 But today we're in 1 Samuel chapter 19, and so if you've opened your Bibles there, we're going to read verse 1. I'll do my introduction, and then we'll get into our study. 1 Samuel chapter 19 verse 1. Now Saul spoke to Jonathan, his son, and to all his servants that they should kill David. But Jonathan saw his son delighted greatly in David. Now verse 1 finally reveals the murderous intent of King Saul. He hated David. We know this is a man who began his reign as a fleshly ruler, and we saw that throughout his time he has been more concerned with power and prestige than honor. And we've seen that throughout his reign. He was somebody who had begun well. He had great privileges, but he had no personal sacrifices to attain those privileges. We saw that he was relatively young when he took over the kingdom. We saw that he was handsome, that he was tall, he came from a good family. We saw that he had a lot of advantages, but none of which he had to earn for himself. Early in his reign he was a successful warrior. He had gained respect initially from the people of Israel, but he had one great flaw. And the flaw that King Saul had was partial obedience. He was not somebody whose heart was completely the Lord's. And because of his incomplete obedience, we saw that God rejected him as the King. That was pointed out in chapter 13. In 1 Samuel 13 verse 14, Samuel was speaking to Saul and he said to him, Your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart. The Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. Well that man turns out to be David. As we've seen David and Saul's relationship, we've seen that initially Saul actually seemed to care for him. God had removed his spirit from Saul. A distressing evil spirit had come and began to torment him. But David was a skilled musician and he would play music for Saul and Saul was soothed by his music and his singing. But eventually David revealed himself as being more than simply a music minister. David revealed himself to be a warrior. When the Philistine giant Goliath was troubling Israel, it was David who volunteered to fight him and it was David who defeated him. Well that caused Saul to be taken by David and Saul recruited him to be a military commander in his army. He also gave him his youngest daughter, a woman by the name of Michael, to be his wife. Now as David went about his business as a commander, we saw this in chapter 18. David won the heart of anyone he encountered. He actually won the heart of Jonathan. He won the heart of the men of war of Israel. He won the heart of the women of Israel. He actually won all Israel and Judah and he even won Saul's daughter. They all loved him. And according to chapter 18, verse 30, his name became highly esteemed. Well that was the final straw. Saul could no longer hide his hatred. David was returning with Saul from a victorious campaign against the Philistines. And the women began to sing, Saul has killed his thousands and David is his ten thousands. And Saul's rage was now provoked and he was extremely upset about that and how is it that they're ascribing to him the ten thousands and to me only thousands and his anger and his envy is now boiling to the top. And that's what we see. Out of envy, he plainly states that he wants David dead. He can no longer take this. So he has something that he's dealing with and I want to begin our study by looking at that for just a moment. He's dealing with envy. Envy is a terrible sin. It's a sin that can corrupt you in every way. It's a sin that consumes you, this sin of envy. It's common today. It's a common sin that many people have. They're not even aware of it and they're not even sensing a guilt for it. Many people don't even know what the word means. What does it mean to be envious? And a lot of people don't really know what it means to have envy in their heart. I wanted to give you a definition and so the word envy simply means this. Envy is a feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another. People want what somebody else has, either the possessions or the qualities. Whatever it is that they have, people have an envious desire for that. They want it so desperately. Envy is something that causes discontent in the heart of people and there are a lot of Americans today who are extremely envious and they just don't realize it. They don't even know how to define it. They don't even realize they're fighting it. You see, I've discovered that in some cases it's easier to mourn with those who mourn and it's harder to rejoice with those who rejoice. If somebody's gone through a hard time, you can be seated next to them perhaps and put your arm around their shoulder and even cry a few tears with them and it seems sometimes it's easier to do that than it is to rejoice when somebody's life is being blessed. I think sometimes when we may be crying with somebody, we may be crying that we're sad for them but glad inside of our heart that that didn't happen to us. When it comes to rejoicing though, that's a different thing entirely. Rejoicing is more difficult because somebody's being blessed and you can get the feeling that you're not and so if somebody's getting blessed and you're not, you can become envious very easily. There's an easy way to discover whether or not we even suffer with that. You just have to ask yourself what happens. What happens when somebody's marriage or somebody's work or somebody's family or somebody's business? What happens when somebody's health or finances are great and they tell you. They tell you, man, my marriage has never been so good and you're going through a struggle in your own. The work, I've got work, steady work and you're having a difficult time with your job or our family is doing so good. My kid's on the honor roll and yours just got kicked out of school. How do you feel about that? You saw that bumper sticker where it says my kid's on the honor roll at such and so school and somebody else has a bumper sticker that says my kid can beat your honor student up. That's kind of how we are in some ways. What happens when they say, we sold our house. We're moving into a better home in a nicer neighborhood or they got a razor in advancement. What happens when they pull up into their driveway with a new car and your car is sending smoke signals, you know, every time you drive away? I mean, what happens? I mean, do you walk over there and say, wow, this is a real nice car? Oh, yeah, it's a great car. It's because I got a promotion. I got a bonus. And you're thinking, man, you know, I'm hardly holding on to anything here. Oh, yeah, and we're moving out. We've got a new home in another place and how do you feel about that? What goes on in your heart? That helps you. It helps you to gauge whether or not you have envy. Can you rejoice with somebody who's rejoicing? Can you say, you know what? God's hand of blessing is on you and I praise God for that? A lot of people can't. A lot of people get upset over that. How do you feel? Well, in Proverbs chapter 14, verse 30, the Bible says, a sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones. It consumes you from the inside, envy. What we do as Christians, believers, is we need to really understand that we belong to one another, that the body of Christ is not just a group of people who show up in the same location on a Sunday, but is greater than that. The body of Christ is a family throughout the world, and we rejoice with those who rejoice. We rejoice because we're family members. I rejoice if my kids are honored. I rejoice if my wife is honored because she's my wife. She's my family. Those kids are mine. And so I rejoice if they're honored. I rejoice with them because they're family, and that's how we should do it. In 1 Corinthians 12, 26, it says, if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. All of us ought to be glad to see God moving in their life. All of us ought to be blessed to know that the Lord is doing something in that person's life, but I'm telling you, there's a lot of people who get jealous. You know, I'm a pastor and somebody comes up and says, you know, so-and-so's church is really growing, and I look out and I say, man, where's everybody going? How come they're not here today? Oh really, his church is growing? Oh, praise God. No, I say, you know, Lord, kill him, Jesus, and send him to my church. I mean, you can get weird, man, I'm telling you. That's a hypothetical, of course. I never thought that. Well, here's the bottom line is very simple. We see it in verse 1 here. We see that Saul wants David dead, and he now openly makes it known. It's interesting, though, in verse 1, how it says that Jonathan Saul's son delighted greatly in David. So in the midst of Saul turning away from and wanting David dead, you actually have somebody there in the inner court who's aware of what's taking place and has a true friend. Jonathan is going to do his best to protect David from his father, and so you see in verse 2 and 3, Jonathan told David, saying, my father Saul seeks to kill you, therefore please be on your guard until morning, stay in a secret place and hide, and I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak with my father about you. Then what I observe, I'll tell you. So he begins to cover his back as what he's doing. This begins about a 10 year period in the life of David hiding from the envy of Saul. Now for about 10 years or so, David is going to learn many lessons through the hardships that he endures, and what is going to happen over that period is he's going to become the greatest king Israel will ever have, but he has to go into hiding. He is now going to be going off and on into seclusion, hiding from the envious murderous intent of Saul. Well, it says in verse 4, thus Jonathan spoke well of David, to Saul his father said to him, let not the king sin against his servant against David because he has not sinned against you and because his works have been very good toward you. For he took his life in his hands, killed the Philistine, and the Lord brought about a great deliverance for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood and kill David without a cause? And so immediately what we see here is Jonathan is speaking well of David. David's been a loyal man. He's demonstrated this by his life. He hasn't sinned against you and his works have been very good toward you. Verse 5 says, well, he took his life into his hands, he killed the Philistine, and God delivered Israel. And by the way, he's innocent. And if you desire to kill him, you're slaying innocent blood and if you do that, you violate the law of God. You can't break God's commandments by doing something like that. And so as he's speaking to him, notice verse 6, Saul heeded the voice of Jonathan. Saul swore as the Lord lives, he shall not be killed. Then Jonathan called David and Jonathan told him all these things to Jonathan brought David to Saul and he was in his presence as in times past. And so his words spoke to the heart of Saul and soothed his anger for the time being. About 37 years ago, I memorized the scripture and I'm encouraging you in the scripture right now. It's Proverbs 15 verse one. Great scripture, a soft answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger. Soft answer versus harsh words. What do you do when somebody's confronting you? What do you do when somebody's angry? How do you deal with their anger? If you got an angry husband, angry wife, angry friend, angry boss, what do you do? Do you just get in their face in return? Do you just return harsh word for harsh word? Is that what you do? Do you stir up the anger? You can do that. Or do you give them a soft answer? We have to learn to give soft answers because soft answers actually will cause the tension and the anger that the other person is having. It can help to soothe that anger so that they don't get even more agitated and possibly even violent. That's what we see with Jonathan. Jonathan has given a soft answer here. He's trying to keep his father from slaying his friend and therefore he speaks to him and says, listen, he's been loyal to you. And dad, by the way, as a warrior, he valiantly destroyed your enemy, Goliath. And beyond that, if you were to go and you were to slay him, he's an innocent man. You'd be violating the law of God. I've had to learn as a pastor to utilize a soft answer approach many times. I've had some very interesting experiences over the years ministry where people have been very angry and raised their voices and on occasion, they've been just very, very angry at me. And I don't know why I'm such a nice guy, but anyway, that's happened more than once. I can remember one occasion where somebody approached me after a Sunday morning, I stepped off to the platform and they were standing at the foot of the platform waiting to speak to me. And as I approached them, they said, listen, the Lord has given me a word for you. And if you do not listen, he drew his hand back. I said, I am to smite you. I didn't feel like being smitten that day, so I listened. And it was interesting that he was just so upset. And it happens sometimes where people will be angry at something that they hear and they get sometimes threateningly angry. And how do you deal with that? How do you deal with it when somebody is really wanting to hit you in the head or do they get loud? How do you, well, the way you deal with it is with a soft answer, with a soft answer. I've discovered over the years that if somebody is raising the voice, I actually soften mine. It has a way of tempering it, and it does. The louder they get and the softer my voice, the more contrast there is and they realize that they're raising the voice. There are times when I have said, please don't be raising your voice. And I'll say it like that. I had a lady one time in my office who was very, very angry at me. And she said that I had said something in a sermon that was just for her as if I had seen her out there and said, oh, this is for you. And she came very angrily and was in my office and it was Marie. No, it wasn't, I'm just kidding. No, and she was yelling at me. And I mean raised her voice and I remember very well, this was when our church was very young, I remember very well looking at her as she was yelling at me and I said, listen, I said my wife doesn't raise her voice to me and I'm certainly not gonna let you. If you wanna converse with me, lower your voice. Oh, she got angry, left the church, you know, but the bottom line is there's some people that can get really angry. My assistant pastor who was in the next office over came into my office, knocked on the door, and he said, I thought Marie was yelling at you. I said, what? And I said, my wife doesn't raise her voice to me. That was your wife, no. I said, my wife doesn't raise her voice to me. You see, that doesn't work. It only stirs up more anger. And you know what I'm talking about. If somebody's angry at you and they raise their voice and you'll raise yours in return and then they raise, and before you know it, it just escalates. Where are you going? You're going in a place you don't wanna go. So when they raise their voice, a soft answer has a way of bringing it down and you can bring the tone down and you don't have to get in their face and you don't have to get all angry. You don't have to be, because I've spoken about this before, where you're being controlled by their anger. You don't have to let somebody control you by their anger. What you can do is bring some peace into the situation. How many of you have ever had an argument that has been solved by people screaming at one another? It just doesn't work. When you're screaming at each other, it doesn't work, does it? When somebody cools off, when somebody keeps it down, at least you have a chance to embrace and peace later on. At least you have a chance. But you can start saying things that you don't wanna say that you shouldn't have said. Your tongue can be like a sword piercing and before you know it, you're using words that hurt and bring pain. And it just doesn't work. In the case of David and Jonathan in Saul, Jonathan simply says, he hasn't sinned against you. He's done good for you. It's against the law of God for you to kill him. He's an innocent man and this soothes the anger and brings the temperature down, if you will. And so in verse eight, continuing, there was war again. And David went out and fought with the Philistines and struck them with a mighty blow and they fled from him. Now the distressing spirit from the Lord came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand and David was playing music with his hand and Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear but he slipped away from Saul's presence and he drove the spear into the wall. So David fled and escaped that night. Well, Saul's promise of peace didn't last long, did it? And once again, David fought, David was victorious. His reputation is enhanced in Israel. Again, Saul's envy is provoked and out of jealous rage. He tries to drive a spear through him. Once again, David escapes. Well, verse 11, Saul also sent messengers to David's house to watch him and to kill him in the morning. Michael, David's wife told him saying, if you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed. So Michael let David down through a window and he went and fled and escaped and Michael took an image and laid it in the bed, put a cover of goats hair for his head and covered it with clothes. Now remember in chapter 18, verse 21, at one point Saul thought he could use his daughter as a snare against David. Turns out at this point she isn't a snare. And as this is taking place, they come, they wanna take him, she's aware of the plan and so she's protecting him. And as a result of this, David actually composed a psalm. You see it in Psalm 59. David wrote about this in Psalm 59 and he said this, he said, deliver me from my enemies, oh my God, defend me against those who rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, save me from bloodthirsty men. For look, they lie and wait for my life, the mighty gather against me, not for my transgression nor for my sin, oh Lord, they run and prepare themselves through no fault of mine, awake to help me and behold. So David was aware of what was taking place. He actually wrote a psalm concerning this. Well in verse 14, when Saul sent messages to take David, she said, he's sick. Saul sent the messengers back to see David saying, bring him up to me in the bed that I may kill him. And when the messengers had come in, there was the image in the bed with the cover of goat's hair for his head. Saul said to Michael, why have you deceived me like this and sent my enemy away so that he has escaped? Michael answered Saul, he said to me, let me go, why should I kill you? Now every father knows when a daughter's lying to him, at least most of us do. Sometimes they get pretty polished and it's hard to. Most of the time, you do. It would seem to me that Saul more than likely would know that Michael was lying. Well what's he gonna do? What's he got to do? He can't do anything about this so he has to leave it go. He can't do anything about it. So as a result, verse 18 tells us, David fled and escaped and went to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in Nayat. Now it was told Saul saying, take note, David is at Nayat in Ramah. Then Saul sent messengers to take David and when they saw the group of prophets prophesying and Samuel standing as leader over them, the spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul and they also prophesied. And when Saul was told, he sent other messengers. They prophesied likewise. Then Saul sent messengers again the third time and they prophesied also. Now I wanna develop this with you and I'm gonna move into some practical things in just a moment as we look at this because there's gotta be some purpose in this that we can take and we can apply to our own life. So let me share a couple of things with you here. Interestingly, that word that I keep mispronouncing, Nayat, that word is an interesting word. Literally that word is defined house of study. That's what that word means. It's not speaking of a city or a town. It's speaking of like a seminary. It's a house of study. It's a place where students who are learning the ways of God would lodge. Now David obviously is familiar with this particular place, Nayat. It's a house of study and some commentators believe that after Samuel had anointed David, that David actually stayed there under the tutelage of Samuel to be trained up in the ways of God. Remember with me that King David is intended not only to be king, he's also a warrior and he is also a prophet. Now sometimes we fail to realize that. We know that David, this great king of Israel, was a mighty king. We also know that he's a mighty warrior. All you need to do is read his life story here in 1st and 2nd Samuel and you see that all about. This man was a warrior, this man was a king, but sometimes we fail to remember that he also was used as a prophet. And so what you have here is you have a man who went to the school of the prophets. This is a man who actually sat under Samuel to be trained in the ways of God. Now as a man who was being trained under Samuel in the ways of God, he also took upon himself a prophetic role. Listen, when you read the Psalms, you're gonna see that a lot of the Psalms are what are called messianic Psalms. These are Psalms that were written in reference prophetically to Messiah who was to come and David wrote quite a number of them. You can see that David wrote Psalm 2, Psalm 8, Psalm 40, Psalm 41, Psalm 69 as well as Psalm 110. These are Psalms that speak concerning the fact that God is gonna send a Messiah. So David was not only a king, not only was he a warrior, but he also was prophetic. That's why David would flee to Samuel. And that's why Samuel took him to what we today would call a student's dorm. And where they're at, where this is all taking places, is like a seminary and they enter in these people, these messengers who are coming to find David are actually entering into, it's like a sanctuary, they're entering into a chapel service, if you will. And there are the students of the Bible, they're the prophets in the school of the prophets are being trained up and what they're doing is they're prophesying, they're speaking forth the mind of God. But it's not simply that they are standing there speaking forth scripture and prophesying to one another and learning how to hear the voice, they're singing. And what happens is these messengers come in and as they walk in, the Holy Spirit moves on them and they join the band, they actually are part of the band and there they are singing. And this is all taking place by the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, as this is happening, verse 22, then he also went to Rama and came to a great well that is at Sekhu and he asked and said, where are Samuel and David? Someone said, indeed they are at Nayath in Rama. And so he went there to Nayath in Rama and then the Spirit of God was upon him also and he went on and prophesied until he came to Nayath in Rama and he stripped off his clothes, prophesied before Samuel in like manner, laid down naked all that day and all that night, therefore they say, is Saul also among the prophets. I want to develop this with you for a moment here. I want you to see something. Notice verse 23, it says, God's Spirit came upon Saul and he prophesied all the way to Nayath. Something had happened like this before in his life. In 1 Samuel chapter 10, we know that Samuel had given to Saul various signs that would come to pass that would make him aware of the fact that he was going to be the king of Israel. And one of those things is found in verses 10 and 11 of 1 Samuel chapter 10. It says, they came to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him, the Spirit of God came upon him, he prophesied among them and it happened when all who knew him formerly saw that he indeed prophesied among the prophets, that the people said to one another, what is this that has come upon the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? He had had an experience like this before when he was to be anointed as the king of Israel. But what is happening here in this case is the Spirit of God is keeping him from harming David. And I wanna develop this with you for a moment. The Spirit restrained Saul from doing harm to David. In the New Testament, one of the works of the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit restrains evil. If you take notes, 2 Thessalonians chapter two verses six and seven says, you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. This is speaking of the Antichrist. You know what is restraining that he, speaking of Antichrist, may be revealed in his own time. But he goes on to say, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. He who now restrains is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is restraining Antichrist from being revealed is what Paul is saying and will continue to do so until the Holy Spirit is removed from doing that particular work and then the Antichrist is going to be revealed for what he is. The Holy Spirit restrains evil. When we first moved into this church location, I received a letter from somebody who was angry at us because he said, we used to have a quiet neighborhood and your church is now making the neighborhood too loud. And I wished that the church wasn't here. And I wrote back and I said, well, the day is coming when the church won't be here. It's called the rapture. I said, but you need to appreciate the presence of the church in the community because the presence of the church in a community restrains the evil of that community. We are salt and we are light. And God has given to us a responsibility to restrain evil. So the more people showing up at a church on Sunday, the better because the less evil will be found in your city. You ought to rejoice over that rather than to be angry. But if you're wanting the church to be gone, there's a time when we will be gone. But when that time comes, all hell will break loose and you'll wish the church were still here. You see, the Holy Spirit works through us and the Holy Spirit works to restrain evil. And the Holy Spirit does that in a powerful way. In the case of Saul, the Holy Spirit comes upon him and he is unable to harm David. He's unable to do so because the Spirit is restraining him. The Spirit is keeping him from doing harm. God's Spirit is protecting David from his desire to kill him because David is a rightful king. The Psalmist in Psalm 105 verse 15 says, do not touch my anointed ones, do my prophets no harm. And God is protecting this one David. And it's amazing how the Holy Spirit works because I'm certain that the Holy Spirit did not tap Saul on the shoulder and say excuse me, I'm gonna restrain you. The Holy Spirit simply does. The Holy Spirit works in a mysterious way to protect you. Marie and I were driving, my wife and I were driving one time I was asked to speak at a church that was about an hour's drive from where we live. And we're on the freeway and we're driving on the way and it was one of those days there was no traffic. It was amazing, it was no traffic. It was just me and Marie on this freeway in this particular section. There were cars, a distance behind us, there were no cars in front of us. It's just one of those miracles in California that you're on the freeway without being just, you know, hemmed in by cars on every side. Now when I drive I usually drive in the third lane to the, from the right next to the fast lane. That's why I usually drive because I don't like driving in the slow lane because sometimes when people get on the slow lane they're going too slow and it's dangerous. So I have a tendency of driving in the third or the fourth lane from the right. And as I was driving there, there's no traffic in front of me, there's hardly any traffic behind me. And as we're driving there's a chain-link fence that's separating our side of the freeway from the other side of the freeway. We're going west and the other car is traveling east and the chain-link fence there. And I'm there in the third lane from the right for no reason, for no reason at all. I change lanes. For no reason there was, I didn't think about it, I just began to change lanes and I move into the slow lane. And I don't even, I to this day can't tell you there was, you know, a thought process involved. I just decided I'd rather be in the slow lane. And as God is my witness, when I got into the slow lane coming towards us on the oncoming traffic, on the traffic going to the east, an 18 foot stake bed went blowing through the chain-link fence. Blew through the fence and shot into the lane that I was in. And then went past and went back and actually went past on the other side. And had I remained in that lane, we'd have been killed instantly. Because he was going 65, 70 miles an hour. I was going 65, 70 miles an hour. We would have had a head-on. There would have been no time for me to be able to react because I'm telling you that truck blew through that chain-link fence like it wasn't there and I didn't see it until it was past us. It just blew past us. And I turned to Marie, my wife, and I go, wow, heavy. And she goes, yeah. And we just went going and went and did Bible study. But I started thinking about that. I go, whoa, you know, hippie language. That was an incredible experience. The Holy Spirit, He protects you. If you think about the times that you had decided you were gonna go somewhere or do something and for some reason you just chose not to do it that night. You just chose not to. You just didn't go and it turns out an accident and something happened. If you'd have been there at that time, something would have happened to you. I believe that the Holy Spirit orchestrates our steps in ways that we, it's mysterious in some ways and many times it's to protect us from injury. And you can get this sense, you know, we are invulnerable, we are invincible until the Lord decides to take us home. I know I'm indestructible until the Lord decides to take me home. We were on a flight one time. We were coming home from Israel. We happened upon some very bad weather in New York. It was so bad that when the plane tried to land in New York they had to abort that landing, took off, kept aborting. It got so bad that everything was, there were people who were literally crying on the plane. They were vomiting and I told Raul, come on, be a man, stop it. But there were so many people. There were so many, we were on an all airline and Jewish people were taking us, wanting us to go pray with them. That's how serious it was. They were serious. They're getting Christians, come and pray with us. We need all the prayer we can get. The masks are falling out from the ceiling. And I was sitting in my seat reading the newspaper. And I'm just reading the newspaper and I'm telling you things are, it was really heavy. And they finally took us to Montreal. My daughter Corinne on the flight after we landed walks up to me and she says to me, daddy, why weren't you scared? And I said, the Lord's with me. I said, and I know that God is not through with our church yet. And she looks me straight in the eye and she says, has it ever occurred to you that maybe he doesn't need you to finish the work that he has for the church? I said, not at the moment. Now you're scaring me. What's that all about? Come on now. God's Holy Spirit, God's Holy Spirit restrains evil. This world is not as evil as it can be and will be when the Holy Spirit is removed. And the Holy Spirit has a way of protecting. You know, King Saul came to kill David, but there was another Saul, another Saul from Tarsus in the New Testament who had gone up to the priests and had received from them letters that gave him authority to take whomever he had encountered who were members of the way, Christians, put him in shackles, bring him back to Jerusalem, try him as heretics and have him put to death. That's what King Saul was doing in Acts chapter nine. It speaks how he was breathing out threatenings and he was going to Damascus in order that he might arrest Christians. But he was arrested by the Spirit of God. He was stopped from the work that he was doing. And God saved him. God brought through the same Holy Spirit, not only restraint, but he also brought conviction and ultimately Saul experienced salvation through the same Holy Spirit who convicted and brought him to faith in Christ. Then he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and was used by God in a marvelous way to take the gospel throughout the world before he ended up being beheaded for preaching that same message that he persecuted others for preaching. God has a way through his Holy Spirit of restraining evil. Think about the times that God has spoken to you and has tried to and been successful often in restraining you or me from doing what was wrong. You knew it. You knew that when you were talking to your wife or your girlfriend or whatever, you knew that it was getting, you were getting angry. You knew that you could start getting so angry that you could raise your voice and say hurtful things and the Holy Spirit is saying to you, be quiet, don't say anything, leave it alone, I'll take care of it. But no, no, no, you've got to take care of it. And you end up saying things that end up breaking a heart or breaking up a marriage because you weren't restrained. You're depressed and before you got saved, you used to go out and drown your depression with alcohol. The Holy Spirit is saying to you, don't do it. You know he's saying, don't do it. You couldn't even find your keys. You're looking all over the house for your keys because you're gonna go to the store, you're gonna buy some, get a few bottles. You can't find them. You say to your wife, where's my keys? And my wife said, I, you know, the Holy Spirit is giving you a moment to cool down. He's giving you a moment to stop. And you can stop. You can stop it. Maybe you don't. And off you go. Are you with your girlfriend or somebody else's wife? You know you're not supposed to be there doing those things. The Holy Spirit is saying, you shouldn't be doing what you're about to do. You're convicted and he's trying to restrain you and he's speaking to your heart and you have an opportunity at that point to do the right things because the Holy Spirit's giving you a moment. He's restraining you, but you have to make the right decision. You're by yourself in the house or in the office and you decide to go on a page that you know you shouldn't go on. The Holy Spirit is saying to you, you don't need to do this. You shouldn't do this. And you make a decision. Should you or shouldn't you do it? And it's all through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has a way of working, doesn't he? You're starting to talk about somebody to one of your friends, the phone rings, just as you're about to get to that juicy bit of gossip. Phone rings, the Holy Spirit says, where are you going with your conversation? Oh, it's gonna be a matter of prayer, Lord. No, it's not. You're gonna gossip. You wait until the phone conversation is over and then you say, as I was saying a moment ago, you go right back to the gossip or do you restrain yourself? You see, God gives to us opportunities by His Holy Spirit to do the right thing. And that's what He's doing here in the case of Saul. Actually, with King Saul, what he's doing is he's just keeping him from doing the wrong thing. The Spirit comes upon him in such a way that he has no ability to do what he wanted to do, which was to kill David. What's interesting though in this, and I want you to see this in verse 24 and we'll close with this. He also stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel in like manner and laid down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore, they say, is Saul also among the prophets. It's interesting that he removes his clothing. He's stripped off his clothes. So that means he removes any armor that he has. He removes his royal garments. And this reveals that God is rejecting him as king. He completely strips him. He's rejected as king. No royal garments, no armor. And what God does is he begins to work in this manner. It reveals to us that God holds people's hearts in his hands. And Saul cannot do what Saul wanted to do because God restrains him. And as this is taking place, people are wondering, what happened to Saul? Is Saul also among the prophets, they say? But what is sad is this is the last time the Spirit of God ever rests on Saul. This is it. He has stripped naked. Naked he came into the world. Naked he's going to leave it. He doesn't have the authority anymore. It's being removed from him. The Spirit isn't going to move on him. This is it for him. And it was all due to his partial obedience, yielding to his envious spirit. And he ultimately is rejected completely as we will see as we continue our studies. So when the Holy Spirit speaks to us, do we listen? That's the key. Father, I ask that you continue to move in us today. Lord, I ask that we would have hearts to hear what the Spirit says. And that we would be sensitive to his leading. For your word says that the steps of a righteous man are ordained of you. That we can walk by the Spirit and thus not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So I'm asking Lord that you might work within us today that we might walk in your spirit and be sensitive to your restraint to make choices that are proper and honoring to you Lord. Our eyes are closed, our heads are bowed. Perhaps I have some in this room right now who need to get right with the Lord. And you sense that you need to get right with him. I want to pray for you as our eyes are closed and our heads are bowed. If you need prayer to get right with him I want to pray for you right now. Would you raise your hand and let me pray for you right where you're at? Lord you see these hands and you know the reason why they're being raised to you right now. I'm asking now in Jesus' name that you would reach down and touch them as their hands are raised to you. Reach down and touch them Lord. Unburden them as they yield to you. Wash them, cleanse them, empower them as they open to you. Refresh them and Lord from this day on use them for your glory. Make all things new, make them new right now Lord. As their hearts are open to you and we receive. Thank you Lord, bless you. You can put your hands down. In Jesus I ask that you keep moving in us today. All of us that we might serve you. In your name, amen. Let's all stand. May the Holy Spirit work in us today so that when he does lead us and does restrain as we recognize his voice. Our Father we lift up to you our lives. Tonight as we gather, tomorrow night, Wednesday night whenever it is that we get together Tuesday morning I ask that you continue to move within us and through us and use us, equip us for works of service. And we give you praise, we give you honor, we give you thanks. And Father we thank you for this nation that we live in. We thank you for the military Lord that are on duty even now. We thank you Lord for the work that you do. And I ask that you would work in us Lord. We lift up our president, we lift up our Congress. We lift up Lord this nation. And we pray that you would guide us Lord, give us wisdom, surround us Lord with those that love and serve you and hear from you so that this nation may return to the place that it once was and can be again Lord. A place that's aware of your presence. So we lift up to you our lives. And we ask that you use us as we go into the places of ministry, as we go into a field that is in need of Christ, use us to bring him to others. And we ask this now in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.