1 Samuel Lesson 41
Third Betrayal and Deliverance continued – 1
Samuel 24:5-22
Turn to 1 Samuel 24. There were
some questions asked, one goes back to the Ziphites, a group of people in
chapter 23, who were out of it, believers, who betrayed David. You remember they attributed the Holy
Spirit’s work in David’s life to Satan, and attributed Satan’s work in Saul’s
life to the Lord. So the question came:
Are Saul’s and the Ziphites’ misinterpretation of God’s work blaspheming the
Holy Spirit as the New Testament mentions, and if so, is this an unforgivable
sin. In other words, have they committed
the sin unto death? At least in Saul’s
case it appears that he’s well on his way to committing the sin unto
death. He’s certainly, by the next two
chapters has committed it, because when he visits the witch of Endor and
involves himself in cultic connections with the demon world, at that point he
has committed the sin unto death. But we
can’t tell because the Old Testament text doesn’t give us a diagnosis, we can
guess only. There is no hint in the text
that at this point he’s committed the sin unto death, but it does bear very
similar markings to the sin unto death of the Pharisees during the time of our
Lord’s ministry, when seeing the work of the Holy Spirit evidenced in history
they attributed it to Satan. And this
reversal of interpretation is the total extent of human blindness. So if it is not the unforgivable sin it
certainly is very, very close to it.
Again, by way of review, we are in the 24th chapter, during
the time of the persecution phase of David’s life. This is the period in this book where the
emphasis is on how David was able to survive in Satan’s world while being
promoted by the Lord into the position that God had destined for him. It is analogues to your position if you are a
believer in Jesus Christ. God the Father
has destined you to be conformed to His Son; that is your future position. You are on the way to being conformed this
moment. That is the application of the
doctrine of predestination. Since this is a sovereign decree of God it cannot
be stopped. But, it means that there is
fierce opposition to this decree in the attacks of Satan. And so as David experiences the resistance to
God’s will in his life, so you too will experience to God’s will in your
life. Therefore, the lessons David is
learning should apply to you in meeting this opposition.
In 1 Samuel 24 we have covered the last betrayal; remember last time we
dealt with the betrayal that was continued in verse 1; after the Philistines
were turned back by Saul, Saul had calmed down, but then he got agitated again
by carnal believers who did nothing except cause trouble, as carnal believers
inevitably do, who are trying to stir up other carnal believers. And here we have a group of men, a group of
advisors, under Saul, who advised him to initiate hostilities toward David
again; they spread lies about David and these are the people that David
complained about in the Psalms, the advisors of Saul.
Now in the course of this chapter you’re going to see how David, as a
political leader, applied doctrine in dealing with advisors. If you read with any perception today the
modern political scene, you will know that advisors to people in high places
can often do things that later on are very ridiculous. But at the time, the person being advised,
whether he’s the President of the United States or someone else, at the time
that he’s being advised, if he goes sheerly on the basis of experience and not
on the basis of principles of the word, he will be misled. Saul is misled, David resists and is
okay. Both men had advisors, both men
are leaders. The difference is one man
is obedient to the Word, the other one is disobedient; one man fails and the
other succeeds. And this chapter shows
how this occurred. Last week we dealt
with Psalm 57 which was David’s prayer for deliverance and then in verses
24:3-4 we found Saul in a very un-kingly position, but someone who studied said
Louis XIV used to defecate in public, at least Saul had the decency to do it in
a cave. (And you know what happened to
Now we have to explain verse 4 and what happens. And this is not easy because it involves a
lot of the background of this book. It
all comes together here. Some of us have
been talking about how it would be to build a modern film on Saul and David and
play the film exactly the way the Scripture points it out. Now besides getting an X-rating it probably
would be impossible to do, simply because such a film would require
interpretation and explanation as you went on, you wouldn’t catch it. And these are one of those instances that
you’re never going to catch unless you know a little of the background.
So let’s read verses 4-6 first, and then we’ll go back and examine in
detail what is happening here. Verse 4,
“And the men of David said unto him, Behold the day of which the LORD said unto
thee, Behold, I am giving [will deliver] thine enemy into thine hand, that you
may do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose, and cut off
the skirt of Saul’s robe privately. [5] And it came to pass afterward, that
David's heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul’s skirt. [6] And he said
unto his men, The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the
LORD’s anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the
anointed of the LORD.”
Now involved in verses 4-6 are several principles. The first one is in verse 4 and it is the
principle of divine guidance, how not to be led in divine guidance. In verse 4 “the men of David said to him,”
now these are David’s advisors, notice.
In verse 1 it was Saul’s advisors; both men are leaders, both men are
surrounded with advisors; both advisors are going with their mouths wide
open. Both advisors are giving him
advice that is bad; now let’s see what’s bad about the advice given to David in
verse 4. “The men say to David, look,
the day which the LORD has said,” the word “said” is Hebrew perfect, meaning he
had said it in time past. ‘That day,
which the Lord had said to you,” and then the following should be in quotation:
this is what the Lord supposedly had told David, (quote), “Behold, I will
deliver thine enemy,” the “will deliver” is a Hebrew participle meaning I am in
the process of delivering, “I am delivering your enemy into your hand, that
thou may do to him as it shall seem good unto you.” And they say, perfect tense, the Lord said
that to you David, now look David, this is the fulfillment of the Lord’s
leading in your life.
The first thing about this, it’s utterly false. You’ve studied the book of Samuel, you’ve
studied David’s Psalms; nowhere did the Lord ever say this to David. So immediately it’s bad advice because these
advisors are quoting God when God never said this. What God did say, and here’s where we have to
go back in the book, He gave David two promises, two sovereign promises; two
promises that were His decrees that could never be broken, but God never said
this, that last clause, “that you may do to him as it shall seem good unto
you.” This is the influence of Satan at
this point, coming through the mouths of the advisors of David. Remember the time when Peter told the Lord,
oh Lord, don’t go to the cross, you don’t have to go to the cross. And it came right after Jesus Christ had
gotten through complimenting Peter, that Peter had just understood a truth
because the Holy Spirit revealed it to Peter, and ye within minutes Peter came
out with that jewel, and the Lord turned to him and said “Get thee behind me,
Satan.” So it shows us that no matter
how careful we are as believers, there will comes times when through our lips
will come the voice of Satan. Satan can speak through any believer; all he has
to do is inject a thought, turn your mouth on without you using your conscience
before you open it, and he can give the party line. And here the party line, the satanic party
line is being given to David. It is a
deliberate attempt to confuse David on the principle of divine guidance.
Now these two principles are true, it is true, the “I am delivering your enemy
into your hand,” that was true. But it
was not true that David could do with him anything that he thought. Now the first principle of divine guidance is
found back in 16:1, so let’s find out… we’re trying to recreate David; if
you’re at all serious about learning the application of this book in your life,
you’re going to sit there and put yourself in David’s position; put yourself in
David’s circumstances. Put yourself in
his position after you have led 600 men through battle, and after you have been
chased over a hot and dusty desert, after you have been betrayed three times,
after you have tried to be killed seven times, after someone has tried to
murder you, assassinate you. Now all of
this comes with several feet of your hands, you have a sword that’s lethal, and
he’s sitting there vulnerable. You could
end it all so easily, with one stroke of your hand you could solve the problem
that’s been plaguing you. With one
stroke of your hand you could solve all the problems that caused the pressure
to build in your life, why you, had you been David, prayed all those
Psalms. Think of it, within just several
seconds you could solve the entire problem.
Let’s see what David did know from the Lord’s Word. In 16:1 Samuel had been told to go anoint, go
to Jesse, for “I have provided me a king among his sons.” So the first thing that David is assured of
is by virtue of Samuel, Samuel being the king-making prophet, Samuel therefore
guarantees to David, I say the word “guarantees,” this is a guarantee, that he
will be king. That’s the first thing
David knows; he knows this absolutely certainly. He knows this because God has revealed it through
his prophet. There shouldn’t be any
doubt in David’s mind, if he is listening to his conscience, that he is going
to be king by God’s sovereign will.
Nothing can break God’s sovereign decrees. No force in the creation can ever break any
sovereignly given decree. So that is the
first thing that David knows.
And by the way, this decree has been confirmed several times, turn to 1
Samuel 20:13, Jonathan, the man who would normally fill the office of king
after the death of his father, that man, of all people in the nation Israel,
it’s precisely the incumbent, the potential incumbent to the office that turns
around and gives David the assurance that that decree is going to come to pass,
because what does Jonathan say at the end of verse 13, “And the LORD be with
you, as He has been with my father. [14] And you shall not only while yet I
live show me the kindness” or the chesed,
“of the Lord, that I die not, [15] But also you shall not cut off thy kindness
from my house forever; no, not when the LORD has cut off the enemies of David,
every one from the face of the earth.”
Jonathan assures David that all of David’s enemies will die, all of
David’s enemies will be removed; David will be king.
He assures him again in 23:17, that last meeting with Jonathan. Jonathan came down to minister and comfort
David, and he did so by confirming this decree.
“And he said unto him, Fear not; for the hand of Saul, my father, shall
not find you; and you shall be king over Israel, and I will be next unto you.”
That part, “I will be next unto you” is never going to come to pass, sadly.
David needed a man to be his administrator; David desperately needed this and
we find Jonathan making a wrong decision here.
Now a question was handed in that had to do with this: You said at one
time that Jonathan probably should have been the number one right hand man for
David during his administration but that when he went back to Saul that
Jonathan blew it. If this might have
been true, then what are you going to do with Saul’s curse in 1 Samuel 14:28;
you said that God honors the vows of the mashach,
even when he was out of it because of his office. How could Jonathan become David’s number two
man in the light of Saul’s curse unto death upon him. It is true, Saul made a curse upon Jonathan;
it is true that God respects and honors the curse. How do we put the two together?
Again, we put the two together as you always do, sovereignty and
responsibility. It was a bad decision
that Jonathan made to go back to his father’s house, but it was that very free
decision that was wrong, that fulfilled and put him into the position where
that curse would be fulfilled. God did
not coerce Jonathan to do it; it was a sovereign decree pronounced upon
Jonathan’s life by his own father, and even his father could never removed the
curse. It was upon his son, and his son
would die in battle alongside his father by a stupid decision on the part of
the son to stay with his father. But
regardless of the means, the decree was that Jonathan would never be king. And did it come to pass? Yes it did, but that doesn’t mean that the
decisions that Jonathan made were necessarily right in staying by his father
just to fulfill the decree, any more than it was right for Adam to sin because
God obviously planned Adam to sin, but we don’t therefore say Adam had to sin
because God decreed it. No, that’s not
it at all; Adam freely chose, in spite of the fact it was absolutely certain
when, where and under what circumstances he would choose. So there’s actually no conflict, it’s just
simply the old sovereignty freewill issue again.
But these instances are confirmations to David of this first truth; he
will be king by God’s decree, that’s the first thing. David could relax in that
promise. Samuel told me I’m going to be
king, it has now been confirmed by Jonathan.
So we have had two people saying I will be king.
The second thing that David knew is found in 1 Samuel 15:23. By this time he had obviously spoken to
Samuel, he had learned the decree, that’s spoken also by Samuel the king-maker,
but this time Samuel is a king-breaker because Samuel says, “Because you have
rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.” That again is a sovereign decree. That again cannot be challenged by any
creature. That again will certainly come
to pass. So Saul must either do one of
two things: either he will die in battle, that’s one possibility, this is the
way kings usually were eliminated in the Ancient Near East, or they were
eliminated by assassination, or they could be eliminated by disease. So there were a number of possibilities how
the decree could come about in history.
But that it will come about is absolutely certain. David knew both of these decrees, he knew
that both were from the sovereign will of God.
Now let’s turn back to the cave incident and see why he cuts off Saul’s
garment. Notice the men come to him, and
they say come on David, go ahead and kill him, this way you can fulfill those
sovereign decrees. Now the sovereign
decrees said that David would be king the decrees said that Saul would be eliminated. But the decrees did not say anything as to
how this would come to pass, and so the insinuation of the men is David, you
can help God along, help Him out right now, you can help God’s decree. Now this is a lesson; we don’t have to help
God’s decrees by means that are contrary to the Word of God. God’s decrees will help themselves, all our
responsibility is to adhere to the Word of God.
So David apparently at this point, momentarily, but only momentarily,
comes under the influence of this bad advice of his men, and he creeps forward,
but as he swings his sword, instead of swinging to Saul, which he could have,
David was very skilled, he deliberately did not, he chopped part of Saul’s
garment off; probably Saul had left this garment some distance from where he
was and David just simply crept up and cut a piece and took it.
What’s the significance of that?
Scholars have commented about this verse, it seems like the text doesn’t
read right; it seems like it should read that David pulled out his sword, he
was about to kill Saul and his heart smote him for what he was about to do, and
then because his heart smote him he only cut off the garment. That’s the way a
lot of modern scholars would love to explain the situation, because obviously
the problem we have with it is what is so bad about cutting off the king’s
garment, what is wrong with that, why is that of such significance.
We have to go back again in history and in the course of Scripture to
find out the significance of the tearing of the king’s garment. First let’s go back to 1 Samuel 15:27; after
Samuel had pronounced the curse that we just read, that Saul would be cut off
from being king, Saul reacted violently, and in verse 26, “And Samuel said unto
Saul, I am not going to return with you,” this is a sign that the Holy Spirit
has also left Saul, that God’s prophet will no longer teach the Word of God,
the Holy Spirit will not longer enable, this believer is abandoned in his
position in life, not totally, he doesn’t lose salvation, but he loses his
office and his ministry. I’m not going
to return, says Samuel, the Word of God turns away from you Saul as you turned
away from it, “for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has
rejected you from being king over Israel,” I remove all prophetic support from
you. So you might say Samuel withdrew,
he resigned from the government, he resigned from Saul’s administration, he had
nothing else to do with it, he separated himself from apostasy.
Verse 27 “And as Samuel turned about to go away, Saul laid hold upon the
skirt of his mantle, and it tore,” in other words, it’s the mark of a desperate
men. But he doesn’t grab Samuel, he
grabs the skirt of his garment. Now if
it were just an emotional reaction, if Saul were just worried that Samuel is
going to go away and he’d never see him again, he would have grabbed Samuel,
not the edge of his garment. The Word of
God is clear here, he did not grab the prophet bodily, he grabbed hold of an
edge of his garment. Now what made Saul
grab the edge of the prophet’s garment. There is something strange here to our
western minds, but in the times of the Ancient Near East apparently the garment
meant something far more than we think it does today. Samuel was the
king-maker; grabbing his garment secured the kingdom. And that’s why when he tears it, he tries to
hold on to Samuel’s garment like he tries to hold onto the kingdom, and Samuel
keeps on moving, and as he does the garment rips.
And so Saul is left with a piece in his hand. In fact, the Bible doesn’t really even say
he’s got a piece in his hand, all it says is he tore it, he had to let go, he
never got the garment that he was desperate to grab, like he never got the
kingdom he was desperate to grab, and that’s why Samuel turns, in verse 28, and
he makes a prophetic announcement in response to the torn garment. “And Samuel; said unto him, The LORD has torn
the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbor of
yours, who is better than you are.” Now
that is a prophetic word coming down from Jehovah through the prophet, to Saul,
all over one tear in Samuel’s coat. The
tearing of the coat, then, had a powerfully revealing significance.
Another incident of the tearing of a garment, 1 Kings 11:29, this goes
ahead in time to around 930 BC, close to the time of the civil war. There’s a jerk by the name of Rehoboam on the
throne off the southern kingdom of Judah, at this time he’s the throne of all
Israel; he is Solomon’s son, he’s a disobedient rebellious son who had been taught,
of all things, the book of Proverbs from childhood up, some of the proverbs in
the book of Proverbs, but he never learned, he rejected, and rejected, and
rejected, and rejected. And probably
toward the latter part of his life he just simply watched his father, because
his father was out of it and so Rehoboam just followed his out-of-it father,
and he came to be an out-of-it person.
And he was a carnal believer who listened to a whole bunch of advisors,
he had a lot of young people in his administration that lacked wisdom, that
didn’t have the benefit of age old experience, and therefore he blew it and he
caused a civil war. The other person in
this drama is given in this verse, the man Jeroboam is going to be king of the
northern kingdom, so it’s Jeroboam in the north, Rehoboam in the south, two
tribes are going to go with Rehoboam, ten tribes are going to go with
Jeroboam.
Jeroboam is picked here by God; notice how Jeroboam is picked. “And it came to pass at that time, when
Jeroboam went of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah, the Shilonite, found him
in the way; and he clad himself with a new garment, and they two were alone in
the field. [30] And Ahijah,” that’s the prophet, “caught the new garment that
was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces.”
The prophet reaches over to the king’s new coat, can you image the
reaction he would have had if he thought in the western… what are you doing to
my coat? But the king didn’t do it this
way; obviously there’s a cultural thing that was going on here, he understood
what the prophet was doing. The prophet
reached over, he grabbed it, and tore.
And as it says, “he rent it in twelve pieces, [31] And he said to
Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces; for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel,
Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten
tribe to you. [32] (But he shall have one tribe for my servant David’s sake,
and for Jerusalem’s sake,” and the tribe of Benjamin gets thrown in here later
on. But the point here is that the ten pieces are torn from the king’s garment,
they have to do with the kingdom, just like we saw in 1 Samuel 15.
So now let’s come back to 1 Samuel 24 and see if we understand why David
cut Saul’s garment. David is not trying
to kill Saul in the cave; David has enough doctrine that he resists the
temptation to kill Saul. Nevertheless,
though he is able to resist the temptation to kill him, he can’t resist the
temptation to express something to Saul.
And so when David reaches up and he slices the garment, he is saying to
Saul I’m going to take your kingdom away, Saul.
This is his official declaration that he is making to Saul that I am
taking your kingdom from you. Now
David’s wrong; he’s wrong for several reasons.
Number one, Samuel told him the Lord would do it and David had no right
to presuppose that he would be the means for the fulfillment of those
decrees. He’s out of line. This could have been the method, but David
had not yet been informed by Gad, the prophet, or by Samuel the prophet, he had
no prophetic authentication to do this; he acted out of line. And therefore he was wrong on that
count.
But there’s something even more significant about the fact that David
cuts the garment and takes a piece; David obviously doesn’t get the whole
garment. Remember back in Jeroboam’s
time, when the prophet tore the garment up and said here, you take ten, I’ll
keep two, he meant you have ten- twelfths of the kingdom; the part that you
keep is yours. Now if David had literally
been declaring the will of God by cutting off Saul’s garment he would be saying
I’m going to get a piece of your kingdom, Saul, but only a piece, not the whole
thing. So David’s wrong on a second
count. Not only is it not going to be by
his means, he is not going to be the one that’s going to tear it out of the
hands of Saul, but this also tells us something else. That if it were David, and if were all up to
David to fulfill the sovereign decree of God, then all he would have would be a
piece of the kingdom, that had David assassinated Saul at this hour of history,
probably what would have happened would have been a counter-revolt against
David. David never could secure the
loyalty of the rest of the tribes. For
the rest of his reign as king he would have political unrest and uneasiness,
and never be able to reign in peace over all the tribes. So there’s a lot of things with this cutting
off of the garment.
So that’s why it says in verse 5, “And it came to pass afterward, that
David’s heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul’s garment.” Now that phrase, one which occurs with
David’s life in the Old Testament, shows you how mature David was. Remember, maturity does not bring perfection. But maturity does bring the ability to deal
with sin effectively and efficiently.
The mature believer, when he is out of fellowship, will recognize it
faster than an immature believer. A mark
of maturity is how fast that you see that you’re out of it. Not the fact that you’re never going to get
out of it; of course you’re going to get out of it. With the flesh we’ll never be totally
victorious. And so there are going to
come times when you are out of it, but the mature believer will recognize when
he’s out of it and do something about it.
And so when it says the “heart smote” David, that’s the lev, the “v” pronounced like a “b,” that
Hebrew word is used in the Old Testament for both mind and conscience. Here it refers to conscience; David’s
conscience bothers him.
Now here is an interesting point, if we use our diagram that we use for
the maturity of the soul, or Christ’s nature in the human heart, we always draw
it with positive volition, the fact that obedience to God’s Word always leads
to further illumination by the Holy Spirit, the further illumination builds the
divine viewpoint framework, the divine viewpoint enables your soul to love, to
love God and to love things that represent God, and then to fulfill. Now look how this works. David does not care at all for Saul
personally. There’s no bond between
these two men on a personality level; we’ll see that as the chapter ends. David does not like Saul, he can’t stand this
guy, but because David has a love for the Lord he respects the institutions of
the Lord. And at this point Saul, though
he cannot stand Saul personally, he has fantastic respect for Saul’s office; he
can’t stand the office-holder, but he respects the office, and therefore he
cannot bring himself to raise the sword and come down on Saul, for if he did he
obviously would be setting in motion a historical precedent of assassinating mashach.
And of course this would come to his own undoing in history.
But this is a wonderful illustration of mature love of a believer, a
tremendous illustration, that though you cannot stand someone on a person to
person scale, because of the love for the Lord you respect the office, His
structure. Practical applications in the
church age: you may not like a person
who is in authority in the local church; you may not be able to stand them
personally but you’d better be carefully about violating the office. If they are wrong and you can show them they
are wrong on the basis of the Word, fine. We’re not saying that authorities in
the local church, whether they be deacons or elders are Popes, we’re not
claiming infallibility, if it’s an issue of truth or falsehood, let it be aired
on a one to one basis, not maligning and gossip behind somebody’s back. But the office, always the office, must be
protected. And as I said last week, people who violate the office always get
disciplined. This is the story of a lot
of Christian’s life, why Christians who never seem to be stable, Hebrews 13 and
James 5 tells us why. Many Christians
today are suffering with so-called mental illness because somewhere along the
line the line in their lives they badmouth certain authorities, not
individually but they badmouth their office and their authority. They rebelled against the imposed authority
structure of God Himself, and they bear the price. You watch it with certain groups in
evangelicalism today, that are oriented against the local church, that want to
replace the local church, the local church is passé; those people are in
rebellion against God’s Word, and they’re going to suffer the judgment of
Hebrews 13 and James 5. It’s true the
local church has problems, but you dare not undermine the structure, the
structure is God’s structure. And the
same here, the office of mashach is
God’s structure and whether there are clods in the office or not, the structure
is God’s, the office is God’s, and so David’s heart smote him.
Now we come to the follow-up, David is not out of trouble yet, because
David has to now face his men. Remember
the cave, visualize it, who is with David in the cave? David has mastered his soul at this
point. So far David’s controlling himself,
but David finds, as a leader, he’s got another problem. In a situation when all of your advisors are
telling you do this, do this, do this, do this, you’re going to ruin everything
unless you do it now, hurry up David, do it, do it, do it, do it! He had a cheering squad in the back of the
cave; now as a leader he’s got a second problem. And this is always the hard part. It’s hard as an individual to stick to the
Word, but it’s harder still when all the people you’re leading are against
you.
And there’s a violent word that’s in the Hebrew in verse 6, “And he said
unto his men, The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the
LORD’s anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the
anointed of the LORD. [7] So David stayed [restrained] his servants with these
words,” now here’s another one of those places in 1 Samuel where you just have
to tie your seatbelt on and take it the way the Holy Spirit wrote it; don’t
blame me, I had nothing to do with the writing of it, I’m only teaching you
what the text says and what some prissy King James translator was afraid to
tell you. “The LORD forbid,” forbid is
the word to damn, to profane, that’s exactly the word and it’s content. He is saying may God damn me if I do this, it
is the strongest malediction oath in the Hebrew text; there’s no stronger oath
than this one. May God damn my soul
David is saying, if I do this to His anointed.
Again you can see that David was relaxed, he didn’t use these words
facetiously, he used them when they had to be used, and so he said may God damn
me if I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord’s anointed. Notice how he follows up “my master,” my
superior, he’s not emphasizing Saul’s personality, he’s emphasizing Saul’s
office, and he’s saying he’s my master, in effect, because he is the Lord’s
anointed, that’s why he is my master.
He’s not my master because he comes from the family of Kish, because I’m
impressed with how great…
[unintelligible portion] we have
interferences occasionally, this morning it was the blower, now we had that,
so…, that was probably the censor…. “The
LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the LORD’s anointed, to
stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD,” so
twice, do you see the emphasis, twice he’s saying this. The mashach,
the mashach, you can’t read this
without seeing David’s point. It has
nothing to do with Saul’s personality, it has everything to do with Saul’s
office. And so finally in verse 7 it
reports what happened to his men, “David stayed [permitted] his servants,” but
that’s not what it says in the Hebrew.
In the Hebrew it’s a strange verb and it’s very difficult to translate
in this kind of a context. This word is
always used, everywhere else, to violently tear; it’s used for Samson when he
picks up the lion and he violently rips it apart, and the problem the
translators have is how does that kind of a verb fit the situation of verse
7. How can you get “violently tear” and
fit it into that verse, so they tried… obviously from the context what it means
he did stay his servants, he kept them from raising their hand against
Saul. In other words, he had 600 men
back here, and these 600 men said all right David, if you’re not going to do
it, we’re going to do it. In other
words, David was faced with mutiny at this point.
And what David is saying, he turns around to his men, and that’s when he
utters this “may God damn my soul” if I do this thing, and it’s with those
words he turns to his men and says don’t you mutiny against me, I’m an
authority here and we are not doing. And
so it’s a word, the strongest word, he tore his men. What does it mean. It simply means at this point he gave them a
chewing out that you can’t believe, and it was hard for David to do this
personally because he couldn’t stand Saul like his men couldn’t stand
Saul. On a strictly human level it was
very difficult for David, as the superior officer, to do this; very difficult. But he had to do it if he was to be loyal to
God’s Word. So this shows you the
tremendous leader David was once again.
Do you see, when the chips are down, David can control himself and he
can control those under him. And so
“David did not permit them not to rise against Saul. But Saul rose up out of
the cave, and went on his way.”
Verse 8, “David also arose afterward, and went out of the cave, and
cried after Saul, saying, My lord the king.”
In the Hebrew it sounds like adonai
ha melech, he calls this out from the mouth of the cave, and Saul turns
around and sees this, it would be tremendously dramatic to make this into a
dramatic film so you could see the emotions involved. “And when Saul looked behind him, David
stooped with his face to the earth, and bowed himself.” That is how they saluted the king, it’s not
that he’s worshiping the office even, he is saluting, and that is the way an
ancient oriental king would be saluted.
So again, what does David show?
He shows respect for the office, he can’t stand the man, but he respects
the office.
And so [9] “David said to Saul,” and now he begins to complain to Saul;
he begins to convict Saul of his sin at this point, and here is a legitimate
confrontation between one believer and another believer; please notice it
occurs outside of the mouth of the cave, 600 men are not in on this
conversation, this is a one on one type situation, involving one believer
confronting another one; it is not done in public, it is done in private, and
that’s where this kind of confrontation always should be done. This is what James means, “confessing your
faults one to another,” does not mean to have somebody get up and say how many
sins they have committed in front of a group.
It does not mean to get in some sensitivity session where you let it all
hang out. That is not given in
Scripture, in fact, it violates your privacy.
So at this point [blank spot, “…Wherefore hearest thou men’s words,
saying, Behold, David seeketh thy hurt?]
…carnality, they have revolted against their conscience, their mind has
revolted against their conscience and their emotions have revolted against
their minds, turmoil of the soul, chaos of the soul, and so therefore this kind
of a person doesn’t want the advice of the conscience, so they surround
themselves with “yes” people, advisors, see, they get their advisors to confirm
what they want to do, sort of like Satan works in believer’s lives, contrary to
the bumper sticker, “The devil made me do it.”
No, we ought to have another bumper sticker, and it should read: “The
devil helped me do what I wanted to do anyway,” that’s the proper way. And so the advisors, they helped Saul do what
he wanted to do. See, David see the issue and immediately he says Saul, you are
being misled, these men are telling you a lie, what are the evidences that you
have that I’m against you.
Verse 10, “Behold, this day thine eyes have seen how that the LORD had
delivered thee to day into mine hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee,”
now when David in verse 10 says “some bade me to kill you” what he’s doing here
is he’s saying now look Saul, I have advisors also, but when it comes to
listening to my advisors, or listening to my conscience before the Lord, I go
with my conscience; some advisors bade me to kill you just now, just a couple
minutes ago when you were back in that cave, I didn’t listen to my advisors,
why do you have to listen to yours all the time, why can’t we be leaders and
listen to the Lord’s Word instead of listening to a bunch of human viewpoint
advisors, “but mine eye spared thee; and I said, I will not put forth mine hand
against my lord; for he is the LORD’s anointed.”
Verse 11, “Moreover, my father,” notice how he addresses Saul as “my
father,” this is another one of those little insights that we have to kind of
stop and take a footnote on. The word “ab,” from Abraham, is the Hebrew word
for “daddy” or “father.” It was used
first for the literal father, but then it came to be used for a teacher, so for
example, some of the rabbis would be called “teacher,” this is why Christ
cautioned His disciples, don’t accept the Pharisaic authority, don’t you ever
cal them your father, they’re not your father.
But the teachers were called in the Hebrew culture, “daddy” or “father,”
and the king would be called by those in his court, “father,” or “daddy.” Why was that title carried over from the
third divine institution into the fourth divine institution; why is it carried
over into various social institutions?
It was carried over because in the third divine institution is where the
concept of authority is learned according to the Word of God, therefore all
other forms of authority including the fourth divine institution, actually
socially, are dependent upon the authority of the family.
This is why, when the family breaks apart, and children do not learn to
respect authority in the home you will always have a lawless society;
government cannot teach respect for government, only the family can. And so the children just simply go with the
way the parents have taught them. Now
the Jews were smart, they recognized that “ab”
is the source of authority in the home.
But in our society look at the number of TV programs that malign the
father, make him out to be the boob, the idiot, the clown or something, always
attacking the “ab”, always attach the
very source of authority. So no wonder
in our society that men don’t know what being a man means; they go from one
extreme to being an absolute dictator to the other extreme of being some sort
of a fairy. The American male has lost
his image.
Back to the robe, “Moreover, my father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy
robe in my hand: for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe and killed thee
not, know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine
hand,” in other words David is saying I have revealed my character to you Saul,
by my works toward you, and that is the only way you can ever read someone’s
character. You can’t read somebody’s
character until you’ve been around them to listen to their words and see their
works. That’s why you can’t fall in love
with somebody overnight. You have to be
around them in order to know them by their words and by their works. [“…and I have not sinned against thee; yet thou
hunted my soul to take it.”]
So in verse 12 he goes on, and this should certainly warn you that David
is not liking Saul personally, “The LORD judge between me and thee, and the
LORD avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee.” This proves that David is being realistic and
not sentimental. He’s saying the Lord is
going to avenge, or may He avenge, “but my hand isn’t going to be upon
you.” Verse 12, I think, the way we’ve
gone through the imprecatory Psalms, is the key to understanding this problem
that you’re going to encounter some time or other in your life, because some
day you’re going to be in a conversation, it may be in your home, it may be in
business, it may be on the street, it may be in the classroom, but someday,
somewhere, someone is going to pull this one on you: well, the God of the Old
Testament was a God of wrath because look at all those prayers where they
prayed God damn the enemy, and so therefore God is a bad God. This verse will show you what was going on in
their minds. Notice, “the LORD judge
between me and you,” in other words, the imprecatory request had God’s
character in mind, not personal vengeance in mind. The point was, God is going to judge by His
righteousness and His justice, that’s the issue in the imprecatory request. It is that God vindicate His character in
history. “May God judge between us,”
David at this point is surrendering himself not to David’s standard of justice,
but to Yahweh’s standard of justice, and he’s appealing to it. I appeal to His sense of justice, both of us
look to Him, and may He destroy you, for I’m not, it’s not a case, David’s
saying, of my personal vengeance toward you Saul, it’s a case that you violated
God’s righteousness, and you stand judged for it.
Verse 13, “As saith the proverb of the ancients, Wickedness proceeds
from the wicked: but mine hand shall not be upon thee.” David quotes a proverb; that’s interesting
because Saul is going to quote one back to him, it shows you how they used
proverbs in daily conversation in the ancient world.
And then he uses sarcasm in verse 14, “After whom is the king of Israel
come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea.” Why, because David had only 600 men, Saul had
the whole national army. He had tens of
thousands of men, so how could he argue realistically, say 50,000 men, he had
3,000 here but a basic army at that time was probably 50,000, he had 50,000 men
against 600, what’s he worried about?
Verse 15, “The LORD therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee,
and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand.” Notice, opposite to what you read in verse 4,
may the Lord deliver your enemy into your hand, David says no, I don’t want any
part of it, you let the Lord take care of it.
Remember David’s big lesson in this chapter, how to deal with
treachery. You deal with treachery by
leaving it in the Lord’s hand, He has a big stick, just stay out of the way
when it falls.
Verse 16, “And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking
these words unto Saul, that Saul said,” and here’s the final lesson of chapter
24, something that you all ought to be aware of; this is going to teach you
something about certain believers that inevitably you’re going to run across,
and if you don’t learn this, you’re going to get hurt because you’re going to
allow yourself to be hurt, by believers like Saul. Now let’s watch something. “And it came to pass,” that Saul heard all
these things, and so he said, “Is this thy voice, my son David?” So he recognizes David’s position, it’s his
son-in-law actually, and he’s also under him in the court. “And Saul lifted up his voice, and
wept.” Now this is not just phony tears
in verse 16, these are not just phony tears, but here’s a symptom of a person who’s
in compound carnality; it’s a very hard thing to describe unless you’ve seen
it, but if you’ve been around in Christian circles I’m sure you’ve seen
this. Here a person in compound
carnality for a rare moment, actually in his mind perceives the truth. He perceives the truth, he responds
emotionally to it. His mind sees the truth,
he responds emotionally to it, and anybody would say oh, Saul repented here,
Saul changed his whole attitude. Not on
your life!
Verse 17, “And he said to David, Thou art more righteous than I: for
thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil. [18] And thou
hast shewed this day how that thou hast dealt well with me: forasmuch as when
the LORD had delivered me into thine hand, thou killed me not.” And then he quotes a proverb back to David,
“For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away?” and it’s the kind
of a question in the Hebrew that expects, “no he won,” if a man finds his enemy
he’s going to clobber him. And Saul says
I recognize your grace David, “wherefore the LORD reward thee good for that
thou hast done unto me this day. [20]And now, behold, I know well that thou
shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in
thine hand. [21] Swear now therefore unto me by the LORD, that thou wilt not
cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my
father’s house.”
Seven points to understand this problem of false repentance. Notice doesn’t verse 20, doesn’t Saul know
all along that David’s going to be king; now it comes right from his
mouth. Remember I started the evening
off by showing you how Jonathan had reassured David, yes David, you will be
king, David, God sovereignly told you through Samuel that you’re going to be
king, it’s a sovereign decree that can’t be changed. Nothing can stop it, and Jonathan gave you
confirmatory evidence, historical evidence to support that. And now look at the kind of evidence, and lo
and behold, it turns out Saul’s known this all along. Jonathan said his father really knew this,
and from this we now can see something about how a compound carnal believer
operates. People who are in compound
carnality, at the base of their heart do know the truth.
They do know the truth, that’s their problem. The compound carnal person who is so chaotic,
who appears not to have any orientation in life, who can’t decide this and
can’t decide that, who just can’t see anything, you would think if you just saw
them without the help of the Word of God, man, these people are confused, these
people don’t know the truth. Huh-un, the
Word of God days oh yes they do know the truth, and that’s the problem, they do
know the truth, and so the truth is deep in Saul’s soul. This truth has eaten at Saul all the way from
the time he first heard those words, singing that Saul, Saul has killed his
thousands, David has killed his ten thousands.
It was then that the spirit of jealousy came upon him; he knew that was
God’s will and he rejected it. Saul is on negative volition; he has –R learned
behavior patterns that have built up that form his compound carnality and part
of those learned behavior patterns is that though he can recognize something as
true, now he has almost lost his ability to do anything about it. His volition, as it were, is jammed on the
negative side; he can’t get it out, because look at all this passage so far,
just read from verse 16 on through.
In verse 16 he’s weeping because he realizes what he’s done to
David. In verse 18 he clearly shows that
he knows what he has done to David, he knows he’s wrong. In verse 20 he knows God’s plan for his life
and for David’s life. And in verse 21
he’s even concerned, because he’s so convinced it’s going to come to pass, he
is concerned about the outcome of his own family name. Saul knows the truth. Well, then what’s the trouble? Saul has an emotional reaction to the truth,
even though he knows it. He responds to
it, but notice the last verse of the chapter:
Verse 22, “And David swore unto Saul. And Saul went home; but David and
his men gat them up unto the hold.” Why
do you suppose David didn’t buy it?
Because David could see right through him, this is a person in compound
carnality, they will emote, they will feel sorry they will go through the
emotions but there will be no, what the Bible calls, genuinely if you
understand what the word means, “repentance.”
There is no change of heart. You
can have all of the emotional hysterics, you can have the vow, you can have the
rededications, as Bob Thieme said in teaching this passage, at this point if he
was in a fundamentalist church he would have come forward for
rededication. And everybody would say
oh, Saul, he rededicated his life last night, man!!! And David recognized, no, that’s a lot of
phony stuff. So he wasn’t going to trust
Saul, Saul had not changed his attitude one bit.
Now this is the sign of a believer in deep, deep trouble. And every once in a while you’re going to see
it, there’s not one Christian group that you’re ever going to be in that you
don’t see a couple of believers like this.
They will be convicted of sin, they will know they’re wrong, they’ll
weep tears over it, and I don’t mean try to put on a show to you, by themselves
they’ll weep these tears, they’ll feel sorry for themselves, and so on, but
deep down in their heart it’s like a piece of stone, no change. And as we’ll see later, there’s no change in
Saul. In a couple of chapters he’s going
to be trying to kill David again; no change, no repentance, even though the man
does know the truth, he perceives it, he responds to it emotionally, but he
doesn’t change his mind. It’s like Esau,
he sought repentance with tears but it never came. It’s as though his whole heart is frozen on
the negative side, frozen in rebellion.
With our heads bowed….
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