Among this ‘band of brothers, ’ I’m sure there were many irritating personalities and not a few frustrating friends. Yet in this time of stress petty annoyances disappeared. Their delightful excellent traits of a gracious godly disposition came out in their true colours as they fought for their lives and leader and the advancement of God’s Kingdom. Trials and troubles for faith have the knack of concentrating min and enabling us to unite around Covenant commitment. How vital we keep focus when there is friction in the flock.

Don’t you just love church?

Aren’t Christian brothers and sisters the most delightful, excellent folk? It is hard to describe the joy harmonious fellowship with godly people brings! Those providential meetings with unknown believers on vacation; long conversations into the evening at a conference or convention; the smiling face, each Sabbath, of some of the best people who you know; a time of sweet psalm-singing when your heartbeat seems as one; knit together in love through God’s grace in the heart; there’s nothing on earth like gathering with God’s well-functioning family!

Do brothers ever get on your nerves?

Perhaps that is why it’s so painful when church fellowship misfires – when instead of bringing joy believers just add to stress and sorrow. An ill-judged statement, a selfish thoughtless action, an unfounded suspicion, an unwarranted accusation, or trivial difference in opinion – these are the raw materials that supply Satan with ammunition, and give the Devil occasion to sow mischievous seeds of division between good and godly folk. You’ve been spared great heartbreak if you’ve never witnessed schism, or seen a church divided or at loggerheads with those who love the Lord!

A psalm delights in saints!

When suspicions are arising and patience has worn thin, we are wise to remind ourselves of a statement in Psalm 16. This Miktam of David, v1, seems to have arisen in a situation of tension, in which the nation was split. Among the Covenant People there was an influential but compromised group whose priorities lay elsewhere and who ran after other gods. This was not the company that King David would seek out. He resolved in His heart, v4b, “their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their name upon my lips.” We detect the spiritual gravity which pulled the King towards believers, in v3: “As for the saints who are in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.”

Holed-up in a Hideout

We see this love for the saints at many points in David’s career. Having been warned by Jonathan that Saul wanted to take his life, David first fled to Nob, next sought refuge in Gath, and finally found himself holed-up in a rocky cave in Adullam. Not many were noble or influential, the rich and famous were absent. No doubt in this rag-tag bunch there were some unsavoury types who were spoiling for a fight. We would overstate the case by ignoring the normal and mundane sort of ‘regular-kind-of-guys’ among his closest family and friends. Yet this was the group in which David found his bearings and for which he had a heart. The Holy Spirit takes up the account in 22.1-2:

“David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became captain over them. And there were with him, about four hundred men.”

It is this ‘band of brothers’, with counsel prayerfully sought from God, who would form the military unit that would fight a Philistine army. David was ready to risk his own life and out of love for the saints to deliver the city of Keilah, 1 Samuel 23.1-5. Subsequent to this, there is an almost (if it were not so tragic) comical scene in the Wilderness of Maon – Saul like a bloodhound chasing but never catching David, on the near side of the hill, delivered from his clutches by the LORD, as he skirts the safe slopes on the far side of the mountain, 1 Samuel 23.26.

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