Char Chpl I'd rather be a little man

...chapter and allow it to speak to you. That's why I introduced my theme and this reading so very early on. The 18th chapter of the first book of Samuel picks up the story of David, who felled Goliath and whose fame is beginning to pick up and manifest itself throughout Israel.

But alongside David there's another character who's not exactly chuffed by the way that David seems to be reaping success and recognition. This is page 290 in the few Bibles. After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David and he loved him as himself.

From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father's house. Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic and even his sword, his bow and his belt.

Whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the people and Saul's officers as well. When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes.

As they danced they sang. Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands. Saul was very angry.

This refrain galled him. They have credited David with tens of thousands, he thought, but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom? And from that time, from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.

The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully upon Saul. He was prophesying in his house while David was playing the harp as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand and he held it saying to himself, I'll pin David to the wall.

But David eluded him twice. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with David but had left Saul. So he sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men and David led the troops in their campaigns.

In everything he did he had great success because the Lord was with him. When Saul saw how successful he was he was afraid of him but all Israel and Judah loved David because he led them in their campaigns. Saul said to David, here is my elder daughter Merab.

I will give her to you in marriage. You shall only serve me bravely and fight the battles of the Lord. For Saul said to himself, I will not raise a hand against him.

Let the Philistines do that. But David said to Saul, who am I? And what is my family? Or my father's clan in Israel? That I should become the king's son-in-law. So when the time came for Merab, Saul's daughter, to be given to David in marriage to Adriel of Mehola.

Now Saul's daughter, Michael, was in love with David and when they told Saul about it he was pleased. I will give her to him, he thought, so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. So Saul said to David, now you have a second opportunity to become my son-in-law.

Then Saul ordered his attendants to speak to David privately and say, look, the king is pleased with you and his attendants, all like you, now become his son-in-law. They repeated these words to David, but David said, do you think it is a small matter to become the king's son-in-law? I'm only a poor man and little known. When Saul's servants told him what David had said, Saul replied, I say to David, the king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins to take revenge on his enemies.

Saul's plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines. When the attendants told David these things, he was pleased to become the king's son-in-law. So before the allotted time elapsed, David and his men went out and killed 200 Philistines.

He brought their foreskins and presented the full number to the king so that he might become the king's son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michael in marriage. When Saul realized that the Lord was with David and that his daughter Michael loved David, Saul became still more afraid of him, and he remained his enemy for the rest of his days.

The Philistine commanders continued to go out to battle, and as often as they did, David met with more success than the rest of Saul's officers, and his name became well known. The implications of that we'll consider in due time in the grace of God, but let's move to an even greater than David and sing the praise of our Lord Jesus. I apologize for lengthy Bible readings.

The only thing that's fully inspired in any Christian service is the public reading of Scripture. So I turn you back to this chapter that may not be terribly well known, ground that may not have been trodden too frequently, and yet within it I think you'll find something that will be of challenge to you and to me this Sunday night in the heart of Edinburgh. When I was a kid in the church where I was reared in the steel city of Sheffield, we used to sing a chorus in our Sunday school.

I'd rather be a little man climbing up than a big man tumbling down. I'd rather be a junior with a smile than a senior with a frown. And that chorus was going round in my mind as I've just about lived in this chapter for quite some time, because although the words would perhaps not have won a prize at the Ice Steadford, and may they be the melody would not have been something that Chris Bowater would like to have owned, nonetheless it seems to me a summation of what you've got in this remarkable narrative.

Two men, a little man climbing up, a big man tumbling down. And because these things were written, says the Apostle Paul, when he is penning his epistles to the early churches, because these things were written for our learning, I argue, it is right and proper and possible on a Sunday evening to delve into a historical narrative tucked away in the Old Testament and to discover there something that will be of challenge to all of us. David is the wise man going higher.

Saul is the foolish man tumbling down. David is the man from an unlikely background who represents in this story no immediate authority at all. As for Saul, he's got it made.

And yet by the time you get to the end of the chapter and even more by the time you get to the end of 1 Samuel, you discover that that little parody in my chorus, those seed thoughts are sustainable as being helpful as keys to seeing what the human dilemma is, the tragedy in this particular account. One man tumbles down and the other one climbs high. And I ask you, where are you? If these two men stand for categories and if their coping with life stands for contrasting situations, where do you find yourself? A little man, glad humbly to be climbing, bit by bit, perhaps occasionally falling, or rather someone who arrogates to themselves success, who exploits blessings as though they have been the product of one's own ingenuity, someone who's great and comes tumbling.

Crashing down. I learn more about preaching from Martin Lloyd-Jones than anyone else, though I'm far, far short of his ability. But one of the things he would do sometimes on a Sunday night at Westminster to students who gathered was to let fly a salvo of questions.

And sometimes questions are necessary to come from the pulpit, to arrest the hearer so that he or she can respond to what is found within scripture. And so I put one or two to you. How do you handle success? For the problem you'll find embedded in this story was someone who mismanaged what seemed to be success and as a result of the mismanagement the success turned into failure.

Can you stay when the giant of envy looms up in your life and you start to think wrong thoughts about someone else? As a Christian, do you remember who you were, what you came from and what you have become? And do you allow your creed to control your conduct? Or are you so concerned about doctrine that you forget that the knock-on effect of doctrine is to take you into a life that is more like the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you go your own way or are you wanting to go the way of the Lord? So many questions tumble out of this chapter and demand an answer. But I'm aware that not every congregation is biblically informed, though this is an exception to the general rule. But there are bound to be on Sunday nights and on such an occasion as this those who are not too well versed in this narrative in any case.

So for you I give a summation. What has happened? Well, this man who felled the giant, this shepherd boy from the undulating plains of Bethlehem has been shot to a position of prominence and he has left the safety and security and the simplicity and the advantages of his old way of life and he finds himself in the political atmosphere of a court where the underlying spirit is not always conducive to the benefit of a young man's development. David has shot to a position of prominence to the extent that when he goes around Israel from seemingly every village and every town there are those who recognize his military exploits over against those of the king and a comparison is made and a sort of Beatlemania, if I dare use that term, breaks out as they sing of David.

Saul, the king, has killed his thousands, but David, his tens of thousands. Sometimes adulation directed towards a young person can be most injurious. These women would have been far better employed had they remembered the example of Miriam who when the Egyptian army had been routed miraculously some centuries before had led the Hebrew congregation in praise and glory to the Lord.

The horse and the rider he has cast into the sea and worship fell at the feet of Jehovah. But these women put the adulation at the feet of a relatively young man and that has the knock-on effect, you see, of creating problems for Saul, this malcontent king who sees David as being a rival to him and cannot understand why the crown prince, Jonathan, is so enmeshed in a friendship with David. And so you get side by side the spotlight on David and the spotlight on Saul and the contrast is drawn not only in the 18th chapter but in subsequent chapters.

Saul gives David a task to perform. He has already promised that whoever felled the Philistine giant Goliath would marry his daughter. He's somewhat late in keeping his promise.

He connives to let David, however, have his daughter provided David leads skirmishes against the Philistines and Saul dares to call this fighting the battles of the Lord. But far from Saul wanting David to do this in the name of God, he actually hopes that David might be felled himself by the Philistines. And when that doesn't happen, and when he reneges on giving David the first daughter for his wife, another opportunity crops up.

Michael also is available, his second daughter, who conveniently falls in love with David and David is offered her as his wife provided he goes into Philistia and fells 100 Philistines and bring evidence of their deaths to Saul. So, that's by and large a reasonable summary of what you find within this chapter. This is the theatre, envy, romance, malcontent, a young handsome man adoring women.

I mean, bless my soul, if the people behind River City had actually gone to the book of Samuel for a plot then they would not be faced with decreasing audiences week by week. This is the stuff that interests us because it is the stuff with which if you fast track to the 21st century we are confronted with today. And my contention is this, that Saul is an example of a man who comes tumbling, tumbling down.

Apostle Paul writing to the Galatians has some recollection of what their initial reaction was to the gospel when he preached it. But using language which is almost descriptive in a summary fashion of this chapter and directing his comments to the Galatians as we might direct his comments to Saul, he said, you did run well, who caught in on you? Who caused the problems that cropped up in Galatia? Some of you perhaps are in exactly the same situation. In principle you start well, but what caught in on you? Why is it that if you do an analysis of your own life you might at least in principle tend to feel that you're more inclined towards Saul in fitting into the teaching of this chapter than inclined to find yourself in the description according to David.

Let me examine Saul's fall. He started from a strong position, weakened by compromise, worn up by envy, and at the end he pressed the self-destruct button. Robert McGarvey is an interesting man.

I recall preaching in Zimbabwe some years ago and passing through Harare and it makes my heart bleed, my wife comes from that part of the world, to see what is happening in Rhodesia stroke Zimbabwe. A man who started so well, who underwent a lot of difficulties, and now power seems to have gone to his head. And the tribes within Zimbabwe, far from benefiting from the jurisdiction, from the oversight of a black politician, are arguably in a far worse position than what they were 15 years ago.

In fact it was pointed out to me with tongue-in-cheek when in Harare that McGarvey, spelt backwards, is Ibagum. And that is probably the tragic way of assessing just what is happening there. Someone who starts from a strong position and weakens himself by compromise.

You see, Saul, he declares UDI and he yields to the cancer of suspicion, which starts to eat him away. In the previous chapters you will discover that he arrogates to himself the position of a priest and a prophet. He seems to suggest that his own achievements, what he has attained, have been outside the omnipotence of God.

It is he who is responsible for his heightening position, not recognizing that it is God who causes kings to reign and who can bring about their downfall. Amongst the most terrible of human sins, says F.B. Meyer, is jealousy. The parents of the darkest and blackest crimes that have disgraced the annals of our race.

And it's this jealousy which eats into the heart of Saul, who sees David as his rival and turns as a result inwardly into himself and loses credibility as a leader. A big man, tumbling down, who started so well, who comes to the point when he doesn't even recognize when the Spirit of the Lord has gone from him. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with David, but had left Saul.

The tragedy was not the withdrawal of the Spirit, but Saul's inability to realize that the Spirit is no longer with him, like Samson who wished not when the Spirit had gone. And Saul finds himself at the cut and thrust of other forces, spiritual forces, which take him on that slippery slope, downwards and downwards and downwards, not outside the overall supervision of God, who even has hell in his final control. But nonetheless, Saul, damaged by the envy, the failure to recognize that all he is and all he ever would have been is as a result of God's grace.

How easy it is when the cup of success is placed in your hand to take it and swallow it yourself and not to place it on the feet of Almighty God. Saul was to sell the birthright of his own integrity. The greatest possession that you have is personal integrity.

Our college hymn is Be Thou My Vision. And the reason why I select that hymn is because in the second verse it goes on to say, Be thou my dignity, thou my delight. A man who has lost his dignity, a man who is losing his integrity, is a man who is spiraling downwards, falling, falling, falling.

Saul who has banned necromancy, Saul who has banned the wizards and the witches from Israel is found in the last chapter of his life consulting illegally a witch, asking for her direction and her help. Interesting that Diana, Princess of Wales, whose memory still seems to be as powerful and as an influence in our country as it was when she was alive. Interesting that just a few months before she died, she and Dodi Fayyad chartered a helicopter which brought them within just a few miles of my home in North Derbyshire, we were just in South Yorkshire, to consult Mystic Meg to ask for her advice.

Terrible when a person loses moorings, when a person moves beyond the revealed historic religion of Christianity and in this case Judaism, endeavours to get help from the spirit world. But such is Saul, the Humpty Dumpty of the Old Testament. Do you remember that nursery rhyme? When a being disintegrated beyond any ability for repair, the pathos in the nursery rhyme is all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.

And Saul is like that, a big man tumbling down and when the blessed Christ is on earth, he has a moment interfacing with Herod, he has nothing to say to the king and when the Lord of Glory has nothing to say to you, when all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put you back together again, you are in an irretrievably tragic situation. Such was Saul. Gloom and despondency, I admit, I'm engulfing you with at the moment, but only to give you the contrast.

You see, it doesn't have to be like that. You have Saul on the one hand, you have David on the other hand, and the little man who climbs up, the sunshine that is there in this chapter is so attractive it makes you stay with it, to see in contrast distinction to Saul, what you can learn from David, and asking God's grace that you might be a David man. David, we are told, several times was successful in all that he did, and if you check the margin reading in the NIV, you will discover that the Hebrew will allow the translation wise.

He's barely 20 years of age, but he's a wise man. It is the wisdom of David that is stacked up in this chapter, and that contrasts with the foolishness of Saul. In what way is the wisdom of David played out? I say in this, that he recognizes who he is, and where he has come from.

It's a commentary on modern way of life. That one of our favorite TV programs runs with the question, who wants to be a millionaire? Who wants to be a millionaire? As though success at the material level is the goal for which we should all honorably and justifiably aim. It is arguable that David was better off as a shepherd boy in Bethlehem than what he was in the political society of his day.

It is arguable that the most blessed and most treasured things in life are not to be found in the hurly-burly of success, but rather in sweet communion with God on your own. And David finds himself in the palace of a king. But at this point, David still has the heart, the heart of a shepherd boy.

It was once said of Joseph, Joseph lived in Egypt, but Egypt never lived in Joseph. And it's when the world lives in you that you have great difficulties, that to get into you is the reason for the forces that sometimes are allowed to play within your life, as the evil one would have you in the category of a man who is falling instead of the category of a little man climbing high. Wherein is the wisdom of David registered, I argue, in coping with his meteoric rise to fame? No more than just in his early twenties.

Already, according to this chapter, a general in the army of Saul, able to hear the women sing and for it not to go to his head. David is giving you some indication of the wisdom that he has inculcated into himself despite the fact he is still relatively young. He's able to cope with a meteoric rise to fame.

Fame can be a deadly thing. Even fame, as far as the pulpit is concerned, the pulpit can be a fertile soil for pride. I argue that David's wisdom is discovered in this.

He prefers to use the harp instead of the spear. You say, what do you mean? Well, look at the verses. This Saul has David in his company for two reasons.

David is a proficient soldier who else was able to fell Goliath but not is he only successful in the military sense, he's also a musician. And this man who's falling down so rapidly requires the help of music. And David, can you believe it, is the man who ministers to the king.

The king who has in his head murder is ministered to by an ex-shepherd boy who has in his heart melody. There is hardly anything more dramatic and more full of pathos than these two men, can you not see them? The young man and the old man. The one who has been king of Israel for some years, the other who is new to the scene.

The old man is fondling, putting his hand on his spear. The young man is playing the harp. Extraordinary.

The choice. And Saul takes the spear and in the madness of the moment, the madness of King Saul, he flings it and misses. And the miracle is this, that David keeps his hand on the harp.

This is a shepherd boy who can split a reed with a stone at 300 yards. This is a shepherd boy who alone was able to go to the overgrown Philistine and use his ability in directing pebbles so that he only needs one of the several stones. Don't you see it's possible for David to take that self-same spear that's been hurled at him and hurl it back at Saul? But David chooses the harp for the spear.

Realising, as does another, that it is for God to bring about judgement. That David has no right to assert his rights. He leaves it within the lap of omnipotence and can you believe it when Saul does exactly the same? David again continues to play for this king.

A little man climbing up who prefers the harp for the spear. What do you prefer? Do you knee-jerk? What is your reaction like? So often the psyche of Saul steals into our personality and we behave like him. Instead of realising the greatness of this unsophisticated lad from the undulating hills of Bethlehem.

David realised, as someone has put it, God did not have but very much wanted to have men who would live in pain. Tozer says God can never use a man until he's broken him. And here is David in the pain of the corrupt.

He could have been back in the hills. He could have been in the safety with his sheep in the countryside where he was at home. But God wanted a man who can live in pain.

And the pain makes the man dependent constantly on him. Are you that sort of man? David, a little man climbing high. David exercising grace when life is threatened.

David preferring the harp to the spear. And what is more, David ever recalls his origin and remembers his destiny. Who am I? David, here's your opportunity.

There's a royal marriage. Who am I? What is my family or my father's clan in Israel that I should become the king's son-in-law? David proves to be treacherous and deceitful and the same thing is repeated with a different daughter in mind. David uses almost the same wording.

Do you think it a small matter to become the king's son-in-law? I'm only a poor man and little known. Little known, David? You're a general. They're singing your praises throughout the villages.

You're the talk of the town, David. You're a noble man but that's what he is. His own eyes through the blood of his body is that which is traceable back to an asylum seeker, Ruth.

He is but the seventh son of Jesse. He is so insignificant. Who am I that I should become a son-in-law to the king? Who am I less than the least of all the saints that God should reveal his grace to me? says the apostle Paul as though having established churches around Asia Minor doesn't make him big in the sight of God and in his own sight.

But Paul remembers remembers the rock from which he was hewn once he was the persecutor of the church an accomplice of the first martyrdom that occurred. Campbell Morgan dares to suggest when Paul is in heaven that he met with the saints that he had persecuted. Saints did I say with your remembered faces dear men and women whom I sought and slew when I reached the heavenly traces how will I weep with Stephen and with you? Who am I? What is my people? Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saves a wretch like me.

The little man will climb high and not topple when he recalls his origin and remembers his destiny. Behold now are we the sons of God not sons-in-law. Now are we says the apostle John to become the sons of God and it does not appear what we shall be but when he shall appear we shall be like him.

He came to his own his own received him not but to as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to those who believed on his name. If David balks at being the son-in-law of this treacherous king of the living God who am I and what is my people that you should call me into a faith relationship through Jesus Christ with yourself. The way in which you keep yourself from the category of Saul and place yourself in the category of David is by constantly examining your origin who you were where you will go and allow that to be the conditioning controlling factor in your life.

I'm nearly through. We serve a greater king than David David's greater son he too was maligned he too knew the thrust of the javelin there were times when they sought him like an ordinary criminal they came with their swords they came with their spears into the garden of Gethsemane he who could have called a legion of angels he who could have zapped them all there and then in order to achieve the purposes of the father continues to climb higher and higher and higher in his will until the day comes when the bloodiness of Golgotha is through the empty tomb has occurred the ascension has happened and unto him is given a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father but, says the apostle Paul let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus and became obedient humble himself and became obedient even to death ay, the death of the cross God wanted a man who lived in pain David I give you as a weak example David's greatest son as the best example so I come back to the chorus I'd rather be a little man climbing up than a big man tumbling down I'd rather be a junior with a smile than a senior with a frown and what it likes in poetry it captures in biblical truth for three times the Bible says God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble here is a warning against a hunted donkey to theology here is an encouragement to throw yourself continually in the arms of mercy and to ask God to keep you obedient and humble before him ever reminded of his grace where you came from and to where you are bound Amen Father, your words sometimes affects preacher as well as congregation you give us two views of life two approaches we ask that the admonition from your word is one that we may heed but may the admonition not push out the encouragement and the stimulus as we think of David and what you did through him despite his weaknesses so may we be little men ever climbing not seeking after fame but seeking after God all our lives Amen we sing our final hymn to God be the glory great things he has done so loved he the world that he gave us his son the second verse will be sung for us and we'll all join in the stanzas of each verse seven hundred and eight