The Enigma of David

The title of the sermon, of course, is the Enigma of David. I remember those famous words that only Winston Churchill could say in 1939, just months before they were going to be attacked by Germany in World War II. And as Prime Minister, he was asked, What about Russia? Can we count on Russia?

And he said about Russia's action, well, really, they are a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of Enigma. It means you didn't know what they were going to do. It was a paradox, a puzzle, trying to guess what they would do. So what is an Enigma? An Enigma, a person or thing that is puzzling or difficult to understand? You ever met someone like that? I think many of us have. Have you considered David from our scriptures being an Enigma?

A puzzle, a conundrum? What about this man after God's own heart? Well, you say, wait a minute, that is, that may be a little puzzling. Is he a man after God's own heart? And how do we wrap our minds around this favorite famous biblical example? Warrior King? Our cold-blooded killer? Have you ever considered that? Compassionate, loving father? Or the patriarch of one of the most dysfunctional families on the earth? An Enigma? A godly man? Would you say that? Would you say that David was a godly man? Man after God's own heart?

Isn't that what it says? Well, how would you explain all this? Is it been puzzling to you? Here, he's a godly man, but he is what? Husband to multiple wives? Was there six? No. Seven? Was that enough? No. There was eight wives. And then he had ten concubines. Ten concubines. Yet David, David is mentioned 59 times in the New Testament. 59 times in the New Testament. No one else is mentioned from the Old Testament many times as David is mentioned. 59 times. And each of those 59 times is in a positive light.

Enigma yet? I find it interesting that in the Old Testament, 66 chapters are dedicated to the story of David. That's more than anybody else. More than Moses. More than Abraham. More than anyone else in the entire Old Testament. Dedicated to David telling his story. And if you look in the entire pages of this Bible, Jesus Christ, the name Christ Jesus as they refer to, is mentioned over 1500 times. The most of anyone in the Bible as it should be. But that David is mentioned second most?

Over a thousand times! David is mentioned in Scripture. Over a thousand times. So is there an enigma with David or with Scripture? We should be able to defend Scripture since we were told what? We're to live by every word. Proceed to the mouth of God. Are you ready to defend? Can you defend these supposedly puzzling scriptures and this enigma of a man?

I hope so! Let's dive in and look at something. Let's go to 1 Samuel 16. 1 Samuel 16 verse 7 says, But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him, talking about Saul. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad? He looks at the heart. How many of us would be chosen? How many of us would be chosen for looks? You know, as I think about it, nobody has called me or contacted me because they want to take a picture of me and put it on People magazine as the sexiest man alive.

Nobody's done that to me. I don't know. Maybe they have you. Definitely have a me. So I'm glad that he pulls from the heart. But there's something different because if you go to down to verse 12 of 1 Samuel 16 and verse 12, as you can see, it describes David. Describes David and said he's ruddy, complexion, and he has bright eyes, and he's good looking.

Well, wait a minute. I thought God wasn't looking for a good looking person. Was he saying that he was just less than his brother? Because when Samuel first saw Heliab, he goes, oh, this has got to be the main. So Heliab must have been a strikingly handsome young man. But it says that even David was a good looking guy.

Is there any question about those scriptures? Let's look at something else because, as we can see here, God was involved. It was God who was making all these chess pieces come together in the right place. He chooses who he wants in each little place. Do we realize that? Are we thankful for that? And that he knows what he's doing? As we heard earlier, he is sovereign. Whether we like it or not, whether atheists like it or not, whether the teachers of this world like it or not, God is sovereign.

And if they don't understand now, there will be a time when they will. And they will leave no doubt. And God was very much in charge here. And I think we can see that if we go to 1 Samuel 16 verse 18. Psalm 16 verse 18. Then one of the servants answered and said to him, who to Saul, look, I have seen a son of Jesse who is skillful in playing a mighty man of valor.

Who is skillful in playing an instrument, he means. A mighty man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person. So here he is. He's handsome again. But, and the Lord is with him. Who was this? Who was this person? It doesn't even say who he was, but how did he know? How did he know that this young man was a mighty man of valor? Had stories already been told? How did he know? How did he get to tell Saul that he needed to bring this young man in? Did God move a chess piece right there? Did he move that chess piece just so this man knew exactly who David was and move this chess piece right in front of Saul?

And it puts David from the fields right into the court of the king. How many chess pieces has God moved with you? Oh, you may not be sitting in the court of a king, but he's put you in where he wants you. He has moved chess pieces so I'm where I am and you're where you are. Maurice is where he is.

Jeff's where he is. And guess what? You're where God is moving the chess pieces. What a blessing to leave it to somebody smarter than myself, or than yourself. Think about that. How powerful is that? And it shows through David's life because it said at the end, what? The Lord. The Lord was something. The Lord was sovereign in David's life. The Lord was with David even when David was not always with the Lord. Because he, too, put some distance. David, too, tried to move some of those chess pieces on the board.

But unlike Bobby Fischer, who considered the greatest chess player ever, well, God is and will always be the grand master. He moves the pieces. He knows two steps ahead what your play is. He knows what you're going to do. And he hopes he'll stay close to him as he tries to guide you in making the right moves.

Because there's a lot to be played out in this world yet. There's a lot to be played out in the future, and I'm just not talking about COVID or any of these things. There's a greater time than this ahead. And he's preparing all of us for that. Are you willing to be prepared? Are you willing to have him put the pieces where he wants the pieces to go?

Because that's the big question with David. In 1 Samuel 16 verse 21, we see, he says, so David came to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and became his armor bearer, which was a great honor at that time. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Please, let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight. How do you think that happened? How about a chest piece was moved. And so it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand, then Saul would become refreshed, and, well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him as he heard this music.

Another chest piece is being moved into place in the life of David. But it's interesting there. We see that this shepherd boy, farm boy as we might call it back in Tennessee, this farm boy was taken from the farm and put right into the court of the king. Why? Because that boy was going to be the king. He knew nothing about how things worked. He had no education other than to take care of sheep.

But now he was learning at the steps of leadership. Can't say Saul would have been the best one, because I'm sure he picked up a lot of bad habits. But he also saw how things were done. He just wasn't thrust into leadership. So what about us? Do we feel the same as time of David? Because David was put on the throne by God.

But even before he ever became king, he was being used by God. We may not even see some of the things that God is doing with us in our lives, in our families, that are going to come into play three moves down the road, two years down the road.

Do we? Are we really looking to gain that experience so we can be used by God? So that we understand why we're there. You know, sometimes we may be an enigma to people. To people you work with, your relatives. Well, wait a minute. They're religious. They know the Bible, but they don't even keep Christmas. They don't even do some of this stuff. How? That's, you know, they say Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior, and they don't even recognize when he was born. Yes, I'm sure we are an enigma to people, because our job, I remember coming across somebody I was working with one time, and he was very religious and went to school for with a theology degree, and I would talk about various things. He would bring them up and one. He was amazed. He says, I don't understand, because I basically, we were just basically taught the New Testament other than a few stories about David and Samson and Moses and Noah. That's about it. But your church, you study the entire Bible. And he found that to be very strange, because he said, really, doesn't the only thing that matters is salvation being saved.

Yes, we do study both the Old and the New Testament. We live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, or we strive to. This is what this is what God wants us to do. This helps him move the chess pieces a little easier without any struggle. Let's go back to the story of David. David and Goliath, that's what an incredible story is told everywhere, and how this young kid thought to be 15, 16 years old. He took these stones and killed this nine-foot, six-inch giant.

The amazing part was, he was so confident in it that he went solid. As you see from the picture here, that's drawn on him. There's no doubt. Goliath went down, then he went to make sure he did cut his head off, and grabbed his armor and held his head and took it to Saul. Man, this is not some little scared young youth. You remember, he's the one that came and said, nobody else will fight him. I'll go out.

Who is this uncircumcised Philistine who defies the armies of the living God? And here he was in front of an army of men, men who had fought all their lives, men who were men of valor, strength, size. And David walks up and says, I'll take this guy on as a youth.

Because David was unique in that David saw, and get this, David saw Goliath dead before he ever walked on the battlefield.

David knew he was going to kill him, because he said the Lord was with him.

He knew! He knew! Can you imagine that? Because he had already seen a bear, a lion attack, and he went out with his bare hands and killed him. So this was nothing for him to see this man and said, guess what? You're going down. I'm sure he didn't talk trash, but you find that Goliath was talking trash. Who's this dog you've sent out? Who is this dog you've sent out before me? Am I some dog that you would send this little rut out to me? Well, soon he found out. What about you? Do you see things?

Do you see things because of God working in your life? We experience a lot of stuff. As we get older, we look back and say, well, I'm glad I didn't make a bigger mess of that. I'm glad I was able to correct that mistake in my life and don't make that kind of mistake anymore. None would have gone as working with us all. We become more like Christ every day. We hope that we are. But with this, David, was that unique? No, because experience plays such a part in our life. I know anyone that my wife can bake a cake, maybe a wife do, a woman can bake a cake. I couldn't bake a cake if my wife depended on it. I just see her put this stuff in a bowl and she's mixing this up and then sticks it in the oven, pops out, and it's a cake. She knew what that cake was going to look like before she put it in.

This is why, because of the experience. She'd seen that before. So, David, this was nothing new. Even a cake is a long way from from slaying a giant. But for David, it really wasn't. He'd seen God's hand in everything. He had seen him protect him and empower him to do these mighty wonders, even as a youth. How empowering that should be to our youth when we find out that God starts working with you at a young age. And he wants to. And he wants to do mighty things. First Samuel 18 verse 14.

And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. He behaved wisely. He was just 16-17 years old. How wise was I at 16-17 years old? Not very wise.

The Lord was with me. I just didn't recognize him as such. I just didn't depend on him. I didn't recognize him as being sovereign, as we heard earlier today, at that age. But God was working with me. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here today. You wouldn't be here today. You wouldn't have the understanding that you have today, except God is working with you. But it may seem strange. It may seem strange, and I'm sure it was to David. I'm sure these older men looked, and they had been soldiers for 10-20 years, and David came in and took over as a leader of the army of Israel at the time. They had to think, what was this kid? But he just shows why? Why was he made the head of the army? Why was he later king? It all came down to what it says behind me. The Lord was with him. Brethren, we must understand and get through our heads that God is with us. He gives us this for an example. Do we really question? Let's look at a couple of things, because I bring this up because if you're a student of the scriptures, and we all are supposed to be, we're not only for our own benefit, but for the benefit of others that we can help people. We can help people understand their purpose in life, their destiny, why things happen, how to live righteously. We're given this, and it's powerful. So we need to be able to not only answer some of the easy things, but sometimes when people are conflicted. So let's look at this man of David as I finish up here today, because I think it's important. Because 1 Samuel 13 and verse 14, says, But now your kingdom shall not continue, as Samuel was telling Saul. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart, a man after his own heart. Which sometimes you might have to say, what?

He has sought a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be the commander over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

But then you have to say, wait a minute, if David was that great, why?

Why are there issues? Why is there an enigma? If he was a man after God's own heart. A man after God's own heart, wait, wait, wait, let me get this straight. A man after God's own heart, who is perhaps the most famous adulterer in the entire Bible, and a murderer then marries his servant's wife after having her husband killed. A man after God's own heart, is that an enigma or is that blasphemy?

Do we have an answer? Would your God do such a thing? Would your God do such a thing? Would Jesus Christ have slept with Peter's wife, impregnate her, kill Peter, and then marry Peter's wife? No. You would say no. Then how do you, how do I, how do we reconcile the now famous man after God's own heart? How do you answer that? If your children came to you, your grandchildren came to you, and you got them reading the Bible, and they read about this David character, and then, all of a sudden, they bring up these questions. How about somebody who's trying to learn the scriptures, or even an atheist who doesn't believe and he wants to mock you for reading the scriptures for keeping what God commands, and believing that there's a God up there, much less that he's sovereign. But if we do away with David, we do away with the Son of David, as the scriptures say, which also makes us think.

So, was David more than a local, I don't know, warlord or chieftain? Or was he a Middle Eastern bully? Is there a Bible fact or fiction? These stories. Is there anything to back them up? David had at least 18, 19 sons. So, was David really a myth or a legend or a real person?

Supposedly, David lived a thousand years before Christ. Yet, 3,000 years go by since the time of David. And there's no evidence of David anywhere in any documents, pages, stones, anything. And if you know your history, you realize that he does not show up in any ancient script of the Egyptians. The Syrians are even Assyria.

And they kept great records. They know the Syrians kept records in stone. Of all their conquerings, all their battles, the Syrians, they just did that. The Egyptians would write it on papers. They would write it on different cuneiform tablets, as Assyria did. And all this. But David never showed up!

So did he really exist? And people argued this for a very long time with no evidence, no proof.

Was it all just made up? Well, that's what a lot of people thought. Until something happened July 21st in 1993.

Yeah, 1993. All that time there was no evidence before this time that David even existed. But then an archaeologist, Professor Abraham Byron, he was excavating in the area which was dammed, which is north of Galilee. And he found a triangular piece of basalt. Basalt. What is basalt? You can see a picture of it here. It's actually lava that is hardened. And it becomes so hard that it does not deteriorate after thousands of years. And when it is actually sanded, it makes for a smooth piece of rock formation. And this professor in 1993, not knowing anything in particular, just excavating, excavating, you know, just taking out and looking at whatever they found. And all of a sudden, he finds this salt rock that was inscribed. When they dust it all off, it had been smooth, and they had used it to write something on, and it was an Aramaic.

And it dated, as they were looking at the rest of the stuff around it, and dated to the ninth century BC, which was less than a hundred years after David existed. So this was interesting to them, because it was part of a victory pillar, this whole pillar that was out there, and it was part of it, erected by the king of Syria. And on it was inscribed the words, the dynasty or house of David in Aramaic. You can go back to your scriptures now, which turn things around, because we know from the scriptures that he battled Syria two or three times. Matter of fact, in one day, David took a group out and killed 22,000 of them, and then another day another 25,000 of them, and hardly lost a man. So here was proof that King David really did exist. It just took a few thousand, almost three thousand years to prove it to people, where a lot of people won't even believe it's true, even if they saw the evidence. But we do. Why? Because we saw David. Because we saw him through the pages of this Bible. We saw David before we saw this piece of lava, this pillar. Because we believe. We believe that this word says, and we believe that David is working. He worked with God, and God is working with us. So two times it said that David was a man after God's own heart.

Are you that person? Are you a man after God's own heart? Are you a woman after God's own heart? You have to answer that question.

Are you an enigma to people? Because David definitely was. So how, how do you, why would God choose him? You have to say, why him? Well, I have to say, why you? Why me? But he did choose him. And I think we can begin to see that David had tremendous flaws. Don't you? Don't you? That we're working on, and it took David a lifetime. And we had the interesting story of covering David in those 66 chapters in the Bible from the time he was 15, 16 years old to when he died, when he was 70 years old. Would you like everything written about you? All the good things, and then all the bad. Unique position, God put David in. But David had incredible strengths, incredible weaknesses, but incredible strengths. If we go to the book of Psalm, and I won't go there, but if you read the book of Psalm, there are so many written by David. And as you read the dedication, the love he has for God, the respect, the awe that he had for God, chapter after chapter after chapter, we get an insight into the mind of David.

He did love his God. He did trust his God. His whole heart was with God, even when he did bad things. And sometimes he had to be shaken. Shaken to get his life back on track, because he wanted to move a chess piece. And God particularly didn't want him to move.

How many chess pieces have you moved? Now, were there consequences to David's actions when he did things wrong? Oh, absolutely. He lost a child right after birth, a little after birth.

He had pronounced on him that because he was a bloody man, he didn't mind using the sword. That his house, the sword, would never depart from the house or dynasty of David. And it didn't. A terrible penalty. He had to pay. We've had to pay before, haven't we? We had to pay for making bad mistakes, for not going down the road we should have gone. Does it mean that we didn't love God? No. No. But I want to give you short and sweet two scriptures that are almost the last of the 1011 scriptures that mention David in them. Because it tells us about this enigma. And what was it? What was it that David had or did that made him be held up here by God? That made him be the person that said he's a man after my own heart? I'd like to turn there, if you will. Acts 13 and verse 22. Acts 13 and verse 22. I find this to be interesting. As Luke, the physician, as he's the historian here, is looking back and telling about David. And in verse 22 he says, and when he had removed him, 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. Who will do all my will? What an incredible statement! Who will do all my will? What is God's will? What was God's will? Whatever God's will was, David did it. The only problem was he did some of his own will. We, brethren, will do some of our own will. But will we do God's will? Have you ever met someone like that? Because they are rare. They are rare. Because if you say, I want you to do this, perhaps you have worked with an employee, perhaps you have worked for an employer, or worked with somebody, or dealt with somebody, or even somebody in the church, and said, oh, I really need you to do this. And they go, no problem. And they just do it. God had been looking for a long time for a man who would just do it.

As you wish, was kind of David's word. He gave him something to do. He would do it. Who will do all my will. Brethren, it's not an enigma. It's flaws. It's just flaws. Flaws in all of us. And as, forget one great philosopher said, great men have great flaws. And they do. Great women. Great flaws. But the flaws do not define them. David's flaws may be thought about, read about, and pronounced and used against them. But what about? God's viewpoint. God was serious about his will. His will being done.

Are we one of those people?

That can say, you will be done. Christ did it, didn't he? He didn't want to have to go through what he was going to have to go through that last night. And he said, no, but I don't want to do it, but it's not my will, your will. Brethren, have we answered the call like that enough? Have you answered the call enough and said, God, your will. I will accept it. I will accept your will. That's hard to do sometimes when emotions and families and lives are on the line. It was for David.

Let's go to the last scripture here. Last scripture, Acts 13, verse 36, says, For David, after he served his generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers and saw corruption, served his generation by the will of God. Brethren, what better thing could God say to you? Write about you, that you served your generation by his will. By the will of God, we will follow that. We heard earlier from Romans about the will of God.

What about what we also heard in Matthew 6 and verse 33? You know it. I don't have to say it.

That's one step.

That's telling you how. And I just don't need to give you that. All I need to do is give you this. Brethren, this has the will of God.

That's why it's so important we study it every week.

Brethren, we may be an enigma to the world, as David was to people today who read about him.

But we're not an enigma to God. Because we, each one of us, has a purpose for being here. God has a purpose. He's working with us. He's not finished yet. We're far from finished. You may be closer than I am, but I've still got some work to do. That's why I have to dig in this thing, too. I am, as a matter of fact, I probably dig into it more than you, because I need to, not just because it's my job, because I realize how important the will of God is.

So, brethren, let's do this. Do the will of God. Be a person after God's own heart.

And we will never be an enigma to God. And that's who really matters. Have a great week. Keep God sovereign. And, brethren, let us look to our Father and say, Thy will be done this week.