David shows us that God does not hate those who hate him, and does not delight when bad things happen to them. He also serves as a model of patience. God’s promises were only partially fulfilled for him at this point, but he trusted and waited, because he recognized his life was about God’s purposes, not his own ambitions. In this life, even for Jesus, God’s promises have only been partially fulfilled. We wait with joyful expectation for the day when all of them come to complete fruition.

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We recently finished the book of 1 Samuel. However, that book leaves off in the middle of the action, so to speak. It doesn’t tell us what happened to David after Saul died. The reason for this is that originally, First and Second Samuel were one book. The Jews who translated the Old Testament into Greek divided this history into two books. Probably the division arose because Greek uses vowels, where Hebrew does not. This means that the Greek translation is much longer than the original Hebrew. As a result, it had to be put into two separate scrolls – the “first,” and “second.” Bear in mind as we study it, however, that it is all part of one work.

At the very end of 1 Samuel, we considered the lament that David wrote about Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:17-27). But there were a few things which preceded that. Remember, David and his men had fought a battle of their own with the Amalekites, who had attacked when everyone else in the region was off to the Israelite-Philistine war. Two days after he got back from defeating the Amalekites, a man came from the north, bringing news of the great battle between the Philistines and Israelites in the valley of Jezreel.

This man got the main news correct – Israel lost the battle, and Saul and Jonathan were killed. But then his story diverges from the one recorded in 1 Samuel 31. In 1 Samuel 31, it says that Saul killed himself when the Philistines got close to him. The writer does not make editorial comments, but it is clear that whoever wrote it regarded 1 Samuel 31 as the accurate record of events, and the story of this stranger as embellishments and lies.

Jewish tradition holds that the man who came to David with this story was actually the son of Doeg the Edomite, whom they also suppose was Saul’s armor bearer at the time Saul died. They think his claim to be an Amalekite was to hide from David the fact that his father was the infamously evil Doeg. There is nothing in the text one way or another to tell us if this is so or not, but it is possible that Doeg was elevated to the status of Saul’s personal armor bearer and bodyguard after he did him the favor of killing the priests when no one else would. If this man is Doeg’s son (and if Doeg was Saul’s armor bearer), it would explain his presence close to Saul, and how he was able to take Saul’s crown and escape.

He claims that the Philistine chariots were coming close to Saul. This shows us, the readers, that he is not being completely truthful. He probably said it to try and justify to David why he (allegedly) ended Saul’s life. Chariots were formidable weapons that the Philistines had and the Israelites did not (at this time). It would be the modern equivalent of tanks closing in on an infantry position. If the chariots were close, then indeed all was certainly lost. However, we know that Saul was on Mount Gilboa, and the messenger even affirms this. There were no roads (the way we think of roads) in those days. Chariots simply did not work well, if at all, on roadless mountainsides. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that they used chariots on the mountain where Saul died.

David, experienced warrior that he is, probably sensed right then there was something wrong with the story. Even how the messenger begins is quite suspicious: “I happened to be on Mount Gilboa…” He “just happened” to be in the middle of a battle? Just “happened” to be near king Saul? Not likely.

It was clear however, that this man thought claiming to have killed Saul would make him a favorite with David. Whoever he was, he completely misunderstood David. This was because he assumed that deep down, David was not really serious about being the Lord’s man; or perhaps since he was part of Saul’s retinue, he had never heard anyone talk about David’s strong faith. He condemns himself with his lie.

16 And David said to him, “Your blood be on your head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the LORD’s anointed.’”

David had him executed immediately for the crime of killing Saul. Once again, as harsh as this seems, it is a reflection of David’s humble heart and in a way, a reflection of how the Lord felt about Saul. God is not happy that Saul is dead. Neither is God’s servant. And David, by executing this man showed everyone that there was nothing to be gained by lies or treachery or unnecessary bloodshed. If anyone thought they could ingratiate themselves to David with that kind of behavior, their illusions would be shattered. God didn’t want Saul dead, and neither did David. You won’t earn any favors with God by hating or hurting people whom you think are God’s enemies. People do turn away from God and do evil, and God does not want them to do that. But he doesn’t hate them — He grieves over them, as he grieved over Saul. Saul was destroyed by himself and his own choices, not by God. You can destroy your own life, as Saul did, but the Lord is never out to destroy you.

I am writing this less than a week after someone tried to assassinate former President Trump, who is campaigning to become president again. Our political situation in America is very tense at the moment. It is a good and timely reminder that God does not rejoice at the death of those who have turned away from him. So, we who follow Jesus should not be happy at the downfall of others, even others whom we think might be enemies of God. We will not earn God’s favor for hating, or trying to harm his “enemies.” This goes for all sides of the political spectrum. War and the punishment of crime are situations in which evil might be restrained, or good defended, but they should not be motivated by hatred or anger. Rather, they are a sad necessity in this fallen world. Listen to how the Lord puts it to the people who were rebelling against him:

¹¹ As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die? (Ezekiel 33:11, NLT)

 By the way, this lesson is repeated three times in the first four chapters of 2 Samuel, which means we are really supposed to pay attention to it, and take it seriously.

OK, moving on, once Saul was dead, David’s reason for staying out of Israel was gone. His main obstacle to becoming king and fulfilling the Lord’s calling was removed. David knew he was anointed to be the next king of Israel. A large portion of the population knew this also. I think a lot of people at this point would move ahead and “just go for it.”

Not David. The first thing he did was to ask God what he should do. He did not assume anything. I think the reason for this is that David was not trying to establish his own kingdom – instead, he was trying to be God’s servant. His attitude was not, “How can I behave so that God can help me?” That was Saul’s basic approach to life. But David’s heart was this: “Lord, what do you want to do next?” He did not view God as his assistant in achieving his goals. Instead, he felt that his whole life was God’s own project. His role was to try and assist God, not the other way around. David’s anointing and his destiny were not about David – they were about the Lord. So becoming king is not David’s idea nor his goal – his goal is to serve the Lord.

I also want to point out that in this matter, David learned from his mistakes. He did not ask God before he took his family, his men, and their families to live among the Philistines (1 Samuel 27:1-3. We looked at this in 1 Samuel sermon #28). However, after that mistake, he started asking God what to do even for decisions where the conclusion seemed obvious.

As I have pointed out before, David is one of the people in the Old Testament who sheds light on what Jesus is like (that is, David is a “type” of Christ). Jesus expressed this same attitude of being here for the Father’s purposes in John 8:28 and 12:49 (among other places)

So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. (John 8:28, ESV)

For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment-what to say and what to speak. (John 12:49, ESV)

This is not complicated, but it is HUGE when it comes to living out our faith practically. It is so easy to fall into the idea that the life of faith is about God helping us each achieve our own destiny. We make this seem good and spiritual, because we assume that our destiny was created by God. And of course, it is. But it isn’t about us. It is about God. When we think that it is about us, we inevitably get angry or disappointed with God when he fails to do things for us that we think would bring about our destiny.

Our true destiny is to bring glory and honor and praise to God – not  to meet our own personal goals. Achieving that destiny is God’s business from beginning to end. Some people, like David, brought glory to God in very public ways, like becoming a well-known leader. Others do it quietly, like being a loving wife and mother, or praying regularly for others.

I think some things in life get a bit easier once we really accept this. We should give all of our strength, skill and energy to the things God wants us to, but we no longer have to control the outcome. Our hearts can be at rest as we trust God to fulfill his own plan and purpose.

Now, I think it would be wrong to assume that David didn’t care either way if he became king. First, he wanted what God wanted, and God did want that. Second, because God wanted to work in this way through him, David was drawn to it. He wanted to lead because he was created for it. So I am sure that David really wanted to become king. Even so, he subordinated his own desires to God, because he understood that it wasn’t really about him. Like Samuel’s mother, he had real desires that he acknowledged, but at the same time, he also surrendered them to God.

This is important, because right after he asked God what to do, David received a partial fulfillment of God’s calling, but it was only partial. The Lord told David to return to Israel, to the town of Hebron in the territory of Judah. When he did that, the tribe of Judah received David as their king. However, Saul’s war-leader, Abner, rallied the other tribes around Saul’s one remaining son, Ish-Bosheth. So the other 11 tribes still did not acknowledge David as their king.

Judah was one of the largest, most powerful and prestigious tribes. Though just one of twelve tribes, their territory made up about one quarter of all the land held by Israel in Saul’s lifetime.  In two generations after David, Judah became its own independent country and most of the Jews living today come from that tribe (that’s why they are called Jews. “Jews;” from “Judah”). Even so, being king over just one tribe and about one quarter of the territory of Israel isn’t exactly what David thought the Lord had planned for him. It is sort of a fulfillment of God’s promise and calling. He was now a king. But he wasn’t the king of the whole nation. At that point, his kingdom was only 25% of the kingdom that Saul had ruled.

There was potential here for David to become frustrated. After all, you could not make any argument that Saul was more worthy than David, but even so, Saul’s kingdom was much larger than David’s (at least during this period of time). And David waited a really long time, even for this partial fulfillment of God’s call on him.

Think about it. Samuel anointed David when David was perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. At first it seemed like everything was falling into place. He grew a little, killed the giant and became a famous warrior and trusted member of the king’s court, all while he was very young. But it all fell apart again after just a few years. It was likely more than a decade that David had been living like a vagabond, with only a band of misfits who called him their leader. When Saul died, David was thirty years old. Probably fifteen years went by between the time he was anointed to be king and the time when Saul died. That’s a long time – half of his entire life up until that point. And now finally he was one out of two kings of Israel. His kingdom was the smaller of the two. It will be seven more years before he becomes king of all Israel. That’s a total of twenty-two years waiting for God to fulfill his promises.

This partial fulfillment is also a “type of Christ.” The kingdom of Jesus Christ has only come in part so far. Jesus reigns over the hearts of those who will let him, but not everything is under his rule, as it will be when this world ends. Speaking of Jesus, Paul writes:

9 For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow — of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth — 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9-11, HCSB)

But currently, at the name of Jesus, not every knee does bow, not every person does worship. There is a part of Jesus’ exaltation and kingship that is still in the future. It is not fully here yet. The writer of Hebrews says:

7 You made him lower than the angels for a short time; You crowned him with glory and honor 8 and subjected everything under his feet. For in subjecting everything to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him. 9 But we do see Jesus — made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God’s grace He might taste death for everyone — crowned with glory and honor because of His suffering in death. (Heb 2:7-9, HCSB) (added italicization)

We do not yet see everything subjected to Jesus. The fulfillment of the prophecies about Jesus are, at this point in time, only partial. In the same way, we too have only partially what has been promised us. Paul writes to the Ephesians:

¹³ You heard and believed the message of truth, the Good News that he has saved you. In him you were sealed with the Holy Spirit whom he promised. ¹⁴ This Holy Spirit is the guarantee that we will receive our inheritance. We have this guarantee until we are set free to belong to him. God receives praise and glory for this. Ephesians 1:13-14, God’s Word)

We haven’t received the whole inheritance yet. We have the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that some day we will fully receive everything that He has promised us.In other words, right now, we have only part of what has been promised us. This means that Christianity is above all, a faith that is all about hope. We know this world doesn’t fully satisfy. True justice isn’t available here and now. True, unblemished joy is scarce and temporary. True satisfaction, contentment and fulfillment are always elusive. Those who don’t surrender their hearts to Jesus get angry at God because of this. But they aren’t listening. The true fulfillment of  God’s love for us and his promises to us comes after this world ends. We don’t have to make the credits outweigh the debits in this life. We don’t have to have everything we have dreamed of before we die. It is still coming. It was still coming for David. It is even now, still coming for Jesus, who is not yet king over everything. And it is still coming for us.

How is the Lord speaking to you through this text today? Perhaps you need to remember that even those who have rejected the Lord are not our enemies. We could all use a reminder that not even God is happy when those who reject him are hurt. I am not suggesting that we allow people to do evil without attempting to resist it. But even when we have to be involved in restraining evil and defending good, we can reflect God’s heart of sadness that people have chosen to reject him.

Possibly you need to remember that your life is not really yours, but that it belongs to God. I think we could use reminding that God is not there to help us fulfill our personal desires or destinies. Instead, we are here to serve God.

Maybe you are struggling because it seems like you have received only part of what you think God has promised you. First, make sure you know what God has indeed promised. And then, remind yourself that in this life, all fulfillments are partial. We have an amazing future in which everything that God has promised will indeed be completely ours, and that future is in a New Creation where there is no more sorrow, suffering or death. Until we reach those eternal shores, everything we have here is just a temporary shadow of the stunning reality that will be ours. This should help us to have patience as we wait in hope.