Turn with me to 1 Samuel 27. I'm just going to look at the first
few verses, first four actually. Now, in the last chapter, when
we were here a couple weeks ago, we saw a contrast between Saul
and David. When Saul was tempted, he easily,
readily rose up and went to take David that he might put him to
death. He wanted to put David to death, and he thought nothing
of it and was going to do it. On the other hand, when David
had opportunity to deliver himself by taking Saul's life, Saul wanted
to take his, and David had the opportunity, yet David did not
sin. He didn't take Saul's life. He said, I will not take the
life of God's anointed. And so we saw a difference there
between these two men. Well, here again, we see this
contrast shaping up between them both. Both of them this time
do things where they could easily have lost their lives. They were
doing things that they could easily have lost their lives
and been brought to destruction. And while it's not explicitly
mentioned in the text, there's clearly a difference here between
these two men. We know it. We see it. There's
clearly a difference that is put between these two men, and
the difference is God's grace. God preserved David in grace,
and God destroyed Saul. And there's a difference there.
Now I want to show you from these first opening verses of this
chapter, three points. Three points that we see in the
contrast that God makes between the actions of these two men. And it's setting up for the closeout
of this book. We'll see it more, Lord willing,
as we look at other passages. But let's begin here with David. Now, you'll recall that the Lord,
in his words, says of David, he calls him a man after mine
own heart. He says David is a man after
his own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. But when we examine
David's life closely, we begin to see that David is a sinner. He's a sinner like you and me.
He's not a perfect man in all his ways. We see him be very
passionate with anger. He was ready to take Nabal's
life when he was angry with Nabal. And we see him in this chapter,
we'll see that he's fearful of Saul. He's afraid of Saul. And so that moves him to things.
And we'll see as we look at his life later on, he murders a man
and he commits adultery. And he murdered the woman's husband
to cover the sin of his adultery with her. And so we see that
David is a sinner, but he's a sinner saved. Now, as we look at this
passage, and we'll just touch on it tonight, but again, if
we come back to this, you'll see that David does some questionable
things, things that we see him do that, when you think about
it, you wonder, why did he do that? What was he thinking? What
was the plan here and what he was doing? It's very questionable
about some of the decisions that David makes here at the close
of this book. And it shows that he feared for
his life by the hands of Saul. And it amounts to what is unbelief
of God. Unbelief. He didn't believe God. And we see this in others, not
just David. We see this in others in the
scriptures. We see it in ourselves. We see
it in us. We are to believe God. And I'm
not going to make an excuse for David's sin here. We're to believe
God. We're to seek to honor the Lord
and to do what he tells us in his word to do. We are to obey
his commands. And his commands to us are, believe
Christ. Believe him. He is the Savior. Believe him. Follow him. Hear
him. receive his word, hear his word. We are to love God with all our
heart, mind, soul, and body, and we are to love our neighbors.
Christ tells us we are to love one another even as Christ loved
us and gave himself for us. Those are his commands. James
tells us, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not,
it is sin. It is sin. We are to do what
we know to be is right. But we are going to see that
God preserved David. He preserved him. And this is
my first point here that I want to make, and it concerns God's
gift of eternal life. It concerns God's gift of eternal
life. And this is important for us
because the Lord in his word speaks of the gift of eternal
life as opposed to the judgment of eternal death. God speaks
of eternal life and eternal death. Our souls are eternal and we're
either going to have eternal life in joy and bliss in the
presence of our God, or we shall dwell eternally separated from
God under His wrath and judgment. Our souls are eternal. Our souls
are eternal. And I want to know then, how
may a sinner be justified? How may a sinner be given eternal
life? How may I have eternal life?
If I can be judged for my sins, and we shall, according to God's
word, how can I have life? How can I be delivered from that
judgment? Because the more, and I ask this,
because the more I look at my works, the more I look at what
I've done, the things I say, the things I think, my actions,
the more sin I see. The more I see my own imperfections,
the more I see my need of the grace of God. And if I'm being
honest, the more I learn of the Lord, the more sinful I find
myself to be. And I can't make excuses for
my sin. And the more we see Saul as a
sinful man, and we see him just departing and going worse and
worse and worse, And then we look at David and we see he's
a sinner too. He's a sinner too. How then may
a sinner have eternal life? Well, let me say this. According to the scriptures,
the child of God is not given eternal life because of anything
in them. It's not because we make ourselves
good. It's not because we stop sinning
and put away our sins. It's not because we keep the
law of Moses now perfectly. It's not because we've gotten
better. It's not because we've put a few things away and we
do a little better than we used to do before. That's not how
we receive life. The Lord tells us that life is
given because God is gracious to whom God will be gracious.
We don't earn eternal life. It's given by the grace of God. We don't earn eternal life. It's
given by the grace of God. God gives eternal life through
the gift of Jesus Christ, who he sent to save his people by
laying down his life for their sins. Now turn over to Titus
chapter three. Titus chapter three. And Paul's
gonna, you'll see in the scriptures what I just said to you. It's
in the scriptures. Titus chapter 3 and pick up in
verse 3. Paul says, for we ourselves also Titus 3, 3, for we ourselves
also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving
diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful
and hating one another. But after that, the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness which we have done. But according to his mercy, he
saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according
to the hope of eternal life. And so because of Christ, The
Lord gives His Spirit, the Holy Spirit to us, to raise us up
from death, to give us life in Himself, in the new man which
is born of Christ, of Christ's seed, born of His grace, so that
we would hear Him, and believe Him, and trust Him, and hope
in the promise of God made unto us in the Lord Jesus Christ,
that we have life in Him. And so the Lord reveals to us
through his word that we are sinners, sinners saved by grace. We're saved by his grace and
he shows us our need of his grace and as we look at David we'll
see this man is a sinner saved by the grace of God, a sinner
preserved and kept by the grace of God. And so our Lord Jesus
Christ was sent to die as the substitute of his people, in
the place of his people, taking our place under the wrath of
God for our sins, that we would go free, having life in him. life in him forevermore. Galatians
3.22 says it this way concerning these things, but the scripture
hath concluded all under sin. Every one of us, when you read
the word, you're going to see every one of these children of
God, including the wicked, are all under sin. They're all sinners. all sinners, and the reason why
is that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given
to them that believe. That is, that's the manifestation
that God has done a work of grace in their heart. He reveals faith
in them. He gives them faith. He gives
them faith. And this is where we see an example
of this in our text this evening. So we see an imperfect David
being preserved perfectly by God, while Saul is left alone
to his sin and led to the slaughter. He's led to the slaughter. Now
let's begin reading in verse 1, in 1 Samuel 27 verse 1. And David said in his heart,
I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul." So he had
just been delivered from Saul a second time. He didn't put
Saul to death. He kept him alive. And now Saul
goes his way, and David's thinking, I shall now perish one day by
the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me
than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines,
and Saul shall despair of me to seek me any more in any coast
of Israel. So shall I escape out of his
hand. What's going on is that since
David fled from the presence of Saul, when he left the courts
of the king, David wasn't left alone. Saul came out after him
with 3,000 men each time seeking to find David that he might put
him to death. And so the first time David could
have taken his life, he lets him go, and it seemed like that
would be it. that Saul was satisfied that
David was not his enemy. David was not seeking to do him
any harm. And so he thought that that should
be the end of it. I can live peaceably now here
in the wilderness. I'll just stay here. I'll stay
away. But that'll be it for now. But that didn't happen. Saul
came out a second time after him. And so when Saul said to
him the second time, I will no more do thee harm because my
soul was precious in thine eyes this day. David didn't believe
him. Saul's word was worthless to
him because he broke his word. He said good things the last
time, and then he came out after him anyway. Additionally, David
was thinking, even my own countrymen have betrayed me two times. It
was the Ziphites in Judah of the Jews that went to Saul and
said, hey, we know where David is, and we'll be happy to show
you where he is. We'll take you to him. So his own countrymen
were betraying him. And after all this time, he's
gathered up about 600 followers that have gathered himself. So
he's wondering, how is this going to happen that I'm going to become
the king of Israel? I've only got 600 people. And
from the scriptures, we know these are the lowlifes. of Israel. These are not good
people, a lot of them. These are people that are just
bitter and upset and not happy with how things are going. They
owe money. They're discontent. They don't want to be with whatever
they were doing before. They don't want to do it. And
so now they want to be with David. But David knew he was anointed
the king by Samuel. And Samuel's dead now, too. So
David's trial of persecution has been going on for a long
time. long time, and he's kept himself
from sin for the most part. Like, from what we could see,
David's done well. He's not out there just being
careless and living carelessly, and yet the trial is continuing
for a long time. But this decision to retire to
the Philistines arises out of his own heart without any mention
of consultation to the Lord. There's no mention that he consulted
the Lord in this thing, whereas in other chapters, he does consult
the Lord using the ephod, the ephod. Abiathar, after his father
Ahimelech was put to death by Saul, Abiathar went out and found
David in the wilderness and brought an ephod to him, and David used
it. When he was asking the Lord,
should I go and rescue the, I don't remember, Kila, the city Kila,
should I go there and rescue the people there? And the Lord
said, yes, do it. And then he asked, should I stay here or
are they gonna turn me over to Saul? He said, they'll turn you
over to Saul. So he consulted the Lord before,
but here we don't read anything about him consulting the Lord
about if he should go, leave Judah and go to the Philistines. And so David at this time made
this decision from what we can see here out of fear of Saul. And that's what he said, eventually
Saul is going to get me. And so he was afraid of Saul. And he didn't look to the Lord
who delivered him numerous times before them, numerous times.
And yet what we find is that God doesn't destroy David for
this. He's going to the enemies of
God's people and God doesn't destroy David for this thing
that he does that from what we can see doesn't look right that
he did it. Now the second point I want to
make about this is that God is abundantly merciful to his children. God is a God of mercy. and he's merciful to his children.
He's very merciful. He does not deal with us according
as our sins deserve. He will chasten us, he will correct
us, but he doesn't destroy us even though our sins deserve
destruction. He's merciful to us. So our Lord
delights to save his people from death. He delights to show mercy
to his people for Christ's sake. I'm reminded of what our Lord
did for Peter. Peter saw our Lord walking toward
them in the boat on the water. And Peter had said, Lord, if
it's you, bid me come to you. And the Lord bid him come and
he came out and went on the water and was walking on the water
but then he noticed the waves and the wind and he cried out
Lord save me and Matthew tells us immediately Jesus stretched
forth his hand and caught him and said unto him O thou of little
faith wherefore didst thou doubt and we see that doubting in David
After all the times that the Lord delivered David and protected
him from Saul, David doubted. David might as well have said,
my luck's going to run out. And there's no such thing as
luck. We're not saved or delivered by luck. It is by almighty, sovereign,
omnipotent God that we are protected and kept and delivered. But David
was looking at the things of the flesh. And so brethren, when
you're going through trials, and you will go through trials
if you are the Lord's people, and your trial is going on for
a long time and much longer than you thought it would, trust the
Lord. He knows exactly what He is doing.
He is the Lord. Believe Him. Wait upon Him. Pray
to Him. Cry out to Him and seek Him.
Continue in prayer but wait upon Him to reveal His grace and mercy
and kindness to you. The Psalmist says in Psalm 123,
2, Behold as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters,
and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so
our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that he have mercy
upon us. It pleases him for us to wait
upon him, to trust him, even through the long trial, and to
be patient, and that He add to our patience experience, and
that He add to our experience hope in the Lord Jesus Christ,
where we shall not be ashamed, trusting Him and waiting upon
Him. And so the Lord shows us many
examples of his comforts for those who wait upon him in scripture. I'll give you another example,
like Peter, well, like we see the Lord's mercy there with Peter,
but we see with Paul, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7, 5, he said,
when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. We had
a tough time when we went into Macedonia, but we were troubled
on every side. Without were fightings, within
were fears. And you can see David in that.
Without were fightings and within were fears. We were made afraid. We were fearful for our lives. Nevertheless, God that comforteth
those that are cast down comforted us by the coming of Titus. And so God always provides a
blessing for his people in the storm. As you go through the
storm of life, as you go through the storm of persecution, as
you go through the storm of the trial and tribulation, the Lord
blesses his people. He'll bless his people in Christ.
And so we don't read of the Lord making any comment here about
what David did. There's no prophet. Bythar could
have said something, but we don't read of anything where anyone
said to him, David, you shouldn't do this. So there's nothing said
good or bad about it. But what we do see is that the
Lord affords him a warm reception in, in, in Gath by the Philistines. It says there back in first Samuel
27. Verse two and three, David arose and he passed over with
the 600 men that were with him unto Achish, the son of Maok,
king of Gath. And David dwelt with Achish at
Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David
with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the
Carmelitess, Nabal's wife. And so here they're able to go
to the Philistines in peace Without fear or worry about Saul finding
them, they can bring their families there, and they have peace and
some rest there. And what's interesting, I looked
it up, that's where Goliath was from, whom David slew. He's Goliath of Gath. And yet
here's David in that city, and he's received and provided for
and preserved and protected. And so we see here that God didn't
condemn David, nor did he allow the enemies of God's people to
harm them or touch them there. He preserved them and protected
them. And so it is that God is gracious to his people to provide
for you, to preserve you, to not destroy you, not do to you
as your sins deserve, but he has a purpose. And that purpose
is in Christ. and he preserves his people and
provides for his people such as we have need of his grace
and mercy lest we should be destroyed with the wicked for our sins
now after this we're told in verse four and here we see a
contrast it was told David that David was fled to Gath and he
sought no more again for him In the coming chapters, we'll
see Saul, again, Lord willing, if we come back here, we'll see
Saul just goes further and further away from the Lord, consulting
a witch and just going further from the Lord. And Saul finds
no repentance. There's no mention of any repentance
for Saul and Saul is eventually destroyed and removed from the
land. And we just see him just making
mistakes too. He drove David away. David's
one of the bravest men in all of Israel. He's the one who went
and fought Goliath. David's one of the bravest men,
one of the best generals, and Saul drove him away, and now
the Philistines are coming, and Saul will be out there with his
men, and Saul's gonna die. He drove away one of the best
that he had, and now he's gonna die, whereas David himself is
preserved of God and provided for, and David'll have nothing
to do with it. He won't even be in the land
when it happens. He's just tucked away, far away, and Saul is dealt
with by the Lord. And that's the third point that
I want to make. The third and final point is
that God is the one who puts a difference between men. We
see it in David, and we see it in Saul. We see it in his people,
and we see it in the wicked. We see it in Jacob. like David
is preserved and provided for and kept by the angel of redemption
he said whereas Esau was left to his own devices and we don't
hear anything of his inheritance except it's that that in the
in the land and that's it and he has no inheritance in the
Lord we see it in Abel we see it in In Cain, we see it in the
Lord's people. He provides for his people. We see it in Isaac, and we see
the difference in Ishmael. And so, it is with the Lord's
people. He makes the difference between
us. Both men, we can find sin if
we look for it. We can find sin in each of them. Saul left to himself dies in
his sins, but David is preserved and he will find repentance.
He will be brought back and established as the king in Israel and all
will be well. All is well for David, not so
for Saul. And David's love and faith and
hope in the Lord was given to him. It was wrought in him by
the grace of God. God did this for David. Because
David could have been lost here forever, but he wasn't. And this
is what the scriptures show us. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
2. Go to Ephesians 2 and verse 1. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins. What does a dead person do for
themselves? Nothing. They're dead. And that's
what we are. We're spiritually dead by nature. We don't do anything for ourselves.
God must do the gracious work for us. Wherein in time past
ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature
the children of wrath even as others. But God, but God, But
God intervened. God made a difference. God put
a difference between his child and the others that he left to
themselves under the course of this world, under the power of
the prince of the air, and just left them to die in their sins.
But he made a difference. But God, God was gracious to
his people, who was rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us. Even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved,
and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. And so we're gonna see that God
so arranges things for David that he never offends Israel,
he never harms her citizens, he never goes to war against
her, he doesn't take a thing from them, so that no one has
any problem with David when the Lord brings him back. He never
supported the Philistines, although he was close, he almost did.
And I don't know what David thought the end game there was, what
he was doing there, but the Lord kept it from ever happening.
He never went out to battle with them. And so the Lord did that. He kept him from crossing that
line and prevented him from harming Israel in any way. And it's because the Lord loved
David, and he preserved him and kept him because he purposed
He had anointed him and purposed to bring it to pass that he would
be the king of Israel. And all he did was good for us. So, even when we come back more
so to 1 Samuel, we'll see it takes some really winding ways,
questionable ways that you see with David and you're just wondering
Because it never says what he was going to do in those situations.
It's just that he was delivered from them. And so that's true
of us. There's times where if you catch
us and walk in at the right moment, you're wondering, what were you
going to do if I didn't come in there, right? There's times
where someone could see us in a moment and just take a little
sliver of time and see us and say, I don't think you even know
the Lord. How could you think that? How
could you do that? How could you say that? How could you go
down that road for any time? Do you even know the Lord? That
could be said of any one of us, and that's where you see David
there in the Philistines, and you're just wondering, what did
he think was going to happen? Because he was about to go out
to battle with the Philistines. Was he going to turn and help
the Israelites? I don't know. It never says when
you get there. The Lord himself is the one who
makes all things clear in the end. He manifests his grace.
We are dependent upon the Lord to save us, to keep us, to turn
us from doing what this wicked flesh would do, and he does it
freely in Christ. It's not because there's something
good in us. We were dead in trespasses and sins when he came. It's because
He is gracious and He has a purpose for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. And so He's the one that's going
to keep us and turn us. turn our hearts and give us,
He gives us His Spirit. He's going to turn our feet and
put us in the way of Christ. He's going to keep us. And though
there's times where we seem to be outside of that, if we're
His, by His grace, He's the one that's going to keep us and bring
us back and bring us into the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in
closing with that, let me just read a little bit of Romans chapter
8 in verse 27. It begins, yeah, you could turn
there. It's Romans 8, 27. Here's what we see. is true of David, and it's true
of us. Romans 8, 27. See, God's not
looking to say, yeah, I think they've got a good heart deep
down. No, by nature we have a wicked
heart. Only by His grace we have a new heart. In the Lord Jesus
Christ, Lord of the Spirit, He that searcheth the hearts knoweth
what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. And that's what the Lord did
for David. David went down a weird way,
but the Lord had another purpose. and interceded for him and brought
him back. And we know that all things work together for good
to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to his purpose. for whom he did foreknow." And
that's what we know to be so of David. He knew David, meaning
he loved David. And that's true of you that are
the Lord's. He foreknew you. He loved you. He chose you in Christ before
the foundation of the world. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called,
them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he
also glorified. These are all testimonies that
are and shall be witnessed in David. The Lord does many blessed
things, brings forth much fruit in David, just as he does in
all his children, who are the planting of the Lord in Christ.
He brings forth His fruit in us in its season. Faith. Hope. Love. He's the one who
bears that in his people, keeping us in him. What shall we say,
then, to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? And that's what he does. He's
very, very gracious to David. I don't know if I've emphasized
that enough. He's very gracious to David,
and he keeps David. And that's what he does for you
who this day believe Christ, you that trust him and hope in
him. He's very gracious to you, and
he preserves you and keeps you looking to him. He gives you
his word. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It's God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it's written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long.
We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Did Saul's persecution
of David drive him away? Even though what the voices were
saying, the people were saying, is let him go serve other gods.
And he almost did. He was there in Gath in the Philistines,
there with those people. We don't know what could have
happened, but the Lord wouldn't allow it. The Lord protected
him. Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through
him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Believe it, brethren, your very
keeping is not because of your works. It is because of the grace
of God. Rejoice in him and let your work
show forth your joy and praises in him. But it's him that does
it. It's his grace. It's his mercy that keeps you. And so rejoice in the grace of
your God, the abundant grace of your God, which keeps you
and preserves you and has a purpose for you to be merciful and gracious
to you in Christ. I pray the Lord bless that word
to your hearts, brethren. Amen.