Gods Sabbath

D AVID ’ S L OSS OF F AITH

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on, the bear, and the Philistine giant. Reverting to human meth ods, he relied upon his own resources instead of casting the whole burden on the Lord. He failed to see the weakness of rely ing upon himself. There were only two devices at David’s command to which he could turn in his attempt to save himself. One of these was force; the other, deception. David did not contemplate using force, for his personal might was minimal compared to Saul’s, who had at his disposal tens of thousands of battle-hardened warriors, and David had no illusions of the outcome of any encounter with them. But he could still turn to deception and this was what he did. Satan does not need to disguise his devices too closely when he can see that the person under harassment has lost his grip on liv ing faith and is ready to accept any solution offered him. David ought to have recognized instantly that this solution was of sa tanic origin, if only because Satan is the author of all lies and de ception, but he was too preoccupied with saving himself to test the proposition. Feeling he could not trust even the high priest not to report him to the king, the son of Jesse gave a deceptive answer to the embarrassing question this man of God asked him. “David answered Ahimelech the priest, ‘The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, “No one is to know any thing about your mission and your instructions.” As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place.’” 1Samuel 21:2. There was not a word of truth in this, yet once David had fail ed to cast the problem on the Lord and leave it there, he could do nothing else but lie. We too need to be aware of this outcome. Problems demand solutions which must come from somewhere, and if we do not entrust God with this full responsibility, we will find ourselves having to supply them. Under such circumstan ces, the only powers available to us are usually those of force or deception. Once either of these is resorted to, we lose all immu nity from sin. Irrespective of how faithfully we may have stood for the truth and practiced Sabbath rest principles in the past, we will fall into sin as soon as we fail to cast our burden on the divine Burden Bearer and instead trust to our own devisings. For the moment, it appeared that David had secured his safety, but terrible indeed were the consequences. Eighty-five members of the priest’s household were to die, in addition to