1 Samuel 16:14-23

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are going to finish the second half of 1 Samuel 16. And so, the prophet Samuel, the judge Samuel, has come and he has found the little runt of Jesse's family and set it to chapter 16. And so, how does this work out between Samuel and David and how's the story play? Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Samuel 15? Second Samuel 16. Good question. I guess you don't want any coffee? Sure, yeah. Second Samuel 16, beginning at verse 14.
Let's pray. God, we thank you for time in your word. We thank you for blessing us and caring for us and watching over us. Lord, we pray that as we read your word, your Holy Spirit would please help us to understand it. We pray that you would Let us be humble. Lord, there's so many ways that we could turn wrong as we read your word, whether we be filled with pride or disbelief, or whether we want to moralize the story or rip it out of its context. God, you know we're prone to error. We're prone to following our own fancies, and so we pray that you would please help us. Give us your spirit, Lord, that we might love you and love others well. In Jesus' name, amen. 1 Samuel chapter 16, beginning at verse 14. You want to start reading, or you want me to? Yeah, I'll start. Okay.
The spirit of the Lord departed from Saul when a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servant said to him, surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.
So Saul said to his servants, Provide me now a man who can play well, and bring him to me. Then one of the servants answered and said, Look, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person, and the Lord is with him.
Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me your son David, who is with the sheep. Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul. So David came to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Please let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight. And so it was, when the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him.
Wow, that's an interesting turn of events. We need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize? And C, what are we called to do? So, David was just anointed by the prophet Samuel. To be king. That was like a private event in Jesse's house. And now we're just like. Switch to switch, and now we're no longer at Samuel and David and Jesse. Now we're where? Saul. Yeah, King Saul. Well, that's weird. Okay, so what's going on with Saul? God's troubling him.
He's given him a troubled spirit, really specific. I don't think we know exactly what it was. Yeah, a distressing spirit. Well, we know that when Saul had been anointed king, the spirit had come upon him, and he even prophesied and things like this, but then as he was filled with his pride and his rebellion, it became that now things have turned. And so there's something else going on here. So you're right, we don't know. Like, I can't give the spirit a title or a name.
It could be he got a headache. It could actually be that he had... Yeah, but the point is something's really bothering this dude. Has he become schizophrenic? Is he dealing with paranoia? Is he, who knows if this is, it's kind of hard to psychoanalyze from- But he looks like he- Thousands of years- He gets it, and then it kind of leaves him, and then he gets it- Yeah, maybe he's bipolar, who knows, right? But the point being, he's got a distressing spirit. The nice thing is we have an interpretation given to us by the Holy Spirit in the word that Where is this ultimately coming from? It's probably coming from God. Yeah. And so, and so, uh, he, what did his advisor say? Well, listen to some classical. All right. So dude, you need to chill out and get some music played for you. Right. And so he said, all right, bring me a dude, bring, bring me a musician.
And what's her idea? Well, get David. yeah right it's the son of Jesse right he he out in Bethlehem he's pretty good at playing he's out with the sheep right now and so they bring this David who is just anointed to be king to the king the way Samuel was afraid to take or for Saul to know what he was going to do at Jesse's house because he thought Saul would kill him And now David's the anointed king with Saul, the paranoid king. But every time David starts playing this harp.
It probably is. I got demonetized in a heartbeat. But the point being, right? As soon as he starts stringing the sweet melodies, what happens? Um, just all gets better. Yeah. It chills down. Yeah. So what in the world is this section about? Um... I don't know. I kind of picked this up.
I might be pulling it out of context, but I was kind of thinking that David was David was going to be the king, and he was able to bring Saul peace, and I think that David wasn't the perfect king, but Jesus is, and Jesus can cure us all. Whoa, you just went from A to C real fast, man. Let's stick with A. You got to summarize what this is first and what it actually says before you start pushing it towards typology and calling. So we always want to start with what is this actually about first?
David's playing music for Saul. Okay. Yeah. I would say God takes away Saul's peace and the only thing that will soothe Saul paradoxically is David's playing music. Something like that. Okay. What would you underline in your Bible as the best verse to summarize this? 14 and 22. 14 and 22. OK. Yeah, that's good. Interestingly, I have verse 21. We didn't talk about this.
So David came to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly and became his armor bearer. Like that's how close David became to Saul. Did Saul know? And then I would have 23 underlined also. Alright, so now we can get to see calling. What are we called to do? What call to action do we have? How does this call us to live our lives or how does this point us to Jesus Christ? Do you want me to go through my own?
Yeah, go ahead now. David is able to bring us peace and Christ is able to bring us peace. David was supposed to point us to Christ. Okay, so you're going to take it in that direction, that's fine. So we go to Christ for peace when our souls are in distress, so we're looking to Jesus to play a harp with us in heaven. Is that what you're saying? That's pretty sure. It's more of a spiritual peace than sound waves. Okay, okay.
Yeah, I think that for me the idea would be I think there's, again, it's easy to moralize this, but Saul's downfall is because of his pride, right? But his pride and his desire for power actually makes him paranoid. Pride, power, paranoia, right? And so... I actually think there's multiple three P things.
But the point being is, right, as I look at this, I'm sitting there going, it's no surprise when these distressing things happen. when we give ourselves over to following after my own heart rather than following after the Lord. But to your point, I think it's actually a well-taken point, right?
God is still in some way showing relief to Saul, and you would think that he becomes this one who's beloved to Saul, like David becomes this beloved to Saul, and yet We're going to find out that Saul ends up hating David because he goes against his power. And this spirit of distress doesn't go away permanently. It gets really bad. It gets even more violent.
You ready to pray? Lord, we pray that we would find our peace in you, for you are a perfect peace. We thank you for sending us one better than David, one who can give us peace in our souls better than just going about and trying to listen to music to calm down. Lord, we thank you that when we meditate upon you and when you pour out your spirit upon us, we can have the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding. Lord, we pray that you would fill us with your peace, that our lives would be hidden in Christ, and that we would follow you all of our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen. May God bless you with peace and with joy. May you follow Jesus all of the days of your life. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.