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July 21st, 1958
Received by Dr Samuels
Washington D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I have been telling you about those narratives in the Old Testament wherein
God is visualized as a God of Love, if not the Father of Divine Love,
then the Jehovah whose Love shines forth on that human level displayed
by His children. In the previous sermons I have pointed out how love between
brothers, between son and father, and between in-laws, reflects this love
between man and his fellowman indicative of the human soul created in
the image of the Father.
In this sermon, and in others to follow, I wish to tell you about the
development of this human love as possessed and practiced by the greatest
king of the Hebrew nation, David Ha-Melech, as he is, and has been called,
with deepest affection and reverence by the Jewish people throughout the
centuries.
David, the youngest son of Jesse, a well-to-do land owner and cattle
raiser of Bethlehem, was a strong and agile youth, both given to poetic
sentiment and to deeds of the chase, and his father saw that he should
be given music lessons as understood in those days. When King Saul began
to suffer from moods of melancholia and distemper, it was arranged to
bring David into the court as harpist, to
soothe Saul in his difficult moments, but David was soon able to become
Jonathan's armor-bearer, and accompanied him on some raids into the lines
of the Philistines. On the other hand, David
was never anointed secretly by Samuel to become the next king of the Hebrews,
and this story was inserted many years later into the Scriptures when
David was already on the throne in Jerusalem in order to strengthen David's
claim to legitimacy by making it appear he had been chosen by God through
Samuel, His prophet. Actually, David became king in a war with Saul's
son, Ishbaal, after the death of Saul and Jonathan at Mt. Gilboa. It was
generally accepted that victory was given to him whom God favored.
In the same way, the account of David's
triumph over Goliath of Gath is simply a story and never did take
place. The Philistine
giant was indeed killed in battle, but by Elhanan, one of David's men.
The whole narrative of David's return to his father's house, his brother's
anger on his appearance at the battle front, his inability to use armor,
the king's complete ignorance of David afterwards, and the taking of the
giant's head to Jerusalem, when the city was still in the hands of the
Jebusites and was not captured by David until many years later, all show
the hand of a later writer who introduced into the Scriptures this fable
of David's exploit to enhance his fame for gallantry and to emphasize
his trust in God.
For David had implicit trust in the Father, and sought His aid and protection
at every turn, and through his prayers to Him felt that He would uphold
him and deliver him out of the hands of his enemies even in the direst
circumstances. David did things that were evil in the sight of the Father,
and he knew that they were wrong, and he also did many evil things resulting
from the prevailing circumstances of his times, which he did not realize
at the time to be evil, but for which he would nevertheless have to compensate,
yet David's separation from God was always temporary, and he would seek
the Father for forgiveness, for safety and salvation, and abide stoically
by what he felt were God's answers to him conveyed through the prophets
of his time, Nathan and Gad.
And the truth is that God did through His ministers deliver David out
of the hands of his enemies and their jealousies, as God always delivers
His children out of the troubles of the material world, sustains them
with courage in the times of woe and prepares the circumstances, at the
appropriate time, and through His agents, in the flesh and in the spirit
world, that supplant the evils of prevalent physical conditions and the
inclinations of unredeemed human beings. And even when the material laws
that govern material conditions cannot be abrogated, and death ensues,
the human soul can always, in the present ages, receive the Divine Love
of the Father, and the happiness, such, that the human being has no conception
of, that derives from possession of the Father's Love and an abode in
His Celestial Heavens, or indeed that happiness that comes from a purified
soul and a high place in the Spiritual Heavens, that nullifies the unhappiness
that may arise on leaving the material world and its attractions.
And when David wrote his Psalms, those that he did, he had a transcendent
realization, though not possession, of God's Divine Love and His Mercy
to him and to mankind, and his own love of God was in keeping with, and
concomitant with, his love and generosity towards other human beings.
For, with all of David's sins, he possessed a heart filled with kindness
far beyond what could be expected of a refugee hunted by a jealous king
and, reversely, of the most powerful Hebrew monarch of the ages, whose
every whim and wish were law.And while David is here thanking me as I
say this, I must in all fairness state that David's life was abundant
in kindness, charity and generosity, and in the lines that follow will
show how these wonderful Gifts of the Father to David were used, to David's
eternal credit, to help, to forgive and to refrain from retaliation. David's
basic nobility of heart, as well as his valor in warfare, was thoroughly
understood and appreciated by Jonathan, Saul's son, and the love and friendship
between the two have become proverbial throughout the centuries. We see
how Jonathan's fidelity to his friend was extremely instrumental in David's
escape from Saul, and the same may be said of Michal, his wife.
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
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