going to get up from my deathbed and make it happen.
Well, let's stand together and we'll turn to David's Masterpiece, Psalm the 23rd. By number and next to last time.
We'll read it all together. Are 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.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on x @dr. Mark Rutland, or visit his website, markrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leaders Notebook.
