Adventures with David

Today was week two of Beth Moore's lessons on David.  I still think her David study was my favorite one and it's just as good doing it a second time. 

First, we had prayer time.  The lady leading the group today, while praying, said something disturbing, "We worship you the most."  I thought, "The most?"  Does that mean we worship something else?  We aren't to worship God the most, we're to worship him alone.  He is God and he shares his throne with no one.  But that had nothing to do with Beth's lesson and I never could find a good moment to correct her.

Very good discussion today on Saul.  Saul is a very interesting case because the Holy Spirit actually left him!  I think Beth made a strong case for Perseverance of the Saints by citing Romans 3:38, nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Beth assumed that the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament did leave people before Jesus's death and resurrection.  Afterward, Jesus assures believers that once we have the Holy Spirit, he'll never leave.  This strikes me odd because the same God rules both the testaments.  My study Bible notes said the same thing as Beth, and this was from before Zondervan started publishing Wrong Bell's hogwash. 

I don't think Beth is wrong, because the OT does say that the Spirit left Saul, but I see it as Saul never having anything to do with him in the first place.  It seems that in the OT, the HS did only come to specific people such as prophets and leaders to guide them in their jobs.  He did this for Saul at first, but Saul kept resisting and resisting the Spirit until at last Saul insisted on doing things his way, making himself God.  This still seems to contradict Irresistible Grace to me, but then, I never get the idea from Scripture that God ever intended for Saul to be a permanent king, which leads me to my next musing...

One lady commented that if Saul had repented for his deeds perhaps God would have kept him on the throne after all.  Maybe, but I doubt that.  Saul, like Beth said last week, had a name that meant "asked for."  The people asked for a king, and God gave them what they "asked for," Saul.  He was a good looking, tall king, who later proved to have a big ego and had no clue what he was doing.  He certainly did not seek the Lord's direction while leading his people.  God intended David to be a Messianic figure, as he was an ancestor of Christ.  God wanted to show them his ideal king, a man who did everything for God and not for himself.  He also wanted to foreshadow Christ, God in the flesh, the true Savior that the Pharisees and Sadducees did not expect.  They wanted a warlord who would defeat the Romans, not a man who would come to save the Romans along with the Jews. 

Finally, one line from Beth that disturbs me that almost on Arminian territory.  I'm fairly certain from past studies that Beth is at least a fan of Calvin and Spurgeon, but has enough Arminian theology to keep being published by LifeWay.  "Remember, the cross would have been God's worst defeat had the people not had cause to exclaim, 'He's alive!'"  Beth's point is that we should always affirm that God is true and alive in the face of Goliath and people like him, but what Beth actually said is the the cross might possibly have been one of God's defeats.  She did not mean that, but still, God always planned to crucify Jesus to save us.  Satan did not want Jesus crucified and did whatever he could to stop him.  But Jesus had to die for us so that we could be saved and so that we could properly glorify him one day.  God would not be the God he is had he not needed to save us from some evil.  So no, the cross would never have been a defeat, and if Mary Magdalene had not spread the Word of his resurrection, someone would have. 

It was like the other day when one of my 8-year-olds asked me, "What if everybody died at once?"  I assured her that's not going to happen.  She kept asking.  So I finally explained, there will be a day when Jesus comes.  He'll take all his followers to heaven and then he will burn all those who hated him in the fire and they will spend eternity in hell.  But I wandered to this scenario because both Beth and my friend were bringing up scenarios that can't happen.  Until Christ comes, nobody's going to die all at once, and there will never be a time when the cross is a defeat.  In fact, it's God's greatest victory.  Perhaps some hyper-Calvinism is getting in the way of my thoughts, because we are responsible for telling people that God is alive and that Jesus is Lord, but ultimately, God controls all that.

I would love your thoughts!