Saul’s Death and Christ’s Death

When my brother-in-law, Jerry, died last month, he was buried in the veterans’ cemetery in Johnson City, TN, the same place where my mother was buried a little less than four years ago. My sister, Karen, her daughter, Amy, her daughter-in-law, Kristen, our daughter, Nancy, and I returned to the cemetery later in the day after the burial had been completed. All of the markers in the cemetery are identical crosses, but the cemetery allows the crosses to be personalized with something about the person, besides the facts of name and dates. We walked through the cemetery and noticed some of the things written on some of the grave markers. My sister recognized some of those who had died more recently because she works at the VA Hospital and they had been patients in her department, but all the rest of us were reading things about people we had not known.

Words on grave markers give only a very slight glimpse into a person’s life, but may well sum up the essence of that person’s life.

During the course of David being pursued by King Saul, Saul died by his own hand after battling the Philistines. His grave marker could well have contained words that he himself spoke to David after David spared his life for the second time. 1 Samuel 26:21 records those words for us as part of a promise to David to not harm him. He said, “I have played the fool and have committed a serious error.”

Sometime later, the Philistines defeated Saul’s army in battle. His three sons, including Jonathan, were killed, and Saul would take his own life by falling on his sword (1 Samuel 31:1-6). He had long before that stopped following the Lord, and played the fool to the very end. The heads of Saul and his sons were cut off by the Philistines and carried throughout the land to announce the Philistine victory, and their bodies were publicly displayed hanging on the walls of a city. Israel had been conquered by the Philistines. Saul’s tragic death had drastic consequences for his nation.

Chuck Swindoll compares Saul’s death with the death of Christ — the great Son of David:

• Saul’s death seemed to destroy hope for his nation, while Christ’s death offers hope to all.
• Saul’s death brought victory to his enemies, while Christ’s death brings defeat to even death itself.
• Saul’s death opened the way for David to become king, while Christ’s death opened the way to salvation for everyone who accepts him.

All of us know that we will one day die. Many choose a death like Saul’s — one without hope. They choose to die the fool.

This week our congregation and Lisa McCullum’s family mourn Lisa’s death, but we also rejoice because she had chosen to accept the redeeming death of the great Son of David. Her joy at knowing Christ touched us all. May we choose to face life and death as she did, with the hope of Christ.

How Is Your Church’s Heart?

In the late 1930s, Carl Sandburg finished a four-volume masterpiece, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years. As Sandberg sought for an appropriate title of the seventy-fifth chapter, covering the events immediately following Lincoln’s assassination, he settled on a quaint line from an old woodsman’s proverb, “A tree is best measured when it’s down.” Sandberg felt that you cannot adequately measure the significance of a person’s life until he is “down.”

I have found that old woodsman’s proverb also describes with some precision the life of King David of Israel. As such his life teaches us many valuable lessons on how to live and how we should lead the church.

David is the only person in all of scripture to be called “a man after God’s own heart.” He demonstrated great strength of character by depending on God, but he also demonstrated great weakness when he fell to temptation and sinned against God. He wrote about it all in the Psalms. He could write about both because he always found his way back to God; he got his heart back in the right place.

David was born and raised in a world in which, as one writer put it, “the people were on a long drift from God.” That is certainly true today, so perhaps there are some things we can learn from David about keeping our hearts and the heart of our churches right with God.

Samuel had been the prophet and judge for a long time when the people of Israel asked God for a king. Saul was chosen as the first king, but he would disobey God, so Samuel told him that God would replace him as king with “a man after his own heart.” 1 Samuel 16:1-13 tells the story of the selection and anointing of David as the king who would replace Saul. That story gives us three reasons, as stated by Charles Swindoll, why we need to let the Lord look at our hearts and at the heart of our churches.

(1) Man Panics; God Provides. After God rejected Saul as king, he sent Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint a new king. He asked God, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.” Have you or your church ever felt panic like that? Perhaps you have lost your job or faced a serious illness. Perhaps your church has lost a significant leader or is facing a pastoral change at a critical time in the church’s life.

God sent Samuel to Bethlehem and showed him that he had already selected the next king. He has nothing to fear. God provides the next job, the food and support we need to survive, the strength to make it through our health struggles, the next pastor or leader for our churches. We need a heart for God because he provides.

(2) – Man Looks; God Sees. Samuel began his consideration of the next king by examining Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab. Eliab looked like a man you would choose to be king. On that day, Samuel looked at seven of Jesse’s eight sons, but none of them were God’s choice, because God sees something we do not see: God looks into our hearts. Literally the text says, “Man looks at the face, but the Lord looks at the heart.” We still need to learn this lesson. If there is one thing we should learn about how to look at people it is to look at them not by face or stature or any feature of their outward appearance, but to look at their heart. Only God can really do that, so we have to learn to listen to God to give us that kind of discernment.

(3) – Man Forgets; God Remembers. While Samuel was looking at Jesse’s seven other sons, Jesse had forgotten about his eighth son, the youngest. Samuel had to ask Jesse if he had any other sons. Can’t you hear Jesse’s response: He is just the youngest. He is only a boy. He is only a shepherd. What could you want with him? Forgotten, shoved aside. Worthless. How often do we do that with people? God, though, remembered that David was out watching the sheep. He was chosen and anointed as king because of his character. I have often been surprised at the people God can use, because he remembers when we forget.

So, how is your heart? How is the heart of your church? Do you work at letting God develop within you and your church a heart that trusts in him?

When You Are Hiding In a Cave….

 

David had perhaps the most difficult path to becoming king of Israel of any king in history. He did not seek the throne; rather the throne sought him. Samuel anointed him to replace Saul as king, and David remained true to his anointing, but it could not have been easy.

We have already seen in 1 Samuel 18-21 that David lost his position in Saul’s army, his wife, his mentor, Samuel, his friend, Jonathan, and his dignity and self respect. When 1 Samuel 22 opens, David is fleeing from Saul and he “escaped to the cave of Adullam.” He had no security, he had no food, he had no one to talk to, he had no promise to cling to, and he had no hope that anything would ever change. He was in a dark cave, away from everything and everybody he loved. Everybody except God. The only people with him were 400 people who themselves were “in distress or in debt or discontent.”

That would not be the last cave in which he would hide from Saul. We get a glimpse at how he felt about these experiences in Psalm 142, which is a record of David crying out to God while in the cave.

I cry aloud to the LORD;
I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy.
I pour out my complaint before him;
before him I tell my trouble.
When my spirit grows faint within me,
it is you who know my way.
In the path where I walk
men have hidden a snare for me.
Look to my right and see;
no one is concerned for me.
I have no refuge;
no one cares for my life.
I cry to you, O LORD;
I say, "You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living."
Listen to my cry,
for I am in desperate need;
rescue me from those who pursue me,
for they are too strong for me.
Set me free from my prison,
that I may praise your name.
Then the righteous will gather about me
because of your goodness to me.

What does David do while he hides in the cave? He cries out to God; he pours out his complaint to the Lord. He recognizes that God is his refuge. He would continue for quite some time to flee from Saul, but in the cave he renewed his commitment to trust in God no matter how difficult his circumstances.

None of us are hiding in a cave with 400 distraught people, but at some time, we have all felt we were alone, with no one to help us, no promise to cling to, and no hope for the future. If you have faced such circumstances in the past, you will likely face them again in the future. There is only one person who can really help at such times. We should learn from David to cry out to the Lord, make our complaint to him. As he was for David, the Lord will always be there for us.

Unbroken

In her bestselling book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand tells the amazing story of Louis Zamperini, 1936 Olympic distance runner and bombardier in the military during World War II and prisoner-of-war. His is a story of endurance and redemption that both reinforces and informs the mission God has given to the church as a body and to individual believers.

Zamperini was a prankster as a boy and through his teen years. Some of his pranks were harmful or illegal, yet he continually survived them. Then in high school he became a track athlete and became one of the best 5,000 meter runners in history and then one of the best mile-runners in history. He went to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. When he returned home, he trained for the 1940 Olympics, only to have them cancelled due to war.

From the story of those early years of Zamperini’s life, we learn our first lesson for the church: Young people who appear to be growing up to be a nuisance can develop into worthwhile individuals. We always need to realize this in the church because we are called to help people make the most out of their lives.

With his Olympic dream gone, Zamperini ended up in the army, serving as a bombardier in the Pacific. On May 27, 1943, Zamperini's bomber left Oahu in search of survivors from a downed plane. About 800 miles from the base, one of the engines cut out and the bomber plunged into the ocean. Zamperini and another soldier would stay afloat on a tiny life raft for 47 days—a world record for survival at sea. After confronting sharks, starvation, and dementia, their real battle would begin. Zamperini spent the next two years as a Japanese POW in the notorious Sugamo Prison. In particular, a guard named Watanabe (nicknamed "the Bird") ensured that Louis endured constant physical torture and verbal humiliation—all in an attempt to shatter the spirit of the American soldiers.

Zamperini would survive his prisoner-of-war ordeal, and leave us another lesson: Survival is possible even in the most extreme circumstances. Of all people, those of us who follow Christ should understand that people can overcome. It is, in fact, our responsibility in the church to nurture people through their difficulties in order to help them survive. At the same time, we need always to remember to trust God in our own difficulties.

In 1944, after Louis had been declared dead, he returned to America to a rush of publicity. Unfortunately, his life quickly descended into a new self-made prison of alcoholism and bitterness. In particular, Louis now endured constant nightmares about his past and an obsessive drive to murder "the Bird." But the walls of addiction and hatred started to crumble in 1949 when Louis attended a Billy Graham crusade and heard the gospel and trusted Christ.

After receiving Christ, in the words of Laura Hildenbrand:

When [Louie] thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him. He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that the Bird had striven to make him. In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness, had fallen away. That morning, he believed, he was a new creation.

Zamperini’s conversion leaves us another lesson: No matter how much suffering a person has endured, he or she still needs Christ. Zamperini’s suffering, as it does for many people, led him into his own destructive cycle until rescued by Christ. We need to watch for the suffering in people’s lives that shouts to us of their need for Christ, and share Christ with them.

Then there is one more lesson that we can learn from Louis Zamperini’s story. It grows out of the consequences of his conversion. Up until his conversion, he became obsessed with finding a way to return to Japan and murder his nemesis, “The Bird.’ After his conversion, Christ took away the bitterness and desire for revenge. Louis Zamperini not only received forgiveness, he was able to forgive his greatest tormentor. The lesson? If Christ forgave us, we need to forgive like that. The church should be in the business of teaching people to forgive others.

Zamperini has followed Christ in the long years since his conversion. He survived all the people who were part of his story, many of whom also followed Christ, people with whom he will share eternity. I recommend Unbroken. I especially recommend the lessons it teaches us about following Christ and serving in the church.

Contrasting King Saul and King David

King David, whose life we are learning from this summer, was a remarkable man who kept his heart right with God, despite his imperfections. His predecessor as king, Saul, began with the same opportunities that David had, but failed to trust in God. Much of what they each experienced in life is in fact a direct contrast to what the other experienced.

· Saul disobeyed God while David obeyed God. Both had physical qualities that opened doors for them. Saul was tall and described as an “impressive young man,” while David had “a fine appearance and handsome features.” Twice Saul disobeyed direct commands of God and then tried to make excuses and get around what he had done. David’s reign includes account after account of how he obeyed God. When he did sin, and he had some enormous public sins, he confessed his sin and walked the hard road back to God.

· Saul had the Spirit of God depart from his life while David possessed the Spirit of God in power. The middle of 1 Samuel 16 presents a direct contrast for the reader in this regard. In verse 13, we read about David’s anointing as king and are told that “the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power.” In the verse next verse, we read that “the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul.”

· Saul trusted himself and his army, while David trusted the Lord. On two occasions, Saul was given direct instructions from the Lord through Samuel how to conduct a battle, but on both occasions he disobeyed God when things did not go the way he expected. Those two acts of disobedience led directly to his removal as king. David, even before he was king trusted God. In the most famous story from his life, David killed Goliath with one stone from his slingshot. When asked how he could fight a giant as a mere boy with no armor, he responded that “the Lord will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

· Saul developed a great jealousy of David and tried to kill him, while David spared Saul’s life. Saul spent a great deal of time and energy pursuing David because he saw him as a threat to his throne. David, though, demonstrated remarkable composure in the light of these threats. On multiple occasions, David had an opportunity to kill Saul, but refused to do so, stating that it was not his right to slay the Lord’s anointed.

These are just four examples of how these two men’s lives contrasted with one another. Their stories, when compared with each other, offer us the choice of how we are going to live. We can disobey God, live without the Spirit of God, trust in ourselves, and respond to others out of jealousy. Or, we can learn to trust God, even in the midst of our sin and imperfection, and let his Spirit dwell within us, so that he can use us in mighty ways.

These are some of the lessons  from David this summer that I will be sharing with our congregation this summer as we continue learning from him to live with a heart for God.

Living With a Heart For God–The Life of David

“David.

“Jesse’s youngest son. Youthful shepherd of Bethlehem. Giant-slayer. Teenaged king-elect. Composer of psalms. Saul’s personal musician. Jonathan’s closest friend.

“He rose from hunted fugitive to Israel’s king. And he fell from champion in battle to aged and troubled monarch.

“David — a man of glorious triumph, yet great tragedy. Uniquely gifted, but human to the core; strong in battle, but weak at home. Why are we drawn to study his life? Because David isn’t a polished-marble personality. He is blood and bone and breath, sharing our struggles of spirit and soul.”

Chuck Swindoll begins one of his studies of David’s life with those words. David is one of the most remarkable men to have ever lived. He is the only one in Scripture to be called “a man after God’s own heart.” He is mentioned more than any other Old Testament character in the New Testament. One of his psalms is among a small handful of the most well-known passages of Scripture. He was a great poet and musician, a courageous warrior, and a national statesman.

Yet he was a man of great vulnerability, and so very much like us. He was anything but perfect, falling from the pinnacle of his kingdom into the depths of sin.

Among the events of his life that we shall examine are the following:

· His anointing: As a teenager he was anointed to be king of Israel after the failure of Saul, Israel’s first king, to remain true to God.

· His music: Chosen as the future king, he served as an attendant to Saul, offering up music to calm the soul and soften the heart. He would go on to write music that still touches hearts through the words of his psalms.

· His triumphs: Among his greatest triumphs was his victorious confrontation with the giant Goliath. He saved his nation for the first time, but it would not be his last. He shows us how to walk with God in the battles of life.

· His failures and repentance: His adultery was one of the great personal failures of history, yet he repented and found his way back to God. He shows us how to respond to our sin.

That is just a taste of his remarkable life. He also battled jealousy, revenge, conflict, sorrow, and triumph. There is something for everyone to learn from in his life.

If you want to live with a heart for God, you really need to meet this man. We need to do more than just read the stories of his life in the Old Testament. We need to see his successes and failures and ask how his experiences can help us have a heart for God like he did. So, we will examine his life this summer and learn from him how we can have hearts that remain true to God and that are on fire for God.

King David Is Coming to Westwood This Summer

 

King David will visit Westwood this summer through a new sermon series: “Living With a Heart For God.” Perhaps as much as anyone else in the Bible David teaches us how to live with a heart for God.

Chuck Swindoll says about him: “Few men in history have been so gifted and respected as the sweet singer of Israel, David, the youngest son of Jesse. His personality was a strange combination of simplicity and complexity.”

J. Oswald Sanders summed up David’s life this way: “He swung between extremes, but paradoxically evidenced an abiding stability. The oscillating needle always returned to its pole – God Himself.”

His story begins before we even meet him. When the prophet Samuel rebukes King Saul, David’s predecessor, for not obeying God, Samuel said to him, “Your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people.” David was that man, and so became known as “the man after God’s own heart.”

David always longed to serve God well, from the time he was an obscure shepherd boy in the hills of Judea to his reign as king. Yet woven in his life were moments of sin and the normal struggles with life that demonstrated flaws in his character and failure in his reign. He had great victories, such as his defeat of the giant Goliath, but also struggled with great sin, such as his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. Yet he wrote some of the greatest songs of praise ever written, words in the Psalms that still move our hearts.

We can learn much from him about having a heart for God. Let’s share the adventure of his life together this summer.