At War With Yourself

We often seek comfort and refuge in the things of the world instead of in God.   ~~~   The last time we saw David, at the very beginning verses of chapter 28, he had been told that he would fight with the Philistine army against the Israelites, and he had just been promoted to be the bodyguard of Achish, ruler of a region of the Philistines. In chapter 29, we are snapped back to the scene with David. The location is Aphek, which, if you remember from chapter 4, is the location where the Philistines were camped when they captured the ark from the Israelites, which brought about the death of Eli, which leads the people of Israel to cry out, “Give us a king like the nations.” All five of the Philistine rulers have gathered at Aphek to mobilize their troops and get ready to march for battle. What will David do? David has been in the Philistine camp for 16 months. He had navigated the situation pretty deftly, convincing the Philistines that he was on their side by saying he was raiding Israelite areas, but all the while actually raiding and destroying other people. And now, because of his deviousness, David is forced into a decision he does not want to make. David was being asked to fight against his kinsmen; against Jonathan, his best friend. Isn’t that just the way we sometimes work, and isn’t that the temptation of sin? We oftentimes seek refuge and comfort and rest in the world, in sin, and then become friendly with it. “Hey, this isn’t so bad. This provides some relief, some comfort. My family is doing better. We are happier. Until you get to the point to where the world calls upon you to forsake your God. You realize you need to be rescued from your sin, but you are in so deep with it, that you don’t know what to do. What is the old saying? Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to give. This is the case with David and his duplicitous life. He sought temporal salvation and safety from the world. He compromised. He is like the Christian today who says he believes in Christ and generosity, but also wants the comforts of this life so he hoards his money. David is like the mom who says she finds her identity in Christ, but spends her time comparing herself and trying to live up to all the virtual supermoms on social media. What could possibly go wrong in this type of lifestyle? Well, what goes wrong is exactly what we see on this page of scripture. The two are at war with one another. So there are very real, down to earth, nitty gritty decisions to be made. What does it profit a man if he gains the world, and forfeits his life (Matthew 16:26)?