The Books of 1 and 2 Samuel
In this week’s One Step sermon, we took a look at one of the stormier romances that you’ll find in the Bible, the marriage between David and Michal, the daughter of King Saul. This was a marriage of convenience, set up by the king. At the time Saul is overcome with jealousy and paranoia over the love and respect that the people of Israel have for David. He figures that if he can get David to marry one of his daughters, then David will be committed to him militarily for life. That will give Saul never ending opportunities to arrange for David to die in battle.
Michal is given to David in marriage only after David delivers to Saul, at Saul’s request, 200 foreskins taken from slain Philistine soldiers David defeated in battle. One of the weirder demonstrations of love that you’ll ever come across!
The resulting marriage between David and Michal is a rocky one. Early on, Saul puts together a plan to kill David in his sleep. Michal is made aware of the plan and helps David to escape. David then goes into exile, and presumably doesn’t see Michal for an extended period of time. This becomes evident when Saul ends up giving Michal in marriage to another man. After Saul’s death, David takes Michal back from her second husband and they resume life once again as man and wife.
As the World Turns has nothing on David!
In time, Saul dies by his own hand and David becomes king, as appointed by God. One of the most important decisions he makes after taking power is to go to the village of a man named Abinadab. Abinadab has been housing, for twenty years, the ark of the covenant in his home. The ark ended up there after the Philistines captured it but sent it back to Israel after the ark inflicted a number of plagues on them. David takes 30,000 men with him to reclaim the ark and bring it back to the tabernacle in Jerusalem.
There are a number of setbacks that take place along the way and it takes over 3 months before the ark is actually on its way but once the journey begins, 2 Samuel 6:14 tells us that, “David danced before the LORD with all his might.”
Here’s where things get interesting. The ark arrives in Jerusalem and the crowd is going wild. It’s been a long time since they’ve felt this kind of closeness to the LORD. David is so fired up he’s stripped down to his boxers and is dancing his heart out in the middle of the street ahead of the ark. And scripture tells us in 2 Samuel 6:16 that, “As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart.”
Ouch!
There are a number of important observations to be made here. One is that Michal is very deliberately identified here as the daughter of Saul. This is to help us to remember that she is a daughter of the world. She had a front row seat, watching the way in which her father rejected the LORD. She saw his hatred towards David that was founded in pride and ego. In her marriage to him, Michal has also witnessed David’s abiding and ever-deepening faith. She, as David’s wife has seen that David’s service to the LORD is the single most important thing in his life. And all of that comes together in this moment of supreme celebration and it culminates in Michal feeling nothing but hatred towards her husband. And, by extension, the LORD.
And this is the scenario that confronts all of us who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. As we joyfully celebrate all that He has done for us, there are many who look down on that joy with contempt. Charles Spurgeon sums it up this way. “No doubt, there are particularly nice and dainty people who will censure God’s chosen if they live wholly to His praise, and they will call them eccentric, old-fashioned, obstinate, absurd, and I don’t know what besides. From the window of their superiority, they look down upon us.”
These days, we who believe are likely called much worse, but that doesn’t matter. What we’re called as Christian believers to do, especially in the face of this contempt is to demonstrate our love for Jesus with David- like boldness and confidence. We’re not called to strip down to our skivvies and dance in the street thank God but…we are called to share the gospel with a conviction that prayerfully can save the Michal’s that we may meet before their window of superiority in this life closes and they are left facing an eternity of hopelessness.