Please stand as we recite the Shema and read the Word of The Lord together.
The Shema
Hear O Israel!
The Lord is our God – the Lord Alone.
Love the Lord your God
With all your heart,
With all your soul,
And with all your might,
And love your neighbor as yourself. Amen.
In our continuation of reading the Bible together as a fellowship, we are now at the first chapter of the Book of 2 Samuel. 

2 Samuel 1
	Now it came about after the death of Saul, when David had returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, that David remained two days in Ziklag. And it happened on the third day, that behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul, with his clothes torn and dust on his head. And it came about when he came to David that he fell to the ground and prostrated himself. Then David said to him, "From where do you come?" And he said to him, "I have escaped from the camp of Israel." And David said to him, "How did things go? Please tell me." And he said, "The people have fled from the battle, and also many of the people have fallen and are dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also." So David said to the young man who told him, "How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?" And the young man who told him said, "By chance I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and behold, Saul was leaning on his spear. And behold, the chariots and the horsemen pursued him closely. And when he looked behind him, he saw me and called to me. And I said, 'Here I am.' "And he said to me, 'Who are you?' And I answered him, 'I am an Amalekite.' "Then he said to me, 'Please stand beside me and kill me; for agony has seized me because my life still lingers in me.' "So I stood beside him and killed him, because I knew that he could not live after he had fallen. And I took the crown which was on his head and the bracelet which was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord." Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so also did all the men who were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan and for the people of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. And David said to the young man who told him, "Where are you from?" And he answered, "I am the son of an alien, an Amalekite." Then David said to him, "How is it you were not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?" And David called one of the young men and said, "Go, cut him down." So he struck him and he died. And David said to him, "Your blood is on your head, for your mouth has testified against you, saying, 'I have killed the Lord's anointed.'" Then David chanted with this lament over Saul and Jonathan his son, and he told them to teach the sons of Judah the song of the bow; behold, it is written in the book of Jashar. "Your beauty, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How have the mighty fallen! "Tell it not in Gath, Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. "O mountains of Gilboa, Let not dew or rain be on you, nor fields of offerings; For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil. "From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan did not turn back, And the sword of Saul did not return empty. "Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their life, And in their death they were not parted; They were swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lions. "O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, Who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, Who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. "How have the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan is slain on your high places. "I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful Than the love of women. "How have the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished!" 
Thus reads The Word of God. Thank You Lord. You may be seated.

2 Sam 1:12, And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan and for the people of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
This morning we have the report given to David that King Saul and his sons were killed in the battle with the Philistines. As we considered previously, David had prophesied that distinct possibility when he refused to lift his own hand, or allowed his men to strike the Lord’s anointed king. David would not take it upon himself to kill Saul, even when presented with a number of opportunities. He kept his hands clean and left it to the Lord to deal righteously and justly with the one who was seeking to eliminate David from the face of the earth. 
As such, David refused to take vengeance against the king, even though he knew that the Lord had chosen David as the next king to sit upon the throne of Israel. David was not about to take it into his own hands to kill that present king who sat upon the throne of Israel, even if it would be considered to be in self-defense. 
To be sure, it would be very likely that David was wondering how God would work out all the details for a new kingship to be put into place. With the fact that his best friend, Jonathon was the heir apparent through lineage, and even though Jonathon had pronounced that he knew David was going to be the king, there was still that bitter stand upon earthly lineage that would have played out. We will read about this as the next chapters will detail how there were those actions by others to try to keep an erstwhile son of Saul on the throne that had been given to David by the Lord. Man understood only what man understood, by the power of blood alone, not by the grace and the mercy and the wisdom of God.
That is the course of what we want to take to heart this morning. With absolute reference to the way in which man would deal with an enemy, just as David had been urged to kill Saul by his own men. Saul had been making their lives so miserable in having to hide out in the wilderness regions and within the cities of the Philistines. We need to understand that we are never free to exact vengeance on our own, or for that matter, to even rejoice when our enemies are defeated and suffering calamity. 
David did not express any joy or even relief when Saul was killed. It brought him no release of anxiety or sense of thinking that Saul had brought this upon himself. This was evident in the manner in which Saul had turned his heart away from Jehovah and taken the mantel of leadership as his own to do with as he wished. 
But David did not recount how Saul was trying to hold the power to the bitter end, seeking to eliminate any threat to the throne upon which he sat. David would have none of that.
As well, he did not consider the death of his best friend, though it might have been necessary to gain the throne in his own right, as something that he desired. He lamented greatly over the death of both of these men, as well as the other sons of Saul with that loss of life as the anointed of the Lord. They were to be sincerely mourned with the rending of clothing and the wailing of deepest lament. There was genuine pain and suffering in the loss of these men of Israel, as they had served the people with the giving of their lives for the sake of the nation as a whole. 
Therefore, David did not exult nor find any comfort with the idea that his being constantly harangued and harassed by this sovereign was now at an end. There was none of that in his heart and in the expression of his great sorrow as unto the loss of a brother and a father-in-law whom he lamented so dearly.
We can see this heart after even those who might be considered our enemies as it was expressed by Job. Consider what Job declared as he was recounting how he sincerely served the Lord with the way in which he dealt with those who would be designated as his foes. This is recounted in Job 31:29+30. 
Job 31:29+30, "Have I rejoiced at the extinction of my enemy, Or exulted when evil befell him? "No, I have not allowed my mouth to sin By asking for his life in a curse.
Job considered that it was a sin to even curse those who were his enemies. There is to be no delight in the downfall of those who are arrayed against us as the people of God. That is completely against the heart that we are to have for all those whom the Lord brings into our lives, be they friend or foe. This is an aspect that needs to be worked within the core fabric of our essence as it was in David and in Job.
We often have this misconception that everyone whom the Lord brings into our lives will be those who will rejoice together with us and become brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. The reality, crushing as it may be to those of us who only want to know kindness and gentleness and compassion, is that we will have those mean-spirited and bitter and ill-tempered and inconsiderate and obnoxious and self-centered people in our lives who can make every day miserable, if we let them get under our skin. They are there because God knows how they will teach us to learn to deal with them in the manner which shows them that we live by a different truth and reality than the one they present. We learn what it means to lay down our lives for those whom we think deserve nothing but judgment and contempt, the way we were in this world.
That is the key to the manner in which we are to deem everyone with whom we have dealings. They are as we were before we met the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why we must never curse or judge them as unworthy of the love of God. To do so would be to put ourselves in that same category because none of us were ever worthy of anything but death and destruction but for the Great and Awesome Love of God poured out upon us in His Only Begotten Son. 
That needs to be the way we look at the heart of the people who would mistreat and abuse and defile and malign us. Nothing can proceed from our beings toward them except the prayer that they too would come into the living relationship with Jesus that would transfer them from death into the kingdom and the family of God. 
Consider how the Psalmist details this for us as in Ps 35:10-14. This is a very stirring account of what man can do to our beings, except for the Sovereignty and the Grace and the Mercy of God.  
Ps 35:10-14, All my bones will say, "Lord, who is like Thee, Who delivers the afflicted from him who is too strong for him, And the afflicted and the needy from him who robs him?" Malicious witnesses rise up; They ask me of things that I do not know. They repay me evil for good, To the bereavement of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting; And my prayer kept returning to my bosom. I went about as though it were my friend or brother; I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows for a mother. 
Do we catch the reality of what the Psalmist is declaring? Because we are so loved by God, we can do nothing other than express His love to those in pain and anguish and illness, even if they have been our worst nightmares on earth. The Psalmist makes the incredible statement that they should even be treated as a brother and mourned over as one would mourn for a mother. There is sincerity of heart and motivation in terms of treating this one, who was vilely evil, with all the love with which the Psalmist had been lavished by Jehovah. We, who are now redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ, can do no less for any in our lives with whom we are having such needling and evil interactions.
The writer of the Proverbs, in Prov 24:17, as well declares the manner in which, even when our enemies are fallen, we are not to exult at their calamity. We are not to let our hearts take joy in the downfall, but guard our thoughts and our attitudes with regard to what may befall even those who are against us.
Prov 24:17, Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; 
This is set into stone within the course of our following the direction of God in our walk on this earth. Our Lord and Savior gave manifest voice to what is to be our attitude and our demeanor and our care for even those who are so set against us. This is expressed in Matt 5:43-48, as Jesus was instructing in the way in which Jehovah has directed His so great love unto such as us.
Matt 5:43-48, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? "And if you greet your brothers only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 
Inherent in this love is the fact that God so loved that He sent forth the means of the salvation of any who will but call upon the name of His Only Begotten Son. There is no distinction, as the Jews originally tried to set into place. God did not just save the Jews. He caused His Spirit to stir in all nations, and all tribes, and all tongues that desire to call unto God for His free and glorious gift of salvation. 
That even included the Romans who were the very instruments of Christ’s crucifixion. As detailed in Luke 23:33+34, Jesus did not hold it against them, but rather expressed the same love to them as is expressed to any with whom He has His dealings on this earth.
Luke 23:33+34, And when they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves. 
This heart of Christ Jesus is brought to the forefront by Peter, in 1 Peter 3:8-18, as he gave description to the course of how we are to hold all people as dear to the heart of God, and therefore dear to our hearts. This will be expressed, not just in words and platitudes, but in the way that we express livingly God’s love to others. This will be especially to those who do not yet know Him and who could be considered enemies of the Word and haters of those who are part of the Body of Christ Jesus.
1 Peter 3:8-18, To sum up, let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. For, "Let him who means to love life and see good days Refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile. "And let him turn away from evil and do good; Let him seek peace and pursue it. "For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And His ears attend to their prayer, But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." And who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
In this passage is set before us the manner in which we are to treat those who mistreat us, those who slander us, those who revile us, those who persecute us, those who bitterly seek our down fall, those who rejoice when we are laid low, and those who would see the name of Jesus Christ wiped away from the records of humanity. We may be put to torture for the wondrous name and testimony of Jesus Our Lord and Our Savior, we may be martyred as were the majority of His Disciples and so so many of our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, but that will never be to our undoing! 
Rather, our prayer should be the absolute same as Christ’s prayer while nailed to that rough-hewn cross, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." That is to be the heart of every believer as we consider those who are so violently and virulently set against us because they are set against the Name of Jesus, The Only Begotten Son of God. Accordingly, we take no pleasure when they stumble, but we are there with the love of God to pick them up. We continually point them to the only One Who can bring peace and joy and eternal life to them as He has done to us. So be it!
And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan and for the people of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is 1 Sam 2:2. "There is no one holy like the Lord, Indeed, there is no one besides Thee, Nor is there any rock like our God. Amen.