David's Confusion

When the prophet Samuel anointed David as king, God promised that David would ascend to the throne. But when Saul tried to kill him, David was filled with fear. And what we are seeing in David is the vacillation in his own mind and in his own heart between doubt and faith.

Now, doubt takes over. You know, we tend to view David as kind of a bulletproof hero. He fought lions, killed Goliath, but he was human, just like the rest of us. He was a sinner. Today on Redoing Your Mind, we continue Dr.

R.C. 's Sproul series on the life of David and we'll find some common ground with this biblical champion. When push comes to shove, are we willing to believe God? As we continue now with our study of the life of David, we remember that in our last lesson, we saw this episode of David's relationship with the foolish rich man, Nabal, and how when Nabal spurned David's peace overtures, David reacted with fury and set out with his sword to attack the shearers and shepherds of Nabal, and how that Abigail rose up at the risk of her own life to go out and meet David and stop him in his tracks and sue for peace, and how that David was so relieved and saw the hand of God in this encounter and said, blessed be the Lord who sent you this day to stop my hands from wickedness. And so David here, for a time at least, came to his senses. Now when we look at this period in David's life, that period when David is on the constant run from the pursuit of Saul, David the fugitive, what we see in the man is vacillation. One minute he's trusting in the promises of God.

The next minute he's taking matters into his own hands. Now there are two times in this period in which David is stopped from wreaking judgment and vengeance against Saul, two occasions where David behaves in unbelievable terms of self-control and restraint and in a godly spirit. Two times in the midst of this harassment at the hands of Saul, Saul inadvertently comes into the immediate presence of David. On the first occasion, Saul and his men are searching through the wilderness for David and his men, not knowing that David and his troops had found refuge in one of these huge caves in the region of En Gedi.

If you've ever been to Palestine and been to the Dead Sea region, around the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, you will see those hills and mountains along that area that are filled literally with thousands and thousands of caves, many of which have never been explored even to this day. Well, David and his men had sought refuge in one of these caves, and we are told in the Scriptures that Saul takes a brief rest from his pursuit of David and goes into one of these caves to relieve himself. And when he enters the cave completely unknown to him, David is right around the bend. And David and his men see Saul coming, and his men say to David, look, there he is. He's vulnerable.

Let me slay him. Saul apparently had taken off his coat. David said, no, he is the Lord's anointed.

Let no one lift a finger against the king. David at least respected the office that Saul held, and David realized that God had put Saul in the position of authority where he was. He knew that Saul was radically corrupt. He knew that God was passing the kingdom from Saul to David, and this would have been the perfect opportunity for David to make the prophecy come to pass. But he didn't indulge in the kind of thing Rebekah did when she deceived her husband to make sure that the patriarchal blessing was passed on to the son that she wanted and so on, and those kinds of shenanigans that we read throughout the Old Testament. David says, no, don't touch him.

But he leaves his calling card. He wants Saul to know that David could have killed him but didn't. Now the record of that is found earlier in the twenty-fourth chapter of the book of 1 Samuel. And so after Saul leaves the cave, David arose, went outside the cave, and called after him saying, my lord the king. And when Saul looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed down. And David said to Saul, why do you listen to the words of men who say to you, David seeks your harm? Look, this day your eyes have seen that the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave, and someone urged me to kill you. But my eye spared you, and I said, I will not stretch out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord's anointed.

Look, my father, see, you see the corner of your robe in my hand. For in that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, know and see that there is neither evil nor rebellion in my hand, and I have not sinned against you. And yet you hunt my life to take it.

And yet you hunt my life to take it. Let the Lord judge between you and me." And then when David had finished speaking, Saul cried out, is this your voice, my son David? And then Saul lifted up his own voice and wept, and he said to David, you are more righteous than I am, for you have rewarded me with good, whereas I have rewarded you with evil. And you have shown this day how you have dealt well with me.

For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him get away safely? Therefore, may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. And now I know indeed that you shall surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel should be established in your hand. Therefore, swear now to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants after me and that you will not destroy my name from my Father's house.

Listen to this. Momentarily, Saul repents. He acknowledges to David his own understanding that God had taken the kingdom from him and his own understanding that God had delivered the kingdom to David. And Saul is saying, now I see why. You are far more righteous than I am.

You could have killed me, and you didn't. And he confesses his sin against David, but please, for one thing, promise me David that when you become king, you will not cut off the descendants of my house. A crucial promise. And the Scriptures tell us that that day David swore the oath.

He agreed to that promise. And then, of course, what follows is the story we've already looked at, the encounter with the foolish Nabal. And then right after that, right after this wonderful repentance by Saul, we're back into the same situation where once again Saul and his army are pursuing David. And once again as Saul and his army pitch their tents and rest for the night, David and his troops know where Saul and his troops are, but Saul doesn't know that David's there. And so David and his men look at the camp of Saul and say, David, while they're asleep, let's go get him. So David and one of his men sneak into the camp of Saul at night. And the Bible says the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Saul and his men that made it possible for David to come so close. And he comes up right beside Saul, and there is Saul sound asleep with his water jug beside him, and his spear, that huge spear that he had thrown at David so many times is now sticking in the ground beside Saul.

And no matter how powerful a person is when they're awake, they are utterly defenseless when they're asleep. But again God holds him back, and again he refuses to take revenge for himself. Instead, he takes the spear and the jug and leaves in peace.

But then after he's safely back, the same kind of thing that happened in chapter 24 happens again. We get into this shouting communication, and David begins to taunt Abner, who is Saul's chief general. And David in the 15th verse of chapter 26 cries out to Abner, Are you not a man?

Who is like you in Israel? Why have you not guarded your Lord the King? For one of the people came in to destroy your Lord the King, and the thing that you have done is not good. And again Saul recognizes the voice of David, and he cries out, Is that your voice, my son David? And David said, It is my voice, my Lord, O King. And David says, King, why do you keep pursuing me?

I mean no harm to you. And for the second time David has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has no evil intent against Saul. He says, The king of Israel has come out to seek a flee as one hunts a partridge in the mountains. And again Saul repents and cries out, I have sinned. Return, my son David, for I will harm you no more, because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Indeed, I have played the fool. And David said, Here's the king's spear.

Let one of your young men come over and get it. In verse 25, Saul says to David, May you be blessed, my son David. You shall both do great things and shall still prevail. And so David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place. Now the purpose of our lesson today is not simply to look at these narratives of these close encounters of a strange kind between David and Saul, where on both occasions David could have killed Saul, on both occasions David spared his life, and on both occasions Saul repents and promises not to harm David. What I want us to see is what happens next, because as heroic and as heroic and as virtuous and as faithful as David acts in these two incidents, the next move that he makes is another plunge into unfaithfulness, into sinfulness, and into vice. It's an incredible thing, but the very next chapter, chapter 27, begins with these words, And David said in his heart, Now I shall parry some day by the hand of Saul.

There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines, and Saul will despair of me to seek me any more in any part of Israel, so I shall escape out of his hand. We don't read the stories of the lives of the biblical people just for the sake of getting heroic models to emulate and so on. The purpose of the Old Testament, my friends, is not simply to tell us stories about men and women like ourselves.

The chief purpose of the Old Testament is to reveal to us the character of God. God is the chief character here, and what we are seeing in David is the vacillation in his own mind and in his own heart between doubt and faith. In the previous two episodes, David's faith was preserved.

Now doubt takes over. How many times has God demonstrated to David His promise and care for David's life? What does it take for David to trust God? No sooner does the chapter end where David spares the life of the king, and the king promises never again to chase after him, that we read in this chapter these ominous, foreboding, unconscionable words David said in his heart, Now I shall parry someday by the hand of Saul.

David thinks it over. He escapes Saul the second time instead of saying, Whew! Thank you, God, for delivering me from the hands of Saul. Thank you for giving me this privilege to show before the whole world that I mean no evil, and so on. He said, I've escaped twice, three times, time and time again.

My luck's running out. Surely, he's thinking now, Saul is going to kill me. And so he acts on that thought, thought. And he leaves his native land, and where does he go? He goes to Gath. Again, he goes to the Philistines. And for the next few years, he spends his life as a renegade running around on all kinds of military raids, bloodthirsty, killing people all over the place as an outlaw, and he's entered into an alliance with the very king that was his mortal enemy, all of this because he's driven by a fear of Saul. Now the reality is, friends, that that day that David spared the life of Saul, and David gave Saul's spear back, was the last time David ever saw Saul in his life. Now David didn't know that, and David didn't think that. He said, I'm going to see him again for sure, and the next time I see him, he's going to kill me.

There wasn't any next time. We can get in deep trouble when we start reasoning within ourselves with the kind of reasoning that is diametrically opposed to the promise of God. You know, I've said it a million times, if I've said it once, it's one thing to believe in God. It's another thing to believe God.

It's all the difference in the world. It's easy for us to believe that God exists. The real test of faith is do we believe what He says? Do we believe His promises?

If the promises don't come to us immediately, our faith begins to come apart at the seams. Now David had experienced the anointing of the prophet of God. Samuel had poured the holy oil upon his head and had pronounced the very promise of Almighty God that he would be the king. And if that wasn't enough, Abigail's actions when she intervenes to stop David from a bloodthirsty act of revenge against Nabal, David recognized in her testimony the presence of God and the and the ratification of the promise of God. And so again David saw the Word of God being secured and buttressed in his own life. But now he panics, and now he flees because his internal reasoning was completely at odds and antithetical to the Word of God. And the most shameful behavior of David during this period ensues because he now begins to live his life not by the Word of God or by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, but by the reasonings of David. And he compromises the gospel that had been preached to him by Samuel. And he does it in a shameful and disgraceful manner, delivering himself as an ally to the very enemies that he had fought against for so many years. We read that when he went over to Achish, who was the king of Gath, the city of Goliath, that Achish believed David and said, he has made his people Israel utterly abhor him.

Therefore, he will be my servant forever. Imagine that, that David has fallen so far, that now he has become a symbol of abhorrence and hatred for his own people that God had redeemed through David's hand as he now stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the king of the Philistines. You know, it's difficult for us to view David in such a compromising position, but aren't you grateful that the Bible doesn't shy away from showing us the faults of our heroes?

Stay with us here on Renewing Your Mind. Dr. Sproul will return in just a moment with a final thought on how we should respond in moments of crisis. Every Saturday, we return to this series on the life of David. Dr. Sproul is showing us every aspect, both good and bad, of David's amazing story.

He also helps us connect David with the rest of Scripture, including the Messiah who would follow. There's an overarching narrative to the Bible, and that's why I'd like to recommend our resource offer today. It's the special edition of Dr. Sproul's series, Dust to Glory. It's a 57-part study tour that explores the themes and events of the Bible from Genesis all the way to Revelation. And this special edition set provides an extra disc containing the study guides for the series. So request Dust to Glory when you give a donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries.

You can reach us online at renewingyourmind.org, or you can call us at 800-435-4343. Let me also recommend one of our latest podcasts. It's called Ask Ligonier, and it provides you with an opportunity to submit your questions about the Bible, theology, the Christian life, and apologetics. Each week, one of Ligonier's teaching fellows provides knowledgeable, easy-to-understand answers that you can trust.

To listen, just go to ask.ligonier.org, or you can subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. Now, once again, here's R.C. Again, let me ask you not to be too harsh with David, because in the sense of what David has done now, he's every man. He's you.

He's me. Perhaps the deepest struggle that we have in our Christian lives is to live by the Word of God. And that becomes most difficult when we are pursued and surrounded by our enemies. When was the moment of greatest crisis, perhaps, in the life of Jesus, was when He was exposed and vulnerable to the relentless assault of Satan, when Jesus was alone in the wilderness, in a wilderness not far from where David was here, and when Satan came, not Saul, but Satan, and sought Jesus' life and sought to seduce him into disobedience, offering him a kingdom, offering him redemption, telling him to turn the stones into bread because Jesus was hungry. Jesus said to Satan, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God. Remember that the last words that Jesus had heard in His ears before He went into the wilderness was when the heavens themselves opened, and God said audibly to Him, this is My beloved Son. And now He's alone in the wilderness, and the serpent comes and says to Him, if you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread, as if He were not the Son of God. Now what does Jesus do?

Does He believe every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, or doesn't He? Where David failed, Jesus triumphed. And that's our lesson, Jesus triumphed. And that's our lesson, not simply to believe in God, but to believe God. And we are thankful that Jesus triumphed, because we'll see even more human failure next week. As R.C. continues this series, join us for the message titled, When the Mighty Fall, next Saturday, here on Renewing Your Mind.