God's Sabbath

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E NTERING INTO G OD ’ S S ABBATH R EST

saving spirit of our merciful heavenly Father. We will study this reversal in David’s life, the evil consequences which it generat ed, and God’s incredible response in delivering him.

An Unjustified Reversion

To assess how unjustified David was in turning to the Philis tines for protection, we need an adequate evaluation of the ex tent to which God delivered him from Saul’s devising. David was in continual peril from the moment he fled Saul’s presence, for the monarch was in no mood to play games. He al lowed his feelings to rule his mind and was consumed with a de termined passion to destroy the son of Jesse at any cost. Neither mercy nor kindness was in his heart, for blazing fires of malice, hatred, and murderous intent raged there. At his command were military forces vastly superior to those supporting David, and nu merous informers kept him posted as to where the fugitives were hiding. Every witness of sight and circumstances declared con vincingly, though erroneously, that David had a limited future. But Saul reckoned without the role of God as David’s Problem Solver. Saul was guided by his own devising and assumed that David was likewise directed. He therefore imagined that it was just a matter of one man and the power at his command, against another and his forces. He concluded logically that it would be a relatively simple matter to find and destroy the desperate fugi tive. What he did not understand was that the Almighty had taken his enemy’s case. Therefore Saul had no hope of achieving his murderous designs. Behold the amazing spectacle of the king weeping out his con fession to David in the presence of his astonished warriors as they stood outside the cave! What the king had planned as a bloody slaughter of his supposed enemy, turned out to be a con trite confession in which he admitted the evil of his doings and the righteousness of the man he sought to destroy. Not a single blow was struck, nor a drop of blood shed. Who could have pre dicted that God would work for David in such an amazing way? If David’s men had reflected on the way God had delivered His children in the past, they could have predicted that He would