Let's read 1 Samuel chapter 22. David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brethren in all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them. And there were with him about 400 men. And David went thence to Mizpe of Moab. And he said unto the king of Moab, let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth and be with you till I know what God will do for me. And he brought them before the king of Moab and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the hold. And the prophet Gad said unto David, abide not in the hold, depart and get thee into the land of Judah. Then David departed and came into the forest of Herod. When Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men that were with him, now Saul abode in Gibeah under a tree in Ramah, having his spear in his hand, and his servants were standing about him, then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him, here now, you Benjamites, will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards and make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds? that you have conspired against me, and there is none that showeth me that my son hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that is sorry for me, or showeth unto me that my son hath stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait as at this day?' Then answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech, the son of Ahithah, And he inquired of the Lord for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine. Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitab, and all his father's house, the priests that were in Nab. And they came, all of them, to the king. And Saul said, Here now, thou son of Ahithoph. And he answered and said, Here I am, my lord. And Saul said unto him, Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, in that thou hast given him bread and a sword, and hast inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me to lie in wait, as at this day? Then Ahimelech answered the king and said, and who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king's son-in-law, and goeth at thy bidding and is honorable in thy house? Did I then begin to inquire of God for him? Be it far from me. Let not the king impute anything unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father, for thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more. And the king said, thou shalt surely die Ahimelech, thou and all thy father's house. And the king said unto the footmen that stood about him, turn and slay the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David. And because they knew when he fled and did not show it to me, but the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the Lord. And the king said to Doeg, turn thou and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day four score and five persons that did wear a linen ephod. And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen and asses and sheep with the edge of the sword. And one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahithah, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. And Abiathar showed David that Saul had slain the Lord's priests. And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house. Abide thou with me, fear not, for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life. but with me thou shalt be in safeguard." Well, we have just these incredible events that are unfolding here in the life of David and Saul, David's conflict with Saul. This is on the heels of the previous chapter where David fled And the chapters that are followed, we find David in a state of, he's a fugitive from Saul, he's in a kind of state of exile, where he's on the run, he's hiding out, and he is enduring much difficulty in this situation. He had gone to the priest, Ahimelech, and he had gotten bread from the priest, but the priest, as far as we understand, knew nothing of David's rupture with Saul and his being on the run. And he told the priest that he was on a secret mission on behalf of Saul. And so the priest is not aware of what was taking place and pleads his innocence when Saul challenges him, but we have this massacre, this incredibly evil and wicked act that Saul perpetuates through his servant Doeg the Edomite unfold here. tragic and horrifying event. It ought to shock the mind, shock the heart of such an evil event. Not just the killing of one's enemies, but the slaughter of the priests of the Lord. And so we hear in this chapter, we have both events surrounding what's going on with David, and then it turns the story to events happening with Saul, and then it comes back to David as the chapter comes to the end. So I want to look at David and some of the characteristics and qualities that we see in David. But before we do that, first, let's take some time to consider Saul and Saul's actions and Saul's state here. We have seen Saul devolve both gradually at times and sometimes in large ways from being someone at first who was anointed of the Lord, who was chosen by God in response to the people's asking God for a king, And we have questions as his life and his role as king and his actions unfold, we have questions about him. We begin to see doubts in his faithfulness and his trust in the Lord, in his obedience to the Lord. But his true character, his true heart and character is unfolding more and more with these events. And particularly I think here, it comes to a clarity about who he really is. What kind of person is Saul? And so this, I think, makes us think back to why was Saul chosen and set up as king over the people of Israel? Remember that when the people of Israel asked God for a king, God said that he would give them what they asked for. They wanted a king like the kings of the nations. And God gave them Saul. God gave them Saul and Saul has proven himself to be a king like the king of the nations. And so we can be reminded that in a way, God was displeased and Samuel was displeased with the people for asking for a king and rejecting God as being their king. And so in a sense, Saul is given to the people as a kind of punishment to them, as a discipline to them. And he also serves a role of preparing the way for God in his mercy and his kindness to set up a king that is according to God's heart when he rejects Saul from being king. But we see Saul's evil really come to a kind of pinnacle here where he is willing to do something. He is desirous to do something that even his servants, even his soldiers, refused to do at his order. They risked their own lives, in essence, by refusing to do this, but this was so out of line, it was so out of bounds of what was acceptable, that they even feared to do it more than they feared Saul and his vengeance upon them, that when he tells his servants to slay the priests of the Lord, they won't do it. We saw in the last chapter when David goes to Himalek and he's there getting the bread and talking to Himalek and acquiring the sword of Goliath, it gives us just in this short statement in this one verse, Doeg the Edomite, the servant of Saul, was there. And it's an ominous foreshadowing of what has taken place here, and we see the evil of that man and how he's a means that ultimately results in the death of these priests. So we see Saul's evil at play. And as we consider Saul, we have seen certain things about Saul in what has unfolded. We see that he lacks trust in the Lord, that he was disobedient to the Lord and didn't follow the Lord's commandments, but it goes deeper than that. Saul does not have a relationship with the Lord. When Saul is speaking to Samuel at one time, he refers to God as the Lord your God, rather than the Lord our God or the Lord my God. And he does not have a trust and a faith in the Lord, even though he fulfilled the role of the outward role as being the king over the Lord's people, yet he did not have faith in the Lord and we see him spiral into deeper and deeper wickedness and evil here. So he is now, though he holds the role of the King of Israel, he is the enemy of David, he is the enemy of the righteous, he is the enemy of God's chosen. And so This brings us now back to David where the chapter begins. David departed after he had gone into the land of the Philistines and he thought at first it seems like he could go undetected among them. But as soon as he arrives, they begin to say, isn't this the one that the women were singing? Saul is slain as thousands, and David is slain as tens of thousands. And he realizes, as soon as he gets there, that they know who he is. And he's an enemy of theirs. He has killed many Philistines. He's a hero warrior. They even recognize that he's a king of the land of Israel. They even understood something about his elevation to kingship. And they say, isn't this the king of the land? And did they not sing to one another of him in dances, saying, solace, slain his thousands, and David his tens thousands. And so David's afraid, and David disguises himself in a different way by pretending he's insane. And he scribbles on the walls, and he lets the spit fall into his beard, and he acts like a crazy person. And amazingly, it works, and the king is disgusted with him and says, basically, take him out of my sight. And David cannot stay there long. He has to get out of there. And so it says, he departs, and he escapes to a cave. And David is going to, at different times, hide out in caves. The hill country in this area where he was, there were many of these kind of natural rock formations that formed a sort of natural fortress. And so it was a means of having a kind of defense and an ability to hide out. If you understood and you knew this area, if you knew the landscape, it was very accessible for you to be able to see your enemies coming, to be able to hide out, to be able to conceal yourself. And so this is what David has to do. David is on the run. David is a fugitive from Saul. David also is in a situation where he is himself a mighty warrior. He is a fighter and he will assemble to himself warriors as well. He's on the run from Saul, but he himself does not want to kill Saul. And so that makes his situation particularly challenging and difficult because David is actually avoiding head-to-head conflict with Saul. And we'll see more of that unfold later as we see that David actually does not want to kill Saul. He does not want to foment a revolution and overthrow the king of Israel. But he also doesn't want to be killed. by Saul, and so he has, it seems, no choice but to flee and to hide. And so that's what he's doing for a time. And this is where we find him as this chapter begins. He has departed and he escaped to the cave of Adullam. And I love this in verse one, how it says, when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. I couldn't help but think about Jesus, the son of David, and there's a parallel and parallel again and again between their lives, how we saw earlier in David's story when he was chosen and then when he comes down to the battle when Goliath is taunting and he's asking questions, his oldest brother, Eliab, he rebukes David. He accuses him of being naughty in his heart, naughtiness of his heart. He accuses him of being evil and being proud. And so we see that David in his early time was not supported by all of his brothers. And we don't know what else of his other brothers, how they saw him. We also see in Jesus's life during his ministry, it says specifically of his brothers that they didn't believe in him. when Jesus was walking and performing his miracles, his brothers, rather than being at first his biggest supporters, were skeptical of him, they didn't believe in him. Jesus even said something about how a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country. And that some of the people that were most, least believing in Jesus were the people from his own homeland, from his own place. And that included to his very brothers. They would have been his half-brothers, technically, the sons of Mary and Joseph. They were his brothers, and it says they didn't believe in him. But later on what we find, and we don't know their whole story, we're not told everything that happened to them, but later on we find that his brothers became some of his most fervent disciples. One of his brothers, James, not the apostle of the 12 James, one of Jesus' brothers became one of the first leading pastors of the church in Jerusalem, and one of Jesus' most dedicated and faithful followers. We see something amazing there, and we see this with David now. David's family, they're in a difficult situation themselves. because they're David's family. David is hated by Saul, pursued by Saul, and they are in a situation where they themselves must also come under suspicion of being aligned with David. But they're in a situation where when David is hiding out, they go and they join themselves to him, and David is beginning to acquire a following here. And he acquires a following, in some ways an unlikely following. Now we see the following of David described. Did David acquire to himself the best and the brightest and the most esteemed? Well, no. It goes on to describe, it says, everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in debt and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him. and he became a captain over them. And there were with him about 400 men. So Jesus is gathering to himself the people that might have been looked on in their nation and in their society as, in some ways, the rabble of the society. They were the troubled souls. They were the people who were in difficult situations, in distress, either from fault of their own or for fault of others or from the tyranny of Saul. Whatever the case was, the discontented, the distressed, The indebted, the impoverished, they saw in David a hope and they began to gather themselves to him. And in this I see another parallel with the life of Jesus. In Jesus' ministry we see that the types of people that were drawn to and gathered around Jesus and assembled around Him and became His loyal followers, they were often not the admired or esteemed of their society. They were not the ones that had it all together. They were not the ones that had everything great going for them in their life. They were sinners, tax collectors, and fishermen and various people that assembled around him such that he was called a friend of sinners. And he was someone that the lepers and the disabled and the blind and the sick and the troubled, they saw hope in him and they were drawn to him. And so we see with David here, David is beginning to assemble his army, his army of discontents, and they're hiding out. And these people are aligning themselves with David. Now, David was David was not a perfect man, and we'll see as we read in the chapters that follow in the story of David. David was far from perfect. David had many great flaws and some serious failures in his life, no doubt, huge ones. But David also had many qualities that are worth emulation and worth admiration. He's an example, and so we should seek to emulate his good qualities that he had, because David was someone, in spite of his flaws and his failures, he was someone that was able to inspire the respect of many people. He was someone that was able to encourage the souls of many. He was someone that was able to be a means of God for the deliverance of many people and the defeat of their enemies. And so there are many qualities that he has that are worthy of emulation. And so that's what I'd like to focus on today. We'll certainly see many of his failures throughout his story. But today, let's consider, in particular, five of David's qualities that we have seen or we do see here that are on display. And I think this can be an encouragement to us to seek to emulate these qualities. They could be particularly, I hope, inspiring to men. We live in a time, and perhaps every time is like this, where we need men to stand up and be men. And David is a person we can look to that we see some qualities of manliness, godly manliness, that are worthy of emulation, worthy of respect. And so we look at him and we look at his life and there's a lot for us to learn from that. So let's consider a few things. First of all, I see at the heart of David's characteristics, we see that David trusted in the Lord. And that's not one of the five in particular I have in mind. That's kind of at the heart of everything. Everything that was good about David came from the fact that David had confidence and trust in the Lord. David was loyal in his dedication to the Lord. We see a strong contrast between him and Saul in this. Saul did good things, and Saul did bad things. David also did good things, and David did bad things. But the difference between the two of them is Saul is unconstrained by a loyalty and a dedication to the Lord. David is driven by his faithfulness and his trust in the Lord. The first quality that I consider and that we've seen demonstrated in David is David had great courage. David was courageous, and this clearly comes from his trust in the Lord. In fact, the two go hand in hand. Remember when Jesus' disciples would become afraid in a different situation? They were afraid for their safety, they were afraid for what's going on, and he would say to them in those situations, he would say, oh you of little faith. Because if they had trust and dependence upon God, then they wouldn't need to fear anything else. Jesus also said at a different time, he said, don't fear them that can kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Fear him that is able to destroy both body and soul, both soul and body in hell. If you have a proper fear of God and a trust in God, then you don't need to fear anything else. There's nothing bigger, there's nothing stronger in this world, more powerful than God. So if you fear God first, then you don't need to fear anything else. And David embodied this type of courage. We see it in his willingness, his not just willingness, but enthusiasm to go and to fight Goliath when everyone else was afraid. They were afraid of losing. They were afraid of dying. They were afraid of being defeated. And David is not so afraid for his own physical safety or of losing the battle. that he's not willing to do what is right and what he know needs to be done. And that was to go out into that battlefield and face off with a giant and a trained warrior and put his life in the Lord's hands with the trust that God would give him the victory. He had courage. that courage was not a brash, unfounded courage, but it was a courage founded and rooted in his trust of the Lord. But he was willing there and in other places, and we see with David and his men, the men that he inspired and that were loyal to him, we see a kind of courage where they are again and again willing to put their own physical safety and well-being at risk to do what is right, to do what is honorable, to do what they know they ought to do. And that is a quality that we ought to emulate, is a quality that we ought to have, that we ought not to be afraid. We live in a world where people are afraid of so many things, afraid of everything, and we don't need to be afraid If we have trust and dependence upon God, we can be bold as a lion. It says, the wicked flees when no man pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion. What a picture. Someone who is living their life in rebellion against God and wickedness, they always have to be looking over their shoulder. They always have to be afraid of something going to strike them at any time. But the righteous can be bold as a lion. Why? Because they aren't aware that there's dangers around them? No. Danger could strike us at any minute. They can be bold because they know that our lives are in God's hands, that our safety is of the Lord, that He will be our protector. It doesn't mean bad things will not happen to us. It doesn't mean harm won't come to us. But we can trust that whether it does or does not, whether God permits it or prevents it, that we are in His hands. And the worst that could be done to us is that our bodies could be killed, but they cannot kill the soul, and our soul's in God's hand. So Jesus doesn't paint a rosy picture. He doesn't say no harm's gonna come to you if you follow me. He says the opposite. We've seen that. He says to follow him is to take up our cross and follow him. And if they hate me, he says they'll hate you. So his disciples, harm would in fact come to them But when they had seen all that Jesus had done, and they'd seen Him rise from the dead, they'd be empowered by His Spirit, they weren't afraid even of death, because they knew they were in God's hands. And David had that kind of courage, and he inspired that kind of courage in others. And people were drawn to that because they saw something that they were desirous to follow in a man, in a king, someone who was not afraid. In contrast to Saul, You see, Saul is afraid not just of what would happen to him, but what he thinks would happen. He thinks David, he accuses the priests of conspiring with David to ambush Saul and have him killed. David had no intention. or plan to ambush Saul, but that's what Saul thinks is happening. He is paranoid. He is looking around every corner for David to come get him, when David never at any point had any intention to do Saul harm. And yet Saul is afraid. The wicked flees when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion. So David, he had courage. David was also, secondly, we see David was a protector of the weak. David used his strength to protect those that were weaker than him. I remember watching this movie when I was a kid, First Night, it's about King Arthur, and there's this scene that, even after I'd forgotten most about that movie, it stuck out to me, King Arthur's enemy, Malagand, I think, he comes and he basically holds the kingdom of Camelot hostage. He has his soldiers come. They're ready to kill Arthur. He tells all the people that are around, he says, serve me or your king dies. He says, you followed Arthur, now follow me. And he says to Arthur, he says, he says, the strong rule the weak. That's how your God made the world. And Arthur says to him, he says, God has made us strong for a while so that we can help each other. And that's the kind of mindset that we see here in David. He was strong. But he looked after the weak. We know that by this point his father Jesse, it's already been said he's too old to go out to the battle, so he's not a fighter anymore. He's not at that time when he can fight. David goes and he makes preparation for the protection of his father and mother. He knows it's not going to be good for them in the land of Israel at this time, so he goes to Moab. Why would he go to the king of Moab? Well, we might guess that it's because David was actually descended from a Moabitess. His great-grandmother, Ruth, told about in the book of Ruth, was from Moab. So David makes some connection with the Moabites, and he goes to the king of Moab, and he says, can my dad and my mom stay here with you? until I see what God will do for me. So we see that David was a protector of the weak. David used his strength to help those that were in need and those that needed protection. We see that in David. Verse four, he brought them before the king of Moab and they dwelt with him all the time that David was in the hold. Another thing we see here about David is we see that David was someone who took responsibility upon himself. Both he took responsibility for his own actions and also he was willing to accept the responsibility that God and people and his circumstances put upon him. David, As far as I know, when he was a shepherd boy out leading his sheep, was not thinking about, you know, one day I want to be hiding out in a cave. and I want to become the captain over hundreds of malcontents, hundreds of distressed and troubled people. I want to be their leader. Being a leader, being a captain over this group might seem glamorous, it might seem honorable, but that could not have been an easy task for David. David is now not just responsible for saving his own life, but now he's responsible for the lives of many others. And rather than running from that responsibility, David accepted that responsibility upon himself. And he also, we see, accepts responsibility for his own actions and his own even failures and mistakes. At the end of this scene, at the end of this chapter, we see this, after this tragic event of Saul murdering the priests of the Lord, we see that there is one of the whole household, the whole household that escapes, and it's this son of Himalak, Abiathar, and he gets away. When everyone else is killed, he gets away, and he flees, and he goes, and he seeks out David. And David, you can tell, you can see the pain in what David is saying. You can hear it in his words. He says, I knew it, I knew when Doeg the Edomite was there. He knew things were not gonna go well when he saw the servant of Saul in that place observing this. And then he says this, he says, I have occasioned the death of all your father's house. David is not the most at blame for this. David did not murder these priests. David did not wish them dead. David was trying to save his own life. He was doing what he was doing. We talked about how David was adept at different times at using deception in his tactics and how sometimes that seemed very justified. But here we see that the consequences of that result in something that David, I don't think, even would have anticipated would have taken place. David probably, as bad as he knew Saul was, David, I don't think, probably imagined that Saul would go to that lengths of killing 85 priests of the Lord in revenge of what they had done in helping David. But nonetheless, but nonetheless, David doesn't run away from the responsibility for that. He owns it, he owns what I have done. He said what my actions have done, what they have led to, I am responsible for. He wasn't looking around for someone else to blame for the bad things that happened in his life or around him, but he looked at his own actions and he took responsibility. So we see in David, we see that responsibility was a quality that he has and that is worthy of emulation. We should have that same attitude. We should take responsibility. What you do, what you say, what that results in, in your life and in the lives of people around you, take responsibility for it and entrust that to the Lord. We also see in his interaction a fourth quality of David. So inspiring in this and in stories that will follow in his life and the lives of his men. we see the solidarity that David had with his people. The way in which he was able to unite himself in common cause with those that were with him. They were united, they were drawn together by not the greatest circumstances, by difficult circumstances. David's fleeing for his life, there's people that are in debt, there's people that are distressed, and I love what he says at the end here to Abiathar. No, Abiathar could have been angry at David. David could have you know, looked at Abiathar and thought, you know, he didn't have anything to offer. He's not a warrior, he's a priest, which David, though, valued greatly. And we'll see that Abiathar will be a great benefit to David as the priesthood of the Lord goes away from Saul and now comes and unites itself to David. But I love what David says here. He says, abide thou with me. We see his protection again, but we also see this solidarity. He says, you don't have to fear. He says, you'll be safe with me. The one who's seeking your life seeks my life. We are in this together, he says. We are united together in this. And they would stay side by side for the years to come throughout David's reign. He says, he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life, but with me thou shalt be in safeguard. I am inspired by the solidarity that David had with his people, that his lot was their lot. His success was their success. His hardship and suffering was their hardship and suffering, and vice versa. And Jesus embodies that as well. Jesus fulfills that very same idea, where Jesus has solidarity with his people. When we are persecuted, he is persecuted. When Saul of Tarsus was persecuting the Christians, Jesus says to him, why are you persecuting me? What we feel, he feels. And he has said that if he was hated, we'll be hated. And so we're going to have a lot in this life. We're going to have good, bad, we're going to experience difficulty. Whose lot are you going to share in? the path of Christ, the path of discipleship with Him, it's not an easy road. It's not a cushy, flowers and rainbows kind of path without trouble. It is a path attended with trouble, with suffering, with sometimes persecution. But I'd rather have my lot in with Jesus. I'd rather be on His side. I'd rather suffer for His sake. than for some other reason. I'd rather suffer for following him faithfully than for my own sin and my own failure. Or than having a cushy, easy life because I've thrown in my lot with this world and the spirit of this age. David had solidarity with his people. The last quality that I wanna consider here and see is that David endured hardship in his life. Now this wasn't necessarily, it might not seem, a choice of David. David didn't say, I want to be the kind of person that endures hardship. We don't usually think that way. We don't usually think, I want to suffer a lot. You know what I want in my life? to be on the run for years, hiding out in caves, having a difficult situation, having people trying to kill me. People don't think that way. And David probably didn't think that way when he was young, but it is a choice in another sense. It is a choice in this sense, that David was willing to do the hard things. David did not run away from what is hard. He didn't say, I'm going to avoid situations that will make my life difficult. No, he was committed to doing the right thing, the faithful thing to his Lord, the righteous thing, the honorable thing. He was committed to doing it, even if it brought hardship. He was committed to doing the hard thing. And this is not just a side effect in David's life that he endured hardship, this is an important part about who he is. This is an important part about why people followed him and were inspired by him. Because they saw in him someone who was able to endure and overcome hardship. You think David would have had the same kind of admiration and loyalty from his people if he was somewhere, someone that never went through a difficult circumstance in his whole life? No, David inspired these people because David was someone who himself endured hardship. He didn't, he didn't, shortcut or run away from the difficulties in his life by abandoning God or abandoning God's plan for him or anything like that. He stayed committed to following the path that God had for him. He stayed committed to remaining loyal to not killing or assassinating Saul even if that might have seemed to have made his life easier. He continued and he endured much difficulty, of which we see unfold. Before David would be elevated to the throne, first he had to go through the valley of suffering and difficulty. And I frame it as hardship and not just suffering for this reason, because suffering in and of itself is not something that is to be admired on its own, because we suffer for all kinds of reasons. But Peter describes it this way. He says, if you suffer for righteousness sake, that is something that's worthy to be praised. That is praiseworthy in the sight of God if you suffer for righteousness sake. And I would say this as well, you're going to suffer in this life. You're going to suffer in one way or another. But we can suffer because we are weak and faithless and it brings all kinds of trouble into our life, or we can suffer because we are on the path of service to God and we are enduring the hardship that comes in this evil world with living righteously and loyally to our Lord Jesus Christ. But you will have suffering. So suffer for righteousness sake. Suffer because you do the thing that is right but hard rather than suffering because of your own sin and bringing all kinds of trouble into your own life because of those things. And David suffered through his life, at times, in both ways, and so he's a great example to us. even more so is the model and the example to us of one that clearly, obviously did not run away from his suffering, but he endured hardship. David is a picture to us of Jesus in many ways. He foreshadows Jesus, and this is one of those ways, that before David rose to the throne, he had to go through the valley of suffering, and Jesus likewise. before He would come in the glory of His kingdom, before He would be elevated up and crowned with all honor and given to Him all power and all authority. He first must endure the suffering. He first must endure being despised and rejected of man. He first must endure the suffering of the death on the cross. He first must endure going down into the lowliness of the valley of death. But when he had suffered, when he had endured his suffering, he was in due time raised up and elevated to a place of glory and a place of honor. And it's true of us in our own way as we follow His path as well, that we must first suffer for a little while. But we have the promise set before us to encourage and inspire us, to enable us through that suffering that Jesus has said, that we'll sit with Him on His throne. He has said that we'll be crowned with Him. He has said that we will inherit the kingdom prepared for us from before the foundation of the world. We will share in His glory if we share in His suffering and His hardship. May these qualities and examples be an example to us. from the good qualities that are displayed by David as he endures hardship in his service to the Lord. And most of all, may we look to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who fulfills these things in perfection, in completion.