Abstain from Every Form of Sin
1There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” 2The king called the Gibeonites, and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the children of Israel had sworn to them; and Saul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah); 3and David said to the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? And with what should I make atonement, that you may bless Yahweh’s inheritance?” 4The Gibeonites said to him, “It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” He said, “Whatever you say, that I will do for you.” 5They said to the king, “The man who consumed us, and who devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel, 6let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Yahweh.” The king said, “I will give them.” 7But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of Yahweh’s oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. 8But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite. 9He delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before Yahweh, and all seven of them fell together. They were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest. 10Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water poured on them from the sky. She allowed neither the birds of the sky to rest on them by day, nor the animals of the field by night. 11David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. 12So David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, in the day that the Philistines killed Saul in Gilboa; 13and he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son. They also gathered the bones of those who were hanged. 14They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer for the land.
Even now God is gathering the evidence on which he will judge the world. He knows the wickedness of human nature, which has no fear of him, and he does this so that those who will not repent can make no excuse on the last day. Look across the whole history of humankind, and the world has more than enough evidence of sin to deserve judgment. If God still goes on seeking evidence, it means that he is bearing with the world until the last day, so that no one will have anything to plead. Christ, who is the Judge, has already gathered all the sin the world needs to be judged, yet he is waiting for the day God has appointed. In the meantime he has given people many chances to turn back, but they have only grown more wicked and more cunning, and they keep heaping up sin. Like the builders of the tower of Babel, the world has no interest in the wrath of God. But when sin has filled the earth, he will pour out his wrath all at once.
When God begins his judgment, the sins committed in the dark will be laid open for everyone to see, as if in broad daylight. Then, however much people want to make excuses, they will not be able to. Standing before the King of kings, they may wish to lie, but they will be exposed in all their wickedness as though they stood behind a wall of glass, and their tongues will speak nothing but the truth; there will be no hiding anything. We may cry out that the day of judgment is surely coming, and still people marry and are given in marriage, buy land, chase their pleasures, and keep their eyes on the world. They have no fear of sinning, because the world’s wealth, lusts, and pleasures satisfy them more than an uncertain future. Yet the day God has appointed will come, just as Christ said, and each will be judged according to their faith. Nothing could be sadder than this: that people who live knowing in advance that judgment is coming should fail to take their place among the saved.
Isaiah 13:13
13Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place in Yahweh of Armies’ wrath, and in the day of his fierce anger.
On the day the wrath of God comes, the world will suffer a catastrophe beyond measure, when the earth shakes and the heavens tremble. Once that terrible wrath begins, no one will be able to stand. God therefore told people beforehand how they ought to live. To those who have faith he promised eternal life, and to a world and a people filled with sin he spoke of judgment, urging them to discern and decide what is good.
Revelation 6:15-16
15The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. 16They told the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb,
How dreadful must the wrath of God be, if people cry out to the mountains and rocks, mere created things, to hide them from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb? Those who now dread the wrath of God are people from every rank of this world, all who have not received Jesus Christ. In ordinary days they carved idols from rock and prayed to them for what they wanted. But once that fearful judgment begins, there will not be a hiding place the size of a needle’s point, and they will have no way to survive. Before ever crying out to be spared, they had every chance to receive Christ. Instead they despised his word, refused to believe in judgment, and lived in pride as though the world would last forever. When I say these things, it may sound like a threat. But I am not preaching judgment out of my own head. It is written in the Bible, and for that reason we must take it seriously.
The kings and princes of the earth were indifferent to the gospel, because they thought that with power and wealth they could live as comfortably as they liked in this world. So in the last days they will cruelly persecute those who proclaim the Kingdom of God, to stop the gospel, believing that the saints threaten their peace. Whenever its own interests are harmed or it meets some unexpected hardship, the world lays the blame on God and on the church. In a world where a spiritual battle is being fought, this is entirely to be expected, so there is no need for you to be angry. Satan is at work making people blame God for every hardship, so that they never hear the gospel. Blaming God or someone else for our troubles, insisting that the fault is not ours, may bring relief for the moment, but it only ends up piling up sin. If God’s people do not grow up spiritually, they may fail to see clearly, even though shaking economies, wars between nations, suffering from a changing climate, and disasters like epidemics and earthquakes have all been foretold in the Bible already.
Friends, the Bible records that such things will bring even greater hardship in the days ahead. If the world is truly moving just as Scripture says, and we are too dull of spirit to discern it, we could end up in the lake of fire with Satan. When I speak of worldly people, I do not mean only those outside the church. The term takes in those who do not believe in God, of course, but also those who attend church while their hearts are always full of the world. That is why the Lord said that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The world put Jesus to death on the cross, and it has never hesitated to despise and persecute the saints who give thanks for his grace. All this sin is itself the evidence for judgment. People who had no fear of betraying God and lived only to fill their own bellies will call out to the mountains and rocks to fall on them and end their lives quickly. That alone shows how terrible the disasters of the last day will be.
No one will stand confidently before the judgment seat on the day of the Lamb’s wrath. When you look at a clear sky and the beauty of nature, these words about judgment will never feel real to you. But on that day, when you see the sky rolled up like a scroll, you will find yourself confessing that the Bible has come true exactly as written. Shut out of the Lamb’s refuge, those who have broken God’s promise will take the full fire of judgment. We must therefore receive Christ now, while we are alive. If before the day of judgment comes we hide by faith under the wings of Jesus Christ, our refuge, no one will be able to harm us. God’s people are his children, who will enjoy peace and rest untouched by the judgment, and this is why the faith we hold now is so precious.
2 Samuel 21:1
1There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”
Israel had been able to farm without trouble because God sent rain in its season. So when no rain fell for three years, David began to think something was wrong. He asked God why the rain had stopped, and God told him it was because Saul had unjustly put the Gibeonites to death. The Gibeonites were not Israelites but a remnant of the Amorites. The Amorites were the people generally taken to represent the region of Syria and Palestine, and the name was used for all the foreign nations in the land of Canaan. To understand this event, in which King Saul killed the Gibeonites and brought on himself the wrath of God, we have to go back to the days of Joshua. We need to know how a foreign people came to live among Israel.
In Joshua 9 the Gibeonites heard that Joshua and Israel had conquered Jericho and Ai, and they were terrified. To save their lives they decided to deceive Joshua. Israel kept winning battle after battle in Canaan, and in their fear they were willing to survive even by trickery. To make peace with Israel, they dressed themselves in worn-out clothes as if they had come from a very distant land. They lied to Joshua, saying they had heard of the fame of Yahweh and the wonders he had done in Egypt, and had come from far away to welcome Israel. Joshua, without even asking God, promised to spare them. Three days later, of course, he learned that they were Gibeonites living nearby. But he had already sworn in the name of Yahweh to let them live, so he could not kill them, because an oath sworn in God’s name must be kept.
In Israel it was the law that an oath sworn in God’s name had to be kept even at a loss. The Gibeonites lied to deceive Joshua because they believed that God is almighty, and that belief is what opened the way to his mercy. That Joshua was deceived is itself a sign that God had forgiven them. Having received God’s grace, the Gibeonites became woodcutters and water carriers for the altar, and in this way they became God’s people just as Israel was. Astonishingly, Canaanites had received God’s forgiveness.
This is how God protects anyone who longs to live as one of his people, even a foreigner. For Saul to kill these forgiven Gibeonites in order to win favor with a corrupt Israel was to defile God’s name and spurn his grace. It was a grievous sin. God’s promise to save those who have faith applied to both Israel and the nations, yet Saul unilaterally harmed God’s people. To please the people of Israel, he ignored God’s covenant, and after killing the Gibeonites he felt no guilt at all. But God had not forgotten Saul’s sin, and as the price for those Gibeonite lives he sent three years of famine. Because God loves his people, he will surely call the world to account for tormenting those who are his, and he will judge it.
When David heard from God about Saul’s sin, he asked the Gibeonites what he should do for them. They answered that if seven of Saul’s descendants were handed over to them, they would take revenge with their own hands. So David seized seven of Saul’s descendants, sparing Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, and gave them up to the Gibeonites, who hanged them. Once the Gibeonites had been avenged on Saul’s descendants, the famine ended. Sin has a price like this. So even if much time has passed, when a sin of yours comes to mind, you must repent of it.
Saul’s descendants lost their lives because of his sin, yet Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan was spared. That shows how much a parent’s faith matters. Only if we live as we should today will our children in the faith find a way of escape when great trouble comes upon them. Of course, if Saul’s descendants had lived by faith, God would have given them a way of escape as he did Mephibosheth. But they followed in Saul’s footsteps, and for that they must have been judged. In God’s judgment no one dies for another’s sin; ultimately each dies for their own. So those seven descendants of Saul likely lived no differently from Saul himself.
When the seven brothers among Saul’s offspring paid the price for the blood of the Gibeonites, the famine stopped, rain fell from the sky, and the three years of hunger came to an end. Once Saul’s sin against the Gibeonites had been judged, the wrath of God ceased. In the same way, the world that persecuted the saints will face great judgment for its own sin, while the saints will be rescued from tribulation and become the bride of Jesus Christ. You need to know that anyone who treats with contempt the people who have received God’s covenant will meet eternal death like Saul’s descendants. The promise God has given his people is a wondrous blessing like this, so you must truly believe in Christ and stand firm on the rock.
The Gibeonites did deceive Joshua, but because their deceit was a hope set on God, he protected them to the end. God is the one who never changes a promise he has made; he keeps it forever. Yet if God’s people, kept under the protection of the One who rules heaven and earth, throw away this love and weigh God against the world, they will share the world’s judgment when it comes. I hope you will never forget that.
The wrong done to the Gibeonites was set right by seven of Saul’s descendants, and because seven is the number of completeness, this means that those who torment God’s people will die in the end. King Saul too was at first a king God had raised up, but when his faith went bad, he became God’s enemy. A person whose faith shifts with the world can fall away from salvation through their own sin. People forget their own sins all too easily. But even when we forget, God remembers the sins we have not repented of. We must therefore turn back before our life in the flesh is over.
Friends, some people in the church say that once you are saved, your salvation cannot be revoked no matter what sin you commit afterward. Do you think so too? Then why did Judas Iscariot, who was called by Jesus himself, became a disciple, and labored hard, meet his death in Satan’s realm? That kind of talk is a merely human idea that takes Jesus Christ far too lightly. As long as you live, you must strive not to fall into Satan’s temptations, and you must have a faith that boldly drives Satan back in the name of Christ.
Almighty God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit possess a glory, power, and authority beyond anything we could imagine. If we judge God with our small minds and then fall into the valley of darkness on the last day, there will be no further chance, and regret will be useless. The only time we can be saved is now, while we are still alive and breathing. Only if we turn back now, repent, and seek God’s will on the way of truth will we find peace under the wings of Christ on that dreadful last day.
God did not forget the Gibeonites who had died unjustly, and after David became king he judged the house of Saul. That shows how much God hates sin. When Saul killed the Gibeonites, God did not judge him on the spot. He waited, and once David was king he judged that house by a just means. If he is patient now while he watches the world sin, it is because he is waiting for his appointed time, and on that day he will pour out his wrath all at once.
So this is what I want to say to you. When Satan tempts you and you are torn over which way to choose, stop and think just once about the final day of judgment. If you ask yourself just once whether what you are thinking and feeling is right, you will not sin. Look honestly at yourself as you waver under temptation, and weigh where this choice will finally put you. Then the decision will come very easily. And there is one more thing: you must not forget how desperately you longed for forgiveness as you repented before God, or the joy and peace you felt when you were forgiven. Only with that experience behind you will you know how hard the pain and regret that follow sin really are, and that knowledge is what gives you the resolve to keep far from sin. If you remember what I have said, it will be a great help to you as you walk with the Lord.
2 Samuel 21:15
15The Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. David grew faint;
God sent rain after three years, and peace had barely returned when the Philistines attacked Israel this time. David went out to hold them back, but he was too old to fight with the sword, and he quickly grew faint. Just then one of the sons of the giant tried to kill David, and Abishai, sensing the danger, came to his aid and showed his valor by killing the huge man.
Another of his men, Elhanan, achieved the remarkable feat of killing Lahmi, the brother of Goliath. With men like these, David no longer needed to go out to the battlefield; there was nothing to worry about. If David were to die in battle, the lamp of Israel would go out, so his men pleaded with him to leave the fighting to them and remain in the palace. They wanted him there because they truly cared for him. Old as he was, David was the king God had chosen, and his men wanted a leader as wise as he was to stay alive. The aged David must have been thankful to have people around him who cared for him so. With valiant men armed with faith, Israel and David could now be safe. And God, seeing how David and his soldiers looked out for one another, gave the warriors the strength and courage to win.
The world is ruled by giants like Goliath and Lahmi. You are fighting a spiritual battle against a mighty world, but against Satan, who rules it, you are no match, which is why you need God’s help so desperately. None of us can take on the world and Satan in single combat. Just as God sent the armies of heaven to give David victory whenever he relied on him, he will help you in your spiritual warfare. To the world it may look as though a frail saint is fighting alone. But as God gave Elhanan the power to face Lahmi, so he gives heavenly power to the warriors of faith who do their utmost for the Kingdom of God. If you are to be blessed in this way as God’s people, you must abstain from every form of sin. If you show God that you are walking in the good way, he will guard you with the armies of heaven and hold you close, so that Satan cannot come near.
You are saints who have received God’s special love. May you show your faith in such a way that you never bring shame on the name of saint. When you strive to keep far from every evil that even resembles sin, God will give you, whom he holds especially dear, wondrous power and grace.