Oh, let the Son of God enfold you
With His Spirit and His love Let Him
fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh,
let Him have the things that hold you
And His Spirit like a dove Will descend
upon your life And make you whole Welcome
to The Word for Today The broadcast ministry
of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, close
to Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading
us on a verse by verse venture Through
the entire Bible And on today's edition of
The Word for Today We find David lamenting
over the death of Saul As we pick
up in 2 Samuel 1, verse 1 And
now with today's message Here's Pastor Chuck Smith
Now it came to pass after the death
of Saul When David was returned from the
slaughter of the Amalekites And David had been
back in Ziglag now for two days It
came to pass on the third day That
behold a man came out of the camp
from Saul With his clothes torn and earth
upon his head And so it was when
he came to David that he fell to
the earth And did obeisance to David He
bowed to him and David said to him
Where have you come from?
And he said unto him Out of the
camp of Israel I have escaped And David
said unto him How went the matter?
And he answered That the people of Israel
have fled from the battle And many of
the people also are fallen and are dead
And Saul and Jonathan his son are dead
also In spite of the fact that David
was pursued by Saul And mistreated, David still
highly respected him But David loved Jonathan And
the news that Saul and Jonathan Were both
of them slain in the battle Hit David
very hard I'm certain that David in a
sense felt the responsibility Had he been able
to have been in battle with them They
probably could have turned the tide against the
Philistines So David said to the young man
who told him How do you know that
Saul and Jonathan are dead?
And the young man that told him said
As I happened by chance upon Mount Gilboa
That's an unlikely story He was probably just
up there to loot Knowing that the fight
was going on Behold Saul had leaned upon
his spear And lo the chariots and the
horsemen were Following hard after him And when
he looked behind him he saw me And
he called to me And I answered here
am I And he said unto me Who
are you?
And I answered him I am an Amalekite
And he said unto me Stand I pray
thee upon me and slay me For anguish
has come upon me Because my life is
still whole in me I'm not dead I'm
in this horrible situation He's got an arrow
through him And a sword through him But
he's still living So he said I stood
upon him and slew him Because I was
sure that he could not live After he
was fallen And I took the crown that
was on his head And the bracelet that
was on his arm And I have brought
them hither unto my Lord And David took
hold of his clothes and he tore them
And likewise all of the men that were
with him And they mourned and wept and
fasted until even For Saul and for Jonathan
his son And for the people of the
Lord And for the house of Israel Because
they had fallen by the sword And David
said unto the young man that told him
Where are you from?
And he answered I am the son of
a stranger I'm an Amalekite And David said
unto him How is it That you were
not afraid to stretch forth your hand To
destroy the Lord's anointed And David called one
of his young men and said Go over
there and fall upon him And he smote
him that he died And David said unto
him Your blood be upon your head For
your mouth has testified against you saying I
have slain the Lord's anointed And David lamented
with this lamentation Over Saul and over Jonathan
his son So David had one of the
young men Put him to death because He
had put his hand against Saul Who had
been God's anointed God had said in his
word Touch not my anointed And do my
prophet no harm It is for certain that
the anointing had left Saul A long time
ago And yet David still had a respect
for Saul Because he had been anointed with
oil To be the king over Israel And
so It is interesting if this young man's
story is true If he really did find
Saul still alive And finished the job It
would in a sense be Poetic justice Because
Saul Had rebelled against God When God commanded
him to utterly Wipe out the Amalekites That
he left some of them alive And his
failure to obey completely The word of God
Cost him his own life That is One
that he should have Wiped out because of
God's command Ultimately wiped him out It becomes
doubly meaningful When you realize in the scriptures
That the Amalekites Are a type of our
flesh life Or our life after the flesh
Now We live in a body and as
Living in a body we have body appetites
However what God did not intend Is that
men be ruled by his body appetites God
intended that men be ruled by his spirit
In fellowship with God And that really my
life should be ruled over by God That's
God's intent and purpose for me, for you
That he is the Lord That's what we
mean when we say Christ is Lord It
means that he rules over our lives We're
not ruled over by the flesh But we're
ruled over by the spirit The Bible says
that If the flesh is ruling over you
then you have What is termed the mind
of the flesh That is what are you
thinking about all the time You're thinking about
your body needs What should we eat, what
should we drink, what should we wear Jesus
said after all these things do the Gentiles
or the heathens seek But you're not to
seek those things You're to seek first the
kingdom of God The spiritual things, his righteousness
These other things will be taken care of
Get the right priorities in your life Get
God first, the things of the spirit first
These other things will all fall into line
But man's lives are all upside down today
They're topsy-turvy today Because man is thinking
and scheming And working to try to satisfy
his body appetites But it's a monster The
more you feed it the more it grows
The greater the demands So you can't really
satisfy your body appetites It just is a
monster that begins to eat you up Paul
said godliness with contentment is really being rich
He said I've learned in whatever state I
am in to therewith be content A man
walking after the spirit can learn that You
live a contented life because you're not living
after the flesh life But hey, you can
get in that mode and I'll tell you
it'll just take over So that he that
thinks he stands take heed lest he falls
There's a danger that any of us could
be giving over ourselves to the flesh Develop
the mind of the flesh and be destroyed
by the flesh But that's basically what God
is saying when he said go down and
utterly wipe out Amalek Totally destroy the flesh
God said to us make no provision for
the flesh To fulfill the desires of it
God said if you by the spirit do
mortify the deeds of the flesh then you
will live The Bible says know ye that
the old man the nature of the flesh
was crucified with Christ Therefore reckon yourselves to
be dead with Christ But alive unto God
through the spirit And so it's important that
we take this stand of reckoning the old
flesh life to be dead Utterly, completely, don't
give place to it But if we as
Saul rebel against God and leave an area
still alive That area will rise up to
destroy us ultimately And so it's really sort
of destroy or be destroyed kind of a
thing That's what God gave to Saul the
order to destroy completely And when Saul disobeyed
and the prophet met him He said don't
you realize that rebellion is as the sin
of witchcraft Interesting that Saul later turned to
witchcraft isn't it But you see it was
already in his heart in the rebellion against
the word of God It's as the sin
of witchcraft So Saul was slain Perhaps by
the hand of the Amalekite We don't know
if he's telling the truth to David or
not But the Amalekite is ordered destroyed by
David And then David wrote this lamentation for
Saul and Jonathan his son But then it
says he also ordered them to teach the
children of Judah The use of the bow
There is a time it says to laugh
and a time to cry A time to
be born a time to die a time
and a place for everything There is a
time and a place for sorrow and grieving
But then there is a time to quit
sorrowing and grieving And to pick up the
pieces and to start over again And it
is dangerous when a person grieving over a
loss Sort of becomes inactive sort of just
quits living Sort of just closes the windows
and the doors around him And just sits
there and thinks of oh how sad I
am And how horrible are the circumstances of
life That have brought me this bereavement and
this grief and this sorrow And people can
actually die as a result of their grief
Over their losses An important thing when you
are experiencing a loss and the grieving over
a loss Is to get busy do something
develop a new talent Learn a new skill
Get involved in a new hobby keep active
keep busy Keep your mind active and busy
or else you are just going to atrophy
And so David said go out and teach
your children how to use the bow Of
course he realized from this battle that the
bow and the arrow Were going to become
a very important instrument of future wars It
was used effectively in this battle against Saul
Saul was slain by the arrow that was
shot at a distance Saul was invincible in
hand to hand combat He's a big guy
and from his sword you know he said
he didn't turn back empty This guy was
tough in hand to hand combat He had
been in many of them and always come
out on top But now he fell prey
to the archers David could see from having
a keen military mind Could see that this
was going to be revolutionary as far as
future wars are concerned And so to prepare
them for the future battles Teach them the
use of the bow Learning from the past
From Saul And then also the teaching of
the use of the bow was a memorial
unto Jonathan who was an archer And thus
a very fitting living memorial As the children
would be taught the use of the bow
And the arrow and of course would remember
Jonathan whenever They were using the bow and
the arrow And so David bade them to
teach The children of Judah the use of
the bow But here's the lamentation the beauty
of Israel is slain upon thy high places
How are thy mighty fallen Tell it not
in Gath which of course was one of
the major Philistine cities The city where David
actually found refuge Don't let them know in
Gath that it's happened Of course they already
knew they carried Saul's head through Gath They
took his head off and carried it through
all the Philistine cities So that they could
rejoice over their victory Publish it not in
the streets of Ashkelon You see when they
would come back victorious from war Then the
ladies would all come out and they'd have
great celebrations Dances and jubilation over their victories
You remember when Saul would come through the
villages Having come from the victories in war
The ladies would come out with tambourines and
they would dance And they would sing Saul
has killed his thousands David didn't want the
Philistines to have this kind of a celebration
Because the people of God had fallen to
the Philistines So don't publish it in the
streets of Ashkelon Lest the daughters of the
Philistines rejoice Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised
triumph And then to the mountain of Gilboa
where Saul fell Let there be no dew,
neither let there be rain upon you Nor
fields of offerings, for there the shield of
the mighty Is vilely cast away, the shield
of Saul As though he had not been
anointed with oil Now the interesting thing about
this particular portion of David's lamentation Let there
be no dew or rain and you know
let it be sort of barren As you
know when the Jews began to return to
the land of Israel They began great reforestation
projects all over Israel Hundreds of millions of
trees were planted all over Israel But they've
left an area on Mount Gilboa without trees
Let it be barren and really because of
this lamentation of David And his declaration let
it be barren and all They won't plant
trees on this northern most portion of Mount
Gilboa So that when you go there today
it is still a barren area It is
interestingly enough an area that gets very little
rain And thus it is pretty barren on
that northern most portion of Mount Gilboa And
when you go there today in the tour
buses and you look at it The tour
guides will often read to you this passage
of Scripture As you look at that barren
Mount Gilboa They will read this passage of
Scripture And it becomes very graphic and alive
looking at that barren mountainside Ye mountains of
Gilboa let there be no dew Neither let
there be rain upon you nor fields of
offerings For there the shield of the mighty
is vilely cast away The shield of Saul
as though he had not been anointed with
oil Now there is a question here You
notice that a lot of the words here
are italicized The shield of the mighty is
vilely cast away The shield of Saul not
anointed with oil The words as though he
had not been are added by the translators
Which could be an interpretation rather than a
translation There are certain scholars that believe that
it's not a referring to Saul's being anointed
with oil to be king But with a
common practice in battle in those days of
pouring oil on their shields So that the
spears or whatever they tossed at them would
slip off more easily When they would hit
the oily shield they would glance off more
readily And so there is that area of
thought That I would just thought I would
give to you The words that do not
appear in the original text but are additional
Are italicized so that you know that they
have been added by the translators But if
you just take out the italicized word you
can see where it could possibly just refer
to the shield of Saul Rather than Saul's
anointing as king From the blood of the
slain, from the fat of the mighty, the
bow of Jonathan turned not back Jonathan an
archer And from the sword of Saul it
returned not empty Saul and Jonathan were lovely
and pleasant in their lives And in their
death they were not divided Joined together in
life, joined together in death Father and son
They were swifter than eagles They were stronger
than lions And they were a powerful pair
They had been a nemesis to the Philistines
for many years Ye daughters of Israel Weep
over Saul Who clothed you in scarlet and
with other delights Who put ornaments of gold
upon your apparel Oh how are the mighty
fallen in the midst of battle Oh Jonathan
Thou wast slain in thine high places I
am distressed for thee my brother Jonathan Very
pleasant hast thou been unto me Thy love
to me was wonderful Passing the love of
women Those from the homosexual community like to
take this verse and Suggest that possibly David
and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship Such to
me is blasphemous There is no indication of
that at all And certainly David could not
be declared to be a man after God's
own heart If he had this kind of
a relationship with Jonathan Which according to the
Old Testament scriptures A person involved in such
relationships was to be stoned to death And
so I think that that's utter nonsense And
it's only people trying to excuse their Woeful
sinful ways that would even suggest such a
thing For the third time within the lamentation
How are the mighty fallen And the weapons
of war perished So the mighty have fallen
We'll return with more of our verse-by
-verse study Through the book of 2 Samuel
in our next lesson As we continue with
more on David lamenting over Saul's death And
we do hope you'll make plans to join
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Chuck Smith continues his verse-by-verse study
Through the book of 2 Samuel That's right
here on the next edition of The Word
for Today And now once again
here's Pastor Chuck Smith And so pray for
us And we will be praying for you
That God will bless you And that His
Word And His Law Will be in your
heart That you might observe and keep His
commandments That it might be well with you
That you might be in that place where
God can bless you And do those things
He desires to do for you Because of
His intense love for you And so may
it be a blessed week And may the
Lord be with you And keep you in
His love in Jesus' name Amen As we
look around at Christian women today We see
many who know nothing about the abundant life
That Jesus came to bring them Their lives
are less satisfying, less fulfilling, less joyful And
less God-honoring than it could be, than
it should be For this reason Kay Smith
has written a new book for women Entitled
Reflecting God In it she shares about the
Godly attributes And how it's necessary to reflect
the very image of God Applying Kay's teaching
on God's attributes Women will begin to have
the mind of Christ And as this starts
to happen in you From the inside out
You will become a reflection of God To
a world that desperately needs Him For more
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