1 Samuel 23:1-5

Deference to the Divine will.

The facts are—

1 . David, being informed of the inroads of the Philistines against Keilah, seeks counsel of God.

2 . Being directed to go against them, he finds his men in doubt of the safety of the enterprise.

3 . Hence, to satisfy them he makes further inquiry of the Lord, and is again directed to go, with promise of victory. Acting on these instructions, he saves Keilah. The moral degeneracy of Saul seems to have been accompanied with some degree of inefficiency of government, by reason of which portions of the country were still exposed to incursions of the Philistines. The subsequent conduct of Keilah, bad enough as it was in itself ( 1 Samuel 23:12 ), would lead us to infer that the people who sought David's interposition were patriotic men not resident in the city. Possibly David's reputation for energy and courage had been sustained of late by the manner in which he had developed his few resources in defence against the wiles and force of his personal foe, and hence it would be natural for oppressed neighbours to seek his aid on an emergency. The narrative relates how he met the demand on his intervention, and with what result. It brings out a fine truth bearing on both public and private life.

I. THE HABIT OF DEFERENCE TO THE DIVINE WILL IS A NECESSARY AND VALUABLE ELEMENT IN LIFE . It is remarkable how, without choice of his own, David had been forced into a position of isolation and danger. There perhaps never was a life, except that of our Saviour, in which habitual submission to a supreme will was more conspicuous. The critical position in which he found himself when urged to make war on Philistine plunderers brought out into more public view a condition of mind habitual in private life. His unwillingness to take the step without being sure of the will of God was a revelation to those who sought his services of what was constant in his experience. The question was not, Can I gain wider reputation, or win Israel to my standard? Is it the will of God, was the first and last thought. David's conception of life was that which becomes every Christian. Whether our lot be kingly or lowly, our calling public or private, it should be a primary thought with us that God has a will of his own as to what manner of persons we ought to be, and what line of conduct we should adopt in the most common affairs of our life; forevery action, and word, and spirit possesses in God's sight a moral character derived from the motive in which it originates and the final result to which it is made subservient. Our great business is to form an estimate, by a study of God's character and providence and of our own position and capabilities, of what he would regard as a pure and righteous course, and then strive, as demands are made on us, to translate that into our actual deeds and temper. There is abundant scope for this habitual deference to God's will in the demands which come upon us from all quarters. By reason of the strong interaction of various tendencies within us: and the opposing claims of what seem to be benevolence and prudence, we may, like David, find ourselves in an ambiguous position, and it is at such junctures especially that the habitual deference will manifest its valuable presence. The difference between a really good man and one of formal godliness comes out in this, that the one always feels as though another and higher will was present and supreme over his own, while the other only thinks of that superior will on special occasions when painful events fill him with fear. This habitual deference is partly owing to the fact that a correct view is taken of life. David understood his vocation in the world. He had a part to perform in the great Messianic purpose. Although his vision of the future unfoldings of that purpose, varying in distinctness at different periods ( Psalms 2:1-12 ; cf. Psalms 72:1-20 ), was not of details, yet he had faith enough in its reality and grandeur to induce the conviction that every step of his daily course was in some way associated with its realisation. And in like manner the humblest Christian is permitted to believe that he has a similar vocation in the world, as a member of Christ's mystical body. Hence we, as members of Christ's body, have no raison d'etre apart from habitual deference to the will of Christ. And as, by the varied experience of life, this deference deepens, so its effect on our general character is more conspicuous. It induces a sobriety of judgment, for haste and rashness are due to self-will; it creates a refined susceptibility of spirit by which moral perfections are quickened and the existence of evil is discerned from afar; and it gives zest and carefulness in use of means to ascertain, in cases of difficulty, what is the perfect will of God.

II. THE MANIFEST APPROVAL OF GOD IN ANY CASE OF DIFFICULTY OR PERIL IS AN ALL - SUFFICIENT ENCOURAGEMENT TO A SINCERE MAN . David's position was still one of embarrassment and danger. He was potentially king, but could not avow it. He was loyal to Saul, though strongly tempted by his persecutions to rise in open rebellion. He was assured by. the anointing and by Samuel's sanction and encouragement that a great future was awaiting him, and yet, like many since his time, he had to bear all the pains and sorrows of the outcast. The agony of feeling expressed in the Psalms can be understood only as we remember his call to a holy work and the consciousness of innocence. The recent experience at Nob caused him to feel how incidentally others might be compromised in his procedure, even when undertaking useful service. But all fear, all sorrow, every feeling of uneasiness as to consequences, disappeared when God recognised him by an answer to the official inquiry of Gad or Abiathar. The fact of the inquiry on his behalf is very important ( Numbers 27:18-21 ; 20:26-28 ). That one or both of these after the slaughter of Nob sought counsel for David was a declaration in most emphatic form that he was the coming king. God thus by his servants openly sanctioned him, and hence his soul was encouraged to brave any danger, to bear any consequences, so long as God approved ( Psalms 56:11 ). It is the assured approval of God, obtained in diverse ways according to the nature of the case, that emboldens Christians in courses of extreme difficulty and peril. The apostles feared not Jewish or Roman power when they had, after the ascension of Christ, received the inward and outward testimony of the Holy Spirit of the Divine character of the cause they professed. The same spirit is created in others when called to go forth to heathen lands, or to wage war with fearful evils at home. Let the youth, the sire, the statesman, the parent, the merchant, and the pastor only hear the word "go," at once the soul may take courage and assert its strength.

III. THE MEANS BY WHICH GOD AFFORDS GUIDANCE TO HIS PEOPLE VARY IN DIFFERENT AGES . David now is guided in his public capacity as the coming king by prophet or by priest using the ephod. As a private man he depended for the ordinary course of life on the more private and unexpressed guidance which God insures to all his faithful children. The means by which his public course was directed were unlike the more ancient and the more modern. From the beginning of human history we have to distinguish between the communications which God may have given to men for their personal comfort and use and that which was designed to reveal the fact of his purposes of mercy to the world and gradually unfold their scope, although in some instances, as in the case of Abraham ( Genesis 15:1 ), the personal and general might coincide. The guidance granted to the patriarchs for the unfolding of the redemptive purposes was chiefly in form of visible or audible manifestations, a method well suited to a primitive life without religious literature, precedents, fixed regulations, and official teachers, and needing greatly, in the midst of visible surroundings and material tendencies, to be impressed with the reality of the unseen power. To Israel in the desert the guidance and spiritual impressment was given by the visible pillar of cloud and of fire, and by the stupendous signs on Mount Sinai which accompanied the communications to Moses for their benefit. The Urim and Thummim of the high priest were chiefly employed during the years subsequent to Moses, thus largely dispensing with the irregular visible display. In the prophets Samuel, Gad, and others after them a more spiritual method came into use, God making known his will to the people by some spiritual manifestation to or elevation of the prophet's spirit. In Christian times the personal prophetic medium reached its culmination in Christ and his apostles, who, out of the fulness of the Spirit that dwelt in them, gave forth such teaching and guidance in action as the Church required. Thus in divers manners God has spoken for the guidance of the Church. We have to consult the "living oracles" ( 2 Timothy 3:16 ) for our guidance as a Church of Christ in reference to the general principles and the manifold details involved in establishing "the kingdom" ( Isaiah 8:20 ; John 5:20 ; Acts 17:11 ). As individual Christians, besides acting in unison as a Church for the common objects of the kingdom of Christ, we may seek guidance daily by private use of the same means as those enjoyed privately by David.

IV. THE HIGHEST QUALITIES OF THE RELIGIOUS CHARACTER may be associated with THE MORE ORDINARY AND PRACTICAL , and when so associated THEY GIVE VALUE AND COMPLETENESS to them. It is a too frequent belief in the world that a man absorbed in the pursuit of the highest religious vocation and distinguished by the loftiest spiritual aspirations, such as are revealed in the Psalms and in David's life, becomes thereby one sided in development, and fails by neglect in the detailed and minor moralities of life. A saint is synonymous with a moody, unpractical man, too much occupied with spiritual realities to be careful of little things. David's conduct in the affairs of Keilah is a refutation of this false conception. The narrative brings out his full orbed religion, and in this he may be considered as a fit representative of the well developed Christian.

1 . The line of conduct pursued with reference to Keilah, taken in historic connection with his call to service, brings out a remarkable combination of high and ordinary qualities. With his consciousness of high mission was joined a patient endurance of bitter trials as a consequence of the very position to which Providence was calling him. Not a word of complaint and distrust escapes his lips during this weary hiding from his foe, although in his agony he was constrained to cry, "How long, O Lord!" Then there was that beautiful self reserve, lest by any impetuous act he should seem to forestall the ways of God and force on the final issue—as seen in his unwillingness to annoy or embarrass Saul and press him to a conflict by an attack, without royal commission, on the Philistines. This following and not going before appears also in his using the official means of guidance only when Providence had placed them clearly in his way, and not by privately enticing Gad and Abiathar to join his company. But while intent on these high spiritual objects, there was a generous disinterestedness in relieving the troubles of others, even at a time when his own sorrows were multiplied, for he spared not himself when Keilah was oppressed. Nor did he feel for them alone, since the second inquiry of the Lord (verse 4) was evidently dictated by a tender consideration for men whose faith was unequal to his own, And, finally, all this also associated with a wonderful tenderness for his personal enemy, based on a recognition of his kingly office, and more so on pity for a character once hopeful, but now fast on the way to ruin. Never, perhaps, were the precepts of the New Testament with respect to personal enemies ( Matthew 5:38-44 ) more truly exemplified in combination with so utter a detestation of the sins that tended to frustrate the spiritual ends for which Israel existed in the world.

2 . Taking, then, the conduct of David and the special qualities indicated therein as a basis, we may summarise the qualities which seem to enter into a well developed religious character,

(2) Submission to God's ways and times. The realisation of the ideal before David was by a process which seemed to run counter to the dictates of human wisdom. The great scope of a religious ideal, while it expands the intellect and fills the imagination with the glowing colours of future good, also makes a present demand on the more sober and less brilliant qualities of the soul. The course of nature and the progress of spiritual forces are determined by primary principles of government and a combination of incidental and final issues which in their entirety are comprehensible alone to God, as, indeed, they received their coordination from him. A mind that forms a just estimate of itself, and regards the outworking of the powers of the kingdom of God as the visible index of an infinite secret, will bow in loving submission to all the methods and seasons appointed by God in bringing on the setting of his King on the holy hill of Zion.

(3) Confidence in God in spite of adverse events. The key to David's life when fleeing from cave to cave, and through all the lowly submission to years of waiting, was, as so often expressed in the Psalms, trust in the Lord. The trusting power of our nature is large, but unfortunately has been injured in its development by the suspicions created in our intercourse with untruthful, selfish men. There is a danger of importing this impaired confidence from the secular to the spiritual sphere, and practically treating God as though he were one of us ( Jeremiah 15:18 ). There is a spiritual heroism in believing in God against hope ( Romans 4:17-21 ; Hebrews 11:1-40 .). The religious trust is not founded on knowledge of things, either as to their intrinsic nature or their correlation, but on the fact that God is over all and is true to his word. What some would call unreasoning fanaticism is the soul's rational, loving homage to the wisdom that never errs, the goodness that ever blesses, and the power that works all things to its own ends. History justifies the faith of God's people. "They are dead which sought the young child's life" ( Matthew 2:20 ). "He shall live," and "upon himself shall his crown flourish," was predicted of the most despised and reviled ( Psalms 72:15 ; Psalms 132:18 ; Isaiah 53:3 ); and, in a modified sense, it will hold true of all who endure and are faithful to the end ( Revelation 3:21 ).

(4) Kindliness towards the weak and the oppressed. The kindly feeling which prompted an effort to save Keilah, although not personally interested, and which sought support for the weak faith of doubting men by a second inquiry of the Lord (verses 2-4), is but an illustration of the humane spirit of true religion when properly developed. The virtues of submission and confidence, which find exercise toward God as their object, are supplemented by those which bear on the sorrows of men. The loftiest spiritual aspirations—of the severest purity, of the widest range of vision, and of intensest gaze on the realisation of a spiritual salvation for man—were combined in Christ with the tenderest and the most considerate regard for the weaknesses and woes of men, and did, directly or indirectly, during a brief sojourn on earth, more than anything else to alleviate temporal sufferings and finally break the bonds of social and political oppression ( Luke 4:18 ).

3 . The attainment of this well developed personal religion is within reach of all. The character of David was not supernatural, but the outgrowth of a mental and moral constitution, under the carefully cherished influences of such religious privileges as fell to his lot. The position of each one of us is in the main that of David: we have our natural temperament, which may determine the prominence of this over that virtue; we, as Christians, have received our solemn call by One greater than Samuel; we, in our private or public sphere, have, as the business of our life, the maintenance of a theocracy more blessed and wide in its influence than that for which David lived; the Divine truth for our instruction and admonition embraces more than he was wont to meditate on by day and night; and it is our privilege to wait on the Lord daily for both strength and wisdom. A nature less capactous than that of David's, and called to a department of service for God less conspicuous to the public eye, may, by corresponding diligence in self-culture, attain to a symmetry of Christian excellence akin to that of David, and embracing all the qualities we have just sketched. Every man is a well developed Christian when such a nature as he happens to possess is brought, in all its tendencies and developments, entirely under the sway of the Christian spirit. A knowledge of our constitutional tendencies should be accompanied by special guarding of those forms of temperament which imperil symmetry of character. Occasional reviews of our vows and of the goodness and mercy of our God will prompt to a renewed and fuller consecration, which will not fail to develop patience in worse trials possibly than those of David, and confidence in God despite the most adverse of circumstances.