Those Who Look to God Alone

1 Samuel 26:6-12

6Then David answered and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother of Joab, saying, “Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp?” Abishai said, “I will go down with you.” 7So David and Abishai came to the people by night: and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the place of the wagons, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the people lay around him. 8Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered up your enemy into your hand today. Now therefore please let me strike him with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not strike him the second time.” 9David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him; for who can stretch out his hand against Yahweh’s anointed, and be guiltless?” 10David said, “As Yahweh lives, Yahweh will strike him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall go down into battle and perish. 11Yahweh forbid that I should stretch out my hand against Yahweh’s anointed; but now please take the spear that is at his head, and the jar of water, and let us go.” 12So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul’s head; and they went away: and no man saw it, or knew it, nor did any awake; for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from Yahweh was fallen on them.

A second chance to kill Saul had come to David. But, as the first time, David had no thought of killing him, because he believed that life belongs to God. To understand the faith of David, who held back even when he had the chance to kill the enemy seeking his life, I want to look first at Jacob’s son Joseph.

Joseph was born the eleventh son of Jacob, but his brothers’ jealousy got him sold into Egypt. As a slave there, he still did his utmost to live according to God’s will. He won the trust of Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, was put in charge of everything in the house, and by his honest faith made his master’s possessions grow. Potiphar never interfered in anything Joseph did, because he trusted him. Then one day Potiphar’s wife demanded that Joseph lie with her. To her, Joseph was a slave, so she would have thought little of it. But Joseph was a man who looked to God, and he refused, for he could not do what would be sin against God. He knew that turning her away would bring persecution on him, yet he dreaded sinning against God by immorality far more. Had Potiphar’s wife become his protector, he could have had an easy life. But Joseph refused, because he knew that God is the master of his life. Stung by his refusal, she falsely accused him of trying to force himself on her and had him thrown into prison. Joseph chose the road of suffering over the easy one.

From here on, I would like you to walk with Joseph through his life. Then we, who know the whole of his story, should find it easy to see what God wanted of him. To be born a son of Jacob, to be hated by his brothers, to be sold into Egypt, and to rise to be governor and save his father and brothers according to God’s will — that was his calling. Of course, Scripture shows us how painful that suffering must have been; but if Joseph would only endure and obey, he could save his whole family. What Joseph’s life teaches us is this: even when it is a road of suffering, obeying God is the quickest way to great blessing.

Would you take a road of suffering if it were God’s will? You could, if you walked it looking at your own life the way you look at Joseph’s. God never drags anyone along by force, not even down the road of blessing. He gives us free will and has us decide for ourselves, and that is why he gives blessing for both body and soul only to those who make that decision and walk the way of Christ. But people would rather take the wide, glittering road of the world than the way God leads. Many are on the broad road, and because they are tempted by the thought of succeeding there, they refuse the narrow one.

But Joseph knew full well which road God wanted him to take. When his brothers sold him, he did not complain or lose heart, because God had already shown him the future in dreams; and he held on with patience, because God had sent him ahead to Egypt to save his family through him. Joseph was human too, so he would have felt the injustice of it, and he must have resented his brothers. Still, for the sake of God’s working, the calling given him through his life, and the hope of heaven, he overcame his hard circumstances by faith.

When Joseph obeyed, the place to which God finally led him was the governor’s seat, from which he would save his family and the people from famine. The office that people cannot reach however hard they strive — that was where God meant to set Joseph. Joseph did not obey because he knew he would become governor; but it was his faith that caused him to receive the fruit God had prepared. He gave his all to fulfill his calling, and God gave him a blessing that was honorable even in the eyes of the world. Those who, like Joseph, can see the God who rules the world are the ones who are blessed, and so are those who will not raise the sword of revenge against an enemy at the bidding of their feelings. Joseph did not think of revenge even when his brothers came to Egypt to buy grain because of the famine; instead he comforted them as they trembled with fear.

Genesis 50:19-20

19Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for am I in the place of God? 20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is today, to save many people alive.

Joseph told them that they had meant evil against him, but God had used their evil intent to save many people alive, as it was that day; he and they, he said, were only God’s instruments. Only those who know God’s will clearly can be like Joseph: they do not flare up in anger, they neither take revenge nor betray, and they do not live as they please. For anyone to speak as Joseph did to the brothers who had tried to kill him, they must know how different a life lived trusting God is from a life fixed on the world. His brothers wanted him dead because he had more of their father’s love than they did; but as Joseph was cast off and sold, he asked himself why God was giving him this suffering, and he remembered the God who had made him dream those dreams beforehand. Then he understood what he had to do in that situation. If the suffering you face is not the result of your own wrongdoing, I hope you will not forget that God’s purpose is surely in it. So when trouble comes, the first thing is not to complain, worry, or despair, but to pray and discern how God means to use you.

Joseph was human; how could he not have felt wronged? But he had the wisdom to see that even his brothers’ act of selling him into slavery could lie within God’s providence, and because of that wisdom he could endure as a slave and still work out God’s purpose. Those who think they are the masters of their own lives will try to solve every problem they meet by human will and human reasoning. But those who believe that God is the master of their lives first ask him what he wants whenever a problem arises, and then strive to live by it.

In 1 Samuel 26:2, when Saul heard that David was hiding on the hill of Hachilah, he took three thousand soldiers and went down to the wilderness of Ziph to capture him. The three thousand alone tell us how firm his resolve was. David had cut off only the edge of Saul’s robe when he could have killed him, and Saul had even sworn never to pursue him again; but unable to give up his jealousy, he came after David once more. He knew that killing David was not what God wanted, yet he made up his mind to do it, because he felt he would have no peace until David died by his own hand. People cannot give up revenge, because of the evil selfishness within them. Saul knew it was sin against God, but he could not quiet his rage, and so he could not bear to leave David alive.

Once again, a chance to kill Saul came to David. When David went into Saul’s camp with only Abishai, Saul and all his soldiers were asleep. Seeing this, Abishai told David that this was a golden opportunity from God, and that he himself would strike Saul with the spear. But David, just as before, stopped him and told him never to do it, because striking Yahweh’s anointed would be a sin against God. When we see David being handed one good chance after another to kill his enemy, it seems that opportunities do not come only to those with the stronger force. David went into the enemy camp with Abishai alone, with no idea what they would find; but because God, who had put Saul and all his soldiers to sleep, was with him, David always had his opportunity. If you will only seek God’s will and live praying in line with it, God will make the opportunities for you.

In verse 10, David foretold that Saul would surely die, either struck down by Yahweh or killed in battle. Just as David came upon such a perfect chance without striving to avenge himself, he knew that God would judge Saul without David having to kill him. And as he had foretold, 1 Samuel 31 records that Saul, fighting the Philistines alongside his sons, was struck by an arrow and died. In the end Saul, who had hunted David so relentlessly, died in the war with the Philistines, and Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua died with him.

Saul’s death shows how fleeting life truly is, for the man who tried to kill David, a man of God, to keep his throne was himself rejected by the God who had given him that throne, and died by an arrow shot by a Philistine soldier. Had David, under God’s protection, been leading the vanguard in that battle with the Philistines, Israel and Saul would not have been defeated. Such is life: we cannot see even an inch ahead. David could foresee Saul’s death because he knew God’s heart so well, and because he knew so well the ways in which God works.

Chances to kill Saul kept coming, as they did here when Abishai urged David to strike. Perhaps it was not so much that God was handing David a good opportunity as that God greatly desired him to see through Satan’s test, which was luring him into the sin of murder, and to grow into a man of greater stature. When people get a chance at wealth or power, rather than weighing it carefully, they assume God has blessed them. But if we think a little more deeply, we can see whether the matter will take us away from God or become a chance to draw nearer to him.

The chances David keeps getting to take revenge with his own hand may be less a blessing than a scheme of Satan, meant to make him defy God’s will, commit sin, and drift away from God. It is the same reason people with great power and wealth fail to seek God. As Jesus said, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God; because abundance takes away our earnestness, we stop pleading for God’s grace. But if we serve with greater humility in times of ease, that blessing will last forever.

Some, like David, serve God faithfully even as kings, but most would try to use God to protect their wealth. Abishai’s conduct alone shows that those who do not grasp God’s deeper purpose will make foolish decisions and act on them whenever a good chance for revenge comes their way. Consider the men in the cave who told David that God had given him the chance to kill Saul, and Abishai, who now proposed killing Saul on the spot: in both, the human urge to settle the problem at once came before God’s will. David, however, keeps exercising patience and restraint, so that he will not stray from the path down which God is leading him.

Here Scripture sets Saul in the middle and, through what David and Abishai do, shows you which choice is wise. Abishai held a faith that counted every chance to prosper in the world as God’s blessing. So when he saw David refusing to act, though God had given him the chance to kill Saul, he may have thought him incompetent, or a man who could not recognize an opportunity. People like Abishai find it hard to grow spiritually. They may have an eye for opportunity, but they lack the spiritual eye to see the paths that divide into good and evil behind it, and that is what holds them back.

Had David not stopped him, Abishai would have killed Saul. This incident alone shows that simply being with a brother in faith as mature in character as David was a blessing to Abishai: it spared him God’s judgment. You too probably think that what you discern and decide is right; but if you meditate more carefully on God’s will, you will see how far human thinking is from it.

David and Abishai came back with nothing but Saul’s jar of water and his spear. Taking them announced that the two could easily have killed him, so by that alone Saul was beaten. Once he was out of the camp with the spear and the jar, David called out to Saul. If Saul was pursuing him because God had permitted it on account of some sin of his, David said, he would become the offering for that sin. He knew Saul was hunting him out of an evil heart, yet if God had permitted it, he would of course become the offering himself. That is how well David knew God.

Once, when David left the city to flee from the rebel Absalom, Shimei hurled unspeakable words at him; yet David forgave him, saying that it was God who was making him hear those words. David believed that God had caused him to meet every person he met and to hear every word he heard. That faith is why he could spare his enemy Saul and leave him in God’s hands. Later Shimei was put to death by Solomon for his treachery against David.

In verse 24, David told Saul that just as he had valued the king’s life, he hoped Yahweh would value his life and deliver him out of all oppression. This is David’s faith. He could have killed Saul by force at any moment; instead he longs for God to see him living a good life even while suffering for God’s sake, and to judge Saul himself.

How are you using the time you have been given? And how do you weigh the opportunities that come to you each day, and decide what to do with them? Are your decisions made in the knowledge of God’s will? If you do not know God’s will, I hope you will pray as David did. Let us also ask ourselves whether our own feelings have become more precious to us than God, so that we act and speak just as we think best — because conduct like that shows that, like Abishai, we have not put off the old self and still live by our old bad habits. Whether we do good or evil, we all live out an appointed span. If you look beyond this short life to the eternal world you will meet after death, you will know how to deal with the problem in front of you.

May you, like Joseph and David, look past what is happening before your eyes and see life as God sees it — broadly, from on high, and in depth. Those who live with such wisdom are under God’s absolute protection, so they have nothing to fear, even with a treacherous enemy persecuting them close at hand. Why? Because God’s grace surrounds you like a high wall.

May you always see the world in a bright light and live as those whose hope is set on heaven. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel 27:1-7,28:1-2

1David said in his heart, “I will now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me any more in all the borders of Israel. So shall I escape out of his hand.” 2David arose, and passed over, he and the six hundred men who were with him, to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath. 3David lived with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal’s wife. 4Saul was told that David had fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him. 5David said to Achish, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in one of the cities in the country, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?” 6Then Achish gave him Ziklag that day: therefore Ziklag belongs to the kings of Judah to this day. 7The number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a full year and four months. 1In those days, the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. Achish said to David, “Know assuredly that you will go out with me in the army, you and your men.” 2David said to Achish, “Therefore you will know what your servant can do.” Achish said to David, “Therefore I will make you my bodyguard forever.”