Sunday School | David - 1 Samuel 27

When we ended our class last week, there were about 30 hands in the air, and I'm not sure how many of them were unhappy hands, but I think more than two. So if you weren't here last week, we're going to look this week at 1 Samuel chapter 27. But first, I'm going to try to put a bow on the conversation we had last week.

Last week was 1 Samuel 26, and in the midst of 1 Samuel 26, David makes some mention about how his own righteousness is contributing to God's blessing in his life, which sounds strange to our ears, especially those of us that have been raised on the truth—the deep truth of Ephesians 2 and other places—that by grace you have been saved, right, through faith. This is not of yourselves; it's a gift of God, not as a result of our works, so that no one should boast.

And so we have a very deep sense that grace is both unmerited—which means undeserved—and unconditional, which means we don't do anything to bring it about. And when it comes to our election from eternity past, that is absolutely true. God's saving grace is both unmerited and unconditional. He loves us because He loves us. We didn't do something to make us worthy of His love.

The forgiveness that we have in Christ is given to us as a gift, which all grace is a gift, but it's a particular kind of a gift. It's an unconditional gift that He has granted to us in Christ—Ephesians 1. In fact, let's look at that. Go to Ephesians 1. I should have pulled this up. Ephesians 1 is sometimes called our spiritual blessings in Christ. Listen to this: these are not only undeserved, but they're unconditional, right? Because it happened before you were around to meet any conditions. We'll start at Ephesians 1:3.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. — Ephesians 1:3-4

Unconditional. You didn't do anything. It's a gift. Right? Pure gift.

In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. — Ephesians 1:5-10

In Him we are also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who are the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. That is all grace. Grace, grace, grace, grace, grace—but it's a particular kind of grace. It is a grace that is both unmerited—say undeserved—and unconditional. You are not a contingent piece in those things coming to pass. That's a thing, and that's a bedrock of our lives.

In addition to that, there are other graces. Your life is filled with things that you don't deserve. Your life is filled with good things, with graces that you do not merit, but—and this is the crazy thing—but that you have some condition to fulfill, right? And all that is, is just another way to say that the causes of your life produce real effects. That the Bible, over and over and over again, in addition to the affirmation that our salvation, our election from eternity past is unconditional, there is also the opportunity to do things in this world that actually matter. But when you do them, God will still, even in those, be gracious to you. He'll give you more than you deserve.

So grace is always undeserved. It's always an abundance. It's always more than, but it is sometimes contingent upon some role that we play to unleash it, right? So you'll have language like this. I'll give you a couple of passages from Scripture, and then I'll give you guys a chance to jump in here.

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows generously will also reap generously. — 2 Corinthians 9:6

You see the causal chain there? The grace of a generous reaping is linked to the condition of a generous sowing, right?

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don't give up. — Galatians 6:9

The condition is that we don't give up, and the result—the grace—is that we reap this harvest. How about this one? To the children. You guys might appreciate this one.

Ephesians 6:1 says:

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

He says this: "Honor your mother and father." What's he quoting there? The Ten Commandments, right?

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.

The grace is that it goes well with you, but the condition is being obedient to your parents. There is a blessing, there is a cause and an effect. We could go on and on. In fact, I will, if you want me to. There's lots of these.

Sometimes these things are describing graces without calling them graces. And sometimes the language is explicit, where the Bible is going to say, "This is a grace identified in terminology that is contingent upon something else."

So here's a couple of those. James 4:6:

But he gives us more grace. That is why the Scripture says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to whom? The humble.

So the condition is humility, and the grace is that He gives us grace. It's explicit, right?

Or Proverbs 3:34:

He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble.

That passage about sowing generously and reaping generously—the next verse there says:

God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

That grace is a contingent grace, a conditional grace upon these other things. That's 2 Corinthians 9:6-8. Or Hebrews 4:16:

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

So if you want to experience mercy and grace, there is a condition. What is it? You approach the throne. We seek Him. And by and large, not in 100% of situations, but the prevailing condition is that we seek him.

If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

So the condition is first you've got to be thirsty. Second, you've got to come to him. We receive from him when we move toward him. You oppose pride with His grace to the humble. It's the humble that seek Him.

If we draw near to God, according to James, then He will draw near to us.

Him drawing near to us is the grace, but the condition is that we draw near to Him.

The Nature of Grace

So sometimes His grace is both unconditional and unmerited. Sometimes His grace is unmerited but conditional. But it is always unmerited.

And here's what I want to flip in your brain—I'll give you guys a chance to interact with this. Your life is filled with cause and effect chains, is it not? You've noticed this: all day long, you're doing something that produces an effect. The stunning thing about the fact that God's grace is always unmerited but not always unconditional is not that something has to be done, but that it's always grace.

See, sometimes you will think, you might believe that when I do this and it produces that result, then I made that happen. And you could be blind to the fact that that entire operation was one of enormous grace. You could meet the condition and get nothing in return. And very often that should be the case.

You might think, like, well, I'm a shrewd investor and that is why my stock portfolio is up, right? Well, I mean, maybe. But would you have been a shrewd investor if you were born in Venezuela in 1650? I don't think you would have been.

That in Deuteronomy 8, God says:

When you get wealthy, don't forget the Lord. Don't say, look at what I have created with my own hands, for it is the Lord who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant.

Right? So even when we meet the condition and we congratulate ourselves that we have caused this effect—you did not cause the effect. We're just not that powerful. We're not that wise. We're not that brilliant. But we live in a sea of grace. Even when you do the right thing and it produces the desired end, that whole world—you live in a sea of grace, even when the grace is conditional.

So all that to say, I want to focus on the idea that grace is sometimes conditional. I want to focus on even when you meet the condition, it's still all of grace. Feel the difference there?

That's what I meant to say. Judy, you want to jump in?

Judy: Yeah. So one of the things I thought about—I may be way off base—is that the Ten Commandments were given to us for a perfect life. If you could keep those, everything would be yes. You would have a perfect life. But they're not capable.

So it's also to demonstrate that you're not capable of keeping them. And Jesus came not to overthrow those laws, but to fulfill those laws. So the laws didn't just vanish. He fulfilled all of those because he was the perfect person.

So when I think about what you're saying, I think about the race that you're talking about for a good life and for things that go well and the choices that you make and the humility and honoring your parents and all the things that bring quality to your life now and your ability to do things for God in Christ, for the things that he has called you to do—that comes through the sort of law part of it. But the grace part for eternity is unmerited, completely unmerited. So that's merited by making good choices and good results, but then the salvation is unmerited. And you can blow off all that and have a terrible life. But if you truly, truly, truly have asked for forgiveness and have accepted Christ's death in your place, you are still—for eternity—that grace that was given to you regardless of what else you've done.

So that's the unmerited part. You go into the presence of God with nothing in your hands because you did nothing, and your hair on fire and ashes everywhere, but you still made it. But you didn't have any gifts to give to your savior. You didn't have a life that was what it could have been because of a small grace. The extra graces? The choices that you were given, that you have the guidance and the favor to do.

So let me—I could become tedious and pedantic, so bear with me. What you're characterizing is the big grace and the little grace, or maybe saving grace and then extra grace. I would suggest they're both unmerited, both undeserved. But that one is conditional and the other is unconditional.

Yes, it is absolutely the case that the salvation that we have in Christ, what he has promised from eternity past to rescue us and draw us—that is unconditional election. We're not going to chase that all the way down today. But yes, that is absolutely unconditional. And then on top of that, he gives us other things.

Two Passages on Conditional and Unconditional Grace

Let me show you a couple of Bible passages that'll tie that together. Go to Exodus, chapter 19. Stay with me here—don't lose your mind for the first half. Stay around for the second act.

In Exodus 19, what's going on? It's about the 10 Commandments. Exodus 20 is where the 10 Commandments are given. Exodus 19 is like 10 Commandment Eve. It's right about to happen. On 10 Commandment Eve, in Exodus 19:3, God brings Moses up on this mountain and he says this:

"This is what you say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell to the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did in Egypt and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites." — Exodus 19:3-6

Is that conditional or unconditional? And what is the condition? Perfect obedience. Is anybody feeling confident? The Old Testament affirms: If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then you get all these things—you'll be my treasured possession, kingdom of priests, holy nation. And we all just say, "Well, is there a plan B?" Because that's never going to go well. And there is a plan B.

With that in your mind, go over to 1 Peter, chapter 2. Listen to what Peter is going to say. This is fantastic. In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter's quoting Exodus 19:5, but he changes it. Listen to this:

"You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." — 1 Peter 2:9-10

That's Exodus 19:5. You hear it—it's not a hard connection to make. He's quoting Exodus 19:5 clause for clause, but it's different, isn't it? Because there's no condition. He doesn't say, "If you obey me fully, then you'll be these things." He just says, you are. You are these things. You are a chosen people, royal priesthood, holy nation, a people belonging to God.

The Gospel is that the condition has not been removed, but the condition has been met. Jesus obeyed fully. Jesus is the full keeper of the covenant, and having done so on our behalf, he then gives us credit for his perfect life, takes the blame for ours, and we make this swap.

So it was once conditional. It was framed conditionally so that a group of people would despair that they had no hope. And in their despair, they would cry out for mercy, and in their crying out for mercy, they would find it—that Jesus has met the condition. So our salvation is an unmerited, unconditional salvation because the condition has been met.

And then in addition to that, we are given the dignity of having lives that matter, that we can affect real change as we seek him. And as we seek him, he will give us more than we deserve. It'll always be unmerited. It'll always be more, but it is in fact conditioned upon the things that we do. So many blessings in our lives.

Grace and Humility

In First Peter 5:5, it says:

God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. — 1 Peter 5:5

And I've heard that as "shows grace to the humble." That's how the NIV translates it: God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. And even humility—see, the thing about it is that we are to humble ourselves before God. But for me, it's like humbling myself before God is saying, "God, I don't know how to be humble. I need you to do that here." And so he even enables us.

That's a great claim here. We looked last week at First Corinthians 15 where Paul is basically saying, "I worked harder than all of them"—which is that he's meeting the condition. He's like, "Well, but even that was God's grace in me."

So we live in this sea of iterative grace where we seek him and he's gracious to us and emboldens us to obey him and he responds to that. And there's just this cascading effect—not a downward spiral but an outward spiral. As we trust him and walk with him, he gives us the things that we need for the day, which gives us greater strength to trust him for greater things. It spins out.

And the plan is that we would do that forever and ever and ever and ever, endlessly increasing more. C.S. Lewis calls it "the further up and further in" at the very end of the Chronicles of Narnia—that we're just going deeper into his love and his grace.

If you are afraid to say something in a crowd, you can always email me and I'll be more than happy to engage with you.

David's Downward Spiral

First Samuel chapter 27. It's a short chapter, so we have a little bit more time here. What was going down in David's life last week? Saul's just up to the same old tricks and David's like, "Yeah, whatever." And yet, God rescues him. Over and over and over again, David has this providential thing where he's getting hunted, he's getting chased, God shows up.

And the way that works is when God shows up in your life, it gives you more strength. It gives you more courage. Bill Bright used to say that faith is like a muscle, and it grows when we exercise it. And so as we begin chapter 27, David has been through so many difficult circumstances with Saul—God has rescued him from all of them—that we might expect that he's going to be even greater, even stronger, even more full of faith, even more courageous, even less able to be intimidated.

So, First Samuel 27, watch what happens. Verse one:

David thought to himself, "One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is escape to the land of the Philistines, and then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand." — 1 Samuel 27:1

Does that stun anybody? "One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul." Isn't that the opposite of what you might have thought the narrative would lead to?

When I was younger, this would have shocked me. Because that's not how it's supposed to work. Like, when God shows up, you're like, "Alright, we feel better about it." Victory produces victory. But the older I get, the more this makes sense to me. Does it make sense to any of you yet?

It's a great victory, and yet, I'm tired, and I don't want to do this again. And maybe I've spent the last token. Are there other places in the Bible where you see this human phenomenon? They're like, God has showed up. Everything's faithful. Let's go. And then you're like, crash and burn. I don't want to play anymore.

One of these days, Robin?

Elijah. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I think that's probably in my mind. So can you tell us a little bit what's going on at Elijah at Mount Carmel?

Well, he has confronted the priests of Baal, and there were a whole bunch of them. It was just Elijah. And they were gonna see whose god did something basically. So they built altars and did all the same thing except Elijah poured tons and tons of water so the trench around his was full. And God sent fire from heaven and engulfed it all and all the Baal priests at the same time. And then he runs and he hears that Jezebel wants to kill him because he's killed all the priests. He goes into the desert and he despairs of his life. He goes into a seriously deep—

Absolutely. Let's flip there. Robert's retelling is perfect. Go to 1 Kings 18 and 19. This is, I think, the same phenomena, and it's just worth looking at because you may win a great victory and then want to quit. 1 Kings 18 is where the good stuff is happening. Elijah has this big showdown where God answers in a dramatic way and conquers the enemy, and Elijah looks so good and everything's fantastic.

Look at verse 36. 1 Kings 18:36:

At the time of the sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed, "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that You are God in Israel, that I am Your servant and have done all these things at Your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so that these people will know that You, O Lord, are God, and that You are turning their hearts back again." The fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the soil, and licked up the water in the trench. All the people saw this and they fell prostrate and cried, "The Lord—He is God! The Lord—He is God!" — 1 Kings 18:36-39

Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don't let anyone get away." They seized them. Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered them there. It is an absolute rout. Total victory, complete conquering, and everything is fantastic. Then it begins to rain—they've been in this massive drought. God is restoring all things.

And then look at what happens. It's 1 Kings 19:2:

Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he killed all the prophets with his sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like one of them." — 1 Kings 19:2

Elijah was afraid, and he ran for his life. And when he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there. Look at what he says in verse 4:

"I've had enough, Lord. Take my life. I am no better than my ancestors." And he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. An angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and then laid down again. — 1 Kings 19:4-6

He gets a nap and then an angel makes him some cookies. I mean, it's so great, and it doesn't help. It doesn't help.

Verse 7:

"The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, 'Get up, eat, for the journey is too much for you.'" — 1 Kings 19:7

He said earlier, "I've had enough." Now the journey is too much. So he got up and he ate and he drank. Strengthened by food, he traveled forty days and forty nights. I think it's like a month and a half to think about it, and he's still gone, baby, gone.

In verse 10:

"I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected Your covenant, broken down Your altars, and put Your prophets to death with the sword. I'm the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too." — 1 Kings 19:10

Is anything missing in his little history? Isn't that amazing? Have you ever been through something that's been really hard, you've been really successful, and all you can remember is the really hard? It doesn't mention that whole slaughtering the evil ones. It doesn't mention God answering with fire. He's like, I don't know what's going on, but they've broken down your altars, they've cut everybody to death, and now they're going to kill me.

It's just amazing. And I think in all of that—again, I'll appeal to the older ones among you—he looks like he's just being a crybaby until you get a— Pradins, welcome. So glad to see you guys. We love you. We miss you. Glad you're here. I don't know what I was talking about. What? You ruined everything. What was I saying?

Something about it was really good, I'm sure. He seemed like he's being a crybaby. But the older I get, the more that I'm sympathetic to Elijah. It was hard. David, like Saul, has been defeated again and again and again, but it's exhausting. It is hard to live in that space. So I think we should be gracious to David instead of being like, "What's your problem? God's move." Maybe. I mean, he did. But tomorrow's a whole new day, and I'm afraid, and I'm tired, and this is growing worrisome.

Not to diminish what David's going through, but Elijah's actually based on the text, by himself. He's got 600,000,000. So I don't know if that makes a difference. Well, yeah. So you've got a little more empathy for Elijah, who is genuinely alone, than for David. So maybe David is being a crybaby. There's something to it. Although, I'd have to think that David's men—he's not alone physically, but he and his men have a pretty big gap between them. What do his men want? Just kill Saul. This is not that—look how many swords we have. Let's go. There's a real extent to which David is alone because he and only he is radically committed to never laying a hand on Saul. Leadership is isolating. Being the only one that's willing to be righteous is isolating. And life is hard.

You agree? Yeah, it's hard. I was going to say, on the leadership side, in a lot of ways, having those 600 might have made that more difficult. When you've got the direction you're going and you're leading people in that direction, you're motivating them—sometimes those are the easier times. When all of a sudden the crisis has passed and now where do we go? What do we do? That can be a really trying time. Absolutely. There's a lot of people in history we can see that are radically successful as long as they've got a heavy sled to draw. And then as soon as the battle's over, then you just fall apart. That's where David is. He's been fully focused. He's going to get through this thing, and then now he needs a nap and some cookies. He just does. And don't we all?

So what does he do? Where is he going to go? Gath. Is this reminiscent for anybody? Because he's been here. Look at chapter 21, if you flip back to chapter 21, he went to the same place. Remember when he was drooling in his beard and acting like an imbecile? That was the same location.

Where are we at? We're only made through one verse so far.

Verse two: "David and the 600 men with him left and went to Achish son of Maoch king of Gath. David and his men settled in Gath with Achish, and each man had his family with him. David had his two wives."

That's interesting. When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him. Do you remember the story last time when David went to Achish? What was Achish's response? Do you remember this?

"Am I so short of mad men that we need one more? Like, what are you doing?" And he basically gets rid of him. This time, how does Achish respond? Do you know what he's going to do? He's going to give him somewhere to live. He's going to basically put him in the army. But in this ridiculously serendipitous way, makes him be like an independent army. Look at what David says. He's just so clever, I guess we'll say.

Verse five: "David said 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?'"

He affects a posture of humility. "I'm not worthy to live in your city." The reality is he wants to be able to be free to do what he wants to do and slaughter all the enemies of Israel without Achish knowing it. That's really what's going on there.

Verse six: "On that day Achish gave him Ziklag, and it has belonged to the kings of Judah ever since. And David lived in the Philistine territory for a year and four months."

Now, this is early in the kingship—early in the kingdom, the monarchy of Israel. What was the mission of the people of Israel as they came into the Promised Land? What was it? Conquer the land. Did they? When David becomes king, had they conquered the land? They had not. They were specifically told to kill every man and their child, even each. They were supposed to kill every inhabitant of the foreign nation. They did it, and that's why they lost the kingdom. That's exactly right. Their mission as they come into the Promised Land is to decimate it, to kill everybody. Deuteronomy 20. This is tough on our ears, so just take it, okay?

This is Deuteronomy 20. This is old news, but it was old news that had never been fulfilled. This was a mission that they had not completed. So in Deuteronomy 20, and we'll do like verse sixteen to 17:

However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them, the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded you. — Deuteronomy 20:16-17

And that was not kept. In fact, as Kelly said, this is the reason that Saul loses his kingship—he refuses to obey the command. And they leave because they leave all these foreign nations around them, what happens? They worship their gods. They become like them. Right? So God knew that if you are intermingling with all these pagans that worship all these fake gods, then invariably they're gonna shape you, they're gonna influence you. You're gonna stop worshiping me. You're gonna start worshiping their gods. That's why they don't clear the land, and that is precisely what happens.

So what David is about to do—David is fleeing for his life. Reasonably speaking, his primary objective is to stay alive long enough to become king. But while he is fleeing for his life, living as a Philistine, which is like their number one enemy, he manages to get himself over here into Ziklag, into this little out of the way place, and then he raids city after city after city and fulfills Deuteronomy 20. Even while he himself is on the offense to go accomplish the purposes of God. He is functioning like the king whose job is to clear the land, to create a place for the people of God to grow and to mature without any risk of them falling into foreign worship. And he succeeds wildly at it. This is why David is a man after God's own heart in some strange ways. He's got some significant failures that we're going to see, and really they're going to start stacking up very soon.

But look at what happens here. Go to verse eight:

Now David and his men went up and they raided the Geshurites and the Girzites and Amalekites from ancient times, these people that lived in the land extending to Shur in Egypt. And whenever David attacked an area, he did not leave a man or woman alive, but took the sheep and the cattle, the donkeys, camels, and clothes. — 1 Samuel 27:8-9

He's Deuteronomy 20-ing it. He's fulfilling the obligation that God has given to the people. And then he returns to Achish.

David's Deception

Now this is where it gets a little uncomfortable to me. When Achish said, "Where did you go raiding today?" David would lie. David would say:

Against the Negev of Judah, or against the Negev of Jeromel, or whatever that is, against the Negev of the Kenites. — 1 Samuel 27:10

And he did not leave a man or woman alive to be brought to Gath, for he sought they might inform on us and say, this is what David did. And such was his practice as long as he lived in the Philistine territory.

And Achish trusted David and said to himself, he has become so odious to his people, the Israelites, that he will be my servant forever. — 1 Samuel 27:12

So what does Achish think is happening? He thinks he's fighting against Israel, and instead he's fighting for Israel.

We've had this conversation, and I don't know how we're gonna resolve this, right? I don't think you can ever lie. Period. And probably everyone in this room probably disagrees with me about that. But David is clearly being deceptive. Now maybe you say in war, deception is the essence of war, and maybe I'm wrong about that. But this part always makes me really uncomfortable.

The way to resolve this is if David was a sinful man like where you are, right. Yes. Well, if only, right? And the question becomes to me—and I really wish I had some brilliant answer for this. I don't have a brilliant answer for this. Is God blessing David despite his lies, or is God blessing David because of his lies? Is his deception an ordained thing? Some would argue that morality exists in a stacked order, and this crime, because it's less than the other possible sin, is less than the other, and so therefore is an acceptable lie. War has deception. And that might be true. That is not my position, but maybe it's so.

What do you guys think? So there's other things. Who we are today is what affects us there than that. Okay. So and we're not even touching. We haven't even gotten into the whole multiple wives thing, right? So there are other things about David's life that we're like, what's up with that? Like, was he allowed to have multiple wives? In great discomfort, there is biblical evidence that yes, he was allowed to have multiple wives. God is going to say to him later on—God's gonna comment on his multiple wives in a way that is very uncomfortably affirming. It's very, very strange, right?

So was that permissible? I mean, maybe. It's weird, right? We function under a certain sense of jurisprudence, how things work. But we also think that things that are right are always right, things that are wrong are always wrong. So I think we're invited to kind of wrestle with this. Robin and then John.

In James, it says if you've broken the law in one place, you've broken the whole.

If you've broken the law in one place, you've broken the whole — James

That's right. And does not God bless us even though there is sin in our life?

Robin has said, if you break one part of the law, you've broken the whole law, and that's true. That doesn't mean that when you do one thing wrong, you're guilty of everything that you have done, but you've broken the law. And that God blesses us despite our disobedience. No, I have no problem saying that God blesses David despite his disobedience. But I would like to know if we're also saying that God blesses David because of his lie. That's where some would say that, and that's where I wouldn't be able to go that far.

So John?

God blesses us in spite of the fact. I've heard that, John, summarized before: that God can write straight with a crooked stick. If God has made a decision to accomplish His purposes through the agency of people, you're the best He's got. This is what He has to work with. There will be all kinds of failings and shortcomings. And that could be a sufficient explanation for it.

Judy?

He's a fallen person. Couldn't God have done the same thing with him telling the truth? Sure. But that's who David is and those things grow and the cracks get bigger. He's not Jesus. So yeah, should he lie? Probably not. Did he lie? Yeah. I think that's probably a pretty apt summary.

Tommy?

There are kind of different requirements for different missions that you're doing. If you're undercover as a DEA agent, for instance, it necessitates lies in order to be in that position. And when God told Moses to send out spies into the land, honesty would completely undermine the whole role of being a spy. If they came out and said we're spying on the land—they'll come before you.

There are places where we can get into exactly what—when does deception become a lie? Is a trick play in a football game a deception, but is that sin? So are there missions where that's more permissible? That's a good question.

On the Nature of Sin

You get the last shot at it, and then we're gonna move on.

You know, we stack sins in our own way. But Jesus says that if you call somebody a fool, it's the same thing as murder. You're gonna be serious of burning hellfires and all that. So I think as far as God, he sees all sins as equal.

Well, okay, so that—whoa, that's tempting to me. I don't accept that there's a common premise that God sees all sins as equal, and I don't think that's true. We could give that a week if you wanted to, if anybody's interested, because I do think all sins separate us from God. That is true. But there is a pervasive claim that all sins are equally heinous in the sight of God. And I cannot for the life of me make a case for that biblically. In fact, I think we can make the alternative case that some sins are greater than others. All sin separates us from God, but not all sins are equally heinous.

Let me just ask you to consider: if I were to walk up to you and spit in your face, would that be sin? Would that be wrong? Would that be evil? Okay. If I were to walk up to you with an ice pick and gouge out your eyes, would that be worse? Yes. Can we agree? Can God tell the difference? Yes. I think he can. I think God can tell the difference.

All sin is true. But not all sins are equally heinous. And it's really interesting—it is pervasively believed in our culture today that all sins are equal.

It has almost no historical precedent within Christianity. No prior centuries taught that, believed that. It shows up, and you can go look up Westminster Catechism and ask—Google "Westminster" or "All Sins Equally Heinous"—and you're going to get a diatribe about how they're not. But they all matter, but they're not all equal. And you intuitively know this, and you are not more morally astute than God.

Catherine, where's that scripture that says there are seven things that God hates?

Proverbs 6 — there's a whole bunch of things.

It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than you. — Jesus

The one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. — Jesus

There's plenty of stratification within scriptures about the nature of sins. It's all bad, but self evidently, there's some things that are worse than others.

Lily, I just wonder if part of the hang-up for people where they're inclined to say that all sins are created equal is perhaps what they're really looking for. It's "all men are created equal," right? But what they're looking for is the affirmation that God's grace equally covers all sin. God's grace equally covers everything.

So if sins are equally forgivable, would we affirm that? Absolutely. In fact—

Where sin abounds, grace super abounds. — Paul

Right? So this is true. It's all coverable. It all matters. It's all coverable. But you just intuitively know that there are some things that are worse than others, and the Bible affirms this.

The risk of it is that if we affirm that all sins are equally heinous, then we leave people thinking that God is morally suspect. For surely he should be able to tell the difference between a lesser thing and a greater thing. You could paint the picture that he really just flies off the handle at the smallest thing—like your kid leaves a toy in the family room and you beat them to death. Well, hang on a second. There's degrees of irresponsibility. There's degrees of heinousness. We don't say that speeding is a capital offense.

Joel, not to disagree with that at all, but the other ditch you can wind up in is to say, "Well, I haven't killed anybody, so I'm really not that bad." Then we get into this rationalization that, "Well, I don't really need God's grace. It's not really sin. It's a little lie."

So we must affirm biblically that all sin is rebellion against God. All sin falls into that double box of Jeremiah 2:13.

My people have committed two sins. They've forsaken me and they've dug broken cisterns for themselves.

That's true across the board. But we can do things in ways that are more or less heinous within that framework.

Ellen, that's right—it's wrong for us to minimize sin, to say, "It's just a little sin. It's not that much," because it does separate us from God. All sin matters, but some things matter more. You've got to be able to live in dynamic tension. Your life is full of dynamic tension, so you've got to hold both, and those are two things. When we don't—if you don't like dynamic tension, you just give up one end and embrace the other, and you're going to find yourself in error. You can't do either side.

Well, I just thought that all sin is forgivable. All sin matters to God. But sin does carry various consequences—different consequences to other people and therefore to ourselves. I could do something that causes small injury to few or great injury to many. I could do something that incurs a small judgment on myself or a great judgment on myself. And this is just intuitive for us. It's important that when we see that we have that intuition, we don't pretend that God cannot see that distinction as well. For he does.

So if I compare myself to your sinfulness, then I feel awesome about that. But relative to, maybe, Linda, then I'm going to feel a lot worse. I can put myself on this spectrum. So we want to be careful.

All right, so let's put a cap on this. Verse 12—Achish here's the thing. Achish trusted David. Oh no, we already said this.

So Achish trusted David and said to himself, 'He's become so odious to his people, the Israelites, that he will be my servant forever.' — 1 Samuel 27:12

Everybody gets David wrong all the time. Is David going to be his servant forever? No. He's going to become the opposing king of a nation that will be at war with him like for all of time.

And what David is doing throughout this whole thing—it's really amazing. He is seeking to be safe because remember, he's afraid. He's beginning, there's cracks in his ability to trust the Lord, but it doesn't crack and he doesn't just shatter. Right? In his fear, he steps into this place that I think is somewhat questionable. Right? And he's going to employ some strategies that I think are somewhat questionable, and that probably trace back to his fear. Fear will make you lie, right?

But he's not so far gone that he does not remember God. He could just hide. He could just hide out in his Ziklag and just become like fat Thor, right? He could just be there waiting. Right? But he doesn't. He's like, there's an opportunity here for me to go and to accomplish the purposes of God, and he does that.

And that's how our lives are. Like, we rarely are all good and we're rarely all bad. There is a mixture. You're getting some things right. You're getting some things wrong. We're waiting for the Messiah to come who will do all things well.

We see that David continues to be the template that points to Messiah, but he won't be able to keep his own promise. Right? We're waiting for the real one to come who will be all that we need to be, that will be the source of all blessing and grace for us.

Alright? Good enough for now? Next week, chapter 28.