FBC Daily Devotional – October 7, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. I hope you're doing well this week, and again,

00:12

I'm recording this from Gulf Shores, Alabama. Last day, wrapping up vacation, and then tomorrow, heading to a conference over in the

00:22

Atlanta, downtown Atlanta actually, before returning home on Sunday, or Monday, which will be a couple of days before you're seeing this.

00:34

So anyway, I'm recording this, fighting the mist drops.

00:41

It's kind of raining in the background, and that's why the sky is white behind me and not blue, and every once in a while, a few stray drops come wandering over this way, and hitting me in the side of the face, but anyway.

01:01

So let's get at it. So today, in our reading, we're reading a passage that reminds us how important it is not to elevate some biblical characters that we really can emulate in many ways.

01:18

They're good men, good people, but they're not perfect people, and I think we have to be careful that we don't allow ourselves to put up on a pedestal these characters in the

01:35

Bible that make them to be almost invincible and sinless, and what

01:41

I'm getting at is the passage in 1 Samuel 27, where David flees to Gath, and while he's there, he's got to, and while he's there, he engages in some nefarious activities and deceptive behavior as well.

02:03

Now here's the thing. Before he heads off to Achish in Gath and so forth, the

02:12

Lord had done an incredible thing in chapter 26 in bringing

02:19

Saul to his knees. Remember, David cut off the corner of Saul's cloak and that smote him, and then

02:26

David confronted Saul and said, listen, you don't have to chase me. I'm not after your life.

02:35

I spared your life. I could have taken your life, and Saul said, you're right. You're more righteous than I, and chapter 26 ends by Saul saying, blessed are you, my son

02:47

David. You will do many things, and you will succeed in them, and then it says, so David went his way, and Saul returned to his place, and then the next verse says,

02:58

David said in his heart, now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. Is that an appropriate conclusion for him to draw?

03:10

I mean, if you've been reading these passages in Samuel, you know that that's not the case because God has promised to David, you are going to succeed

03:22

Saul. So for him to say, I know that I'm going to perish at the hand of Saul is to deny the promise that God has made to him.

03:36

So he's already reached a faulty conclusion in his thinking, and because he's come to that conclusion, he takes off, and he says, there's nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the

03:50

Philistines. Again, if you know anything about your history here, you know that the Philistines have been ongoing enemies of the

03:58

Israelites for years. In fact, it was the Philistines that David first entered into the fray with.

04:06

He overcame Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, and then defeated Philistines.

04:12

So now here he finds himself going to the land of the Philistines and expecting them to give him shelter.

04:19

And sure enough, when he gets there, he takes his men, he gets to Gath, and he gets into good favor with Achish.

04:30

Achish figures out, well, you know, if David is the enemy of Saul, then he can be my friend.

04:37

And so he gives David a place of refuge, Ziklag. David takes his place of Ziklag.

04:43

But then from Ziklag, he goes into these different places in the land of the

04:50

Philistines, and he totally annihilates those villages and everybody in them because he doesn't want word getting back to Achish, what he's been up to.

05:03

And so he does this, and then, you know, he gets back and Achish says, so where have you been today? What did you do today?

05:10

And David lies. And he says he went to different places in Judah, and he attacked those places, leading

05:19

Achish to conclude, oh, I've surely got him in the palm of my hand. Now, this is all very problematic, and you can argue, well, you know, this is war and all the rest of that kind of thing, but really it's not.

05:38

David doesn't need to be there. And he's there because he reached really a faulty conclusion.

05:46

And then once there, he enters into this very cruel behavior of, you know, totally destroying and killing everybody in these villages, and then lying about it.

06:01

This is very problematic, and I think we need to acknowledge that, that even the best of men in these

06:08

Old Testament characters, the best of them have their flaws and have their blind spots.

06:15

It's good for us to acknowledge that because it helps us to be a little more sensitive to our own, that on the one hand,

06:25

I may be very good at this part of my Christian life, but what am

06:32

I neglecting? What am I overlooking? What kind of faulty conclusions am

06:38

I drawing? How am I being deceptive? Am I being deceptive in subtle ways, in ways that I'm self -justifying?

06:48

You see, these are things for us to consider, and we can consider them from the failures of a good man.

06:58

So let's be challenged by that today. So our Father and our God, I pray that today we would learn even from the mistakes, the errors of your chosen servant,

07:12

David, helps us to realize that even the best of men have their flaws, have their weaknesses, have their failings.

07:21

I pray that we would learn from that, to be sensitive even to our own, and this we pray in Jesus' name, amen.