1 Samuel 26:1-28:2, What Does Faith Make You Do?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

1 Samuel chapter 26 from verse 1 all the way to chapter 28 verse 2. Hear the word of the

Lord. Then the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, Is not David hiding himself on the hill at Hathalah, which is on the east of Jeshimon?

So Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Ziph with three thousand of his chosen men of Israel to seek

David in the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul encamped on the hill of Hathalah, which is beside the road on the east of Jeshimon.

But David remained in the wilderness when he saw that Saul had came after him into the wilderness. David sent out spies and learned that Saul had come.

Then David rose and came to the place where Saul had encamped, and David saw the place where Saul lay with Abner the son of Ner, the commander of the army.

Saul was lying within the encampment while the army was encamped around him. Then David said to Ahimelech, the

Hittite, and to Joab's brother Abishai, the son of Zariah, who will go down with me into the camp to Saul.

And Abishai said, I will go down with you. So David and Abishai went to the army by night, and there lay

Saul sleeping within the encampment with his spear stuck in the ground at his head, and Abner and the army lay around him.

Then said Abishai to David, God has given your enemy into your hand this day. Now please let me pin him to the earth with one stroke of the spear, and I will not strike him twice.

But David said to Abishai, Do not destroy him, for who could put out his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless?

And David said, As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish.

The Lord will forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord's anointed, but take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us go.

So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul's head, and they went away. No man saw it or knew of it, nor did any awake, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the

Lord had fallen upon them. Then David went over to the other side and stood far off on the top of the hill with a great space between them, and David called to the army and to Abner the son of Ner, saying,

Will you not answer, Abner? Then Abner answered, Who are you who calls to the king? And David said to Abner, Are you not a man?

Who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not kept watch over your lord, the king?

For one of the people came in to destroy the king, your lord. This thing that you have done is not good.

As the Lord lives, you deserve to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the Lord's anointed.

And now see where the king's spear is and the jar of water that is at his head.

Saul recognized David's voice and said, Is this your voice, my son David? And David said,

It is my voice, my lord, O king. And he said, Why does my lord pursue after his servant?

For what have I done? What evil is on my hands? Now therefore, let my lord, the king, hear the words of his servant.

If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering. But if it is men, may they be cursed before the

Lord. For they have driven me out this day, that I should have no share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, Go, serve other gods.

Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of the Lord. For the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea, like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.

Then Saul said, I have sinned. Return, my son David, for I will no more do you harm, because my life was precious in your eyes this day.

Behold, I have acted foolishly and I've made a great mistake. And David answered and said, Here's the spear,

O king. Let one of your young men come over and take it. The Lord rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness.

For the Lord gave you into my hand today, and I would not have put out my hand against the Lord's anointed.

Behold, as your life was precious this day in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the

Lord. And may he deliver me out of all tribulation. Then Saul said to David, Blessed be you, my son

David. You will do many things and will succeed in them. So David went his way and Saul returned to his place.

Then David said in his heart, Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the

Philistines. Then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the border of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.

So David arose and went over, he and the 600 men who were with him, to Achish, the son of Maok, king of Gath.

And David lived with Achish at Gath. He and his men, every man with his household, and David with his two wives,

Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, Nabal's widow. And when it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, he no longer sought him.

Then David said to Achish, If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be given me in one of the country towns, that I may dwell there.

For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you? So that day Achish gave him Ziklag.

Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. And the number of the days that David lived in the country of the

Philistines was a year and four months. Now David and his men went up and made raids against the

Gershites and the Gerzites and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as far as shore, to the land of Egypt.

And David would strike the land and would leave neither man nor woman alive, but would take away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the garments, and come back to Achish.

When Achish asked, Where have you made a raid today? David would say, Against the Negeb of Judah, or against the

Negeb of the Jeremelites, or against the Negeb of the Kenites. And David would leave neither man or woman alive to bring news to Gath, thinking lest they should tell about us and say,

So David has done. Such was his custom all the while he lived in the country of the Philistines. And Achish trusted

David, thinking he has made himself an utter stench to the people of Israel, therefore he shall always be my servant.

And in those days the Philistines gathered their forces for war to fight against Israel. And Achish said to David, Understand that you and your men are to go out with me in the army.

David said to Achish, Very well. You shall know what your servant can do. And Achish said to David, Very well.

I will make you my bodyguard for life. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.

John Cotton was born in England in 1585. He was the son of a lawyer, raised in the

Church of England, and sent to Cambridge University. So he is poised to enjoy all the rewards of a professional life in England, set for a comfortable life as part of the establishment.

At Cambridge he became a noted scholar who likely could have made a career as an academic, teaching languages like Hebrew and Greek.

But by 1610 he left the university and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England and became a vicar, they call it, at St.

Botloff's Church in England, a Boston, England, very prominent church. It has a grand building.

You can look it up online. A medieval, it's not technically a cathedral, but it kind of looks like that with a spire, made out of stone.

It's a very grand, impressive looking building. And there he became famous for his fancy preaching with polished, flowery, scholarly sermons.

But he came to believe that he wasn't truly converted. He was uncertain of his salvation and for three years he desperately searched whether he was predestined for glory, whether he was really a believer in the

Lord. He went through what John Bunyan called the slaw of despond or the swamp of conviction.

Puritan pastor and scholar Richard Sibbes ministered to him. Sibbes was a physician of the soul and he encouraged

Cotton to respond to the gospel. And finally in 1612, while listening to Sibbes preach on regeneration,

Cotton, quote, looked unto Christ for healing and was saved.

Once converted, his style of preaching became simpler. He adopted the

Puritan plain style expository preaching from scripture, applied to life, like hopefully

I'm doing now. He was Puritan in that he believed in the doctrines of grace, what's called the regulated principle of worship, that is that worship should only contain what is taught in scripture.

But he sought to be flexible about things indifferent, that is the adiaphora technically called, that's debatable things like the gowns the ministers were supposed to wear, other things they're supposed to wear, making the sign of the cross at baptism, the liturgical calendar, all that, many of the traditions of the

Church of England. Now he did not believe in them or practice them himself because of his new convictions as a

Puritan, but he didn't believe that he had to separate from the Church just because others in the

Church did those things. He was a non -separating Puritan, meaning that he wanted the Church to reform and to be biblical and he probably thought he's in a very good position to help the

Church around to do that. He wanted the Church to be pure, that's what Puritan means, to be pure, pure of the old traditions, like having bishops or observing saints days.

But he wasn't willing to leave the Church over them yet and after all he had a good living, had an influential position in a prominent church, he had a lot to lose.

And so he would stay in the traditional Church but not conform to the practices that he objected to.

That worked well for him until Charles I became king in 1625.

Charles I was determined to make the Puritans conform. It did not end well for Charles I, by the way, but finally in 1632,

Cotton received a summons to the high court to answer for his non -conformity. A friend of the government warned him, quote, you must fly for your safety.

And so he went into hiding. He hid for almost two years. He decided to flee to the new Puritan colony in America, the

Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the summer of 1633, at the age of 48 years old, he boarded the ship

Griffin along with his wife and his stepdaughter. His wife was pregnant at the time and she gave birth to a son on the journey and they named him

Seaborn. Seaborn Cotton. And once in Massachusetts, he settled in the new town that had been named after the previous town,

Boston. They say about 10 percent of the people in Boston, England came to America, came to New England, Massachusetts.

And most of those because of John Cotton himself because of his influence on them. And that's how

Boston, Massachusetts got his name. Rather than the grand building of his old church in England, he was now preaching in a meeting house, they call it, that was small and windowless with clay walls and a thatched roof, basically a hut.

And he could have stayed in England. He could have kept his cushy lifestyle, been a respectable scholar and minister.

All he had to do, just wear the gown, make the gestures, follow the traditions, you know, keep, do what the bishops say, keep what the church has always kept its traditions.

But as his son -in -law, Increase Mather, a generation later would describe it, quote, pure worship and ordinances without the mixture of human inventions was that which the first fathers, like John Cotton, of this colony designed in their coming hither.

Cotton had given up a lot, unwilling to compromise his convictions, risk his life crossing the ocean in a sailboat along with his pregnant wife, going from an ornate cathedral -style building in a respectable church with a good living.

He went from that to preaching to a few pioneers in a mud hut in the howling wilderness, all because that's what his faith made him do.

What does your faith make you do? You see that here in three parts.

First, it dares. Second, it appeals. And finally, it fights. First, faith makes

David daring. The Sifites, again, remember there's the local people of that region, kind of south

Israel, south of Judah, are passing on information to Saul about David's location.

And they give a very precise location in verse one, a specific hill in a certain place, just east of a very certain town.

And so Saul takes his 3 ,000 cracked troops, completely forgetting about how David had spared his life in the cave.

Just never mind that. And Saul camps on the hill where David had been. And David sends out spies.

David has his spies, too, to find exactly where Saul and his troops were. Now, you would think he would send out spies in order to, well, that's where they are.

We're going to get as far away from there as we can. Well, David is different. He is daring. David's daring enough to go directly to Saul's camp, and instead of fleeing it further into the wilderness.

In verse 5, David sees Saul laying down, surrounded by his soldiers. So he's close enough to have eyes on — that's the way they put it in the military, have eyes on.

I don't know why they talk like that. We could say see, but whatever. They say, have eyes on him, as they say.

Which means, of course, if David could see them, they could see him, if they just knew where to look.

At the end of verse 5, Saul was lying within. Notice how it emphasizes this for us.

When it repeats things in the Bible, it's doing that for a reason. He's lying within the encampment, while the army was encamped around him.

Okay? It's emphasizing that for a reason, that he was in the middle of the camp with 3 ,000 men surrounding him in their sleep.

Now, David had taken two other men with him, Ahimelech and Abishai. Ahimelech was a Hittite, so he's a foreigner.

Abishai was his nephew, the son of Zeruiah. Zeruiah was his sister. At the end of 2

Samuel, Abishai is recognized as one of David's mighty men. And we will see why here.

David invites the two of them, Ahimelech, Abishai, would you like to go down? Who would like to go with me into the camp, to Saul?

Now, a normal person would think, okay, we're already in too much danger by being this close.

It's already, it's too dangerous to be here where we are. They're out there, you know, to hunt us down.

That's what they're out there for. They're out there to kill us. And instead of running further away, we've already coming with inside of them.

Now, you want us, wait David, you want us to go into the camp, infiltrate into the camp.

What if someone is watching? What if one of those people lying down or actually wake, just keeping watch, but he's just lying down.

What if even just one of them wakes up while we're going through and then he wakes up the others?

Apparently that's what Ahimelech thought because we don't hear from him again. He didn't answer the plea. But Abishai says,

I will go down with you, Uncle David. He's daring. So they ninja -like sneak into the camp.

Verse 7 reminds us, again, it's repeating this, it's emphasizing this, so we understand how daring it is.

Saul is sleeping within. He's not on the edge of the camp. Mind you, like on the north side where you can get to him without going around any other soldiers.

But he's surrounded by the encampment, which means to get to Saul, they're tiptoeing past the sleeping soldiers who are probably on mats or blankets on the ground.

Some may be snoring. Again, all that has to happen is that even just one of them wakes up.

Like the sentries who should be on duty. Any military outpost is going to have sentries on duty at all times. So someone is sleeping on the job here.

Maybe they wake up. But they go past all that. David and Abishai, they make it to Saul in verse 7.

And he has his spear stuck in the ground right near his head. Now Saul loves his spear.

He had it with him at his dinner table. Think about that. He takes his spear with him to eat. Okay, that's kind of weird. He flung it at David twice and once at Jonathan.

He was holding it with him under, as he said, under a tree in his hometown, stewing on how no one is helping him against David.

He is to that spear like some of us are to our cell phones. You know, even when we sleep, we've got to have that cell phone nearby so we can reach.

First thing, we can grab it in the morning. And then for the third time, at the end of verse 7, we're reminded that Saul is surrounded by his army, which means that now

David and Abishai are surrounded by that army. 3 ,000 heavily armed men, crack troops with a mission out to kill

David and Abishai. And instead of running away from them, they're right in the heart of them.

Now that's daring. Then Abishai, almost certainly whispering, says,

God has given your enemy into your hand. Notice how they always see everything as in control of God's hand.

You know why that is? Because everything is under the control of God's hand, and they just knew that.

Now please, he's asking in verse 8, he probably remembers how David, not long before, wouldn't let them kill

Saul in the cave, but he's tired, you know, of your Abishai, he's tired of this life on the run and being in danger.

Let me pin him to the ground with one stroke of spear, and I will not strike him twice.

One quick thrust of the spear, and it's all Abishai. It'll be poetic justice, too, for Saul to die by his own beloved spear.

But David replies in verse 9, do not destroy him, for who could put out his hand against the

Lord's anointed and be guiltless? Now at this point, a lot of people will be thinking, guilt?

I don't really care about the guilt. I just want to be done with my enemy here. Never mind about the guilt, but David cares about the guilt, which means he cares about God.

Saul is the king, selected by God. God has to remove him. To do that ourselves, David thinks, he believes, he knows, is sin, and it makes us guilty, and he cares about that.

And then in verse 10, as the — I should say it whispering, he's whispering now — as the Lord lives, in other words, certainly the

Lord will strike him, like he did in Ebal in the previous chapter. Remember? Gave him a heart failure.

Or his day will come to die. In other words, he'll die of old age. Just think about that. David is willing to wait that long.

Saul is probably middle -aged here. He's not ancient, so he's not like on the verge of death anytime soon, but he's willing to wait however long it takes, decades, or he will go down into battle and perish, which is eventually what happens.

But David is not willing to do it himself. In verse 11, the Lord forbid — absolutely not — that I should put out my hand against the

Lord's anointed. Instead, David says that he will take his spear and this water jug to prove how close they came.

He's not cutting anything this time, so he thinks that's okay. And so they take Saul's spear and his water jug, and they tiptoe back out of the camp undetected.

Now, that's amazing, and there's something supernatural about that. As in verse 12, no man saw it or knew it.

Where was the sentry? Any military outpost is going to have sentries. No one awoke.

And then for the second time, we'd see how divine this was. For they were all asleep.

How could they have all been that deeply asleep at the same time? Because a deep sleep from the

Lord had fallen upon them. And this is the third time this phrase is used in the Bible. The first is in Genesis 2 where God does surgery on Adam to take out a rib to make a woman from, creating the covenant of marriage.

The second is in Genesis 15 where Abraham set up the covenant cutting ceremony, make a covenant between himself and the

Lord. But a deep sleep from the Lord falls upon him, on Abraham, showing that the covenant depends only on the

Lord. The Lord does the work while Abraham is in that deep sleep. And here, God blesses

David's daring by anesthetizing the entire army to protect the covenant with David.

Why was he willing, why was David willing to take that risk? To slink back into the middle of the army that's out to hunt for him.

Now there's no reason to believe that David knew, you know, it was promised by God beforehand that God would put them all asleep at the same time.

He didn't know that would happen, but he did know that he had a promise from God to be king, given to him by God, right?

And it was given to him through Samuel. It's been confirmed already by Jonathan, been confirmed by Saul himself.

Last time in the cave he said, I know you'll be king. Confirmed by Abigail, now his wife, and by God's blessing on him.

Now since he can't be king if he's killed, obviously, he's willing to be daring. He believes

God's promise and that belief makes him bold, willing to infiltrate into an enemy army, go right into the middle of it, and take a spear and a water jug as souvenirs just to prove he did it.

Faith makes him daring. As Martin Luther said, faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.

Now here David staked his life on the hope that not one of 3 ,000 men would be awake at the time he went through 3 ,000 times.

John Cotton staked his life, his career, his family, daringly confident that worshiping God, God's way, is worth the sacrifice and the risk.

He became the most important minister in the first generation of New England. His daughter married

Increase Mather, who became the most important minister of the second generation, and their son,

John Cotton's grandson, whom they named Cotton, Mather, became the most important minister of the third generation.

Faith makes you do things that are sometimes daring. Venture across the ocean, the rude waves, as Increase Mather called them, breaking off a relationship that's unhealthy, when normally people would be afraid to be alone.

Giving, when normally people would be afraid of losing the money. Being in church, when normally people would say, well we got to open the business, we got to make more money.

Faith is a daring confidence in God, so sure and certain that you will stake your life on it 3 ,000 times.

What does faith make you do? Second, faith makes you appeal, and by faith you appeal to two audiences, to others, other people, and to God himself.

First, David appeals to Saul in verse 13. He crosses over and sits on the other side of a valley or ravine, and stood far off on the top of a hill with a great space between them.

It's probably got like a canyon or something down there, so his voice will carry. He was daring before, but that doesn't mean he's not going to be careful now.

When he's going to wake them up, he knows he has a safe distance. And when it comes time to appeal to Saul, he wants that distance to protect himself.

He then calls out to the general, Abner. This time he's probably shouting, will you not answer,

Abner? Abner probably woken up, what's going on? Looks around, who are you?

Who calls to the king? And David answers in verse 15, are you not a man? Who is like you in Israel?

You're the general in charge of the army, you're the commander -in -chief, at least under the king. Why then have you not kept watch over your lord, the king?

Abner, you don't do it yourself. You should have sentries who were ordered to stay up through the night while the rest slept.

And as the officer in charge, he's responsible. They didn't do it, he's responsible. David is appealing to him, charging him for his dereliction of duty.

For one of the people came in to destroy the king, your lord. Abishai did, but David wouldn't let him. Then in verse 16, this thing that you have done is not good.

It's irresponsible. As the lord lives, certainly you deserve to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the lord's anointed.

The guards are supposed to protect. Something happens to them, the guards are held responsible. Here, Abishai is the head of the guards.

Saul would have been killed if not for David. So he says, you deserve to die. Now it's not like David is trying to alienate

Abner from Saul, put a wedge between them. He has proof that there was an infiltrator who could have easily have assassinated the king.

And now see, assume he's holding it up, a spear in one hand, a jug in the other, where the king's spear is, and the jar of water that was at his head.

Saul is looking around, probably got it up. Where's my spear? Like someone get up, where's my phone?

Where's my, where's this precious spear? And sure enough, it's gone. Abner is supposed to head, be the head of security, and he has failed miserably.

Saul recognizes David's voice in verse 17. He calls out, is this your voice? My son, David. Notice here,

Saul calls David, my son, even though he's hunting to kill him. The last time in chapter 24,

David appealed to Saul as my father. Kind of appealing to him, you know, we should be in a relationship,

I should be your inheritor, should be your heir. Well here, Saul uses the family talk, but David seems to realize now it's fake.

He'll respect the office, the anointed, small m messiah, but he won't regard the person,

Saul, as his father or himself as his son again. This Saul has gone out again to kill

David ends that. Saul has returned to the hunt after confessing that David is more righteous than him.

Remember in chapter 24, you're more righteous than me, so that Saul has returned David evil for David's kindness, and that David will surely be king.

And Saul said all the right words then, but then he forgets it all, and he goes back out on the hunt to kill

David. And there are people who are confronted with the evidence of their sin. Their sin is exposed, they're confronted with it, the porn, the immorality, the drunkenness, the broken promises, the greed, the idolatry of money, whatever their sin is, and they'll say all the right words.

They'll admit that they are wrong. They'll say the person who is appealing to them is right.

You're right, I've sinned. They'll confess their sin, they'll pledge to do better, have mercy, I'll do better,

I'll do my best, they'll sound sincere. And then after a while, the shame is worn off, they'll go right back to it.

That's what Saul is like. Verse 17, David confirms, it is my voice, my

Lord, O king. Notice no more, my father, none of that. Then why does my Lord pursue after his servant?

For what have I done? What evil is in my hands? He's appealing for evidence. For Saul to think rationally, stop acting on his paranoia, whatever conspiracy theory he's made up in his imagination, and then ascribe that to David.

People have a remarkable capacity to believe something that they just imagined, and they believe to be true without any evidence, just because it appeals to their imagination.

Everyone is a believer in something, and you can tell what they're a believer in by what they do.

It's whether your faith is in the right thing. For Saul, he believes David is a traitor. He's out to overthrow him.

His faith in this paranoid conspiracy theory makes him do what he's doing.

Hunt David. People are believers, and they act on what they believe, and you can see what they really believe by what their faith makes them do.

David continues to appeal to Saul in verse 19. Now therefore, let my Lord the king hear the words of his servant.

I ask you for permission to speak. Listen to my appeal. If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering.

May God accept an offering. I've done something to offend the Lord. Lord's then stirred you up, make you attack me, chase me.

I've offended God somehow. I need to sacrifice for it. In other words, if God has led you to hunt me, since God's always right, then that means

I'm wrong, and I need to sacrifice for my sin. I need to appeal to God. 1

Peter chapter 3, verse 18 says, Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

His blood is an appeal to God to wash away our sins. And then three verses later, in 1

Peter 3, baptism now saves because it is an appeal. Peter says it's a, verse 21, it's an appeal to God for a good conscience.

By being baptized, we appeal to God that the suffering of Christ would bring us to God.

And that tells us that baptism, one, it's for believers, it's for people who are appealing to God. They have to be appealing to God to be baptized.

They're appealing to God that their sins be washed away. Not by baptism itself, but by Christ who suffered once, once for all.

And so baptism is the way we've been given to appeal to God. Now here

David is appealing one last time to Saul. He's appealing that Saul and his men are keeping him from the

Old Testament way of appealing to God, like the sacrifices and the tabernacle, the temple, and all that.

If it is, David says, if it's men who've instigated you against me, may they be cursed before the

Lord. In other words, I know I'm right. If it's men who've done it, not the Lord. It's their fault.

If it's God who's done it, it can't be God's fault. It's got to be my fault. May God curse them because they have driven me out this day that I should have no share in the heritage of the

Lord. In other words, I can't live in Israel. I can't live with his people because you're chasing me all the time. I can't go to the tabernacle.

I can't offer sacrifices. I can't take part in his worship. I can't appeal to God that way. That's the heritage of the

Lord. And so they are, in effect, saying these people who've instigated you, Saul, against me, they're saying, effectively, go serve other gods,

David. Because David's saying, you're not allowing me to worship the Lord. They're driving him away from the presence of the

Lord, in verse 20, away from the tabernacle where God is worshipped. Why have people turned you against me so that the king of Israel has come out against a single flea?

He compared himself to a flea before in chapter 24. In other words, I should be so small that you shouldn't even pay any attention to me.

You don't pay attention to a flea. So you, Saul, shouldn't be paying attention to me. It's like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains.

No one takes an expedition into the mountains to go hunt for a partridge, one little bird.

You might go for a deer or something like that, but not for a little bird. No one goes all the way to the mountains just to hunt for one small bird.

So you too, Saul, shouldn't be chasing me. That's what he's saying. But whoever has made you do this, may he be cursed for driving me out from the worship of the

Lord, from being able to worship God, God's way. John Cotton crossed an ocean when it was extremely dangerous to set up a church in a mud hut because worshipping

God, God's way, was that valuable. For David, may they be cursed to have kept me from it.

Of course, they don't want to be cursed. What's implied is that instead of being cursed, that they repent.

They stop opposing me, David, and be reconciled to God. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20,

God is making his appeal. God is appealing through us. God's appealing to others through us.

We beg you on behalf of Christ, the anointed one, be reconciled to God.

That's what faith makes him do. Saul responds again.

He's contrite sounding. He's humble sounding. He's believing sounding.

He's pious sounding. He sounds right. I've sinned.

Return. Saul appeals to David to come back home. My son. There it is again, second time.

David, for I will no more do you harm. No more. This time it's for real.

I'm sorry I've done it before. This time I'll keep my word because my life is precious in your eyes this day.

Behold, I have acted foolishly and have made a great mistake. Yada, yada, yada.

Some people know how to say all the right words and in the end they don't really believe them.

And David answers starting in verse 22. Here's the spear, O king. That's David's answer. Yeah, here's your spear that I took from your head.

You got a word. You got empty words. I got your spear. I got something I can hold on to. Yeah, again, the proof that he was right there at Saul's head.

You can have it back. Saul loves his spear. The Lord rewards every man. David's speaking here. Every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness for the

Lord gave you into my hand this day, just now, and I would not put out my hand against the

Lord's anointed. Notice David's saying he's the righteous one and that he will be rewarded.

Behold, as your life was precious to this day in my sight, so may my life be precious.

And just here you would expect him to say in your sight, Saul. May my life be precious in your sight like yours was to me.

May you reward me for not killing you. Reward me by dropping all your plans to hunt me down. But David's given up on that.

Instead, he says, may my life be precious in the sight of the Lord, and may he deliver me out of all tribulations, because I know you won't.

And Saul responds, blessed be you, my son. Third time,

David, you will do many things and you will succeed in them, which is true, absolutely true, but we know

Saul doesn't really believe it. He knows it, but he doesn't believe it. Some people know the truth, but they don't believe it.

You can tell by what they do. If they don't do what they know they should do, repent of their immorality or their greed or their drunkenness, they don't seek first the kingdom of God, not money, they don't worship

God God's way, they don't stop trying to kill David. It's because they don't really believe

God. They may know that this is wrong, that they should be doing something else, they just don't believe it.

They can see the evidence, the upheld spear and the water jug, and they know it's true. They'll say it's true, like Saul here, but they don't believe it.

They don't believe in it. You can tell by what they do.

Third part, what does faith make you do? It should make you fight.

In chapter 27, David fights, but he does it shrewdly. He doesn't believe

Saul for a second. Saul is an abuser. He's like an abusive husband. Maybe after one incident, if it's not too serious, you can forgive and go back with some warnings and some counseling, but after that, after he's proven to be an habitual abuser, no, you can't trust him.

It would take an awful lot to regain the trust after abuse. Oh, we could say all the sweet -sounding, pious, contrite -sounding words like Saul.

Here, even though Saul has apologized, he's admitted he's wrong, committed to not try to hurt David again, called him son three times.

Still, David concludes rightly in verse 1, now I shall one day perish by the hands of Saul.

I know that. He's going to kill me one day. If I keep this up, he's going to get me. He doesn't believe

Saul's words for a second. If I keep this up, it's over for me. So David wants to fight for Israel, but he doesn't want to fight

Saul. So he has to go to a place where Saul can't go, and that's Philistine territory, particularly

Gath, where originally Goliath was from, which is interesting, and where Akish was king.

Now, he had thought, David had thought of this before, remember? The people of Gath suspected he was working for Saul, and then

David acted insane, so he got out of there. Now, they know Saul is, by this time, they know

Saul is out to get him, and they assume vice versa is true too, that David's out to get Saul, that they're at war against each other.

And so they think, the people of Gath, Akish and his men, what better way to undermine our enemy as Israel than harboring their enemy, your rebels against them?

This is great, works for us, right? We don't have to do the work, he'll go out and do it for us. So David and his men moved to the territory of Gath.

It says they crossed over in verse 2. Otherwise, this is a big deal. This is crossing an important border.

Then notice in verse 4, Saul no longer sought David, which means, despite all that talk before, remember how great it sounds, so sweet and pious and fake -sounding and contrite,

I'm sorry, that's it, it was my mistake. He had gone back to hunting down David. After all that, still, the only thing that stopped

Saul was that David could flee to Philistine territory. Saul's an abuser, so be shrewd. If you're not going to fight him, get away from him.

David doesn't want to live among all these Philistines, and so he asked for his own town, and they let him settle in Ziklag, which is on the border with Israel, and they end up keeping it.

That's part of what David is doing this for, he's expanding Israel. The real reason he didn't want to live in the city of Gath was because his plan was to use their territory to launch raids on Israel's enemies to help finish the conquest that was begun in the book of Joshua, supposed to have been ended by then.

You know, God had commanded them in Deuteronomy to wipe out these people, these people that are mentioned here in chapter 27, and David was going to use

Gath to defend Israel, Saul's kingdom, and to keep that command that God had given them in Deuteronomy through Moses.

Now, to do that, they needed to be far enough away from Akish and his men, so they can't really see what he's doing.

David would go on these raids against people like the Amalekites, who were already supposed to have been wiped out. Remember, Saul was supposed to wipe them out, and he didn't.

And so the job, I mean, David was seeking to do the job that was supposed to have already been done, and thus he's leaving no witnesses, and he'll come back with a bunch of loot, probably pay off Akish some with a little bit, and when

Akish asks where they've gone, David would be shrewd. He'd say he attacked

Israel. That way, Akish is sure that David is now an enemy of Israel, and in made himself an utter stench to the people of Israel.

Therefore, he shall always be my servant. Otherwise, there's no going back for him now, he thinks.

David has earned his trust, and David has been so shrewd in his misleading

Akish that in chapter 28, Akish tells David to get his men, to get ready, we're going to go fight

Israel now. You're going to join the Philistine army, David. You and your men are going to join the Philistine army, and David responds in verse 2 very well.

David wants to go to battle with them, but not for the reason Akish thinks.

David says, you shall know what your servant can do. Very cryptic.

We know what David is going to do, don't we? The same thing he's been doing, defending

Israel. He's going to surprise the Philistines by turning on them in the middle of the battle, because David, as Abigail said, fights the

Lord's battles. Akish says, very well. I will make you my bodyguard for life.

Well, it's definitely going to be for life, Mr. Akish, because if they go fight Israel, David will be the last bodyguard

Akish will ever have. What's he really doing? Well, first he's protecting himself and his family, and then he's fighting for Israel.

He's obeying God's commands from Moses to wipe out these people, to take the territory. Now, why would

David defend Saul's kingdom? Because at this point, this is

Saul's kingdom. It's not David's kingdom yet. He should be the king, but he's not. It's Saul's kingdom. He's defending it.

He's expanding it. Why is he doing it? Because he believes in God's promises to Israel. God promised that Israel would have that land.

This is their land, and David believes it, and his faith causes him to protect that land and to conquer it.

Now, he's being shrewd. Some would say, well, he's murdering and lying. No, not really.

He's claiming what Israel should have taken. It's really their land, taking it back. He's doing what

God commanded Israel earlier in Deuteronomy. Now, yes, he's deceiving Akish, but it seems to me if you're allowed to kill people in a war, you're probably almost certainly allowed to mislead them.

And David misleads Akish so that he can continue to use his territory to defend and expand

Israel because he believes in God's promises. Faith makes him fight for God's people.

Why did Rahab mislead the men of Jericho? Looking for Israelite spies, remember?

They come to her place. Where's those spies? Where'd they go? She says, I went that way. She misled them. Why did she do that?

Because she believed in the promises of God to Israel. Her faith then,

David's faith here, causes them to act. They're doing what they're doing because faith makes them.

What does your faith make you do? There are some today who say that faith might not make you do anything.

That you can believe in Jesus by disagreeing with some facts, that He's Lord, that He died for sins, that He rose from the dead.

And that not result in you doing anything.

That is false. If it doesn't cause you to follow

Him in baptism, to seek first His kingdom, to obey His commands and love

Him. Now, maybe not perfectly. You'll all fail, be weak, you still have the flesh to deal with. But it's moving you to do something, moving you toward Him.

If it's not making you do that, it's not faith.

It's like Saul. Saying all the right words, maybe knowledge, but it's not faith.

Saying all the right words like Saul and then turning around and going back and doing the same sin all over again.

Living, saving faith makes you do things.

The things God calls you to do. What does your faith make you do?