Thursday, January 9, 2014

David's Temptation from 1 Samuel 24:1-4

7/11/2010 7:57:04 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  David’s temptation

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1Samuel 24:1-4

            Message of the verses:  “1 ¶  Now when Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, saying, "Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi." 2  Then Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the Rocks of the Wild Goats. 3  He came to the sheepfolds on the way, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were sitting in the inner recesses of the cave. 4  The men of David said to him, "Behold, this is the day of which the LORD said to you, ’Behold; I am about to give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.’" Then David arose and cut off the edge of Saul’s robe secretly.”

            “1 Save me, O God, by Your name, And vindicate me by Your power.”  This is the first verse of Psalm 54 which David wrote after the Lord had spared his life when Saul came upon him with his many men, but the Lord caused the Philistines to raid a village to which Saul left David and went to attack the Philistines.  David knew of his innocence and thus he asked the Lord to vindicate him as this verse in Psalms says.  God did give him the chance to kill Saul, but David would not do it because Saul was the Lord’s anointed and not his enemy.  David wanted Saul to stop chasing him because he was not his enemy. 

            This is the background to today’s SD as David finds Saul in the same cave with him but Saul did not realize that David was there because Saul was using the cave as a restroom.

            I believe that the whole point of this section of Scripture was what should David do with Saul since he was right there in front of him ready to be killed, but David, who had killed many men by this time surely believed that the Lord would care to Saul’s death when and how He wanted and David was sure that he would not be involved in the killing of Saul, for after all Saul was David’s king and also his father-in-law.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Warren Wiersbe calls this sub-section to his 3rd main section in this chapter “David’s temptation,” and this was a temptation for David for even his men were not on his side for choosing not to kill Saul, for they wanted him to do so and even believed that the Lord presented this opportunity for David to kill Saul.  This all involved David’s character and up to this point it had be flawless.  Now suppose David would have given into this temptation and killed Saul while there were 3000 of Saul’s men just outside the cave.  Even if he got away David would have been a criminal and a man with a price on his head, and a man would probably would not have been the next king in Israel, at least not with the character he would have had if he allowed God to arrange the death of Saul.

            With all of this said I think that the point that I get from this has to do with temptation and how to handle it.  “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”  This is how I am to handle temptation, to believe that God can take care of any temptation that I have.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.       In order to handle temptation God’s way I have to put on the spiritual armor:  the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, take up the shield of faith, put on the helmet of salvation, and take up the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.
2.      Learn to be content.


7/11/2010 8:26:40 AM

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