Understanding the Distress of King Saul: A Study in 1 Samuel 16

Well, let's go ahead and continue our study in 1st Samuel.

If you have not been with us, we've been tracking through First Samuel for some, quite some time now.

And we're in chapter 16, and we're going to be talking tonight about a very interesting topic.

We're going to see King Saul, and we're going to see that there's an evil spirit that troubles him, and he's going to come to a place of distress, and we're going to look at the source of that distress.

And oftentimes there's some confusion in this passage or we're also going to see a contrast between David, who just got anointed king in the first part of First Samuel, chapter 16.

If you remember, God said earlier on in this study that, Saul, you've missed your opportunity because of your bad decisions, because of your selfishness, because of your pride, because of your disobedience.

You've lost the blessing of being king and the throne is going to be taken out of your family line.

And remember what God said.

He said that he would select a man after his own heart.

So we're going to see the difference between David and Saul.

And.

And really the main difference is their heart in accordance to God.

And so where we left off last week, we'll pick up where we left off.

Samuel anoints David as king.

And that oil that is anointing on David's head, that is a picture of God's selection and upon God's power and wisdom and discernment upon David and his control over David.

But we see in verse 13, it says, then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren.

So this was not a public thing in all of Bethlehem.

Remember David's from Bethlehem.

And so not everybody sees this, but at least David's family sees this.

And it says something very interesting here because this is what's going to be contrasted with verse 14 with Saul's heart.

So it says with this obedience and with this selection from God, it says the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.

And so think about this.

Think about in David's life, though he's not perfect, the Spirit of God is upon him.

And it's there because of his heart and his relationship with God.

It's there through faith.

And then we're going to see in contrast to that, a guy named Saul, King Saul.

His heart was not in obedience to the Lord.

He does not have a heart of faith.

And because of that, we're going to see him in a great place of distress.

We're going to see him in a place of turmoil.

We're going to see him in a place that he doesn't have the comfort of God.

And the Bible very clearly teaches that the Spirit of God, when he's in our life, brings us comfort.

Actually, one of the titles of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament in the Book of John is that he is the comforter.

And there's so many people in the world today that are looking for comfort.

And obviously we.

We have in America a lot of things of comfort.

And really, comfort is set as a premium.

But what's happening in our world today, and what we're even going to see back in the time of Saul is that the comfort was not a comfort, that God promises, that sustaining comfort.

But most of the time, people in the world are searching after a type of comfort that can only temporarily satisfy.

And so that's what we're going to see here in First Samuel chapter 16.

And it's so appropriate that we sing that hymn tonight, Holy, Holy, Holy.

Because that's going to be at the source of our conversation here this evening.

Because some people read this passage in 1st Samuel chapter 16 and think that God actually sends evil to Saul.

And if you read it, at first glance, it might even seem that way.

But when we understand the character of God and the holiness of God and what the New Testament tells us about temptation and about distress, we're going to see that it's not the source of evil from God, but.

But it's certainly God allowing evil to come into Saul's life.

And so look at verse number 14 with me in 1st Samuel, chapter 16, it says, but the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.

Now remember where we left off, okay?

Samuel anoints David.

The Spirit of God comes upon David.

But in verse 14, we see because of Saul's disobedience, the Lord departs from Saul.

Now, you have to also remember in the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit works differently than today.

Today, we believe that believers, when they're saved, there's that eternal sealing of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible tells us that in the book of Philippians, there's other passages like Romans 8 and others that speak of that eternal security that we have in Jesus Christ and the fact that a believer is indwelled by the Spirit, that spirit's not going to leave us.

But in the Old Testament, we would see instances where the Holy Spirit would come upon individuals and then also leave individuals.

And so in this case, we see David is being indwelled, or as it says, this anointed comes upon him and the Holy Spirit comes upon David.

Now we're going to see Saul have the spirit depart, and then we actually see what comes in that place.

It says, in an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.

Now, some commentators read that verse and would say, well, now it's God sending this evil upon him.

It's actually God causing Saul to be evil.

And there's a lot of different ways that we could look at this.

But I want us to have some level of clarity in understanding the context of Scripture and understanding the way that God works and then going from there and kind of understanding how this would look in the life of Saul and how it could look in our own lives to some degree when it comes to the distress that certain people might face today.

So let's look at verse number 14 again.

It says, the Spirit of the Lord departs from Saul.

So to some degree, we see that God removes his presence in the life of Saul.

And in God removing his presence from Saul, we see that something comes on the scene, an evil spirit comes from, as it says here, from the Lord to trouble him, or another way that you could say that is distress him to cause anxiety, to cause inner turmoil.

And so from first glance that might look like, well, God's causing this evil.

Saul had no choice but go with me to the Book of James, because we're going to stick our finger there in First Samuel, chapter 16.

And let.

Let's look at what the Bible says in the Book of James about when an individual blames God for his or her sin.

Because there's actually times in my life and maybe your life that you've heard people say, well, God made me do it, or God made me this way.

So why would God hold me accountable if God is the one that's sending the evil?

Maybe someone even says, well, you know, maybe God didn't make me do it, but maybe you've heard this, the devil made me do it.

Or maybe you even heard this.

I heard a guy on a live stream recently.

He was a preacher, and I think I might have shared this in church at one point, this guy was doing a live stream, and he was.

He didn't know he was on live stream.

He.

He didn't know he was even being filmed.

And he treated a waitress at this live like he was at a restaurant, and he was gonna film this live stream.

And he treats this waitress terribly.

He, like, belittles her and yells at her, and then he Finds out he's on camera and he says, and this guy claims to be a pastor.

And he goes, oh, don't.

Don't show that.

And they're like, that's live stream.

That's on live.

And he goes, well, let me show you this.

This is a way that someone can be a stumbling block to you and lead you to sin.

And I'm like, no, you can't blame someone for your sin.

So James, chapter one tells us right here in verse 13, James 1:13, let no man say when he is tempted, I'm tempted of God.

So.

So God is not the causer of the temptation.

He's not the one who brings that evil into our life.

So who do we have to blame?

Well, maybe it's Satan.

Maybe it's another person.

It's not God.

Well, it says here, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.

But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.

So what the Bible tells us in verse 14 is that there's no one to blame but ourselves.

Now, there could be outside forces that certainly give us an opportunity to make a decision on whether or not we're going to give into that temptation.

But what we see here is he says in verse 14, the book of James, that it's our fault when we sin.

We can't blame anybody else, we can't blame God, we can't blame another person, we can't blame the devil.

It's upon us and our responsibility to make a decision not to fall into sin, not to fall into this place of inner turmoil.

Now, that turmoil can come, but it's how we deal with that temptation, right?

Because we know that temptation in and of itself is not a sin.

How do we know that?

Because Jesus was tempted.

And so temptation is not the sin.

It's giving into that.

So what we see in verse number 15, he goes on to describe how this all comes to pass.

He says, then when lust hath conceived.

And actually the picture here in verse number 15, you might not be able to see it here in the English, but in the Greek, there actually is a picture of a birth happening.

We actually see that, that word, it says in verse 15, when lust have conceived.

But in that conception of sin, it's not going to bring forth life.

Because a lot of times people think that this sin is going to bring me something good, it's going to bring me something that's a blessing.

But actually what we see here is that it's actually bringing Forth a stillborn death.

So he says, when lust, so this lust is that.

That passion, that desire to do something.

It says when that's conceived, it bringeth for sin.

And so temptation is here.

We decide to give in in our lust, and then that's what's conceived in sin.

And it says it brings forth sin.

And what does sin bring?

And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death, it bringeth emptiness, it brings hopelessness, it brings turmoil, it brings all those things that the Bible tells us are the product of sin in our life.

And so th.

Though sin can look attractive for a season, or maybe we don't even know what we're doing, but we're getting into a place in our life where eventually it's going to bring destruction and death.

So with that being in mind, keep, keep that in mind that it is not God who sends the evil.

Go with me to another passage of Scripture which we actually sang about here this evening in Isaiah chapter 6.

There is a very clear indication in Scripture over and over and over again about the holiness of God.

And we need to understand the holiness of God, because in the holiness of God, I believe, comes really the defining attribute of who he is.

Because if at any point we question God's holiness, we question his whole character.

Because if you say God is loving, but I don't believe he's completely holy, what we're doing is we're saying, yes, he loves, but he's not the one who is perfect in his love.

If we say that God is powerful, but if he's not perfect in his power, then it's always going to be somewhat limited.

And so when we come to God and we understand who he is, we have to completely understand that that holiness is his defining attribute.

He's perfectly loving, he's perfectly just, he's perfectly strong, he's perfectly knowledgeable in all of these things.

And so Isaiah chapter 6.

Many of you know this passage of Scripture, but this is Isaiah's understanding and his experience with understanding the holiness of God.

It says in verse number one, in the year King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

Above it stood the seraphims.

Each one had six wings.

In twain he covered his face, and in twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

So he's describing these angels, these angelic beings.

Verse 3.

And one cried unto another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

And then he says here, this is Isaiah's response to understanding and experiencing the holiness of God.

Because a lot of times we might think we're holy.

And.

And by the way, let me describe holiness.

Let me define holiness, because sometimes you might hear the word holy and you might not understand what that is.

Biblically speaking, there is a element of God's holiness which means sinless, perfect, set aside or set apart as a completely different thing than us.

None of us can achieve the holiness of God.

Now, the Bible does call us to be holy to some degree, which means set aside, sanctified for a specific use.

And so in this case, we see that God has this type of unique holiness that no one else can obtain.

And so Isaiah's response to God's holiness is what verse 5.

Then said I. Woe is me, for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips.

And I dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips.

And my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

And then it goes on to talk about this.

And then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken from the tongs of the altar, and he laid it upon my mouth and said, lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken, and thy sin is purged.

And so Isaiah finds this type of forgiveness in his humility.

And the humility is found through understanding how perfect God is in his sinlessness and how small we are and how much we're in need of a holy Savior to save us from our sins.

So I say all that from the book of James to the book of Isaiah, to understand that as we go back to First Samuel, that it is not God who is bringing the evil to Saul's life, because that would go against his character, that would go against his holiness.

So let's go back and let's look at 1st Samuel, chapter 16 now with that in mind, and let's understand what it's saying here.

So first Samuel, chapter 16.

It says that as God takes away his spirit from Saul because of his disobedience, now there is this emptiness, and then in that emptiness, it is filled with this evil sphere.

So there's really two schools of thought that we could think about to explain this.

Number one, it is God allowing for Saul to go after what he desires to go after in this world.

And what is that going to bring?

That's going to bring, bring a void for that evil to come into his life and for him to give into that and be susceptible to the evil one coming in.

So by way, it's not that God is the causer, it's that God has allowed for the evil to come into Saul's life.

And we certainly know that God does allow evil to some degree happen within this world.

Think about the, the story of Job, right?

Satan could not do anything to Job without the allowance of God.

Think about even the story of Jesus as, as Satan possesses Judas.

As you remember, remember Jesus essentially gives Judas, but by extension he giving Satan the permission to do what he intended to do by saying, go and do what you're going to do quickly.

So the evil one doesn't do anything outside of the allowance of God.

But that doesn't mean that God is the causer of that evil spirit.

So that could be one school of thought that this idea is, is that God goes away from Saul.

And as the book of Romans tells us, that eventually when God pulls himself away, he gives people over to their reprobate minds, their evil minds, their emptiness and their vanity, and says, okay, you are now susceptible to the things of evil.

But then another way that you could look at it is this, is that that word evil there is, is a Hebrew word that doesn't only mean evil, but it also means distressful or discomfort.

So one school of thought could be that God is not bringing evil to Saul, but making him uncomfortable or distressed in his rebellion.

And so either way you look at it, God's not causing any evil in Saul's life.

He's allowing for this to happen so that Saul will make a decision, either one, to come to repentance, or two, to be driven more away and then allow God to come in and do his work through his sovereignty.

So I know that's a lot of talking, but we get to verse 15 and so we see now the context.

Saul is being distressed by an evil spirit.

And Saul's servants recognize this, he's troubled.

Verse 15.

And Saul's servants said unto him, behold now an evil spirit from God trouble at thee.

And so it's not just a personal thing for Saul.

I mean, now at this point, everybody around him is being affected by his spiritual distress.

And by the way, whether you know it or not, that inner turmoil of rebellion and disobedience in our life, whether we think we're hiding it or not, will eventually affect those around us, whether it be our family or whether it be our church.

Certainly there's an element of hiding our inner turmoil.

But eventually it will be evident.

And that's what's happening here.

And so there's this spiritual distress that's witnessed by his servants.

Verse 16.

They plead with him.

They say, let our Lord now command thy servants which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player of a harp.

And it shall come to pass when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand and thou shalt be well.

They make this decision and say this.

We've got to bring you some sort of relief.

The only type of relief that we think you can have.

It's.

It really should be that he comes to the Lord in repentance, that he comes to him and asks God to give him forgiveness and grace and mercy.

But instead they say, hey, maybe we can have someone play music for you to calm down your spirit and to have a sense of worship back into your life.

And I. I'm not saying that this is a bad idea, but what I'm saying is it's an insufficient help for the struggle that he's having here.

Because what we're going to see is that eventually we know the man that comes in to play the music.

It's David.

And it only brings him temporary relief.

But the true relief, I think, that we all can understand in our own life is not going to be trying to deal with the symptoms, but about dealing with the core issue at hand.

And so we can try to get our minds off of the problems in our life and eventually maybe feel good to a degree, for a time.

But if we don't deal with the root cause of the issue, which we know Saul's root cause was not that he wasn't listening to enough music.

It was Saul's root cause of his distress from disobedience and rebellion and pride from God.

If we don't deal with that heart issue, it's eventually going to keep rearing its ugly head over and over and worse and worse, just like we see in the life of Saul.

So their decision is, let's find someone who can play the harp really well.

Actually, in this time and even back in ancient times, there was a connection between music and spirits.

And so they thought maybe good music could bring good spirits to this leader and therefore he'll be back to who he was before.

So let's see what verse number 17 says.

Says, and Saul said unto his servants, provide me now a man that can play well and bring him to me.

So Saul agrees to this.

Certainly there is hope for him, at least in his mind, to think that if someone can come in, maybe they can make my life a little bit better.

And so there is that.

And then we see in verse 18, then answer 1 of the servants and said, behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehem, Bethlehemite, which we know that's David.

And I see here something really interesting because in the midst of Saul's distress is going to allow for God to bring in David to the, to the throne right in front of Saul and allow David to be developed even in the midst of Saul's distress.

So this shows just the power and the sovereignty and the planning of God because in the midst of Saul's personal distress, God uses this as an avenue to get David closer to leadership, closer to understand what's going on in the kingdom, closer to Saul, and eventually preparing him to be the leader that God wants him to be.

So we see that there's a description of David here that he's a cunning and playing, which means he's a good, he's a good musician and a mighty valiant man.

And that's an understatement.

David was super valiant even as a young man.

We know that he's going to kill Goliath in a couple verses later on in chapter 17, but we know that he's done a lot more before that time.

He's killed wildlife that is attacking his sheep and it says he's a man of war and prudent in matters.

And that, that, that literally means that he, he is mature in his speech, he, he knows how to talk.

And, and so that obviously played a huge role in calming Saul down.

And a comely person.

He's good looking and the Lord is with him.

And so after all that description, we really see the most important thing about David is that the Lord was with him.

And I think that that's something that we all should strive to have as a way of testimony.

The people around us, whether they know us or not, there should be a level of indication that there is something different about us, that the Lord is with us.

If you go back to many of the Old Testament stories and the New, one of the deciding factors of someone's blessing in their life was that God would always say that I am with you.

Think about Joshua.

Very early on in Joshua, chapter one, the Lord says, I am with you.

Withersoever thou goest.

That's a big King James word.

Whithersoever, wherever you go, I'm with you.

And that was the way that God was giving the Strength to Joshua saying, I'm with you.

The presence of God is with you.

If you think you can think about it from other perspective, like even in the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 13.

Hebrews chapter 13 says that he's never going to leave us nor forsake us.

And so one of the ways that God comforts us in the midst of possible turmoil is reminding us of his presence in our life.

One of the things that.

I have my parents here, here this week, and one of the things that I always go back to is remembering times in my life where I dealt with fear about doing something.

But if my dad was with me, I was good, because my dad was.

He was going to be the one that protected me.

It was his presence of being there that allowed me to understand that it's going to be okay.

Now in my mind, in my.

As.

As a child, I thought my dad was like, he's the strongest guy in the world.

No one could stop him.

And as we get older, we start to realize that, hey, maybe I had false sense of assurance to some degree, right?

I thought my dad could beat up.

I could tell you a story.

There was a.

There was an interesting story.

I won't tell it to you, but if you want to know about another story.

One time we ran into a wrestler.

One time, you guys know wrestling, the professional wrestler.

We ran into a professional wrestler.

And there was a whole story there.

But I'll say that for another time.

I don't want to embarrass my dad, but there was a.

There was a whole thing with that.

But.

But the whole point that I want to talk about here is sometimes as a human being, we always are comforted by the presence of someone who we trust or the presence of someone stronger than us, or the presence of someone maybe wiser than us.

And so when we come to situations in our life and we get to a place where there's possible levels of distress, and for Saul, there was a lot of factors that led to his distress.

But for us, I don't know what your particular factor of distress is, but all of us come to those places of spiritual distress.

Really, what it should be is this.

I don't need a David.

I need the one who David is yielding to.

I need the one that David is submitting to in his life.

And so for Saul, yes, David was a helper to institute this understanding of God's presence.

But really, it was a.

It was a misdirect.

It was.

It was not enough.

And so for us, the way that this would look, is like this.

Someone in the church is going through a spiritual stress and they say, hey, I, I need the pastor with me.

And the pastor can bring prayer, the pastor can bring support.

But the, a, a, a true pastor should say this.

Look, I'll help you, but the best thing is for you to understand that you can go to God and find that peace that passeth all, understanding that you can go to God and find that spiritual discernment that you can be fed from the word of God.

You know, the classic analogy is that I could, I could catch a fish for you and cook it for you, and you could eat it and you can have a great meal and maybe, maybe if you like fish, if you don't like fish, I'll think of something else.

But anyway, I could present a meal for you and you could eat it one time and go, man, that's really good.

But if I don't teach you how to do that, you're not able to replicate that over and over and over again.

So that means you're limited in your understanding of who God is in your life.

And so really, for a role of someone who is a leader or a Christian in general, there should be that desire to pass it on to the next generation or to pass it on to fellow believers.

Because for me and my desire is not that you only get content from Pastor Josh, but that you're able to see the word of God and dine for yourself and the goodness and the word of God.

And so that it is the bread of life that sustains over and over and over again.

It is the living water that satisfies us in every degree.

So we go back to verse number 18 and we see that the defining attribute of David was, it says there that the Lord was with him.

The presence of God was the difference.

And for all of us as Christians, it's really that.

It's.

If we're believers in Jesus Christ, the presence of God is with us.

But it's the discernment and the understanding that God is with me and then that giving me the comfort instead of me looking to something else.

I need God plus this.

It's.

I need God and God alone to get me to that next thing in my life or get me through what I'm going through right now.

Let me just tell you this by way of experience.

God does not always remove us from the storms of life and anxiety and in fear and in distresses.

I mean, that's going to happen because of.

We live in a dark world.

We live in situations that will cause us to.

To get to a place in our humanity, need to reach the end of our rope, to reach the end of our wisdom, to reach the end of our strength, to say, you know what?

I can't do anymore.

I'm overwhelmed.

I can't handle this.

And that's going to cause, in the human sense, inner turmoil.

But the way to deal with that is to say, lord, I'm going to give it over to you, the One who is holy, the One who is all knowing, the One who's all powerful.

And you're going to take me through this again.

The greatest example of this in physical sense that we can apply to the spiritual is when Jesus is on one side of the Sea of Galilee and he says, hey, guys, we're going to go to the other side.

And they're like, okay, great.

And that should be enough.

Because they should have trusted that if Jesus said that this is the word and this is what we're doing, we're going to the other side.

But you know the story.

They get out in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, the storms start coming in.

Jesus is in the back of the boat sleeping.

Go.

By the way, it wasn't a huge ship.

Some of you that have seen the replica of some of the boats that would have been around back at that time frame, it was a small boat.

I mean, I've been out on the water a lot and have been in a lot of bad seas, but I would be scared if I was in a small boat like that and the seas were raging.

But instead of trusting in what Jesus had to say and say, you know what?

Jesus is going to be with us through the storm.

They doubted.

And eventually Jesus called them out and said, oh, ye of little faith, how did you not believe that we were going to get to the other side?

And that's the same thing for us.

God doesn't always, like, calm the sea right away.

Sometimes he allows us to go through the trial so that we can exercise our faith and trust in him.

So for David, it was a matter that God was with him.

For Saul, it was a matter that he is far away from God.

So let's look at the culmination of this, this text here.

Verse 19.

Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse and said, send me the David thy son, which is with the sheep.

And so we, we know that they're referring to David here.

David's out with the sheep.

And Jesse took an ass laden with bread and a bottle of wine and a kid and sent them by David, his son unto Saul.

So he gives them the supplies.

He says, go to Saul.

And David comes to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he became his armor bearer.

So what we see here is because of David's testimony and because of the way that he ministers to Saul, he sees a lot of favor.

He.

He's allowed to be there with the king and actually becomes his armor bearer.

And so this is a really unique opportunity for David to prepare him.

And so this solution that's suggested to Saul actually becomes a blessing to Saul, even though it's not a sustaining relief.

We basically see that David comes and he does minister to Saul.

And this opposite, this gives us an opportunity to see how we can minister to people who are in spiritual distress as well around us.

David comes and he ministers to Saul.

So it's not just about us and, like, finding comfort from God, but it's also as we find comfort from God that we're to turn and give comfort to other people.

A verse that I'm reminded of when I talk about that is in 2 Corinthians or.

Yes, 2 Corinthians, chapter one.

2 Corinthians, chapter one.

I want you to see this because a lot of times in our selfishness of our spirituality, in the selfishness of our Christian walk, we think it's all about us.

And I can understand that.

But the idea would be that, yes, God does comfort us, but there's always a purpose to that comfort.

And so in Second Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 3, it gives one of my favorite titles of our Lord.

It says, best, blessed be God, even the Father, our Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies.

And here it is.

And the God of all comfort.

Folks, I'm going to tell you that there's nothing too far that we have gone through in our life that God can bring us back to in the sense of the comfort that he brings to us.

That's a staining comfort.

There's nothing too big for him.

There's nothing too complex for Him.

There's nothing too powerful for him to bring that comfort into our lives.

And so it says he is the God of all comforts.

But then verse four says, who comforteth us in all our tribulation.

So though God doesn't always bring the evil and struggles into our life, or maybe there's just a sense of God allowing things, but even so, when we're going through all these tribulations, it says he will comfort us, that we may be able to comfort them.

Which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

I hope you understand what that's saying.

It's saying this.

God is there for us, to comfort us in the midst of our distresses so that when we see his presence in our life and he gives us that comfort, we're to show other people in the midst of their struggles the very same comfort that God has given us and so that they can experience that type of comfort.

And that's, that's the whole purpose of God's comfort in our life, is so that we can rest in that comfort and so that we can give that comfort to others and by pointing them to the same Lord that has given us that comfort.

So let me tell you this.

Sometimes the comfort is not because the circumstances have ceased.

What do I mean by that?

Sometimes we think that, well, God's comfort means he's taking away the problem.

But that's not always how the comfort comes.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes God removes that problem.

Sometimes God heals that sickness.

Sometimes God takes you and gets you to that place of what we would consider spiritual victory.

But let me tell you that the spiritual victory is not just by having the circumstances removed.

Because there's a.

Another passage in Second Corinthians later on that many of you are familiar with.

Second Corinthians, chapter nine.

And, and Paul is coming to a place in his life where he is saying that he is having some serious struggles.

Now, we don't know all of the serious struggles that he was going through, but we do know that some degree he was having a huge issue.

And it says a thorn in his flesh.

Actually, Second Corinthians, chapter 12.

I apologize for that.

Second Corinthians, chapter 12.

And then in verse nine, he hears something so amazing, says that in actually verse 7, it says that it was a messenger of Satan to buffet him or beat him.

So whether it was a literal messenger of Satan that was beating him physically or a spiritual struggle that was happening behind the scenes, nevertheless, he says, it was a thorn in my flesh.

And then he says, for this thing I besought the Lord three times thrice that it might depart me.

So Paul's not saying it's wrong to ask God to remove the things from our life, but he is saying, don't expect it to always happen the way that you're expecting it to happen.

So, so, for example, someone might say, lord, take this away from me.

And God might not take it away, but that doesn't mean that he's giving you A no.

And it doesn't even mean that he's not giving you comfort.

What it means is this, verse 9.

And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee.

My grace is enough for my strength.

This is now God speaking, for my strength is made perfect in weakness most.

Then Paul says, most gladly, therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

So the idea would be this.

Sometimes God takes away the struggle.

Sometimes God just reminds us that his grace is enough, it's sufficient.

And we go through the struggle with his grace in our life.

But either way, we get to see God's powerful hand on us, whether it's through him removing the circumstances or him allowing us to continue in those circumstances.

And he says, I'm with you through it, and it's my power that's resting upon you.

And it's not your power anymore.

It's really to show how powerful God is, that he can get us through these things.

So we go back to First Samuel, Chapter 16, and we see that David was that one who imparted the comfort of God upon Saul because of the comfort that he did experienced.

No doubt, David probably went through struggles in his life.

Read some of the Psalms.

Later on in David's life, he had inner turmoil.

But yet at the same time, the difference between Saul's turmoil and David's turmoil is that Saul's turmoil is faced in his own strength.

David's turmoil was faced in the strength of God.

Therefore, David was able to see the victory.

He was able to quote, actually, not just quote.

He was the one that penned through the inspiration of God, Psalm 23, that.

That tells us all about this.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

Why?

Because he.

Because God is with him.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

And so the idea would be this.

There's this whole differentiation between David and Saul.

David was able to comfort because he had the true source of comfort, and that was a relationship with God.

And so verse 22.

And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, let David, I pray thee, stand before me, for he hath found favor in my sight.

And so again, this opens the door for more of David's development as a leader and as a man of God.

Verse 23.

And it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul.

So what we see is that this is a repeated thing.

It's not like it was wiped away.

It means that this comes back onto Saul's life that David took A harp.

Now don't think of it typically, probably wasn't one of these huge harps that you see in an orchestra.

Probably was something called a liar.

It was more of like a little mini guitar.

There's some replicas you can look up online.

But think about that.

So it would have been an instrument that David was playing.

Nonetheless, it says that he would take his harp and played with his hand.

So Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him.

So some people read that passage and say, great, so I just need a David in my life to come along and play the guitar for me when I'm going through struggles.

But I think that the deeper element of this is that Saul is looking for temporary relief where really God is the only one who can bring sustaining relief.

And so if you could break down this chapter into three thoughts, you could break it down to Saul's source of spiritual distress.

Then you could look at God's hand in David's development and then you could conclude the passage with temporary relief.

And, and then we go on to see, you know, multiple times in which Saul, let's say it this way, Saul was not fixed.

If you continue on in First Samuel, you're going to see that Saul continues to get worse and worse with this.

And then eventually, when he realized who David is and he realizes God's plan, he fights harder against God's plan, which again shows the hard heartedness of Saul and his rebellion to the Lord.

So we're going to come to the end of this passage and this is going to be a good break for us because when I'm going to be gone for two Wednesdays, but when I come back, we're going to talk about that classic passage of First Samuel, chapter 17.

And that's the, the David on the battlefield over the valley of Elah.

And I, when we went to Israel, Elisha and I went to Israel, we had a chance to go to the valley of Elah.

And actually we went to the valley before he went to the valley.

We went up on the mountainside that the Israelites would have been on looking over to the, the Philistine side.

And it was just a really interesting time to kind of frame that all together.

And it was a blessing because we got to go down into the valley and they're like, all right, it's time to pick your, your stones, you know, your five smooth stones.

And by we went in the time of the year where it wasn't the rainy season, so it's all dried up.

So it actually was beneficial to us so we could actually find a lot more stones.

So I always tell people, you know, if you ever go to Israel, I've got good news and bad news for you.

You can actually go and pick up a stone, a smooth stone, in the Valley of Elah.

The bad news is, is you're not going to get the one that killed Goliath, because I already grabbed that one.

I got that one.

It's in my house if you want to see that.

I'll bring it in two weeks.

I don't think I have it.

But.

But anyway, long and the short of it, all of this is this.

I I what we can take with us as a lesson here this evening is that Saul was a man that was characterized by his distress.

Saul and David both had instances in their life that they could look to as distressful moments.

But for a person who is walking with the Lord, our life cannot be defined by the distresses.

Our life is defined by our relationship with the one who is with us.

And therefore, I want to talk to you here this evening about that.

Because I think a lot of times there are certain Christians that might get up and say, just pretend like everything's okay.

Or maybe some people see a joyful Christian all the time and go, well, am I weird because I go through hard times?

Am I weird because I have inner turmoil and I have thoughts and I have anxieties?

Well, the reality is, is that look at every single Bible character that stood up for the Lord.

Every one of them had struggles and problems.

And so being a good Christian is not being void of any problems in our life.

It's actually, it's, it's.

It's not a reality.

What being a solid biblical Christian is, is just trusting in the Lord in the midst of those anxieties and giving it over to him and saying, lord, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this.

But as Paul said, look, I can't do this.

I'm at the end of my rope.

Lord, help me.

And then what we're reminded with is this and what I believe.

The same principle is with David and, and many others is God's grace is sufficient.

What God gives me is enough.

Everything that I have actually is more than I deserve.

There's a, there's people that I hear say this.

I think there's probably a famous guy.

I think it's Dave Ramsey.

But other people say it too, is when people ask you, how you doing?

You say, better than I deserve.

And I like that.

Idea.

I think that's true.

I think the truth is, is that no matter how we are, it's better than we deserve.

And I think as Christians, when it's that perspective, I think it gives us a lot more opportunity to look to him and exercise our faith in the midst of the struggle.

And so I'm not here tonight to tell you to get over it.

I'm not here tonight to tell you that you know you're wrong because you're going through those struggles.

What I would tell you, though, is like, Saul, you're wrong if you're trying to face those struggles on your own or look to something like, as something basic as I need to hear this type of music played, or I need to take this type of substance, or I need to just have this type of relationship, because that's going to give me some sort of satisfaction or calm the.

The problems in my mind.

No, none of that is going to give sufficiency.

None of that is going to give substance.

The.

The only thing that the Bible tells us is sufficient is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so if you're going through struggles today or tonight or tomorrow or whenever it is, go to him, plead with him, and he will give you the comfort that only he can give.

And the Bible tells us that the peace of God.

Philippians, chapter 4, verse 7.

The peace of God which passeth all understanding, will rule our hearts and minds.

The.

The type of peace that comes with the comfort of God is a type of peace that cannot be understood as the world.

It says it right there.

A peace that passes all understanding.

The world cannot understand the type of peace that comes from the comfort of God.

But before we have the peace of God in our life, we have to be at peace with God, as Romans chapter five tells us.

So the salvation comes and peace with God happens.

We're reconciled to him.

And when we're reconciled to him, we now have the peace of God that we can tap into and exercise within our life as the comforter comes, as the Bible says.

And so Jesus says, it actually is beneficial that I go.

Remember, the disciples are wanting to cling onto Jesus before he left.

They're like, no, you can't leave us.

You can't leave us.

And Jesus says, actually it's beneficial that I go.

And we don't understand that.

I can't understand that.

But ultimately what he's saying is, is that there's a better thing than just having a physical presence.

Because think about Peter in certain times of his earthly ministry was separated from Jesus.

So there were periods of time where he wasn't physically with Jesus, but as Jesus ascended into heaven, as the Bible says, he sent the comforter, the Holy Spirit.

Now we can have God with us at all points in our life, no matter who we're physically with.

And so the reality is, is that the blessing of the Holy Spirit is sometimes something that we miss out on in our life.

But we can see the differentiation in this passage between the Spirit that was resting upon David and when the Spirit wasn't resting upon Saul.

And you see the distinct difference.

And so many Christians are living their life like the Spirit's not there.

And there is a difference.

And this is something that we can dig into deeper later.

But there is a difference between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the filling of the Holy Spirit.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit happens at the moment of salvation.

We are all indwelled by the Spirit, but many Christians are not living filled with the Spirit, meaning guided by the Spirit and led by the Spirit within our lives.

And that's something that we all can grow in in our lives is being more and more daily led by the Holy Spirit, by the decisions that we make.

And so we can either yield to the flesh or yield to the Spirit.

And so may we all yield to the Spirit as much as we possibly can.

When it comes to the power of God resting in our lives, we.