Sermon Discussion Questions:
- Pretend for a moment that you are one of David's soldiers trying to convince him that he should raise his hand against Saul. What arguments might you use to persuade him? After you've thought of some consider: David didn't resist temptation because it was easy. Comb back through 1 Samuel 26. What kept David's hand back from killing Saul?
- "What is in God's hands doesn't need to be in mine." What situations do you find it most difficult to leave in God's hands? Or, what situations are you most tempted to "take matters into your own hands"?
- Did Saul repent here? See 1 Samuel 26:21 and 27:1. What is the mark between real repentance and false repentance? See 2 Cor 7:10-11.
- "Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are far too easily pleased." What does that mean? What is the connection between reward and obedience?
It’s your first day at a high-end career. You are still getting familiar with everything when your boss sends you out to go order supplies for an upcoming job. You read off a list of what is needed and place the order with the vendor while he scribbles it down a clipboard. He then types everything to a computer and looks at you and says, “How will you be paying for all this?” You panic for a moment. You cannot remember what your boss said about this; you didn’t think to ask. Perhaps this was explained and you just weren’t paying attention. You ask how much it will be and find that it is an eye-watering price tag, more than your yearly salary by a longshot. You consider just walking away, but fear that it may put your job in jeopardy. You start to call your boss, but then hesitate—you don’t want to look like a fool. Here is what you know: you need to get these materials, and it is entirely up to you to do it. So, you empty your wallet, lay every credit card you have down, you go take out a second mortgage, you call up some shady contacts who can loan you money, maybe even try to bribe or threaten the salesclerk to lower the price, or at least remove some of the more expensive articles that may not be missed. You do whatever it takes.
I think this is how some Christians feel about the Christian life. They look around at what God asks of them and the pressures of life and unconsciously assume: “This is entirely up to me.” And then run themselves ragged. What our young new hire at the beginning forgot, and what we forget, is that we can charge the expense to the boss’ account.
I got this illustration from reflecting on Hudson Taylor’s revelation of the benefit of his union with Christ: “The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases.”
In our text today, we will see David pull from this deep well of strength as he is faced with another temptation to step off of the path of God’s Law and take matters into his own hands.
"Then the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is not David hiding himself on the hill of Hachilah, which is on the east of Jeshimon?” 2 So Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Ziph with three thousand chosen men of Israel to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. 3 And Saul encamped on the hill of Hachilah, which is beside the road on the east of Jeshimon. But David remained in the wilderness. When he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness, 4 David sent out spies and learned that Saul had indeed come. 5 Then David rose and came to the place where Saul had encamped. And David saw the place where Saul lay, with Abner the son of Ner, the commander of his army. Saul was lying within the encampment, while the army was encamped around him.6 Then David said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Joab's brother Abishai the son of Zeruiah, “Who will go down with me into the camp to Saul?” And Abishai said, “I will go down with you.” 7 So David and Abishai went to the army by night. And there lay Saul sleeping within the encampment, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head, and Abner and the army lay around him. 8 Then Abishai said to David, “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.” 9 But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the LORD'S anointed and be guiltless?” 10 And David said, “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. 11 The LORD forbid that I should put out my hand against the LORD'S anointed. But take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us go.” 12 So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul's head, and they went away. No man saw it or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the LORD had fallen upon them.13 Then David went over to the other side and stood far off on the top of the hill, with a great space between them. 14 And David called to the army, and to Abner the son of Ner, saying, “Will you not answer, Abner?” Then Abner answered, “Who are you who calls to the king?” 15 And David said to Abner, “Are you not a man? Who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not kept watch over your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy the king your lord. 16 This thing that you have done is not good. As the LORD lives, you deserve to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the LORD'S anointed. And now see where the king's spear is and the jar of water that was at his head.”17 Saul recognized David's voice and said, “Is this your voice, my son David?” And David said, “It is my voice, my lord, O king.” 18 And he said, “Why does my lord pursue after his servant? For what have I done? What evil is on my hands? 19 Now therefore let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it is the LORD who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering, but if it is men, may they be cursed before the LORD, for they have driven me out this day that I should have no share in the heritage of the LORD, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’ 20 Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of the LORD, for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.”21 Then Saul said, “I have sinned. Return, my son David, for I will no more do you harm, because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Behold, I have acted foolishly, and have made a great mistake.” 22 And David answered and said, “Here is the spear, O king! Let one of the young men come over and take it. 23 The LORD rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness, for the LORD gave you into my hand today, and I would not put out my hand against the LORD'S anointed. 24 Behold, as your life was precious this day in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the LORD, and may he deliver me out of all tribulation.” 25 Then Saul said to David, “Blessed be you, my son David! You will do many things and will succeed in them.” So David went his way, and Saul returned to his place.- 1 Samuel 26:1-25
Overview
Chapters 24, 25, and 26 together form a three act play, three scenes that all hinge together. The superficial theme that links these three stories together is David’s temptation to violence—in 24 he is tempted to kill Saul, in 25 to kill Nabal, and again here in 26 to kill Saul. But the issue isn’t mere violence, but the phrase that was brought up repeatedly in chapter 25: taking matters into your own hands. In Abigail’s speech to David, she warns David of the sin of “saving with your own hand,” (1 Sam 25:26). After listening, David thanks her for stopping him from “working salvation with my own hand!” (1 Sam 25:33). What does that mean? “Salvation” refers to deliverance, being “saved” from danger or trouble. So, here David is given an insult by Nabal, shamed by a fool, and he is wanting to fix the problem, he is looking for “salvation” from this insult. But he is doing it by “his hand.” Your hand is what you are capable of, what your strength, and wit can accomplish on its own. We still speak this way today when we talk about “taking matters into our hands.”
What do we “take into our own hands”? What we don’t trust others to do. If you’re waiting on your boss to follow through on getting the order shipped, or you’re pretty sure whoever is driving the car doesn’t know where they are going, or you’re watching your husband try to clean something—at a certain point you say, You know what, just let me do it. To take something into our hands means to take it out of someone else’s. And in chapter 25 Abigail reminds David, This matter is in God’s hands, and you are trying to wrestle it out into your own. And David repents, and God strikes Nabal down without David’s assistance. The moral of the story: what is in God’s hands doesn’t need to be in mine.
But this central story between the two helps us see what David is tempted to do with the two surrounding stories. In both stories, David has an opportunity where he could easily kill Saul, his enemy. And, in both stories David’s men tell him, “God has given your enemy into your hand this day,” (1 Sam 26:8; 24:4). But, in both, David resists. He will not raise his hand against the Lord’s anointed.
The Temptation
David hears that Saul is (again) hunting him. So, he sneaks down to the encampment with one of his right-hand men, Abishai. In the dark of night, they creep into the enemy encampment. “And there lay Saul sleeping within the encampment, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head, and Abner and the army lay around him,” (1 Sam 26:7). We are familiar by now with Saul’s spear. Saul’s spear is his symbol of strength, a strength that has been used wickedly to kill and attempt to kill innocents out of a crazed jealously. And here it lay, planted in the ground like a standard over the sleeping king. “Then Abishai said to David, “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,” (1 Sam 26:8). David then responds to Abishai for three verses, but, you may be thinking: How on earth are they having this kind of conversation without waking everyone up! We see in verse 12, right as David and Abishai slip away, “No man saw it or knew it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the LORD had fallen upon them,” (1 Sam 26:12b). This is the same kind of sleep that God put Adam under when creating Eve from his side (Gen 2:21; cf. Gen 15:12).
Now, stop for a minute and think: If Satan were to be presenting a case for why David shouldn’t trust God and should take matters into his own hands, what might he say? “Look David, you have been horribly mistreated by this man. You have done nothing but been loyal, and he has paid you back by trying to kill you. You let him go back in the cave, and he promised he wouldn’t harm you, but look, here we are again!God has rejected him! You are the anointed king now! If anyone is qualified to execute an anointed one, wouldn’t it be you? If you don’t do something, who will?Consider your men, think about your family—anyone who helps you is in jeopardy as long as Saul is alive. And isn’t the situation so perfect? God has put the deep sleep on everyone, God has delivered him into your hand, he could even be killed by the very spear he unjustly threw at you—how poetic! How perfect! And look, you don’t even have to do the deed—Abishai will get his hands dirty. You’d technically be innocent. God has given him into your hands.”
This is David’s temptation, to take matters into his own hands. And this is our temptation. Faith means trusting God to do and be what He has said. It is, by definition, a relinquishing of control, being confident in what you do not yet see. A “trust fall” is so scary because you can’t save yourself and you can’t even see the hands linked together behind you—you are relying entirely on your friends and family to catch you. If they fail, you smack the ground. Someone who flails and twists around as they fall, isn’t trusting the people. So too, the individual who is planning contingency plans in case God fails; the person who steps off God’s path of obedience because they don’t see how God’s Law will lead to life; the person who hedges their bets so that the disappointment won’t be too severe…this is us flailing, doubting God’s arms are there to catch us. We can have weak faith. We can live with contradictions and struggle and doubt. Many of us do. But when we can close our eyes, breathe out, and fall back into the gentle hands of our Savior…oh, that is peace, that is joy, that is life.
Three Keys Victory
But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the LORD'S anointed and be guiltless?” (1 Sam 26:9). David is certain that this is wrong, full stop. This is so deeply ingrained in David that when he calls out to the encampment, he chastises Abner for sleeping and not guarding Saul—a violation deserving of death (1 Sam 26:13-16). David already knew this, of course. That was the whole point of chapter 24. But through his interaction with Nabal, David has now learned that the issue isn’t only striking the Lord’s anointed, but “working salvation with your own hands” in general. The temptation to kill Saul here in chapter 26 is greater than 24, but David learned the lesson from Abigail and Nabal. He doesn’t need to take what is in God’s hands into his own.
And neither do you. Your situation is likely different than David’s, of course. But let’s look at what helped David in this situation.
First, he was confident that God would take care of punishing Saul, so he didn’t need to. “And David said, “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,” (1 Sam 26:10). Just like God cut Nabal down, so too will He strike down Saul. David’s refusal to strike down Saul isn’t some kind Stockholm syndrome where he has fallen in love with the his persecutor. He knows Saul deserves death. But he also knows that it is not his place to do it (cf. Ex 22:28). He will not wrench his way into his kingship by assassination. He can wait on God’s timing. He can be patient.
So confident in God’s justice and retribution, that David still entreats Saul, asks him to repent. In verses 17-20, David respectfully speaks to Saul and pleads with him to drop this hunt and allow David to return to where God’s presence is in the promised land of Israel. He speaks deferentially, again referring to himself like a flea that isn’t worth “the king of Israel’s” time (1 Sam 26:20). Saul, again, is cut to the heart and responds, “I have sinned. Return, my son David, for I will no more do you harm, because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Behold, I have acted foolishly, and have made a great mistake,” (1 Sam 26:21). This is the fullest admission of guilt and confession that we have from Saul in the entire book. Normally when Saul is confronted, he excuses and defends. Here, he simply admits that he has sinned, he has “acted foolishly,”—he has been a Nabal. He knows David is right, twice now David could have killed him but didn’t, and promises that he will stop hunting David. Are we witnessing Saul repenting right now? Notice 1 Samuel 27:1, “Then David said in his heart, “Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.” David has heard Saul say this before. Saul’s disposition can switch like *that*. He wept and cried out how wrong he was in chapter 24, yet here he is again. Talk is cheap. Repentance is more than saying you are wrong to save face, or to escape embarrassment. It is agreeing with God about your sin, and saying, I don’t want this in my life—God, what can I do to get rid of this?
Second, he was confident of God’s reward. “The LORD rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness, for the LORD gave you into my hand today, and I would not put out my hand against the LORD'S anointed,” (1 Sam 26:23).
Consider the connection between why David didn’t put out his hand against Saul, why he didn’t work salvation with his own hands. He had the opportunity to, the Lord put him there. But he knew that the Lord rewards every man for his righteousness and faithfulness. There is a reward waiting on the other side of obedience that is worth it. David knows there is an internal reward of a clean conscience—and oh, what is that worth? Is there any pleasure, any station, any comfort that is worth a defiled conscience? No creature comfort can solve that spiritual ailment. David knows there is an external reward—He knows that God’s Law isn’t pointless. It leads to life. Even if it makes his life harder right now, if he submits to God’s design, it will be worth it. And David knows there is an eternal reward. Every church in the book of Revelation is promised a reward if they persevere. Paul tells suffering Christians, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,” (2 Cor 4:17).
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased… The faint, far-off results of those energies which God’s creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy.” (Lewis, The Weight of Glory)
Third, he knew whose eyes mattered. “Behold, as your life was precious this day in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the LORD, and may he deliver me out of all tribulation,” (1 Sam 26:24).
We would expect David to say, “as your life was precious this day in my sight, so may my life be precious in your sight, Saul.” Tit for tat. I spared you, now you spare me. That make sense. That seems like a clear way to escape the tribulation he is in. But that isn’t David’s hope. His hope is that God will deliver, that in God’s eyes, his life is precious.
“So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? No fear that His resources will prove unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me,” (Hudson Taylor).
