Let's be turning to 1st Samuel
26. 1st Samuel 26. In this chapter, Saul comes out
against David for a second time. After he said that he saw his
wrong and took an oath of David not to cut off his seed, knowing
that he was going to be the king, But he comes out against David
a second time in the wilderness. But I want to begin reading verse
19 of this chapter. And this is David speaking to
Saul. Now therefore I pray thee, let
my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If the lord have
stirred thee up against me, And if Jehovah, God, has stirred
thee up against me, let him accept an offering. But if they be the
children of men, cursed be they before the Lord. For they have
driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord,
saying, go serve other gods. So David here calls himself a
servant and he speaks of an offering to appease God. He also speaks
of the children of men that were stirring Saul up against David. And this was a cause for David
being cast out from the public worship of God with his people.
David dwelled in the wilderness and wasn't able to join with
the people of God in the sacrifices and worship there of God in the
temple. And he calls them cursed. for
this thing, curse it. Now, like David, I and others
like me who preach the gospel and pastors were servants, servants
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore your servant by extension
of being a servant of Christ, called to minister the gospel
to you. and ministering the gospel to
you, it ministers the Spirit of God to you. It's to minister
spiritual things to you. It's to minister Christ to you. And that's because our Lord has
made us witnesses of these things. This is what we're called to
do. Now we have an offering by which
we are accepted of God. And that offering is the Lord
Jesus Christ who offered himself to the Father. to cleanse us
of our sins, to make reconciliation for the people, to make satisfaction
unto God for us, and to give us life in himself, to make us
righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ, and for me to preach any other
word to you, any word that does not lead you to the Lord Jesus
Christ and perhaps just teaching you historically from this passage,
to just show you the letter of this passage and find some thing
for your flesh to work on or to fix or to improve upon would
not be good. it would be a cursed thing. It would be, in my conviction,
to speak to you after the children of men, according to the words
of the children of men. And if you think about it, that's
what Saul was hearing. He was hearing words of men that
were stirring him up in the flesh to do wickedly against David. And David says that those words
are cursed. cursed be they that would drive
me from worshiping God in spirit and in truth. That's what we
see here. And so the Lord is calling us, teaching
us, instructing us to see that Christ is all. Christ is all. He told the Jews
when he was with them, If ye believe not that I am He, ye
shall die in your sins. That's a cursed thing. You don't
want to die in your sins and stand before God. But believers,
being taught by the Spirit, are taught to have no confidence
in the flesh. That's why we don't preach the
letter of the Word, because all that does is instruct the flesh
in carnal things, in fleshly things that cannot profit you.
And Paul says we have no confidence in the flesh. And so to preach
this word and neglect Christ is to drive you out this day
from the presence of the Lord and to tell you to go serve other
gods. That is, just go off into idolatry. Because that's all that most
churches today are doing. They just turn you to the flesh
and it stirs up the idolatry of man. So we preach Christ because
that's the message that the Holy Spirit attends. Christ says that the Holy Spirit
will come and glorify me, he said. Glorify Christ to us. He will take the things of me,
the things of my teaching, the things that glorify me, and show
them unto you. That's what we do when we come
here to seek our God. To hear His Word is to see Christ
in it. Because the Spirit is going to
bless that Word to your hearts. in showing you Christ, the things
of Christ and blessing them to your heart. So I can tell you
that we're gonna see Christ in this passage. I'm gonna show
you Christ in this passage because without a doubt, he is the difference
between David and Saul. He made the difference between
David and what we see David do and what we see of Saul and what
Saul did. So let's begin reading in verse
1, 1 Samuel 26, verse 1. And the Ziphites came unto Saul
to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hekilah,
which is before Jeshimon? Then Saul arose and went down
to the wilderness of Ziph, having 3,000 chosen men of Israel with
him to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. So this is not a repeat
of what happened a couple of chapters earlier. This is a second
time. And it's reading very much like
it began the last time when Saul went out after David. And Saul
pitched in the hill of Hekila, which is before Jeshimon, by
the way, But David abode in the wilderness, and he saw that Saul
came after him into the wilderness." He sees Saul's army out there. Verse 4, David therefore sent
out spies and understood that Saul was come in very deed. And the way that's reading, it
gives us the sense that David was in disbelief. He couldn't
believe that here comes Saul again. I thought that this was
ended. And Saul said all these wonderful
things. He gave me his word. He took
an oath of me that I would not end his lineage in the earth,
but that that I would be kind, show kindness to him when I'm
made king. Saul said he was gonna be king and everything, like
he knew it, he confessed that, he understood that. And so Saul's
disregarded all that he said before, which really is a disregard
of his oath that he took of David even. But now David knows for
certain that Saul's there. This is Saul. Come out against
me. So David is being persecuted
here by Saul. And as we see in scripture, every
time the believer is persecuted, it's because of God's favor for
them. The very first murder was for
that reason. When Cain slew Abel, it's because
God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's sacrifice. Ishmael persecuted Isaac, the
son of promise. David arose and came to the place
where Saul had pitched And David beheld the place where
Saul lay in Abner, the son of Ner, the captain of his host.
And Saul lay in the trench." Now, what that means, the trench,
is they would make a fortification around Saul. It's like circling
the wagons. They would take the carriages,
chariots, any wagons they had, and put them around Saul as a
fortification to protect him. And the people pitched round
about him. Then answered David, and said
to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah,
brother to Joab, saying, who will go down with me to Saul
to the camp? And Abishai said, I will go down
with thee. So David and Abishai came to
the people. Now pay attention to the descriptions
used here in this verse 7. They came to the people by night.
And behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his spear
stuck in the ground at his bolster. And bolster means head. It means
it's his head, the bolster. But Abner and the people lay
round about him. Then said Abishai to David, God
hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day. Now, therefore,
let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear, even to the earth
at once. And I will not smite him the
second time. In other words, I'll get him.
With one blow, he'll be dead. I won't have to strike him again. He'll be dead. And David said
to Abishai, destroy him not. For who can stretch forth his
hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless? David said,
furthermore, as the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him. Or
his days shall come to die. Or he shall descend into battle
and perish. The Lord forbid that I should
stretch forth mine hand against the Lord's anointed. But I pray
thee, take thou now the spear that is at his bolster, and the
crews of water, and let us go. So David took the spear and the
crews of water from Saul's bolster, and they got them away, and no
man saw it, nor knew it, neither awaked, for they were all asleep,
because of a deep sleep from the Lord was upon them. So here's these two men, and
they are both being pressed by a temptation. They are both in
tribulation. Each one of them is being tried,
and they're being pressed in that tribulation. And for Saul,
it's that he knows, he can sense, he can see providentially that
David is the chosen one of God. He's going to be king. Jonathan,
when he visited David in the camp, even said, my father knows
You're going to be king. And so he's being tried by that
to take David's life. And then David, right, he's being
persecuted by Saul. He's in a dangerous position
because Saul is the king and he has the authority to do whatsoever
he pleases in the land. He can take David's life if he
so chooses, and that's what he's seeking to do. And so you can
see it. Both these men are being tempted
here. Each one is tempted to take the other's life before
their life is taken. And so Saul was tempted both
times by the Ziphites. Back in chapter 23, it said the
Ziphites came to Saul in Gibeah. It was in Saul 23, 19. They came
and said, does not David dwell here among us? We'll show you
where he is, and worked it out, and Saul was excited for that,
and then he came down there that first time. And then again in
verse one, we're told, the Ziphites came unto Saul of the Gibeah,
saying, doth not David hide himself among us? Now, so we see Saul
was tempted twice to take David's life, and then David. This is
now his second temptation. First was in the cave where Saul
entered and David was in the cave and he could have taken
his life and he was urged by the men that were with him to
do it, to slay Saul. And then now he's in the camp,
they're in a deep sleep and he's urged by Abishai to take Saul's
life. And what strikes me most about
this, what stands out here about this is that Saul was so willing
to be led by his sin. As soon as he heard it, hey,
we know where David is, he was just picked up and said, yep,
let's do it. Let's go out and take David out.
Whereas David, who's in the more, according to the flesh anyway,
the weaker position there, he's tempted, but he won't do it.
He won't do it, even though Saul is brought into his hand two
times. Who made the difference in these
two men? Who is it that makes the difference
in these two men? It's the Lord. It's the salvation
of the Lord working mightily in David. And we see Saul left
to himself. He did not have the spirit of
God. He had an evil spirit, but he
did not have the Spirit of God. Saul is a picture of our old
man of sin, this old man of flesh that we all have by nature, whereas
David is a picture of the new man, born again of the grace
of God, of the Spirit of God. He's taught and led of the Lord. And we see in David pictures,
beautiful pictures, Christ of what Christ does for us in saving
us and this is what we see David doing for Saul he's being very
merciful to Saul very patient very long-suffering with Saul
and he does not take Saul's life and I'm going to show you that
in a moment here but understand Saul lived where the temple was,
where the sacrifices were, or at least he had access to all
that. He could go and worship with the people of God without
any fear or worry. He had all that. He was surrounded
by the general comforts of this life, including religion, but
he wasn't bettered by it at all. He wasn't helped or bettered
by the religion that was around him at all, whereas David is
in the wilderness, forced out from the public worship with
the people, having to not partake of that at all, and his life's
being hunted, and yet he's profited by Christ. He's profited by the
Spirit of God teaching him and leading him. And so when we look
at David and what he does, because we're just going to look a little
more closely at what David has done, we see Christ in this. We see Christ in what our Lord
did for us being pictured here, a gospel picture that is shown
to Saul. And it actually break Saul for
a little bit this is the last time Saul ever comes out I don't
I don't think Saul was a child of God. He certainly had a miserable
end, and it gets worse and worse. But we see him ministering Christ,
and at least in this chapter, we see fruit when he confesses,
I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. I've sinned against
you, David. I've sinned. And so that's what
we'll see here. And it shows us we need Christ.
That's what I want you to see. We need Christ. not dead letter
religion. So first, we're given the following
description of verse 7. So David and Abishai came to
the people by night. And behold, Saul lay sleeping
within the trench. And his spear stuck in the ground
at his bolster. But Abner and the people lay
round about him. And really this is how the scriptures
describe us by nature. We all come into this world,
we all by nature come into, we're born into darkness, the darkness
of night. We don't know or see the true
and living God. Our death is described as a sleep. We're dead. We're dead in trespasses
and sins. We're shut up in a fortified
prison. We have defenses that keep us
from hearing the truth of God, from believing the truth of God,
weapons that are held by our enemy and hold authority over
us. And let me just give you a few
verses that show that, that teach us this truth. We're told of
Christ that he would be for a light to the Gentiles, right? We're
in darkness, he's the light. He's the light for the people
of God to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from
the prison, and then that sit in darkness out of the prison
house. He says to the prisoners, go
forth. He says, sinners, show yourselves. Come into the light. Come into
the light. I'll receive thee. I've called
you. You're mine. Come into the light. To those
who are asleep in a deep sleep of spiritual death, he says,
awake. thou that sleepest. Arise from the dead, and Christ
shall give thee light. Paul said, You hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. To those our Lord describes
us When he took us out of the strong man's house, he said,
when we were in that fortification, our Lord said, when a strong
man armed keepeth his palace. And there's Saul in the trench,
protected in that fortification with people all around him to
protect any from getting to him. And our Lord said, when a strong
man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. But when
a stronger, then he shall come upon him and overcome him. He
taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divideth
his spoils. There's only one who can do that,
and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only salvation that
God gives for the salvation of his people. And there is no fortification
that he cannot enter into and take out his people, delivering
them from darkness, From death, from all the weapons that stand
opposed to Him, nothing can come against Him and defeat Him. He
destroys it all. He destroys it all. So Christ
is the true light which lighteth every man, every one of God's
chosen people. He's the light of this world,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. And so
brethren, just as he died, we died with him. And as he rose
from the dead, we rise in him. And so we must have this work
of regeneration brought in us, and it is, it is. Christ is a
wonderful savior, an almighty savior. He is the conqueror,
and no foe can stand against him. So David is an entirely
different man than Saul, and that's evident in how subject
Saul was to his passions. The Ziphites come and say, hey,
we know where David is. And he says, all right, let's
do it. Let's go get him. Whereas David says, I will not
lift up a hand against the Lord's anointed. I'm not going to do
it. I trust that the Lord is going to deal with him. The Lord's
going to put him down. I don't need to put my hand to
it. I trust that the Lord will do
the work for me. And so the spiritual life is
not wrought in us by going to the law, by going to Sinai, by
just looking at the letter. But life is wrought in us through
Christ. And that's why the spirit shows
us Christ in his word, and not just historical words on a page
or moral lessons. This isn't a book of Aesop's
fables. This is the word of God. which
instructs us, which reproves us, which teaches us, which brings
us out of the prison, which brings us out of darkness into the light
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we see a testimony of
the gospel here in David and what he does because David is
led of the spirit of Christ. So first, David came into the
camp by night. That's when the angels announced
to the shepherds when they were keeping watch over their sheep
by night. That's when Christ was born into
this world. In the darkness of this world,
Christ came into it to save his people. Second, David could have
destroyed Saul. When he lay in that deep sleep,
he had him. He could have ended his life.
He could have defeated him right then and there. How is that a
picture of Christ? Well, in like manner, our Savior,
when we were playing around in religion, when we were just doing
foolish things in ignorance, in darkness, in unbelief, in
a deep sleep, not knowing God, but thinking that we did and
coming to God with folly in our hands, He could have destroyed
us. He could have taken our lives. Instead, He was merciful to us. He was very merciful, and He
is yet very merciful, very gracious to us in all our foolishness. What gives me so much joy and
peace to stand here with you, my brethren, isn't that I know
all things. It isn't that I'm perfect in
what I do or say. I see, I'm disappointed in myself
so often, but that's not my hope. My hope is the Lord Jesus Christ. And my prayer is that He's your
hope, because that's the one who saves us. It's not by what
we know. It's not by what we do or don't
do. It's Christ the Savior. Christ is the Savior of His people,
and He Just as the life of Saul was precious in David's eyes,
your life, you that believe Christ, you that are gathered here to
hear His word, your lives are precious in His sight. And He
spared you. He spared you and blessed you
to hear this word, the gospel word, and to believe him. Third,
David removed Saul's defenses. He took his defensive weapon,
which was stuck in the ground at his bolster, at his head.
That was ready to go. It's like somebody today might
have a gun. at their bedside, ready to go,
ready to pull it out. He had his spear ready, ready
to defend himself. And David removed his defense
that was there at his head. And he took the cruise of water,
which was his refreshment in the wilderness. That was his
refreshment there as he traveled in the wilderness. Even so, our
righteous Lord comes and dismantles all the arguments, all the imaginations,
all the things that rise up against the knowledge of Christ and he
knocks them down. He tears them down by his blessed
word. and making his word effectual
in your hearts by his spirit who overcomes all the defenses
and all the fortifications and all the towers and walls that
the enemy puts up. Our savior overcomes them and
in mercy, he removes our refreshments in this world as is necessary
that we might hunger and thirst for his righteousness, and not
be satisfied with anything but the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so this is a good work which
our Lord does for our good. Rather than strike us through
with our own sword, as Abishai was ready to do for Saul, he
said, I'll take that sword and I'll run him right through and
that'll be it. Rather than destroy us with our own arguments, Christ
is merciful. When Stephen was talking to the
Jews, he says, you do always resist the Holy Ghost. And Paul
and Barnabas speak of the Jews who counted themselves unworthy
of eternal life and rejected it. They were too smart for their
own riches. They knew too much religion.
They knew too much dead things that could not save them, and
they trusted in those things. Well, Christ didn't destroy us
by the things we trusted in. He was very merciful to us, very
merciful. And then finally, we didn't read
this, but in verse 13, And going into the beginning
of verse 14, then David went over to the other side and stood
on the top of a hill, a far off, a great space being between them,
and David cried to the people. And that's when they were awaked
with the words of David. After he had gone over to the
other side, then he cried out the word and they were awaked
by his word. That, brethren, is a picture.
of what our Savior did when he had accomplished our redemption
by the death of himself on the cross for the sins of his people
and died and was buried and rose again and he testified of these
things to his disciples. What did he do after that? After
he spent that little time with them, he ascended up to the father
and is seated in session right now as the king at the right
hand of the throne of God, and he sends his gospel word forth
that is given to us, that goes forth unto us. to declare what
he has done. That's what we do. We declare
to the people what Christ has accomplished for our salvation. And so he has us come here and
show you him. Preach him. Christ made us witnesses
of these things, he said in Luke 24, 48. You're witnesses of these
things, of the sufferings of Christ, of the death of Christ,
and the resurrection of Christ on the third day. That's what
we declare. And the people hear it. and believe. His people hear it and believe
Him and rejoice in Him. And so we can go now into this
word in the Old Testament. where prophets were writing these
things, longing to understand and to see more clearly the things
that you now see and hear today and believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Peter said it this way, of which
salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who
prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. And so
that's why when we go here, we see Jesus. the Lord of our glory,
of our life, of our salvation. We see him in this scripture
and we declare him. Now then, brethren, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God to beseech you by us. We pray you,
in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him
to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Jesus Christ in him. He did that for
us, brethren. So all that Saul had heard and
did up to this time, they were works of the flesh. They were
just works of the flesh whatever religion he had it was a dead
letter Religion to him brethren met remember what David said
in verse 19 look there once more 1st Samuel 26 19 now therefore
I pray thee let my lord the king hear the words of his servant
if the Lord have stirred thee up against me let him accept
an offering and But if they be the children of men that have
sterned you up, cursed be they before the Lord. For they have
driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord,
saying, go serve other gods." Whatever Saul was hearing in
that public worship, it did him no good. All he listened to was
the words of men, the children of men. But then David came,
and he showed Saul mercy. He showed him what we see, Christ. Christ in this word. We see what
Christ does for us, brethren. And he then went to the other
side and awaked Saul with this word, declaring what he had done
and accomplished while he slept. While he knew nothing of what
was going on. And so David pleaded the one
offering that the children of God have. Jesus Christ the righteous. He is our advocate with the Father. He is our propitiation with the
Father. David didn't plead the words
of men to Saul. Such a thing caused David to
say, that's cursed. Cursed be they for doing that. No, we preach Christ. If I preach
nothing but the flesh to you from this thing, It's a curse
to you and it's a curse to me. It does us no good. It's a dead
letter religion. All that David did and said with
regards to the spirit of Christ brought Saul to confess at the
end. Look there in verse 21. Then said Saul, I have sinned. I've sinned. And that's what
the Lord does for us. I know that Saul ultimately had
what appears to be a miserable end, but that's what the Lord
does in showing us Christ and showing us what Christ accomplished
and did for us. And that's what I want you to
see, brethren, in this word is the preciousness of Christ, the
preciousness of Christ. He is our acceptance. with the
Father. I have other things, but I think
I'll work them in at another time, brethren. But I pray that
you see Christ and rejoice in Him in this Word, because that's
what we need. He's the one that we need and
the one that the Father gives us. We see things that the prophets
saw in types and shadows and pictures, But now we have the
understanding by the Spirit of God to see Christ more fully
in these things and see what He does and has done for us and
is doing in us by His grace and mercy. Amen.