1 Samuel 17:37

1 Samuel 17:37

Saul by his sins forfeited the kingdom to a neighbour of his, who was better than he in the very particulars wherein Saul had so sadly failed. We find in David: (1) A single-hearted trust in the God of Israel; a generous forgetfulness of himself. (2) A combination of courage and modesty in God's service; a zeal to do, if possible, some great thing for Him, without any disposition to value himself on it when it was done.

I. It is well to remember that David had been chosen out by special message from God and anointed to be king, and knew himself to be so. He knew himself to be marked out from the beginning for the highest place, yet never on any occasion did he show the least disposition to press into it.

II. In David's argument, as given in the text, we find a plain, straightforward, manly way of taking things. He had recourse, not to the promise of the kingdom, but to God's past preservation of him, and to his certainty that he was undertaking God's own cause.

III. David, by his simplicity and singleness of heart, became a type of our Lord and Redeemer. And being so, he was a type and pattern of His Church and of every individual member of the same. From his conduct on this occasion we may learn these lessons: (1) No man's heart need fail him because of any spiritual danger which the world calls irresistible. (2) We should leave nothing undone that might glorify God. (3) We should not be anxious to invent ways of our own, but rather use the ways that God has appointed, and when these fail leave Him to do the rest. (4) As God's mercies continue increasing, so should our remembrance of them increase.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times"vol. iv., p. 133 (see also J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity,Part I., p. 150).

Consider:

I. How David reasoned from past mercies, and grounded upon them the expectation of future aid from above. He had been delivered from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, and this deliverance he recalled to mind in a moment of new danger, as feeling it to be prophetic of his victory over the giant, and thus had he commenced, even in his young days, that habit of appealing to his own experience of which we find frequent traces in his writings, and which cannot be too earnestly commended to all who wish to enjoy godly peace.

II. David's readiness to make use of means, notwithstanding his full confidence in the succour and protection of God. He tried the armour which Saul proposed, though he felt assured that the Lord would deliver him. If ever man might have ventured to neglect means, since the result was ordained, David might have been warranted in refusing the armour without trying it on. But this is just what David did not do; he proceeded on the principle that no expectation of a miracle should make us slack in the employment of means, but that so long as means are within reach we are bound to employ them, though it may not be through their use that God will finally work.

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2426.