But You, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, The One Who lifts my head high. Hallelujah!!!
Psalms 3:3 NIV
Watch Psalm 3:3 by Amy Seiffert:
It means, The Lord is my shield. David knew that God was a shield around him and that God was all-powerful and able to repel his enemy.
At times we are led to ‘lose our minds’ for protection. David who wrote this had a few experiences where he was in need of God and even pretended to lose his mind!
David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man!
Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s head shepherd.8David asked Ahimelech, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king’s business was urgent.”9The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one.” David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”10That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.11But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances: “`Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”12David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath.13So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.14Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me?15Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”
Saul did very wrong in The Sight of God! Read 1 Samuel 21-23. Very profound understanding will be shed in your spirit. Yet, David truly had The Lord in him! Chances and trials to slay Saul:
– David went to various places as he fled from Saul, and he and men who joined him received help from several people. While hiding in a cave, David had the opportunity to kill Saul, but he chose to let him live.
David knows he’ll never be safe as long as Saul is alive.
“David thought to himself, ‘One of these days I will be destroyed 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.'” (27:1)
So David once more seeks asylum with Achish, king of the Philistine city of Gath, in the area just west of the Judean hill country. The first time David had sought refuge in Gath, he came alone and fled when he realized how vulnerable he was (21:10-15). This time he comes to Achish as a vassal, a warlord with 600 warriors. As a vassal of King Achish, he will be protected by Achish, but he will owe tribute to Achish and be required to defend Gath and fight with the Philistines when they go to war.
Achish welcomes him on the simple basis that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” And it has the desired effect: “When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him” (27:4).
Achish must be struggling to feed David’s 600 men and their families in Gath. And David doesn’t like being so closely under Achish’s eye. After all, he doesn’t exactly share the Philistines’ religion and values. So David brings a request to Achish:
“If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be assigned to me in one of the country towns, that I may live there. Why should your servant live in the royal city with you?” (27:5)
- Astrology, common in Babylon, seeking the future in the stars and planets (Isaiah 47:13; Jeremiah 10:2).
- Necromancy, consultation with the dead to determine the future, as is practiced by the “witch of Endor.”[120 The word “medium” (NIV, NRSV), “familiar spirit” (KJV) that occurs in 28:7, 9 is ʾôb, “spirit of the dead,”[121] which occurs in the feminine gender in Hebrew. The word is often paired with yidde’ônî (as in 28:9), which occurs in the masculine gender in Hebrew.[122] Together they probably refer to females and males who conduct occult practices.[123] The prophet Isaiah describes how perverted people have become in his day, who prefer mediums and wizards to true prophets.
“When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists,
who whisper and mutter,,
should not a people inquire of their God?
Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isaiah 8:19)
The Mosaic law is clear that the Israelites were to stay away from these occultists, and to stone them (Leviticus 19:31; 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:10-11). We Christians, too, must stay away from any kind of sorcery or necromancy that seeks the future by occult means or by consulting the dead, a practice common in the New Testament world (Acts 8:9-24; 13:6-12, 16-18; 19:18-19; 1 Corinthians 10:20-21; Revelation 9:21; 21:8; 22:15).
Saul had rightly banished mediums from his realm, but they had only gone underground. With a bit of inquiry, Saul’s attendants are able to find one rather quickly.
Saul asks the woman to “bring up Samuel” for him. She does so, but what happens is nothing like what she suspected — that’s why she shrieks at the top of her lungs and realizes that her client is none other than King Saul.
- of them (Acts 23:5b; Exodus 22:28).
- Appeal. We can, however, respectfully disagree with our leaders, as David did before Saul, and appeal to their reason. And we can also appeal to God when a leader is out of line. God, who put the leader in place can (and perhaps will) remove that leader. Leaders must answer to God! (Hebrews 13:17b).
- Humility. When we humble ourselves before a leader about to make a mistake, like Abigail did before David, and speak clearly and boldly, we can sometimes influence the outcome positively. Humility is appropriate for two reasons. First, leaders often struggle with pride. Second, we don’t see everything the leader sees and may be wrong in our assessment.
- Steadfastness. When God shows us one of his principles, we must stand up for it, even if others don’t understand us or criticize us, as David’s men did when he spared Saul. We aren’t to cave in under pressure.
- Faithfulness. When we make a promise, we must do our very best to be true to our word, not like Saul, whose promise not to harm David was made and broken again and again. Neither God nor man have respect for a person who makes a promise and then changes his mind and does the opposite.
- The Occult. We are to stay away from occult practices of any kind, and thoroughly repent of any involvement in the past that may have contaminated us spiritually or made us vulnerable to Satan’s deception or oppression.
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In this lesson, we’ve traced David during his Wilderness wanderings. He has been challenged, he has seen God’s mercy, and he has grown stronger in the process. In the next lesson, we’ll watch as David faces one of the greatest challenges of his life.
Prayer
Father, David’s incredible faith allowed him to spare Saul — twice. Give us that kind of conviction and faith that we might stand against our great temptations. We seek your will. We renounce and repent of any occult practices. Forgive us for our sins and cleanse us, we pray. Teach us to walk close to you. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
https://www.jesuswalk.com/david/05_david_spares.htm