Heavenly music can often heal the wounds that surgeons cannot reach nor can medicines cure.
Samuel had anointed David, God’s choice for Israel’s king, “and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward” (1 Sam 16:13). At this point, a clarification might be helpful. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit was a promised gift from the Father to every believer at the invitation of the Son. “Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Rom 8:9). Said the Lord, “the Spirit of truth…dwells with you and will be in you” ( Jn 14:17). But before Christ’s exaltation, this wasn’t the case. In the days we’re considering, the Spirit came upon certain individuals, whether saved or lost, to maneuver them in the purposes of God. David’s anointing was not the moment of his conversion but of his commission. When he fell into hideous moral failure, he cried to the Lord, “Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps 51:11). He was not thinking he would lose his salvation; in fact, in the same psalm, he asks, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation” (v 12), not the salvation itself. What did concern him was the possibility that, like Saul, God would remove him from his role as king of Israel. So in the story in 1 Samuel 16, we see this transfer of power. “But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him” (v 14). Amazingly, David was called on to play soothing music to calm Saul’s distress. It should be noted that when David was in distress throughout his life, he didn’t need anyone to play for him. Why? He had the song within! The first evidence of being “filled with the Spirit”? “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph 5:18-19). Let’s enjoy the new song He’s given us today!