DAVID—A MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART
06—MICHAL’S TRAGIC LIFE OF WASTED DEVOTIONS
TEXT: 1 Samuel 18:17-23; 18:28; 2 Samuel 6:16
1 Samuel 18:17-23 KJV And Saul said to David, Behold my elder daughter Merab, her will I give thee to wife: only be thou valiant for me, and fight the LORD'S battles. For Saul said, Let not mine hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him. [18] And David said unto Saul, Who am I? and what is my life, or my father's family in Israel, that I should be son in law to the king? [19] But it came to pass at the time when Merab Saul's daughter should have been given to David, that she was given unto Adriel the Meholathite to wife. [20] And Michal Saul's daughter loved David: and they told Saul, and the thing pleased him. [21] And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son in law in the one of the twain. [22] And Saul commanded his servants, saying, Commune with David secretly, and say, Behold, the king hath delight in thee, and all his servants love thee: now therefore be the king's son in law. [23] And Saul's servants spake those words in the ears of David. And David said, Seemeth it to you a light thing to be a king's son in law, seeing that I am a poor man, and lightly esteemed?
1 Samuel 18:28 KJV And Saul saw and knew that the LORD was with David, and that Michal Saul's daughter loved him.
2 Samuel 6:16 KJV And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart. (cf. 1 Chron. 15:29)
I. INTRODUCTION—THE PEOPLE AROUND DAVID & US
-Woven into the story of David’s life there are multiple characters that appear. God in His wisdom chose to put all of these characters in Scripture so we can get a grasp on the true nature of serving God.
-What these characters look like in David’s life will also mirror what they look like in ours. The only difference is that their times and their names have changed. But when you consider what they did to shape him, you can see with more wisdom in what is taking place around you.
-David had his share of noble men who were around him and he also had to contend with the villains as well.
• Saul
• Jonathon
• Michal
• Joab
• Abner
• Shimei
• Barzillai
• Ahithophel
• Ittai
• Abiathar
• Zadok
• Hushai
• Nabal
• Abigail
• Uriah
• Bathsheba
-There are many others who also enter and exit the stage of David’s life. Some of them would bring much joy and others would provoke much pain.
II. PILGRIM’S PROGRESS~PLIABLE & MICHAL ARE ALIKE
-There is a character in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress whose name is Pliable. He is a man who runs hot and cold according to the circumstances by which he finds himself in.
-He is at first excited about the direction that Christian has begun to take because of his response to Evangelist. In fact, Pliable has some pretty sharp arguments against Obstinate who thinks the whole matter of leaving the City of Destruction is foolishness.
-Pliable distances himself from the stubborn ways of Obstinate and sets forth on the journey with Christian. He does well until they get to that dark place called the Slough of Despond. Battling for their lives in the swampy mud, Pliable turns around and goes back to the City of Destruction because the way was too difficult for him.
-Jesus touched on this when he told the people the Parable of the Soils. The condition of one of those soils directly fit the bill for Pliable.
Luke 8:13 KJV They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
-It is a terrible thing to not have an active root system!
-The root system of plants is so crucial. During the winter, it appears that many flowers, shrubs, and plants are dead.
-But there is something going on that doesn’t meet the eye. The action is all taking place under the ground. Cold, rain, and snow can be raging above the ground but below the ground, the roots of healthy plants are branching out so that when spring comes there can be a root system that can support more growth.
-Get that into your soul even now! I don’t want to be a saint of God who waffles about in my devotion for the Lord and has no root to sustain what God wants and needs to do in this end-time church.
-What fell into the rocky soil started well but could not make it all the way through because of the lack of a root system. Pliable was this sort of man but the reality is that Michal was this kind of person too.
III. A LIFE OF WASTED DEVOTIONS
Alexander Whyte—Never surely, were man and wife more unequally yoked together than was David, the man after God’s own heart, with Michal, Saul’s daughter. What was David’s meat was Michal’s poison. What was sweeter than honey to David was gall and wormwood for Michal. The things that had become dearer and dearer to David’s heart every day, those were the very things that drove Michal absolutely mad; furiously and ungovernably mad that day on which the ark of God was brought up to the city of David.
A. Wasted Devotion of Love
-But the Bible says. . . Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved David.
-It is also well to add that Jonathon loved David too. Their father hated him but his kids loved him. Jonathon’s love was a deep-seated devotion of friendship. Michal’s love was a fleeting infatuation that proved to be more detrimental than good.
-Her love for him was fleeting and it would end up being wasted. Apparently her love for him did not mean that much or the Bible would have described it in a similar fashion as it did about Jonathon.
-In the Bible, you can tell the depth of devotion about love simply by the way the text is written.
• Jonathon’s love was of such strength that his soul was knit together with David.
• John’s love for the Lord and the Lord’s love for him was such that it is described as the “disciple whom Jesus loved.”
• Jesus said of the women who anointed his feet with oil that she loved much because of where she had been rescued from.
• Ruth clave to Naomi.
• Elkanah loved Hannah and gave her a worthy portion.
• Isaac loved Joseph and gave him a coat of many colors.
• Jacob loved Rachel and served seven more years of labor to get her.
-There are motivations of love that will make men and women go beyond what is customary and acceptable.
-Michal’s love did not fall into that category. Her love for David was a weak, watery love. It was unwilling to give in to deep devotion to him. It was flat, insipid, and shallow. The best way to sum it up was that it was an outward profession but really lacked a true, inward heart commitment.
-The question arises as to why did Michal waste her love on such trivial matters? The answer is love that does not have the proper motivations will always end up caving in at the end.
-Let your imagination grasp the situation with David.
• He was national hero.
• He was a handsome young man.
• He was a gifted musician.
• He had charisma, charm, and confidence.
• He had just killed Israel’s biggest enemy.
• His name was on everyone’s lips. . . and Michal got caught up in all of it.
-If she could just marry him. . . everyone would be talking about her. . . everyone would envy her. That was the very shallow world that Michal lived in. Her love for David was so shallow that she could fall out of love with him just as quick as she could fall in love with him.
-That kind of shallow love is what does great harm to the Church of God. The devotion that Christianity at large has for the Lord Jesus Christ is very shallow.
• Conversion took place at a time of great excitement. . . A youth camp, a conference, an Accent Weekend.
• The church was singing. . . It was worshiping . . . it was a time that the emotions were stirred.
• People were getting out of their pews and some were caught up in the passion of the moment.
• Something stirred but it was not that deep-seated thing of true heart conversion.
-Impulsively people followed with never any consideration to count the cost that would be involved. At some point, if a man does not count the cost of commitment, he will fall by the wayside.
-The cost of commitment is very high but it is worth every bit of it!
-The challenge of every spiritual leader is to get it across that the Christian life is not a summer afternoon picnic but rather it is a battle and it is a long arduous fight. Wasted love will never be able to fight against the onslaught of pressures that a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ will have to make!
-We can only wonder if Michal would have been as quick to pursue David if she had gone down to Bethlehem.
• She would have seen him dripping with sweat on the hillsides of the pastures.
• She would have gotten the foul body odors of both him and his sheep.
• She would have seen him in the boredom of fleecing the sheep.
• She would have seen him at the bottom of the totem pole with his brothers.
-That is what it will be like sometimes in our service to the Lord. It won’t be glamorous and exciting. . . In fact, true Christian service and ministry often boils down to old-fashioned work. That is the challenge that a lot of ministers face. It can seem like a great start with all kinds of excitement in the heat of revival but we have to be vigilant to finish as well as we started.
-There is a price-tag on commitment:
• It usually means working with a small group of hardy souls after the excitement has worn away.
• It may mean continuing on in your praying after the passion for prayer has seeped out of the majority of souls.
• It may mean continuing to give your finances long after others have forgotten their commitments to foreign missionaries.
• It may mean staying at the Cross after all others have forsaken and fled.
-I don’t want to be like Michal!!! Here commitment flagged when David needed it the most!!!
-I want to revolt against that kind of shallow devotion that Michal had for David in my service for the Lord.
B. The Wasted Devotion of Testimony
-Saul was still up to vengeance because we find that in 1 Samuel 19 (vv. 11-17), he will use Michal as the bait to get him.
-One evening David he comes home and finds Michal describing to him a terrible situation. Saul is going to kill him when he leaves the house. She helps him to slip away in the night. Then she goes and puts pillows under the covers so it will look as if a sleeping man is there.
-When Saul’s assassins come to the door, Michal tells him that David is sick. When these killers report to Saul, he demands that they go back and kill him in his sick bed. What they did not suspect was that they were attacking a pile of pillows.
-Saul rages against Michal about it. He demands, “Why have you deceived me? Why have you sent my enemy away safely? Whose side are you on?”
-This would have been a great time for Michal to speak up and defend David and profess her love for him. She could have urged her father to quit trying to kill him but we never find that with Michal.
-Her great opportunity to testify in his behalf slips away from her.
-How often has that taken place with us? The Lord Jesus Christ was being maligned and torn down and yet our testimony for Him was wasted.
• The Lord is mocked and criticized but no word from me.
• The church is mocked and criticized but no word from me.
• The standards of holiness are mocked and criticized but no word from me.
• The true apostolic doctrine is mocked and derided but no word from me.
• The good saints of the church are accused of all manner of things but no word from me.
• The good pastor and leaders of the church are mocked and criticized but no word from me.
-That is what happens when our devotion of testimony is wasted. Michal said nothing to Saul to plead the cause of David and too often many in our generation aren’t bold enough to declare the truth of God’s Word!
-I don’t want to waste the devotion of my testimony!
C. The Wasted Devotion of Memory
-The next place in Michal’s life from 1 Samuel 25 (vv.44) gives us the notion of a wasted devotion of her memory.
-After David fled, she forgot him! He married another man because Saul told her to. From Scripture it doesn’t even appear that there was a divorce that took place. One day David is gone and the next day, Phalti of Gallim settles in.
-It was easier for Michal to enjoy the approval of her father and the benefits of a royal bearing than to be true to David and have to bear the burden of his banishment.
-When Michal forgot David and turned her back on him, she began to live out a life that was totally wasted. She never had any children and to her dying day she remained barren. Instead of being a support to David during this long time of fleeing from Saul, she could have been helpful and encouraging but she is not to be found.
-Through all of those years she spent with Phalti, there is no mention in Scripture of what she was doing. It is as if God ignores her in her fruitlessness. The wasted years of her life are absolutely silent. She forgot David and God forgot her!
-It was the agony of waste and the stigma of the uninvolved at its greatest point of illustration. She could have been one of the great heroines in Scripture but it was not to be.
-Bringing this into a spiritual application is important. We cannot forget the Lord no matter what our set of circumstances may be.
• We must live for Him!
• We must center our thoughts on Him!
• We must always be reaching for more of Him!
• We must share the burden of His reproach in this world!
-But there is a hard to believe turnabout that takes place in 2 Samuel 3. When Saul had finally been destroyed on the battlefield and David’s greatest foe had been defeated, Abner, who was Saul’s general, came to see him.
-For those of you who have enemies, there is a principle from the Word of the Lord that comes into play here. Time, devotion to God, discipline with your calling, and perseverance in your path will help you to move to the place where the foes who oppose you will be swept away. Faithfulness always precedes fruitfulness!
-We find in 2 Samuel 3:13 that David tells Abner that he will make a league with him on one condition; he must bring Michal back to him. She had forgotten him but David hadn’t forgotten her.
• She denied him but he did not deny her.
• She gave him up for a life of ease but he remembered as a fled from cave to cave.
• She forgot him but he longed for her.
• She dismissed him but he was willing to forgive him.
-Despite her failings, David was opening up a picture to us of the law of the second chance. The Lord is just like this, no matter how shallow we may be, no matter how shameful our behavior may be, no matter how lacking our devotion is, He will hold to us.
-We have to understand that the call to conversion is often followed years later by a call to consecration. It is like that with the greatest of God’s saints. . .
• Abraham finds his way back to Bethel where his tent and altar had been in the beginning.
• Jacob finds his way back to Bethel to wrestle with God over the purpose of his life.
• Jonah finds it in this manner. . . And the word of the Lord came a second time.
• Elijah was asked by God on Mount Horeb, What doest thou here Elijah?
• Peter tried to go back to his nets but the Lord called him the second time.
-David called Michal back despite her desertion. He gave her a fresh call even though she had denied him and lived for the comforts of the world. There had been a false suitor who played up to her and still David called her back in.
D. The Wasted Devotion of Worship
-We come to perhaps the saddest chapter in Michal’s life in 2 Samuel 6. Instead of worship, Michal laughed. What we laugh at says much about our character. Michal betrayed who she really was when she did this.
-Be careful at what you laugh about and mock:
• There were men about the Cross who laughed and mocked the Lord.
• There was Sarah’s laugh that was filled with suspicion.
• The critics laughed at Jesus the day he said that Jairus’ daughter wasn’t dead.
• Sanballat and Tobiah laughed Nehemiah and his workers to scorn.
• Michal laughed at David as he worshipped in the streets.
-The ark had been missing for long time and David was determined to put back into its proper place of restoration. As he escorted it back to that place, David led the choir and danced before the Lord with all of his might.
-He removed his royal robes (2 Sam. 6:20) when he was worshiping. Some have said that he pulled off everything, but to do such a thing would violate the principles that God held for the nation. Furthermore it would have placed him in the category of the pagan kings who had similar antics.
-For every opportunity, Michal had a chance for recovery but she wasted it. Can I cause you to pause and think and tell you that she has some of her kin in this generation?
• They mock emotional worship.
• They laugh when we say the Holy Ghost touched us.
• They sniff when we say we have heard from God.
• They are offended when someone says “Amen!” a little too boisterously.
-The tragedy is that that there are many who begin by saying they love the Lord but really don’t love him at all.
-But there was also a very tragic response on the part of David that day. He never again gave her the opportunity to get close to him again. He said, “Michal, you are still mine, but I will never give you a chance to get close to me again!” She died childless because she mocked David’s worship.
IV. CONCLUSION—DAVID’S OTHER WIVES
-Michal’s name means “brook” or “stream.” There came a day when her life dried up. She became just a shell of what she could have been.
-Because of David turning away from her, he turned to other wives. Polygamy was practiced in those days despite it being in their best interest. When you look to the meaning of their names, you find another whole sermon but I will only mention them in conclusion:
• Abigail, her name means joy.
• Ahinoam, her name comes from the root words that mean grace, delight, splendor, and grace.
• Maachah, her name means to be pressed or pierced. All of life has its share of burdens.
• Abital, her name means “my father is the dew.”
• Bathsheba, her name means “the daughter of an oath.”
-What Michal wasted, God replaced!
Philip Harrelson
February 8, 2013
