WHAT a mercy it is for us all that David was not an untried man! We have all been enriched by his painful experience. He was
May it not be a blessing to others that we also are tried? If so, ought we not to be right glad to contribute our quota to the benefit of the redeemed family?
David may be our example; let us flee unto God as he did. We shall profit by our foes if we imitate this prudent warrior in his habitual way of escaping from his enemies.
The great point is, however, not only to see what David did, but to do the like promptly, and constantly. What, then, is essential in order to our copying the man of God?
I. A PERCEPTION OF DANGER. No man will flee if he is not afraid; there must be a knowledge and apprehension of danger, or there will be no flight.
1. Men perish in many instances because they have no sense of danger. The noxious air is not observed, the sunken reef is not seen, the train rushes to collision unwarned. Ignorance of danger makes the danger inevitable.
2. Every man is really in danger. The sinner is asleep on the top of a mast. Young and old are both in jeopardy. Even the saints are in peril of temptation from many sources.
3. Some dangers are slowly perceived. Those connected with sweet sin, those which grow out of a boastful mind, those which are countenanced by the example of others, etc. The more dangerous the serpent, the less likely to be seen.
4. The spiritual man is led to perceive dangers by inward monitions, by a spiritual sensitiveness which is the result of devotion, by experience, by perceptible declensions, or by observing the effect of certain things upon others.
II. A SENSE OF WEAKNESS. No man will flee for hiding if he feel able to fight the matter through in his own strength. 1. We are all weak and unable to cope with sin.1. He would not venture into the danger or wait till it overtook him; but he took time by the forelock and fled. Often this is the highest form of courage.
2. Escape through fear is admirable prudence. It is not a mean motive; for Noah, "moved by fear, prepared an ark"3. While we can flee we should, for time may come when we shall be unable. David says, "I flee"; he means, "I am fleeing, I always do flee unto thee, my God."
A man should not live like a beast, who sees no further than the meadow in which he feeds. He should foresee evil and hide himself; for this is common prudence (Prov. 22:3).
IV. A SOLID CONFIDENCE. "To thee to hide me. He was sure 1.That there was safety in God.From some sins there is no safety but in flight. Our French school book represented Mentor as saying to his pupil in the court of Calypso, "F1y, Telemaque; there remains no other mode of conquest but by flight!" "Flee youthful lusts"; they are not to be wrestled with, but fled from. Flight being thus needful, whither shall we flee but to our God? Who will so surely welcome, so securely defend, so permanently entertain? As the bird to its nest, and the coney to its rock, let us flee unto our God that we may be secure from every foe.
God's people often find by experience that the places of their protection are places of destruction. Well, when all other places fail, Christ will not fail. See how it was with David, Psalm 142:4-5. But when his hiding place at Ziklag was gone, yet his Savior was not gone; "He encouraged himself in the Lord his God" (1 Sam. 30:6). It is a mighty encouragement to believers that Christ is a hiding place: (l) he is a safe and strong hiding place (Isa. 33:16); Christ is a rock, and he that is in Christ is in the munitions of rocks; (2) he is a large hiding place; there is room enough for his elect; his skirt is large; (3) he is a hiding-place to the soul as well as to the body; (4) he hath undertaken to hide us; God hath committed all his elect to Christ, that He should hide them. — Ralph Robinson
Under the influence of great fear the most timid creatures have sometimes fled to men for security. We have heard of a dove flying into a lady's bosom to escape from a hawk, and even of a hare running to a man for shelter. The confidence of the feeble secures the guardianship of the strong. He would be brutal indeed who would refuse protection to such simple reliance. Surely, if in our need we fly into the bosom of our God, we may be sure that love and majesty will unitedly smile upon us. There can be no question of that man's security who challenges by his faith the protection of the God of love. "He has trusted me and I will not fail him" has been the resolve of many an honorable man; how much more will it be the determination of the Lord!
A little party assembled in a shepherd's house in Nithsdale to hear Mr. Peden expound the Word of God. While thus engaged, the bleating of a sheep was heard. The noise disturbed the little congregation, and the shepherd was obliged to go out and drive the sheep away. While so engaged, he lifted up his eyes and saw, at a distance, horse soldiers coming towards his cottage. He hastened back to give the alarm. All instantly dispersed and hid themselves. Mr. Peden betook himself to the Cleft of the Rock, the Gave of Garrickfells, and soon the clatter of horses' hoofs and the ring of armor told him that his foes were at hand. But safe in the Cleft he sat unmoved, and through an opening saw them gallop past, without any suspicion that he whose life they sought was so near. — From "Sunday Readings," by James Large