1 Samuel 17:1 After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. 2 From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father's house. 3 And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 4 Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt. 5 Whatever Saul sent him to do, David did it so successfully that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the people, and Saul's officers as well. 6 When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. 7 As they danced, they sang: "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands."
8 Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. "They have credited David with tens of thousands," he thought, "but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?" 9 And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.
10 The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully upon Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the harp, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand 11 and he hurled it, saying to himself, "I'll pin David to the wall." But David eluded him twice. 12 Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with David but had left Saul. 13 So he sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men, and David led the troops in their campaigns.
14 In everything he did he had great success, because the LORD was with him. 15 When Saul saw how successful he was, he was afraid of him. 16 But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he led them in their campaigns.
17 Saul said to David, "Here is my older daughter Merab. I will give her to you in marriage; only serve me bravely and fight the battles of the LORD." For Saul said to himself, "I will not raise a hand against him. Let the Philistines do that!"
18 But David said to Saul, "Who am I, and what is my family or my father's clan in Israel, that I should become the king's son-in-law?" 19 So when the time came for Merab, Saul's daughter, to be given to David, she was given in marriage to Adriel of Meholah.
Review
Walk with God
Last week we talked about the fact that the solution to people-pleasing is God-pleasing. Our goal should be to live to please God, and to desire and delight in God’s approval and praise more than human approval and praise. I did not mention it last week, but I should also add that this goes for all people-pleasing, even if the person you are trying to please is yourself. Some people do not really care much at all what everyone else thinks, and their lives are not driven by the impossible slave-driver of popular opinion, but they are driven by an even worse slave-driver – and that is, their own opinion. Sometimes in our pride we imagine that we are far stronger, far more capable, much smarter, and much more righteous than we really are, so we are constantly defeated - not because we fall short of other people’s expectations, but because we fall short of our own expectations. Living for human approval is sin and it is idolatry even if that human is yourself. Remember 1 Cor.4:3 – Paul did not even accept his own judgment of himself – only God’s. We should not live to impress others, we should not live to impress ourselves, we must always live only to please God, and I gave you a big long list of things the Bible says are pleasing to God. I was tempted to turn that into another whole series on how to please God, but we are already on a bit of a tangent as it is so that study will have to wait, so instead of studying that whole list, let me just give you a three-word summary. The three-word summary of how to please God is found in the life of Enoch.
Heb. 11:5,6 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 without faith it is impossible to please God
It is interesting, because verse five says Enoch pleased God, but if you look up the OT account, instead of “pleased” it says “walked with.” (Gn.5:21-24) The Hebrew says Enoch walked with God and the author of Hebrews takes that to mean he pleased God by faith. So we please God when we walk with Him in faith, and that is exactly what Paul said in 1 Thes. 4.
1 Thes. 4:1 Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to walk in order to please God, as in fact you are walking…. 3 For this is God's will… (and went on to talk about sexual purity)
Pleasing God is a matter of how you walk. You please Him by walking with Him, and walking with God is a matter of trusting Him and seeking His will. So the picture of walking with God means being close by His side as you progress through life - joining Him in His desires so that your heart is right alongside His heart. (There is a huge difference between following rules, and doing what someone in authority desires simply because that person desires it.) We please God when we walk with Him by faith – loving what He loves and hating what He hates. When something that delights God delights you, you are walking with God. When you love someone He loves, you are walking close to God. When the idea of doing His will is delightful to you, and so you seek it – you are walking with God. So the three-word summary of what pleases God is “walk with Him.” And God is mostly pleased with Christians because even though we often fail, mostly we walk with Him.
The solution is not for Jesus to make you feel good about yourself
One other point I should probably make about this before we move on is this – we do not try to please Christ in the same way we used to try to please men. The reason we want to please men is generally for self-glorification. We want to boost our self-esteem. And in today’s psychologized Christian culture, some people are teaching that the solution to the problem of people-pleasing is to look to Christ to boost your self-esteem. Instead of looking to people to make you feel good about yourself, look to the Lord to help you feel good about yourself. Realize that you are so important that He died for you. That is how special you are. Jesus loves you and therefore you should feel good about yourself.
Jesus does love you. But if we reduce God’s love for us down to some kind of self-esteem boost, we are missing most of what is wonderful about His love for us. Jesus does not love you because you are important. When we think of Christ’s death on our behalf, that should not impress us with our own self-importance. What it should do is impress us with how massive our guilt was. What enormous, infinite vileness must there have been in my soul if it took that kind of sacrifice to pay for my sin? If someone has to pay $100 trillion dollars to cover the damages you have caused, that is not a statement about how important you are - it is a statement about how guilty you were. So again, the goal is not for you to feel good about yourself, the goal is for you to feel good about God.
Fear of harm
So the last two weeks we have examined one particular kind of fear of man, and that is fear of human disapproval, and I told you there are two other kinds that also stand out in these chapters. Fear of human disapproval (which causes people-pleasing) we saw in chapter 15. The second kind we see in chapter 17 (the chapter about Goliath). There we see the fear of harm. Saul failed to fight Goliath because he feared defeat (and the humiliation, loss, and physical harm that came with it). This is another kind of man-fearing that is forbidden for the Christian. Not only are we forbidden to fear human disapproval; we are also forbidden to fear physical harm and death.
Lk.12:4 I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.
That is not to say it is sinful for your pulse to go up if you get surrounded by a bunch of thugs in a dark alley. The point is our fear of harm from man should always be a smaller thing and less of a motivation than our fear of God’s chastisement. It is okay to be afraid of pain and death. If you are more afraid of pain and death than of displeasing God you are guilty of fear of man. And the principle applies not just to physical suffering, but to any kind of suffering. Sometimes you are put into a position where you have to either – lie, or lose your job - steal or starve - go along with the crowd in their sin or be rejected - marry an unbeliever, or risk spending your life single - get a sinful divorce, or live in a painful marriage. And when we face those kinds of decisions then we know if we fear God more or man more.
I have had people tell me that they had to commit some sin. They had no choice. If they didn’t do it they would starve to death (or some other horrible fate). And Jesus’ response to that is, “Don’t be afraid of that.” What is the worst that can happen? Just suffering and death – that’s all. Compared to God’s displeasure that is nothing! Compared to suffering God’s displeasure, suffering and torture and death are nothing. It would be much, much more pleasant to suffer and die with God’s favor than to live in luxury under God’s anger.
Compromise
Last week we saw how fear of human disapproval leads to compromise. Fear of harm also leads to compromise. The Apostle Peter perverted the gospel and led Barnabas astray because of fear of disapproval, and he had disowned Christ three times because of fear of harm. It was because of fear of harm that Pilate crucified Jesus. Fear of harm is such a dangerous sin, because once Satan knows you will compromise righteousness to save your hide; once he sees that you are more afraid of injury and death than you are of God’s chastisement, he can get you to do anything. All he has to do is threaten your physical safety.
Fear of loss
Saul was dodging the rod
So one kind of man-fearing is fear of people’s disapproval (ch.15), a second kind is fear of harm or death (ch.17), and now in chapter 18 we see a third kind – fear of loss. God had already told Saul that He was going to take the kingdom away from Saul and give it to someone who is better, and that is starting to come to pass now with David’s popularity.
There used to be a popular TV show called “Everybody Loves Raymond.” You could title the opening paragraph of chapter 18 “Everybody Loves David.” I really cannot think of a more accurate title for this section. Even Saul loved him at first. The women love him, - the soldiers love him, - the people love him, - the officers love him, - prince Jonathan loves him, - King Saul loves him, - Michal loves him, - all Israel loves him, - all of Judah loves him – everybody loves David. And so it is pretty clear where things are headed – David is going to end up on that throne. And that is what Saul was afraid of. It is not that he thought David was going to come attack him. He was afraid that any rise in David’s popularity would move inexorably toward the loss of the throne to David. And he was right.
So I am calling this kind of man-fearing “the fear of loss” because he was afraid that because of David he would lose the kingdom. You could also call it fear of God’s judgment, but that would be a little misleading, because it was not fear of God. It was specifically a fear of the instrument God was using to bring about that judgment – not fear of God Himself. Those are two very different things. If Saul had feared God he would have responded by seeking God’s favor through repentance and faith. But Saul puts forth no effort at all in that direction. Instead he puts all his effort toward eliminating David. 1 Samuel 18 is the story of how Saul tried to deal with God’s rod instead of dealing with God. [Kids – when I talk about God’s rod I am talking about the paddle He uses to spank us – when He brings pain into our lives to discipline us. Not a real paddle – but the pain that comes when He is unhappy with you.] Saul was like a child who, instead of obeying his father, just tries to wrest the paddle out of his father’s hand. Saul wanted to mitigate the effect of God’s judgment, not by getting right with God, but by manipulating the world around him so as to protect himself against God’s judgment.
You fear the one you believe holds the keys to your comfort, wellbeing, joy, and Saul thought the one who was in charge of his wellbeing was David. David had the power, in Saul’s eyes, to take the kingdom away from him. If you fear God and you believe your wellbeing is determined by Him alone, then when a threat comes along you respond by seeking God’s favor. But if you fear man you respond to the threat by trying to eliminate it and seeking God’s favor is not even part of the picture in your assessment of the solution to the problem.
Examples of rod-dodging
You have heard of dodging the draft – this is dodging the rod. Saul was a discipline dodger. But unlike the draft, punishment and discipline from God is impossible to dodge, and trying to do so is the epitome of folly, and it is serious rebellion. So take a moment and ask God: Am I ever guilty of trying to do that? Are there times when I try to escape Your rod by outrunning it instead of by turning back to You? Let me give you some examples of rod-dodging.
1. Lying to avoid consequences
Sometimes we sin, and rather than face the painful chastisement that comes from being discovered, we lie to cover up the sin. God has some consequences set in place, and we try to dodge them by lying and keeping our sin secret. Lying to avoid trouble or to make yourself look good in someone’s eyes is 100% fear of man. When we lie we are saying, “I would rather have God’s displeasure than man’s displeasure. I would rather have God unhappy with me than face what I would have to face if the truth came out.” That kind of fear of man is an effort to out-maneuver God’s discipline.
2. Drowning out discipline with earthly pleasures
Here’s another example: You are down and depressed as a result of failure to seek hard after the presence of God, and you grow distant from God, but instead of repenting and turning to Him wholeheartedly, you try to solve your painful feelings of depression through earthly pleasures – food, recreation, sex, sleep, etc. Or we try to just numb the sting of His rod through distractions – TV, movies, books, friends, news, Internet, games - trying to drown out the pain of His rod. “I’m down in the dumps because I’m far from God, but seeking hard after Him is just too hard – I think I’ll just go watch TV.” “A few drinks, or a couple anti-depressants, or some sleeping pills, or a bag of potato chips and I can escape the pain of this chastisement without having to repent.”
3. Ignoring the rod
Or how about this one - His rod strikes through pangs of conscience, but instead of turning back to Him you try to silence those pangs through rationalization, - comparing yourself to others, - creatively interpreting the Bible, - coming up with some argument for why you deserve this indulgence because you have been doing so well lately, - or just refusing to think about it altogether. You use your mind to try to reason your way out. We try to escape the rod by just ignoring it or pretending it isn’t there.
4. Trying to undo the work of His rod
Another way we dodge the rod is by trying to undo the consequences of our sin instead of repenting. I drift from nearness to God, that results in all kinds of problems in my life, and instead of spending more time seeking hard after Him I spend less time in prayer so I can focus on mopping up all the problems my sin has created - trying to undo the work of His rod. You waste hours or days or weeks in some sin, or you spend a whole lot of money on that sin, and now you are trying to make up lost time and make up lost money and get your marriage back on track and get your health back, and you find yourself spending less time seeking God and more time scrambling around trying to undo the damage of your sin. When we focus on the rod rather than the one who holds the rod, we think we can avoid it or outrun it or drown it out or ignore it or undo what it does. One thing that is crystal clear from this chapter is that efforts to dodge the rod are useless. God’s chastisement cannot be outrun, overturned, drowned out, ignored, overpowered, destroyed, dodged, resisted, or undone.
Dodging the Rod is Useless
Let’s just take a quick look at Saul’s effort to beat the rod.
10 The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully upon Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the harp, as he usually did.
Resisting the rod got him a demon and he starts prophesying. The word “prophesy” in the OT can refer to true prophecy from God or to the uncontrolled, ecstatic, spastic utterances of a false prophet. Here it is the latter. The first time Saul prophesied as a result of receiving the Holy Spirit. This time it is connected with this evil spirit. It is a pathetic picture.
Saul had a spear in his hand 11 and he hurled it, saying to himself, "I'll pin David to the wall." But David eluded him twice.
David stayed in the room trying to help Saul long enough for Saul to retrieve his spear and try a second time. It obviously was not an easy thing to dodge a spear at close range. If it were, spears would not have been used in battle. Under normal circumstances this would have been the end of David’s life. But no matter what would normally happen, what actually happens is dependent upon who has the favor of God and who does not.
12 Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with David but had left Saul. 13 So he sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men
This was a coveted position (22:7). Blessing on top of blessing for David.
and David led the troops in their campaigns. 14 In everything he did he had great success, because the LORD was with him. 15 When Saul saw how successful he was, he was afraid of him. 16 But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he led them in their campaigns.
Now in verse 17 Saul tries another method of killing David.
17 Saul said to David, "Here is my older daughter Merab. I will give her to you in marriage; only serve me bravely and fight the battles of the LORD." For Saul said to himself, "I will not raise a hand against him. Let the Philistines do that!"
He has descended so low he is trying to marry off his daughter to David in order to get David killed - with no regard for his daughter whatsoever. And if you just take a step back and look at what an amazing picture this is - normally you would try to marry your daughter off to some greater, stronger, more powerful king so you could gain some political capital. Here the king is pursuing the shepherd boy to become his son-in-law. It is completely backward.
Not only here, but throughout the entire book you see the fulfillment of what Hannah prayed in her prayer back in chapter 2. Her prayer was all about how God reverses the high and low positions of man. It is God alone who humbles the exalted and exalts the lowly.
1 Sam.2:3-11 Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the LORD is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed. 4 "The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. (reversal of strong and weak) 5 Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no more. (reversal of rich and poor) She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away. (reversal of the blessed and cursed) 6 "The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. 7 The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts. 8 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. "For the foundations of the earth are the LORD's; upon them he has set the world. 9 He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness. "It is not by strength that one prevails; 10 those who oppose the LORD will be shattered. He will thunder against them from heaven; the LORD will judge the ends of the earth. "He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed."
That is what this book is all about – that prayer. It is God, not any amount of human strength or ingenuity or running or striving or planning or conniving or scheming – that determines who is exalted and who is not. So as a result of God being with David and not with Saul, you have this amazing picture of Saul pursuing David to marry his daughter, as though David were some greater, mightier king that was above Saul. David keeps becoming exalted more and more, and he is doing nothing to try to bring that about – it is all God. In fact, look at his response when he has an opportunity of a lifetime – the chance to marry into the royal family.
18 But David said to Saul, "Who am I, and what is my family or my father's clan in Israel, that I should become the king's son-in-law?" 19 So when the time came for Merab, Saul's daughter, to be given to David, she was given in marriage to Adriel of Meholah.
David declines! He is putting forth zero effort to become exalted. It is all coming from God.
Everything Saul does fails and turns out for David’s good. And that pattern keeps going all the way to the end of the chapter. It happens again with Saul’s second daughter – Michal. Every paragraph in this chapter is devoted to showing that it is useless to try to fight against the rod of God’s discipline. God will easily and decisively overpower anyone who tried to do that. The more you try to fight against His rod the worse things will get.
Dodging the rod is rebellion
Not only are attempts to escape His rod useless – they are rebellious. It is like the child who tells his father, “If you send me to my room I’ll climb out the window.” That is just flat-out rebellion. We need to think carefully about whether we are ever guilty of rebelling against God’s discipline in our lives.
When the rod is a person
I gave you four examples of the rod of God’s discipline in terms of the natural consequences of sin, but in Saul’s case the rod came in the form of a man – David. Let us think through how these principles apply when the rod is a person. How do you tend to respond when God sends a person to oppose you? Do you respond like David or like Saul – with a God-fearing response or a man-fearing response?
The man-fearing response (rebellion)
Saul had the man-fearing response. [When the women were singing about Saul slaying his thousands and David his tens of thousands]
8 Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. "They have credited David with tens of thousands," he thought, "but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?" 9 And from that time on Saul kept a (jealous) eye on David.
The term translated “jealous eye” refers to a negative attitude. Every time Saul looked at David he saw him through the lens of this negative attitude, and over time that eventually turned what was love for David in the heart of Saul into such murderous hatred. It all started with the way he started looking at David. This is a very easy sin to fall into. Your heart becomes embittered towards someone, and that goes unresolved (maybe because the person is unrepentant, or maybe because you have not had the courage to even confront the person), but one way or another your heart starts to turn cold toward the person. So now all you have to do is hear that person’s name, and you have negative thoughts and feelings.
If there is a lens like that in your heart toward a certain person – and it is there every time you see or think about that person that means there is a sin just sitting there in your heart 24/7! That is an alarming problem! If Saul had been a godly man he would have taken drastic measures to eliminate that sin from his heart in those early infant stages, when it was nothing but a certain way of looking at David. He could have saved himself a whole life of murderous rage, not to mention the oceans of wrath he is probably enduring even at this very moment in hell, because of the sins that eventually grew out of what started as just an attitude.
Saul was normal
Isn’t it scary how similar we are to Saul in a lot of these sins? The reason God gave us so much information about what was happening inside the heart of Saul is because these are sins we are all tempted by. From time to time we all try to out-maneuver the rod instead of returning to God. I read yet another commentary this week that wanted to diagnose Saul with paranoid schizophrenia. I think Saul is diagnosed with mental problems by modern readers more often than any other Biblical character. If you want to call what Saul had a disorder, fine. But anyone who thinks there was something abnormal about Saul is probably a little detached from reality themselves. Saul was as normal as they come. This is the natural state of the human heart. If you think it is abnormal to be afraid of a rival who has huge popular support, the support even of your own administration and children, who succeeds at everything he does while you are failing at everything you do, and you are facing losing everything to him - if you think it is abnormal to be afraid in a situation like that then I think the abnormal one may be you. If you think it is abnormal for a person to try to deal with the rod instead of dealing with God Himself, or to try to patch up the damage of his sin without having to repent, you need to think again. Those behaviors are as normal as depravity itself. We all struggle with those things – that is why God gave us these chapters.
The God-fearing response (submission)
So when God uses a human being as a rod to discipline you, the man-fearing response is to turn your heart against that human being. To develop a negative attitude, to start noticing everything they do wrong and nothing they do right, to become hypersensitive to all their drawbacks, then you start interpreting all their facial expressions in a negative way, then you start interpreting all their actions and words in a negative way, and pretty soon you just cannot stand them. That was Saul’s man-fearing response. David shows us the God-fearing response in 2 Sam.16. Someone is cursing him and he says,
2 Sam.16:10-12 If he is cursing because the LORD said to him, 'Curse David,' who can ask, 'Why do you do this?'" ….12 It may be that the LORD will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today.
When God sends His rod of discipline into your life, submit to it. When people bother you, stop looking so much at them and start looking at the God who sent that person into your life. God could have given you a different husband or different kids or different whoever, but He sent who He sent. And we need to submit to that.
Conclusion: Submit to discipline
1 Peter 5:5-6 …God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may lift you up in due time.
The phrase the mighty hand of God is a concept that comes from the Old Testament and is frequently used for God’s awesome acts of judgment or discipline. Peter is saying: “Don’t resist that. Humble yourself under it. Submit to it.” When we devote ourselves to fighting against the God-given pain in our lives, and we resist what God is doing instead of accepting it and submitting to it, all that does is make it more painful.
Most scientists believe that gravity is relatively constant, but that is because people like Newton and Einstein did not have small children. Anyone who has raised children knows that a small child, by a sheer act of his will, can make himself twice as heavy as he was a moment ago if he wants to get down. If you have ever tried to hold a rebellious baby, you know what I am talking about. When a kid decides he wants down he will do everything he can to make it hard for you to hold him. And if that happens in a context where you just simply cannot put him down (maybe there is a busy highway or something dangerous), then you have to use your superior strength to keep him in your arms. You just overpower his efforts, and that becomes very uncomfortable for the child because he is resisting you with all his strength – yet he is being overcome. That is what it is like for us when we resist the rod. It is not going to work – God will just increase the power of the trial and clamp down on us all the harder – just like He did with Saul. All our struggling does nothing but make things much more uncomfortable for us.
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
It will be over in due time - when the work of His mighty hand has accomplished its purpose. And in the mean time…
7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
You know that the one whose mighty hand is upon you cares for you. Yes, it is painful but it is never unnecessarily painful. One of the absolutely marvelous things about God is that for His children His discipline is always, always redemptive, corrective, and healing.
Heb. 12:9-11 We have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
For the world, God metes out punishment for sin that is strictly punitive. It is just pure punishment and that is all. It does not change them or benefit them. In fact in some cases it harms them. It drives them into even deeper rebellion against God and makes matters worse for them. In many cases God’s punishment of unbelievers is designed not to restore them but to destroy them. But for us, 100% of what God does in response to your sin is remedial - corrective. It is never mere punishment. It fixes what is wrong with you. If you are a Christian, God has nothing for you but mercy and grace. NOTHING! Even when He turns His face away from you it is 100% redemptive. It is always discipline – never judgment. In fact, the purpose of God’s chastisement is precisely to protect you from His judgment.
1 Cor. 11:32 When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.
The purpose is not to punish for justice’s sake, but to restore you, to heal the sickness in you. When God disciplines you, He is trying to produce a harvest of righteousness so you can share in His holiness. Now let me ask you - when God tries to produce a harvest of righteousness in someone, does He succeed? Yes! When someone proves himself to be a horrible sinner, our tendency is to just discard him as worthless. But God is into recycling. He is the great recycler of ruined souls. He not only accepts them but in His accepting He renews them and takes what is worthless and makes it a work of eternal beauty.
And understanding this will give you a joy that continues even when you are crushed in sorrow over your sin, because His purposes in redemption are bigger even than our sin! Your fall is temporary. His promises are eternal. His eternal, perfect plan cannot be derailed even by our sin. And He has promised that He will restore you.
The rod is excruciating. Do not think of the normal pains of daily life as God’s displeasure toward you. When God turns His face away from you in discipline it is acute pain that is so severe that it is to be more frightening to us than any torture or death the world can inflict upon us. In fact, fear of chastisement is the motive that drives us to warn and persuade people to become Christians, because our fear of discipline makes us realize how utterly fearsome hell is.
2 Cor. 5:10-11 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. 11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.
That means the redemptive expression of God’s displeasure with us is similar to hell. It is different in purpose, but similar in kind. The discipline that God threatens is so severe that God expects us to be motivated by it.
One of the ways to increase the joy in your life is to delight in the fact that God promises only redemptive chastisement. What a marvelous thing that we can trust Him to give us exactly what we most need, perfectly tailored so that any part that is not absolutely necessary for your good is trimmed off. Even in the moments of your most excruciating pain that results from your sin, you can have 100% certainty that it is all for your good. Not even a little bit of it is mere punishment with no redemptive, restoring effect. What God is doing in your life is restoring and renewing your soul and refreshing you. When we rush headlong into death and destruction He brings new life. He heals us. It is painful to be under His scalpel when deep surgery is needed, but we can delight in the knowledge that when we feel that pain it is always, always the Surgeon’s scalpel and never executioner’s knife.
So if you are rebelling against the pain God has sent into your life – whether that pain is discipline for sin or some other kind of pain; stop arching your back and trying to squirm out of His arms. When a baby does that and is overpowered, and then finally stops struggling and accepts the parent’s will, he finds himself in the most blessed position possible. Have you ever seen a baby snuggled up in his mother’s arms when he wants to be there? It is the greatest picture of contentment and blessed rest in all the world.
Hannah is a great illustration of this. God had closed her womb (1 Sam.1:5), and the pain in her soul seemed more than she could bear. But in the midst of her distress, she humbled herself under her suffering instead of having a proud, angry response of resistance against God’s mighty hand. She vowed that if she did have a child she would give him to the Lord to serve as a priest all his life. She cast all her cares onto the Lord and just gave it all over to Him, and submitted to His will and embraced it.
18 …Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
She still was not pregnant, but she had cast her care on the one who cared for her and she trusted Him.
Let us resolve to submit to the mighty hand of God in our lives. Allow it to accomplish its wonderful purpose of turning you back to Him so that you can share in His holiness. Saul could have had a wonderful life if he just would have stopped rebelling. It was too late to salvage his kingship – God already said He would not change His mind on that.
But so what? Saul could have knelt down before David, God’s anointed, turned the kingdom over to him, and made a covenant of loyalty with him like Jonathan. He could have sought God’s favor and no doubt God would have richly blessed him and David would have treated him with great honor.
Benediction: 1 Th.5:23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
