3 Ways to Defeat Distress
Pastor KC Liu/1 Samuel 16:14-23/1.22.2017
Good morning! Today we are continuing our second message on the Life of David. We know that David was an extraordinary young man. He was the only man in the Bible described as a man after God’s own heart. He loved God deeply, he was a brave warrior who killed lions and bears, a brilliant poet, a skilled musician, and on top of that, he was a fine looking handsome young man.
I don’t know about you, but there is no way I can be like David. I am no poet, I am no warrior, I am no musician, I am inconsistent with my quiet times, and I am only half as good looking as he was. Sometimes I don’t feel like a David. Sometimes I feel more like Saul. Sometimes I think I relate to Saul more than I can relate to David.
Saul was a man who kind of knew God, but not too deeply. Saul was a man who would do only half of what God told him to do. Saul was a man who was afraid of what people thought of him, he struggled with the fear of man. Saul thought that doing things FOR God was enough, so he didn’t obey God fully, and made a bunch of EXCUSES for his own disobedience. And as a result of that, he brought much distress into his own life. If we are honest with ourselves, sometimes we act more like Saul, and less like David. And we bring much distress into our own lives. Therefore, we will be talking about “3 ways of defeating distress” as we study the scriptures today. Let’s open up our bibles to 1 Sam. 16:14-23. (READ!)
14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.
15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”
17 So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.”
18 One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.”
19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.
21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.”
23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
Again, verse 14 says, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul…”
Why? Why did the Spirit depart from Saul? The answer is found in chapter 15. God told Saul to attack the evil Amalekites. God’s instruction was for Saul to get rid of everyone, including the cattle, sheep, camel, and donkeys. Saul took 200,000 soldiers and wiped out the Amalekites, but he kept thousands of animals alive. They were worth a lot of money, and Saul and his men wanted to keep them.
Let me paraphrase their conversation, “To kill all the livestock would be like flushing cash down the toilet! Why don’t we keep the livestock which is worth millions, and make a small donation to the Temple. That way, everyone is happy.” That was their brilliant plan, and it backfired on them. They have sinned grievously against the Lord. The sin of Saul was his disobedience, and that was evil in the eyes of the Lord.
Now that sinful act of disobedience cost Saul more than he could have ever imagined. It costed him the Spirit of God, the anointing of God, the presence of God, the favor of God, the power of God. In essence, Saul disqualified himself to be King. That’s why God had to chose a new king to anoint in chapter 16.
Continuing in verse 14, “and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.”
As a result of Saul’s sin disobedience, God brought torment and distress upon him. From other passages, we know that Saul also dealt severe bouts of depression, anger and delusion.
From verse 14, we beg the question, can God use evil spirits? The short answer is YES, God is sovereign over all creation, and even evil spirits must submit to God. God can use evil spirits to bring about His own purposes. God used the evil nations of Babylon and Assyria to punish Israel for their rebellion against God. God allowed Satan to mess with Job in order to strengthen him. God allowed Satan to tempt Jesus in the desert. The Apostle Paul turned disobedient believers over to Satan for judgement.
The fact that God uses evil spirits should not make us doubt His goodness, but it should make us tremble at how powerful and sovereign God truly is, and make us stand in awe of the Almighty. God has no rival. God has no equal.
As I said before, sometime I act more like Saul than David, and I bring distress into my own life due to my sins against the Lord. Maybe you are in the same boat as me. Maybe you’re distressed because of the effects of your own sins.
If that is true, the first way of defeating distress in our life is simply this: REPENTING FROM SIN. Simply admit that you were wrong. We have to acknowledge that we are in the mess we are in because we messed up somewhere along the way. We have to own up to our mistakes. We cannot make excuses and blame other people for the distress in our own lives.
Saul tried to justify his own sin in chapter 15:15. Saul’s excuse was this, “they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God!”
But when prophet Samuel confronted him, Saul repented. In 15:24-25, Saul said, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men so I gave in to them.” You see, sometimes, we have to be confronted with things we don’t like to hear so that we can repent from our sins. If there are people in your life that loves you enough to confront your sins, be grateful, don’t resent them for telling you the truth in love.
Ephesians 4:30-32 says, “30 And do not GRIEVE the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit comes on certain believers for a specific task, but Holy Spirit can also leave a person, such like he did with Saul.
Now, in the New Testament age, Holy Spirit comes and indwells in every true believer, and he will never leave us. HS is sealed within us until the day of redemption. Praise God for that! However, we can GRIEF the Holy Spirit, and break fellowship with him, even though HS indwells in us.
If we harbor bitterness, anger, slander, we grief the HS, break fellowship with him, and we will not feel his presence, nor his joy. And we will be distressed.
Let me give an example of this. Sometimes, much of the distress in our lives comes from our own family members. Fights between parents and children. Fights between husbands and wives. Sometimes it can get really ugly. When I get into a fight with my wife, we would yell at each other and accuse each other of doing wrong things. Then we would often not talk for two or three days.
Then anger and bitterness would brew inside of us. Then we might take that anger and spew it over our kids. Any little thing they did wrong, they would get punished. The kids would spill some milk, and we snap back, “What’s wrong with you! Arrrr!!! Go clean it up yourself!” Kids would cry, “Waaa! He hit me!” --- Stop fighting! [Smack both of them].
Then one of us will leave the house without telling the other, and the other person now gets stuck with the kids and the chores. Anger now multiplies by 10x. And everything gets into a vicious cycle.
Because of the broken relationship between us, everyone is now in distress. Anything small will get blown up 100x worse than it actually is. If we don’t want to admit that we were wrong, this distress will continue. But if we can come and apologize to each other, and stop making excuses for our actions, harmony will come, forgiveness will happen, and there is now joy and laughter once again in the house. (CLICK)
Now let’s take a look again at verse 16 and 23, ”16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better….23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.”
A lyre is a string instrument. In the ancient days, they would make it from turtle shells, and ram’s horns. It looks like a caveman’s instrument. Eventually it evolved into a woodcarving instrument. It sounds similar to a harp and a guitar.
Here in the story, we see that Saul’s servant was pretty smart. He understood that music has a therapeutic effect on the troubled mind. American Music Therapy Association states that music is clinically proven to “help address physical, emotional, cognitive and social needs of individuals.” Music is a wonderful thing. But where does it come from? I believe that music was created by God for two reasons. First to glory God through musical worship. Second, music brings benefit the souls of human beings.
It is interesting how music influences our mood. It can alter the state of our emotional and physiological state of being. Music can influence us in a good way, and it can also influence us in a bad way. We tend to listen to listen that match our own mood, and by listening and singing it, it reinforces and strengthens the mood we were in.
I remember in High school, back in the 90s, I would listen to Kost 103.5 A LOT! All these “love songs on the coast – 103.5”. My mind was filled with bands like Boyz-II-Men (I’ll Make Love to You), All-4-One (I Can Love You Like That, I Swear), Bryan Adams (Everything I do, Please Forgive Me), Toni Braxton (Unbreak My Heart), Mariah Carey (Hero), just to name a few. How many of you remember those songs? If you went to Prom or Winter Formal in the 90s, these were the songs blasting on the dance floor! Come on now, the 90’s were the golden era for love songs!
With all these love songs in my brain, what do you think was the most important thing in my life? It was finding true love! I was consumed by it. I thought it would bring me the ultimate happiness in life.
When a relationship was going well, my mood was “Everything I do, I do it for you!!”
Then when the relationship went south, my mood was “Un-break My Heart”.
Here is the lyric, “Un-break my heart, Say you'll love me again, Undo this hurt you caused, When you walked out the door, And walked out of my life, Un-cry these tears, I cried so many nights, Un-break my heart.”
And if we sing these type of songs one too many times, what happens to us? We will be stuck in that heartbreaking mood, constant heartache. Emotional distress. Distress that we bring upon ourselves because we are reinforcing them ourselves.
My point is not, don’t listen to these type of music at all. My point is, just be AWARE what it does to you, and have a healthy boundary to how much secular music you can listen to without a negative influence in your life. Make sure it doesn’t cause distress in your life. Make sure that the lyrics does not promote anger, violence, lust, sexism, or racism. Half of the songs on radio fuel these things. Instead listen to songs that promote goodness and brings glory to God.
So that brings us to the 2nd thing you can do to DEFEAT DISTRESS. And that is to WORSHIP GOD!! Get in the presence of anointed music, and worship your heart out. When you are at church, sing your lungs out to God like David is in this picture. He didn’t care what other people thought about him. He sang and he danced for the Lord. (2 Sam. 6) Don’t be afraid to raise your hands or sing loudly, don’t be afraid of what others will think of you. Worship is between you and God. GOD is your audience, not the people standing next to you. You are not singing for them, so don’t care about what they think.
If you are alone in your Quiet Time, buy a couple of anointed worship albums, and sing along with them when you are feeling distressed. The presence of God will come upon you. IF you are distressed now, spend time in worship today, and see if it will make a difference.
If you are a beginner player, you have to practice diligently so that you become a skilled player. Imitate David. David was a SKILLED musician, and he played the lyre well. Imagine if David only knew 2 chords, and he couldn’t strum properly. Saul probably would have felt more stress listening to him! So practice is important. Be faithful at it, and God will use your music to bless many people.
Good morning! Today we are continuing our second message on the Life of David. We know that David was an extraordinary young man. He was the only man in the Bible described as a man after God’s own heart. He loved God deeply, he was a brave warrior who killed lions and bears, a brilliant poet, a skilled musician, and on top of that, he was a fine looking handsome young man.
I don’t know about you, but there is no way I can be like David. I am no poet, I am no warrior, I am no musician, I am inconsistent with my quiet times, and I am only half as good looking as he was. Sometimes I don’t feel like a David. Sometimes I feel more like Saul. Sometimes I think I relate to Saul more than I can relate to David.
Saul was a man who kind of knew God, but not too deeply. Saul was a man who would do only half of what God told him to do. Saul was a man who was afraid of what people thought of him, he struggled with the fear of man. Saul thought that doing things FOR God was enough, so he didn’t obey God fully, and made a bunch of EXCUSES for his own disobedience. And as a result of that, he brought much distress into his own life. If we are honest with ourselves, sometimes we act more like Saul, and less like David. And we bring much distress into our own lives. Therefore, we will be talking about “3 ways of defeating distress” as we study the scriptures today. Let’s open up our bibles to 1 Sam. 16:14-23. (READ!)
14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.
15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”
17 So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.”
18 One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.”
19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.
21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.”
23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
Again, verse 14 says, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul…”
Why? Why did the Spirit depart from Saul? The answer is found in chapter 15. God told Saul to attack the evil Amalekites. God’s instruction was for Saul to get rid of everyone, including the cattle, sheep, camel, and donkeys. Saul took 200,000 soldiers and wiped out the Amalekites, but he kept thousands of animals alive. They were worth a lot of money, and Saul and his men wanted to keep them.
Let me paraphrase their conversation, “To kill all the livestock would be like flushing cash down the toilet! Why don’t we keep the livestock which is worth millions, and make a small donation to the Temple. That way, everyone is happy.” That was their brilliant plan, and it backfired on them. They have sinned grievously against the Lord. The sin of Saul was his disobedience, and that was evil in the eyes of the Lord.
Now that sinful act of disobedience cost Saul more than he could have ever imagined. It costed him the Spirit of God, the anointing of God, the presence of God, the favor of God, the power of God. In essence, Saul disqualified himself to be King. That’s why God had to chose a new king to anoint in chapter 16.
Continuing in verse 14, “and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.”
As a result of Saul’s sin disobedience, God brought torment and distress upon him. From other passages, we know that Saul also dealt severe bouts of depression, anger and delusion.
From verse 14, we beg the question, can God use evil spirits? The short answer is YES, God is sovereign over all creation, and even evil spirits must submit to God. God can use evil spirits to bring about His own purposes. God used the evil nations of Babylon and Assyria to punish Israel for their rebellion against God. God allowed Satan to mess with Job in order to strengthen him. God allowed Satan to tempt Jesus in the desert. The Apostle Paul turned disobedient believers over to Satan for judgement.
The fact that God uses evil spirits should not make us doubt His goodness, but it should make us tremble at how powerful and sovereign God truly is, and make us stand in awe of the Almighty. God has no rival. God has no equal.
As I said before, sometime I act more like Saul than David, and I bring distress into my own life due to my sins against the Lord. Maybe you are in the same boat as me. Maybe you’re distressed because of the effects of your own sins.
If that is true, the first way of defeating distress in our life is simply this: REPENTING FROM SIN. Simply admit that you were wrong. We have to acknowledge that we are in the mess we are in because we messed up somewhere along the way. We have to own up to our mistakes. We cannot make excuses and blame other people for the distress in our own lives.
Saul tried to justify his own sin in chapter 15:15. Saul’s excuse was this, “they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God!”
But when prophet Samuel confronted him, Saul repented. In 15:24-25, Saul said, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men so I gave in to them.” You see, sometimes, we have to be confronted with things we don’t like to hear so that we can repent from our sins. If there are people in your life that loves you enough to confront your sins, be grateful, don’t resent them for telling you the truth in love.
Ephesians 4:30-32 says, “30 And do not GRIEVE the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit comes on certain believers for a specific task, but Holy Spirit can also leave a person, such like he did with Saul.
Now, in the New Testament age, Holy Spirit comes and indwells in every true believer, and he will never leave us. HS is sealed within us until the day of redemption. Praise God for that! However, we can GRIEF the Holy Spirit, and break fellowship with him, even though HS indwells in us.
If we harbor bitterness, anger, slander, we grief the HS, break fellowship with him, and we will not feel his presence, nor his joy. And we will be distressed.
Let me give an example of this. Sometimes, much of the distress in our lives comes from our own family members. Fights between parents and children. Fights between husbands and wives. Sometimes it can get really ugly. When I get into a fight with my wife, we would yell at each other and accuse each other of doing wrong things. Then we would often not talk for two or three days.
Then anger and bitterness would brew inside of us. Then we might take that anger and spew it over our kids. Any little thing they did wrong, they would get punished. The kids would spill some milk, and we snap back, “What’s wrong with you! Arrrr!!! Go clean it up yourself!” Kids would cry, “Waaa! He hit me!” --- Stop fighting! [Smack both of them].
Then one of us will leave the house without telling the other, and the other person now gets stuck with the kids and the chores. Anger now multiplies by 10x. And everything gets into a vicious cycle.
Because of the broken relationship between us, everyone is now in distress. Anything small will get blown up 100x worse than it actually is. If we don’t want to admit that we were wrong, this distress will continue. But if we can come and apologize to each other, and stop making excuses for our actions, harmony will come, forgiveness will happen, and there is now joy and laughter once again in the house. (CLICK)
Now let’s take a look again at verse 16 and 23, ”16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better….23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.”
A lyre is a string instrument. In the ancient days, they would make it from turtle shells, and ram’s horns. It looks like a caveman’s instrument. Eventually it evolved into a woodcarving instrument. It sounds similar to a harp and a guitar.
Here in the story, we see that Saul’s servant was pretty smart. He understood that music has a therapeutic effect on the troubled mind. American Music Therapy Association states that music is clinically proven to “help address physical, emotional, cognitive and social needs of individuals.” Music is a wonderful thing. But where does it come from? I believe that music was created by God for two reasons. First to glory God through musical worship. Second, music brings benefit the souls of human beings.
It is interesting how music influences our mood. It can alter the state of our emotional and physiological state of being. Music can influence us in a good way, and it can also influence us in a bad way. We tend to listen to listen that match our own mood, and by listening and singing it, it reinforces and strengthens the mood we were in.
I remember in High school, back in the 90s, I would listen to Kost 103.5 A LOT! All these “love songs on the coast – 103.5”. My mind was filled with bands like Boyz-II-Men (I’ll Make Love to You), All-4-One (I Can Love You Like That, I Swear), Bryan Adams (Everything I do, Please Forgive Me), Toni Braxton (Unbreak My Heart), Mariah Carey (Hero), just to name a few. How many of you remember those songs? If you went to Prom or Winter Formal in the 90s, these were the songs blasting on the dance floor! Come on now, the 90’s were the golden era for love songs!
With all these love songs in my brain, what do you think was the most important thing in my life? It was finding true love! I was consumed by it. I thought it would bring me the ultimate happiness in life.
When a relationship was going well, my mood was “Everything I do, I do it for you!!”
Then when the relationship went south, my mood was “Un-break My Heart”.
Here is the lyric, “Un-break my heart, Say you'll love me again, Undo this hurt you caused, When you walked out the door, And walked out of my life, Un-cry these tears, I cried so many nights, Un-break my heart.”
And if we sing these type of songs one too many times, what happens to us? We will be stuck in that heartbreaking mood, constant heartache. Emotional distress. Distress that we bring upon ourselves because we are reinforcing them ourselves.
My point is not, don’t listen to these type of music at all. My point is, just be AWARE what it does to you, and have a healthy boundary to how much secular music you can listen to without a negative influence in your life. Make sure it doesn’t cause distress in your life. Make sure that the lyrics does not promote anger, violence, lust, sexism, or racism. Half of the songs on radio fuel these things. Instead listen to songs that promote goodness and brings glory to God.
So that brings us to the 2nd thing you can do to DEFEAT DISTRESS. And that is to WORSHIP GOD!! Get in the presence of anointed music, and worship your heart out. When you are at church, sing your lungs out to God like David is in this picture. He didn’t care what other people thought about him. He sang and he danced for the Lord. (2 Sam. 6) Don’t be afraid to raise your hands or sing loudly, don’t be afraid of what others will think of you. Worship is between you and God. GOD is your audience, not the people standing next to you. You are not singing for them, so don’t care about what they think.
If you are alone in your Quiet Time, buy a couple of anointed worship albums, and sing along with them when you are feeling distressed. The presence of God will come upon you. IF you are distressed now, spend time in worship today, and see if it will make a difference.
If you are a beginner player, you have to practice diligently so that you become a skilled player. Imitate David. David was a SKILLED musician, and he played the lyre well. Imagine if David only knew 2 chords, and he couldn’t strum properly. Saul probably would have felt more stress listening to him! So practice is important. Be faithful at it, and God will use your music to bless many people.
I don’t know about you, but there is no way I can be like David. I am no poet, I am no warrior, I am no musician, I am inconsistent with my quiet times, and I am only half as good looking as he was. Sometimes I don’t feel like a David. Sometimes I feel more like Saul. Sometimes I think I relate to Saul more than I can relate to David.
Saul was a man who kind of knew God, but not too deeply. Saul was a man who would do only half of what God told him to do. Saul was a man who was afraid of what people thought of him, he struggled with the fear of man. Saul thought that doing things FOR God was enough, so he didn’t obey God fully, and made a bunch of EXCUSES for his own disobedience. And as a result of that, he brought much distress into his own life. If we are honest with ourselves, sometimes we act more like Saul, and less like David. And we bring much distress into our own lives. Therefore, we will be talking about “3 ways of defeating distress” as we study the scriptures today. Let’s open up our bibles to 1 Sam. 16:14-23. (READ!)
14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.
15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”
17 So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.”
18 One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.”
19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.
21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.”
23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
Again, verse 14 says, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul…”
Why? Why did the Spirit depart from Saul? The answer is found in chapter 15. God told Saul to attack the evil Amalekites. God’s instruction was for Saul to get rid of everyone, including the cattle, sheep, camel, and donkeys. Saul took 200,000 soldiers and wiped out the Amalekites, but he kept thousands of animals alive. They were worth a lot of money, and Saul and his men wanted to keep them.
Let me paraphrase their conversation, “To kill all the livestock would be like flushing cash down the toilet! Why don’t we keep the livestock which is worth millions, and make a small donation to the Temple. That way, everyone is happy.” That was their brilliant plan, and it backfired on them. They have sinned grievously against the Lord. The sin of Saul was his disobedience, and that was evil in the eyes of the Lord.
Now that sinful act of disobedience cost Saul more than he could have ever imagined. It costed him the Spirit of God, the anointing of God, the presence of God, the favor of God, the power of God. In essence, Saul disqualified himself to be King. That’s why God had to chose a new king to anoint in chapter 16.
Continuing in verse 14, “and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.”
As a result of Saul’s sin disobedience, God brought torment and distress upon him. From other passages, we know that Saul also dealt severe bouts of depression, anger and delusion.
From verse 14, we beg the question, can God use evil spirits? The short answer is YES, God is sovereign over all creation, and even evil spirits must submit to God. God can use evil spirits to bring about His own purposes. God used the evil nations of Babylon and Assyria to punish Israel for their rebellion against God. God allowed Satan to mess with Job in order to strengthen him. God allowed Satan to tempt Jesus in the desert. The Apostle Paul turned disobedient believers over to Satan for judgement.
The fact that God uses evil spirits should not make us doubt His goodness, but it should make us tremble at how powerful and sovereign God truly is, and make us stand in awe of the Almighty. God has no rival. God has no equal.
As I said before, sometime I act more like Saul than David, and I bring distress into my own life due to my sins against the Lord. Maybe you are in the same boat as me. Maybe you’re distressed because of the effects of your own sins.
If that is true, the first way of defeating distress in our life is simply this: REPENTING FROM SIN. Simply admit that you were wrong. We have to acknowledge that we are in the mess we are in because we messed up somewhere along the way. We have to own up to our mistakes. We cannot make excuses and blame other people for the distress in our own lives.
Saul tried to justify his own sin in chapter 15:15. Saul’s excuse was this, “they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God!”
But when prophet Samuel confronted him, Saul repented. In 15:24-25, Saul said, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men so I gave in to them.” You see, sometimes, we have to be confronted with things we don’t like to hear so that we can repent from our sins. If there are people in your life that loves you enough to confront your sins, be grateful, don’t resent them for telling you the truth in love.
Ephesians 4:30-32 says, “30 And do not GRIEVE the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit comes on certain believers for a specific task, but Holy Spirit can also leave a person, such like he did with Saul.
Now, in the New Testament age, Holy Spirit comes and indwells in every true believer, and he will never leave us. HS is sealed within us until the day of redemption. Praise God for that! However, we can GRIEF the Holy Spirit, and break fellowship with him, even though HS indwells in us.
If we harbor bitterness, anger, slander, we grief the HS, break fellowship with him, and we will not feel his presence, nor his joy. And we will be distressed.
Let me give an example of this. Sometimes, much of the distress in our lives comes from our own family members. Fights between parents and children. Fights between husbands and wives. Sometimes it can get really ugly. When I get into a fight with my wife, we would yell at each other and accuse each other of doing wrong things. Then we would often not talk for two or three days.
Then anger and bitterness would brew inside of us. Then we might take that anger and spew it over our kids. Any little thing they did wrong, they would get punished. The kids would spill some milk, and we snap back, “What’s wrong with you! Arrrr!!! Go clean it up yourself!” Kids would cry, “Waaa! He hit me!” --- Stop fighting! [Smack both of them].
Then one of us will leave the house without telling the other, and the other person now gets stuck with the kids and the chores. Anger now multiplies by 10x. And everything gets into a vicious cycle.
Because of the broken relationship between us, everyone is now in distress. Anything small will get blown up 100x worse than it actually is. If we don’t want to admit that we were wrong, this distress will continue. But if we can come and apologize to each other, and stop making excuses for our actions, harmony will come, forgiveness will happen, and there is now joy and laughter once again in the house. (CLICK)
Now let’s take a look again at verse 16 and 23, ”16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better….23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.”
A lyre is a string instrument. In the ancient days, they would make it from turtle shells, and ram’s horns. It looks like a caveman’s instrument. Eventually it evolved into a woodcarving instrument. It sounds similar to a harp and a guitar.
Here in the story, we see that Saul’s servant was pretty smart. He understood that music has a therapeutic effect on the troubled mind. American Music Therapy Association states that music is clinically proven to “help address physical, emotional, cognitive and social needs of individuals.” Music is a wonderful thing. But where does it come from? I believe that music was created by God for two reasons. First to glory God through musical worship. Second, music brings benefit the souls of human beings.
It is interesting how music influences our mood. It can alter the state of our emotional and physiological state of being. Music can influence us in a good way, and it can also influence us in a bad way. We tend to listen to listen that match our own mood, and by listening and singing it, it reinforces and strengthens the mood we were in.
I remember in High school, back in the 90s, I would listen to Kost 103.5 A LOT! All these “love songs on the coast – 103.5”. My mind was filled with bands like Boyz-II-Men (I’ll Make Love to You), All-4-One (I Can Love You Like That, I Swear), Bryan Adams (Everything I do, Please Forgive Me), Toni Braxton (Unbreak My Heart), Mariah Carey (Hero), just to name a few. How many of you remember those songs? If you went to Prom or Winter Formal in the 90s, these were the songs blasting on the dance floor! Come on now, the 90’s were the golden era for love songs!
With all these love songs in my brain, what do you think was the most important thing in my life? It was finding true love! I was consumed by it. I thought it would bring me the ultimate happiness in life.
When a relationship was going well, my mood was “Everything I do, I do it for you!!”
Then when the relationship went south, my mood was “Un-break My Heart”.
Here is the lyric, “Un-break my heart, Say you'll love me again, Undo this hurt you caused, When you walked out the door, And walked out of my life, Un-cry these tears, I cried so many nights, Un-break my heart.”
And if we sing these type of songs one too many times, what happens to us? We will be stuck in that heartbreaking mood, constant heartache. Emotional distress. Distress that we bring upon ourselves because we are reinforcing them ourselves.
My point is not, don’t listen to these type of music at all. My point is, just be AWARE what it does to you, and have a healthy boundary to how much secular music you can listen to without a negative influence in your life. Make sure it doesn’t cause distress in your life. Make sure that the lyrics does not promote anger, violence, lust, sexism, or racism. Half of the songs on radio fuel these things. Instead listen to songs that promote goodness and brings glory to God.
So that brings us to the 2nd thing you can do to DEFEAT DISTRESS. And that is to WORSHIP GOD!! Get in the presence of anointed music, and worship your heart out. When you are at church, sing your lungs out to God like David is in this picture. He didn’t care what other people thought about him. He sang and he danced for the Lord. (2 Sam. 6) Don’t be afraid to raise your hands or sing loudly, don’t be afraid of what others will think of you. Worship is between you and God. GOD is your audience, not the people standing next to you. You are not singing for them, so don’t care about what they think.
If you are alone in your Quiet Time, buy a couple of anointed worship albums, and sing along with them when you are feeling distressed. The presence of God will come upon you. IF you are distressed now, spend time in worship today, and see if it will make a difference.
If you are a beginner player, you have to practice diligently so that you become a skilled player. Imitate David. David was a SKILLED musician, and he played the lyre well. Imagine if David only knew 2 chords, and he couldn’t strum properly. Saul probably would have felt more stress listening to him! So practice is important. Be faithful at it, and God will use your music to bless many people.
Another important thing to notice. Saul was tormented by an evil spirit. It was a spiritual problem, not just an emotional problem. If it was merely an emotional problem, Saul can just listen to happy music by Bruno Mars or Taylor Swift, and that would make him feel happier. But that’s not the case. Taylor Swift’s music is NOT going to cast away the tormenting spirit. Spiritual problems need spiritual solutions.
The truth is, not all worship music are equal. Some worship music will only move your emotions a little bit, but it will not create a spiritual atmosphere where evil spirits must leave the room.
Aspiring worship leaders, know that there is a higher level that your music can get to where the spiritual atmosphere of the room will shift, and bring such a strong anointing into the room that evil spirits must leave. In those times, distress must leave, depression must leave, suicidal thoughts must leave, even the sick will be healed, and miracles happen. I’ve been in a few of those rare meetings, where the presence of God is so real and tangible, it changes people.
Let’s move on to verse 23, “Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.”
Notice that when Saul was distressed and in need, he would seek the company and the fellowship of David. David was gifted by God to be the solution to Saul’s problems. That brings us to the THIRD WAY that we can defeat distress, and that is by FELLOWSHIPPING WITH OTHER BELIEVERS.
1 Cor. 12:7 says, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.” God gave David a spiritual gift, and that was to play anointed music that can bring healing to the soul. God gave me a gift to teach the Word of God to you. God gave other people spiritual gifts so that they can benefit you and help you.
But some people get to church late, and leave early, and avoids fellowship with other people, avoids getting plugged into a small group. How can they receive the benefit that God wants to give them? They can’t!
The truth is, not all worship music are equal. Some worship music will only move your emotions a little bit, but it will not create a spiritual atmosphere where evil spirits must leave the room.
Aspiring worship leaders, know that there is a higher level that your music can get to where the spiritual atmosphere of the room will shift, and bring such a strong anointing into the room that evil spirits must leave. In those times, distress must leave, depression must leave, suicidal thoughts must leave, even the sick will be healed, and miracles happen. I’ve been in a few of those rare meetings, where the presence of God is so real and tangible, it changes people.
Let’s move on to verse 23, “Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.”
Notice that when Saul was distressed and in need, he would seek the company and the fellowship of David. David was gifted by God to be the solution to Saul’s problems. That brings us to the THIRD WAY that we can defeat distress, and that is by FELLOWSHIPPING WITH OTHER BELIEVERS.
1 Cor. 12:7 says, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.” God gave David a spiritual gift, and that was to play anointed music that can bring healing to the soul. God gave me a gift to teach the Word of God to you. God gave other people spiritual gifts so that they can benefit you and help you.
But some people get to church late, and leave early, and avoids fellowship with other people, avoids getting plugged into a small group. How can they receive the benefit that God wants to give them? They can’t!
Hebrews 10:25 says “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another…”
In other words, God is saying, “if you don’t get together in regular fellowship with other believers, you are missing out on what I want to give you. There is so much I want to give you, but it only comes through other believers.”
See this picture up here, I really like it. It’s the picture of God’s church, and it has people who are skilled in all sorts of amazing things. People who are skilled in music, in construction, in cleaning, in teaching, in farming, in protecting, in building, in cooking, in counseling, in nursing, etc.
When you are stressed in a certain area of your life, God wants you to seek out the help of other believers who are in your small group. They are well equipped and gifted to help you defeat your distress. So please, get connected into a small group if you haven’t already.
In conclusion, through the passage of 1 Samuel 16, we learn from Saul and David that we can defeat distress in 3 ways, and that is to:
I would like to give you a minute to respond to God right now. If you are distressed this morning, what do you think is the cause of it? And what step would God want you to take today? Take a moment to pray right now.
PRAYER: ‘May the Lord bless you and protect you.25 May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. 26 May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.’
In other words, God is saying, “if you don’t get together in regular fellowship with other believers, you are missing out on what I want to give you. There is so much I want to give you, but it only comes through other believers.”
See this picture up here, I really like it. It’s the picture of God’s church, and it has people who are skilled in all sorts of amazing things. People who are skilled in music, in construction, in cleaning, in teaching, in farming, in protecting, in building, in cooking, in counseling, in nursing, etc.
When you are stressed in a certain area of your life, God wants you to seek out the help of other believers who are in your small group. They are well equipped and gifted to help you defeat your distress. So please, get connected into a small group if you haven’t already.
In conclusion, through the passage of 1 Samuel 16, we learn from Saul and David that we can defeat distress in 3 ways, and that is to:
- Repent from Sin
- Worship God
- Fellowship with other Believers
I would like to give you a minute to respond to God right now. If you are distressed this morning, what do you think is the cause of it? And what step would God want you to take today? Take a moment to pray right now.
PRAYER: ‘May the Lord bless you and protect you.25 May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. 26 May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.’