Scenes From the Life of David

I Samuel 16:1-13; Acts 13:16-23

These stories are from the life of King David. First, we need to establish the historical context of the stories. The stories are in the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament. David lived about three thousand years ago, about one thousand years before Jesus was born. David was the second king of Israel, the first being King Saul. The early stories about King David have to do with Saul also, and how David cam to take his place on the throne. In fact there are many, many stories about David. It is hard to pick just three. But I have chosen to tell three of the most famous of the stories.

1. The first one is about how God chose David to become King of Israel. God had already chosen Saul to be King of Israel, but Saul had disobeyed God and gone his own way. God could not use Saul any longer because Saul was more interested in doing what he wanted than what God wanted. So God told the prophet Samuel, who was an old wise spiritual leader, (think Dumbledore or Merlin) to anoint a new king. God told Samuel to go to the little town of Bethlehem. You will probably recognize Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus, but this is 1000 years before Jesus’ birth. But Jesus does have a connection because Jesus was a descendant of King David. God told Samuel to go to Bethlehem to the home of a man named Jesse, because God had chosen one of Jesse’s sons to be king.

So Samuel traveled to Bethlehem and Samuel offered a sacrifice there. A sacrifice back in those days meant a feast. People did not eat as much meat as we do today, so when they offered a goat or a sheep as a sacrifice, then that meant meat for everyone. In most animal sacrifices, part of the animal would be offered to God, and the rest would be eaten by the worshippers. So it was a time of eating and fellowship as well as worship. After the meal Samuel asked Jesse to bring his oldest son, whose name was Eliab, before him. Samuel looked at this man and thought, “Surely this is the one God has chosen. He looks like a king. He has a royal bearing and appearance.” Today we say of a presidential candidate that he/she looks good on TV. There was no TV back then, but this man looked like a king. Just like Saul had looked like a king when he had been chosen years earlier. But God said to Samuel in his heart, “No, this is not the one.” The actual words of the scripture story are these: “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Samuel asked Jesse to bring out his next oldest son. I have to mention here that in those days it was only sons who were eligible for the throne. Great Britain has recently changed its laws that so that if Prince William and Kate had had a little girl, she would have been next in line for the throne, even if they had also had a whole litter of boys after her. But back then there was not women’s equality. Samuel was only looking at the sons of Jesse, not the daughters. So Jesse’s next oldest son was presented before Samuel. God said the same thing about that son. He was not the one either. The same thing happened for seven sons of Jesse. Each increasingly younger son was paraded before Samuel like a beauty contest. And Samuel thought that any of them would have been a good king. But every time the boy was rejected.

Samuel asked the father, “Is that all the sons you have? Aren’t there any more?” Jesse responds, “Well, yes there is my youngest son. But he is not here. He is out in the fields watching the sheep. Someone had to keep their eye on the livestock while all of us were here at the party. And because he was the youngest, he had to do it.” Samuel said, “Bring him here.” And so they sent out to the fields and brought in the youngest son of Jesse named David. He was only a boy. He did not look like a king. He was not tall and did not have a royal bearing like King Saul did when he was chosen king, or like David’s older brothers. But it does say that David was ruddy, which meant that he was sunburned from being the fields all the time. It also says that he was good-looking and had bright eyes. God whispered into Samuel’s heart. “This is the one. Anoint him as King.” And so Samuel anointed David as King over Israel.

What does this story teach us today? It teaches us that God calls us to serve him not because we are the best looking, otherwise he never would have called me to be a minister. God does not look at outward appearances. God looks at the heart. God looks into your heart and my heart. God does not judge by the world’s standards. The Bible says later that David was a man after God’s own heart. Our NT reading says, “And when God had removed Saul, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.” God is not looking for the most charismatic or talented or wealthy or popular. He chose the least of Jesse’s sons, the son that the father did not even think it was worth while having present at the choosing ceremony. God is looking for people today after his own heart, people who will do his will. That is what He is looking for in us.

2. The second story from the life of David is the story of David and Goliath. It is found in the next chapter, I Samuel 17. At this point David is a teenager. He has not yet ascended to the throne, so he is not king of Israel yet, even though he had been anointed as the future king by Samuel. King Saul is still the king now. Israel was at war with its neighbors, the Philistines. They gathered for battle in a place called the Valley of Elah. The army of the Philistines were gathered on the side of one hill, and the army of the Hebrews was gathered on the other hill. We could picture it a huge stadium with the field as the battleground and the hills as the bleachers. The two armies were taunting each other. Imagine Braveheart. It was the custom at that time for a champion from each army to fight a preliminary battle, that would set the tone for the main even. They were kind of like gladiators. Think Spartacus.

The Philistines had a soldier who was renowned for both his size and his fighting skills. His name was Goliath of Gath. Often in telling this story Goliath is called a giant. But we must not think of a fairy tale giant, like Jack and Beanstalk or something. This guy was big, but he was not supernatural big. People were smaller in those ancient days because they did not eat as well nor were as healthy as today. Goliath was big by their standards and probably even by ours. Think of him as being as tall as an NBA player and as heavyset as a NFL lineman. So he was big.

And the Israelites were terrified of him. No one wanted to go up against him. It would be suicide. He taunted the Israelites for days to send forth their champion, but no man among the Hebrews was brave enough. Then enters David. He had the day off from herding his sheep, and he decided to go down to the Valley of Elah see how the battle was going. His father Jesse asked him to bring a CARE package to his three oldest brothers who were serving in the army there. So David went.

When he got there he saw Goliath taunting Israel, and he got upset. He said, “Why do you let this bully say things like this about our people and our country? Isn’t anyone brave enough to go out and face him?” No one was brave enough. In fact David only got his own people mad at him, including his own brothers, for saying these things. King Saul heard about David’s brave words and called him into his tent. During the conversation with the king, the teenager David volunteered to go up against the Philistine. Saul, said, “You will get slaughtered! Goliath is an experienced soldier and you are just a teen with no experience or training as a soldier.” David said, “I am stronger than I look. I have been guarding my family’s flock of sheep for years now. Twice I have fought off a bear and a lion, and I killed them both. If I can kill a bear and a lion I can kill this Philistine!”

So King Saul agreed, but only on the condition that he wear armor to protect himself. So they found some armor that fit him: a coat of mail, a helmet, a shield and a sword. Then David looked like a solider. But when he tried moving around in his new suit of armor, it felt too awkward and cumbersome. He wasn’t used to it. He said, “I can’t fight in this. I can barely walk in all this armor. ” So he took it off and went to face Goliath with no armor. He did not even take a sword, because he was not used to it either. He brought only his shepherd’s staff, his sling, and five smooth stones as ammunition. These stones were not pebbles. These were baseball sized stones. Propelled by a sling they would travel at a high speed, as fast as any Major League baseball pitcher. So this was a lethal weapon, even though it may not look like it. David was an expert in this weapon. He could hit a rabbit on the run. So with these he went out to face this huge experienced enemy soldier.

When Goliath got a good look at him, at first he laughed, and then he got mad. He thought the Israelites were mocking him. He said, “Do you think that I am a dog that you come out to me with sticks?” He said, “Come here, and I will kill you and leave your body for the birds and beasts to eat.” David replied to him, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.”

 And so the two faced off. David ran to meet Goliath and Goliath trudged toward David. David put a stone in his sling and swung it over his head and let it go. It hit Goliath in the one place he did not have armor, right in the center of the forehead. It hit so hard that it broke his skull and knocked him unconscious. Then David went up to his fallen body and took Goliath’s own sword and killed the enemy soldier.

What is the lesson of this biblical story? David said it: “The battle is the Lord’s.” Might does not make right. Bigger weapons and defenses do not ensure victory. What matters is whether we are on the Lord’s side. Whether the Lord is fighting for us or against us. That is true in every area of life. It is most important that we take sides with God and not against God. It is important that we have the courage of David, and be courageous enough to stand up for God and the causes of God in this world and in this country. If we do that, even giants will fall.

3. The third story from the life of David is about David and Bathsheba. This is one of those R-rated stories in the Bible. There are a lot of those, although people don’t realize it because they don’t read the Bible. It is a long story so I will give you the condensed version. David was married to Abigail, whom the bible describes as both intelligent and beautiful, but he had an affair with his neighbor Bathsheba who was the wife of one of his soldiers. His army had gone off to war, but David stayed behind in Jerusalem. One day from his balcony in the palace, he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath on the rooftop next door. Roof tops were flat living spaces in that time and place. They were like porches or patios today. It was not unusual for families to have an awning or tent on the roof and use them for meals or just to catch a bit of a breeze on a hot day. But you normally did not take a bath on the roof! What she was doing taking a bath on a roof in plain sight of the king’s palace? It seems that David was not the only guilty party here. It takes two to tango. Anyway, David invited Bathsheba over for dinner and one thing led to another and a month later, she sent a message over to the king that she is pregnant.

Here comes the bad part – or the worse part. Adultery was bad enough, but now David compounds his sin by covering it up. It seems like cover-ups are often worse than the sin. We see it with politicians today. They do some pretty stupid things, and then they try to cover up their sins, which only makes it worse. What would Watergate have been without the cover-up, which was an obstruction of justice? Anyway David calls Bathsheba’s husband Uriah back from the front lines. He encourages him to go into his home and spend the night with his wife in his own bed, thereby hoping he would think the baby was his.  But Uriah would not do that. He did not think it right for him to be at home when all his fellow soldiers were fighting.

So David had to come up with another plan. His plan B was to have Uriah die in battle. He instructed the general to put Uriah right up on the front line and then have everyone else fall back except him, leaving him stranded and vulnerable. It worked. Uriah died bravely in battle. David immediately married Uriah’s widow and no one was the wiser. Except God. What was David thinking? Did he really think he could fool God? It seems like he thought so!

One day God sent a man named Nathan, who was a prophet, to confront David. But he did not accuse him directly. He would have just denied it, like every other politician. Nathan did it by means of a story. Nathan told David a story So here we have a story within a story.. They did not have TV back in those days, and so story-tellers were very popular. David liked a good story just like anyone else. Nathan told this story:

“There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:1-7)

In this way God arranged for David to judge himself for his sin. What does this story say to us? It tells us that there is no such thing as secret sin. As the Bible says, “Your sin shall find you out.” We all have sinned. There is no such thing as a perfect person. The only difference between people is whether we admit our sin or not. Jesus had no tolerance for hypocrites who pretended they were sinless. Jesus spent all his time with sinners because they were the honest folks, unlike a lot of the religious people of the day. The same is true today. The apostle john wrote: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

All of us have fallen short, which is the meaning of the biblical word for sin. What makes the difference is whether we admit that, confess that to God, and receive forgiveness for that sin. That is what David did in the story. He immediately acknowledged his wrongdoing. That is what made him the greatest king in the Bible. The scriptures call him a man after God’s own heart. Not because he was so good. He was not so good, as this story clearly shows. He was an adulterer and a murderer. But he confessed his sin and he was forgiven by God. The same is true for us. No sin is too great for God to forgive if we come to him in genuine repentance. When we acknowledge our sin God will forgive us our sin through the way of forgiveness and redemption that he has provide for us in Jesus Christ, who was a descendant of this same King David.