Is God Angry With Me?

“What have I done? What is my guilt? And what is my sin before your father, that he seeks my life?” And [Jonathan] said to him, “Far from it! You shall not die. Behold, my father does nothing either great or small without disclosing it to me. And why should my father hide this from me? It is not so.” But David vowed again, saying, “Your father knows well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he thinks, 'Do not let Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved.' But truly, as the LORD lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death.” Then Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you say, I will do for you.”—1 Samuel 20:1-4

     We’ve all been there, or soon will be. The doubts and skepticisms about our safety from God’s wrath turn from ordinary tidal flux to pummeling waves. Most Christians live somewhere between presumption’s mirage and despair’s desert, but every now and then the Almighty carves an unavoidable cliff of doubt over which we must fall. Walking over the cliff, we suddenly relate to John Bunyan’s Little-Faith when the three rogues—Faint-heart, Mistrust, and Guilt—mugged the silver bag of his assurance and bludgeoned him over the head. Though not forever lost, we feel presently ungrounded, and so we are, falling through life wondering if the Hands upon which we are engraved underwent cosmetic surgery. Taking Abraham’s words upon our lips, we cry, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know…?” (Genesis 15:8). How am I to really know if your wrath against me is fully satisfied? How can I be sure my soul hangs not precariously over hell’s fiery lake by a flammable thread? How can I know that the promises which yesterday I so firmly believed remain true when today I so confidently doubt? How can I know if, when I behold the Lamb of God face to face at the Last, He will find faith, in me?” Welcome to the Christian life: though the object of our faith be perfect and steadfast, our faith itself quakes like fault-line ground.

     Strangely, we draw comfort from David’s doubts. The man God chose to anoint wonders if he is chosen; the man who took off Goliath’s head wonders if he’ll keep his own; the man who escaped Saul’s jealous spear wonders if he will continue to escape. David doubts; so do we; praise God David was afraid.

     Few things are worse than absence of salvation’s assurance, than finding yourself praying with David, “Take not your Holy Spirit from me”, than having the promises of God seemingly turn from “Yes and amen” to “No and maybe.” You attend the funeral of a friend, of like age or younger, and, keenly aware the statistics call for division of your body and soul, you ask, “Knowing Christianity has the answer for death, am I a Christian?” Or we wake one day surrounded by doubt and fear, for no apparent reason, other than, we conjecture, the guardian angel of our assurance daydreamed for a moment, and Satan took advantage of the temporary lapse in our protection, and we reel with thoughts of coming face to face with a God whose wrath we are not so sure has been taken away.

     At such times, what we need most is a Jonathan; someone to say to us, “Whatever you say, I will do for you”; someone to do whatever it takes to reassure us that the wrath of God does not remain on us (John 3:36). More on this later.

     In order to bring ailing David comfort, Jonathan and he devise a plan to test Saul’s wrath against David. If Saul congenially excused David from the new moon feast, David had nothing to fear; but if David’s absence infuriated Saul, David was in great danger. And in order to communicate the test results, they devised a fancy scheme of shooting and chasing arrows. Here is how it played out.

     Jonathan, doing all things necessary to assure David he need not fear Saul’s wrath, strides confidently to the feast, pulling up a chair near his father. Jonathan risks his life for David, sitting in the place of danger in order to find out Saul’s anger, and he found out the worst. Saul was angry: “Bring [David] to me, for he shall surely die” (1 Sam. 20:31).

     The next day, grieved, Jonathan told David the news according to their bow-and-arrow plan. Since arrows in the Bible, when portrayed as God’s arrows, represent God’s wrath1, it is no stretch to say the scenario enacted by David and Jonathan was highly symbolic. The significance is this: David is clear if the young boy looking for the arrows goes beyond the arrows, symbolizing the wrath of God (the arrows) having been outperformed; however, David is in trouble if the boy does not go beyond the arrows, symbolizing that the arrows of wrath outperformed the boy. The issue of the scene, then, is whether or not the boy extends farther than the arrows, or the arrows extend farther than the boy; whether the arrows outpace, outdo, and out-distance the boy, or whether the boy outpaces, outdoes, and out-distances the arrows.

     So there sits David, symbolized by the little boy, outdone by the arrows of wrath. The arrows Jonathan shot flew beyond the boy. David was right: there was but one step between him and death. Jonathan’s presence at the feast, his work on David’s behalf, his explanation of David’s absence to his father—all these succeeded not in assuaging Saul’s wrath against David.

     What is the point of the story? This: we are David, Saul’s wrath is God’s wrath, and Jonathan is the Christ-figure. Christians have no problem affirming they often fear God’s wrath against them, and they have no problem affirming the ability of God’s wrath to put them to death. Christians believe, and must believe, that we were once children of wrath (Eph. 2:3), ungodly enemies of God (Rom. 5:6-10) whose sins were punishable by eternal conscious torment at the hands of a God righteously indignant against sin. The Christian God will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:7). He is a “jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies…Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him” (Nahum 1:2,6). Yes, Christian, this is your God, who changes not (Malachi 3:6), and this is His disposition toward sin, all sin, including our sin. We have every reason to tremble at God’s wrath, for we deserve to be punished eternally for our sins. There is one thing sinful human being have earned aright: hell. We deserve to come face to face with the holy God whose eyes flame with fire and whose anger against sin is a consuming fire. To use the language of Jonathan Edwards in his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, here is the predicament in which we once stood:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

God help us. Fear not, He has. The difference between David’s situation and ours, then, lies not so much in the difference between David and us, or between Saul’s wrath and God’s wrath, but between Jonathan and Jesus. Jesus is a better mediator than Jonathan. Jonathan couldn’t assuage Saul’s wrath, but Jesus assuaged God’s. Where Jonathan failed, the greater than Jonathan succeeded. Jonathan went to the New Moon meal to find out David’s standing with Saul, but Jesus arrived at the Cross knowing full well our standing with God; Jonathan went to the meal unaware he was risking his life to protect David, but Jesus ate His last meal cognizant He would lose His life to protect us; Jonathan came to the meal and sat in his own place, but Jesus came to earth to stand in our place; Jonathan came to the meal unsure of his father’s anger toward David, but Jesus came to earth fully aware of His Father’s wrath against us; and Jonathan escaped Saul’s wrath, but, on the Cross, the wrath of God pinned Jesus, drove straight through Him like a spear, tore Him, and consumed Him. O, believer, there is no greater remedy for your doubts than Calvary, and no greater answer to your fear of God’s wrath than Christ crucified. God is no less wrathful today than He was 3000 years ago; He is no less angry toward sin than when David lived. And sinners today are no less under judgment than they were prior to Christ’s coming. We deserve to be struck, then, with God’s wrath, unless someone is struck in our place; we deserve to suffer the hell of eternal torment, unless someone suffers it for us; we deserve to be thrown into the abyss and endure, forever, the infinite wrath of an infinite God, unless someone, Someone, else, is thrown into the abyss and endures infinite wrath in our place. Far from ignoring the reality of God’s wrath, or passing it off as a nasty rumor, Christianity affirms it, and in so doing, proclaims a love greater than any other: God became man in order to suffer the penalty due our guilt.

     So you see, believer, that God is still wrathful against sin, but no longer against your sin, for Jesus drank, and exhausted, the infinite wrath of a holy God against your sins. And now, do you know what Jesus says to you? He says the same thing Jonathan said to David. “Go in peace” (1 Samuel 20:42), only Jesus‟ words are better. It was easy for Jonathan to tell David to go in peace, but for David, the peace Jonathan left him with was partial and uncomfortable: Saul was still trying to kill David. But for you, dear Christian, there is a word of peace from the greater than Jonathan, your Lord Jesus Christ. But you must realize, unlike for Jonathan, it was not easy for Jesus to tell you, “Go in peace”, for our peace with God cost Jesus His life, and because He bore the full wrath of God against our sins, the peace Jesus leaves you with is full and comforting: God is no longer out to get you; we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1). Hear it, soak your heart in it, and believe it, for Jesus laid down His life to achieve it, for you, and for your comfort:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid (John 14:27).

1 Numbers 24:8; Deuteronomy 32:23,42; Job 6:4; 20:23-24; Psalm 7:13; 18:13-14; 38:1-4; Ezekiel 5:13-16

Saul: Maddened by Idolatry

Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning.  But Michal, David’s wife, told him, “If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.”  So Michal let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped.  Michal took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goats’ hair at its head and covered it with the clothes.  And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.”  Then Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.”  And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed, with the pillow of goats’ hair at its head.  Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?”  And Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go.  Why should I kill you?’”—1 Samuel 19:11-17

Ever since David struck down his ten thousands, and Saul his thousands (1 Sam. 18:7), Saul has been self-destructing.  Kings fought battles; great kings won; greater kings won more.  David, over against Saul, fights like a greater king, and each time he succeeds in battle, Saul tries to kill him.  David’s victories incite Saul’s anger.  In the text before us we are told why.

      There are biblical texts seldom exposited because the message of the text startles.  1 Samuel 19:11-24 is such a text, and the startling message is this: refuse to repent of idolatry, and you will be crushed, humiliated, destroyed.  Mess with God, and you, not He, will become a mess.  Play with God’s methods for life, and you, not God, will be played.  Mock God, and you, not He, will become a mockery.  You cannot break God’s Word; eventually, in the end, the Word will break you.   

      Christians worship the Triune God, which means we set the desires of our hearts upon Him, and particularly upon what He has accomplished for us through the work of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Christians are enthralled with Jesus, enraptured by Him, consumed by His sacrificial love.  We spend our lives praising the Father for His plan to redeem us (election), the Son for His willingness to accomplish the plan (atonement), and the Holy Spirit for applying the benefits of the plan to us personally (regeneration).  Christians never “get over” this, and come what may, we never, or should never, allow anything to replace God in our lives.  But, as with Saul, we frequently fall into idolatry—the replacing of God with something or someone not-God.  What was Saul’s idol?  The passage offers us a subtle clue: “Michal took an image and laid it on the bed” (19:13).  What was David to Saul?  David was Saul’s idol.  Saul idolized David for what David had: prominence from God and praise from men. 

      Michal used an image, an idol, to counterfeit the presence of her husband David.  I doubt Michal gave careful thought, or any thought at all, to the portrait of idolatry when she tucked the image neatly into bed with clothes and goat’s hair.  The image she used was probably the closest, and quickest, thing she could find in the house to counterfeit David’s presence.  She had to make it look like David was in bed, and quickly. 

      Nevertheless, though Michal didn’t plan to preach a sermon by means of the image, the Holy Spirit did.  The image Michal used is an insight into Saul’s self-destruction.  Saul idolized David; Saul worshiped David.  An image of deception becomes a voice of truth.  The image in bed is a thousand words Saul must have muttered to himself; the image is the power behind thrown spears, Philistine foreskins, and years of hunting David in the wilderness.  Saul wanted what God had given David: power, authority, promises.  He set his life upon it.  Saul was in the trap of idolatry, what Herbert Schlossberg called ressentiment (roughly equivalent to “resentment”):

Ressentiment has its origin in the tendency to make comparisons between the attributes of another and one’s own attributes: wealth, possessions, appearance, intelligence, personality, friends, children.  Any perceived difference is enough to set the pathology in motion.  Ressentiment “whispers continually: ‘I can forgive everything, but not that you are—that you are what you are—that I am not what you are—indeed that I am not you.’”  The other’s very existence is a reproach.[1] 

        Saul could forgive anything, but not David for his existence—not David for his kingliness—not himself for his losing the kingship—not himself for not being David.  David’s very existence was a reproach of Saul.    Saul was at one time exalted by God and popular among the people, but these he lost.  And, since Saul based his life on prominence and praise, their leaving left Saul devoid of meaning, and to that we can relate.   

      Idolatry is almost always making something you can live without into something you cannot live without, turning something good or excellent (spouse, job, child, promotion) into something vital.  For this reason, idolatry is subtle, and deadly.  When idolatry arrives, we look as foolish as the carpenter of Isaiah 44:13-20, who, cutting down a tree, uses half the tree to cook his food, and worships the other half.   It must seem funny that a full-grown man would worship something he cut down—idolize something he conquered—and that is just the point: idolatry is ridiculous, yet we do it.  And most often we seldom notice it, after all, is exalting good things such as a spouse, a child, or a career to a place of preeminence in my heart really that bad?     

      Idolatry turns us into beasts, into animals, into dehumanized, uncontrollable entities.  If you have seen someone, or yourself been in, the throes of idolatry, you know they have lost what makes them human: boundaries, self-control, cognition.   Idols suck the life out worshipers, and the promise they once made—the promise of divinity—eventually, if believed and embraced, leaves us not only without divinity, but also without humanity, plunging us into the animal kingdom.        

      It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if Solzhenitsyn were wrong, if the problem of good and evil were somewhere out there, somewhere in society where we could arrest it, jail it, try it, and destroy it.  But he’s right:

If only it were all so simple!  If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.  But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.  And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?[2]

        Saul’s problem is not David; Saul’s problem is himself, and his unrepentant idolatry.  And in the same way our biggest problem is not the idol we worship, but our unrepentant worship of the idol.  Put another way, you and I don’t have to worship created things, but if we do, the problem is not with the created thing, rather, the problem is with our worship of it.  We are the problem.  Scary, isn’t it, but also enlivening.  If idols had to be worshiped, then we would have to rid our lives of them, and that is impossible: send us to the moon, and we’ll worship the Space Shuttle which took us there.  But since idols don’t have to be worshiped, that means we have the ability not to worship them.  We can live in a world full of idols—full of money, power, promiscuity, and success—and not bow down.  And this we shall do; hopefully, quickly.  If not, we shall come to a rather abrupt end.

      Saul is utterly consumed by his idol, and, in the end, perishes under it.  Saul was chasing his idol over against the Word of God, in order to break the Word of God, but in the end, the Word of God chased Saul down, and broke Him.  Instead of heeding the Word, stepping aside, and allowing David to arise into kingship according to the Word of the LORD, Saul fought against it, and lost.  At the end of the episode, even Saul had to acknowledge the power of the prophetic Word: what God says will come to pass, whether you like it or not, and you will be forced to acknowledge it ( 1 Samuel 19:23-24).

      Here is the cold shower: unrepentant idolatry will break you.  Some of us may be asking ourselves why life is unraveling, becoming increasingly frustrating, and filled with so much anger.  It may be that you are worshiping something or someone other than God.  Most often those closest to us can see it.  Do you ever ask them?  Others of us, like Saul, know exactly what we must do, and won’t.  We are trying to live comfortably in idolatry, and are broken, and are breaking those close to us.  Remember, idolatry destroys relationships.  Not only is Saul destroyed by his idolatry, but so is his family.  Jonathan has abandoned Saul, and Michal is lying to her dad.  Idolatry is a rippling sin: commit it unknowingly and rowing will become rough; commit it unrepentantly and from shore to shore your raft will become wreckage.  Saul’s entire life is wreckage; his family is in shambles; he won’t repent; he is broken. 

      My fellow Christians, toy not around with idolatry, for it toys not with you.  Discover it quickly before it blinds you and breaks you.  The moment you find your idol, repent of it and replace it with Christ.  Jesus promises you what an idol promises, but Jesus’ doesn’t lie.  He alone can satisfy you, and will.  He alone loves you so much He would die for you, and has.  Why do we waste time worshiping what cannot satisfy?  There is only one thing we cannot live without.  God’s ceaseless approval?  You have it in Christ, but nowhere else.  Idolize Him.    

      Worship an idol to attain heaven on earth, and life on earth will become a living hell; worship Jesus who suffered hell on earth, in your place, and life on earth will become heavenly, and heaven your inheritance.  Jesus is the only idol who shares what He has: Life; all other idols take from you what they don’t have: life.    

Michal: The Deafening Silence of Longing Love

Now Saul’s daughter Michal loved David.  And they told Saul, and the thing pleased him.  Saul thought, “Let me give her to him, that she may be a snare for him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him.”  Therefore Saul said to David a second time, “You shall now be my son-in-law.”  And Saul commanded his servants, “Speak to David in private and say, ‘Behold, the king has delight in you, and all his servants love you.  Now then become the king’s son-in-law.’”  And Saul’s servants spoke those words in the ears of David.  And David said, “Does it seem to you a little thing to become the king’s son-in-law, since I am a poor man and have no reputation?”  And the servants of Saul told him, “Thus and so did David speak.”  Then Saul said, “Thus shall you say to David, ‘The king desires no bride-price except a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, that he may be avenged of the king’s enemies.’”  Now Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.  And when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king’s son-in-law.  Before the time had expired, David arose and went, along with his men, and killed two hundred of the Philistines.  And David brought their foreskins, which were given in full number to the king, that he might become the king’s son-in-law.  And Saul gave him his daughter Michal for a wife.  But when Saul saw and knew that the LORD was with David, and that Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved him, Saul was even more afraid of David—1 Samuel 18:17-29.

The passage begins and ends with a subtle, or not so subtle, statement of Michal’s fondness for David: “Michal loved David” (vv. 20,28).  Sandwiched between these statements is a heart-wrenching saga of two men on a power trip: Saul using Michal to kill David (1 Sam. 18:21,25); David using Michal to attain the status of son-in-law to the king (twice in vv. 26-27).  We can all relate. 

Michal was a princess, the daughter of a king, wealthy and of no little reputation.  Her love for David, a man of poverty and no reputation, was genuine, or at least more genuine than David’s for her.  David had killed Goliath, but was not wealthy or royal.  Michal’s love for David, then, was absent a cost-benefit analysis, and for that we can appreciate it.  Yet our hearts simultaneously ache for Michal.  Nowhere in the passage do we read David loved Michal.  The silence of his feelings for her is deafening. 

Not only is [Michal] the third party in this chapter said to love David, but she is also the only woman in the entire Hebrew Bible explicitly reported to love a man.  Nothing is said, by contrast, about what David feels toward Michal, and as the story of their relationship sinuously unfolds, his feelings toward her will continue to be left in question.[3]

Or are they left in question?  If we listen to the text, the deafening silence breaks, and breaks our hearts: “It pleased David well to be the king’s son-in-law” (v. 26).  The one thing for which our hearts long is to be loved for who we are; the one thing at which our hearts break is the news of being used.  David married Michal for what he could get out of her: the status of son-in-law to the king.  It would have been nice, wouldn’t it have, if David had killed 200 Philistines out of love for Michal, if David had been so madly in love with Michal that, blinded by love, he upped the ante 100% by exerting double the effort needed to attain her hand in marriage.  But he did no such thing: he killed 200 Philistines out of self-love, love for royalty, love for his own advancement.  He wanted to be the king’s son-in-law, not Michal’s husband.  Michal was a means to an end.  To make matters worse, not even her dad loved her: Saul’s only interest in Michal was using her to kill David.  There sat Michal, in the middle of a power struggle.  As the story closes, the reader feels, or should feel, deep sorrow for Michal.

I say we can relate because life in a fallen world is filled with Michals, with used lovers.  Oh, to be sure, not all find themselves in the details of Michal’s predicament—an envious father; a power-hungry husband—but all find themselves in the heart of Michal’s predicament—sold-out by those closest to them, and “loved” by self-aggrandizers.  The employee loves his employer, and labors tirelessly for him without a raise, but the employer loves the employee on the basis of profitability alone.  A child loves his parents, but his parents love him because he is a better baseball player than the son of their enemy, or because he behaves more appropriately in public than So-and-So’s son.  And someone you thought a genuine friend, a Jonathan of sorts to your lonely soul, turns out to love you for your money, your advice, your status in the circles in which you run.  They cared nothing for you as a person, because the moment you provided them nothing they didn’t already have, they left.

I remember sitting across from a parent and child some years ago for a meal, and during the course of the meal the child, maybe 9 years old, acted up a little and the parent said, “Stop it, you’re embarrassing me in front of our guests.”  What struck me was not the parent’s attitude toward the child, nor my own conviction that my attitude was, wrongly so, often the same toward my children, but the damage done to the child.  The child connected the dots immediately: mom and dad don’t love me for me, they love me for the reputation they can get out of me; they’re not concerned about my heart, but only about controlling my behavior to avoid damage to their reputation.  The child wanted a Greater than David’s love. 

The story is told of a wealthy British lady whose son cared diligently for her as she aged.  Her friends warned her he was a particularly hateful man, and he cared for her only to acquire her wealth.  As a mother, she scarce believed her friends, but decided one day to put the possibility that her son was caring for her solely to acquire wealth to rest.  She dressed as a bag lady and sat on the front stoop of her housing complex, and when her son arrived at his usual time, her identity completely concealed, she asked him for some help.  He spit on her, cussed her out, and degraded her for her poverty, telling her to get off his step and get a job, denouncing all helpless people as worthless.  His mother stood up and flipped back the hood to uncover her face.  He was exposed.  He had no heart for the helpless, which meant he had no heart for his helpless mother.  It was true: He wanted not her, but her money.   

You see, believer, what we all desire for Michal, and for ourselves, is a lover who loves us not for what He can get out of us, but for us.  David had everything to gain by marrying Michal; Michal had everything to lose.  Our hearts break for Michal.  But now imagine you’re not a valuable daughter of a king, but a worthless sinner.  Imagine that you, Christian, are a worthless bride, ugly and undesirable, banished from even the possibility of being loved, and left alone and lonely.  Imagine that you are not wealthy as Michal, but poor, and imagine you have nothing to offer a suitor, nothing attractive or beneficial to provide a lover, nothing which would produce in someone a desire to have you, to hold you, to love you.  Imagine that, unlike Michal, you have no status.  Imagine this true of yourself, and imagine what life would be like if you came to see yourself as you truly are: entirely worthless and utterly unworthy of anyone’s love.  If you grasped this, your poor heart would long for a love you know you don’t deserve, and you would search desperately for a lover who could satisfy that deep ache which wants to be loved but knows it will never happen.  What would it take for someone to satisfy you with their love?  Would it take an incredible lover, a lover who has no vested interest in himself, a Lover who cared only about his beloved, only about loving His bride and nothing for how his bride benefits him?  Would it take the Lover who didn’t just risk His life, but gave His life to acquire a loveless bride?  If your heart aches for Michal’s predicament, why doesn’t it ache infinitely more so for your predicament?  Michal had something to offer David; we have nothing to offer God: Michal loved David, but we hated Jesus; David had everything to gain marrying Michal, but Jesus had everything to lose marrying us; David’s marriage to Michal advanced his reputation, but Jesus’ marriage to us ruined His reputation; Michal’s hand in marriage meant status, but our hand in marriage meant sacrifice; marriage to Michal promoted David’s life; marriage to us demanded Jesus’ death; Michal was an opportunity for glory, but we were a guarantee of shame; David would have been crazy not to marry Michal, but Jesus was crazy to marry us; Michal represented to David instant royalty (humanly speaking), but we were to Jesus a crown of thorns, the mockery of a purple robe, floggings, spittings, crucifixion, and God-damnedness.  David married Michal to gain royalty.  The Greater David left behind his royalty to marry us, to marry you, to love an infinitely worthless bride. 

Don’t you see, dear Christian, the grace of love?  Don’t you see, fellow believer, David’s love for Michal has been superseded infinitely by Jesus’ love for you?  Don’t you see, beloved, that Jesus Christ lost all He had to attain us—merely us, simply us, nothing but us?  Don’t you see that His love for you is so powerful and strong that He did not merely risk His life to obtain something from you, but gave His life to attain you, His priceless treasure, His joy, His delight?  When you have been loved by the sacrificial Lover, you will be changed into one.  When, in your heart, you have experienced the Love of the Perfect Lover, Jesus, for you, an immeasurably worthless bride, and have tasted how worthless and thus undeserving you are to be loved by Him—when you have experienced this, you will never love the same.  You will love at the risk of being hurt.  You will shamelessly and tirelessly love those who benefit you in no way.  You will invest yourself in people who can hurt you, and will hurt you, and it will hurt.  But the alternative—lovelessness—is far worse.  The hell of heartache is nothing compared to the hell of hard-heartedness.  

There is no safe investment.  To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.  The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the danger and perturbations of love is Hell.[4]

Jonathan: The Power of Powerlessness

As soon as [David] had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.  And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father’s house.  Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.  And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt…As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine…the women sang to one another as they celebrated, “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”  And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him—1 Samuel 18:1-4,6-8

On account of David’s success, Saul’s life spiraled down into a life of anger (18:8) and intense rage (18:10).  Saul suffered from envy: the desire for the destruction of someone whose success threatens your success, whose rise in status threatens your status.  The worst part of envy is it sucks the life out its adherents.  Envy is entirely negative.  An envious person may be tremendously gifted and quite successful, yet the news of someone else, even one person, more gifted and more successful makes him miserable.  The envious person remains forever unable to live—he is angry that others are more alive than he. 

[The envious man] is not grateful for, or happy in, what he is or what he has.  The sin is deadly, less because it destroys him, than because it will not let him live.  It will not let him live as himself, grateful for his qualities and talents, such as they are, and making the best and most rewarding use of them.[3] 

Saul, controlled by his envy, lived to destroy David, but, in the end, his envy destroyed no one but himself.  Saul, not David, was a living dead man.  Saul was an addict, an addict to kingship—to prominence, to power, to control—“They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?” (18:8). 

      Addiction always commences with the addict doing the addiction—a drug user does the drug; a businessman does the money; a pervert does the perversion—but ends with the addiction doing the addict: the drug does (controls) the user; the money does (controls) the businessman; the perversion does (controls) the pervert.  The addict is enslaved: they cannot say, “No” to the addiction.  Such was Saul.  Unable to control himself, he “raved” (18:10).  Saul was out of control; his addiction for power and control were “doing” him, strangling him, cutting off his oxygen, sucking the life right out of him.  Look at the rest of his life and judge for yourself: does Saul live as a free man content with his sphere of influence, or does Saul live as a slave, a madman, ruthlessly angry that his sphere of influence wanes?  It would appear he lives as the latter.  And now consider the scariest part of the whole story: we can relate. 

      Daily surrounded by people whose power and influence prevent us from monopolizing others with our influence, we face the allure of power—of control and influence—and, if honest, confess it nearly irresistible.  But the gospel throws this ironic twist into the struggle for power: he who gives up power becomes powerful; he who grabs for power becomes powerless.  Think about it.  Who are the most genuinely influential people in your life?  I am not speaking of those who through threats coral you into obedience, but of those you want to follow, those who, in your heart, you respect and voluntarily come under the influence of?  If I had to guess, it is not those who control or manipulate you, but those who genuinely serve you and love you; not those who lord it over you, but those who become vulnerable to you; and not those who strip you of your worth to control you, but those who strip themselves of their worth to serve you.  If so, do you know why this is?  It is because such a person lives according to the gospel.  Do you know that your neighbors and non-Christian friends are starving for us to live this way with them?  If you open your eyes wide enough, and look carefully, even for a moment, you will see a world filled with people dehydrated by manipulative control freaks, and thirsting—desperately thirsting—for people strong enough to be vulnerable, to use their power to serve and love.  The world is filled with people who want to submit themselves to loving authority, but, having found no authorities who will not exploit them, make themselves their ultimate authority by withdrawing from all authority.  Springfield, MO is a skeptical culture, a culture with a fiercely independent spirit, a culture composed of people who have isolated themselves, withdrawn from each other and insulated themselves against nearly everything because they fear the abuse of power, whether political, financial, ecclesiastical, or familial.  But what many don’t see is the problem of abuse of power is not mainly with those people out there, but with us right here.  The biggest problem for the average Springfieldian is not the abuse of power by those in authority, but our addiction to our power and influence.  Every culture has its idols.  One of Springfield’s idols is control of environment, and it doesn’t take long to figure out.  When Rachelle and I first moved to Springfield 2.5 years ago I asked nearly everyone I met why they lived in or moved to this area.  The responses were, “Because there are fewer federal and state regulations” or “Because people keep to themselves” or “Because the crime rate is low.”  And after much thinking about it, distilling each reason down to its core, what most are really giving as the reason for living in Springfield is, “Because I can control my surroundings; I have power to live life how I want to live it, with no inconveniences.” 

      But what most don’t realize is that the addiction to power is deadly.  Living in the Springfield area does give us much power and control over the way we live, but for those of us who worship power and control, it fosters our addiction: this culture allows us to maximize our idol; we can live with our addiction unhindered, which always leads to envy and self-destruction. 

      You hear the envy and self-destruction from the lips of parents addicted to controlling their children.  As their children grow, the parents become angry—raving mad—at the influences of teachers, spouses, friends, employers, and the government.  And as they desperately try to put the influences to death, the parents die themselves, and soon live more like slaves than free men—they live like Saul.  Had they relinquished control appropriately, they may have gained it, but having demanded it, they lost it, and lost their children, and lost themselves. It is no accident that children of controlling parents seldom say, “Please help me; please direct me; please guide me.”  They usually say the opposite.  But it is also no accident that, for the most part, children of wise parents often say, “Help me; direct me; guide me.”  Why?  As children grow, the more power you give up to them, the more you receive, ironically. 

      You see the envy and self-destruction in the face of the husband addicted to power over his wife.  He is forever angry at those who exercise influence upon his wife: a teacher, a friend, an employer.  Enthroning himself, not Jesus, in his home, the husband loses control by being addicted to control.  Unwilling to make himself vulnerable, unwilling to be wrong or to let go a little bit, his wife goes, if not officially, certainly influentially, until such time as he stops controlling her.  By God’s design spouses have a powerful influence upon each other, but such an influence is not a monopoly, and the minute a spouse tries to control the other, they lose control both of themselves and of the other. 

      And you hear the envy and self-destruction from the lips of so many Christians addicted to power over their spiritual lives: they are forever angry at those who exercise influence upon their spirituality.  They usually spend the rest of their lives vehemently denouncing anyone who disagrees with them, and shedding more heat than light on a given subject.  They are addicted to spiritual power, and their addiction strangles what little faith they have, if any, and makes them unfit for any real use in spreading the gospel.  They cannot tell you much about Jesus’ substitutionary atonement, or about what He accomplished on the cross, or about the good news of reconciliation with God, but they could write a book, and will speak one if you let them, about what they don’t believe, and about what others believe but shouldn’t, and about why they are the only one whose interpretation of the Bible is correct.  They are addicted to control, including control of the Bible. 

      What, then, does Springfield need?  What can we Christians at Gospel of Grace Church do to shine as lights in an escapist, reclusive culture darkened by addiction to power and control?  We can take a long, hard look at Jonathan.

      Jonathan, the son of King Saul, the rightful heir to Israel’s throne, instead of envying David, stripped himself of his robe and gave it to David, along with his armor, sword, bow, and belt.  Instead of challenging David’s rise to power, Jonathan acknowledged it, embraced it, and made himself utterly vulnerable to it.  Jonathan gave David his very own sword, and by so doing, said, in effect, “Do with me as you please, even kill me; I am your servant.”  Don’t you see, believer, that at great cost to himself, Jonathan gave up his power and control, and thereby loved David and enjoyed an incredible friendship.  And there, in the person of Jonathan, we see a picture of the Greater than Jonathan, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jonathan loved David at the risk of losing his throne, but Jesus Christ loved you at the cost of leaving His throne.  At the risk of being exploited, Jonathan made himself utterly vulnerable to David by giving him his sword, but at the cost of being exploited, Jesus Christ came among us with no sword, and made Himself so incredibly vulnerable we could kill Him, and did.  Jonathan stripped off his robe and gave it to David, but Jesus exchanged His royal robe for a robe of mockery, in order to give to us His robe of righteousness.  Don’t you see, dear Christian, that the only cure for addiction to power, the only cure for a life of envy and hate, is to give up power, to relinquish power, and to saturate yourself with the Savior who gave up every ounce of power and every last breathe in order to have us? 

      Matthew Henry, commenting on this passage, put it this way:

Our Lord Jesus has thus shown his love to us, that he stripped himself to clothe us, emptied himself to enrich us; nay, he did more than Jonathan, he clothed himself with our rags, whereas Jonathan did not put on David’s.

      Do you realize, believer, that Jesus loved you so much He covenanted Himself to leave His throne for you so you could sit enthroned with Him?  Do you realize Jesus loved you so much that on the Cross He was ashamedly stripped of His clothing, so we could be clothed unashamed in His royal robes?  Are you afraid to become vulnerable?  Then you have not come to grips with Jesus becoming so utterly vulnerable that you could crucify Him with your sins, and you did, in order that you might be saved.  Are you afraid to let go of power and control?  Then you have not come to grips with Jesus letting go of all his power, trusting in His Father’s good will, even to death, in order to rescue you.  If you live vulnerably, you will discover the unexpected: people will trust you, will covenant with you, will embrace you, and will appreciate you.  Then you can enjoy the influence you have in the lives of your children, while you have it, and will be thankful to relinquish it as they grow; then you’ll enjoy the influence you have in the life of your spouse, while you both live, and will grow in marriage; and then you’ll have an uncanny influence upon your non-Christian friends, and will become highly influential with them.  And watch, someday, maybe soon, as you live vulnerably among non-Christians, they may ask you to explain why you live in such a way that people can take advantage of you.  With a smile on your face, you can explain how God loved you: He made Himself vulnerable enough to be taken advantage of, and was taken advantage of, so you could be saved.  That’s a message no other religion spreads. 

David & Goliath (Part 1)

When the Philistine [Goliath] arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.  And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead.  The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground.  So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him.  There was no sword in the hand of David.  Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it.  When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.  And the men of Israel and Judah rose with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron, so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Shaaraim as far as Gath and Ekron—1 Samuel 17:48-52

Goliath sounds an awful lot like Satan and our sins: “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field” (1 Samuel 17:44).  Goliath wasn’t kidding.  He would have made minced meat of any Israelite who challenged him.  And as the Israelites stood across the valley from Goliath, their fear and dismay (v. 11) is not surprising.  You would have shaken in your boots too.  The Israelites probably felt before Goliath like a marked terrorist, armed with only a BB gun, would before a fully-armed Navy SEAL, in an open field: helpless, hopeless, and wishing desperately he was on your side.  Probably, after seeing Goliath, some Israelites wished they were Philistines for as long as Goliath was one.

      But the end of the story is a far different scene.  The Israelites, the scaredy-cats, are chasing down the Philistines.  What happened?  A young boy, David by name, buried a stone in the giant’s head, but what does it mean?  What changed the Israelites from fearful to confident?  One thing: the Israelite’s saw their champion defeat the Philistine’s champion; they saw their anointed one, their messiah-ed one, their Christ-ened one, do something for them. 

      There are basically two ways to unfold the story of David and Goliath, depending upon our preconceived notions of what the Old Testament is about.  Wait a minute, did I just say our preconceived notions of the Bible affect the way we interpret passages within it?  Yes I did, contrary to the approach of supposedly objective thinkers who believe the Bible provides no internal evidence of how it should be read.  Why is it so important to acknowledge everyone approaches the Bible with an agenda?  It is important because it’s true: the atheist reads the Bible to disprove it, or prove it absurd; the agnostic reads the Bible to know for certain nothing can be certainly known; the moralist reads the Bible to find himself in it, and particularly what he must do to please God; the Christian reads the Bible to find Jesus, and especially the good news of what He has done for us. 

      There are, in other words, many ways to read the Bible, but if we take Luke 24:27, “He [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself”, seriously, and if apostolic preaching, which was always about Christ, is any guide, then we must read the Bible to find Christ.  The Bible is all about Jesus Christ.  He is the main character, without whom the Bible makes no sense.  Yes, I know, this approach sounds narrow-minded, but Christ narrowed it for us that we might not narrowly miss Him.  He wrote the Bible; probably, then, as with all authors, He knows the point of the story He wrote.  Indeed, my fellow Christian, if the Bible is ever to make sense to you, you must read it to find Christ; if you don’t, the Bible will become to you a drudgery—a story about what you should do, and must do, but know you cannot do, and will eventually lose interest in doing altogether.   

      If we read the epic of David and Goliath moralistically, we might derive the following morals:

1.       “The bigger they are, the harder they fall”; or

2.      “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.”

These clichés invigorate a moralist, for a time, but leave Christians powerless.  Big enemies do fall hard, if they fall, but I threw all 5 stones at Satan—hit him square in the forehead—and he didn’t even totter.  Small dogs with massive fight defeat bigger dogs with little fight, but I bit Goliath with every ounce of fight I had—clenched with all my might—and he didn’t even blink: now he’s angrier.  I took a knife to a gun fight; I started a fight I can’t finish.  Please don’t tell me to be David.  I’ve tried already, really, I have, and I am not him.  If I must become a David, give me another religion.  

      You can rejoice: you are not, and will never have to become, David.

      David was a vulnerable boy, certainly not large or experienced enough to pass as a man, much less a warrior, even less a champion.  He walked into the fight of his life with five smooth stones and a sling—somebody should have told him Goliath didn’t come to play “catch” or “Annie annie over” across the valley.  David entered this epic battle clueless, and readers weep that a war between two nations will soon claim an innocent lad’s life.  But the careful reader will notice the Holy Spirit alluding to something: David, little, vulnerable, unarmed David looks like…a sacrificial lamb?  Pause, for a moment, and pretend you don’t know how the story ends.  Does David have a snowball’s chance in this battle?  No.  Not even close.  About as much a chance as a sheep before a pack of wolves.  

      But he enters anyway.  It should have been over quickly.  With one swing of his giant sword or one thrust of his spear, Goliath could have polished off young David.  Ironically, it was over quickly.  A smooth stone, slung by a boy confident in his God, landed in just the right spot, and penetrated deeply enough to kill the impenetrable fortress.  Did you notice verse 50?  “There was no sword in the hand of David.”  Weak, helpless, vulnerable, and virtually unarmed.  David defeated Goliath in utter weakness.  Does this remind you of Anyone else who defeated an opponent with weakness, Someone who entered a fight without a sword or club (Matthew 26:55), and demanded those with Him, Peter in particular, put their swords away?

      And then it ended.  Israel’s worst nightmare turned into one of her greatest victories.  The Philistines fled; the Israelites chased.  All Israel enjoyed the spoils of David’s victory.  David won the battle; every Israelite benefitted.  Theologians call this imputation—benefitting from a victory someone earned for you; enjoying the freedom of a battle someone else won for you.  Call it what you like, and if imputation over-complicates, call it being an Israelite in the battle of David and Goliath: you receive freely what David earned on your behalf.  You win because, and only because, David won.  You receive the plunder of an enemy (v. 53) David defeated for you. 

      But there is something you must know, dear believer: the Greater David’s sacrifice, the sacrifice of the One of whom David is only an analogy.  David fought Goliath at the risk of his life, but Jesus fought Satan, sin, and the law’s demands at the cost of His life.  David risked death to set the Israelites free; Jesus embraced death to set you free.  David risked his life; Jesus lost His life.  David walked into Israel’s battle with 5 smooth stones and a sling, but Jesus entered into our battle armed with nothing but Scriptures, which Scriptures demanded He die.  David entered a fight he didn’t pick, but Jesus entered a fight we picked with God in the Garden of Eden.  David risked his life to deliver his brothers from military defeat; Jesus gave His life to deliver His enemies from eternal punishment of body and soul.  David was mocked by the ones he fought to save (vv. 28,33), but Jesus was crucified by the ones He came to save.  The Greater David, Jesus Christ, won for us, on the Cross, our battle with sin, Satan, and the curse of the law, and we receive the benefits.  Theologians call this imputation—benefitting from a victory Jesus earned for you; enjoying the freedom of a battle Jesus won for you.  Call it what you like, and if imputation over-complicates, call it being a Christ-ian in the battle of Christ and Satan: you receive freely what Christ earned on your behalf.  You win because, and only because, Jesus won.  At the Cross, Satan and the rulers and authorities were disarmed—their firepower ransacked (Colossians 2:15).  Jesus, then, so to speak, is your Navy SEAL; Satan has the BB gun.  Fear not.   

      Where are you, Christian, in the story of David and Goliath?  You are an Israelite, scared to death of your enemies—Goliath in particular—and skeptical of the weak warrior who decided to risk his neck for you, only hoping, and secretly so lest you be ridiculed for hoping in a little boy, that this David guy will pull it off.  He did.  Israel won.  But David is only a picture of Jesus, your real champion.  Jesus’ weakness defeated Satan; His death is your victory.  You win, so enjoy the plunder. 

David & Goliath (Part 2)

—1 Samuel 17

Last week we noticed Jesus Christ in David; this week we notice ourselves in the Israelites.  The Old Testament is primarily about Jesus Christ, yet also about us: “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”  When Paul penned 2 Timothy 3:16, “all scripture” referred to the canon of the Old Testament—the New Testament canon was not yet formed—so we would be remiss to neglect the personal applications of David and Goliath. 

      The primary message of the text is clear: the Israelites’ champion set Israel free from Philistine domination.  Without David the Israelites were helpless, hopeless, despairing, and frightened.  The text uses powerful language to describe their state: “When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid” (1 Samuel 17:11).  The word translated “dismayed” can mean “shattered”, where the inevitability of extensive or even total devastation looms.[4]  In short, both Saul and the Israelites believed they would soon be shattered, crushed, totally devastated by the Philistines, and if we are honest, or aware, we live every day surrounded and taunted by enemies which threaten the same.  How do you handle them? 

      For example, how do you face the enemy of bitterness, the giant of festering anger, the Goliath of constant hostility toward the few, or the many, who continually get under your skin?  The fear of facing them sours your entire attitude, and no matter your attempts to “just let it go” you cannot, and will not, and desire not to let it go.  The root of your bitterness is killing you, springing up and causing all sorts of problems in your life.  Your marriage is failing; your children resent you; your friends are fleeing.  You are continually, and increasingly, livid.  And Christians who believe the gospel can help annoy you, just like they annoyed Eliab (1 Samuel 17:28).  A Christian suggests your bitterness is really disbelief in the gospel, but you say it is more complicated than that.  And like Eliab, you say to him, “Look, buddy, I know you’re excited about the gospel of God’s victory, but my problems are too big for the gospel to solve.”  Really?  What if the gospel told you, bitter Christian, that Christ suffered, in your place, the infinite wrath of the God whose “skin your sin got under”, so He is no longer angry with you?  Would that settle your anger?  Yes, it would.  You are bitter toward others, amassing records of their debt, because you believe God is bitter toward you, amassing records of your debt.  The gospel says, however, that God incurred your debt, cancelled it, forgave it, let it go (Colossians 2:14-15).  Jesus paid your massive debt with His life; when the news melts you, you will erase the debts others owe you.             

      Or take the giant of guilt.  Every day the Philistine army (Satan; your own conscience) puts forth the biggest and most indicting sin in your life to intimidate you, to scare you, to create within you fear that Christ’s blood is not deep enough to immerse this sin from God’s sight.  So you run into the battle swinging the short sword of future obedience, or of “God as forgetful”, or of “God as indifferent”, but soon you fall into the sin again, or you realize God neither forgets nor is indifferent toward sin, and in one fell swoop, Goliath’s mammoth sword destroys you.  On the ground you lay, slain, stricken, plagued by guilt, and, on account of one sin, doubting whether or not you’re a child of God.  But what if the gospel told you that, in the midst of recurrent sin (Romans 7:19)—sin which you hate (Romans 7:15) but cannot seem to kick; sin which is so contrary to what you want to do that you cannot help but conclude, somehow, it is no longer you, but the sin inside of you, that causes you to do what you don’t want to do (Romans 7:17); and sin that makes you feel utterly wretched, even, almost, dead (Romans 7:24)—what if in the midst of such sin the gospel broke through into your ear-drums, saying, “There is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1)?  If it was declared about you, dear Christian, would you believe it?  If you have seen Jesus march up Calvary’s hill to suffer hell for your recurrent sin, and crush Satan’s head in the process, then why do you listen to the snake say Christ is not enough for God to love you?  Isn’t it about time you drowned not only your sin, but Satan’s taunts, in the blood of Christ’s atoning sacrifice?  Isn’t it about time you stopped pretending your recurrent stands 9 feet tall with a helmet on and sword in hand?  Your recurrent sin lay on the ground decapitated; your hero, Jesus, has its head firmly in hand; it has been paid for.  The next time Goliath’s ghost taunts you, run to Golgotha, and there, listen to your True Judge cry out with finality, “It is finished.”  Go, then, and sin no more.   

      Or how will you face the giant of rejection?  How many of us wake in the morning scared someone may not accept us for who we are, may not appreciate the way we dress, the way we speak, the way we carry ourselves, the car we drive, the side of town on which we live, the spouse we married, the children we had, the career we hold, the company we keep, the hobbies we enjoy, the talents we have, or the Savior we claim?  Every minute we stand on the razor-thin edge of acceptance by others, and, if honest, are tired of being cut.  Then jump off the razor.  In Christ, believer, you are already accepted.  Jesus Christ was cast off, crucified outside Jerusalem’s gate (Hebrews 13:12), rejected by His own as a filthy, unclean thing, so that you could be brought in, accepted in the beloved, and now, we must learn to live with rejection, bearing the reproach Jesus endured (Hebrews 13:13).  No one can dull the pain of rejection when you lose a job, or are turned down for a job, but rejection need not shatter us.  No matter how men reject you, and they will, even those closest to you, you are accepted by the only One whose opinion matters.  When God’s acceptance of you, His delight in having you, permeates your soul, rejection will still be painful, and will leave you reeling, but will not crush you into despair.  

      Or how will you face the giant of failure?  It will rule over you until you see that in weakness, as a failure, as One about whom men said he was no Messiah, Jesus Christ conquered.  Now, his conquest is yours, and no matter how successful your career, your financial life, your social life, your family, your marriage, there is one life, your eternal life, which God promises will be a grand success.  Your crucified Savior, through His apparent failure, was raised from the dead in victory!  His supposed failure was, in reality, a grand victory, for you.  You need not fear failure in this life, for your heavenly success, which will soon be yours, is secure! 

      Or how will you take down the Goliath of depression (assuming the depression has no physiological basis) unless in the midst of feeling defeated, rejected and worthless, hopeless, cut-off, colorless and drab, and without a song, you know for sure that you are more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37), are “chosen and precious” in the sight of God (1 Peter 2:4), possess the certain hope of a glorious future (1 Peter 1:13), are the inheritor of a grand estate (1 Peter 1:4), have been made alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:4-7), and are one over whom God sings (Zephaniah 3:17)?  Will these truths, which are true of you, in Christ, change the way you view yourself, the way you feel about yourself?  They can, they should, they must, and they will if you drink deeply of them.  Does it matter to you that Jesus Christ was defeated and rejected in your place, cut-off by His Father, and left without so much as a song, with only loud cries, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me” and “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit”?  Does it lift your spirit to know Jesus did this for you, yes, for you? 

      Or, finally, consider the giant of child-rearing.  How will you train, parents, your children to face the giant of the world?  They will, one day, leave your home, if not physically, at least influentially, and come face to face with the Philistines.  How can we prepare them for that day?  We can do one of three things: 

1.       We can throw our children to the giant as sacrificial lambs, pretending him little more than hot air.  We can plunge them into the world, with its ideologies, ethics, morals, pseudo-saviors, and religions, desperately hoping and diligently praying they find the One, True God.  We can give them a few “Jesus” tidbits, assure ourselves that their use of the word “Cross” means they are budding apologists, ripe for the robust defense of Christianity against the foremost religionists, ready to fillet prominent atheists in the public square, and hope for the best.  I suggest this is not our best option: they will be sacrificed in advancing the gospel among non-Christians, but for the grace of God.

2.      We can shelter them overly much, not teaching them about the giant, and not even allowing them to glimpse the reality of the giant (What was Jesse thinking, anyhow?  Shouldn’t he have kept David home at such a young age?).  We can raise them in a Christian commune, teach them to be scared to death of the world, and familiarize them with the Ostrich at an early age so they learn to bury their noggin in the reclusive sand of ignorant, and saltless, bliss.  We can even teach them the biggest problem in the world is the world, not their own hearts, but one day, hopefully soon, they will wake to the filth of their own hearts, and say with G.K. Chesterton, in answer to the question, What’s wrong with the world?, “I am.”  I suggest the Ostrich is not our best model; they will be useless for advancing the gospel among non-Christians, but for the grace of God. 

3.      We can teach them about the One who came into the world—into all its sicknesses, sins, dirtiness, prostitutions (literally and figuratively)—and defeated the giant.  We can, appropriately, as they mature, teach them about the realities of life in a fallen world: the world is fallen into sin, and yes, sin is enormously ugly.  The world is filled with war, rape, murder, cussing, alcoholism and drug abuse, prostitution, thieving, and every other injustice, but what is more, the root of these lives in our children’s hearts: our children envy and exploit, want control, hate, tear others down, seek escape from reality, use others for what they can get out of them, and take what is not theirs.  Are we teaching them to handle these, or to fear them?  The Bible handles them, but do we shelter our children from the Bible?  The world is not an unconquerable giant; Jesus has overcome the world.  Christians, then, must be culturally engaged, not culturally afraid, or aloof, and as such, must teach their children not withdrawal from a scary world, but wisdom for living in a broken world, and for living with their own, sin-sick hearts.  I suggest this is our best option: they will be trained, and hopefully, more importantly, converted, to advance the gospel among non-Christians, trusting in the grace of God.  

Looking at the Heart

Samuel looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him.”  But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.  For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”  Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel.  And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.”  Then Jesse made Shammah pass by.  And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.”  And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.  And Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen these.”  Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?”  And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.”  And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.”  And he sent and brought him in.  Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome.  And the LORD said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.”  Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.  And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward.  And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah—1 Samuel 16:6-13

King Saul was handsome and tall, (1 Samuel 9:2), so when he failed as Israel’s king, and the Lord commissioned Samuel to replace him (1 Samuel 16:1), it was only natural Samuel should look for someone tall and handsome.  So he did, and Eliab, apparently a nut which fell not far from the tree, caught his attention.    

      But Samuel was in for a surprise.  The LORD rejected Eliab, then Abinadab, then Shammah, then the other four sons, and as Samuel stood by, maybe wondering if the Bethlehem phone book contained another “Jesse”, he asked Jesse if he had another son, one whom he forgot about or thought beneath the dignity of a king.  Jesse said he had one more, “the youngest,”[5] a rather trivial and insignificant lad, certainly not royal material, and who was out “who knows where” with the sheep.  Samuel perceived at once the lad should be sought, brought, and waited upon with at least an ounce of dignity, so everyone remained standing.   

      Ruddy and handsome, David arrived and the LORD wasted no time.  “Arise, Samuel, wait no longer, this is the LORD’s anointed, the LORD’s messiah, the LORD’s christ.  Anoint him.”  Samuel anointed David, the Holy Spirit rushed upon him, and the scene closes.  Why, out of all things the Holy Spirit could have written, did He write these verses into the Bible?

      The heart of the text is about serving God.  Christians are anointed—messiah-ed, christ-ened—by the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:27) to serve God.  But if honest, will probably have to admit they believe themselves unimportant, or at least less important than others, to God’s greater purposes.  This text, however, teaches differently. 

      Notice, first, the emphasis on the heart.  Samuel was fooled by Eliab’s appearance, but most of us would have been too.  We don’t see as God sees.  What is racism?  Not seeing those with different color and language than us as God sees them.  What is pornography?  Not seeing women as God sees.  What is choosing friends by the way they dress, or the phone they carry, or the number of children they have or don’t have, or the neighborhood they live in, or the car they drive, or the intelligence they have acquired?  Not seeing as God sees.  What is choosing a spouse on the basis of physical beauty?  Not seeing as God sees.  What is “keeping up with the Joneses?”  Not seeing the Joneses as God sees them.  Do you judge people shallowly, by external, social factors?  If so, it may be that you yourself are shallow, living the bulk of your life consumed with “keeping up appearances,” never engaged in the deeper work of cultivating godly character.  Do you want to be used of God, while you yet live, in great deeds of service?  Cultivate your heart, and so learn to look at life more deeply.  In the words of a 19^th century Scottish pastor, Robert Murray M’Cheyne,

In great measure, according to the purity and perfection of the instrument, will be success. It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.

      Notice, second, David is forgotten—left on the outside.  His own father ignored his existence until Samuel pressed him.  David killed lions and bears with his bare hands in order to protect his dad’s sheep, yet his work went unnoticed; more than that, he went unnoticed.  In a forgotten corner of creation, David risked his life and gave his all for his work.  Ponder this for a moment.  Do you feel passed-by in life?  Do you feel that your work or calling is insignificant?  Do you feel like everyone else’s vocation is more important than yours?  You should know, dear Christian, that each of us is called to serve God where we are.  If He has assigned us ditches to dig, houses to build, pencils to push, companies to manage, manure to scoop, keys to type, toilets to clean, people to care for, or diapers to change, then we shall dig, build, push, manage, scoop, type, clean, care for, and change with all the gusto we can muster, not for earthly, temporary notice-ment, but because we have been noticed by Heaven’s Eternal.  It was precisely David’s lowly service which prepared him for greater things.  Because his former work required him to kill lions and bears (1 Samuel 17:34-37), he hesitated not when called to bury a stone between Goliath’s eyes.  Who had any idea the lad who delivered sheep from predators would one day deliver an entire nation, on numerous occasions, from her enemies.  If in this life you tend seemingly irrelevant sheep, then tend them well, knowing that if God calls you elsewhere, His voice is loud enough to reach your ears wherever you are; and if you don’t hear the call, He will send someone to get you, and those He has prepared for you to serve will, in the meantime, stand patiently by.   

      Notice, third, not natural talent, but God, makes us useful.  The moment David was anointed, the Holy Spirit rushed upon him.  He needed the Spirit, and so do we.  Natural talents are not the measure of usefulness in God’s kingdom.  The measure of success, if we can use such a word, is being filled with the Spirit.  A Christian man may be good looking, well-respected, financially stable, successful in career, and every woman’s dream, yet be a miserable husband and father because he has no godly character.  A Christian woman may be attractive, confident, and well-dressed, yet be a miserable wife because she has no godly character.  A Christian friend may be witty, like-minded, and fun to be with, yet be a miserable friend because he lacks godly character.  Being filled with the Spirit, not being naturally good-looking or talented, is the measure of success in God’s kingdom. 

      Now, what can we do to build or shape our character into usefulness?  How can we become people of substance rather than shallowness?  There is, finally, only one way to accomplish this most needed task: You must gaze upon the Greater David.  David was a child born in Bethlehem, but centuries later another Child, Jesus, was born in Bethlehem, and like David, was not welcomed in, but was kept out with the sheep and other animals (Luke 2:6-7).  David was anointed with the Holy Spirit to fight Israel’s ongoing enemies (Goliath; Saul; Philistines), but Jesus Christ was anointed with the Holy Spirit to die fighting our enemies that we might be forever delivered.  David was relentlessly avoided as king, but eventually brought forth and honored before his brothers; Jesus was relentlessly rejected as king, and eventually brought forth and crucified before His brothers.  David was forgotten by his father Jesse, counted as less than equal to his brothers, but Jesus, on the Cross, was forsaken by His Father, counted as infinitely less than we, His brothers, so we would never be forgotten (Isaiah 49:15).  And David lacked one aspect of physical beauty—stature—thought necessary for a king, but Jesus, on the Cross, lost all of His physical beauty (Isaiah 52:14; 53:2)—marred by floggings; His bloody body so entirely unsightly men hid their faces—so that we who are spiritually ugly could become beautiful in the eyes of God.  Don’t you see, Christian, God has chosen the foolish to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong, the lowly and despised to shame the high and popular, and the worthless to shame the seemingly worthy (1 Corinthians 1:26-28).  If we miss this, we will miss Christ, and if we miss Christ, then we remain ever frustrated by our lot in life.  So if you tend sheep in no-man’s-land, forgotten by those who should notice, and possess very few qualities which the world honors, despair not.  Your Savior took on each of these for you, and now with you accompanies you as a friend in no-man’s-land, remembers you because the Cross-spike has engraved you on the palm of His hand (Isaiah 49:16), and cares not what natural talents you were born with because His Holy Spirit, who indwells you, not natural talent, is what you need to serve Him.     

      Your beauty will fade, dear Christian, and your external appearance will give way to something, hopefully, more substantive.  In times of emotional/spiritual crisis, in times when divine providence sends hardships insurmountable, in times when you are relegated to the periphery, unnoticed, cast out, and forgotten, your character will be exposed.  If anger, frustration and despair boil to the top, you know you have never been, or are not currently, a person of godly character.  But feed your soul on the ugly One, the forsaken One, the lowly One who became such for you, believer, and you will be satisfied with who you are in Him, no matter where you serve.     

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