David has his opportunity to kill Saul while he is
"relieving" himself in the cave where David and his men are
hiding. His men encourage him to strike
down his enemy in response to the word of the Lord concerning his enemy but
David refuses to see Saul as his enemy.
In fact, David refuses to see Saul as anything other than his lord, the
Lord's anointed. Even in this moment,
when Saul looks his way, David bows to the king. We need to get one thing straight, and that
is who is our enemy. We do have an enemy
but as Paul will write, that enemy isn't flesh and blood but a spiritual enemy
who oftentimes uses flesh and blood to do his bidding and battle. Saul may be used by satan but he remains the
Lord's anointed and it is up to the Lord to judge him. Saul sees the righteousness of David and asks
for a covenant which David is willing to enter with Saul as he has already
entered it with Jonathan, to do good to his descendants. Interestingly, when David gets a chance to do
this very thing, bless Saul's descendants, that man, Jonathan's son
Mephibosheth, uses the same appellation, "dead dog" to describe
himself before David as David uses here with Saul.
It seems as though this parable comes up often in our
readings or perhaps the Lord is speaking it loudly to me and I am not getting
what He wants me to hear. When the sower
scatters the seed he is indiscriminate in doing so. Surely he sees the condition of the soil on
which he sows and would be more careful not to waste seed sown on rocky soil or
weedy soil and only cast it upon prepared ground which will yield a
harvest. He promises, however, in Isaiah
55 that His word never returns to Him void, it always accomplishes the purpose
He intended. We need only sow, not
withholding the Word from anyone at all, but allowing Him to determine the
outcome of our work. We were given only
to preach the Word. Who knows what He is
doing to improve the soil which has long been unproductive. Keep on sowing, there is an enemy but the
Lord's Word is able to produce even in the rockiest soil today. People aren't our enemy, our enemy is the one
attempting to ruin the soil.
Paul and Barnabbas' preaching of the Gospel at Pisidian
Antioch has begun to bear fruit, but there is opposition to this fruit, the
weeds have begun to sprout among the wheat to choke it out. Most Jewish people of that time would have
considered the Gentiles to be enemies, certainly Paul would have thought in
that way prior to his Damascus road experience, but now those enemies are his
allies because of the Gospel. Paul
considered himself an enemy of the Gospel at one time, his heart was like iron
against the Gospel message. Paul
determines to not waste his time preaching to those who reject the message, but
they have heard it first and been given the opportunity to reject it. When the opposition proves insurmountable,
Paul and Barnabas simply shake the dust from their feet and move on. These people have made themselves enemies of
the Gospel, it was their choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment