They're on this emotional high. They're in the camp of the enemy, surrounded by 3,000 sleeping men that can wake up at any moment.
So, you know, when they get out of there, they come down off this high, and their emotions would just be really running.
Well, common sense. is not spiritual sense. They're not the same thing. Abishai, using common sense, is ready to end this drama. He's so sick and tired of being on the run from Saul, he's eager to be rid of this menace.
Hmm. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Aston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio.
Specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Unflinching Conviction Again is the title of Pastor Rick's message. And today, he'll be teaching in 1 Samuel 26. Abishai, as well as Joab, one of David's mighty men, and I like. This character in the scripture.
He is loyal to the end to David, fiercely loyal to David. He would kill for David at the snap of a finger. In fact, There's, he helped David in a fight with a giant named Ish-bi-Binob.
Now, let's all say that 20 times fast. 2 Samuel chapter 21. This is David's older now, he's king. And we read then: Ishbai Binab, who was one of the sons of the giant. Who was bearing a new sword?
thought he could kill David. But Abishai the son of Zariah came to his aid and struck the Philistine and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, You shall go out no more with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel. You just feel the love in their words. Like, you are the lamp of Israel.
Saul never heard that. No other king ever heard that. not amongst the Jews. And they just were so in love with this man in spite of his shortcomings. And as I mentioned, Abishai was always loyal to David.
Good times, bad times, thick and thin. Paul did not always have that. Paul lamented. How, when there were those that forsook him because they feared the Roman authorities, and I'm sure it just cracked his heart. To have to write that to Timothy.
But the true warrior is Abishai with unswerving loyalty. And when it counted, even in the days of rebellion, when Absalom, David's son, rebelled him, and when a man named Sheba rebelled against David, Abishai was there ready to take care of business.
Now, Zariah here in verse 6 is David's sister, likely older sister. These are, again, his nephews. And they seem to be close to him in age. David's probably approaching 30 at this time. And Ashael, the younger of the three, is going to be killed by Abner, not in this episode, but attempting to make a name for himself.
If I kill Abner, man, they're going to think I'm one like my brothers. And Abner tells him, Leave me alone. He's running from him. And he he just pokes him with the s Death. and kills them by mistake.
Man, these guys, you know, you just wouldn't want to tangle with them. There's just raw metal in these men. It says the brother of Joab, of course, we'll get Joab plenty enough in 2 Samuel. He was unforgiving. He was violent.
He killed with ease. Killing people came very easy to him. There's Absalom hanging in a tree, struggling for his life, and Joab skews him three times. Yeah, he's dead now. And that was that.
But he was not one to cross. He did not want to get on Joab's bad side. Said it before, I've named my chainsaw Joab because he's merciless. You get him, bite him teeth, you've got it. I mean, there's no.
That's it. Anyway, he says, Who will go down with me to Saul in the camp? Abishai said, I will go down with you. Maybe we could kill a bunch of them. He doesn't say that, but he's got this, you know, he's just.
This exciting character. David has to cool him down a few times. He always seems to be close, in close proximity to David. And loyal and quick to the draw, dangerous and useful. Verse 7: So David said, So David and Abishai came to the people by night.
Verse 7, and there Saul lay sleeping Within the camp, the With his spear stuck in the ground by his head, and Abner and the other people lie all around him. Oh, it's easy to spot where Saul was. It's the command post. He has a perimeter of troops around him. They're giving him space because he's king.
He probably has, you know, the standard, the banner up by where his, you know, sleeping spot is. It would not have been hard at all to know there's where Saul is. And This spear, the mention again, we've come across it four times already, just it's intentional. And in chapter 18, he throws It at David. In chapter 19, he throws it again at David.
In chapter 20, he throws it at his son Jonathan. And chapter 22, he sits under a tree with it in his hand. And then here in chapter 26, It's stuck in the ground, but David's going to take it. Uh it was you know his security blanket like his secur uh Anyway, verse twenty verse eight Then Abishai said to David, God has delivered your enemy into your hand this day.
Now, therefore, please let me strike him at once with the spear. right to the earth. And I will. I will not have to strike him a second time.
So you could tell, who's telling this story? After these guys get back to the camp. David's got to be saying, Abishai, he's just like, let me kill him. I'll strike this guy right to the ground. It had to.
That's how it happens. That's how these kinds of stories are preserved. There was no stenographer there.
So, what I'm saying is that they're on this emotional high, they're in the camp of the enemy surrounded by 3,000 sleeping men that can wake up at any moment.
So, you know, when they get out of there, they come down off this high, and their emotions would just be really running.
Well Common sense is not spiritual sense. They're not the same thing. Abishai, using common sense, is ready to end this drama. He's so sick and tired of being on the run from Saul, he's eager to be rid of this menace. He likely was not in the cave with David to hear David restrain the men in the cave.
That's in chapter 24. This, when we get to 2 Samuel, Shemmai. Will be a Benjamite who hates David. And as David is leaving Jerusalem, fleeing. Approaching Absalom, Shemmai is cursing at David, throwing dust up in the air, and throwing rocks towards him.
Enough to hair hurt him. And Abishai is there. We pick it up, 2 Samuel 19. But Abishai the son of Zariah answered and said, Shall not Shemmai be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord's anointed? He asked David, Can I go take his head off from him?
Where did he get this kind of thinking? I could understand him. Let me just go kill the guy because I don't like him. But it's he connects it to David is the Lord's anointed. Where does he get this?
Because nobody else had it. He got it from David. David, he got it this night. David said, I'm not going to kill Saul. I'm not going to let you kill him.
He's right here. He is God's anointed. Yahweh's anointed. And so he says, I will not have to strike him a second time. Meaning The death blow, a single death strike.
These men had killed before, they knew what they could do. And you, again, you just say, this is the kind of guy you want on your side if things get ugly. And David, I'm sure, was I'm sure he he was glad he had men like this with him. Could you never mind? Verse nine, but David said to Abishai.
Do not destroy him. For who can stretch out his hand against Yahweh's anointed and be guiltless?
Well, there's where Abishai gets it years later. Still, they are whispering to each other. Just because everyone's asleep doesn't mean they're careless. But here's this unflinching conviction again. He's God's anointed.
And this is not something I can do. And I will not do it. I think Abishai could feel it. I think David was that intense at times that you could feel it. And uh this is what was going on.
He again, he learned His lesson. Again, 2 Kings chapter 16, this is when they're leaving the city. But Abishai the son of Zariah said to the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head. It comes off, David.
I could just take it right off.
So, this is the kind of guy he was, and you got to admire him. When David goes out, first one that I read though was when David was coming back. Anyway, verse 10 now. 1 Samuel twenty six. David said, Furthermore, Now that David didn't say David did not say furthermore.
But The historian, David, said, furthermore, as Yahweh lives, Yahweh shall strike him. Or his day shall come to die. Or he shall go out to battle and perish. They're just yucking it up right there in the camp, having this long, drawn-out conversation.
So, David, do you like fried dumplings? Uh you know, just very cat, you know. cool and collected men. David God made him king. I'm not going to touch him.
He saw beyond Saul's evil. I don't know about you, but I know about me. When I'm under pressure, I have a tough time sometimes. Seeing beyond the present Circumstance, the present evil. And usually it's my feelings that are messing up everything, interfering with like a television where you can't get a good signal.
Because my feelings are trying to take over. You gonna put up with that? What do you can you believe that? That's my feelings. And the Spirit is just like, Now the Lord has got this.
I don't want to hear it. That's to go back and forth. And I think all of you have your own rendering. It's probably not as an. impressive as mine, but there you go, the flesh and the spirit.
So he says He'll use someone else's sword. to dethrone him, but not my sword. David knew That it's a Satan's style. To go against God's authority. And he's not going to have any of it.
That's why he's saying he's God's anointed. This is just a conviction that I just. cannot depart from. What a lesson is that. What does Satan do?
You know, for example, A brief mention of politics.
Okay, done. But seriously. You can look at one side of the political world. That is In total rebellion against Jesus Christ. They hate our Lord, they are antichrist.
Anything therefore is probably evil. It is a basic way of reading the landscape. Of looking at the battlefield and understanding where the troops are going to be coming at you from. Just because my enemy may appear to agree with me doesn't mean he's agreeable. And evidently, we have a lot of folks not learning this basic thing.
If evil people are for something, That doesn't seem clear. They're probably wrong. And this is, if you look at what Satan is doing, if it's coming from him, it's wrong automatically. I've said it before. There are those that are churchgoers that, if Satan wrote a book, they'd go buy it.
I just want to see what he has to say. It would be the dumbest thing in the world. Burn it, you know. Anyway, we can go on with that. But he says here in verse 10: Saul may just drop dead from a direct stroke from the hand of God, and this will be all over with.
Maybe he'll be thrown from his horse. and die that way. or in combat. But he's not, I'm not going to assassinate God's anointed. I will not have that.
attached to my name and I will not take the throne that way. The only law protecting Saul Was a spiritual law by a spiritual man. who upheld the law. Of conviction. And again, if you want to uphold righteousness, You might as well take a metal rod and go up on the roof in a lightning storm because you're going to draw.
You're going to draw it. We're seeing it now. Go ahead and tell somebody that you think homosexuality is an abomination to God, and you're going to draw lightning.
So don't be surprised. Don't be surprised when we see Satan doing what Satan does. Verse 11. Yahweh forbid that I should stretch out my hand against Yahweh's anointed. But please.
Take now the spear, Now he had to finish this sentence very quickly because if all Abishai heard was take the spear. All right. But please take the spear and the jug of water that are by his head. And let us go. And so we can hear Abishai whispering, mumbling in a whisper.
Matthew's Gospel chapter 10. Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents, harmless as doves. And well, we see this illustrated here. Yes, these men were tired from a day's march out in the wilderness, the sun beating down on them.
That contributed to their fatigue, but we're explicitly told that. Their sleep was enhanced by God. It was more than natural. God intervened, and He used the natural exhaustion to keep them in this deeper sleep. that they were in.
But that's all about to stop. Abruptly. Verse twelve.
So David took the spear and jug of water. By Saul's head.
Now, of course, Abishai is the one lugging it, but David is the one. getting credit.
Okay. Uh executive privileges. And they got away. And no man saw and knew it or awoke. for they were all asleep because a deep sleep from Yahweh had fallen on them.
So, the historian telling the story, probably hearing it from David and Abishai. That I mean, these guys were out. They couldn't even hear us talking. They were snoring so loudly. I'm adding that, which is possible very much.
I mean, 3,000 men snoring. What would that would be? You could be yelling at each other and the other guy wouldn't hear you. Anyway. Saul's over-exaggerated opinion of himself.
And his constant underestimation of everybody else got him in trouble this day. How is that? Because it spread, just like fear spreads to other people, so does arrogance if you're not careful. And Uh this The spear, you know, is his weapon, it's by his head. Abner His general, I'm getting a little bit ahead, I'm gonna slow it down, but Abner.
should have posted guards, but they're too arrogant to do it. This would never have happened if he had followed the protocol, a military protocol. David took the spear of Saul instead of Saul's head because of this, again, unflinching conviction. We want that to be a dominant thought. He was very capable.
He had lopped off the giant's head when the giant was laying in the same position Saul was in. And yet He, um He doesn't do it. He's certainly capable. Verse 13.
Now David went over to the other side and stood on top of a hill afar off, a great distance being between them.
So, what we're getting out of this is advantages are not guarantees. David knows he has the advantage, but he still plays it safe. He makes sure he gets far enough away that. If they get up to come after him, he's got such a head start that he can get lost, he'll lose them in the dark and in the hills and ravines that are all over the place there. As a matter of fact, out in when you're out this far away from civilization You can hear for great distances, you can see for great distances.
And your night vision, which is mostly on the side peripheral, is very sharp. Um I remember once Being in a on a night training course, and I could see guys walking on the h on the hill that had to be, I don't know, a half a mile away. I could see them just walking peripherally. And it was trained that way. And so these little things are.
we we might lose sight of because It's like if you're not around farm animals, you don't know very little about them.
Well, if You're removed from these things, you would kind of find it difficult to believe how he could talk to them from a distance and how they could see. Uh verse 14. And David called out to the people and to Abner the son of Nur, saying, Do you not answer Abner? Then Abner answered and said, Who are you calling out to the king? Evidently, David had been calling, but they couldn't hear him.
That's why he says, Do you not answer? Don't you hear me yelling? Call him, but they're sleeping and hard sleeping hard. And finally, it it registers. And that must have been almost a comical mom moment.
Can you see David yelling Abner! And he's not moving and Abner Shai. He didn't hear you. Yell again. What do we got to do?
Go back there and shake them? Uh I I I find it very real to life. But he's deliberately exposing Saul in front of 3,000 witnesses. That's going to play into the future. And the effects of that's going to be remarkable.
The officers, the troops, the Benjamites. Saul's tribe is here.
Well, what we're going to read about later in Chronicles chapter 1. Uh 1 Chronicles chapter 12. We read this about men being loyal to David. From the Benjamites. You say, how did What made them switch?
They heard these stories. They heard about David not killing Saul. They heard about loyal men lining up with David. And eventually they came to do the same.
Well, when he becomes king, This is what we read.
Now, these were the men who came to David at Ziklag.
Now, that will be the next chapter. While he was still fugitive from Saul, the son of Kish. And they were among the mighty men, helpers in the war.
Now, these men. When David is king, they came to him when he's still running from Saul. But when he is king, they're still with him, and they're lined up in parade to crown him king of all Israel. It continues, second verse: they were armed with bows. Using both the right hand and the left, and hurling stones and shooting arrows with the bow.
They were of Benjamin Saul's brethren.
So you see, calling him out like this, not killing him. Harmless, you know, wise as a serpent, harmless is a serpent, it's paying off. What would have happened if he killed him? They probably would have had a very difficult time uniting the kingdom. Under his throne.
And then we again read at the same time in 1 Chronicles 12, then the Spirit came upon. A Messiah. chief of the captains. And he said, We are yours, O David. We are on your side, O son of Jesse.
Peace, peace to you and peace to your helpers, for your God helps you.
So David received them and made them captains of the troop. This guy is just, it's all he gets in the Bible, but he's just, it's an intensity that you just, you love to see happen. One warrior to another one. Shalom, shalom, shalom to you. He just, you know, I'm here.
I'm on your side. God helps you, and I want to be with you. I think loyalty is almost dead completely. This is so rare, under pressure. Under pressure.
I watch it in my own self. I know I can't be getting it right all the time, so I'm watching. Uh anyway, Saul He has such opportunities waste. These are the men that would have been his men. They would have been Saul's men, but he wasted the opportunity.
There's another lesson from the Bible to us all. He had Samuel. He had Jonathan. Ahimelech the priests. Abner, David, He wasted all of it.
You younger Christians, to learn how to see an opportunity when it presents itself. to see benefits to not waste them or misuse them. Or even speak out against them. Give it time. Let it play out some.
Don't be in a rush. When you have the right. Don't let someone rush you to go against your conviction. You're going to lose friends that way, but you'll gain others. It's going to hurt that way, but in the end you'll be better off.
You've got to believe these things because they're in the scripture and they're in life. And you look at those who've gone through it. And you hear them say it and you say, well, if he can do it, I can do it. That is the benefit of discipleship. That is the benefit of having the young, the middle, and the old.
In the church, in the body of Christ, you get to see the young, the old, and the. Yeah, the the middle wall working. In rhythm, even though it looks very ugly and clumsy sometimes. Satan hates it because it is effective.
Well, verse 15.
So David said to Abner, Are you not a man? David. Hey, Abner's not liking this. He wish he was still. Is this a nightmare?
And who is like you in Israel, David says. Why then have you not guarded your Lord the King? For one of the people came in to destroy your Lord the king.
Well, that's true, Abishai came in. I kill him, I'll give him one strike.
So David is putting them on defense. Admiral's like, uh-huh. He doesn't have an answer for this because, again, Saul's arrogance infected. His command His right-hand man, no centuries, are you kidding? 3,000 men, nobody's awake.
You know, in the military, there's no nonsense about being on guard duty. Even if it's fake God do he. Even if you don't have a weapon and you're supposed to be guarding yourself firewise, you get caught sleeping, you find yourself court-martialed. It's a very serious crime. And so David is saying that because David's been a commander, he knows when his men went to sleep out in the field, somebody had to be awake.
Verse 16, this thing that you have done is not good. As Yahweh lives, you deserve to die. because you have not guarded your master. Yahweh's anointed. And now see where the king's spear is in the jug of water that was by his head?
Oh, they didn't see that until he said it. Everybody's looking. Where's that jug of water? I could really use a swig right now. Little cotton mouth here.
So David is asking, aside from saying, you know You need to come under military justice for your Negligence as a commander. He says, Who is really the king's friend, Abner? Uh Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Rick is in the book of 1 Samuel.
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