Unless otherwise indicated, all Scriptures are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bible, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to use up to 300 words from this sermon without additional permission. Please include “Copyright Roger McReynolds. Used by Permission” or “© Roger McReynolds. Used by Permission” when using entries from this sermon in bulletins, Power Point presentations, etc. [You can use very small print.]
Scripture references should include (ESV), unless otherwise indicated. Example: “1 Timothy 3:16” should be “1 Timothy 3:16 (ESV).”
• • • • • •
The Danger of Doubting (#439)
A Sermon Delivered on Sunday Morning, March 16, 1862
by C. H. Spurgeon
at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London
1 Samuel 27:1a
Then David said in his heart, “Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.”
Introduction
Some consider doubting the lovingkindness of God to be a very small sin. In fact, some have even elevated the doubts and fears of God’s people into graces, fruits of the Spirit, and progress in growth and experience. It is embarrassing to see that certain ministers have indulged and favored people in their unbelief and distrust of God. They are betraying their Master by misrepresenting him before the souls of his people. Far be it from me to strike the weak of the flock; but I will and must strike at their sins. It is my firm conviction that to doubt the kindness, the faithfulness, and the love of God is a very wicked offense! Unbelief is a close relative of Atheism. Atheism denies God’s existence; unbelief denies his goodness, and since goodness is fundamental to God, these doubts do, in reality, stab at his very being! The sin that makes God a liar is no small sin. It throws unfair and slanderous suspicion on the truthfulness of the Holy One of Israel. Charging the Creator of heaven and earth with perjury is no small crime. Yet, if I question his oath, and will not believe his promises, sealed with the blood of his own Son, I am calling the oath of God unworthy of my trust. What I am really doing is accusing the King of heaven of being false to his covenant and oath!
Besides, as I plan to show this morning, not believing God is the source of countless sins. As the dark cloud is the mother of many raindrops, so dark unbelief is the parent of many crimes. What if I should say that unbelief concentrates the wickedness of ages into a moment, and gathers the virus of all the offenses of the race into one transgression? I would not be far from the mark. But I do not need to use such strong words in the introduction, because I think this event in David’s history, to which I will call your attention this morning, will be enough to lead you to agree with me. Unbelief is a damnable sin, it should be condemned by every believer, it should be struggled against, it should be overpowered if possible, and it should certainly inspire deep repentance and hatred.
Let us now listen to David, and may his sin and sorrow be like warning lights to keep us from evil! “Then David said in his heart, ‘Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.’” First, I shall point out that what he said in his heart was wrong. Second, we shall ask, how did he arrive at that conclusion? And in the third place, what misconduct came from such a harsh unbelieving thought?
David’s Thinking Was Wrong
First, What David Said in His Heart Was Wrong. He said, “I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.”
We can call it wrong, because to all appearances there was certainly no evidence to prove it. When had the Lord ever deserted his servant? David had been placed in dangerous situations many times, but there is not one single time that God’s strength was not enough for him. David had encountered different kinds of trials; they were not just one type, but many. Yet in every case, the God who sent the trial had also graciously provided a way of escape. David could not put his finger on any entry in his diary, and say, “Right here; here is the evidence that God will desert me.” In looking back over his entire life, from the time when he kept his father’s sheep, and killed the lion and the bear, forward to the day when he challenged the Philistine giant, and up to this very moment, when he had just escaped from his bloodthirsty pursuer, he could not find a single fact that would prove that God had changed his mind, and would leave his anointed to fall into the hands of his cruel enemy.
Whenever you and I doubt God’s Word, it can only be said that we distrust it for no reason. Personally, I have no reason to doubt my Lord, not even a shadow of a reason; and I think that you who have been Christians for many years before I knew the Lord have never once had any reason to suspect his faithfulness or to think that he would cast you aside. Brothers and sisters, we do not condemn a person without evidence; will we condemn our loving Lord without evidence? I challenge heaven, and earth, and hell this morning to bring any proof that God is untrue. From the depths of hell I call the demons, and from this earth I call the tried and afflicted believers, and to heaven I appeal to and challenge the long experience of the blood-washed multitudes. There is not a single shred of evidence to be found in the three realms that would disprove the goodness of God or weaken his claim to be trusted by his servants. Now, our unbelief should be exposed; and then our sense of justice should rid ourselves of it immediately. Let us be fair to God as well as to human beings. If God has never yet failed to help any one of his people, or broken a single promise, then we have no reason to doubt or be unbelieving.
“Thus far we prove that promise good
Which Jesus confirmed with blood;
Still he is gracious, wise, and just,
And still in him let Israel trust.”
Again, what David said in his heart was not only without evidence, it contradicted the evidence. What reason had David to believe that God would desert him? Rather, how much evidence did he already have to know that the Lord could not, nor would not, ever leave him? “Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them.” That was sound reasoning. Why not reason like that now, David? Why not say, “Your servant has struck down the Philistine; your servant escaped from the javelin of Saul when that mad king would have pinned him to the wall; your servant escaped from all the wicked intentions of Doeg; your servant escaped when Saul pursued him on the paths of wild goats and in the caves of Engedi; your servant escaped from the power of Achish, the Philistine; and, will I not also escape from this Saul, who seeks my head? That would have been a rational assumption, a proper way of dealing with the evidence; but to say, after such love and kindness shown him in the past, “He will finally let me fall to my enemies,” was to draw a wrong conclusion, and to bring in a verdict that directly contradicted the evidence.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, your case is similar—at least mine is. Oh Lord God! you have not left us at any time. We have had dark nights, but the star of your love has shined in the blackness. We have had our cloudy days, but have received glimpses of the sunlight of heaven. We have gone through many trials, but always to our gain, never to our loss. The conclusion from our past experience—at least, I can speak positively about my own—is, that he who has been with us in six troubles, will not leave us in the seventh. He has said, “I will never, never leave you, nor ever, ever, ever forsake you.” I repeat the text just as I find it in the Greek. What we have known about our faithful God, goes to show that he will keep us to the end; he will be our helper to the last. Do not contradict the evidence. What would we say about a jury, that, after having heard a case in which the verdict should obviously be, “Not Guilty,” should, despite the evidence, say, “Guilty”? Let the earth ring with the cry of anger. A person has been condemned not only unfairly, but in the very teeth of evidence that proved their innocence. Oh heaven and earth, ring with the righteous indignation of honest people. Should we believe that God is untrue, when all the evidence of our past goes to prove that he is true and he is faithful to his Word?
“Our Savior’s word abides sure,
His record is on high,
He who has made our souls secure,
Was never known to lie.
“A fortress of stupendous rock
Our dwelling place shall be;
There shall our souls without a shock
The wreck of nature see.”
Third, David’s statement was not consistent with God’s promises. Samuel had poured the anointing oil on David’s head—the pledge and promise that David would be king. If David dies by the hand of Saul, how can the promise be fulfilled? God assured his servant David many times that he had chosen the son of Jesse to be the leader of his people. If the Lord lets him die, then how can that be true? Therefore, it was completely against the promise of God that David would fall by his enemy’s hand. Christian! it is completely against every promise in this precious book that you should become the victim of the lion of hell. If a promise should fail, then how can God be true who said, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” What value would there be in the promise, “‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you,” if God is not truthful?
Can we trust these words of Christ? “I give [my sheep] eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” Can we believe the doctrines of grace? If one child of God perishes, then they would be proven to be lies. Where is the truthfulness of God, his honor, his power, his divine grace, his covenant, his oath, if any of those for whom Christ has died, and who have put their trust in him, should nevertheless be cast away? Oh! by this precious book that you believe to be true, unless you are prepared to cast it away as a wicked book of lies, then do not distrust your Lord, but rather say,
“The gospel lifts my spirit up;
A faithful and unchanging God,
Lays the foundation for my hope,
In oaths, and promises, and blood.”
But, additionally, this wicked remark of David ignored what he himself had often said. I condemn myself here; I remember one time, to my shame, being sad and questioning God in my heart, and a kind friend took out a paper and read to me a short portion from a message on faith. I quickly recognized the author of that message; my friend was reading to me from one of my own sermons. Without saying a word, he just left it to my own conscience, because he had convicted me of committing the very fault against which I had so seriously protested. “Oh!” you have said, “I could trust him though the crops failed, and though there were no flocks in the field, and no herd in the stall.” Ah! You have condemned other people’s unbelief, but when it touched you, you have trembled. “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5).
That is the way it was with David. What strong words he had often used when addressing others! He said about Saul, “Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the Lord’s anointed…his day will come to die.” He felt certain that Saul’s doom was signed and sealed; and yet in the hour of his unbelief he says, “Now I shall perish one day.” What a strange contradiction! What a mercy it is that God does not change, because we are changing two or three times a day! We are condemned by our own words from the past when we have claimed that God will never leave us nor forsake us. There is the ancient story about comparing a person when they are drunk and sober; I would compare this to a person when they are unbelieving and when they are in a proper state of mind. Look back on your own thoughts, your own emotions, your own shouts of joy, your own songs of victory, and explain how these can be consistent with your current doubts.
“Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.” That is David. “Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.” That is David too. “I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.” That is David. “There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines.” That is David again. We do not need to call for more evidence; let the man convict himself. His unbelief is senseless from his own experience. And so it is with you and me, my brothers and sisters; we are great fools when we doubt God, and that is putting it mildly; only God knows how to put it in stronger terms. Oh Lord, deliver us from this great sin!
One more thing, this complaint of David ignored the facts. I mean not merely ignoring the facts that were in evidence, but ignoring the facts that were happening at that very moment. Where was Saul? Saul was seeking a miserable medium—the medium of En-dor—to raise Samuel from the dead. The spears of the Philistines were being sharpened for the battle and the arrows that would reach the heart of the king of Israel were being nocked on their bowstrings. Yet here is David, with only a short time before achieving the kingdom and seeing Saul eliminated, saying, “Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.” Oh! if he could have looked behind the scenes, if he could have understood what the right hand of God was doing, and what the Eternal One planned for him, he would have never whined like that in his unbelief.
It is the same with you and me. “Ah!” but you say, “it is different with me this morning. I have been brought very low.” Yes, and God is getting ready to bring you up very high. “Ah! but my trouble is a very frightening one.” Yes, and his bare arm is a very powerful one; he knows how to deliver his children. “Yes, but I do not see how he can rescue me.” No, and you do not need to see, but it is still being accomplished. God’s purposes are ripening. Now, do not misread his plans; do not get ahead of him. Wait patiently and hope without complaining; your deliverance will be on time. I know that some of us, when we have escaped from our trials, have said, “Well, if I had known it would be like this, I would not have been so troubled about it.” Just so, and now, I ask you, though you do not know how God will deliver you, yet still believe; do not oppose God by doubting him.
You are very poor, are you? But you still take care of your children. What would you say to your child if he were sitting down at the table crying. “Why are you crying, child?” “Because there is no food for me.” “Why, silly child,” you say, “I was just getting something for you; do not cry until you are sure there is no food.” The Lord often says to us, “Why are you crying, silly child? This is what I was doing behind the scenes; I was preparing some sweet and precious mercy for you.”
“The clouds you so much dread,
Are big with mercies and shall break
With blessings on your head.
“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace.
Behind a frowning Providence
He hides a smiling face.”
How Did David Come to Think This Way?
But I must now, while my strength holds out, go on to the second part of this message, that is, How Did David Come to Think Like This About God?
The first answer is, because he was a man. The best of men are men at best; and man at his best is such a being that David correctly said, “O Lord…what is man?” If we always performed acts of great faith, observers might think that we were almost gods, because the things that a person of faith can do are only exceeded by the acts of the Almighty One himself. Faith is second only to the all-powerfulness of God; no, not just next to it in some ways, because faith can do everything that omnipotence can, when God makes it strong. What were the armies of the Philistines to Samson? “Heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.” And what were the pillars of the temple to him? “He leaned his weight against them…. Then he bowed with all his strength and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people.” Faith can do everything; but if faith was never defeated by unbelief, then we might be tempted to think believers were almost gods, and think they were more than human beings. So that we might see that a man who is full of faith is still a man, so that we might glory in our weakness, since by our weakness the power of God is more clearly demonstrated, God is pleased to let the weakness of man be seen by everyone. Ah, it was not David who achieved these previous victories, but God’s grace in David; when that is removed for a moment, we see what Israel’s champion becomes!
Again, you must consider that David had been subjected to a very long trial. He had been hunted like “a partridge in the mountains.” Now, a person may be able to endure one trial, but continued, uninterrupted tribulation is very hard to bear. To use a block of wood as a pillow seems to me to be relatively easy; but to be strapped, as some of the martyrs were, to a stake, and be roasted in a slow fire, hour after hour, while their limbs shriveled in the heat, was horrible. The quick death of a martyr is sudden glory, but the martyrdom of a life—there needs to be something more than human strength to endure this. To be crucified, to have the hands and feet held fast, but the vital parts still functioning, to have all the pain of death, with all the strength of life! This is what David’s trial was like. He was always safe, but always under pressure; always protected by God, but always hunted by his enemy. He could not find any place safe. If he went to the city of Keilah, then the citizens will surrender him into the hand of Saul. If he went into the wilderness of Ziph, then the Ziphites betrayed him. If he went to the priest of God, there was that dog of a Doeg to go to Saul, and accuse the priest. Even in Engedi or in Adullam he was not safe; safe, I grant you, in God, but always persecuted by his enemy. Now, this was enough to drive the wise man crazy and cause the faithful man to doubt. Do not judge David too harshly; at least judge yourselves just as harshly. I think that if we were tempted like David, we would also fall like he did.
David, you remember, had recently been very active. Just a day or so before he had gone down with Abishai in the moonlight into the camp of Saul and his army. They passed the outer circle where the regular soldiers lay, and quietly and stealthily the two heroes passed without waking anyone. They came at last to the spot where the captains of the hundreds slept, and they stepped over their sleeping bodies without disturbing them. They reached the spot where Saul lay, with his spear stuck in the ground and a jar of water by his head. Abishai said, “God has given your enemy into your hand this day. Now please let me pin him to the earth with one stroke of the spear, and I will not strike him twice.” David holds him back; he will not allow it. He says, “As the Lord lives the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish The Lord forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord’s anointed.” So he escaped from this temptation, as he had before, when he had only cut off the corner of Saul’s robe, instead of attacking him as he might have done in the caves of Engedi.
Now, brothers and sisters, a person helped by God may do these great things, but do any of you know that it is a sort of natural law with us, that after such excitement in our lives there is a reaction? Elijah is a good example. He has “repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down;” the priests of Baal have built a different one. Elijah appeals to God. “The God who answers by fire, he is God.” The priests of Baal “called upon the name of Baal…but no one answered.” They cut themselves with swords and lances. Their mute idol could not affirm his own deity. Elijah mocks them. “Cry aloud,” he said, “for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep, and must be awakened.” He uses harsh sarcasm and stirs up the anger of the priests of Baal. “No one answered.” It is now Elijah’s turn. He bows his knees and lifts his hands to heaven. Then the fire fell. Be astonished, you unbelievers! It licked up the water in the trench and consumed the offering, the wood, the dust, and even the twelve stones he used to rebuild the altar—everything was carried in the flaming smoke to heaven. “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape,” cries the unrelenting Elijah. He seizes one of them, and drags him down the hill, and the willing people follow, dragging the false priests down to the brook by the hair of their heads. Then he strips to the waist and dyes himself with the blood of these false priests of Baal, these haters of God and betrayers of his people, until the brook Kishon runs red with their blood.
Now what happens next? When Elijah gets away from all this daring, heroic action, because he is human, there will be a reaction. Behold, he is afraid of Jezebel, who threatens his life. He cries, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” He hides himself until God says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Now if Elijah, the most iron saint of ancient times, felt the result of human weakness, how much more might we expect it from David? So I repeat, we must not judge him too severely, unless we feel ready to measure ourselves with the same measure. “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged” (Matthew 7:2).
There is yet another reason we should not excuse David for acting wrongly. He sinned; he did not sin merely through weakness, but because his heart was overcome with evil. It seems to us that David stifled prayer; he intentionally neglected to pray. In every other action David took you find some hint that he asked the Lord for direction. He says to Abiathar the priest, “Bring me the ephod.” He begins no project until a priest with Urim and Thummin can be found. But what did he consult with this time? Why, with the most deceitful thing that he could have found—with his own heart! “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” I do not find that he spoke with God’s priest about it. He did not make it a matter of prayer. He could not risk praying when he had already made up his own mind. No, he acted according to his own will. People who can make decisions without asking God for guidance will soon find they are unable to think clearly. Having refused to pray about it he did the foolish thing. He forgot his God, he focused only on his enemy. It is no wonder that when he saw the power and strength of the cruel king, and the stubbornness and persistence of his persecution, he said, “Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.”
Brothers and sisters, would you wish to warm the egg of unbelief until it hatches into a serpent? Then refuse to pray! Would you see evils grow larger and mercies grow smaller? Then refuse to pray! Would you see tribulations increased sevenfold and your faith decreased to the same degree? Then refuse to pray! I declare to you today, if you neglect praying, then all the troubles you have ever had will be as nothing compared to what will yet come on you. The little finger of your future doubts will be thicker than the thighs of your current mental torment. You will discover what a person is capable of when they leave their God. You will find out in the bitterness of your soul what an evil thing it is when people have forsaken “the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
I think I have shown the reasons for David’s unbelief as well as may be expected. Some of them will hit home, my brother. My sister, you may find a part of yourself here. Well, if you discover the cause, then remember the remedy lies close by. If forsaken prayer has make you weep, then frequent prayer will make you smile. If the excitement of serving the Lord has been followed by depression, then regaining that excitement will be the best cure. Being revitalized in the Lord’s work will strengthen your mind to endure these wonderfully exciting times. You will be preparing yourself for the happiness of heaven, and on earth you will be capable of enjoying the heaven that some of the saints have known before they crossed the stream of death.
What Were the Bad Results of David’s Unbelief?
But I must hurry along, because my failing voice tells me I must finish quickly. But not until we have briefly covered the third point—What Were the Bad Results of David’s Unbelief?
It strikes me that this was one of the sins to which David referred, when he asked God to remember his mercy and, “Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions” (Psalm 15:7). We have looked at his sin with Bathsheba so often, that we have a tendency to think he had no other faults. However, the fact is, one must acknowledge that the life of David, for several months after he said these words, was sad; one might wish it could be blotted out. It was sad, sad indeed. But we will talk about these things in detail, though briefly.
What did unbelief make David do? First, it made him do something foolish, the same foolish thing he bitterly regretted doing once before. Now, we say a burnt child always dreads the fire; but David had been burnt, and yet, in his unbelief, he puts his hand into the same fire again. He had gone to Achish, king of Gath, and the Philistines said, “Is not this David, of whom they sing to one another in dances. ‘Saul has struck his thousand, and David his ten thousands’?” And David “was much afraid” and, “pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard,” (which to the Eastern mind, if a man despised his beard, was the surest sign of his being insane). They drove him away, because Achish said, “Why then have you brought him to me. Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”
Now he goes to the same Achish again! Yes, depend on it, my friends, although you and I know the bitterness of sin, yet if we are left to our own unbelief, we will fall into the same sin again. I know we have said, “No; never, never! I know from so much experience what an awful thing this is.” Your experience is of no value to you apart from the continual restraints of grace. If your faith fails, then everything else goes down with it. And you, you gray-headed church member, will be as big a fool as a young child, if God leaves you to your own devices. In fact, I must say it, respecting as I do the gray head, that of all fools in the world, old fools are the worst. I have seen more spiritual falls among elderly Christians, than among any other age group, until one has been inclined to pray, “Lord, save those who are in the slippery paths of old age.”
I have often said, there is no Scriptural example of a young person falling into any great and shameful sin. All the Scriptural examples are quite the opposite, and I think I might say, as the pastor of this church, that the most sorrowful cases of excommunication of which we have ever had to be involved, have been about men who had some gray hair on their heads, or were fathers of families. This happens far more frequently with the old than the young. I think the reason for this is this: Older saints often begin to rely on their past experience, and when they do, it is all over with them. We are just as much fools after seventy years of spiritual education, as we were when we first entered the school, if the Lord leaves us to ourselves.
We do grow in grace; we do learn, the Lord being with us; but left to ourselves, we are no stronger after we have been established in the faith, than we were before. I repeat, if we depend on our own judgment at any time, no matter who we may be, sin will soon be our objective, and evil our companion. We must use the same prayer, “Hold me up, that I may be safe” (Psalm 119:117), to the very end of this chapter of our lives, and we must finish our lives just as David finished the 119th Psalm with that confession, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.”
Next, David went over to the Lord’s enemies. The beginning of sin is like the letting out of water; we go from bad to worse. Would you have believed it—he who killed Goliath looks to Goliath’s land for protection; he who struck down the Philistines trusts in the Philistines; no, more than that, he who was Israel’s champion, becomes the overseer of Achish’s concerns. “And Achish said to David, ‘Very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life,’” and David became the captain of the bodyguard of the king of Philistia, and helped to protect the life of one who was the enemy of God’s Israel. Ah, if we doubt God, we will soon be numbered among God’s enemies. Inconsistency will win us over to the ranks of God’s enemies, and they will be saying, “What are these Hebrews doing here?” And the question will be passed around from man to man, “‘Is not this David, of whom they sing…“Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands”?’ Why is this David here?”
Brother, sister, if “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” I may, without twisting Scripture, say, “Unbelief goes before destruction, and a doubting spirit before a fall,” because it is true. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” “My righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” Combining these two verses shows that the failure of our faith will surely lead to our turning back to sin.
Have patience with me while I again point out that not only did David become numbered with God’s enemies, as a result of fleeing to Philistia, but he actually went into open sin. You can read chapter twenty-seven, and chapter twenty-eight, and chapter twenty-nine, at your leisure—and perhaps you will have that leisure this afternoon. It will keep you from talking about ministers, and about many other things that are just as well avoided on Sunday afternoons, because that is the general gossip of Sunday afternoon. “Did you ever hear Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. So-and-so?—ministers being considered fair game for Sundays—that is to say, pulling them to pieces.
However, if instead of that you will read those chapters, you will gain. David did two very evil things. He acted the part of a liar and deceiver. Hard words, you might say, to talk about David like that; but they are not too harsh. “David and his men went up and made raids against the Geshurites,” and other tribes many times. When he returned, Achish asked him where he had been, and he said he had been to the south of Judah—that is to say, he made Achish believe that his attacks were made against his own people, instead of being made against Philistia’s allies. He kept this up for a long time; and then, as one sin never goes without a companion, for the devil’s hounds always hunt in pairs, he was guilty of bloodshed. In whatever town he raided, he put all the inhabitants to death. He spared neither man, nor woman, nor child, so that they could not tell the king of Philistia where David had been.
One sin led to another. This is a very sad part of David’s life. The person who believes God and acts in faith, acts in a worthy manner, and will win the respect of others; but he who does not believe his God, and begins to act in his own fleshly wisdom, will soon be this, and that and the other. The enemy will say, “Aha, aha, this is what we want.” However, the godly will say, “‘How the mighty have fallen!’ How the strong man has surrendered to his adversary.” Oh that God the Holy Spirit may keep us in our faith in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may be kept without spot until the day of his appearing!
Furthermore, not only was David guilty of all this, but he was on the verge of being guilty of still worse sin; he was on the brink of attacking the Lord’s people. David had become the friend of Achish. When Achish prepared to wage battle against Israel, he said to David, “Understand that you and your men are to go out with me in the army.” David professed his willingness to go. We believe he would not have actually gone; but then, you see, that still convicts him of lying. The day came when a decisive battle is to be fought and the lords of the Philistines precede Achish. “Where is David?” “Oh! David is with king Achish in the rearguard,” because the king had made him captain of his bodyguard. He had been elevated to a very high position. He was the companion of Achish, at his right hand, the commander of the men who were to protect the king in case of danger. Now, there is David, and he is going up against his own people, to fight against his own king, to cause widespread destruction in God’s own chosen land.
It is true that God intervened and prevented this from happening, but this was no credit to David. You all know that we are guilty of a sin, even if we do not commit it, if we are willing to commit it. And so it was in this case. No, we are sorry to have to say it, David was still willing even when the lords of the Philistines intervened, and said, “Send the man back, that he may return to the place to which you have assigned him. He shall not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become an adversary to us.” “David said to Achish, ‘but what have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day I entered your service until now, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?’” He was still professing a kind of unwillingness to withdraw, while God knows he was glad enough to escape such an evil task.
What a mercy it is that we have some enemies, because God often makes our enemies our best friends. I forget who it is, but I think it is old Bishop Joseph Hall, in his meditations, who says, “When the Lord’s people have a deadly cancer, there are many of their friends who are too nice to let the scalpel in, but their enemies will do it out of spite and they get cured as a result. The Lord often allows our enemies to pierce us in some painful place which otherwise would have festered and destroyed us, if it had not been that their cruel wound becomes life to us from the dead.” So these lords of the Philistines were David’s best friends.
In closing. The last result of David’s sin—and here it comes to a blessed close—was this: It brought him into great trial. Let me briefly tell you the story and I will be done. While David was away with king Achish, the Amalekites invaded the south, and attacked Ziklag, which was David’s town. For some reason or other they did not kill any of the inhabitants, but took them all away. The few men left, all the women and children, all their belongings, and stuff, and treasures, were carried away. When David returned to Ziklag, there were the bare walls and empty houses; Ahinoam and Abigail, his two wives, were gone, and all the mighty men who were with him lost their wives and little ones. As soon as they saw it, they raised up their voices and wept. It was not that they had lost their gold and silver, but they had lost everything. That exiled band of warriors had lost their own flesh and blood, the partners of their lives.
Then they mutinied against their captain and “spoke of stoning him.” Here is David, a penniless beggar, a leader deserted by his own men, who probably suspected him of being a traitor and giving up the town to the enemy. And then it is written—and oh how blessed is that line—“But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” Ah! Now David is all right; now he has come back to his proper place. Those afflictions that drive us back to where we should have been all the time are blessed afflictions! Sin and pain go together. The child of God cannot sin without repercussions. Others may. You who do not fear God may go and sin as you like, and often meet with very little trouble in this world as a result; but a child of God cannot do that. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” And so David felt the rod more sharply than he ever had before, because he doubted his God. Ah! And where are we? Many of us believe in Christ, but what happens if God leaves us? Let us wholeheartedly join in the prayer, “Lord, increase our faith; hold us up and we will be safe!”
As for you who have no faith in Christ—a final word. If temporary unbelief is so terrible, then what must be habitual unbelief? “Whoever does not believe will be condemned.” “Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Unbeliever, God help you to trust Jesus. It is life to you. He will be life to you in this world and in the world to come. Trust him with your soul, and he will never forsake you, but will keep you to the end; and in the end he will bless you and glorify you to be with him forever. May the Lord bless the words we have spoken, and make us faithful, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.
“’Tis Jesus speaks, the sinner’s friend,
Dejected saint, today;
Lift up your head, nor downward bend,
But sing your fears away.
“‘Why do you, like the turtle, grieve?
Cast all your cares on me;
My grace sufficient is, believe,
In every plight for thee.
“‘To guard you from ten thousand ills,
And make your standing sure,
Sufficient are my shalls and wills,
That must and shall endure.
“‘At every time, in every place,
Protected you shall be,
And find my everlasting grace
Sufficient still for thee.’
“Jesus, assist us to believe,
For slow of heart are we,
Grace from your fullness to receive,
And thus to honor thee.”
No comments:
Post a Comment