1 Samuel Lesson 44
Another Deliverance from Treachery – 1 Samuel
26
Continuing our study of David and to see where we are in his life we
ought to look at some of the sequence of ideas in these chapters. From 1 Samuel 16 to 1 Samuel 1 you have the overall
theme of Saul decreases, David increases.
You have a transition from one monarchy to another which in Ancient Near
Eastern history is generally accompanied by assassination, murder, and all
sorts of political intrigue. Chapters
21-27 deals with a period of persecution in David’s life. During these chapters most of the Psalms were
written. The Psalms that you feel
empathy with, you can join in them, you can use them because David’s situation
in real history is similar to our situation.
David at this point was not king; he had to wait until God, under His
sovereign plan, gave him the throne.
Until such time Saul was in charge, and this is a type of the believer
living in Satan’s world. And you have
Saul as a compound carnal Christian, demon afflicted, and you find him
persecuting David during this phase. It
actually is a satanic persecution of David.
Now the chapters run in sort of a strange sequence. Chapters 21-22 deal with a sin that David
did, the sin of hastiness; remember he got in trouble at Nob and wound up
getting the entire city massacred. So
you find David humbled by the sin of hastiness.
David is learning during this persecution phase in his life. And this was an error that David made, a sin
and God delivered him out of it. The
second section, chapters 23-24 is David’s deliverance from treachery. This wasn’t a mistake of David’s, this was
simply an overpowering circumstance that he faced. Chapters 21-22 is a mistake, or a sin, and
chapters 23-24 deal with an overpowering situation; both are obstacles and God
delivers David from them. Then in
chapter 25 he’s humbled by a woman, because he’s out of it and it took one of
the most wonderful women in all of God’s Word to straighten him out. And she did so without once losing her femininity. Then in chapter 26 we have the situation, we
go to another kind of thing, it’s not David’s mistake, this is just an
overpowering circumstance, a pressure in his life as a believer. Then finally 27 he makes another
mistake.
And the theme alternating back and forth between mistake or sin and
circumstance, sin and pressure, sin and distress is just simply the old
familiar refrain of phase two, the familiar every day life of the
believer. And David is learning all the
while that he is going to gain his throne in the most unique way in history
that any king has ever gained his throne.
No king in the ancient world gains his throne quite like David gained
his. You can read the annuls of
Sennacherib, you can read ancient history and you’ll always see how they
attained it, either through gimmicks, pressure of some political device. But David gained his throne strictly by
grace; grace all the way. David did not
earn it, David did not deserve it. David
made many mistakes on the way to the throne. David sinned on the way to the throne and God
got him there anyway because this is sin that God is teaching him with and also
with the overpowering. David encounters
both sin and pressure, just as we encounter sin and pressure, and our errors
and rebellions against God are graciously dealt with on our way to being
conformed to the image of Christ, and also the pressures that we face, the
obstacles that we face are overpowered in a similar way.
If you see these chapters correctly, you should be able to read the
Psalms correctly. The Psalms fit in
between these two chapters, 21-27, they’re bracketed by those, most of the
Psalms. And so why these Psalms appear
so helpful to you, why you gain so much by reviewing, why you should be
memorizing the Psalms. So you have this
kind of situation where the Scriptures are being memorized within a historic
context. This is what you want to aim
for in your Christian life. No matter
how much doctrine you know, no matter how many doctrinal categories you know,
it’s most interesting to realize that it’s the memory of the Word of God, the
text of the Word of God that you can use to fall back on in times of
crises.
Verse 1 of chapter 26, the incident with treachery again. “And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah,
saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before
Jeshimon?” Now the Ziphites are a group
of troublemakers; the Ziphites are a group of Judeans, they were members of
“And the Ziphites came unto Saul,” and they reminded him, this is the
third time these characters came up, and they say, “Does not David hide
himself,” except in the original language it’s a Hebrew participle and it means
that David is now hiding himself. It’s a
participle which conveys vividness, in other words, look Saul, while you’re
sitting around here, guess what David’s doing.
He’s hiding himself down in the south.
The Ziphites come back to report to Saul, who’s up here, and they say
now look Saul, how about coming down and eliminating this character.
So verse 2, like a good compound carnal believer he does. “Then Saul arose, and went down to the
wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of
So the second point, besides watching how a compound carnal
believer responds to advice is to
discuss the problem of the doublet. We
have to pause here because some of you are going to take religions course, some
will be reading in some API or UPI religious dispatch in the paper someday and
you’re going to see this, so hang on and fins out what it’s all about. The liberal critics of Scripture will take a
passage, like what we are studying, chapter 26 and they’ll say look, compare 26
with 24 and it’s basically the same story all over again, and what they, the
liberal, means by a doublet is the fact that you have one event that has been
reported contradictory through two different traditions; so you have the first
version and you have the second version.
And this issues in Scripture as a doublet; in other words, you’ll find
two passages of Scripture that are similar, but they’ll say this is due to one
event reported erroneously through two different lined of tradition. And this will be held a doublet. The most famous doublet of all is Genesis 1
and 2, the two supposedly different counts of creation. You can’t take a religions course or listen
to any kind of a liberal clergyman today without hearing this, that there are
two contradictory accounts of creation.
Now that’s not true, they say it’s one event reported through two
different traditions.
Why does the liberal do this. The
liberal operates on human viewpoint; human viewpoint starts out with negative
volition and this negative volition manifests hostility toward both general and
special revelation. And the thing the
liberal cannot stand is to be reminded of the God of the Bible’s
existence. They will take about a God,
but not the God of the Scriptures; all sorts of gods will be allowed to exist,
except the God of the Scripture. That is
the one God they are sure can’t exist, and He is therefore excluded from the
discussion at the very beginning. And
the thing that reminds them of the God of the Bible is the fact that history
has parallel types and connections in it; in other words, every event of
history is not something separated from itself, but history has a story to it;
history has a flow to it, history has continuity; prophecy is made, prophecy is
fulfilled. In other words, history
reveals the sovereignty God, and the God of the Bible demands absolute
sovereignty.
And so when the critic faces two different events in history that look the
same, they can’t be two different events, they’ve got to just be one, you can’t
have history with that kind of a similarity to it, with that kind of a pattern
to it; you’ve got to get rid of the parallels, you’ve got to get rid of all
these things and make history just one sequence of chance events, because if
you don’t, then history is going to bear testimony to the sovereignty of the
God of the Bible, who the liberals claimed at the beginning can’t exist. And since this God of the Bible can’t exist
His sovereignty can’t exist, and therefore, since His sovereignty can’t exist,
we’ll eliminate all the evidence for His sovereignty, so we’ll be sure it can’t
be there. And this is what leads them
when they come across these two kinds of situations to hypothesize the doublet
explanation, in order to smooth out these things, that there’s no pattern, no
rhyme, no reason to history, when we do see reason in history we’ve got to
explain it away, and we explain it away by these doublets. That’s one of the many things in the bag of
tricks, but the doublet explanation has been used and used again.
Verse 3, Saul does a very stupid thing militarily. “And Saul encamped in
the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon, by the way. But David abode in the wilderness, and he saw
that Saul came after him into the wilderness.”
Now this shows you a most interesting about a compound carnal believer,
in compound carnality we start out with a conscience; the mind rebels against
the conscience so the mind rejects the norms and standards of the conscience
and you have a mental revolt that begins in the person. And of course as this begins you get the
influx of human viewpoint. But that
doesn’t stop, that is not the end of the process. The next thing that happens is you begin to
have an emotional revolt, where the emotions rebel against the mind, and so the
emotions are no longer in control, they no longer appreciate things that you
can think of, they want to sort of go off on their own.
Now when we come to a passage like this we’re going to watch how God
takes this whole mess, this is what Saul’s soul looks like, he’s in compound
carnality, his emotions are rebelling against his mind, his mind is rebelling
against his conscience. Now in this
state of affairs, this places a believer in a most interesting and most
vulnerable position. Since Saul is in
this situation he is now open to a certain kind of deception and now God,
apparently through demonic agency, is going to deceive Saul into making a
militarily disastrous decision. Let’s
see what happens.
Verse 4, “David, therefore, sent out spies, and understood that Saul was
come in very deed. [5] And David arose,
and came to the place where Saul had pitched [encamped]. And David beheld the place where Saul lay,
and Abner, the son of Ner, the captain of his host; and Saul lay in the trench,
and the people encamped around him.” Now
verse 5 indicates a very stupid thing has happened. There are no guards at the camp, absolutely
no guards. He has moved three thousand
men into enemy territory, and he doesn’t know where David is, David could be
anywhere, David has a reputation for being one of the trickiest military
leaders of his day, and faced with this kind of a situation what do we
have? No guard, brilliant move,
absolutely brilliant. So everybody is
sacked out, and David’s spies report back, this thing is a pushover David, just
walk right in there, everybody is sound asleep.
So David considers this is the time to pay his respects and verse 6,
“Then answered David and said to Ahimelech, the Hittite, and to Abishai, the
son of Zeruiah, brother to Joab,” by the way, notice in verse 6 the thing that
is preparing you for the future and life of David, Joab is introduced
here. This is part of that Adullam cave
group. Remember David began his army
with four hundred men in answer to Psalm 142.
And these four hundred men are going to become a tremendous group of
warriors; at least ten become generals by the end of their lives, but these men
have now become six hundred men, and out of this you have men like Joab, men
like this man who is his brother and so on, great military men that are going
to play a great role in the history of their nation, but here’s an introduction
to another great man, the brother of Joab; Joab at one time will become the
commander in chief of David’s armies. So
he says, “saying, Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp? And Abishai said, I will go with you.”
Verse 7, “So David and Abishai came to the people by night; and, behold,
Saul lay sleeping within the trench,” this is another vivid participle, it
indicates that this is going on in front of their eyes and it shows emphasis by
the Holy Spirit as he wrote the text that this point has to be observed,
there’s something abnormal in the way this military camp looks, and the Holy
Spirit is pointing this out the second time now. There’s something abnormal with this
thing. “Saul lay sleeping in the trench,
and his spear stuck to the ground at his head; but Abner and the people lay
round about him.”
Verse 8, “Then said Abishai to David, God has delivered thine enemy into
thine hand this day,” now it seems like we’ve heard that one before, in 24:4-5,
here you have once again the picture of the opposite of David, let’s get these
two men clearly in mind, Saul and David.
Saul was the self-righteous clod who would have been accepted in
practically any church you would name.
He had wealth, he had dignity, education, he had every qualification, in
face he was even moral. So Saul had
everything that would have pleased the average church crowd. David would not
have pleased the average church crowd, he had a heart for God, and furthermore
besides that David was not moral, David did things that the average church
crowd would turn their nose up and David would probably not be okayed for
membership but Saul would get in any time.
And that’s what wrong with most of our churches, we are loaded with
Saul’s and all the David’s are on the outside.
But David, in this situation is faced with advice. Saul was faced with advice, and look at the
difference. This advice came to David in
chapter 24 when all of his men let’s kill Saul now, this was the cave incident,
and just for those of you who have challenged me on this, this is not sleeping,
somebody went out and said the Hebrew says he was sleeping. Anybody that knows Hebrew knows what this is
all about and any good, decent modern translation will tell you what chapter 24
is about, and I’ll be glad to meet whoever your authority is at any point, any
place and we’ll present our evidences.
You know what Saul is doing and I don’t have to go through all of the
gory details. This is just another event
in the life of Saul that shows you God’s sense of humor. The trouble with some of you is you don’t
think God has a sense of humor, you can’t stand to laugh. God is a relaxed God at times and He has a
sense of humor, and all the times, from the hemorrhoid incident of chapter 4 on
up through the cave incident of chapter 24, God has a sense of humor, and that
is what 1 Samuel is all about. So you
just missed the point of the book.
So David has advice, and David’s advice comes out of human
viewpoint. Saul’s advice comes out of
human viewpoint, and which one is the sucker?
Saul is the sucker; he takes it, and David has the coolness to in the
pressure situation when emotionally it must have been awfully tempting… why has
the Holy Spirit pointed this whole thing out to us, why has the Holy Spirit
gone to all these points of saying see, there’s no opposition, Saul is laying
there, a perfect opportunity, just perfect opportunity to do something, just
absolutely perfect. And why is that
built up to suspense? To make this
temptation, that we now see, strong.
Verse 8 has to be set in the context.
Think of all the pressure, all the guff that David has put up with, all
of this thing that has been going on for months and months and months, and here
in verse 8 he has the opportunity to do something. He is just inches from doing something about
it, and that’s why in verse 8 Abishai says to him, “God has delivered thine
enemy into thine hand this day,” in other words, David, let’s be divinely
guided by circumstances. God has given
us an open door, so let’s walk through it.
Now if you are the type of believer that is guided by circumstances
alone you’re going to walk through a door someday and there’s going to be no
floor on the other side, oops, what a surprise. That’s because you used
circumstances alone. Satan can open all
sorts of doors, he’s been doing it since Eve.
So therefore don’t consider circumstances apart from the Word of God,
and David doesn’t and he doesn’t buy this.
But the line that begins in verse 8 is a pitch to go on the basis of
circumstances ,circumstances prevail over everything. “…now, therefore, let me smite him, I pray
thee, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the
second time.” Do you know what that’s
talking about, I’m going to get him on the first time, you don’t have to worry
David, I’ll do it, you don’t even have to do it with your hands. Now why did Abishai say that? Because the word’s gotten around, he had him
in the cave and he didn’t do anything about it.
So the men, apparently through this phrase interpreted that David just
has a little block here, there’s something about Saul that just blocks… they
still don’t see the big picture, so every time David gets in a situation like
this he muffs it, and so this is why Abishai says David, you don’t have to do
anything, I’ll do it and you won’t have to do it a second time, I won’t have to
do it a second time, I’ll squish him right here with one good one.
So verse 9, David cuts off this human viewpoint advice, “David said to
Abishai, Destroy him not; for who can stretch forth his hand against the LORD’s
mashach [anointed],” messiah, now
here’s the greatness of this guy David.
Faced with the pressure, it would be so easy to buy this human viewpoint
advice, beautiful open door, your best friend giving you the advice, see, isn’t
the second principle of divine institution, listen to what the other believers
say. All right he is, but he’s not
listening to what the Lord says and David does, and David considers the office
of the messiah and he is not going to desecrate that office, he cannot stand the
incumbent of the office, but he has respect for the authority of the office.
Now that is a lesson that comes the hard way. Those of you who have not
had military experience, I don’t know where you’ll learn that kind of a lesson
but you can learn it in business or in the family is actually where you should
have learned it in the first place. You
may not like what your father and your mother do; you may not like the things
they tell you to do but as long as you are in their house you respect their
authority, period. And if you’re so hot
that you can’t stand what your parents tell you, get out; make it in your
own. That’s the way the Word of God
handles the family problem. But while
you are in the home you are under the authority of the father, delegated often
through the wife, but generally the father is the authoritarian. And this is the office, father is not a
personal name, mother is not a personal name, those are labels for offices. And so when your father tells you to do
something, he has his own personal name but that’s not the issue, he talks to
you as your father, and that’s the office.
That’s the same thing in the church with the word elder, with the word
deacon, these are names of offices, and you may not like who’s in the office
but you’d better respect the office or you’re going to be in trouble.
Same here, David respects the office, and that’s why he elevates this
thing. Saul is a creep if there every was one; if there ever was a believer
that ought to have been murdered it is Saul, but because of his office, David
will not. In fact, the Hebrew is very
strong here, it says “for who has stretched forth his hand against the Lord’s
anointed, and is now guiltless?” It’s a
very vivid portrayal; if I had done this could I be guiltless at this point?
Verse 10, “David said furthermore, As the LORD lives,” now this is how
David reconciled the problem and verse 10 tells you how David settled this in
his mind. Now obviously if you’re a
believer and you’re in a pressure situation… you’re in the top circle, that is
your relationship, the bottom circle is your temporal relationship at any given
moment, either in fellowship or out of fellowship. You may face a pressure that keeps putting
you out of fellowship, and you’ve got to come up with some way of handling that
pressure situation. And the Word of God
gives you all the answers, you’ve just got to be persistent enough before the
Lord to find them. All right, how did
David stay in fellowship under this kind of pressure. Verse 10 tells you what
he thought, how he thought it up.
First, before you get to verse 10, understand the promise of 1 Samuel to
David, given by Samuel to David that the throne will go to David. Now that is a sovereign promise, that’s
equivalent to your top circle. That is a
sovereign promise, the throne will go to David.
But David has to be occupied with that promise on a moment by moment
basis. Now he faces a threat. All during this persecution phase what has it
been? It has been a trial to build his
faith, it’s God’s grace working in his life to build trust in that
promise. And David, therefore, in verse
10, has three possibilities in his mind.
He says now look, actually there are four possibilities; I can kill
Saul, that’ll solve the problem, but that’s not the Lord’s way, that desecrates
the office and it also is salvation by works.
So David says there are only three possibilities left, first, “the LORD
shall smite him,” this refers to a supernaturally executed death, that’s one
possibility, Ananias and Sapphira of Acts 5, that would be an illustration of
the Lord smiting somebody, “or his day shall come to die;” the second
possibility is natural death, that is not a supernatural death, that is a
natural death, or three, “or he shall descend into battle, and perish,” that is
what we would call an accidental death.
So whether it’s a supernatural death, a natural death, or an accidental
death, the point is that God will take care of it.
Verse 11, “The LORD forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against
the LORD’s anointed; but, I pray thee, take thou now the spear that is at his
head, and the cruse of water, and let us go,” let’s take his spear and his
cruse of water. Verse 12, “So David took
the spear and the cruse of water from Saul’s bolster [head]; and they got away,
and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither awakened,” and here you have an
explanation of why, at the bottom of verse 10, “for they were all asleep,
because a deep sleep from the LORD was fallen upon them.” That word “deep sleep” is a special word and
it means that God has so moved in this camp that He just put everybody out, it
was divine anesthesia, a beautiful situation.
God has a tremendous anesthesia; God used it with Adam when he operated
on him; Adam was operated on under anesthesia, that’s how the woman came
about. Adam was given anesthesia and
during history God at times gives anesthesia.
One of the most famous times that God gave anesthesia was in prison,
with Peter. He put everybody sound
asleep and the angel walked in and got Peter out. So whatever this little deal that God has,
every once in a while He uses it and it just snows everybody; everybody is out
completely, and you could walk around and play a trumpet and everybody would be
sound asleep, no problem. God puts this
deep sleep, it would be intriguing to find out how He does it.
Verse 13, “Then David went over to the other side, and stood on the top
of an hill afar off, a great space being between them,” and now he’s going to
exercise a little humor and sarcasm, this is just too good for David, here you
see David’s sense of humor. There’s a
long ravine separating these two, and he’s been over here in Saul’s camp, now
he’s going to have some fun, David just can’t resist this one. So he’s going to get over to the other hill and
he’s going to have some fun, first with Abner.
So in verse 14 he shouts to Abner.
“And David cried to the people, and to Abner, the son of Ner, saying,
Answer thou not, Abner?” He says “Why
don’t you answer,” that’s the first kind of sarcasm, what’s the matter boy,
asleep. And this is a double rebuke,
because of all people here is the commander in chief… the commander in chief of
the whole army of Saul, sacked out with no guards. This is the most embarrassing situation
militarily speaking. In a normal army
this kind of thing would get you anything from Article XV out to a court
martial for doing something like this; this calls for tremendous and strict
discipline of ever allowing anything like this to occur. So he says, “How come you’re not answering
Abner? Then Abner answered and said, Who
are you who cries to the king?” Abner’s
concerned that he’s annoying the king’s sleep.
That’s the whole thrust of that verse.
Verse 15, “And David said to Abner, Are you not a man?” This is just pure sarcasm that David is
saying. “And who is like to thee in
Israel?” David is just having a ball
with this. Well, well, well, here’s
General Abner, there’s nobody like you, look at that Abner, a big brave general
sacked out. “Wherefore, then, have you
not kept thy lord the king? For there
came one of the people in to destroy the king, thy lord. [16] This thing is not
good that you have done.” It is just
loaded, from beginning to end with sarcasm, and this is simply David having a
good time ridiculing. And to those of
you who don’t believe the Holy Spirit can use sarcasm, take your pencil and
scratch out the verse so it won’t bother you.
“As the LORD lives, you are worthy to die,” now if you have a King James
here’s where the old translation is better than the new. In the Old King James you have “thou” and
“thee” and you’ll notice half way through this verse it turns to “ye.” Now the King James English distinguished
between the second singular and the second plural. Modern American English doesn’t, so your new
translations do not pick this shift up.
But the next sentence is not addressed to Abner. “As the LORD lives, ye are worthy to die,” is
addressed to the whole group of three thousand men. See, he’s ridiculed the
commander, and now he’s talking down on the soldiers. This is just psychology; he’s bummed out the
commander and now he’s talking as though he’s the commander, as though he’s
taking over the command of these three thousand men, and so he says if you were
in my army I’d kill you all. If you’re
going to treat me like you’re treating Saul, you wouldn’t last five minutes in
my outfit, “because you have not kept your master, the Lord’s anointed. And now see where the king’s spear is, and
the cruse of water that was at his head.”
You can just see him holding them up on the hill, put your glasses on
and look men, here it is.
Verse 17, “And Saul knew David’s voice, and said,” and here we have good
Saul with his usual refrain, “Is this thy voice, my son, David?” Here we go again. “And David said, It is my voice, my lord, O
king. [18] And he said, Why does my lord thus pursue after his servant? For
what have I done? Or what evil is in
mine hand?” See, this is where the liberals say this is just the same incident;
it’s not the same incident at all, this probably happened 14 or 15 times. The point is that David every time presses
home the issue of verse 18, that is something we have seen at least a dozen
times in the last ten chapters, “Why do you pursue after me when I haven’t done
anything?” See, it goes back to the
categories of suffering.
There are six reasons in the Bible for suffering, three are deserved and
three are undeserved, and David’s big pressing problem here is undeserved
suffering. The idea is that look, here I
deserve the suffering, here I’ve screwed up, here is something I’ve done and
I’ve brought this thing down upon my own head as an individual, but this kind
of suffering is senseless, I haven’t done anything to Saul, what have I done to
Saul, nothing. And so David is learning this problem of undeserved suffering,
the three reasons given for suffering: one, we suffer because we’re in Satan’s
world, that’s one reason for undeserved suffering. For example, thousands and thousands of
believers lost their lives in the coliseums of the 1st, 2nd
and 3rd centuries of the Roman Empire, they were the great martyrs
of the early church, just absolutely fantastic the number of Christians that
were slaughtered brutally, the numbers of Christians that Nero used to hang up
in his parties and coat with pitch and light them, and that was how Nero had
his parties, he had a big orgy and the light would be burning Christians. That was one reason, Satan’s pressure upon
the church; he hates you if you are firmly identified with Jesus Christ and you
are stupid if you don’t appreciate the animosity that Satan has for those
identified solidly with Christ in history.
Another reason for undeserved suffering is to learn truth; and the third
one is to be a testimony. These are
three reasons for undeserved suffering; these are results and causes for
suffering, etc. David is learning these
in his life, but the point of verse 18 is he’s trying to impress Saul that all
the stuff Saul is dishing out to him is undeserved.
Verse 19, “Now, therefore, I pray thee, let my lord, the king, hear the
words of his servant.” Over and over
again David is saying look, will you just listen to what I’m saying. “If the LORD have stirred thee up against me,
let him accept an offering; but if they be the children of men, cursed be they
before the LORD,” now David allows for two possible causes. And you say wait a minute, I thought God was
sovereign. Isn’t God the Lord of all
causes? Yes He is, in His
sovereignty. But watch, under
sovereignty God can have what we call a direct administration and He can have
an indirect administration. When God indirectly administers things to us, He
can use Satan to do it, and with indirect administration of sovereignty,
responsibility exists on the agency, not on the sovereign God, responsibility
is cut off. Under the direct concept of
administration God is responsible; under indirect Satan or men are
responsible. And that’s how God’s
sovereignty is protected, He is still sovereign but the responsibility is
Satan’s or men, as they apply. So this
is what David is saying. The first kind,
“if the LORD has stirred thee up,” that would be a direct administration of
God’s sovereignty, in which case it’s a direct will of God, and David says now
I am wrong, I really am, there’s something wrong here and I want to clear it
up. “…but if they be the children of beni Adam,” “if they be the children of
men, then cursed are they before the LORD,” and this would be secondary tools
and devices, the indirect use of sovereignty in history.
Before we get to the next phase I want you to notice something, David is
again attacking Saul’s advisors, “the children of men” mentioned in verse 19
are the same people you read about in the Psalms all the time, “O Lord, shut
their mouths,” “O Lord, the tongue of men has risen up against me,” “in their
mouth are sharp two-edged swords,” these kind of things. Those phrase you see in the Psalms are these
people in history, that’s the group spoken of.
Now the last part of verse 19, “…for they have driven me out” and this
is one of the most interesting verses of all of the Old Testament as far as the
concept of God’s kingdom is concerned.
This really is a startling verse, “they have driven me out this day from
staying [abiding] in the inheritance of the LORD, saying, Go, serve other
gods.” Now the word “inheritance” there
refers to the geographical boundaries of the land. So let’s first get the idea
of the land. The land has a certain
geographical boundary in it. David says
if these people keep up they’re going to force me to leave the boundaries of
the land, which is going to happen in the next chapter incidentally. And when I go out of the geographical
boundaries of the land, I am serving other gods.
Now what is all this about? In
the ancient world the deities of the nations were thought to rule along the
political boundaries. So when you
literally crossed a boundary from one nation to another you shifted your
allegiance, so to speak, from the gods of that country to the gods of the
country that you were going into. The
reign of the gods was coterminous with the geographical location. That was the thought in the ancient world,
and that’s why the Bible alone is universal in the sense that it says Jehovah
reigns all the other lands, over all the other countries and so on. But here David is saying if you drag me out I
will be under the control of other gods, in that only in Israel where special
revelation is occurring, only when I’m close to that location of special
revelation am I able to serve God. Outside in these other nations I become the
victim of these other gods, through indirect sovereignty but nevertheless I am
underneath them.
To show you how powerful this concept is, turn to 2 Kings 5:17, just to
show you how strong a hold this had on the people’s minds in the ancient
world. Naaman, the Syrian, leaves
Israel, and he wants to serve Jehovah, the God of Israel, so as Naaman leaves
the geographical boundaries of the northern kingdom, he says this: “And Naaman said, Shall there not then, I pray
thee, be given to two mules’ burden of earth? Got thy servant will henceforth
offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the
LORD.” Now why does he need earth from
Israel in order to worship God? Because
when he constructs his altar it has to actually be on the literal dirt of
Israel. Doesn’t that show you how
powerful the soil was in the people’s minds, is that the ground, the earth
beneath our feet is God’s earth. See how literal, how concrete it was? It wasn’t some abstract kingdom, it was the
actual soil of the land, and when I worship God… how did you worship God in the
ancient world? You worshiped him by
building an altar, so the altar would have to be built on the earth from Jehovah. That’s how literal they took things, and it
goes all the way back to Genesis 2 when it talks about man subduing the earth,
the land under his feet. Back to 1
Samuel 26, here you have David leaving, or about to leave the nation and he
says, when I set foot on earth other than Israel’s, I am serving other
gods.
Verse 20, “Now, therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth before the
face of the LORD; [for the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when
one does hunt a partridge in the mountains.]”
Now the next verse speaks of the fact that although David, though
sovereign promised the throne, must by a responsible act, defend his own
life. Here you have sovereignty but
human responsibility in the means to attain the goal. “…before the face of the LORD,” that means
that murder, in the Bible, this is again how literal they pictured it, when the
person was killed and his blood spilled on the ground, the people of the Old
Testament believed that the ground itself dyed and been polluted, it had been
dyed with the literal blood of the person and the land was literally polluted,
and the only way that land could be unpolluted would be to have a blood
sacrifice to atone for it. And God
Himself in the prophet says that the land cries up to me because of
murder.
Now if that’s literally the case, how much does the soil in our great
cities cry up to God, to heaven, for the murders that are conducted in
alleyways and in the streets, night after night, day after day. It gives you an idea if you think concretely,
of how God, what His attitude is. How do
you suppose God thinks toward our county?
Is there any wonder that we’re seeing the signs of judgment upon our
country? It’s not any wonder at all; we
have violated practically every code that God has set forth for a nation,
practically every one; we have murdered and we have allowed the murderers to
get free through psychological reasons.
We have inflated our currency and have stolen from the poor who saved
their savings and now don’t have it because inflation has robbed them. We have
done everything we could possibly do to infuriate God, everything, and the only
reason the United States is surviving tonight is sheer grace, all the way,
grace. Now don’t go around blaming it on
the communists, or the Jewish bankers or somebody else. There are plots and
always will be, yes there are plots, but who is it that is sovereign over all
of them? The only time plots survive in
history is when a country asks for judgment, and those are just the means that
God uses to destroy a country. We are
being destroyed systematically.
David recognizes these two causes and he recognizes the fact that God is
very much interested in territories.
“Now, therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth.”
Then said Saul, in his closing beautiful dialogue, in verse 21-25, we
conclude with how a compound carnal believer faces pressure. Pay attention to this because you’re going to
see it happen again and again; I see it all the time as pastor. The first couple of times it happens you’re
impressed and after that you’re never impressed, and it’s this, notice what
happens. “Then said Saul, I have
sinned,” now doesn’t that sound like real repentance; he’s confessing his sin,
why Saul must be back in fellowship.
Huh-un, Saul isn’t confessing his sin, all Saul is saying is yea, David,
I faked you out, I’m a bad boy, but there’s no change of heart in Saul; there’s
no sign of God’s grace here, none whatever, he’s just repeating several things,
yeah, I sinned, how about that. I feel bad
about it; compare the way he acted with the way he acted before, in the
previous chapter remember he wept, he cried, he had a great emotional response
to pressure; it didn’t do a thing, and so watch what happens.
And he says the second thing, after he appears to confess his sin,
“return, my son, David; for I will no more do thee harm,” the second
characteristic of compound carnal believer’s is they always will promise I
won’t do it again. Now haven’t you heard
that one before, why God, I won’t do it again. God’s heard it lots of times and
you’ll hear it. Now don’t ever be a
dope, don’t promise God you’re not going to do it again because you’re going to
do it again. You can’t fulfill that
promise so don’t make it. Don’t ever
promise God, God I won’t do it again, because you’re lying, you know darn well
you’ll do it again. So the issue is the
resolve of the change of heart that’s down deep is totally missing, he makes a
promise, he told David I’m not going to do any more harm to you, “because my
soul was precious in thine eyes this day.”
See, they come out of it, if you have ever been around an alcoholic this
is the way they are, they’ve had a hangover and they’re really fouled up and
they may have beaten you up or something and then they come whining and crying,
oh I’ll never do it again kind of thing, and it doesn’t mean a thing, and it
doesn’t mean anything coming out of a compound carnal believer. The only time this means something is when
you have a genuine heart repentance, and usually this is operation prodigal son
where a person has to really go down to the pigpen before this comes to
pass.
He admits that he’s played the fool in verse 21, “Behold, I have played
the fool, and have erred exceedingly. [22] And David answered and said, Behold
the king’s spear! Let one of the young men come over and fetch it.” Look Saul, look at the king’s spear. You see David isn’t impressed, he isn’t
impressed at all, cut the bologna Saul, just look at the spear. Verse 23, “The LORD render to every man his
righteousness and his faithfulness; for the LORD delivered you into my hand today, but I would not
stretch forth mine hand against the LORD’s anointed. [24] And, behold, as thy
life,” now I want you to notice in verse 24 the way David handles this kind of a
believer; he does not appeal back to Saul.
So if you’re in this kind of a situation in your household, or in your
business, you don’t appeal back to these kinds of people. What does he do in verse 24, “as thy life was
much set by [esteemed] this day in mine eyes, so let my life be much set [esteemed]
in…” your eyes? Huh-un, “in the eyes of
the LORD, and let Him deliver me out of all tribulation.” Isn’t there a world of difference between
verse 24 and 21? Saul promises I’ll
never do it again. Where does David put his reliance? In himself? No. In Saul? No.
He puts it in Jehovah God.
Verse 25, “Then Saul said to David, Blessed by thou, my son, David; thou
shalt both do great things, and also shall still prevail.” Those are some of the most tragic set of
words ever spoken in God’s Word. This is
the last meeting between Saul and David.
These men are never going to meet again.
The next time that Saul is mentioned he’s going to be dead as far as
David is concerned. These men will never
meet again, and the last words under God’s sovereignty quote… it just happened
that he gave a prophecy that David would take the throne. And David turned and walked away. “So David
went on his way, and Saul returned to his place.” That was the last he ever heard of Saul, the
last word on this compound carnal believer’s lips was “you will prevail.”
Next week we’ll see more details on how David prevailed.