God's Sabbath

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E NTERING INTO G OD ’ S S ABBATH R EST

apparently forgetting all that the Lord had done for him, began to devise his own plans for securing the safety of himself and his supporters. He was correct in assuming that the king could not be trusted to abandon his determination to destroy him; that it would not be long before Saul would be hunting him again; and that nothing better than a temporary respite had been granted him. But none of this should have caused him concern. Had not God ably demonstrated His dedicated ability to preserve his life regardless of the king’s anger? What evidence was there to sup port any notion that God was about to change, and abandon him? God had no intention of deserting His servant, and what made David’s flight particularly unjustifiable was the fact that God’s de liverance was still so fresh in his experience. If God had failed him there might have been some excuse, but David could point to no such occasion, for God has never failed anyone. Just like Elijah aft er his victory on Mt Carmel years later (see 1Kings 18:19–40), Da vid could point to no failure on God’s part, but only miraculous de liverances. Yet David suffered as God’s people today are equally in danger of doing, from the lapse of faith that tends to follow victory. Disasters come only when we forget the way God has worked for us, deny Him His rightful place, and instead look to ourselves for salvation from our entanglements. Just as Elijah fled before the en raged Queen Jezebel (see 1Kings 19:1–4), so we find David fleeing again from the fury of King Saul. Like Elijah, David had not yet learned to trust wholly in the Lord. Even after such mighty demon strations of God’s power, David turned instead to his own wisdom. “But David thought to himself, ‘One of these days I will be de stroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.’” 1Samuel 27:1. When David said, “One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul”, he made a fearful mistake—he lost his faith in God. He had no reason to come to this conclusion, for there was abundant evidence to assure him that it was not God’s will for him to die by the king’s hand. In anointing him to be the next king, God, who foresees the end from the beginning with infalli ble accuracy, had already foretold that David would outlive Saul. So David’s conviction that Saul would kill him was an illogical speculation that replaced God’s reliable revelations of his future.