17th November 2023

17th November 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - 1 Samuel 18:17-30


Message Alan Burke 


The matchmaker has almost become a thing of the past, there was a time you were introduced to someone maybe by a friend of a friend and actually had to meet in person and talk. These days though you can use an app on your phone and meet people you’d never meet except an algorithm that has been designed sees you as a possible match for another person. Maybe these changes are good or maybe life would be simpler if parents just did all the matchmaking as takes place in some parts of the world. As we pick up Saul is attempting to be a matchmaker but he is doing it for selfish reasons and attempting to manipulate David. 


Firstly Saul offered his daughter Merab then his daughter Michael to David. They were attempts to remove the of David to him and his throne. Saul is shrewd, he knew that if he is the one who puts David to death that the people would revolt, whereas if David dies at the hands of the Philistines, it would be problem solved, David would die as a martyr but at least he would be dead. Outwardly at least, Saul is keeping up appearances, as he publicly offers his daughter Merab to David which serves to show he is a friend of David. This wasn’t a reward or recognition for David’s victory or valour, his daughter had a price, service, David was to serve Saul and fight the battles of the Lord. It was a request for allegiance to Saul alone and it was all done with the motivation of eliminating him. 


Saul wanted it to look on the outside that he was blameless, that he loved David, he was using his family for his own personal gain, it didn’t work with the first offer of marriage so he used the love his younger daughter Michal’s had for David to his advantage, a chance to put David in jeopardy, with no repercussions for himself. For David it was a chance to secure his claim on the throne, it was no small matter to become the king’s son in law, David was a poor man presumably unable to pay the bride price for a princess, he was still a nobody, insignificant even with his victory, a father could set the price he desired, Saul could suggest a ton of gold but instead he asks for one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, giving David a deadline, hoping that he wouldn’t make it and that even better he would fall into the hands of their enemies the Philistines that they would capture or kill David. 


For it would have involved close hand to hand combat, they weren’t simply shooting over the trenches, or setting off a missile to hit the target, this would have been a bloody barbaric battle, Saul’s frustration grows his fear grows as he sees Davis success and realises that far from Michal becoming a snare she has joined with Jonathan and the people in supporting him, he could not see David as anything other than a enemy. David was victorious once more against the Philistines, Saul got twice as much as he asked for, hardly the result he wanted or expected he stuck by his word only because his plan backfired.


In this all Saul was resisting the Lord and his anointed, even though he knew that the Lord was David and not against him he tried without success to go against the plans and purposes of the Lord. Ultimately Saul would loose, all those who are against the Lord’s anointed will loose, they may succeed for a time, they may even look like they have gained the world but they will face his wrath for all eternity. Yet for those who are his through the anointed of the Lord, Jesus Christ, who have placed their trust in him they will have the victory through him (1 Cor 15:54-58)


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q99 What rule hath God given for our direction in prayer?
The whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; (1 John 5:14) but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called The Lord’ s prayer. (Matt. 6:9–13, Luke 11:2–4)
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