Turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter
22. 1 Samuel 22. Now our Lord is using the persecution
of David by Saul here to reveal a difference between the children
of the covenants, between the covenant of grace and the covenant
of law. He's showing a difference between
the children of promise and the children of the bondwoman, those
that are free born and those that are born of the flesh into
slavery. And this difference manifests
itself in the persecution of the children of God by the children
of the devil. But in this account here, what
we're going to see is there are many pictures of our Lord Jesus
Christ and what he accomplished for his people. through His death
as our sacrifice, to put away our death, to put away our sin,
to deliver us from that covenant of works and to establish us
in the covenant of grace, made for us, for our good and for
our blessing, and we see that there's fruit Our Lord's death
is a successful sacrifice. He's a successful mediator. And so His death produces fruit
in and for His people so that we are given life and we are
made to flee to Christ for all our comfort and all our safety.
And that's what I want to look at with you here in this text. So Saul now has become entirely
occupied with destroying David. This is his mission in life. Rather than doing things profitable
for the kingdom, he's focusing on finding and destroying David. So look at verse 6, 1 Samuel
22 verse 6. When Saul heard that David was
discovered, and the men that were with him. He's hearing that
David has fled, and he's hiding out, and he's a captain of all
these men. About 400 men have assembled
to him, to David here. And we're told in the parentheses
here that Saul abode in Gibeah. This is where he's from. under
a tree in Ramah, having his spear in his hand, and all his servants
were standing about him. And so we begin to see some tyrannical
behaviors in Saul here. He's so focused on destroying
David. And he's got this look. Now,
here's the king. He's sitting in session on a
throne, as it were, in a grove, in a high place, which is typically
a place of idolatry. And for his scepter, he's holding
a spear. That's his scepter and that sends
a message to those that are standing about him. This is sending a
dark message that Saul is not playing games here and anything
that gets in between him and his throne, he's going to destroy
it. And that's the message he wants
to send to his servants because a lot of people in his court
have favor toward David. They think highly of David and
they don't necessarily understand why Saul is so adamant in trying
to kill David. But Saul, we see in him, is like
the devil. It's like the enemy of our souls
in his hatred of Christ, his hatred of God, his hatred of
God's Christ, which is God's salvation for his people. He
hates the gospel. He hates the people of God. And just like Saul here, the
devil we read of, that his wrath and anger is great. In Revelation 12 it says something
to the effect of woe to the inhabitants of the earth for the devil has
come down unto you having great wrath. His wrath is great for
he knoweth that his time is short. He knows he has but a short time. And Saul seems to sense this. I don't think Saul knew that
David was anointed. I think he would have put Samuel
to death had he known that Samuel anointed David. So this was kept
from him, but he could just see how the Lord blessed this man
in all that he did. And the country, the people of
the country loved him, rejoiced in him. And so his jealousy was
provoked and he wanted David put to death, exactly like we
see with the scribes and Pharisees and the rulers of the Jews who
saw the fame of Christ rise up and they were jealous and they
were fearful and they wanted him put to death as a result. So that's the picture shaping
up here. And look at verse 7 and 8 with me here. Then Saul said
unto his servants that stood about him, Here now, ye Benjamites,
will the son of Jesse, who's of the tribe of Judah, will the
son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards and
make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds? He's? He's? like the serpent promising
them the world. He's promising them reward for
their loyalty and obedience to him and he's threatening them
that you're going to lose all these opportunities which I will
give to you if David survives and if he becomes king you're
not going to have these things that I'm willing to give to you.
Verse 8, that all of you have conspired against me, and there
is none that showeth me that my son, speaking of Jonathan,
hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of
you that is sorry for me, or showeth unto me that my son hath
stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait, as it is this
day. Now, Saul here, he's delusional. He's imagining this. He sees
the friendship between David and Jonathan, and he's imagining
that they're conspiring against him. And we've seen what they
spoke of. It's a true love. It's a true
bond of affection. And Jonathan knows that David
will be king one day. He knows it. But they never spoke
of putting Saul to death. There's no desire to conspire
against Saul. They'll wait upon the Lord. And
the Lord will bring it by to pass in his own good time. And Saul's going to soon know
that this is true because he'll be in a cave and David would
have been able to take his life right then and there and he didn't.
And he knows it, and he backs off for a while until his jealousy
comes up again. But Saul has become desperate
here, and he begins to charge his servants of conspiring against
him. He's basically giving a veiled
threat, saying, you're conspiring against me, too. You're part
of this conspiracy. You guys are aligning yourselves
against me. And that's a dangerous place
to be in the presence of an earthly king. if you will. And so this
causes Doeg the Edomite to come forth with some facts that he
witnessed the other day. But he tells them in such a way
so as to put a dark color on them and to accuse Ahimelech,
the priest, of conspiring with David. And our brother read Psalm
52, which David wrote concerning these things. And again, this
is a picture like we saw the last time, what's born out of
persecution. It's in these persecuting difficult
times, these trials and tribulations when David wrote the Psalms. Not when everything was peaceful
and calm. I don't think most of them, if
any, were written then. It's all when things were difficult
and hard and his life was in danger. And that's when, that's
what the Lord was bringing forth, all that fruit, that precious
fruit in his people under persecution. So Doeg comes forth, look at
verse 9 and 10. Then answered Doeg the Edomite,
which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the
son of Jesse coming to Nab, to Ahimelech the son of Ahithep.
And he inquired of the Lord for him, and he gave him victuals,
which is food, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine. Now, one thing that stands out
here about the accuser, this man is the accuser here, and
his name is what stands out. This is Doeg the Edomite, and
this should bring to our minds that the Lord has a people and
there's a people that he passes by but there is a people that
is precious to him and this brings back what Edom is of Esau. Let's go back just a little bit
further first and just look at the sons of Abraham. The firstborn
was Ishmael and then came Isaac and we see that the Lord put
a difference between Ishmael and Isaac, with Isaac being the
promised seed, and Ishmael being born of the flesh, being the
product of flesh, being, it was Abraham, a man of God, but Abraham
put his hand to the work to try to bring to pass the promises
of God made to him. He was trying by his works to
accomplish what God promised he would do for Abraham. And
that's such a word for us to hear, being the people of God
who hear God's word, who rejoice in God's word, who believe the
promises of God, and yet so often, like Abraham, we think we have
to put our hand to the work. When the promises, when things
seem to be taking a long time to work out, we think, well,
maybe God's telling me I should do something here. And so we
begin to put our hand to the work, just like Abraham, and
when it's of our flesh, we mess it up. And we make matters worse. What I've heard, the best advice
I ever heard is when you don't know what to do, don't do anything.
Don't just do something for the sake of doing something because
a lot of times that's just the flesh. And so we see here this
promise that God had made to Abraham to begin with. And when
he told Abraham, cast out the bondwoman and her son, for in
Isaac shall thy seed be called. Isaac is the son of promise.
I'm going to give you a son according to the promise. And so the difference
between Ishmael and Isaac that I want us to just take notice
of here, and we'll get to Edom in a moment, but the difference
between Ishmael and Isaac is it was a matter of birth. It
was a matter of birth. Ishmael was first born. He was
born first, right? But he was born of the will of
the flesh. And Ishmael represents all those who are born under
that covenant of works. The covenant of the law and the
covenant of works. And all those like him are born
into bondage. He was born of the bondwoman. He's not a free man. He's a bond
servant. He's born of his mother, a bond
woman, and so he's born into slavery. But Isaac, he was freeborn,
born of a free woman, the child of Sarah under the covenant of
grace. And as the child of promise,
he's not of the flesh. And what does this all picture?
What does this mean for you and I? Well, brethren, this pictures
the birth of all of God's children. We're first born like Ishmael. We're born of the flesh. And
we're fleshly. We're of the earth. And we're
born in Adam under that covenant of works. The covenant of the
law. And so we're of the flesh by
nature. We're like Ishmael by nature.
But according to promise, our God gives us a new birth, born
of the Spirit, not of man's works, not of man's will, not of man's
doing, not of our fleshly blood, but of Christ's precious blood. And we're born of the Spirit,
of the seed of Christ. And so we see here that when
He gives us a new birth, We're free, brethren. It's a matter
of birth. And that's what determines which
covenant we stand under before God. Our Lord said it this way
in John 3, 6, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which
is born of the spirit is spirit. So we don't get ourselves born
again. We don't get ourselves saved.
We don't do anything to contribute to our salvation. It's of God. It's of God according to promise. And we wait for the promise,
trusting Him, believing Him. Even though we don't see what
we think we should see in this flesh, we know His Word is true
and stands forever, and He shall bring it to pass. And that's
a comfort for any sinner who's tried to put their hand to it.
We learn quickly, I'm a failure. And I do not live up to the glory
of God. I come short of it in all that
I do, all that I do. And so, Isaac had children as
well, right? And this brings us to Jacob and
Esau. But the promise, the blessing
of God was given to Jacob, right? Jacob and Esau. Esau was the
firstborn. They were twins. They were in
the womb together, but the first hand to pop out was Esau's. He
was the firstborn. And then Jacob pulled him in
and Jacob came out, but Esau, was the firstborn, and he pictures,
again, the flesh. And Jacob being the secondborn,
that's the work of God. He pictures that work of God
for us. And it was said, the elder shall
serve the younger. And what it's speaking of there
is that that which comes forth first of the flesh is the elder,
but that which is of the spirit is the younger. and the elder,
the flesh, shall serve that which is spiritual, that which is born
of God. As it's written, Jacob have I
loved, but Esau have I hated. And so again here, we see this
picture's the new birth, which is accomplished by our Savior
in all his people, all the people of God given to him to redeem,
he came and redeemed us. And he did not fail. He accomplished
salvation. He accomplished the very work
that the Father sent him to do. And Paul said it this way in
that same chapter, Romans 9 verse 8, that is, they which are the
children of the flesh, these are not the children of God.
but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. And by nature, we're all children
of flesh, born dead in trespasses and sins, having no spiritual
life, no spiritual knowledge, no spiritual understanding, unable
to worship the true and living God in truth and in spirit. We
can't do it. We don't know how to do it. And
man thinks he does, but he's ignorant. I'm ignorant by nature. I'm in darkness by nature. I
don't know how to worship God. But he sent his son to accomplish
salvation and redemption and life in his people, which we
could not bring forth ourselves. He accomplished it. He did the
work. And he brings it forth as it
pleases him, as it pleases him. And so, this salvation, our Lord,
because He's accomplished our redemption, He gives the Spirit,
and the Spirit gives life in His people, whereby we hear Christ. We are called effectually by
His grace unto Christ. He reveals faith in us, because
it's not of the flesh, but of the Spirit, and we believe Christ.
We receive His words, and we believe His words, and these
are the children of promise, manifest by the glorious power
of God, doing for them, in them, what they cannot, would not do
for themselves, He does it. And so a distinction is made,
because it can't be We can't be replicated by the wicked. To the outside, sure, they can
fool us and nobody would know. They look like the wheat, though
they're the tares. And so, but God knows, but God
knows. And Dueg here, he pictures the
children of the flesh, those that are left to themselves like
Esau, and he's you see a picture of serving the prince of the
power of the air, seeking to gain his favor and the riches
of this world, rather than the riches of our God in Christ.
And so that's what separates him. And the only thing I could
see in all this is what it comes down to is that because God has
set his love and affection on a people, whoever he puts his
love and affection upon, This world hates, just as it hated
Christ, and it'll be made apparent. They may not even know why they
hate you, but they'll hate you, and they'll give you a difficult,
hard time, and murder you if they can. that they can get away
with it, because that's what they do here. And Paul said it
this way, "...but as then he that was born after the flesh
persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it
is now." He's saying, as Ishmael persecuted Isaac, the son of
promise, even so it is now. And we see that truth all the
way back in Cain, who slew Abel. We see that truth in Ishmael,
who persecuted Isaac. We'll soon see it with Doeg slaying
Ahimelech. And the scribes and the priests
and the Pharisees, they hated Christ and slew him, just as
all the children of the flesh slew all the prophets of God
throughout all ages. And that's because God chose
a people for Himself before the foundation of the world and gave
them into the hand of Christ our surety to accomplish our
salvation, our redemption, and to bring us under that covenant
of grace where God may be just and justifier of them that believe
in Him. according as He hath chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. And so our Lord
Jesus Christ came into this world as our surety and redeemed us
from the hand of justice which was against us under that covenant
of the law and he establishes us in perfect righteousness under
the covenant of grace where God is gracious to us abundantly
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the devil and his children
hate you for it. Because this world is not your
world, it's not your inheritance. Now this brings us to a picture
we see in Ahimelech, which speaks to what our Lord Jesus Christ
accomplished for us in his death. To accomplish our deliverance
from that bondage in Adam that we were born into. Now based
solely on Doeg's accusations Saul determined Ahimelech was
guilty and worthy of death and said in verse 16, the king said
thou shalt surely die Ahimelech thou and all thy father's house. Now we looked at this a couple
weeks ago. where Ahimelech's death, it pictures the death
of our high priest, of our shorty, of our savior, Jesus Christ. Saul had wrongly accused Ahimelech
of insurrection, of trying to overthrow the king, saying in
verse 13, you inquired of God for him that he should rise against
me. And so he's charging him with
insurrection, which just so happens to be, not really, that's according
to purpose, that's exactly what they charged Christ with. The
Jews brought him to Pilate and said, he says he's the king. And we have but one king, even
Caesar. Because they wanted him crucified.
They wanted him put to death the Roman way, the most shameful
way to die. They wanted him publicly shamed
in that manner so that they could wash their hands of it before
the people and say, well, it was Pilate and the Romans that
did it. But they accused him falsely
of insurrection. They accused him falsely. And
so we see, though, that all this was determined by God, that they
should take him and by wicked hands crucify and slay him in
order to bring to pass the purposes of God in redeeming his people,
to save his people. And so he did that very thing
in laying down his life to satisfy our debt, to pay our debt, and
to give us life in himself. So when Ahimelech died, all his
father's house died with him. And the picture is, is that when
Christ was crucified, we brethren were crucified with him. We are the house of the father,
which the father chose and gave to his son, so that when Christ
went to the cross, we went to the cross in him, being born
in him, and when he died, we died. When He was laid in the
tomb, we were laid in the tomb. When He rose again, we rose again. And this is exactly what Paul
says in a couple scriptures, but I'll quote Galatians 2.20,
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me." Brethren, it's Ahimelech and all his father's
house died. And it pictures what Christ accomplished
for us. And all his father's house died
with him to bring us out from underneath that bondage and that
covenant of the law and works that we cannot do. that we cannot
satisfy the justice of God in that covenant, but Christ did.
Christ did. And when we were under that covenant
of works, it was sin that determined whether you lived or died. It
was sin that determined whether you lived or died. And since
all are sinners, since all are sinners in Adam, all died. All
died. But under the covenant of grace,
Christ determines who lives or dies. And since He gave His life
for sinners, all for whom He died live in Him. All whom He represented live
in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And nothing can stop that. Nothing
can prevent that whatsoever. And so we're free from the law
of sin and death in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. We're free
in order that we should live unto God. Not serving God in
fear, under threat of punishment, in worries and doubts and afraid
to die, afraid, wondering, did I do enough? Did I do enough?
No, we've never done enough. And that's why Christ came, to
destroy the works of the devil, to put away that death and deliver
us once and for all from that, that we may serve God in peace
and in fellowship and in joy and in thankfulness for what
He has done for us in and by the Lord Jesus Christ, in newness
of life. Now how is that possible for
sinners such as we are? For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. He accomplished our redemption,
brethren. He accomplished it. Now back
in our text, verse 17, And the king said unto the footmen that
stood about him, Turn, and slay the priests of the Lord, because
their hand also is with David. And you can see just how awful
this fall is in this man. that he calls them the priests
of God, and yet he wants to put them to death. You see how great
his fall is there. And he gave them this testimony
because their hand also is with David. Brethren, is your hand
with our spiritual David, the Lord Jesus Christ? It's a good
testimony that the Lord bears in his people And this world
sees it. This world knows them that are
with Christ, and them that are not. By his grace and power,
Peter calls us a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy
nation, a peculiar people. A people who are sinners, forgiven
by the grace of God, and know what we are, but know who he
is and what he's done for us. making us thankful, that we would
side against ourselves with Christ, that we would take sides with
Him, confessing our sin, that we're unworthy, but He's so gracious
and so loving, so kind, so full of salvation to do for us what
we cannot do for ourselves. So I'll just repeat, they didn't
do anything wrong against Saul. but in it, it pictures their
faithfulness, and it pictures the faithfulness of the blood
redemption of Christ to deliver his people from death once and
for all, in and by himself, through his death, and what he's done
for us. Peter says, let none of you suffer
as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody
in other men's matters, yet if any man suffer as a Christian,
let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. God will call his children to
suffer as this family was called to suffer. But it's all to the
praise, glory, and honor of God. It's to his praise. And we don't
even read of them fighting against it. They were given grace in
that hour. And so the footmen, they wouldn't
do it. But Doeg, the accuser, he gladly And it shows that hatred
in the heart is as murder of another person. It's just as
wicked. It's just as guilty of committing
murder against them because that's what hatred is. We would murder
them if we could get away with it. And so not only were the
priests slain, but verse 19 says, and Nob, the city of the priests,
smote he with the edge of the sword both men and women, children
and sucklings, and oxen and asses and sheep with the edge of the
sword. And when I read that, it's such
a striking, a sad, thing there, because it was for that very
reason that the kingdom was taken from Saul. When the Lord said,
you go, he sent Samuel, and Samuel said, the Lord has said to go
and destroy the Amalekites, I believe it was, and he said, kill every
one of them, including their sheep and their oxen. And Saul
didn't do that. When Samuel came, he said, I've
obeyed the Lord, the voice of the Lord. I've done what the
Lord said. And Samuel said, why then Is there this bleeding of
sheep in my ears and the lowing of oxen, do I hear, if you've
obeyed the Lord?" And then Saul said, oh well I spared them and
I spared the king of Agag or whatever. But then here He goes
and destroys all of them, including sheep and oxen. It shows just
how grievous His fall really was. I think He knew exactly
what He was doing when He put every single one of them to death
in that manner. But I want to show you here in
closing a picture of the grace of our Lord that He works in
His redeemed by His grace and power. And what we see here is
He causes you to fly to Christ, to flee to Christ, our Savior,
to confess and tell Him all that is wrong, to tell Him all that's
troubling us, and to come to Him for grace, for salvation,
for mercy, for help in our time of need. So look at verses 20
through 23. And one of the sons of Ahimelech,
the son of Ahitab, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. And Abiathar showed David that
Saul had slain the Lord's priests. And David said unto Abiathar,
I knew it that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he
would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death of all the
persons of thy father's house. Abide thou with me. Fear not,
for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life, but with me thou shalt
be in safe guard. And so the lesson here is one
of encouragement, brethren, that all for whom Christ gave his
life, none are lost. None shall die in their sin and
perish in hell forever. All that Christ gave His life
for, there's not one in hell. None is lost. He has delivered
us by His blood into the arms of God our Savior, of His Heavenly
Father. We are delivered from that house
of flesh, that covenant of flesh. And so we've seen that in this,
how that when Christ died, we died with Him. that we're chosen
of God in Christ Jesus and we see that fruit wrought in us
so that he gathers us together, he causes us to hear his word
with understanding by his grace and power and he effectually
calls us unto himself to come to Christ and to lay out all
that we ourselves are sinners but what he has done and to and
to declare, Lord, save me. Save me, the sinner, with thy
precious blood. Don't let me perish. And he brings
that out in his people so that this life of Christ is witnessed
in us. Just as we see here with Abiathar.
He wanted no part of that. He fled to David. And that's
what we do. We fly to Christ, our Savior,
our David. And so, brethren, we see the
precious fruit of our Savior. I'll close with this, in John
10, verse 27 through 30, Christ our shepherd says, my sheep,
hear my voice. And I know them, and they follow
me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." And
so we see there, the sheep that hear His voice, that's all of
His grace. That's of His salvation. You that hear Christ and believe
Him, rejoice. That's the grace of your God
being made visible in you, and it's by His grace and mercy,
brethren, that we hear and rejoice in Him. And I pray the Lord encourage
your hearts and comfort your hearts in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.