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DAVID'S UNSHAKEABLE FAITH IN THE FATHER
I am here, Jesus:
In countless stories and commentaries about David, his valor in battle, his power of leadership, his skill in extending boundaries of the Hebrew nation and inevitably his sins with Bath-Sheba and her husband Uriah are those themes which constantly come up, and they are, perhaps, warranted and justified in estimating the qualities of the man and judging his character, and I should also add, from the religious viewpoint, his unshakeable faith in the Father, and, of course, this is true, but I also want to tell you that David was also a man of personal warmth and that he showed kindness and sympathy not as a duty which he thought was due to God, but which came from his heart and which he felt as a human being.
Hence David entertained a deep affection for Jonathan, in that he sensed in him a loyal friend, and felt sympathy for the young man whose father was irascible and at times uncontrollable in his fits of temper. They acted together in manly sports of the day befitting a monarch's son and his squire and came to appreciate each other's mettle in forays and hunting. Jonathan's unhappiness as the son of king Saul, who would have sacrificed him to maintain an oath, as happened in earlier times in the days of the judges, was alleviated by his friendship for David, and therefore one should not be surprised to find him acting to save his friend from the persecution of the man who quite often was not as a father to him.
And so Jonathan made a covenant with David, "And thou shalt not only while I live show me the kindness of the Lord, that I die not, but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house." For David and Jonathan knew in their souls that kindness in mankind came from God, and that, as the law of Moses proclaimed, "love thy neighbor as thyself." And thus they understood that the Father's Love acted through the love which man showed for man, but they had, of course, no idea that Divine Love was any different from the love which Moses had proclaimed: love for God and one's fellow man. They recognized that soul could be purified, but never that it could be made divine through the Father's Love, for this Love was unknown or could be possessed by mankind until as the Messiah of God I came in possession of that Love and had proclaimed its availability to mankind.
And Jonathan came to console David when he had to live as an outlaw in the wilderness and in different strongholds, and David shed bitter tears when hearing of Jonathan's death, and that of his father, in the disaster of Mt. Gilboa. And he lamented:
Jonathan upon thy high places is slain.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan;
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me;
Wonderful was thy love to me,
More lofty than the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen,
And the weapons of warfare destroyed.
As for Saul's death, David felt that this was punishment from God, and vindication of his own ethical behavior, that it was not given unto him to destroy God's anointed ruler over Israel, even though he was bent upon killing him. For as a fugitive, David was able to penetrate Saul's encampment and take his spear as the king lay sleeping. And when Abishai, Joab's brother, was ready to kill him, David restrained him: "Do not destroy him, for who can put forth his hand against the Lord's anointed? As the Lord lives, none but the Lord shall smite him; or his day shall come to die, or he shall go down in battle. The Lord forbid that I shall put forth my hand against the Lord's anointed."
Here was such faith in God that he could not commit what he felt would be a crime against God's representative. True, this is not the highest ethics, for the pure soul cannot take life, even as stated in the Ten Commandments of Moses, because it is a law of God, and there is no hate or thought of vengeance in the pure soul, regardless of who the person might be who injures or transgresses. Yet this faith in God acted with great power in David for, relegating punishment to the Father, David was able to remove hatred and vengeance from himself, and enabled him to keep God's law "Thou shalt not kill." So that David's lament for Saul was not one of exultation in an enemy's defeat, nor did he make any reference to Saul's enmity and jealousy; only sorrow that the leader of Israel had perished before his foes.
Neither did David cause the death of the supposed bearer of the evil tidings at Mt. Gilboa, as found in the first sixteen lines of Second Samuel, as this is an insertion of a later writer and had no foundation in truth, being merely an amplification of the subject of David's aversion to anyone's killing the Lord's anointed. Rather, David's thoughts were with Jonathan's son, Meribaal called Mephibosheth, who was crippled on both feet and David's kindness to him is recorded in the Scriptures.
And David said: "Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? . . . that I may show the kindness of God unto him? "And Meribaal called Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, came unto David and fell at his feet. And David said: "Mephibosheth." And he answered: "Behold thy servant." And David said unto him: "Fear not; for I will surely show thee kindness for Jonathan thy father's sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually." And David did, eventually, restore to Jonathan's son all that belonged to the house of Saul.
I shall continue to tell about David's kindness of heart in my next sermon.
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
