David & Saul

Want to hear what Nathan taught on this week?.. I mean it is a pretty sweet story. We studied 1 Samuel 24:1-7.


At the beginning of the lesson, we handed out cupcakes and told the students they were laced with x-lax. They had a choice to make.. Eat the cupcake, and be sure to be in the bathroom later, or don't.

First of all.. Everyone knows who David is right?  This guy was known for the story of David & Goliath but it didn't end there. In fact, it didn't even begin there. 

Between the ages of 13-17, David had killed a bear with his staff. Then while he was tending to his sheep one day, a lion grabbed one of his sheep and David wacked it with his staff and pried open his mouth and took his little lamb out. The lion, that he thought was dead, turned on David and so David killed it as well. 

This might seem extreme, but David was the man after God's own heart. He knew the Lord would protect him and help him in everything he did so he didn't fear those animals. He only knew of the power God had. 

Then the famous story of David and Goliath. David comes to bring his brothers food one day while they are out on the battle field. He hears this Giant taunting the Army of Israel, cursing at them and making fun of them. Just bashing on God's people. Well, David wants to know why they're allowing this guy to say these things about God's people so he goes to King Saul and asks if he can fight him. So he takes a couple rocks, puts them in his pocket, keeps one out and throws it at this massive man, and kills him. Then while he is on the ground takes Goliath's sword and cuts his head off. Now guys, this Giant was recorded to be between 9-13 feet. He was almost 3x the size of David. Who but the Lord could have helped this succeed? No one else was willing. And no one else was able.


Here's the best part of Nathan's lesson. Saul, the king at the time was messed up. One minute he would be on fire for God, the next he would screw up big time. He disobeyed God, alot.When David defeated the giant, Saul wasn't very happy because now David was the hero. He also knew that God had appointed David as king which meant bye bye Saul. So Saul spent much of his life trying to kill David and David was running all the time. There came a time when David was living in the rocks of the wild goats in the desert of En Gedi because he was hiding from Saul. Saul was pursuing him with 3,000 of his men and so David hid in a cave. So David and his army were all hiding in this cave and Saul comes along.. and the Bible says.. "He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself." 1 Sam 24:3 Saul is like, hey guys... I .. um I really gotta go um over here to this cave and uh, take care of some business. Listen, he had to go poop ok? And he didn't want anyone coming with him. 

So Saul goes into the cave where David is hiding! Where him and all his men are hiding.. to go poop! (I wish you could all see Nathan teach this to the students.. he was literally squatting trying to illustrate to the students what was going on..the room was roaring with laughter.) 

So you know what David does?.. He goes up secretly behind Saul and cuts off a piece of his robe. Saul is pooping and David thinks it's a good idea to go near his butt and cut some of his robe off. Um, GROSS. 

Then David feels bad about it! The Bible says this.. "It came about afterward that David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul's robe. So he said to his men "Far be it from me because of the LORD that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD'S anointed, to stretch out my hand against him since he is the LORD'S anointed." 1 Samuel 24:6.

Here was the point guys:

Our focus needs to be on God so that when we make choices, we want to make the choice God wants us to make. Nathan went into a lot more detail about the choices we're faced with and what it means to make the right choice. To us, it seemed like David had every right to take Saul's life. I mean he was trying to kill him! But look back at the verse.. David's focus was on the LORD, the LORD, the LORD. David had God on his mind. He wanted to do whatever the Lord wanted him to do. 

The reason behind the cupcake was this.. Not every choice in life is easy as deciding whether or not to eat a cupcake that is sure to put you on the toilet. We don't have the ingredients to life.. or do we?

I know this lesson was meant for students in middle school and high school.. but we can all relate. God has given us the ingredients for life.. handwritten for you and I. He gave us the Bible so that we would know which choices to make. And how awesome is our God that He gave us some sweet stories like this one? 

Get into the Word friends, be encouraged by a God who loves you and wants what's best for you. My pastor always says this, "It's not about what He wants from you but what He wants for you".  

With Love,

Jess