The Life and Times of

David’s Deliverance and Our Lord Jesus Christ

David’s deliverance has very direct ties to the New Testament, and particularly to our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider our Lord’s use of our text in Matthew 12:

1 At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath through the grainfields, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Behold, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.” 3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did, when he became hungry, he and his companions; 4 how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? 5 “Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath, and are innocent? 6 “But I say to you, that something greater than the temple is here. 7 “But if you had known what this means, 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,' you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:1-8).

The Pharisees are especially distressed by what they consider violations of the Sabbath by our Lord and His disciples. When the disciples (not Jesus, you will note) pluck a few heads of grain and eat them on the Sabbath, the Pharisees see this as a flagrant violation of the law regarding the Sabbath. After all, this is work, they reason. And so they make a point of confronting Jesus with this example of His disregard for the Sabbath.

Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees. In effect, they persist to ask Him, “Just who do you think you are?” “How dare Jesus break the Sabbath by healing some and allowing His disciples to “harvest” grain on this sacred day!” Jesus responds to this Sabbath challenge several different ways. He shows His opponents to be hypocrites, because they do not keep the Sabbath as they require of Him (they will work to get one of their oxen out of the ditch). Neither is it wrong to do good on the Sabbath. They fail to grasp that the Sabbath was created for man’s benefit, not man for the Sabbath’s. Another answer is that Jesus works on the Sabbath to imitate His Father, who is also at work, saving men.

But here Jesus takes a very different approach. Jesus turns back to our text, reminding His opponents that David ate of the sacred bread, and yet he was not one of the priests. How is it they are not upset over this? The answer, Jesus suggests, is that who you are makes all the difference in the world. They do not protest David’s eating of the sacred bread because he is David. He is soon to become the King of Israel. This put the whole matter in an entirely different light. The same is true for the temple priests. They “work” on the Sabbath, but are not condemned for it, and rightly so, for they are priests.

One reason Jesus does not feel obliged to follow the Pharisees rules regarding the Sabbath is that He is the Son of God. He is God’s Messiah, the One whom God has appointed to rule over the entire earth as King. If David can eat the sacred bread because of who he is, and if the priests can break the Sabbath because of who they are, then surely our Lord should not be challenged in the manner in which the Pharisees are doing. Who you are makes all the difference in the world. This principle is illustrated in our text, as our Lord indicates.

Who you are does make all the difference in the world. Without Christ, we are aliens and strangers to the kingdom of God. We are God’s enemies. We are sinners, rightly condemned to death and eternal condemnation. In Christ, we are forgiven, cleansed, righteous, and destined to eternal life. David is delivered many times in his life. David’s deliverance in our text is most humbling indeed. It is not the way he would have preferred to be rescued, but he is delivered from death and from his enemies. It is a humbling deliverance, but it is divine. For this, David gives God the glory.

Like David, we are those condemned to death. Apart from divine grace, we are as good as dead. Our problem is our own sin, which makes us unacceptable in God’s sight. It brings us under divine condemnation and eternal damnation. God in His mercy and grace has provided a way of escape. God’s means of deliverance is not flattering to us, but it is ever so glorifying to Him. He sent His only Son, to come to the earth as a man (a perfect God-man), to live a perfect life, and to die an innocent death as the payment for our sins. The cross was not an ego-inflating event. It was an ugly death our Lord died on behalf of guilty sinners. But God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, glorifying Him and those who, by faith, are in Him. It is by faith in Jesus Christ that unworthy sinners are delivered from eternal death, to the glory of God.
Saul Loses His Grip (1 Samuel 22:5 --23:14)

Introduction

A friend tells the story of an elderly person bemoaning those things which come with age. “I don’t mind so much that I have to take off my glasses at night. I don’t even mind so much that I have to take my teeth out for the night. And then there’s my hearing aid, which I also have to deposit on the night stand. I don’t miss the loss of good sight, good teeth, and good hearing so much -- but I sure do miss my mind!”

Some of us who are not quite at the point of old age might also wonder at times if we are beginning to miss our minds. If anyone should “miss his mind,” it is King Saul. Up to this point, Saul has had his problems in life. He was delighted to find David who could play his harp and soothe his troubled spirit (16:14-23). He also rejoiced greatly when David took on Goliath and won (chapter 17; see also 19:5). But when the women of Israel began to sing their song of celebration giving David greater honor than Saul, the king began to look upon David with suspicion (18:6-9). Quickly overtaken by jealousy, Saul tried to kill David in a way that would not make him look bad before the people (18:10-29). But before long the king gave orders to his servants to kill David (19:1). Jonathan talked him out of his plans for a short time (19:1-7), but it did not last long. Soon, Saul was hurling his spear at his very own son (20:33). By various means, God spared David’s life, but eventually it became necessary for him to flee from the king’s presence. He first fled to Ahimelech, the high priest, who inquired of the Lord for him (22:10, 15) and gave David some of the sacred bread, along with the sword of Goliath (21:1-9). Our text describes the consequences following this event.

When we come to chapter 22, we see a king who has completely lost his grip, mentally speaking. Saul would be admitted to any mental hospital for what ails him. His fits of depression and jealousy appear to become more intense and more frequent. Now, he seems in a constant state of fear and jealousy, interspersed with fleeting moments of sanity. In our text, Saul reaches an all-time low, for here Saul’s fear of David drives him to begin killing other innocent people. Here his jealous rage drives him to order the killing of the priesthood, an almost unthinkable thing.

Just before instructions to Israel and her king about the role and responsibilities of Israel’s kings, we find these instructions concerning the priests:

8 “If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your courts, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. 9 “So you shall come to the Levitical priest or the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall inquire of them, and they will declare to you the verdict in the case. 10 “And you shall do according to the terms of the verdict which they declare to you from that place which the LORD chooses; and you shall be careful to observe according to all that they teach you. 11 “According to the terms of the law which they teach you, and according to the verdict which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the word which they declare to you, to the right or the left. 12 “And the man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the LORD your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. 13 “Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act presumptuously again” (Deuteronomy 17:8-13, NASB).

King Saul is about to kill not just one priest, but to make an attempt to execute all the priests and their families -- in spite of these words God gave Israel and her king regarding their respect for, and obedience to, the priests. Let us give heed to our text to see how Saul reached this low point in his life and leadership, as we also look to see what God has for us to learn from this text.