The Life and Times of

Conclusion

This is truly an amazing story. Who would ever have thought that “nature’s call” would result in the peaceful parting of David and Saul on such an occasion? God is sovereign. He is in absolute control of all things, and “all things” includes things as basic as the “call of nature.” By means of this very natural (our children would say “gross” or something of the sort) event, some very supernatural things happened. First, David and Saul met and parted, yet without the shedding of any blood. Saul confessed things we would never have expected from him. David not only repented of his act of cutting off a portion of Saul’s robe, he kept his men from killing Saul. And all of this is the result of Saul looking for a pit stop, and finding it in the very cave where David and his men “just happened” to be hiding. God is able to employ “nature” to achieve His purposes. What a marvelous God we serve!

In his book, Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders speaks of three principles which govern spiritual leadership:

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  Sovereignty
  
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  Suffering
  
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  Servanthood
  

I believe this dear brother is absolutely right, and that these three principles can be seen in the life of David as God prepares him for spiritual leadership. Let us consider each of the three.

Sovereignty

The first factor in spiritual leadership is the sovereignty of God. I attended a meeting in which Sanders told of how God called him to leadership. He was engaged in a very different kind of ministry, as he had been most of his life, when he was contacted about becoming the head of a large missionary organization. It took Sanders (and his wife) a year to recognize the persistence of this organization as an evidence of His sovereign call to leadership. It is God who sovereignly raises up spiritual leaders (see the way God raises up Saul/Paul in Acts).

The sovereignty of God is one of the principle factors in David’s thinking about leadership as well. God sovereignly raised up Saul as Israel’s king. Though Samuel anoints David as Israel’s next king, David believes it is God who will remove Saul and that this is not his task. So long as God keeps Saul in power, to lift his hand against Saul is to lift his hand against God. Circumstances may have been favorable for David or one of his men to kill Saul, but David’s belief in the sovereignty of God keeps him from doing so.

Satan rebelled against the sovereign rule of God. He was not willing to serve God, but wanted to lead, like God. Sin is rebellion against God, against his sovereignty. It is seeking to rise above God. David submits to the sovereignty of God. And he does so by leaving vengeance to God. John Murray’s comments on Romans 12:19 are most pertinent:

“Here we have what belongs to the essence of piety. The essence of ungodliness is that we presume to take the place of God, to take everything into our own hands. It is faith to commit ourselves to God, to cast all our care upon him and to vest all our interests in him. In reference to the matter in hand, the wrongdoing of which we are the victims, the way of faith is to recognize that God is judge and to leave the execution of vengeance and retribution to him.”¹¹

Suffering

The second factor in spiritual leadership is suffering. Oswald Sanders spoke of one of his first sermons (some 65 years earlier!). He said that after his message, he could not help but overhear two women discussing his sermon. One woman asked the other, “Well, what did you think?” The second woman responded, “Not bad, but he’ll be much better when he has suffered.” Sanders then went on to describe how God brought him through suffering by the death of two wives and one niece. When I hear many contemporary Christian musicians, I feel like that woman who heard Sanders’ first sermon. I believe they will be better after they have tasted suffering. They often write and sing their music as very young and inexperienced people. Most have not tasted the cup of suffering and sorrow. Suffering has a way of changing you and your message.

From the time David is anointed king to the time he is appointed king, David endures a great deal of suffering. Most of his suffering comes from the hand of Saul. David’s ascent to the throne is not in spite of his suffering, but by means of it. Suffering is the means by which God prepares David for leadership. And this is no exception. Joseph’s suffering at the hand of his brothers prepared Joseph to lead and prepared a way of deliverance for his family. Israel’s suffering in Egypt prepared the people of God for the exodus and their life as free men and women. Our Lord’s suffering prepared Him for the ministry which He will have as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Our suffering accomplishes exactly the same thing.

David’s men are tempting him to shortcut his sufferings and to hasten his rule as king by killing Saul. Their temptation is little different from the temptation of our Lord by Satan in the wilderness at the beginning of his public ministry (see Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-12). We too are tempted to avoid suffering and to get right into the glory, but suffering is God’s appointed means of bringing us to glory. David is willing to suffer in order to obey God, even though it seems to be inconsistent with his future reign.

Servanthood

The final factor Sanders describes in relation to spiritual leadership is servanthood. Servanthood and submission are very closely related in my mind. Both are very much involved in God’s preparation of David for kingship. A servant is one who faithfully serves another. David is Saul’s faithful servant, even when Saul is seeking to take his life. Submission is subordinating your own personal interests to serve another.

David serves his master, Saul, faithfully. His conscience troubles him when he cuts off a portion of Saul’s robe. This is not serving Saul faithfully. He refuses to consider killing Saul, or to let his men do so. This is not serving Saul. Suffering is the price David is willing to pay to serve Saul faithfully. Saul is, in a sense, David’s enemy, and God has put his life in David’s hands. But David believes that in order to do what is good in his sight, he will have to serve Saul, not slay him. And in order to serve Saul, he will have to endanger his own life. So David lets Saul go and then reveals himself to Saul outside the cave. David goes so far as to submissively rebuke Saul, pointing out that he is not his enemy, and that he has done only good toward him. David never ceases to serve Saul in submission, as long as he is alive and as long as he is God’s king. David does “good” toward Saul, as Saul himself confesses, and this David does by suffering at Saul’s hand, by serving Saul, and by submitting himself to Saul, looking ultimately to the sovereign God for justice and retribution.

These guiding principles of sovereignty, suffering, and servanthood enable David to discern the will of God in his circumstances. David’s men (1 Samuel 24:4), much like Saul (1 Samuel 23:7), discern God’s will on the basis of favorable circumstances: God gives them the opportunity to kill Saul, and thus it must be God’s will for them to do so. David discerns God’s will on principle. He chooses to fight Goliath, not because it looks as though he is sure to win (though he does have this certainty, no one else does), but because this man is blaspheming God. David is not willing to take advantage of his circumstances because he is thinking like a spiritual leader, thinking in terms of the sovereignty of God, suffering as a part of God’s will and servanthood.

I see much less of David’s discernment of God’s will today than I do of Saul’s or of David’s men. I hear many Christians think and teach that suffering is not God’s will, and that true faith will be rewarded by immediate blessing and the absence of pain. I find that many discern God’s will by looking only at favorable circumstances, rather than living by faith in God’s word, and not by sight. I see many Christians getting their guidance from other misguided Christians, rather than standing alone on biblical principle. Let us be like David in this regard, and not like his men who only want to end the pain by killing God’s anointed. Such self-serving is precisely what we see in the scribes and Pharisees (along with the masses, including the Romans), when they rejected Christ and crucified him, releasing Barabbas instead.

I see in David’s life, as described in 1 Samuel, an example and illustration of many biblical texts on the subjects of suffering, servanthood, and submission. Though we cannot consider them now, let me simply list some texts for your further consideration: Psalm 7; Matthew 5:44; Romans 12:17, 19; 1 Peter 2:11-22; 4:12-19. Let us all seek to be men and women, like David, who have a heart after God’s own heart, to His glory and for our good.