The wage of sin is death. Our sins have consequences for others. We men understand that the world in which we live operates on the basis of cause and effect. We reap what we sow. Our sinful choices harm those we love most. As leaders of our homes, we need to take Paul’s advice, Abhor evil, cling to what is good (Rom 12:9).

Christian men want a faith that is real, that works where they live out their everyday existence—in the physical world. Life teaches them everyday not to believe salesmen’s hype, leaders’ overly rosy predictions, and coworkers’ excuses. They live in the bottom-line world, trusting only what they can measure and identify as corresponding to reality. Perhaps that is why men who get to know the Bible, love it so much. The Bible tells it like it is, with shoe-leather reality. It is the unvarnished story of the very flawed. Author Alan Redpath expresses what most of us feel about the Bible’s honest portrayal of its figures, “I find it tremendously comforting that the Bible never flatters its heroes. It tells the truth about them, no matter how unpleasant it may be, so that in considering what is taking place in the shaping of their character we have available all the facts clearly that we may study them” (The Making of a Man of God). Such a hero was David who had big successes but even bigger failures. In 1 Samuel chapters 19-23, we see David pass a big test of his faith with flying colors and then fall flat on his face, doing evil, which led to enormous suffering due to his unbelief.

As we pick up the story of David, in 1 Samuel 19, God has already anointed David to be the future king of Israel and launched him into national prominence through his defeat of mighty Goliath. Saul has appointed him top general in Israel, and chapter 18 ends with the words, The commanders of the Philistines came out to battle, and as often as they came out David had more success than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was highly esteemed. But as we saw last week, David’s success fills Saul with envy and Saul decides to murder him. The story continues,

Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, told him, “If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” So Michal let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped. Michal took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goats’ hair at its head and covered it with the clothes. And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.” Then Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.” And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed, with the pillow of goats’ hair….Now David fled and escaped, and he came to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. (I Sam 19:11-18).

One of the most distinctive characteristics of God is that he relentlessly tests the faith of those he loves. Peter explained  this reality, when he wrote to Christians who had also been displaced from their homes, You have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. God is like a football coach who makes his players run wind sprints in August, not letting up until they drop from exhaustion. He knows that on game day, they will be glad they endured such painful trials. God is relentlessly committed to what will matter most to us on the day of Christ’s return—praise, glory, and honor going to him. The Day of Christ extends into eternity, which means our eternal joy will be linked to how we have honored Christ with our lives. God loves us too much to sacrifice that eternal joy to give us the ease, and comfort we crave now! Scripture tells us that David wrote Psalm 59 during the episode of his life that we just read about.

Psalm 59—David’s Model Response to His Faith Being Tested

As David realized he was surrounded by Saul’s troops who were waiting for daylight to execute him, he took his impossible situation to God. Someone has said, “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities for our faith to grow stronger, brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” Maybe you are facing one right now. The challenge before you is just too big; you don’t have the resources to meet it. We know that David took the fact that he was trapped by his enemies seeing no way out to God that night because Scripture tells us so. Notice the flow of thought: 1) requesting God’s help, to 2) remembering God’s character, to 3) resolving to trust God in the future.

1. David Requests God’s Help. (Notice These Second Person Direct Appeals.)

• Deliver me from my enemies, O my God (vs 1).
• Protect me from those who rise up against me (vs 1).
• Deliver me from those who work evil (2).
• Save me from bloodthirsty men (2).
• Awake, come to meet me, and see (4).

2. David Remembers God’s Character.

• You, Lord God of hosts, are God of Israel. Rouse yourself to punish all the nations; spare none of those who treacherously plot evil (5).
• There they are, bellowing with their mouths with swords in their lips—for “Who,” they think, “will hear us?” But you, O Lord, laugh at them; you hold all the nations in derision (7-8).

3. David Resoves to Trust God for the Future.

• O my Strength, I will watch for you; for you, O God, are my fortress (9).
• My God in his steadfast love will meet me (10).
• God will let me look in triumph on my enemies (10).
• My enemies wander about for food and growl if they do not get their fill. But I will sing of your strength (16).
• I will sing aloud your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress (16).
• O my Strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love (17).

David’s Unbelief Leads to a Sin of Omission

The Bible teaches that sin is not only an act of commission, e.g. stepping across the moral line to harm another; it is also an act of omission, e.g. not caring that a poor man has no food. The next chapters of David’s life reveal a significant sin of omission. After he escaped from his home with his wife, Michal’s help, he never went back for her. We might say, “Wait a minute, David spent the next 10 years running around the countryside fleeing from Saul.” But that did not stop David from taking another woman as his wife, Ahinoam of Jezreel, during these years and then Abigail as a second wife. The binding nature of the marriage covenant has been true since God brought Eve to Adam! Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. David abandoned his responsibility to provide for her, protect her, and pursue her. We might say, “But would not David having Michal at his side put her at risk of harm from her father’s wrath? Yes. But could not the God who protected David from the paw of the lion and bear, from Goliath’s sword, and 15 years of Saul’s attempts to kill him also have protected his wife, Michal?

In fact, David’s mistreatment of his wife Michal was even worse than abandoning her. After David failed to return for Michal, Saul had given his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim.

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