The Limits of Man
Today we meet a David who is human through and through. Perhaps the David we meet today is a picture of us as we are now, because we are like him: we try to live by faith, yet in the end cannot let go of the world’s way of thinking, and so tear down our own faith. It is because of this human weakness that we need God’s absolute help. The David we know is a prophet and the king of Israel, one who hears God’s voice and does his utmost to accomplish his will. As I watched this David fail to rise above his hardship and defy God, it struck me how much it resembles the way we make excuses and fail to obey.
When we fail to keep our faith whole, then, because we are weak, our hearts are shaken, fear rises, and we end up betraying God. The only question is how firmly and boldly a person holds on to faith; it seems no one keeps a faith that never wavers to the very end.
People live in a world woven of relationships, events, and circumstances, carving out a space of their own. In that space some will be lonely, some will be weary and hurting, and some will feel as happy as if they were in heaven. All of this may have come about because of choices we made, or it may have been handed to us regardless of anything we chose. In such a complicated world, people are walking their own roads. And in it, we who believe have a great task before us: to hold fast to our faith.
People think we are all traveling a road God has fixed for us, but listen to Jeremiah and you will find it is not so.
Jeremiah 32:19
19great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings;
God does not drag our lives along by force; he repays us according to the road we choose and the deeds we do. Seeing the good fruit that the good bear, he gives them still more grace and blessing. And God disciplines the wicked, because they choose a wicked road and do wicked deeds. Your life is not hauled along a track God has laid down; according to the kind of fruit you bear, God helps you or rebukes you. The shape of your life is what you yourself have made. If you live a spiritually good life, God will grant you many blessings. Whatever circumstances you meet and whoever crosses your path, I hope you will strive to bear good fruit.
Through the David we meet today, we can see that without God’s help human beings are bound in the end to go the way of sin and death. Until now David had been on the run from Saul, who wanted him dead, and he survived because God’s absolute protection covered him: at every desperate moment God stirred up a more urgent crisis for Saul and turned him back, so that he could not pursue David. David bore it with great patience rather than take revenge on Saul, because he trusted the God who protected him like this. He even won from Saul a promise never to pursue him again.
But David had a bigger problem than Saul: the three thousand people who followed him. Having to provide them with food, clothing, and shelter, he must have felt that he could not keep running much longer. Those who trusted David and chose hardship with him, too, would have felt frustrated as they watched him refuse to kill Saul despite having the chance, not knowing when their life as fugitives would end. It would have disappointed them as well to see David spare Saul again and again, calling it God’s command, when killing him would have ended everything — and to see Saul, forgetting all gratitude, come after him again to kill him.
When Saul broke his promise and came with three thousand elite troops, think how frightened they must have been, and their complaints become understandable. Had the soldiers had no families, they would have obeyed David whatever he decided. But the anxious need to protect their families shook even their trust in David.
Three thousand people were more than David could manage, too many to persuade merely by saying that God had commanded him not to leave Israel. If three thousand were clamoring at him, asking how long they had to go on living as fugitives, David too would begin to lose confidence in what he was doing. Even a leader cannot ignore the people around them when those people press their views hard. And the more of them there are, the harder they are to deal with. But David ought to have trusted God’s promise above people.
Perhaps Saul, too, wanted to stop each time David spared him. But if those around him kept telling him where David was hiding, and kept goading him that Jonathan could only become king once David was dead, he would have gone after David if only out of fear of them. That is why, depending on whom we are with, we may keep our faith, or abandon our convictions and our promise to God. Who is beside you now? Are they people who help your faith grow? And are you living in a way that helps the faith of those beside you? This matters greatly, because although you may live your life by your own will, you can be brought down by people regardless of your will, as David is here.
Although God had commanded David through the prophet Gad, in 1 Samuel 22:5, to stay in Judah, David decided that the best way to calm these people’s fears was to flee to the Philistines. I have tried to understand David’s heart: why would a man who obeyed God’s word so completely that he would not kill even his enemy Saul go off to the Philistines in disobedience? He rebelled against God’s command, though it had been plainly given, because his human calculation about how to escape this crisis weighed more with him than the faith to do what God had commanded.
David was so swayed by those around him that he came to think Philistia — the land he had escaped only by drooling and playing the madman before King Achish — was now the safer place. Had David been alone, he would never have made that decision. Even David, who had staked his life on living by the word to keep his faith, chose disobedience in the end because of the people around him. What a heartbreaking thing that is!
I have tried to imagine what would have happened if David had sent them all away, as Jesus did. Had he told them that he must obey God’s command, and that anyone who would not go along with him was free to leave, David would have stayed in Judah. But worried about how they would live if he sent them away and whether Saul would harass them, and convinced they could not survive without him, David would have abandoned God. In the end he could not entrust his whole life to God, and he could not wait for God’s time.
You too may end up making decisions like this because of the people beside you. Because of you, I, your pastor, might misjudge; and because of me, you might stray from the way of truth. So we must live depending on God alone. I hope you will keep in mind that, just like those soldiers, the head of a believing household can forsake God out of concern for the family’s safety. There are limits to how well we can protect our own families, so the wise course is to look to God, who keeps watch even where we cannot see.
Under pressure from people, David had little choice but to turn on his own faith. Just as Adam, because of Satan, turned on his own faith and fell, David wrestled between faith and disobedience, but in the end covered the light with darkness. David probably knew that defying God’s command would breach the line of defense Satan had never been able to cross, and that he would have no strength to fend off the attacks of Satan that would then pour in on him. He was a man of such spiritual depth that his inner struggle must have been all the fiercer.
Usually, once we put out the fire of faith, we can no longer control our own actions, nor do we realize what wrong we are committing. That is why we must never act in defiance of God. With one wrong decision, David was driven to the perilous point of having to attack Israel, his own people. It happened because David himself tore down his own faith.
But even though David had sinned, we see God helping him so that he would not go past the point of no return. When King Achish called David, who had taken refuge with him, and told him to join the war against Israel, God moved the hearts of the Philistine lords, and they objected that David could not be sent into battle, since he might turn against them. In a truly desperate moment, God rescued him. Human beings can make foolish decisions, because they see only the present. When we see that David, after receiving so much grace from God, still defied his command in the end for his own comfort, we must recognize that anyone can betray God.
In contrast to David’s decision, the apostle Paul confesses in 1 Corinthians 15:31 what kind of faith he lives by.
1 Corinthians 15:31
31I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
You will know in what harsh conditions the apostle Paul preached the gospel. When he confesses that he dies daily, he is telling us how hard it is to live holding fast to faith. The people and circumstances we meet differ every time, so a choice or decision made in a moment can bring down the faith we have so painstakingly built. So Paul would have lived as one who had died with Jesus on the cross, putting away worldly greed and desire and weighing everything by the word alone. Paul was human too, so there must have been moments when he regretted it, asking himself why he had given up a good family name, his education, and his family to endure such hardship. Watching people like Demas, whose salvation he had labored for, turn and betray him, he would have been shaken and discouraged.
Paul says that without the hope of the resurrection and of heaven, it would have been hard for him to endure. He also urged the church to stay awake at all times, to live righteously, and not to sin, because people with evil hearts defile their own faith and the faith of others. The reason for this earnest plea not to be deceived is that a person’s life can change depending on the faith and character of those they walk with.
There is certainly a difference between the faith of Paul and the faith of David. Both knew that because God lives, the truth does not change, and that he will surely work when we obey his word; yet Paul obeyed, and David did not. Ironically, though, David, who had forsaken God, returned to the palace by God’s grace and ended a splendid life as king, while Paul, who had lived according to God’s word, was taken to Rome and executed. In the end, what truly matters is the faith by which we have lived, because it is by the fruit we bear in this life that we receive judgment or blessing from God. This is not to say that David went to hell. I am using one episode to show how hard it is to stay faithful.
So each day you must take care not to say or do anything that would tear down the faith and happiness of those around you, because a careless word or act can be as painful as death to that person. We see people take their own lives after reading others’ comments online. I understand how much they must have been suffering, yet my heart aches at how tragic their choice to die was. For, coldly considered, the consequences of that choice are their own responsibility. Those who drove them to death will in the end be held accountable by God for their words. But whatever the reason, those who could not overcome their situation and took their own lives would have faced judgment, because they cut off at will the life God had given them. Suicide, then, is a sin we must never commit.
My point in saying this is that when people turn on their own faith because of those around them and fall into misery, the responsibility in the end is their own. It is not the attacker who becomes miserable; it is the one who accepted the attack and brought themselves down. Whether to defy God and leave the land as David did, or to preach the gospel by faith to the end as Paul did, is a responsibility each person must bear. May you keep your faith, whatever situation you find yourself in. And may that faith lead to good deeds that help not only you but those around you to walk the way of truth. For once we abandon faith, we know our own sin, just as David did, and so we come to think it safer to go into the darkness.
When Saul gave up the chase after David fled to Philistia, the people of the world would say David had decided rightly. But the standard for everything in the world is God’s word. God’s command that David must stay in the land of Israel had a clear reason. God told him to stay in Israel because he was going to be its king, and for a future king, being in the land among his people mattered greatly. But for the sake of immediate bodily comfort, David led his people away and took refuge in the land of the Philistines.
David lived in the country of the Philistines a full year and four months. During that time he attacked and defeated the foreign peoples who harassed Israel. Then he lied to King Achish, telling him he had raided Israel. He lied because, if Achish found out that he had attacked those enemies for Israel’s sake, matters would become very complicated. From what David is doing now, it looks as though he loved Israel so much that even outside the country he was fighting its enemies.
But look at where he stood. He had struck Israel’s enemies yet had to say he had attacked Israel, and that lie eventually brought him to a crossroads where he would have to join the Philistines against Israel. That shows how important the first choice is. He fought enemies for Israel’s sake, but because he had first defied God’s word, he had no power to solve the problems that kept arising. When we are under God’s protection, God holds back every problem that would come next; but once that fence is gone, solving one problem only gives rise to another. This is the weary world in which those without wisdom live. David had always prayed, asked God’s will, and acted on it; yet the choice he made to appease the grumbling of those around him and keep them happy drove him into a deeper corner.
In chapter 28, King Achish proposed that David join him in attacking Israel, but fortunately the Philistine lords did not trust David and objected, and so he narrowly escaped going to war against Israel. Even though David had disobeyed, God kept him from committing a great sin. Barely had he come through that danger when the Amalekites carried off his wives and his people as captives. Only after suffering that loss to Amalek did David realize that he was a weak man who could not live without God’s help. Back in God’s embrace, David became the great king who forged a united kingdom; yet even he had this human foolishness in him. Seeing David, we ought to live with all the more care and caution.
I once heard that in the 10,000-meter speed skating race there are several moments, as in life, so hard you feel you could die. But a skater said that since everyone goes through that pain, the gold medal goes to whoever best endures that dead point. In other words, who smiles and who weeps when the race is over depends on who trained harder to get past it. It struck me how exactly this matches life, both for believers who must hold fast to their faith and for the people of the world. Everyone faces tests of faith, and everyone meets the hardships of life. Since that is a dead point all of us go through alike, whether we smile or weep when we meet God depends on who brings the greater faith to it and gets through it with wisdom.
What will you choose? Now that you have met God, if you overcome with wisdom and discernment the problems everyone faces in this life, God will open the way of blessing for you. For those who have lived wisely and with understanding in this world, eternal heaven awaits, beyond the blessings they receive here.
May you live with ever greater wisdom, bear good fruit, and receive and enjoy God’s blessing. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.
1 Samuel 28:8-19
8Saul disguised himself and put on other clothing, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night. Then he said, “Please consult for me by the familiar spirit, and bring me up whomever I shall name to you.” 9The woman said to him, “Behold, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off those who have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?” 10Saul swore to her by Yahweh, saying, “As Yahweh lives, no punishment will happen to you for this thing.” 11Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up to you?” He said, “Bring Samuel up for me.” 12When the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice; and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, “Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!” 13The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid! What do you see?” The woman said to Saul, “I see a god coming up out of the earth.” 14He said to her, “What does he look like?” She said, “An old man comes up. He is covered with a robe.” Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and showed respect. 15Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me, to bring me up?” Saul answered, “I am very distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God has departed from me, and answers me no more, by prophets, or by dreams. Therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I shall do.” 16Samuel said, “Why then do you ask me, since Yahweh has departed from you and has become your adversary? 17Yahweh has done to you as he spoke by me. Yahweh has torn the kingdom out of your hand, and given it to your neighbor, even to David. 18Because you didn’t obey Yahweh’s voice, and didn’t execute his fierce wrath on Amalek, therefore Yahweh has done this thing to you today. 19Moreover Yahweh will deliver Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines; and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Yahweh will deliver the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”