We're winners if we stay here, we're winners if we go there. 1 Samuel chapter 19's where we're at. I was listening to Chester and I didn't get wired up. Reminds me a little bit of that song Curtis Hudson used to sing before he passed away, I'm on the winning side. You ever heard that song? All right, 1 Samuel chapter 19, I wanna begin reading. We've actually began this our last time, I guess last week, began looking at this verse eight, and I'm gonna read down through verse 17. We already looked at the bulk of this passage last week, but I wanna zero in on the last five verses, I think, four or five verses there. And we're gonna learn something about David's wife, Saul's daughter, Michael, and we're gonna learn a little bit about Saul's servants. We'll see here in a bit. But verse number 8, notice the Bible says, there was war again. Now remember, Jonathan had talked to King Saul, calmed him down, and he let David come back. He said, I'll not kill him. All right, so that's where we're picking up. There was war again, and David went out and fought with the Philistines and slew them with a great slaughter, and they fled from him. And Saul was excited and rejoiced and praised the Lord for all David was doing to help his kingdom. No. That looks like how you would respond, but Saul's out of sorts. And the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul, and he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand, and David played with his hand, and Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin. But he slipped away out of Saul's presence, and he smote the javelin into the wall, and David fled and escaped that night. So also sent messengers unto David's house. Now here's where we're going to pick up new ground. Sent messengers unto David's house to watch him and to slay him in the morning. And Michael, David's wife, told him, saying, If thou save not thy life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain. 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, and put a pillow of goat's hair for his bolster, and covered it with a cloth. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, He is sick. Saul sent the messengers again to see David, saying, Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may slay him. And when the messengers were come in, behold, there was an image in the bed with a pillow of goat's hair for his bolster. And Saul said unto Michael, Why hast thou deceived me so, and sent away mine enemy, that he has escaped? And Michael answered Saul, He said unto me, Let me go, why should I kill thee? Let me ask you a question. That last statement, was that true? No. Let's pray. We're going to look at imaginary, we're looking at imaginary enemies. Saul said to his daughter, Why did you send away my enemy? David was not his enemy. He simply in his head. David was his enemy. Let's pray. Father, I ask you to bless our study of this portion of scripture. Help us to learn from it as we prayed earlier, that we could be stronger in our faith, be a little more careful in our lives, and that we can have an effective testimony to the lost world and be an encouragement edification to believers around us. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. We learned a lesson from our good friend Bob Hamlin before he went home. And he taught us, if you remember, I mentioned this last week, he taught me, anyway, that before I go trying to fix a problem, make sure, first of all, that it's what? Make sure it's actually a problem. You try and fix something that's not a problem, you end up developing a problem. And we need to be very careful before we go chasing enemies around, and before we start fighting enemies, we need to make sure, first of all, that they are what? Actually an enemy. They may not be an enemy and we may be, sometimes if we're not careful, we may be running off the things that are the most beneficial to us simply because we misunderstand, our eyes are focused on the wrong thing. And that's exactly what's happening with Saul here, King Saul here. We pointed out last week that David refocused on his responsibilities. Jonathan had calmed Saul down and Saul gave his word, however dubious it was. He said, I'll not kill him. I won't kill him. So David, in good faith, and faith in God no doubt, comes back, picks up his responsibilities, and he is faithful in fighting the enemies of God, doing his job as a military man, and then also serving God's anointed. That tells me a lot about David. His faith, his humility, and his ability to stay focused on his responsibility. Does anybody here ever get distracted? Anybody here ever get distracted? I was in the office today, and Jennifer, Pastor Matt was doing something, Jennifer's in her office, and I called a church, I needed to talk to somebody, I called them up, and they got this, you go through these series of options, this recorded, if you want so-and-so, press one, if you want so-and-so, so this thing's going on, it's like, if you want so-and-so, press 273, if you want, it's just going on and on, and my mind got wandering, And finally I got to the end and I thought, I wasn't even listening to what they said. I've got to listen to this whole thing over again because I wasn't paying attention. We get distracted sometimes, but David stayed focused. Number two, we noticed that the evil spirit of the Lord comes back to King Saul. And he gets back into this funk, if you want to call it, this frame of mind that the presence of the Lord has been removed, and he gets in this frame of mind and things go bad. And then we notice he revived, in verse number 10, he revived his malice toward David. And if you remember, we said it was very fierce. He threw that javelin so hard, it's stuck into the wall. Now we're assuming that's probably a stone wall or some sort of heavy masonry. This is where the king is, whether it's his home, his own palace, or whether it's some building of state, I don't know, but it's not a thatched hut. And so for this thing to stick in there, and Saul's a big strong guy, so he is absolutely fierce in this, but it was futile, David escaped. And I'm gonna give you a little, I'm gonna give you a little spoiler, David keeps escaping every time. He escapes, he escapes, he escapes. It is futile what King Saul is trying to do, but he doesn't realize that yet. Now we get to verse 11 through 17, And we're looking at Michael's response to Saul's plan to get to kill David. Now Michael is Saul's daughter. Remember that? She married, Saul gave her to David in marriage. And so she is David's wife, Saul's daughter. And we're going to learn here a lot about two people. We're going to learn a little, I should say, we learn to learn a little bit about Saul's servants. We have an unusual insight into the character of these guys. And we're going to learn a little bit about the character of Michael. What kind of gal she is. Look at verse number 11, the first part says, Saul also sent messengers unto David's house to watch him, and to slay him in the morning. Now I want you to put something here and mark this place in your Bible, and I'd like you to turn to Psalm 59. And we're going to jump back and forth here a little bit between the two. So somehow mark these where you can very easily, very quickly jump back and forth from 1 Samuel 19 and Psalm 59. Now while you're looking at Psalm 59, let me read what I just read again. Saul also sent messengers unto David's house to watch him and to slay him in the morning. Now, are you at Psalm 59? Are you there? Did you find it? Look at the heading, the title of Psalm 59. To the chief musician, and that word there, thing of David, when Saul sent and they, what? watched the house to kill him. How about that? Psalm 59 is penned by David in response to this event that we just read about in 1 Samuel chapter 19. In other words, this is David's take on what's happening. This is David's perspective, but it's more than that. It is David's Holy Ghost-inspired commentary on what Saul did and what transpired here. Now this is where it gets interesting. If you go by that title there and what we read here in 1 Samuel, we notice a couple things. We notice, first of all, King Saul had them set up a stakeout. Now we have a stakeout here, that's not what I'm talking about. Anybody ever watch a police show or a detective show and they have a stakeout? Anybody know? They're not eating ribeyes. What are they doing? They're eating donuts. Yeah. Yeah, they're sitting outside the bad guy's house, and they're going to see who's going to come by, or they're going to wait for him to come out, and they're going to nab him, they're going to get the goods on him. That's exactly what King Saul has his servants do. I want you to go stake that place out. And in the morning, so first of all, they set up a stakeout, second of all, they set up an ambush. And in the morning, when he comes out, you guys jump him. You nab them, you bring them to me. Look at verse number 3 of chapter 59. Psalm 59. Verse 3 of Psalm 59. Let's start in verse 1. This is David speaking again under the inspiration of God. Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God. Deliver me from them that rise up against me. Question, was Saul David's enemy? Yeah, if anybody had an enemy, that would have been the enemy. David wasn't Saul's enemy, but Saul was absolutely. So David recognizes that. He said, verse 2, deliver me. Now look at how he describes these messengers of King Saul. Deliver me from the what? Workers of iniquity, and save me from what? Bloody men. Huh. Then verse 3, Lo, they lie in wait for my soul. You could say, for my life. The mighty are gathered against me, not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord. So they're setting up this ambush. They're waiting for him. And he says, they lie in wait for my soul. And when he says, for my soul, he's talking about his life. They want to kill him. He knows that. He's aware of that at this point. And so, in fact, that phrase, lie in wait, I got looking that up, how it's used. It's actually translated eight times in our Bible, that same phrase is translated other places in the Bible, eight times with the word ambush. That's exactly what it means. They are going to ambush him. They're going to jump him. Now, this is what caught my attention as I read down through Psalm 59, how Saul's servants, these messengers of Saul, are described. I read verse number two there. Look at verse six. They return at evening, they make a noise like a what? Dog. Question, how did the Jews view dogs? They hated them. Dogs were nasty. Dogs were despicable. They were disgusting. They had nothing to do with dogs. So when he says these guys are out there, apparently they weren't very good at sneaking because he says they're making noises. But he's describing them as dogs, and in the Jewish culture, that certainly was not a compliment by any stretch of the imagination. Look at verse 7. Behold, they belch out with their mouth, swords are in their lips. For who, say they, doth hear? Look at verse 12. For the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride. And for, look at this, what? cursing and lying which they speak." What does that say about these messengers? What kind of fellows are these? These are bad guys. They are rotten. They are... what else would you say? I put down a couple things I observed here, particularly about how they spoke. Verse 6, they have crude language. I think when he says they make noise like a dog, they're just crude. They're just crude and rude. Verse 12, they're cursing and lying. That tells me they're corrupt. As a man speaketh, so is he. Right? As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Here's what I'm trying to get at. Out of the abundance of the heart, the what? Mouth speaketh. And so this cursing is coming out of their mouth. This crudeness is coming out of their mouth. Look at verse 7. They're cruel. It says, back in verse 7, he says, Behold, they belch out with their mouth. Swords are in their lips. That's not a literal, we don't interpret that literally, that's figurative of course. If you say somebody's words are like swords, what does that mean? They're sharp, they hurt, they're cruel. And so we get a little bit, David's, God's commentary through David's, in Psalm chapter 59, gives us a little insight, a little window to look into what these guys are like. Now, how many people remember a little earlier, I was critical of Saul's servants because they did not stand up against Saul when he was asking them to murder an innocent man. And we discuss maybe the motives, why they would go along or whatever. The more I'm learning about these guys, I think they've been corrupted by Saul, perhaps. And these are rough fellas. These are not high and respectable men. However, in spite of all that, we get to verse number 16 and 17 of Psalm 59, and we see David's attitude. And I'll tell you, this just encourages me. to see what's going on in David's head when all of this has gone down. Look at verse 16. But I will sing of thy power. Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning, for thou hast been my what? My defense and what? Refuge in the day of my trouble unto Thee, O my strength will I sing. God is my defense and the God of mercy. Man, what a statement. And I look at that and I see here is David in the midst of this, and he's fulfilled his responsibility, he stayed focused on his responsibility, and in spite of everything that Saul is doing, in spite of everything that's happening, he has not lost faith in God. He has not lost confidence in God's ability. Now we're going to give you a little heads up in a few chapters, he's going to waver on that a little bit, but at this point he is standing strong. And I tell you, what a testimony and what a challenge to you and I when things go south for us and people say and do things that are unjust and unfair and things happen that hurt us and disrupt us. And be honest with you, David's world at this point is being turned upside down. Nothing is ever going to be the same. from this point on, and yet here he is unshaken in his confidence in God. No matter what people say, the cruel language, the swords in their lips, and the barkings like dogs, the stuff they're saying, and the stuff they're doing, the accusations they're making, the horrible things they're saying, David does not waver in his confidence in God. And I tell you, that's a great challenge to you and I. That's a great challenge to you and I. Now let's come back to 1 Samuel 19, and I want to look at something here that I found to be interesting. As I was studying this, it dawned on me that there is a comparison between Michael, Saul's daughter, her response to King Saul's attempt to murder innocent David, And there's a correlation to Jonathan's, Saul's son, her brother, his response to Saul's efforts to murder an innocent king, not king, David's not king at this point. but to murder an innocent man. And I got looking at how the two responded. Now remember, back in the beginning of chapter 19, we had Jonathan's response. He found out Saul had told the servants, and Jonathan, you go kill David. You murder him. and how Jonathan responded to that. Now we have the same thing. Saul's messengers are showing up and Michael realizes that he's coming to kill David and how she responds. Several similarities. Number one, I put this. I noticed this. She alerts David to his danger. Look at verse 11 and the second part. The men show up to watch him, slay him in the morning. And Michael, David's wife, Saul's daughter, told him, saying, If thou save not thy life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain. Apparently David was, at this point, unaware that these guys are staking out his house. Michael, being the woman of the house, perhaps, she's a little alert to what's going on. David's focused on whatever he's doing, maybe. And she sees these guys out there and heads up. She's aware of what's happening, so she alerts David to the danger that he's facing. Come back to verse 2 of the same chapter. Here we have Jonathan, and he does the exact same thing, or he did the exact same thing. It says, But Jonathan Saul's son delighted much in David, and Jonathan told David. Verse 11, it says, Michael, David's wife, told him. saying, Saul, my father, seeketh to kill thee. Now therefore, I pray thee, take heed to thyself until the morning. Abide in a secret place and hide thyself. So the very first thing this brother and sister do in responding to their father's attempts to kill her husband and Jonathan's friend is they give David a heads up. I don't believe either of these folks, Michael or Jonathan, wanted Saul to kill David. I think they both loved him to some extent. And they both immediately warned him of his danger. Now this is a little aside, but something that I pulled out of this is that tells me that information is vitally important for safety. If David was not aware of this, if she did not communicate this information to him, he was a dead man when he walked out that door the next morning. Information is vitally important. That's one of the things they emphasized in our training here when we had the sheriff department come in and train us in case a maniac comes in or something. And the first thing they said was, get information to everybody, let everybody know, get information out, get that information out. And I thought of that here, and I thought of this, isn't that true spiritually speaking? How many people around the world will die without believing on the Lord Jesus Christ because they never heard of Him? And they never heard of Him, they never received the information because there was no what? Preacher, our memory verse. How shall they hear? How shall they get the information? And so there's a little bit, a little hint of an important principle here. If people are going to be saved from danger, if David is going to be saved from being killed, he needs the information of what's happening around him. And if lost people are going to be saved from dying and going to hell, they need to have the information of what their condition is and what is around the corner ahead for them if they don't find Christ. And so there's a little pattern there for us, a little lesson to be learned there. So she alerts David to his danger, same thing Jonathan did. The second thing she does, if you would look at verse number 12. So Michael let David down through a window and he went and fled and what? Escaped. He got away. They're not going to get him this time. And so first, she alerts David to the danger. Second of all, she assists David in his escape. Now, let's think back to Jonathan. Look at verse 2 of the same chapter here and the second part. He says, I pray they take heed to thyself until the morning and abide in a what? a secret place, and hide thyself, and I will go out and stand beside my father." So Jonathan did not the exact same thing, but the same action. He took steps to aid David in escaping his father's plot to kill him. And so both of them worked with David and provided escape. Now this might be trivial, I don't know, but I thought of this, along with the spiritual lessons to learn from this, is information is important for safety. If people are going to escape the judgment of God and find eternal life and find meaning and purpose of life, they have to have the information about Christ. But there also needs to be cooperation on the part of David. She's not throwing him out the window. She's letting him down. David has to cooperate with Jonathan. Jonathan says, hide yourself in a secret place. David had to cooperate with that. If he'd have said, no, no, no, and he'd have been dead, man. And again, I may be stretching this a little bit, but I thought application to sharing the gospel with people, even if we give information to folks, they're not going to be saved unless they cooperate with that information, receive it, and respond to it in a proper way. And of course, David does that. He sees the danger, he receives the information, understands the danger, and then they assist him in escaping that danger. So number one, she informs him, she alerts him to the danger. Number two, she assists him in his escape. Number three, I notice this, she addresses Saul's behavior. Now she does it in a less direct way than Jonathan did. Look at verse 13. And Michael took an image and laid it in the bed and put a pillow of goat's hair for his bolster and covered it up with a cloth. This has nothing to do with David. This all has to do with Saul at this point. David's gone. This is all her preparing and putting things in place to address her father's actions. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, he's sick. And Saul sent the messengers again to see David, saying, Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may slay him. Basically saying, I don't care if he's sick. Bring the whole bed up here. I'm going to kill him. And when the messengers were come, behold, there was an image in the bed with a pillow of goat's hair for his bolster. And Saul said to Michael, Why hast thou deceived me so, and sent away mine enemy, that he has escaped? And Michael answered Saul, He said unto me, Let me go. Why should I kill thee? So that's her response to Saul's plan, Saul's efforts to kill her husband David. This is how she responds. She makes a phony bed, puts an image in a bed, makes it look like David. They take it up there and then she lies to him. That's how she confronts and addresses Saul's actions. Let's go back to how Jonathan address Saul's actions. Remember that? In verse number four, Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul, his father. What did Michael speak about David to her father? Spoke ill. He threatened to kill me. She lied about him. David spake good of David unto Saul his father, and said unto him, Let not the king sin against his servant against David, because he hath not sinned against thee, because his works have been to thee very good. Jonathan saying to King Saul, Hey, this is sin. You're sinning against David. What is Michael saying? David sinned against me. She never one time suggests that King Saul is sinning or doing wrong. All the wrong she points out, she points to who? It's David made me do this. David, David, he's the one doing wrong. So they both respond to King Saul's actions to kill David, but they respond in two completely different ways. Jonathan responds with reason. He responds honestly, and he retains his integrity. Now, he's very tactful about it. We studied that. But he is straight up honest with his daddy. He reasons with his daddy. And when Jonathan walks away, his integrity is intact. However, with Michael, it's a very different story. The first thing I notice here is she deceitfully cooperates with Saul. Now, does she actually cooperate with Saul in trying to kill David? No, she helps him escape. But she puts on, she deceives her father into thinking, hey, I'm with you on this. I'm cooperating with you on this. I'm trying to help you get my husband and kill him. Notice here, Saul thought... I jotted this down as I was studying it. Saul thought he was pretty clever in these little schemes he's coming up with to get David. But I tell you, Michael out-clevered him on this one. She outwitted him on this. She fooled her father on this one, at least for a while. Now let's look at this. There's some interesting things here. Verse 13, and Michael took a what? An image. Do you ever remember reading about images in the Bible anywhere else? How is an image referred to in the Bible other places? As a what? An idol! In fact, I looked it up, and every time that term is used, it refers to some type of false idol. Some type of image of a god. And so we learned in Sunday school, the law of first mention, and we learned in Sunday school you compare scripture with scripture. And every time in the Bible that term image is used, every single time, let's exclude this, every other single time the word image is used, it's referring to a false idol, a little wood carved statue or a stone carved statue that is worshipped as a false god. Now my question is, why would we interpret this any different this time than every other time it's used? Now I can't say dogmatically, but my question is this, where in the world did she get that image? David's a God-fearing man. David wouldn't be worshiping an image. David, we know, we're confident of that, that David had nothing to do with the worship of false gods. So all we can do is speculate, we're not told. But boy, she came up with this thing on awfully short notice. As far as we know, she didn't go anywhere outside of the house to get it. I'm just wondering, I've got question marks all over my notes here. I'm just wondering, was she harboring hidden secrets from her husband and from her family? Where did she get this thing? Was she hiding? Right, like I said, I'm speculating here, but every other time that term is used... And it uses a term, very specific image. And if you look up what that word's translated from, it means a false idol. And so I'm just going by how this is used other places. And I said, you know, we don't know. It doesn't tell us exactly here. But I have no reason to interpret this to mean anything other than how I would interpret it in any other context. And so be that as it may, if this is a false image, like it certainly appears to be, it Where would that thing have come from? We know this, Michael has no qualms about lying to her father. She has no qualms about lying about her husband. And so this is somebody who has no problems hiding and deceiving and conniving. And so whatever the case may be, when I see that term image there, I immediately have questions. Where did that thing come from and why would she have it? David would have nothing to do, we are confident that he would have nothing to do with an image of something of this sort. So it tells us, gives us a little insight on her. Then I mentioned this word before last week, but it uses the term bolster. And that's just simply an unusual, it's a little bit of an obscure word. It means a head piece. It's translated other places in the Bible as pillow and that type of thing. Simply the place where you would lay your head. Sometimes they used a rock as a bolster. They'd lay their head on a rock or whatever. And so it's just the place he laid her head. So she puts this image in here. She gets some goatskin hair and puts it up there where the bolster, where his head would be, and she puts a blanket over it. And it looks like David laying in this bed. Now look at verse 14. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, he's sick. Alright, that's a lie. He's not sick. He's not even there. Apparently, King Saul and the messengers got impatient. I'm just picturing it this way, again, this is speculation. But it's the next morning's come, the day break, 5 o'clock, 5.30, the sun's coming up, they're watching, alright, he'll be coming out here any minute. He's gonna go get the soldiers, go to the office, and they're watching, 5.30, 6, 6.30, 7, 8 o'clock, ain't coming out. And so they get impatient, so they go up to the door, and I assume, We need to see David. Michael comes out, he's sick. So they go running back and they tell King Saul, he's sick. Now, let me just throw this out here. David didn't need Michael lying for him. He had the Lord's promise. So her lies are unnecessary at this point. as far as David's well-being is concerned. So they go back, they tell King Saul, he goes, go down, he's sick, go down, just bring his whole bed and everything up here. Bring him in here, and he says very expressly, verse 14, he says, and when Saul sent, he said, he's sick, verse 15, and Saul sent the messengers again to see David. He sent them back down there saying, bring him up to me in the bed that I may, what? Slay him. The word slay means execute. He says, I want to execute him. If they had guns, he wants to kneel down on his knees, facing away from him, a gun at the back of the head, pop. That's what he's talking about. He wants to slay this guy, execute him. Now my question, here I'm asking questions again. My question is, in Saul's mind, if he's sick, Saul, that's playing right into your hands. If he's sick, let him be sick. Maybe he'll die. You've accomplished your goal, and your hands are clean. Why in the world would you slay him when he's sick, when there's a good chance you're going to get what you want, and you have no connection to it whatsoever? It's just natural. God did it for you. You don't even have to worry about it. Why do you have to have him up here and slay him yourself? You know what I think? I think Saul has become so corrupted in his thinking, he is so defiled in his thinking, it's not enough just that David dies, now it's important how he dies. It is gonna be me killing him. Now think about this, what point, how does a person get to the point where they are so depraved? Does anybody ever look at our society, our country, and say, how in the world did we get to the point where we are this depraved? The sexual perversion, the mental disorders that are lifted up as to be celebrated, how do we get to this point? I'm telling you, sin is so corrupting. that when left unchecked, it absolutely, there is no bottom to the depths of what sin will become. Now think how this began. This began with Saul doing what? Remember, David killed Goliath, and they had this great victory, and they have this victory parade coming back, and all the women have gathered together, and they're singing a little ditty. Saul has slain his thousands, And David, what? His 10,000s. And that little statement, in that song they were singing, got in Saul's crawl. And remember the verse that said, from that point on, Saul eyed David. And that's where it began, unchecked. In his mind, his perspective of what was happening was so self-centered, so self-absorbed, that nothing he did was wrong, that everything he did was justified. And now it's to a point, not satisfied with just David dying, but he wants to put his hands around the neck. He wants the blood of David on his sword. And that's where he's at. The only thing that will satisfy Saul at this point is killing David himself. Sin, when left unchecked, becomes very dark. And it becomes very dark very quick. It went from eyeing David to this. Now I want us to notice one more thing about Michael's response to King Saul. First thing she does is she deceitfully cooperates. She puts on like she's cooperating. She's really not. She's already let David out. Now look at verse 17. And Saul said unto Michael, Why hast thou deceived me so, and sent away mine enemy, that he's escaped? How many people find it a little hypocritical, Saul being upset about somebody deceiving him? Isn't that something? How many people, how often do folks get all upset about somebody else doing something that they do themselves on a regular basis? It's human nature, hypocrisy. In fact, Jesus warned the disciples in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned the disciples about hypocrisy. And so here you have Saul upset because somebody deceived him by an enemy that he has escaped. Now look how Michael responds and answered Saul. He's not your enemy. He's done you good. He's defeated the enemies of Israel and the champion of the Philistines. You saw it and you rejoiced. She don't say that at all. That's what Jonathan said. and it had a temporary effect on King Saul. She doesn't say any of that. Look what she says. He said unto me, let me go, why should I kill thee? That's a flat out lie. Let me ask you a question. Here she is, two things she's doing here. She's lying to her father and she's lying about her husband. Two of the most important men in her life. The two authorities, human authorities in her life. She's lying to one and about the other. Now you tell me, what does that say about her character? And I'm not putting Michael up on a court stand here, but I want to learn from this. That tells me there is a serious, serious flaw in the character of Michael. Can I be so bold? And I'm telling you, Scripture bears this out over and over and over. If a person is dishonest, there is a serious, serious character flaw in that person's heart and life. In fact, I would go so far as to say dishonesty is perhaps the most devastating character flaw of any there may be. A person is dishonest. Yes, a snare. Yes, and no doubt these were developed as a child. And again, here we're speculating, but she most likely learned to lie. at a very young age. And at this point, she's very comfortable with it. She's very confident with it. And she's very, very fluid with it. It's very abundant. She is just lying. Yeah, Saul lied to Samuel about Agar and the sheep and all of that. Now, the interesting thing is Jonathan comes out of this thing with character, a man of phenomenal character. So, but I'm looking at Michael here now. She's attempting to manipulate her father's thinking. She wanted him to believe that she was his ally. She wanted him to believe that David was just as much her enemy as David was his enemy. and she lied to accomplish that. I read a quote somewhere, this has been some time ago, and a little statement in that phrase I was reading stuck out in my mind. It was this, the seduction of dishonesty. How a lie can be so seductive. We get in a situation, ooh, this is bad. Oh, this is gonna cost me. And that lie is out there that seduces us to think if you just fudge the truth, then you can escape the consequences. That lie seduces us. I do something wrong and there's going to be retribution for it or whatever. And boy, this lie comes up. And we know the devil's the author of lies. He's a father of lies. And that lie will come up and that will seduce us. And I'm telling you, the best of God's people, in the right circumstances, in the right situation, that lie will do everything it can to seduce them into partaking of it. And it requires character, it requires integrity to say, I will not. regardless of the consequences, regardless of the cost. A lie is an attempt to manipulate consequences into my favor. But every time we do that, Proverbs tells us false lips are temporary, are but for a moment. And it gets me in that situation for a while, but inevitably it makes the consequences even worse, eventually. Why don't we just tell the truth and let the truth determine what the consequences will be? Just let the truth determine what the consequences will be. John Wesley made a powerful statement. I'll end with this. Think about this. He said, I would not tell one lie to save all the souls in the whole world. I wouldn't tell one lie in order to save every soul in the whole world. How many people here think it would be important to see every soul saved? What if you became convinced if you tell this one lie, every soul in the world would be saved? According to John Wesley, it wouldn't be worth telling a lie. It won't be worth telling a lie. We live in a dishonest society. Deceit and dishonesty is from the highest levels of our country down to the lowest gutters. Anybody hear the term fake news? You know what that is? It's just a funny way of referring to lies. It's in our government, it's in our entertainment, it's in our homes, it's in our churches. Brother Heinbo and I were talking before about being a pastor. He goes, oh, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. I said, I love it. I said, but it's a rollercoaster. You go out and you witness somebody and somebody trusts the Lord, or you preach a sermon and God blesses and people respond, or somebody calls you up and says, boy, this is what God's, and man, you are on cloud nine and praising the Lord, and your life has meaning, and there's purpose, and I maybe am actually making a difference. And then you get a phone call, preacher, you're the biggest idiot I've ever heard in my life, and you ain't worth the shoe leather that you're walking around in. And you were, and it's up, and down, and up, and down. But after years, you get settled in, and it's just kind of water off a duck's back a little bit. But I said all that to say this. I'll tell you one thing, and you all, I know it's same with everybody, so I'm not making myself out anything unusual. I tell you, when someone lies to you, that hurts. That hurts. Sometimes it's not on purpose. There's a difference between being mistaken and lying. And I understand that. John Wesley said, I wouldn't save the whole world if it required me telling a lie. Let's be honest. Amen. Father in heaven, I pray you'd help us to learn. Help us to be true on the job, in the home, school, with one another. Just be honest. I thank you for Jonathan, how he stands out. I pray you'd stir our hearts. I wonder, their heads bowed, eyes closed, and this is kind of personal, I'm sure, but between you and the Lord, I wonder how many of us, between you and I and the Lord, would say, you know, I need to be careful about my integrity. The words come off my lips are true and pure and honest. And regardless of what the circumstance, regardless consequences, I just need to be true to my Lord. I just need to be honest. And I think all of us could say, Lord, help me, help me to be that way. Father, bless now as we reflect on this for a moment and we respond to what your word teaches us here. In Jesus' name, amen.