The Spirit’s work, the works of the flesh, and of the Devil

1 Samuel 19-20

There is a golden  key to reading, understanding and benefiting from the historical narratives in the Bible (1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles, as well as the book of Acts and many others) is to carefully distinguish between what is a record of events and human behaviors and attitudes, good, bad and indifferent, and what is doctrine about God and man and the angels to be believed and included in the body of doctrines of the Christian faith, systematic theology and so on. In other words, under the inspiration of the Spirit, the authors of historical narratives accurately portray things as they were, as they occurred, but not everything portrayed is to be emulated, or taken as a right belief or godly behavior.

For example, Saul trying to pin David to the wall with his spear is not behavior to be emulated, but we do learn something about human nature and we also learn some things revealed about God, His divine counsel in the heavens, and angelic beings (in this case fallen ones) as God does send from His counsel a fallen angel to stir up Saul’s wickedness which has a negative impact on God’s anointed man, David. In the following few chapters we will observe godly behavior, evil behavior, and we will see morally confused behavior even in the same person at different times. One of the lessons here to observe is that David, God’s anointed, is still growing in his spiritual and moral understanding. He is a man in process, in relative immaturity, but growing into maturity and understanding of the things and ways of the Lord.

This fact should give us real encouragement as believers! We see God clearly working in David’s life, and we also see some of his human frailty, sin and failures. Isn’t it a comfort to know that he is called, “a man after God’s own heart?” We can identify with David’s stumblings and also rejoice at God’s grace and care for Him as a saved man as the Lord uses all these events to grow him up in the things of Lord, into spiritual maturity.