Broken Vessels: David, Part III

Welcome! Today we will do the third part of our series on David, a part of our larger series called Broken Vessels, a series where we have looked at how God has used people as part of His larger plan even though they repeatedly sin and fail, and how God has even used these failings into His larger plan.

Last week I left you with a cliffhanger! We were reading in I Samuel 30 how David and his men had just come back to their town, Ziklag, a town deep in Philistine territory, only to find that the town was a smoldering ruin and all the women and children and the few men that had been there were gone! Upon seeing this calamity, the passage says that “David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. David’s own wives had been taken – Ahinoam and Abigail; David’s first wife, Michal, if you recall, was now another man’s wife, this all having been arranged by Saul, who was fixed on killing David because of jealousy and his fear of losing the throne to him. 

Broken Vessels: David, Part II

Good morning! Today we are continuing our 3-week mini-series on David, a part of the larger series entitled Broken Vessels, an exploration of the lives of key people in the Old Testament. I mentioned last week that there was no way we could have time to cover everything about David in only 3 weeks, and so this week and next we will do some skipping around.

Last week we went up to the point where David, although distraught and exhausted fleeing from Saul, continues to praise the Lord and follows the Lord’s leading and saves the town of Keilah from the Philistines. There was a powerful lesson for us here – that we too, regardless of our circumstances, should continue giving God worship and praise and also that we too, regardless of our circumstances, should continually seek the Lord and strive to do His will, particularly in terms of helping others. For us this means to keep on being salt and light to people, praying for them, giving them the good news of Jesus Christ, and helping them to grow as new believers. David is a model for us in these things.

Broken Vessels: David, Part I

Welcome! Today we begin a new miniseries within the general series called Broken Vessels, a series that focuses on personalities of the Old Testament, looking at their strengths and weaknesses, their victories and their failures, their faith and their lack of faith in God. Our focus for the next three weeks is David. Now, there is more than enough material in the Bible on David to last 20 weeks, so we will just look at certain highlights of David’s life and try to get the “big picture” of this complex man.

Previously, we focused on the life of Saul, a man who repeatedly wanted to do things his own way instead of God’s way, a man filled with a mix of pride, insecurity, and fear that is common today and in every age. Saul’s life ended tragically with him taking his own life on the battlefield, at a battle in which not only Saul fell, but his sons and his nation as well.

Broken Vessels: Saul, Part II

Today we finish a two-part series on the life of King Saul. Actually, last week in a way we finished the life of King Saul, because we saw Saul continue to disobey the Lord to the point that the prophet Samuel, speaking for the Lord, declared that Saul was no longer king, that another would become king in his place. Now we know that this is David. From this point on, the stories of Saul and David intertwine. As we go forward, I will mention David where it is essential to understanding the story of Saul, but I will save an analysis of David’s life for the coming weeks when we focus specifically on David.

Last week I started with an unflattering quote from the New Testament about Saul; this week, I thought I would start with a passage from Deuteronomy that instructs what kings should do.

Broken Vessels: Saul, Part I

Welcome! We are in the middle of a series called “Broken Vessels,” looking at key people in the Old Testament history and examining their faith and their experiences with God, warts and all. We have seen that each person has had their strengths and weaknesses, their victories and failures, and we have also learned a lot about God; His unchanging nature, His holiness, His wisdom, His goodness, His justice, and His mercy. Some of these attributes were always plainly seen from the very beginning; others, such as His mercy, we only saw glimpses of; but all attributes of God are only seen in their complete fullness in Christ. Given that this is true, it is good to be reminded why we are spending so much time in the Old Testament; it is because, as it says in I Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness.” And we have focused on people of the Old Testament in part because Hebrews 11 gives examples of people with regards what it means to live by faith, and of course this is something we want to do. And so this week, we begin a two-part “mini”-series on Saul.

Broken Vessels: Ruth and Samson

After a couple of weeks off, we come back to the series of Broken Vessels. This series is a study of the lives of men and women in the Old Testament. The purpose of this story is to see how God works, how God uses us, in spite of our weaknesses, our brokenness.

Today, we are going to discuss a well known man and a well known woman: Samson and Ruth. These stories are full of examples that help us understand God and the meaning of His Word in the New Testament. I worked really hard to shorten this message, and I think I’m going to keep it to less than 90 minutes.

The story of Samson starts with the familiar opening from Judges:

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. Judges 13:1

Jesus: the First and Last

Today we are going to spend time remembering Jesus’ willing sacrifice of Himself on the cross for us. We will remember Him in the way Jesus Himself taught His disciples 2000 years ago, with the bread and the cup, symbols of His body broken for us and His blood shed for us. In preparation for the time, I want us to meditate on one of the titles for Jesus, the First and the Last. This phrase is used repeatedly of Jesus in the Book of Revelation:

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead. Then He placed His right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. – Rev. 1:17

These are the words of Him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. – Rev. 2:8

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. – Rev. 22:13

Broken Vessels: Gideon

We have a lot of ground to cover, so we will get right into the story of Gideon, in Judges chapter 6.

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help. – Judges 6:1-6

Broken Vessels: Ehud and Deborah

Today we will look at two characters from the book of Judges. In Judges we see a repeated pattern described in Chapter 2:

Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the Lord's commands. – Judges 2:16-17

Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, He was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. – Judges 2:18-19

Jesus: the Bread

Today we have a shortened teaching followed by a time of remembering the Lord with the bread and the cup, as He has asked us in His Word to remember Him. We will follow this with a “sharing time” in which anyone is welcome to share what the Lord has been teaching them in the past month. And then we will spend some time in prayer together.

There are some grand themes in the Bible, and as we have been going through this current series on Broken Vessels, looking at the imperfect lives of the Old Testament that God has used to further His purposes on Earth, one theme I have noticed is that of the provision of food. The actual historical events of the Old Testament not only simply happened and were recorded for us to learn from; they also were shadows of things to come. These things are often veiled, partially hidden, but they are there for those who look, for those who seek, and they point to our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.