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July 22nd, 1958
Received by Dr Samuels
Washington D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
In countless stories and commentaries about David, his valor in battle,
his power of leadership, his skill in extending boundaries of the Hebrew
nation and inevitably his sins with Bathsheba and her husband Uriah, are
those themes which constantly come up, and they are, perhaps, warranted
and justified in estimating the qualities of the man and judging his character,
and I should also add, from the religious viewpoint, his unshakable faith
in the Father, and, of course, this is true, but I also want to tell you
that David was also a man of personal warmth and that he showed kindness
and sympathy not as a duty which he thought was due to God, but which
came from his heart and which he felt as a human being.
Hence David entertained a deep affection for Jonathan, in that he sensed
in him a loyal friend, and felt sympathy for the young man whose father
was irascible and at times uncontrollable in his fits of temper. They
acted together in manly sports of the day befitting a monarch's son and
his squire and came to appreciate each other's mettle in forays and hunting.
Jonathan's unhappiness as the son of King Saul, who would have sacrificed
him to maintain an oath, as happened in earlier times in the days of the
Judges, was alleviated by his friendship for David, and therefore one
should not be surprised to find him acting to save his friend from the
persecution of the man who quite often was not as a father to him.
And so Jonathan made a covenant with David, "And thou shalt not
only while I live show me the kindness of the Lord, that I die not, but
also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house."
(1 Samuel 20: 14 - 15) For David
and Jonathan knew in their souls that kindness in mankind came from God,
and that, as the law of Moses proclaimed, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
And thus they understood that the Father's Love acted through the love
which man showed for man, but they had, of course, no idea that Divine
Love was any different from the love which Moses had proclaimed: love
for God and one's fellow man. They recognized that soul could be purified,
but never that it could be made divine through the Father's Love, for
this Love was unknown and could not be possessed by mankind until, as
the Messiah of God, I came in possession of that Love and had proclaimed
its availability to mankind.
And Jonathan came to console David when he had to live as an outlaw in
the wilderness and in different strongholds, and David shed bitter tears
when hearing of Jonathan's death, and that of his father, in the disaster
of Mt. Gilboa. And he lamented:. . . .
Jonathan upon thy high places is slain.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan;
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me;
Wonderful was thy love to me,
More lofty than the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen,
And the weapons of warfare destroyed. (2
Samuel 1: 25 - 27)
As for Saul's death, David felt that this was punishment from God, and
vindication of his own ethical behavior, that it was not given unto him
to destroy God's anointed ruler over Israel, even though he was bent upon
killing him. For as a fugitive, David was able to penetrate Saul's encampment
and take his spear as the king lay sleeping. And when Abishai, Joab's
brother, was ready to kill him, David restrained him:
"Do not destroy him, for who can put forth his hand
against the Lord's anointed?
As the Lord lives, none but the Lord shall smite him;
or his day shall come to die, or he shall go down in battle.
The Lord forbid that I shall put forth
my hand against the Lord's anointed."
Here was such faith in God that he could not commit what he felt would
be a crime against God's representative. True, this is not the highest
ethics, for the pure soul cannot take life, even as stated in the Ten
Commandments of Moses, because it is a Law of God, and there is no hate
or thought of vengeance in the pure soul, regardless of who the person
might be who injures or transgresses. Yet this faith in God acted with
great power in David for, relegating punishment to the Father, David was
able to remove hatred and vengeance from himself, and enabled him to keep
God's Law: "Thou shalt not kill." So that David's lament for
Saul was not one of exultation in an enemy's defeat, nor did he make any
reference to Saul's enmity and jealousy; only sorrow that the leader of
Israel had perished before his foes.
Neither did David cause the death of the supposed bearer of the evil
tidings at Mt. Gilboa, as found in the first
sixteen lines of Second Samuel, as this is an insertion of a later
writer and had no foundation in truth, being merely an amplification of
the subject of David's aversion to anyone's killing the Lord's anointed.
Rather, David's thoughts were with Jonathan's son, Meribaal, called Mephibosheth,
who was crippled on both feet, and David's kindness to him is recorded
in the Scriptures.
And David said: "Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul,
that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? . . . that I may show
the kindness of God unto him?" (2
Samuel 9: 1 - 3) "And Meribaal, called Mephibosheth, the son
of Jonathan, came unto David and fell at his feet." And David said:
"Mephibosheth." And he answered: "Behold thy servant."
And David said unto him: "Fear not, for I will surely show thee kindness
for Jonathan thy father's sake, and will restore thee all the land of
Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually."
(2 Samuel 9: 6 - 7) And David did,
eventually, restore to Jonathan's son all that belonged to the house of
Saul. I shall continue to tell about David's kindness of heart in my next
sermon.
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
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