Do Not Throw Back

Imagine this, you’re outside in the open field. It’s dark, there’s a gentle cool breeze, you’re taking care of the sheep, that’s what you’re family does, you’re shepherds.

It seems like a normal night expect you’re all alone because all your brothers are inside, you’ve got 7 older brothers, the house is a few hundred feet away, and apparently your dad has a guest over for dinner.

Then, your family servant is running toward you, you’ve no clue why, he reaches you and says, “David, you gotta go.” And you’re like, “Go where?” The servant says to you, “The prophet, Samuel, he here’s, and he wants to see you. Go, now!”

So you run, you take off, you reach the house, you burst through the door, and there stands you’re entire family, and the prophet Samuel, and Samuel has news for you, something beyond your wildest dreams: Samuel has just anointed David to be the next king of Israel.

Then you think to yourself: “don’t we already have a king?” The answer is yes, yes we do, his name is Saul. For a while Saul seemed like a good king, but recently, it’s become clear, Saul has some serious character defects. So, God has chosen a new king.

Now, many of us know this story, the moment when Samuel, the prophet, anoints David as king. We don’t know exactly how young he was. He might have been an elementary school kid or maybe a middle school kid, somewhere in that range. But we do know that this moment in David’s life changed everything for him.

Sometime after that, the current King… something is wrong with him, he’s going mad, it seems, but what the people don’t know is that God has allowed a “harmful” spirit to visit Saul and torment him, caused by his disobedience and wickedness… and the spirit keeps coming back to King Saul, and the people who work in Saul’s administration, they’re trying to figure out what to do, they determine he needs a skilled musician to sing to him, somehow they hear of David’s musical skills, and they have him come join Saul.

David is one part personal worship leader and one part musical therapist. Whenever Saul is being tormented, David plays and sings and it’s healing to Saul. And, the Bible says, in 1 Sam. 16:21, that Saul “loved him greatly.” It seemed that Saul and David were going to have a great relationship? Well, that’s not how it turned out.

Well, the passage we’re going to look at this morning, has a subscript… It says that David wrote this Psalm:

“when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him.”

This took place in 1 Sam. 19, that’s when Saul sent me to David’s house to track him down and ultimately with the goal of killing David. Well, I'd like to take a step back this morning to examine the events of David’s life that led to Saul sending men to kill David. I think examining that moment will give us some insights into Psalm 59.

The next monumental moment in David’s life takes place on the battlefield, where he takes down the tall, super strong Philistine championed, Goliath. Then, David finds himself back in the palace, singing for King Saul, but this “harmful” spirit keeps coming more frequently, tormenting Saul, and Saul is literally going mad.

Well, one day, David is playing songs for him, and Saul throws a spear at David. In 1 Sam. 18 it’s implied that this happened at least twice during that period, and then it happens a third time in 1 Sam. 19, and Psalm 59 is written right after that third time it happens, right after the third time Saul throws a spear at David.

Can you imagine if during the worship service, I threw a spear at Pastor Max? Crazy right. For David, this is just the start, over the next several years, Saul attempted to kill David at least 14 times, that we know of. Saul is growing more and more bitter and jealous. David, the man Saul once loved, has become the object of Saul’s hatred, and not because David did anything wrong. So you can imagine how David’s feeling.

So, Saul is literally throwing spears at David, and you know what David did, right? What do you do when someone lodges a spear your way? We all know, you throw it right back, that’s what most people do. When someone harms you or hurts your feelings, you’re tempted to hurt them back, right? To find some form of revenge.

Metaphorically speaking, you’re throwing the spear back… but here’s something interesting about David, he never got good at the things Saul was good at, like throwing spears.

Unlike anyone else in spear-throwing history, David did not do what most others would do, he did not throw spears back at Saul. Now, after these two spear-throwing incidents in 1 Sam. 18, where David dodged at least two spears, that we know of, David is removed from the royal court and made a general. And David turns out to be a skilled military commander, and he’s able to garner great loyalty from the men he’s leading.

1 Sam 18:30,

“David had more success than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was highly esteemed.”

David is becoming a respected celebrity in Israel. And Saul is growing in anger and bitterness and jealousy. So Saul starts sending David on crazy military missions; they’re like suicide missions, and Saul was confident that David would get killed on one of these military missions; But David keeps winning, because God is with David.

You can just imagine David’s popularity growing, there’s a ground swell of support, there’s a buzz. People are calling into talk radio saying. “I don’t know, I just think Saul’s time is up, it’s David’s time to shine, he's the real deal.” The tension is growing, and then, one day, the third javelin comes. Saul throws it, David dodges it, and again, he doesn’t throw it back. And this is the moment when David realizes that he’s probably going to have to run, or Saul is going to kill him.

David could have started a campaign. He could have gone out to the public square. He was popular by this point, lots of people knew he was the heir apparent. Lots of men have seen him in battle. David could have easily started a campaign to overthrow the king. And he would have been justified, right? David could’ve gone down that road… But he didn’t. Instead, he leaves, he refuses to split the kingdom.

Then, we see in 1 Sam. 19, David realizes that Saul has sent some men to come get him, these are then men mentioned in Psalm 59, men sent to watch David’s house, so David’s wife, who happens to be King Saul’s daughter, she comes up with a plan to help David escape, and now David is on the run, and this is the moment when Psalm 59 is written: David will spend the next several years on the run from Saul, we don’t know exactly how long but David, but at this point in 1 Sam. 19, David is probably in his early 20s and he doesn’t become king until age 30, so we’re talking almost a decade.

But here’s the things, we know these days as David’s pre-king days, we’ve seen the end of the story, but David didn’t know that. David had no clue how long it would last, and he didn’t know how it would end. David did not yet know that he would use rocks for pillows as he sleeps in caves, David does not yet know how many times he’ll go to bed cold and hungry.

All David knows is that the Mad King is trying to kill him, and that he has to leave his home or be killed. In this moment, David’s inclination is to pray, because he trusts God to deliver him. And this wasn’t the first time. We read in 1 Sam. 16 and 17 that while taking care of the sheep, David had come up against some wild animals, and God delivered him in those moments, and, of course, there was Goliath, and there were these recent high-risk military assignments, and God was continually faithful to David, so David trusts that God will deliver him away from Saul’s wrath.

“Deliver me from those who work evil, and save me from bloodthirsty men.
For no fault of mine, they run and make ready. Awake, come to meet
me, and see!
Then David uses the same language he used when talking to Goliath.
You, Lord God of hosts, are God of Israel.”

“Lord of hosts” is a military title, like saying, God, you are the commander-in-chief of the armies of heaven. David is reminding himself of the attributes of God, we’ve talked about this before, and it’s relevant to the situation. David is being chased by a man who has an army and David does not have an army, so he refers to God by his military title. Sort of as a reminder, I may not have an army, but the commander of the armies of heaven is looking out for me. Then in verse six, David describes these men:

“Each evening they come back,
howling like dogs and prowling about the city.”

He uses similar language in verse 14:

“Each evening they come back,
howling like dogs and prowling about the city.”

David is lamenting these men chasing him, for no good reason. But then David turns positive, he says:

verse 8,

“But you, O Lord, laugh at them;
you hold all the nations in derision.”

David is reminding himself and laughs at the reality that some people think they can derail God’s plan. Here we have David, anointed by God to be the next king, and we have Saul, the current king, trying to stop that. Saul is literally fighting against God, and it’s laughable. Okay, now look at verse 9 with me:

“O my Strength, I will watch for you,
for you, O God, are my fortress.
My God in his steadfast love will meet me;
God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.”

He’s speaking to God, remember, he’s hiding out, in the process of escaping the city, or in some random place, and he says to God, “O my strength!” Then he focuses on the love of God, the steadfast love of God. David finishes the Psalm talking about the love of God.

“But I will sing of your strength;
I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
and a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my Strength, I will sing praises to you,
for you, O God, are my fortress,
the God who shows me steadfast love.”

So here’s David, experiencing hurt and pain at the hands of someone who once loved him, but rather than taking matters into his own hands, rather than seeking vengeance, his focus is reminding himself of the love of God.

In this life, people are going to throw spears at you, don’t pick them up, don’t throw them back.

Now, certainly there are moments where we seek justice, if someone has been abused or a crime has been committed, we seek justice, and often that means we’re involving law enforcement, justice is good and right, however, we are not to take matters into our own hands.

Furthermore, there will be moments where you are being mistreated, and the only way for you to stop that mistreatment will be, for you to mistreat that person back… church, don’t do it, do not go down that path, if someone hurls insults at you, don’t throw them back!

When they call you a bigot because of your commitment to Biblical sexual ethics. When they tell you that you’re regressive because you’re willing to stand up for the sanctity of life, or when your professor gives you a bad grade on a paper because you disagree with his secular progressive ideas, or when you don’t get the promotion you were promised, or if you’re unjustly fired, or you have a family member humiliate you, or if you’re ever betrayed or abandoned by a spouse, or if you’re devastated by the sinful choices made by someone you thought was your friend. In those moments, you will be tempted to throw the spear back, but don’t do it, instead, remind yourself that God loves you, sing of the steadfast love of God.

I want to close this morning by reading an excerpt from a book I read several years ago that was sort of a dramatized account of the life of David, It gives a fictional account of what it might have been like for David while he was on the run from Saul.

Many of you know that during those years, when Saul is chasing him, David develops an entourage, of sorts… these are men David meets along the way, men that are also on the run from Saul, for various reasons.

And, on one occasion, while David and these men are running from Saul, David has the opportunity to kill King Saul, Saul is chasing David, he makes a wrong turn, and ends up in a position where David could’ve easily killed him, this will actually happen more than once, but David refuses to do it. David let’s Saul go.

So, this book I read a few years ago gives a dramatized version, a fictional account of what it might have been like, later that night, when all the men are hiding in a cave, I want to read it for you, I’ve edited it, slightly, to make it easier to read. Listen to this. 

The place was another nameless cave.
The men stirred about restlessly.
Gradually, and very uneasily, they settled in.
And then, one man spoke up: “Why, David why?”
It was Joab… he wanted answers.
David should have seemed embarrassed, or at least defensive.
He was neither.
David was, sort of, looking past Joab, like a man looking into another room that only he could see. Joab walked directly in front of David, looked down on him, and began roaring his frustrations.
”Many times he almost speared you to death in his palace. Finally, you ran away. Now, for years, you have been nothing but a rabbit for him to chase. Furthermore, the whole world believes the lies he tells about you. He has come, the king himself has come, hunting every cave, pit, and hole on earth to find you and kill you like the dog. But tonight David, tonight, you had him, you had him at the end of your spear and you did nothing. Look at us again. We’re animals. Less than an hour ago you could’ve freed us. Yes, we could have been free, right now. Free from this madness. And Israel too. Israel would also be free from this mad king. Why, David, why? Why did you not end these years of misery?”
There was a long silence. The men shifted, uneasily. They were not a custom to seeing David rebuked.
Then David slowly responded, “Because, because, once long ago, he was not mad. He was young. He was great. And it was God who made him king, God, not men.”
Joab blazed back, “But now he is mad. And God is no longer with him. And David, he will get to kill you.”
This time David blazed back: “Better he kill me than I learn his ways. Better he kill me than I become as he is. I shall not practice the ways that cause kings to go mad. I will not throw spears, nor will I allow hatred to grow my heart. I will not avenge, and I will not destroy, not now, not ever. It is better for king Saul to kill me then for me to become like king Saul, it is better that he kill me, than I become like him.”

Cities Church… In this life there will be people who hurt you, who do vile things against you, who betray, or undermine you. Do not return evil for evil, do not throw that spear. It is better that King Saul kill you than you become King Saul. I can say this with confidence, and the reason I can say this with confidence is God has promised to vindicate us. God has promised that he will meet-out justice, as he sees fit, and I trust him. God has promised that everything that happens to me will work out for my good, and those promises were sealed for me at the cross.

At the cross of Christ where, Jesus died for our sin and purchased our redemption, where he ransomed my soul and guaranteed me everlasting life. Because I know my soul is ransomed, because I know I have everlasting life, there’s no need for me to seek vengeance, there’s no need for me to take matters into my own hands, there’s no need for me to throw spears back, I trust in steadfast love of God.

As David says here, in Psalm 59:17:

“I will sing praises to you,for you,
O God, are my fortress,
the God who shows me steadfast love.”

And it is that steadfast that we remember each week at this table. Each week we come back to this table to remember the steadfast love of God, demonstrated through the work of Christ.