Six Steps to the Throne (4 of 6) - Quickened with Christ

Last episode we discussed King David committing adultery with the wife of one of his main commanders in his army Uriah the Hittite. To make matters worse she became pregnant and David attempted to cover this up. However David’s plans of a cover up failed.  David then attempted another scheme, and this one was of murder. In an ironic turn of events, Uriah would end up carrying his own death warrant to Joab, a type and shadow of Christ carrying our sin as Uriah carried David’s sin with him, Christ carried a death warrant in his hand in complete faithfulness and righteousness to his king he carried our sins.  Except of course, Christ was not ignorant to what he carried and to what he was about to suffer. In the end, the scheme was successful, Uriah did as he was told and he was killed. This story is humbling, David was a man after God’s own heart, yet he was able to sin greatly. 

As David had success in his scheme, he appeared to be grief stricken.  He really did not care and in secret was patting himself on the back thinking that he had missed a close call. Bathsheba as well, took her period of grieving, once that was completed to make everything look right, David took her as his wife, they were married, and all seemed well.  The scheme went perfect but that was not so, vengeance is the Lords.

In this teaching Pastor Harris will deal with the topic of midlife crisis.  He covers this through discussing three weaknesses of David Ben Jesse.  In the first place, David could never control his desire for women.  Secondly, David’s allowed himself to have too much idle time on his hands.  And thirdly, David began to delegate his divinely oriented responsibilities to others that he should have been doing himself. Let’s listen along to Pastor Harrs as he walks us through these things that would sadly lead to King David's own demise.

Once the issues surrounding building the temple in Jerusalem and who would build it were resolved, David decided to deal decisively with the Philistines. Bringing the war into the Philistine homeland for the first time and after several battles were fought the Philistines would never be a factor again. Israel would now control the major trade route of the ancient world, the Via Maris. 

The only real enemies David now had were three fold. The Aramian Kingdom, the Mobia Kingdom and the Edimi Kingdom (due to transcription challenges, these may not be spelled correctly).  David knew that he had to subdue these Kingdoms in order to control another trade route known as the King’s Highway which connected the Red Sea with Damascus. His kingdom badly needed the income that was paid by the owners of caravans that traveled the trade route. Once this route had been secured it would be of great wealth to David.  

At this time in Israel's history another important person appears that would be destined to play a vital role in Israel's future, and that would be true for many generations to come. The name of this man was Zadduc. He became the high priest of Israel at this point in time and from his loins would be the High Priest of Israel for the next thousand years to come. When the trade routes had been secured the peace came to Israel and David had time to sit down and look back over the past and he had found that he had some unfinished business, some important business. 

One of his obligations was to his blood brother Jonathan. A part of his obligation was this, any of the children born of Jonathan were now his children and the way in which David chose to take care of this child will be the subject of this message.

In this episode Pastor Harris reminds us about the prophesies of Nathan and provides a lot of back knowledge leading into this topic.  More specifically Pastor Harris reminds us that God sent the prophet Nathan to David with certain instructions and a grave warning. That warning was this, just because a temple to God stood in their midst, it did not mean that his presence would always dwell in that temple. Pastor Harris will explain more about this warning in this teaching.

NOTE: To save any confusion, please note that Pastor Harris does indeed tell the story of the tapestries he saw in the vatican.  He told this same story in episode #114 which is also the first episode of the Saga of David series.

In this teaching we will learn more about Saul and David.  Saul had two daughters, Miram and Michael (we call her Michael instead of MiChal). At the time, Israel had a problem with the philistines. They did not like Isreal or the Jewish people.  One day the army of the Philistines were camped on one hill and the Isrealites were camped on the other.  It was a standoff. The Philistines had a clever little plan, they ha a giant of a man, eight or nine feet tall. He was more than likely twice the size of any man at the time. 

The Philistines had a big idea to go down to the middle of the valley and they told the Isrealites to send their best guy to fight their best guy.  This fight will determine who should win.  We know that the young David shows up to deliver food to his brothers who were in the army. David is appoled at this vile person who is down in the valley making fun of his people.  The Israelites said it was the philistine giant.  Saul, the King of Isreal, had promised the hand of his daughter in mariage to anyone that would go down and beat the giant Philistine.

Saul was sure that someone was going to go down there and fight the giant philistine because his daughters were beautiful. No one showed up to take on this challenge until David showed up. But David wasnt fighting for the girls hand in marriage, he was fighting for his God.  Well we know what has happened.  David was indeed victorious, and now he had earned the right to marry Miram the oldest of the two daughters.  

One day Saul hears the common people singing the praises of this young man that had defeated the giant. He was extremely jealous, he thought, “am I going to have a son-in-law that people are going to sing praises about?” So Saul promises his older daughter to another. This would leave Michael available for David.  This was OK with David because he preferred Michael.  Saul thought he knew his daughter better than David.  This will be where Pastor Harris’s teaching picks up today.

Last episode we discussed David’s plan for spiritual renewal for the nation of Israel.  It was a fairly simple plan. He was going to introduce a worship revolution. It was going to be something the Hebrew religion and the world at large had never seen. The plan really focused on the Ark of the Covenant that he considered to be Israel’s greatest treasure. It needed to be transported to Mount Zion, which was formally Mount Moriah, and placed in a tent that would come to be known as the Tabernacle of David.

Here the Ark of the Covenant could be seen by anyone who would like to.  The flaps of the tabernacle would be open and people could see the Ark there.  On top of bringing the Ark to the top of Mount Zion, David had gone about a massive allocation of resources, people and time to create a 24 hour praise and worship experience. He had done this by appointing three men, Asath, Heman, and Ethan to lead a group of 24 thousand men in three different groups of eight thousand each for 24 hour worship.  This continued for 40 years, 40 years of 24 hour perpetual worship with 24 thousand men.

But first, the big problem with this plan was that the worshippers were ready, the tent was ready, the mount was ready… but they didn't have the Ark. The Ark was eight miles west of Jerusalem where it had been for the past 60 years in the house of Abenidad, in the village of Penrith Jerun, and to actually get the Ark from point A to point B was far more complicated than you may have first thought, and that is the topic of Pastor Harris’s message in this episode.

Following the exodus when Israel had come into the land of Canan the priests brought the Tabernacle to the town of Shiloh.  The Tabernacle would remain here for 200 years.  In time, there was a battle with the Philistines over a Hebrew highway. The high priests were in charge of the tabernacle and these high priests were the sons of Eli. When the Israelites were in this battle they wanted the Ark of the Covenant to give them the power to win.  So they sent messengers to go ask the high priests to see if they could have the ark of the covenant with them to have God’s power to win the battle.  As they brought the ark of the covenant out to the battle God did not go with it.  His presence was in the Holy of Holies when the Ark of the Covenant was there and when it was brought out to the battle, it was said that the presence of the Lord had departed from the Holy of Holies.

In this episode, Pastor Harris will teach on how the Ark of the Covenant departed.

Last teaching Pastor Harris discussed David returning after he had defeated the Amalekites. At the same time David was returning to Ziklag, Saul had met his end and been defeated by the Philistines.  Around that same time a different Amilkite arrives with a message that Saul had been slain along with a conflicting story.  Last episode we heard that Saul had fallen on his own sword and committed suicide. This Amilkite claimed that he had actually helped Saul commit suicide.  He believed that since Saul had tried to kill David so many times that he would be rewarded for helping Saul committ suicide and reporting the great news that Saul was dead.  Another odd thing was that he also had the crown of Saul and brought it to David.  The response of David was quite opposite to what he was expecting.  He was expecting honor and approval and maybe a position as David’s right hand man.  Instead David turned and killed the man on the spot!

The way David saw it was this.  God was going to bring God’s anointed David to be King in his own time.  No person could force that to happen outside of God’s timing. It appeared this Amilkite had taken matters into his own hands and had slain God’s anointed and it deserved death.

What was surprising is that upon David killing this Amilkite was David’s response.  He wrote a quite fantastic poem, and I’ll go ahead and read this to you.

Thy glory oh Israel is slain upon by high places.  How the mighty have fallen. Tell it not in Gath. Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exalt.  Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely, in life and in death they were not divided, they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel weep over Saul who clothed you daintily in scarlet, who put ornaments off gold on your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle. Jonathan lies slain upon the high places.  I am distressed for you my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant have you been to me, your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.  How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished.

It’s very odd to hear such beautiful words from someone who was supposed to be Saul’s sworn enemy. But obviously David was a man after God’s own heart and he could see things in Saul others could not see.  He loved Saul.  However, now the crown of Saul is in David’s hands, Saul is slain, David is God’s appointed and is to be the new King of Israel.  This is the topic of this episode's message.

Last episode we talked about David and his big battle with the Amalekites in the Negev.  While that was going on with him, the exact opposite was going on with Saul. Saul was encountering Israel's old enemy the Philistines.  They had amassed a massive army and to this point the Isrealites had been successful in defeating them by fighting them off as they had always engaged them in mountainous terrain. But the Philistines had pushed and manipulated the battle so they could fight at the Valley of Jezreel which was flat land.  This was beneficial to the Philistines because they had iron chariots. Any military strategist would say that it looks as if the Isrealites would be slaughtered.  

The reason this battle was so crucial and that Saul had to fight it, was because they were at a place called Beth Shan and if the Philistines were to take this location they would cut Israel in half. This location was too crucial, and Saul was forced to take the Philistines on in open combat, in flat terrain, taking on their iron chariots. It seemed suicidal, God had abandoned Saul for David.  

So Saul turned to a medium.  Saul himself had outlawed the use of mediums. It was outlawed in the law of God, but Saul was driven to the very brink of his insanity by havinfg to hold things together by the giant adversity that faced him having to fight the Philistines.  When he saw this medium, he disguised himself because he knew if the medium recognized him as King Saul that the medium would not consult upon evil spirits.  We know today that spirits guided through mediums are not through the Holy Spirit but are evil spirits. To Saul’s dismay the medium conjures up the spirit of Samual the great profit.  Although Samual had been dead for many years he spoke truthfully  to the situation at hand.  He said that Saul would in fact fight this battle, and Saul, his sons and many of his army would suffer a very tragic defeat.  Saul’s dilemma was over, he looked into the future, the future was clear there was only disaster and death for him and his kingdom. 

Meanwhile David waited back at Ziklag unaware of what was going on.  This is the topic of Pastor Harris’s teaching in this episode.  The death of Saul and the ramifications of that day.

The events of first samuel chapter 26 and first samuel chapter 24 look very similar if not identical, but in fact they are remarkably different.  Where they are similar in both instances Saul, the King of Israel is pursuing David.  Saul fails, and God delivers him into the hands of David, who chooses to do nothing about it and to release him because he is his king, and he is God anointed. In fact, in the second instance, David’s men come alongside him and say, they have got to do something, they’ve been running from him, they felt they needed to kill him! David still stays committed to what he knows to be true.

The thing that is interesting and is pretty bad for Saul. Given these two instances, God had revealed that he had withdrawn his protection from Saul. He had been given over into the hands of David now twice, this could not make it more clear to Saul.  David realized that this cat and mouse game couldn’t last forever. It was wearing out his men and they wanted to kill Saul, and that was wearing David out. David previously had fled from Saul by going into the land of the philistines and now he had to face the terrible idea of doing that again, leaving the promise land. So he decides to go to the land of Gath and place his warriors at the disposal of the King of Achish. This King however did not like the idea of having someone so powerful in his midst so he placed David in a town called Ziklag.  And this will be our setting for Pastor Harris’s message today.