SEPTEMBER 2024 NEWSLETTER

 

Let David Breathe

Text: 1 Samuel 19:1 - KJV
 

1. And Saul spake to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David.

 

Purveyors of wickedness are always quick to take scriptural references and twist it to seem to support their wicked aims so that casual observers will assume they are justified by scriptures. But God is just and everything that is not justifiable cannot be justified from scripture as God is never an author of confusion. Hence, when things are taken out of context, it takes the ingenuity of the Spirit of God to help put things in their right perspective and proper context.

 

Recently, a writeup was put on the internet suggesting that it is evil to move against someone who gave you a platform through which you shined or came to limelight. In finding justification in scripture for the assertion, they referred to the story of the refusal of David to kill king Saul when he had an opportunity to, saying, although David was so anointed, his anointing was insufficient to kill Saul. To compound the wicked thought, they further referred to the case between Noah and one of his sons Ham, who saw his nakedness after he got himself drunk. Their position was that the misbehavior of Noah was no license for the son to expose his nakedness. With all of this, they sent out a warning of their wicked intentions to a David out there whom their wicked king Saul seeks to kill but must not lift a finger; and a Ham out there who has by some accident of fate stumbled on the misbehavior of their Noah but will be cursed for daring to say he saw their Noah’s nakedness.

 

To appreciate the minds of the author and distributors of the piece, there is need to scan the stories they use as their references. First, Saul and David. Saul, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Israeli army, was in crisis when David first encountered him. The platform he gave to David was for his salvation and benefit and not, in strict sense, for his love of David or wanting to give him any special recognition. It was never David’s fault that the people, particularly the singing women, saw more credence in David than in his master, the king. Hence, the source of Saul’s envy was misguided. In the meantime, despite all that Saul did to destroy David, the latter yet presented himself to go to battles on behalf of his nation from time to time including going to get a thousand Philistine foreskins. Saul, more like, had his knee on David’s neck almost throughout their relationship. If David was wicked, he would rather have toned down the spiritual content of his music when he played to douse the demonic tension in Saul from time to time, but he did not. He could have pointedly fought and killed the king but he refrained from doing so. It was not a case of the anointing like some wicked people will appraise it. Rather, it was for the fear of God who will not approve killing, and particularly that of “the anointed”, even though the anointing had been soiled.

 

To use the Davidic refrain to speak against current Davids of this world when they repel the knee of Saul on their necks, is a total display of satanic wickedness. Even the David that became a king, though he did not move against Saul physically, he called severally on God to avenge him of Saul. What more does David need to do with his anointing that will cause the downfall of Saul than that? The meekness of David was never tantamount to weakness. As a master strategist, he knew when and how to strike and he did so real good. For every David that has Saul’s knee on his neck at this time, please do not die cheaply. Fight back by calling on your Defender to arise. The anointing of Saul that could not kill Goliath should not be allowed to destroy his savior and the one with whom the anointing of God rests that has not been turned to madness.

 

How about Noah? This was a more pathetic case that people who are putting it forward as an excuse for a father desecrating or destroying the son ought to cover their faces over. First, Ham did not get Noah drunk like the daughters of Lot did to their father. Rather, Noah got overjoyed and thereby overstepped his bounds with alcohol. A father that should, in sobriety, be sorry for his misbehavior came up to destroy the world that the Lord was committing to his hands. Think about it: after the floods, when Noah behaved lovingly towards God by giving Him a worthy offering, God not only allowed him to also partake of animal protein like he did offer, but also erased the curse on mankind which were introduced by the action of Adam. God blessed him with fruitfulness again, as against thorns and thistles, and made him a dread to every other living thing, more like restoring him back in dominion. When we look critically at Revelation 22:3, we will realise what the Lord introduced unto the earth through Noah. It was that He erased the curses and reintroduced blessings to allow man to be close again to his God through blessing. Alas, poor Noah because of the misbehavior of a child reintroduced curses upon the earth, the effect of which ravages till the morrow, thereby stultifying the good intentions for which he was blessed by the Lord.

 

Shall we then say Noah was right and Ham was wrong to have stumbled on his misbehaving father’s nakedness without covering it? I don’t think so. It is also possible that the old man in his drunken state realised he was naked and would have been crossed to find that Ham saw and covered his nakedness, when he became sober. He did know what his other two sons did; which means, in his drunken state he did not fully lose his cognitive senses. Must the Noahs of this age also keep exposing their nakedness and be expecting their Hams to know better than ignore them in their naked states to be seeking cover for them? Well, a good son should cover his father’s nakedness, no doubt. But since the son did not cause the father to be naked, the fault of the father’s foolishness should not be brought to bear on the innocent son. There is never a basis under the heavens for a father to curse his son. It is a wicked father that does so. Except of course, if in his own days of growing up he never fell into error. If he did, would he have succeeded well enough to be a father if his father had caused him for his faults? I think not. For clarity, there is no measuring the magnitude of fault – a fault is a fault.

 

It is safe therefore to conclude that all those who seem to have word for the current Davids and Hams of this time need to also take a word to the Sauls and Noahs to please take their knees off the necks of the young lads and let them breathe. David had no reason to move against Saul even though he knew God had anointed him in Saul’s stead. Then Saul should let him live and stop pursuing the poor lad to destroy him.

 

 

 

Jide Olaore

September 01, 2024