In this episode, host Rick Hughes delves deep into the Old Testament tales of David and King Saul, unraveling how fear, jealousy, and political machinations impacted their lives and kingdom. With lessons drawn from David’s experience of dealing with adversity through faith and moral convictions, listeners are prompted to reflect on their own journeys and the choices they make when faced with challenges. Join us for an enriching discussion that blends biblical history with real-life applications.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. As usual, always, it’s about 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and and done without any type of human manipulation. That means we don’t appeal to people for money. We don’t ask to sell you anything. We’re not trying to get you to join anything. We just want to give you some accurate information. Hopefully that information will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And if you are of a mindset, you can orient and adjust to the plan. That’s really up to you because God gave you volition. He gave you a chooser, a choice. And your life will be what you choose it to be. As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is, the Bible says. And that’s the real you. So as we go through these Flotline radio shows, introducing the principles of the Flotline or the Forward Line of Troops, which simply is 10 unique problem-solving devices that you learn and deploy on the forward compartment of your soul so that you will think about these things when you come into adversity. And you will use these 10 problem-solving devices to stop the outside sources of adversity before they become the inside source of stress. So that’s why we teach them. That’s why we go into the Bible. That’s why we get out these biblical principles and hopefully things that will encourage you and challenge you in the way that you think in your life. I hope so. So today we’re going to remind you of a couple of things. We have all of our messages are transcribed. And as a matter of fact, all of 2019 are transcribed in three volumes. So if you’d like to read those, we make them available free of charge. Three nice-sized volumes of radio shows all transcribed. All of our radio shows are podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Anchor. these different venues that offer podcasting, and you can listen there, and you can tap into the transcriptions from those podcasts as well. And of course, we have other books and material that we printed up and make available free of charge. So it’s particularly the biblical principles and promises found in the Bible, one of our greater new books. A lot of people, there’s not much narrative there, just a lot of Bible verses and and some simple principles that we put together. So hopefully you’ll make use of those and contact us and get those for yourself or maybe for your friends and neighbors. Today we want to do kind of an Old Testament survey to draw some New Testament conclusions. In other words, to come up with some biblical principles that are applicable for us today in our life. So we’re going to take a look at David who became the eventual king of Israel and how he allowed his fear to capture him and make a series of bad decisions. Now you and I know that none of us are perfect, no one, so we’re not picking on David, but we’re using that to look at these principles and apply them to our own life, but no one’s perfect except the Lord Jesus Christ. But what we’re going to take a look at is a lot of political intrigue by King Saul who became jealous of David, the future king of Israel. You may remember how David as a teenager was able to defeat the Philistine celebrity named Goliath from the city of Gath. And you need to remember what hometown he’s from because it’s going to be coming up in a minute, interesting, in the radio show. Goliath was from Gath and David killed him on the battlefield when the Philistines sent out their champion to challenge anyone from Saul’s army to come out and fight him. And no one would until David showed up. And of course, you know the story how David defeated him in the dried up riverbed with a slingshot. So in 1 Samuel 17, verses 57 and 58, David is introduced to King Saul who really didn’t know who he was. He just thought he had a sucker that would go down and distract the giant while he could maneuver his men to get behind him and maybe attack him from the rear. So 1 Samuel 17, 57, as soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, that’s Goliath, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with David still holding to Philistine’s head. Now you can picture this. Here’s this young teenage boy, maybe 18, 19, and he has the head of the decapitated giant in his hand, and Abner says, the king has got to see this, so come on with me, son. So blood dripping everywhere, up they go to see King Saul. And Saul said in verse 58, when he looked at him, whose son are you, young man? And David said, I am the son of your servant Jesse from the city of Bethlehem. Now, it didn’t take much for Saul to recruit him on the spot and assign him a place in the army. Matter of fact, David never went back home from that day. Listen to 1 Samuel 18 too. From that day, Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. So he was drafted immediately into Saul’s army when all he did was go down and take some cheese and bread to his brother’s who were fighting the Philistines and nothing had been heard for 40 days. So Jesse said, you need to go down there and find out if your brothers are still alive and bring a report to me. He had no idea he’s going to wind up being the champion of the battle and defeating the champion of the Philistines. That’s what God does sometimes. God raises up invisible heroes out of nowhere. And he did it. So he never went back home. And it’s here that Saul’s son named Jonathan became best friends with young David. They became tight, really good friends. Listen to 1 Samuel 18, 3 through 4. Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. That’s close friendship love. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David along with his tunic, even his sword, his bow, and his belt. Now, keep this in mind. David was a shepherd. He didn’t have a military uniform and he just got recruited into the army. So rather than going to somewhere where they would be handed out some kind of weapon or clothes, Jonathan just took his off, took off his military robe, took his bow and arrow and his belt and his sword and gave it all to David. David had never fought with any of these things before. And Saul, of course, being impressed with David, he gave him a leadership position in his army. In 1 Samuel 18, 5, whatever mission Saul sent David on, David was so successful that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. And the Bible says this pleased all the troops and Saul’s officers as well. So you can tell David wasn’t arrogant. He was in a position that he didn’t earn other than killing the giant, but he hadn’t been to military training school. He hadn’t graduated from officer’s training class. He wasn’t airborne, stuff like that. But here he is, and he’s tremendously successful, and he must have a lot of humility. He must not be arrogant because everybody liked him. And at first, King Saul admired him also for his heroics. But eventually, the king became jealous of David’s recognition. Listen to 1 Samuel 18, 5. Whatever mission Saul sent him on, David was so successful that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. I just read that to you, and this pleased all the troops. Now listen to verse 6. When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistines, that’s the missions that Saul sent him out on, The women would come out from all over town of Israel to meet King Saul, and they would be singing and dancing with joyful songs and timbrels and lyres, and that sounds sort of like a guitar. And they danced and they sang, and here’s what they sang. Saul had slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands. No, Saul didn’t appreciate that. Saul was very angry about that. This is a sin of jealousy. Verse eight, 1 Samuel 18, eight. Saul was very angry, got out of fellowship. And he had been out of fellowship for a long time. I’ll share that with you shortly here. But this refrain displeased him greatly. And this is what he said. They’ve credited David with tens of thousands, he thought, but me, only 1,000. What more can he get but the kingdom? And from that time on, Saul kept a very close eye on David. Yep, he didn’t like what they sang, and he was so arrogant that he didn’t get the attention. So in 1 Samuel 18, 9 through 14, from that time on, Saul kept a close eye on David. And then in verse 10, the next day, an evil spirit came came upon Saul when he was prophesying in his house while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did to calm Saul down. Saul would want somebody to come play the guitar, some soft, sweet music, and calm him down. And he was all upset, and so they called for David, and David’s there, and Saul’s got all these mental attitude sins, and he has a spear in his hand. In verse 11, he hurled it towards David, thinking, I’ll pin David to the wall and kill him. But David eluded him twice, so he threw it at him twice. In verse 12 of 1 Samuel 18, Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with David but had departed from Saul. So he sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men, and David led the troops in their campaigns. And in everything he did, he had great success because the Lord was with him. Now, Saul’s jealousy was attributed to God replacing him with a new king, and that was going to be eventually David. This is political intrigue. You could see this sort of stuff going on in our politics today, but notice the reason that God had selected a new king to begin with. Do you know why? Well, in 1 Samuel 15, 23, Samuel told Saul, because you rejected the word of the Lord, he’s rejected you. Then Saul requested to Samuel, saying, I’ve sinned, I’ve violated the Lord’s command, and what you told me to do, I did not do it because I was afraid of the men, and so I gave in to their demands. so please i beg you forget my sin and come back with me so i can worship the lord but samuel said verse 26 i will not go back with you you rejected the word of the lord and the lord rejected you as being the king of israel and then in first samuel 16 14 now the spirit of the lord departed from saul and an evil spirit tormented him So Saul had now instructs his son, Jonathan, his only son, to go out and kill his best friend. This is interesting, isn’t it? Talk about political intrigue. Saul spoke to Jonathan, 1 Samuel 19, 1, and said to all of his servants, they should kill David. But Jonathan was Saul’s son, delighting greatly in David, and he wasn’t going to go for that. And so since he wouldn’t try to kill David and Saul wanted him dead, Saul tried to kill his own son. In 1 Samuel 20, 30 through 33, Saul’s anger, mental attitude, sins again, living by his emotions. If you let your anger get away from you, you’re under emotional control of the soul. And as long as you let your emotions run you, you’re going to make bad, bad, bad decisions. Your mind is designed to think, not emote. And whenever something happens in your life that you don’t understand, you can react to it with anger and bitterness and frustration. or you can respond to it with faith and trust in the Lord. So Saul is very angry. His anger was aroused against Jonathan, and this is what he says to him. You son of a perverse, rebellious woman. You believe he blamed his mother? He blamed his mother for his attitude. That’s what Saul did. Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse, that’s David, to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness? For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, you will not be established, nor your kingdom. Now therefore send and bring him to me, and he will die. And Jonathan answered Saul his father and said, Why should he be killed? What has he done? And then Saul cast a spear at his son Jonathan to kill him. And now Jonathan knew that it was determined by his father he was going to kill David. Here are some principles you can learn from this. Fear makes bad decisions. And God’s justice will eventually handle the issue, always, always. There are political things in our country I don’t like, things that I see happening, people that I know who are behind the scenes causing waves. But it’s not up to me or up to you to malign them and criticize them. It’s up to the justice of God to handle the issue, and he will. He will expose, he will discipline, and he will handle things. Professional jealousy in politics as seen today is sort of like power struggles and power corrupts, total power totally corrupts. So powerful people in politics then and now are willing to kill so they can remain in power and that’s exactly what was going on with Saul. He knew David was the future king and he was willing to kill him so he could remain in power. But it just wasn’t as discreet as it is today in politics. Today it’s more discreet, more behind the scenes, more manipulation. So Jonathan goes to tell David that his father has planned to kill him and lets him leave and flee. Here it is, 1 Samuel 20, 42. Jonathan said to David, you need to go in peace because we have both sworn in the name of the Lord, saying, may the Lord be between you and me and between your descendants and my descendants forever. So he arose, that’s David, and departed, and Jonathan went back into the city. This was a mistake on Jonathan’s part that would later cost him his life. Should have went with David instead of going back to where his father was. So here’s David’s first bad, really bad decision. He’s on the run from Saul, and he goes to a town called Nob. David flees from Saul and goes to Nob. He goes into the survival mode. Fear turns to flight. And he goes to Nob where the temple is located and the Ark of the Covenant is there. In 2120 of 1 Samuel, David went to Nob to Amalek the priest. And Amalek trembled when he met him and said, why are you alone? Why is no one with you? And now David is going to hide and lie so he can secure provisions for himself. And so he lies to the priest. This is another bad decision. God never authorizes lying. He doesn’t do that. If you’re having to lie to maintain your position or lie to gain power, you are totally, totally out of line and totally wrong. So here’s his lie. David said to Elimelech the priest, the king ordered me on some business, ha, ha, ha, ha, and said to me, don’t let anyone know anything about what I’m sending you to do or what I commanded you to do, and I’ve directed my young men to such and such a place. So therefore now, what do you have on hand? get me five loaves of bread so I can be fed. And the priest Elimelech said, well, there’s no common bread on hand. There’s only the holy bread. If the young men here have at least kept themselves from women, And David answered the priest and said unto him, Truly women have been kept from us for about three days since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in effect common, even though it was consecrated on the vessel this day. So the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no other bread, nothing but the show bread which had been taken from him before the Lord, in order to put the new hot bread in its place. on the day when he was taken away. Now this is, let me explain what that is. Every day, they had showbread sitting on a table in front of the Ark of the Covenant. Each loaf weighed about four pounds, and there were probably 10 or 12 loaves of showbread there. And they changed it every seven days. So this bread that he’s getting is seven days old. But it’s enough to feed himself and the men that were with him. Now, Here’s the problem. A certain man of the servants of Saul happened to be there that day, and his name was Doag the Edomite. Now this is a real rat here, the real rat. He’s a chief of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul. And David said to Elimelech, is there not here on hand a weapon like a spear or sword? Because I didn’t bring mine, and I don’t have any weapons. So I had to be in a hurry, and the king’s business required haste. And verse 9, so the priest said, well, the sword of Goliath is here, the Philistine that you killed. And there it is wrapped in the cloth behind this epithet. You can take that if you want it, for there’s nothing else here. And David said, there’s none like it. Give it to me. So he got bread and he got Goliath’s sword. That’s show bread. Interesting stuff. There was at least 10 to 12 cakes of bread, as I said, each weighing about 4.5 pounds. And Doag the rat is there and sees all of this. 1 Samuel 22, 9 and 10. But Doag the Edomite, who was standing with Saul’s officials, said to Saul, I saw the son of Jesse come to Amalek, the son of Ahitub, at Nob. And Amalek inquired of the Lord for him, and he also gave him provisions and a sword of Goliath of Philistine. So he goes back and reports it to Saul, to Saul what he saw. But here’s the tragedy of the story. This deception, this deception by David of Emelech cost this priest and his entire staff their lives once Saul found out David had been there. Listen to what happened. And I know David must have felt horrible about this. He had no idea that lying to this priest was going to cost all these people their lives. Just like today’s politics, lying costs people lives every day. In 1 Samuel 22, 11, so the king sent to him elect the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all of his father’s house. all the priests were in nob and they all came to the king and saul said listen up now son of a hit tube and he answered well i’m here my lord what would you like and he said why did you conspire against me you and the son of jesse and that you’ve given him bread and a sword and you inquired of god for him that he should rise against me to lie in wait as it is this day. And Ahimelech answered the king and said, well, who among all your servants is faithful to David? I mean, who’s the king’s son-in-law? Who goes at your… See, David even married his daughter, Saul’s daughter. And who goes at your bidding and is honorable in your house? Did I then do something wrong? When I began to inquire of God for him, far be it from me, let not the king impute anything to his servants or anything to the house of my father, for we knew nothing about this, little or much nothing. And the king was so mad, he said in verse 16, you’re going to die. Ahimelech, you and all of your father’s house are going to die. And the king said to the guards who stood about him, turn and kill the priests of the Lord. because their hand is with David, and because they knew when he fled, he didn’t tell me. And the servants of the king would not do it. They would not lift their hands to strike the priest. And so the king turned to Doag, the shepherd, the one that reported to him. You kill him. You do it. So Doag the Edomite turned and struck the priest and killed him on that day, killed 85 men who wore the linen ephod. Also Nob, the city of the priests, he struck with the edge of the sword, both men, women, and children, and nursing infants, donkeys, and sheep with the edge of the sword. He killed everybody. Everybody in that town was killed. All the priests were murdered because David told a lie. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What a guilt that would be on David’s conscience. So a third bad decision is that David now tries to flee to Achish, the king of Gath, and pretends to be crazy to escape death. You know, David must have been in his early 20s about this time, but in 1 Samuel 21 10, David arose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath. And the servants of Achish said to him, is this not David? king of the land did they not sing about him to one another you know saul is slain thousands and david his tens of thousands they recognized who he was and david took these words to heart and was very much afraid fear panic ploy afraid of achish the king of gas so he changed his behavior before them he pretended to be mad in their hands and he scratched at the door of the gate and he let his saliva fall on his beard and achish said to his servant look This man’s insane. Why have you brought him to me? Do I need a madman that you brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? You think I’m going to let this fellow come into my house? And he ran him off. And David fled to Adelam, which was eventually a good decision because he went to the caves of Adelam. So David left Gath, escaped to the caves of Adelam where his brothers and his father’s household heard about it. And they all came down to join him there. Everybody’s at the caves of Adullam. There they are, the family and everybody. And David wants his family protected from the wrath of Saul. He had already found out that Saul killed everybody in Nob, all the priests and everything. So David goes to the king of Moab and asks for protection for his family since his great-grandmother was a Moabite named Ruth. The Bible talks about Ruth, the book of Ruth. And so in 1 Samuel 22, 2 through 4, and everyone who was in distress and everyone who was in debt, everyone who was discontented gathered together to David, and he became their captain, and there were about 400 men with him. And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab, and he said to the king of Moab, Please let my father and my mother come here with you till I know what God’s going to do with me. So he brought them before the king of Moab, and they dwelt with him all the time that David was in the stronghold. So he secured safety for his family. That’s nice. And now, interesting enough, David spares the king’s life, which is a great decision that he made. Your life may be recognized for several great decisions that you make. Number one, the children you bore into this world and how you raised them. Number two, the spouse that you married and how you treated her. Number three, the course of business that you got into and how you did business. You’re going to be known for these. So this is something David was known for. In 1 Samuel 24, 1 through 16, he had a chance to kill Saul, and he wouldn’t do it. He spared his life. It happened when Saul returned from following the Philistines that it was told to him, saying, Listen, David is in the wilderness of Engadi. So Saul took 3,000 chosen men from all of Israel and went after David and his men on the rocks of the wild goats of the caves and cliffs of Engadi. And he came to the sheepfold by the road, and there was a cave. And Saul went in to attend to his needs. And David and his men were staying in the recesses of that very cave. And then the men of David said, this is the day the Lord gave to you. And behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand that you can do to him as it seems good to you. David rose up and secretly cut off the corner of Saul’s robe. I don’t know if you understand what he was doing, but he went in privacy to go to the bathroom. So he was squatting in a cave and the cave is where David and his men were hiding. So David snuck up on him and he cut off the corner of his robe. Do you hear that? Do you understand that? And so then the men of David said, go kill him. And David rose and secretly cut off the corner of Saul’s robe. And it happened afterward that David’s heart troubled him because he did that. And he said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed one, Saul, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing that he’s anointed of the Lord. So David restrained his servants. And with these words, he did not allow them to rise up against Saul. And Saul got up when he was finished and walked out of the cave on his way. David walked out behind him, called his name, my Lord, the King. And Saul turned around and saw him. And David bowed with his face to the earth. And David said to Saul, why do you listen to the words of men who say indeed David wants to do you harm? Look, this day your eyes have seen the Lord delivered you to me in that cave. Others urged me to kill you, but with my eyes I spared you. And I said, I will not stretch out my hand against my Lord. He is God’s anointed. Moreover, my father, see this? Yes, look, the corner of your robe is in my hand because I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you. And you can see there’s no evil, no rebellion in my hand. Wow. Can you imagine that? Here’s Saul in the cave thinking he’s in privacy going to the bathroom while his men were bivouacked outside behind the bushes. And it’s the very cave David was hidden in. And David spared his life. He didn’t kill him. He did not kill him. He could have, but he did not. Think about that and the political intrigue we have today. The fear, the murder, behind the scenes, things that go on. None of that honors God. And none of it will never honor God in your life either. There’s a lot more to talk about this story. I hope you’ll stay with me. We’ll come back next week and try to finish it up. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
