God Will Achieve His Purpose
Tom Shrader walks through 1 Samuel 23–24, tracing how God protected David from Saul's pursuit through Jonathan's encouragement, a timely Philistine raid, and David's restraint in the cave at En-gedi. Drawing parallels to Abraham's long wait for Isaac in Genesis, Shrader shows that God accomplishes His promises without requiring His people to force outcomes through their own means. The teaching calls believers to maintain a sensitive conscience before God, resist the temptation toward personal vengeance, and trust that He will achieve His purposes in His timing.
“God will achieve in your life what he sets out to achieve, and what he wants us to do is love him and obey him.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: So You Really Want a King?
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 47 min
Themes: trust, waiting on God, vengeance, protection, patience, encouragement, conscience, God's timing, feeling pursued, waiting for a promise, struggling with revenge, navigating injustice, young adult, new believer, facing enemies, discouraged believer
Scripture: 1 Samuel 23:14-26, 1 Samuel 24:1-22, 1 Samuel 15:27-28, 1 Samuel 20:4, Psalm 25:1-7, Psalm 41:9, Genesis 13:15-16, Genesis 15:2-6, Genesis 16:1-15, Genesis 17:15-16, Genesis 18:9-14, Genesis 21:1-2, Genesis 22:1-14, 2 Corinthians 7:8-10, Philippians 4:6-7, Philippians 1:6, Romans 8:28
Theological Themes: divine providence, sovereignty of God, covenant faithfulness, sanctification, biblical ethics, typology, eschatological fulfillment, restraint from sin
Full Transcript
God Will Achieve His Purpose
David is in the wilderness in the stronghold, and Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver David into Saul's hands. There is the story in a nutshell: David is on the run, Saul is in pursuit, but God is protecting. There are all sorts of stories and applications for us as we study this, and the same is true today.
As we said when we began this study, we want to understand what the Bible teaches. We want to understand the story and the characters, but we also don't want to leave it back four thousand years ago. We want to bring it into our context, our time frame now, and try to apply this the best we can to ourselves. What is God teaching us through this story? What principles are there that apply to us? There are a whole bunch of them.
Jonathan Comes to David
David became aware, in verse 15, that Saul had come to seek his life while David was in the wilderness at Horesh. Then in verse 16, something amazing happens: "And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David at Horesh and encouraged him in God. Thus he said to him, 'Do not be afraid, because the hand of Saul my father will not find you, and you will be king over Israel and I will be next to you. And Saul my father knows that also.'"
As we worked our way through the story, we have been brought face to face with the relationship between David and Jonathan, which is the classic model of friendship. If you go back to chapter 20, we talked at length about this friendship. At its core, what we see is Jonathan as a man who comes to David. We saw it in chapter 20, verse 4, where he said, "Whatever you say, I will do it for you."
When we talk about friendship, it is much more than just buddies. It is a sense of putting the other person above yourself in the relationship — a desire to know the other person, to serve them, and to ask what you can do for them. That is the depth of friendship being described here.
The Risk and the Encouragement
It is interesting that Jonathan simply appears in the text. The text does not tell us how Jonathan knew where David was — that is left for us to imagine. Somehow, though Saul could not find David, Jonathan does. Nor does the text elaborate at all on the risk Jonathan was taking, certainly to his own life. We had already seen the moment when his father grabbed a spear and threw it at Jonathan himself. So Jonathan is taking on great risk and great hardship in coming to David.
He comes and encourages him, and my sense is that his physical presence alone would have been an encouragement. If you have ever had the experience of walking through an airport or a mall, and all of a sudden you see a friend completely out of context, just physically seeing them is a source of encouragement. Your whole spirit lightens and a smile comes to your face. Here is David, hiding from cave to cave, and Jonathan understands the weight of that situation.
Remember where David had been. He had gone to Nob to try to find cover, then he went to the enemy to find cover, and then realizing that was not going to work, he pretended to be insane — writing on the walls and drooling in his beard. We left him at the very start of chapter 22 hiding in a cave. David knows he is in real trouble, and Jonathan knows it too.
Encouraged in God
Knowing all of this, Jonathan comes to him, and while his physical presence was of great encouragement, the real encouragement — at the end of verse 16 — was that he encouraged him in God. He did not just say hang
Hang In There? Real Encouragement Comes from God
Jonathan doesn't give David any bumper-sticker encouragement. He isn't naive. He understands how difficult and hard this is. He says, "I get it. I understand it. I'm not oblivious to this, but I have a message for you: don't be afraid." The reason is the promises of God. The power is not in David hanging on — Jonathan wants to restate what God has said, to remind David of the promise God has made. That is the real encouragement.
Jonathan comes right to David and says, "Everything's going to be fine — not because I say so, but because God says so." He tells David not to be afraid because God is protecting him, God won't allow Saul to get hold of him, and David will be king over Israel. Then Jonathan adds that David knows it, Saul knows it, and everybody knows it. David comes at this time of real crisis to receive this incredible visit from Jonathan, who improves his spirits simply by showing up, but provides genuine courage by saying, "Remember what God has done."
Psalm 25: Waiting on God
David writes these words in Psalm 25: "To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in You I trust. Do not let me be ashamed. Do not let my enemies exalt over me. Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed. Those who deal treacherously without cause will be ashamed. Make me know Your ways, O Lord, teach me Your path, lead me in Your truth, teach me for You are the God of my salvation, for You I wait all the day. Remember me, O Lord, Your compassion, Your loving kindness, for they have been from of old. Do not remember my sins of my youth or my transgressions, according to Your loving kindness. Remember me for Your goodness sake, O Lord."
It could be that this psalm flows from this very circumstance, or certainly from something similar to it. In that passage, David uses the word "wait" twice. This is not passive waiting — Francis Schaeffer described it as "active passivity." It doesn't mean sitting back doing nothing. It means being about what God has given you, aggressively pursuing what God has placed in front of you, while waiting for God to do whatever He is going to do.
God has made it clear to David that he will be king. As Jonathan says, David knows it, Saul knows it, the people know it — everybody knows it. The issue isn't how this is going to turn out. The issue is timing and circumstance — when and how. They already know the finished part, the final result. It is the same with the promises God gives to us: "He who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Christ Jesus." Paul says, "I'm confident in that very thing." And, "I know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose."
God does not promise smooth sailing. He simply promises that we will arrive at the destination. He doesn't say it's going to be easy. And David really gets that. Some of the words we turn to in difficult times for encouragement were penned by David himself, found in the book of Psalms, born out of these very moments of difficulty and hardship.
Jonathan's Farewell and the Pain of Betrayal
Verse 18 carries a real sense of sadness. "So the two men made a covenant before the Lord. David stayed at Horesh and Jonathan went to his house." What must be added is the rest of the story: these two are never together again. It just ends for them.
And David is about to experience a new test — a betrayal. The Ziphites go to Saul in verse 19 and say, "Is David not hiding with us in the strongholds of Horesh? Come down, and we know where he is. We can lead you to him." There is a betrayal at work here. One writer, speaking of this passage, put it this way, and it resonated deeply: "Have you ever had to cope with betrayal? Has someone you trusted let you down?" David experienced that, and perhaps he was thinking of someone involved in this very incident when he wrote in Psalm 41, "Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread has lifted up his heel against me."
The same author offers an insight that is worth sitting with: if God is to use you, eventually you will need to experience the pain of betrayal. It will do three things — it will humble you, it will mellow you, and it will enable you to encourage others in similar circumstances. We never really get over the shock when close friends turn against us. And you know that. It could be a junior high student dealing with a friendship gone wrong, someone in college, someone you've dated, someone you're married to — betrayal cuts across every stage and situation of life.
When You've Been Hurt
It could be a family member, somebody you work with — you are going to experience a betrayal, a violation of trust. And it will close you down. I remember a guy I was meeting with whose wife left him, and I remember him saying, "I'm never going to love again." What he was saying is, "I'm never going to let my feelings or my emotions get that involved again, where I get hurt to that depth again." But if you're never going to allow your feelings to go to that depth, you're never going to experience the height that comes with it as well — not just the depth of the pain, but the height of the relationship, the exhilaration of it.
I remember when Sarah was one week old. We had her home, and I came home on a Friday and Susan said, "She just doesn't look very good." I said, "What are the symptoms?" She just lay there. I said, "Listen, you've got a good baby — be happy." There was a little grandmotherly lady living next door, so we took Sarah over, and she said, "I'd take her to the emergency room." It was Friday night, seven o'clock, and I thought I was going to look like every other first-time parent in the world walking into that ER.
We went in, and long story short, she ended up that night — and for the next week — in intensive care. The doctor said that if we had waited, he doubted she would have made it through the night, though they never did determine what it was. When we dropped her off in the intensive care unit, they brought us aside and prepared us for what we would see — wires and tubes all over her.
I went downstairs and out the door, and I remember standing there weeping and crying and saying, "God, don't let me have any more kids. I don't want to ever hurt this bad again." I am so grateful that He said, in effect, you just don't know what you're talking about. Because if He had answered that prayer, this world would have been a very dark place — there would never have been a Haley. And this world would not be near as bright as it is without Haley.
What Hurt Teaches You
The reality is that in life, when you risk feeling an emotion, when you trust and you share, people are going to take advantage of it. It just happens. It doesn't minimize the pain. I will confess that I guard myself pretty closely for exactly that reason. I have layers — I'll let people into different layers — but there is a core that I don't think it is good for others to get to.
But over the years, because I've been on the receiving end of this kind of thing, it humbles you. It mellows you. You get to a place where you think, I've seen this before, and I'm going to see it again. Part of that is just age — if you are quiet enough and let God teach you, if you are astute, just living teaches you this. You get to a point where you can look at someone else going through it and say, "Listen, I've seen this movie before. This is how it ends. The sun will come up tomorrow and you'll be fine."
The Ziphites Betray David
So the Ziphites go and betray David. They go to Saul and say, "We know you want David — we can give you David." Saul responds in verse 21: *"May you be blessed of the Lord, for you have had compassion on me."* This is just my reading, and I could certainly be wrong, but this drips to me of self-pity. The only reason Saul is under stress is because he is the one in sin — he's the one who had the Spirit taken from him because of his own disobedience. That's why Saul is in the position he's in.
He continues in verses 22 and 23, telling them to go scout out the place and let him know where David is, and he will come and search him out among all the thousands of Judah. Well, of course — they're going to take him right to David, which makes it a little bit easier. In verse 24 they arise and go to Ziph before Saul, and David and his men are there.
The Rock of Escape
Verse 25 gives us the stuff great action movies are made of. Saul and his men go to seek David. When David is told, he comes down to the rock and stays in the wilderness. When Saul heard, he pursued. Verse 26 tells us that Saul is on one side of the mountain and David and his men are on the other side, with David hurrying to get away. Saul and his men have surrounded him and are ready to seize him. Finally, after all the hunting and looking, they have him closed in and prepared.
And then, in verse 27, that little three-letter word pops up — that word so often used right at the moment God moves: *but*. *"But a messenger came to Saul, saying, 'Hurry and come, for the Philistines have raided the land.' So Saul returned from pursuing David and went to meet the Philistines. Therefore they called that place the Rock of Escape. And David went up from there and stayed in the strongholds of Engedi."*
That "but" is God intervening. God is rescuing David. God is being faithful to His promise. What is really fascinating is that we get no information about a battle fought, a victory won, or a battle lost with the Philistines. None of that. The narrative moves straight to chapter 24 — David is hidden, and Saul returns from pursuing the Philistines. And he is told: behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.
The Cave at En Gedi
Saul, determined this would not happen again, took three thousand of his chosen men — the best of the army — and went up to seek David and his men from the front of the rocks of wild goats. He came to the sheepfolds on the way, and there was a cave. They were out there moving, hunting all over, looking cave to cave, much like the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The research I did indicates these were huge, elaborate caves — one cave apparently hid 30,000 people during a siege of a city, so we are talking massive caves of all shapes, sizes, and locations.
On this hunt, Saul needed a restroom stop, so he went into a cave to relieve himself. The cool of the cave apparently was more appealing than the heat of the battle outside, and the presumption is that after he finished his business, he took a bit of a nap. That sets the drama: out of all the caves in all the places they were searching, Saul walks directly into the cave where David and his men are hiding.
The Temptation to Act
The men of David said to him in verse four, "Behold, this is the day which the Lord said to you, 'Behold, I am about to give your enemy into your hands, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.'" David arose and cut off the edge of Saul's robe secretly. Afterwards, David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the edge of Saul's robe.
What was going on here? Saul had come in, and David's men were saying, look at how God has provided — this is a God thing. You have the opportunity right now, easily, to take care of him. He is your enemy. You can eliminate your enemy, and we can get out of this cave and go about living again. The opportunity had presented itself. But David did not kill him. He cut off a piece of his robe, and immediately his conscience got to him.
When we looked at chapter 15, verses 27 and 28, Samuel had told Saul that the kingship would be moved from him and that he would no longer reign over the kingdom. At that point Saul tore his garments — it was a picture of authority being taken and removed. Many suspect that what David did here was somewhat of a symbolic declaration of his own revolt, a tearing away of part of that authority, showing that the kingdom was not Saul's. But David did not get very far before his conscience stopped him.
Spiritually Attentive to God's Voice
It seems that almost instantaneously, David could hear God speak. He was not — the phrase I would use — spiritually deaf. He did not take this opportunity to bring a kind of justice into his own hands. He was not what the author of Hebrews calls and warns us against becoming: dull of hearing. He could hear God, and God spoke to him and convicted him that what he had done was wrong. In a sense, though the kingdom was going to be his, he had usurped the king's authority.
And here is that tension: God's thing, but also God's way and God's timing. David recognized what Scripture makes clear — that all authority is placed over us. That principle shapes how we relate to leadership, even leadership we find difficult or wrong.
Submitting to Authority in Our Own Day
I made a comment last week about the direction we as a nation are heading, and I associated it with a specific date in January. I had several emails talking about partisanship. Fine. But I also had a whole different group who emailed me right after the election when I said we need to be supportive of the new president and encourage him. So let me be clear: we pray for our leaders, we submit to our leaders, we obey our leaders.
We can certainly see that who we are as a nation is being fundamentally changed, and that is not associated with just the executive branch — it is all three branches of government. Many of the things that make America great are not rooted in the American people themselves. I will say plainly: there is nothing in our DNA that is better than somebody in Vietnam or China or Africa. What makes America great is God's blessing on it to begin with, and the system that is in place. When you mess around with that system and radically change it, you fundamentally change who we are. But in the midst of all of that, we pray for the leaders and we submit to the leaders.
Just like David, we want God's thing, God's way, God's timing. If God has decided that we are going to move in a different direction, we will have the leaders God has chosen. Whoever God wants elected in 2012 will be elected, and that leader we will follow — just as David did here.
The Cost of Standing for What Is Right
I love how David is overwhelmed by this conviction, and how his heart is so in tune with God's. This also speaks to those of you who lead — whether you are leading a family, a small group, a small business, or a large one. You need to understand that there are times as a leader when people around you are saying, "Do this, do this," but it is not right. You have to take a stand for what is right, and there is always a cost associated with that.
David sensed in his heart that this was not right. And yet he was someone who wanted a piece of Saul's situation — this is the same David who wrote in the Psalms, "In your faithfulness, destroy my enemies." He wrote, "Break the teeth in their mouths, O God." He wrote, "If only you would slay the wicked, O God." So David was someone who deeply and honestly wanted justice against his enemies.
David's Restraint and God's Timing
Far be it from me, because of the Lord, that I should do this thing to my Lord — to Saul, the Lord's anointed — to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord's anointed. David then persuaded his men with these words and did not allow them to rise up against Saul, and Saul arose and left the cave and went on his own way.
It is right to say to God, "What they did is wrong." But when we continue with "Sick them, get them, punish them, destroy them, wipe them out" — that is a different matter entirely. Vengeance is the Lord's. You and I are not in the vengeance business. Our emotions get in the way, and we cannot keep our agendas pure.
David gets it. David sees the big picture — God's thing, God's way, God's timing. His momentary act of rebellion overwhelms him and breaks his heart. He is so in tune with God that God communicates to him in a wonderful way, and the result is that he holds his men back and lets Saul walk away unharmed.
A Detour into Genesis: Abram and the Promise
I want to take a short detour here and come right back. Turn to the left from Samuel — to Genesis, the first book of the Bible. I want to see a similar picture of promise, of God's timing, and of God's way, and we find it in Abram's life.
Genesis chapter 13, verse 15: God appears to Abram after Lot has departed and says, "I will give you this land to you and to your descendants forever." Verse 16: "I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, your descendants can also be numbered." God is promising to make Abram's descendants as plentiful as dust — an impossible number to count.
What makes this especially intriguing is that at this moment, Abram has zero children. So Abram is thinking, this is going to be great, this will be fun. Then time passes — about ten years.
Abram's Growing Frustration
Chapter 15, verse 2: "He said, 'O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?'" Abram has no one to pass his inheritance to, so he figures he will leave everything to his most trusted servant. Verse 3: "And Abram said, 'Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.'"
Then, behold, the word of the Lord came to him: "This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir." God took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." Then Abram believed in the Lord, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
God had been silent for a decade, and now He reinforces the promise. All of these descendants will come from Abram himself. But then more time passes.
Hagar and the Shortcut
Chapter 16, verse 1: "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar." Sarai says to Abram, "Behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her." In that culture, if the wife of the household was barren, the husband could sleep with one of the servants, and whatever child was born would be immediately given to the wife as her own.
So Sarai is telling Abram to go to Hagar. Now, it does not say this in the text, but I will tell you how I imagine that conversation went. Abram probably said, "No, no, I could never do that — that would be totally inappropriate." And then Abram said, "Well, which one is Hagar?" The text does not actually say that, but it should. Out of that relationship comes a child. Verse 15 of chapter 16: "Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called his son's name Ishmael." Abram is now 86 years old.
God Reaffirms the Promise — at 100 Years Old
More time passes. Chapter 17, verse 15: God comes to Abraham, changes Sarai's name to Sarah, and says in verse 16, "I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said, "Will a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" The window of opportunity has closed. He is 100, she is 90. He concludes it must be the Ishmael plan that God intends to work through. But God says no — that is not it.
Chapter 18, verse 9: Three men have appeared, and one of them says, "Where is Sarah your wife?" Abraham answers, "There, in the tent." The messenger says, "I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son." Sarah is listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age, and Sarah was past childbearing. Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?"
Then comes the punch line, verse 14: "Is anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, and Sarah will have a son."
The Appointed Time
Chapter 21, verse 1: "Then the Lord took note of Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him."
At the appointed time. God made the promise, God was silent, God reaffirmed the promise, and then — at exactly the time He determined — God delivered. That is the pattern. That is how He works.
God Is at Work Even When We Don't See It
This picture is all through Scripture and because it is the template to lay over our life. God is at work, even when we don't see it. God is at work, even when we don't fully understand it.
It's interesting if we play this story out, because we're only a chapter away from one of the most powerful stories in all of Scripture — the Abraham and Isaac story told in Genesis chapter 22. God appears to Abraham and says He wants him to take his son and go sacrifice him. But notice what God doesn't say. If God had simply said, "Abraham, I want you to grab your son and go sacrifice him," Abraham would have said, "Hey, Ishmael, grab your bag. We're going for a walk." That's not what God said. He said, "I want you to grab your one son, your only son, Isaac, and go and sacrifice him."
It says that Abraham arose early the next day and took Isaac and two men and a donkey and made a three-day journey. When they arrived at the hill where the sacrifice would take place, Abraham said to the young men, "Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and we will worship and we will return to you." That plural personal pronoun — "we will worship, we will return" — is what makes this so powerful.
Abraham has every intention of killing Isaac. We know the story. He is prepared to sacrifice his son. It is an amazing picture of faith, not just on Abraham's part, but on Isaac's part as well. And God intervenes.
Abraham's Faith in God's Promise
I love chapter twenty-two, verse five, when Abraham says "we will return," because he is fully prepared to kill his son and yet he also knows God's promise. He understands that somehow this promise is going to be fulfilled through Isaac. He doesn't know how — all he knows is that when God says He is going to do something, He is going to do it.
Abraham is probably looking back and thinking, "I've already messed this thing up once — we got Ishmael and all his descendants and all of those problems — because I tried to do God's thing my way once. I'm not doing it again. I'm going to do exactly what He told me to do." He doesn't know how God is going to do it, but he understands this is going to be an extraordinary journey because God is going to do something. It makes no sense humanly, but he holds on to the promise.
We see that all through Scripture and in our own lives — worry about nothing, pray about everything, and a peace that passes all human understanding will guard your heart and your mind. I don't fully understand it myself.
Trusting God's Timing in Our Own Lives
I was teaching this week, and on Tuesday night I was with the 7:10 group — we split the guys and the girls, and I had the girls. We were talking about a whole range of life things. I was saying, "I want to tell you what your dad told you, and you didn't listen to — or what a good dad would have said to you." We covered a lot of ground, but inevitably in that age group, the conversation turns not just to dating but to marriage. Many, if not most, of the girls in that room want to get married, and we talked about God's timing and God bringing the right person along.
What I kept coming back to was this: in the midst of the waiting, here is what you need to do — wait. Don't lower your standards. Don't change your standards. Don't change God's standards. If God wants you to have a husband, He will bring along the right guy, at the right place, at the right time, in the right way. God will achieve in your life what He sets out to achieve, and what He wants us to do is love Him and obey Him.
Abraham finally got it. He didn't know how God was going to do it. He was ready to kill his son, and yet he knew God had made a promise — and somehow God was going to come through.
David Confronts Saul
Now, if we go back to our story in 1 Samuel chapter 24, David persuades his men not to kill Saul. In verse nine, David arose and went out of the cave after Saul had gone, and he called out to him. He said, "Why do you listen to the words of men who say, 'Behold, David seeks to harm you'?" Through verse fifteen, what David is saying is essentially: I am not trying to harm you. If I wanted to kill you, I could have just done it. Look at this piece of your robe — I cut it off as easily as I could have taken your head. I am not trying to hurt you. I am trying to submit to you. I am not trying to kill you. What have I done to you?
In verse sixteen, when David finished speaking, Saul said, "Is this your voice, my son David?" Apparently he could not see him clearly. And whatever David said, it appears to have touched Saul deeply, because in verse seventeen he said, "You are more righteous than I. You have dealt well with me, while I have dealt wickedly with you. You have declared today that you have done good to me, in that the Lord delivered me into your hands and yet you did not kill me."
Then in verse twenty, Saul said, "Behold, I know that you will surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hand." Saul affirms what God has said, what Jonathan has said, and what David already knows — you are the one.
A Promise and a Parting
Saul also makes a request in verse twenty-one, because it was a common practice in the surrounding nations that when a new king came to power, he would put an end to the previous king's family line entirely. So Saul asks, "Will you swear to me that you will not cut off my descendants after me?" In verse twenty-two, David swears to him. Then Saul went home, and David and his men went up to their stronghold.
Now, if you didn't know what was coming, you might say, "What a happy ending." Saul finally gets it. Saul finally understands what is happening. But we are going to leave off there and pick up next week with Samuel's death — and we are going to meet a really remarkable woman named Abigail.
Humiliation Versus Humility
There appears to be real brokenness here, a genuine sense of what Saul has done wrong. You might say he has been broken, maybe even humbled. I remember years ago Larry called me one day about a guy we knew who had been involved in something that was on the front page of the paper for four or five days in a row. Larry said, "I've arranged for this guy to meet with you. Go out to breakfast with him, talk about it, and then call me." I asked what he wanted me to talk about, and he said, "Just go. Just go meet with him."
So I did, and when I got back I called Larry. He said, "Tell me what you think of the guy. What do you think is his condition? Do you think he's humbled?" I told him, "Larry, I'm not good at this. I can't figure out my own heart most of the time." He pressed me, so I said, "Here's what I think. I think he's been humiliated. He may be humble, but I honestly don't know."
When you read this passage, you think Saul has finally got it. He has had chance after chance after chance, and now God finally has his attention. He understood that he could have literally lost his head over this, and yet David spares him. But those of you who know the rest of the story know that it will not be long before Saul is back at it again.
Godly Sorrow Versus Worldly Sorrow
You don't need to turn there, but make a mental note of 2 Corinthians chapter 7. Paul is writing to a church that is a mess. As 2 Corinthians indicates, there had been a first letter in which Paul was very straightforward and very candid — not unduly harsh, not unfair — but he pointed out their sin to them plainly. He writes this in his second letter, 2 Corinthians 7:8: "Though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that the letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while."
What Paul is saying is: I wrote you a letter and I know it was really candid, and I regret making you sad in one sense, but I do not regret it in the larger sense, because it turned out for the better. That is what he says in verse nine: "Now I rejoice not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us." There were big tears, there was brokenness, but they led to repentance — a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of direction. That is what repentance means: to turn around, not just to turn from something, but to turn to something. You repent from your sin and you turn to Christ.
Then Paul gives us this remarkably clear distinction: "For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death." That is what Saul has — the sorrow of the world. He is sorry, he is broken, he feels bad — maybe because he got caught, maybe because he knows in the moment that it is wrong — but it does not lead to a change of heart.
Examining Our Own Hearts
That is what we look for in our own lives: a repentance that leads to salvation. We know the Bible teaches that if I am a child of God now, I will be forever. So I get a question like this: if I am a Christian, can I lose my salvation? I always stop and say the answer is in the question. If I am truly a Christian — if I know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior — I cannot lose my salvation. He began the work and He will continue it.
But we see so many people who are around for a while, seemingly on fire, and then they fall away. What happens? What Paul is saying is that they were either never Christians at all, or what they had in their hearts was a worldly sorrow — big tears, looks the same on the surface, but something different underneath. I remember one time Larry and I were standing at the front, and a man came up weeping. He said, "Larry, you've changed my life. God has done that." He was crying as he walked away. I said, "Larry, that's terrific." And Larry said, "We'll see." I thought, what a thing to say. Now I know exactly what he meant — I just didn't know it then.
We need to examine our hearts constantly in the midst of that. You see it in the contrast between David and Saul. David sees his sin and is broken over it in a lasting way. Saul sees his sin and is broken over it for a while. David's conscience is so sharp and so attuned with God — and that is what we desire. We pray and ask God for that kind of sensitivity, so real that we can hear Him speak, so that the Spirit brings His Word to life in our hearts and minds.
Living in a Fallen World
Let me add one more point from David's perspective in this story. Because we live in a fallen world, you — like David — will be mistreated. People will take advantage of you. You will get hurt, and you will want to get even. Resist the temptation to do it. Let God take care of it.
What do you do in moments like that? You do exactly what Jonathan advised David: you remember God's promises. You remember what He has said to you and to me — that He will accomplish His purposes, His way, and in His timing.
Closing Prayer
The guys will be in front here to pray with you after the service.
Father, thank You for these amazing truths. We look at this story and I can plug in at about three or four different levels. I pray that You would make my conscience and my heart as sensitive as David's was — that when I sin, not in some big way that's clear maybe to everybody, but in one where even the people around me say, "No, don't worry about it, no big deal" — that Your Spirit would convict us and convict me.
God, thank You also for the message that You will protect us. We can get distracted here and think this story is about David or about Saul. It's really about us, and then really about You and what You'll do in our heart and in our mind and in this world. God, this is a story of Your glory and Your majesty, Your power, Your might. Have Your way in us. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.
Have a great week. We'll see you next week.