Summary: This sermon is about the music David played for King Saul and points out how music can help us, too!
Music Ministers To Our Hearts
 But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.
 And Saul's servants said to him, "Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you.
 Let our master now command your servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp; and it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well."
 So Saul said to his servants, "Provide me now a man who can play well, and bring him to me."
 Then one of the servants answered and said, "Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person; and the Lord is with him."
 Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse, and said, "Send me your son David, who is with the sheep."
 And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul.
 So David came to Saul and stood before him. And he loved him greatly, and he became his armorbearer.
 Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, "Please let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight."
 And so it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him.
Music is a powerful force.
It gets our attention, grabs our hearts, and changes our souls.
That's because God has made it so.
God created music
and created us in a way that music ministers to us.
God has also given certain individuals the ability to make music.
In Genesis 4:21,
we read that Jubal "was the father of all who play the harp and flute."
David, the man after God's own heart, was a man of music.
Right in the middle of the Bible
we find the book of Psalms.
More than half of them were written by David.
Some of them were written when David was facing
the threatening presence of a madman named Saul.
After Samuel anointed David with oil,
indicating God's choice of him as the next king of Israel;
we read some disturbing things about Saul.
The Bible says, " But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.
Before we talk about the misery Saul wrestled with,
Iit's important to notice that the Spirit of the Lord
departed from Saul before an evil spirit came.
It's also important for us to understand
that the indwelling of the Spirit is different for Christians
than it was for the people of the Old Testament.
Before the coming of the Holy Spirit
on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2,
the Spirit of God never permanently rested on any person,
perhaps with the exception of David and John the Baptist.
In Old Testament times,
it was common for the Spirit of God
to come for a temporary period of strengthening or insight
or whatever was the need of the moment,
and then to depart.
However, at Pentecost and from that time on,
when the Holy Spirit comes into the believing sinner,
We remain sealed by the Holy Spirit, as Ephesians 4;30 says, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of salvation."
Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God resides in us!
1 Corinthians 6:19 says, Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
But what is happening here in 1 Samuel 16 with King Saul
is centuries before the Day of Pentecost.
We should not be surprised to read
that as the Spirit of God departed from Saul,
a vacuum was created
into which God sent an evil spirit to torment him.
No one knows the exact reason why the Lord did this,
but we can certainly speculate.
What seems most probable
is that the Lord was disgusted with Saul.
It's as if God was saying to Saul, "You have not taken me seriously. This will teach you to do that, Saul."
The Hebrew word used here is translated in the King James Bible
as "torment" and in the New King James "troubled".
The original Hebrew word means "to fall upon, to startle, to overwhelm."