Now, if you would, open your
Bibles back to 1 Samuel chapter 24. 1 Samuel chapter 24. Now, the title
of this message is simply this, Vengeance Belongs to God. Vengeance belongs to God. And
I'll say at the outset, if you understand the real issue of
vengeance, what it is and what it's all about, And as we're
going to see an example of it here in the life of David, you'll
be glad that vengeance belongs to God and not to us. For God
alone has the holiness and the perfection, the wisdom and knowledge
to execute vengeance. We don't have that. Even as believers,
we don't have that now. Because so many times we wrestle
with the flesh over our jealousies, our envies, over our hatred. You know, I think about the Apostle
Paul when he was writing to the church at Colossae, and he had
to tell believers, now think about this, he had to tell believers
to stop hating each other. Now isn't that something? I heard
a preacher say one time, they said there's no room in the heart
of a believer for hatred. Well, if that's so, Paul has
just pronounced that the whole church at Colossae was lost.
Well, we know better. You see, this is part of the
struggle, the flesh and the spirit that I go through and that you
go through. And there's so many times that
I want not vengeance, but revenge. And there is a difference. Now,
I know we get our same English root word from the same term,
but it's not the same. Revenge is something that is
selfish. Revenge is something that's born
of hatred and envy. But God's vengeance is not that.
God's vengeance is His justice. It's what God alone can do to
wreak and to work vengeance against the enemies of God. And so let's
look at this in this passage beginning here at verse 1. The
first two verses, let's read them. It says, And it came to
pass, chapter 24. It came to pass. Now, when you
see that term, it came to pass, that's significant. What that
means is that what is coming to pass is that which was purposed
and planned by God from the beginning. This is not just a chance happening
or some kind of coincidence here. You understand that? And it came
to pass when Saul was returned from following the Philistines.
Remember how Saul was about to get David in chapter 23, chasing
him around that mountain. And Saul was about to get him.
Saul with his men, David with his men, going around that big
hill or mountain. And then right when Saul was
about to get what he wanted, get his prey out of, because
of his hatred for David, to kill David, God sent a messenger. to distract Saul because the
Philistines were attacking the land. So Saul had to back off
chasing David and go to the Philistines and protect his own holdings,
protect his kingdom. And so again, that wasn't just
a chance happening. There's no such thing in the
purpose and plan of God. There's no such thing as luck
and chance and coincidence. It's all planned, prepared for
a purpose according to the God who works all things after the
counsel of his own will. And I tell you what, we see that
so much in the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, but it
has its pivot on the cross of Calvary. And I'll never forget
when I first read Acts chapter 2 and read it with an enlightened
mind. And that's where Peter preached
at Pentecost there, and he was talking about how we, talking
about fallen humanity. He's not just picking on the
Jews there, but he's talking about fallen humanity whose natural
reaction against the truth of God is an aversion. By nature, we hate it. By nature,
we won't believe it. By nature, we won't come to Christ,
you see, on our own. And we see that exemplified in
Saul here, King Saul. But he said, you have taken Christ,
the Lord Jesus, and with wicked hands have crucified him and
slain him. But he said that he was brought
about to that point of the cross by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. That's an amazing thing. And
yet God meant it for good. And so this is the same way here
in every act of history. Every circumstance is an act
of God in that sense. He overrules evil. He's not the
author of evil or the author of sin. He doesn't implant sin
into the hearts of men, and yet he overrules it and controls
it for the good, for his glory and the good of his people. So
it came to pass. Now here's Saul. He's returning
from following the Philistines. And it was told him, look at
verse 1, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.
And somebody said it's down by the Dead Sea where all those
caverns and all those, the desert and the wilderness and the caverns
were. And it says in verse 2, then
Saul took 3,000 chosen men out of all Israel. Now, he wanted
only the best because he wanted to get this job done. He wanted
soldiers. He wanted warriors. And he said,
he went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild
goats. That was a term used to show
how rough that territory was. Only the goats could negotiate
it and navigate it, you see. And what we see here is Saul
is continuing to hunt David to kill him. This is Saul's, as
I said, this is his focus. David is the object of his hatred. He knew that the prophet Samuel
had told him that you're to be taken off the throne. The Spirit
of the Lord has left Saul because of his disobedience, because
of his unbelief, and David was God's anointed to be put upon
the throne. Saul knew, in this chapter later
on, we won't get to it tonight, but he says, we'll look down
at verse 20, he says, and now, this is Saul speaking in verse
20 here, he says, and now behold, talking to David, He says, And
now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and
that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand.
Saul says, I know that. And yet he still fights against
God. He still fights against God's
Word and God's man. And I'll tell you what, I believe
that's an example of how some people know that there are things
in the Bible that the Bible states, and yet they either want to ignore
them or deny them or twist them. But Saul was dead set on killing
David. Now, you remember God, as I said,
God had miraculously delivered David from Saul by drawing Saul
away to the fight of the Philistines just at the moment that Saul
was ready to capture him and kill him. And I want you to think
about this. How many times has David already
been delivered from Saul? You remember Saul threw a spear
at David, javelin at David twice, and missed him. And as many times
as Saul tried to capture David and tried to kill David and failed,
you'd think he'd get the message. You'd think he would understand.
But here's the problem. The natural, self-righteous,
proud sinner will always continue in his unbelief and rebellion
apart from the power of God's grace. And that's the long and
the short of it. left to himself, Saul would never
change his mind, he couldn't change his heart, and neither
can we. That's why the Bible says in John 6 and verse 44,
no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me
draw him, literally drag him. You say, well, doesn't everybody
have a spark of good and all we have to do is fan it? That
might be religion, that might be popular, and that might sound
good to the itching ear. It might scratch the itching
ear. But that's not in this book. We read it in Saul. The wicked
are estranged from the womb, born dead in trespasses and sin. Saul was not going to come to
God on his own. And then there's another lesson
here. You know, Saul was not going to let up. And I'm sure
David, just like all of us, you can see it in some of his psalms,
you know, where he would ask the question, you know, why am
I so persecuted? That kind of thing. Why me, Lord? You know, that kind of thing.
And it shows us that while we're on this earth, we'll always,
as believers now, just like David, while we're on this earth in
this wilderness, this world's not our home now, While we're
on this earth, we'll always be pursued by our enemies in one
way or another. It'll always be something. That's right. This world is not
our home. And Christ told his disciples
in John 15, verse 18, marvel not that the world hates you,
because it hated me before it hated you. And the servant is
not greater than his master. If they hate your master and
you follow your master, they're going to hate you too. And even
went so far in John 16 to tell them they'll throw you out of
their religious services. The religionists will not stomach
you. And why? Because our message
is so opposed to what they glory in. The message of God's grace
in Christ is so opposed to any message that glorifies man and
exalts the flesh. That's what the problem is. That's
why men love darkness and hate the light. The darkness that
they love exalts the flesh. It's a message of salvation by
work, salvation conditioned on the sinner in some way. It always
gives the sinner something to do and something to boast in
and something to glory in as far as attaining or maintaining
salvation. It always gives him a little
part of the righteousness. that makes him complete before
God. It's a righteousness within him
that he can fan that spark, you see, and make him better so that
he can have something to boast in. Now, he may give God 98 percent
or 99 percent, or what that commercial used to say, 99 and 44, 100 percent,
but he won't give God all the glory for salvation. He won't
give Christ all the glory. He won't speak of the forgiveness
of sins completely, totally by the blood of Christ. He'll talk
about how the sinner's got to make that blood effectual by
what he does. And that gives the flesh some
glory. He won't talk about the righteousness of Christ freely
imputed and received by faith. He'll have to talk about in some
way, some way, some way establishing the righteousness of his own.
And so that's why Paul wrote in Galatians 6.14, God forbid
that I should glory, that I should boast, that I should have confidence,
save, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
the world is crucified unto me. In other words, I look upon the
world without Christ as being cursed, cursed of God. That's what it is, dead. And
he said, and I'm crucified to the world. They look upon me
as being cursed. Remember, he told, I don't know if it was
King Agrippa or Festus, one of them, when he was standing before
him in trial, he said, after the way that they call heresy,
that's the way I worship God. What way do we worship God? We
worship God in Christ. So understand this, David, him
going through this period of time here, all the way through
the last, up until the end of 1 Samuel, as he knows God's promised
him he's going to be king, He's going to be on the throne, but
he's going through this trial period that lasts somewhere around
seven to ten years, some scholars say, and he's constantly pursued
by Saul, constantly hounded by his enemies, and it never lets
up. Well, welcome to our world. That's
what the Scripture says. That's the way it is with believers
in this world. And you'll find out when we get
to 2 Samuel that really even as king here on this earth, it
doesn't let up either there. That's just it. Well, we see
that in our Savior. Look at the trials that He went
through. Look at all He suffered. We get
surprised sometimes, and upset, and I know this, because I do
it too, about what men say about us. And I get mad, I do. I get angry, don't you? Somebody
says something and it's not true, and you just want to lash out.
Well, look at what they've said about our Savior on this earth. And He said, blessed are you
when men revile you and say all manner of evil against you for
His sake. So think about that. Now, here's
the point, though. We don't have to fear men. David
really didn't have to fear Saul. Now, at times he did, when he
got his eyes off of Christ and on to Saul. But we don't really
have to fear men. And the reason is because Christ
has already won the victory for us. He won that in His obedience
unto death. He won our victory at the cross.
Now, our final victory over all our enemies will be fully realized
in our experience only when we're glorified with Him, but not till
then. Up until that point, life's a trial, one trial after another. But we don't have to fear because
Christ already won that victory. Well, look at verse 3 now. Now
here, I want you to see this. And we'll read up through verse
8 here. And that's where I'm going to
stop. But what you see here, I want you to see it this way.
is a great example of God's motivating, restraining grace. That's what
we're going to see right here in these verses. A great example
of the glory and grace and power of God to motivate one of His
servants to do right and to restrain him from doing wrong. Now look
at it. It says in verse 3, Saul, now
this is Saul, he came to the sheep coats, that was sheep herds,
that was the foals, and this was a big place, by the way,
where was a cave. Now these caves were extensive,
they still are, they tell me in this area. There's, you know,
I mentioned to you last week about people wondering how could
David with 600 men hide in these caves and Saul with 3,000 and
all, these were big cavernous caves. And somebody, I think
I read one writer who said, you could probably fit an army of
60,000 in there, in some of these caves, that's how big they are.
So here's Saul, and it says, and Saul went in to cover his
feet. Now, the Bible's pretty plain
there. What he's talking about, he went
in to rest, he went in to relieve himself. So he went in by himself,
and he took off his coat, it says, his royal robe. And he went in. And David and
his men remained in the sides of the cave where Saul couldn't
see him, or Saul's men couldn't see him. And it says, now listen
to this, verse 4, And the men of David said unto him, Behold,
the day of which the Lord said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver
thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as
it shall seem good unto thee. David's men are saying, lookie
there. Here we are in this case, Saul
come in there by himself to relieve himself. We've got him. And he said, they said, it's
fulfilled now. God told you, I deliver thine
enemy into thine hand that thou mayest do to him as it shall
seem good unto thee. Now, what you have there now,
first of all, this again is no, this is no coincidence. This
again was arranged by God for several reasons, to test and
to train David, but mainly to show forth God's grace in the
life of David. But David's men saw this as an
opportunity, even a gift from God. This is a gift, David, that
God's given you. Here he is. Tell him. And then
they said, Behold the day which the Lord said unto thee." Now,
let me tell you something. God never said what they said
He said. Now, God had told Saul, you're
not going to be king. You're going to be removed from
the throne. God had told David, you're going to be on the throne.
And it's going to work out. God promised David he would be
on the throne. He said he would even deliver
David's enemies unto him. But this is not a quote from
any prophet or any scripture. This is David's men interpreting
the promises of God by circumstances. And I want to tell you something,
that will never work. You can never interpret the promises
of God by your circumstances. And what I mean by that is this,
God never said David, I'm going to deliver your enemies so that
you can do unto them what seems good unto you." He never said
that. He said, I'm going to give them
over to you and you can do what you want with them. He never said that. Now, God had promised David. He said, I'll deliver them into
your hands to do what I see good. To do it how I tell you to do
it, David. That's basically what the promise
is. God had never said it. This was their interpretation.
So God had said that Saul would no longer be king, David would
be king, but it would all work out as it seemed good to God,
not to David. How it worked out was going to
be God's way, not David's way. David was never commanded, and
I want you to see this, David was never commanded to remove
Saul off the throne. He was never commanded to do
that. That's God's business. So what did David do? Well, look
at verse 4. It says, in the last part there, it says, Then David
arose and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privily or privately. Now, as I said, Saul had laid
aside his robe. And David went in there and cut
off either a corner or a bottom piece of that robe. Verse 5. And it came to pass afterward
that David's heart smote him. That is, his conscience bothered
him. And why? Because he cut off Saul's
skirt. And he said unto his men, the
Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master. Understand now, who's David saying? My master, his enemy. It's King
Saul who was trying to kill him. And he said, the Lord's anointed.
Saul, the Lord's anointed. Uh-huh. to stretch forth mine
hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord." Psalm. So David stayed his servants.
That is, he stopped them. He cut them off from what they
wanted to do with these words. In other words, when he made
this statement, he said, the Lord forbid that I should do
this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, and stretch
forth my hand against him. With those words, David stopped
his men. from going in there and killing
Saul. And he suffered them not. He allowed them not to rise against
Saul. But Saul rose up out of the cave
and went on his way. And David also arose afterward
and went out of the cave and cried after Saul, saying, My
Lord the King. And when Saul looked behind him,
David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed himself to
Saul. Isn't that something? What, you suppose, made David
do this instead of killing Saul? Because, I'm going to tell you,
that's our natural reaction, isn't it? Get rid of the problem. I mean, think about it. All he
had to do was kill him, and that was the end of the problem. He
gets the throne. Some commentators say this. Listen
to this. I'll put this down in quotes.
I want you to hear this. It says, David restrained himself
from killing Saul. I don't believe that. I believe
I know exactly what restrained David from killing Saul. It was
the sovereign, powerful hand of God. It was the grace of God
that restrained him. I believe that's a scriptural
principle from the very beginning. Paul stated it to the Corinthians
twice, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, when he talked about how he lives
his life by the grace of God. In other words, actually, he
made this statement. He made it this way. He said,
it's not I who live, but Christ liveth in me. I'm not the source
of it. I'm not the cause of it. I'm
not the God of it. I am what I am by the grace of
God. I do what I do when I do right
by the grace of God. When I do wrong, it's by me.
That's me. That's the flesh. He said, the
love of Christ constraineth me. I believe the mainstay of that
statement in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 14 is Christ's love for him.
Now, we do love Christ, but so many times we lose sight of it.
Think about what he wrote in Galatians 2 and verse 20. Let
me read this to you. Paul wrote, he said, I'm crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. In other
words, I died when Christ died, but I'm living. Yet not I. but Christ liveth in me. And
the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith
of the Son of God, his faithfulness to save me and to preserve me
and to bring me to glory, who loved me and gave himself for
me." You see, David knew that God's promise to him was no excuse
for him to take matters in his own hands and sin against God
by killing Saul. God will fulfill His promises,
but God's going to fulfill His promises His way, and God's going
to do it justly and righteously. I think about Abraham, who obeyed
God, even when it seemed to be at the expense of God's promise
to the natural eye. God promised Abraham and Sarah
a son and finally gave them one in their old age, a miracle child
Isaac, and then in Genesis 22 tells him to go take that child,
take that boy and put him on an altar and slay him. Now the
natural man reasons this way. Well, wait a minute. I thought
that in Isaac thy seed shall be called. That seems against
your promise. But Abraham knew. that God was
going to fulfill His promise, He's going to do it in His way,
and He obeyed God when it seemed against the promise. But God
knows better than we do. How in the world could salvation
come through the death of God the Son incarnate? Only God knows
that when He died, it was a victory. When He died, that resulted in
life from the dead for His people. Isn't that right? That's right.
His death was an accomplishment. Christ's death was an accomplishment. It was an exodus. That's what
that literally means there in the book of Luke on the Mount
of Transfiguration. His death was an exodus out of
the bondage of sin, out of the bondage of Satan, out of the
bondage of the grave, out of the bondage of death. And the
best, the greatest proof of it was the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. as the first fruits of his people. David trusted the Lord to fulfill
all his promises, but in his way, not David's way. Not the
way his men were advising him. David knew that vengeance belonged
to God, not to himself. Turn over to Romans chapter 12.
This passage of scripture is speaking of the obedience of
grace, the obedience of believers. But it's an obedience born of
grace and mercy. It's not some mercenary out here
trying to earn his reward from God by payment. It's not some legal fear of hell
running from God trying to establish a righteousness of their own.
It's the obedience of one who is saved and secured by the grace
of God in Christ. That's what it is. That's what
he talks about. And so what does he tell us to
do? We who know him. We who the Holy
Spirit has shed abroad his love in our hearts. He says in verse
17, recompense to no man evil for evil. You know what that
means, don't you? It means when they do evil to
you, don't you return evil to them. Provide all things honest
in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as
lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. If they are at
war with you, don't you be the cause of it." That's what it
means. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give
place unto wrath. For it is written, Vengeance
is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine
enemy hunger, what do you do? Feed him. If he thirsts, give
him drink. For in so doing thou shalt heap
coals of fire on his head. There's a lot of different answers
as to what that means, but I'll tell you what I believe it means,
heaping coals of fire on his head. It means you will confuse
the heck out of him. You see, when you answer your
enemies according to their anger, they win. That's right. If David had gone ahead and killed
Saul that way, he would have accomplished nothing. to the
glory of God. He would have gotten the throne,
but he would not have been an obedient servant, he would not
have been a believing servant, and he would not have had the
respect and love of the people. That's right. The heaping coals
of fire on his head, and he says, be not overcome of evil, but
overcome evil with good. Now, you know, we of all people
should rejoice that vengeance belongs to God. And I'll tell you why. Because
God's vengeance is justice. Now, he said that's not revenge.
It's not God up there throwing a temper tantrum, just saying,
well, look at what he did. I'm going to get him back. It's
justice. Man's vengeance is self-serving,
but not God's. But we of all people ought to
ought to glory in the fact that vengeance belongs to God, because
I'll tell you why. God took vengeance on us through
his Son on the cross. Did you know that? God must take
vengeance against all sin. God must punish sin. And that's
ours, too. Well, how's that going to happen?
Well, it's already happened if you're in Christ. Because all
the vengeance against my sins He partook of. All my sins were
laid on Him on the cross. And He drank damnation dry. Justice
was satisfied in its whole measure on Christ on the cross. And righteousness
established. So that God can justly Save me,
and bring me into His fellowship, and bring me to glory." Now,
aren't you glad vengeance belongs to God? If it belonged to us,
we'd be in a mess. We'd be in a mess. Now, David,
he was troubled back here in 1 Samuel 24, after he cut off
Saul's, the piece of Saul's robe. Why do you suppose that troubled
him so much? Well, It's because that robe
was a symbol of Saul's royal authority. And David felt bad
that he'd done anything against Saul's God-appointed authority. You notice how he describes Saul
there when he talked to his men. Verse 6, the Lord forbid that
I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed,
to stretch forth mine hand against the anointed of the Lord. Well,
wait a minute, somebody said, wasn't David God's anointed,
not Saul's? And the answer is yes. But God
had not yet removed Saul from the throne. And there's your
key. You see, as long as Saul was
on that throne, he was to be recognized as God's anointed. And David was not respecting
Saul as a person. Saul as a person was nothing.
He was an unbeliever, an ungodly, disobedient, self-serving, self-righteous,
proud man. But he was respecting the office
of king. That's what he was doing. And
again, we see the power of God's grace to bring his people into
godly sorrow over sin and the obedience of grace. And so David
appealed to Saul. He showed Saul what happened. And we'll pick up there next
week on this issue of repentance, because Saul actually comes to
a form of repentance, but it's not godly repentance. It doesn't
last. But now what David had was a genuine sorrow, a broken
and a contrite heart, which is the gift of God. And we'll talk
about that next week. But you see, vengeance belongs
to God. Doesn't belong to me. It doesn't
belong to you. And like I say, I know we have
to struggle with that. But I think about this. I pick
blessed assurances, our closing hymn, hymn number 255. We have
the assurance that God's vengeance has been fully, fully met for
our sins on Christ on that cross. And therefore, let's rejoice
in the fact that vengeance belongs to God.