1 SAMUEL 22 - THE KINGDOM OF GOD VS. THE KINGDOM OF MAN
1 Samuel 22
In chapter 22 of 1 Samuel, we are provided a stark contrast of two Kingdoms. Though David is not yet King, and is currently on the run from Saul, he is beginning to attract followers and to build, however small, a fiefdom of his own. As a man after God’s own heart, and as the lineage through whom God will choose to birth His own son, David’s Lordship reflects the Kingdom which God intends to build through His coming messiah—" And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them.”
Jesus too made it clear that His was a Kingdom of outcasts. When asked why he ate with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus replied: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Like those who gathered around David, and would be used by God to create the greatest Kingdom Israel has known, it is those who recognize their brokenness and see themselves as outcasts from society who will come to Jesus, that they may be saved and participate in the greatest Kingdom of which history can conceive.
We are given a stark contrast in chapter 22 of David’s burgeoning kingdom, against the backdrop of Saul’s deteriorating kingdom, and as a result Saul’s grasp on reality. Saul is anxious, fearful and paranoid. He believes everyone, including his own son and everyone in his cabinet is plotting against him and seeking to put David on the throne. Such a downward spiral that is leading Saul, into what today would be diagnosed as depression and schizophrenia, but manifests itself in each individual differently, is always the result of sin—open rebellion against God. And yet, instead of repent in hopes of saving his mind, his life and most importantly his soul, Saul multiplies his sin by having the priests of Nob killed.
Sin doesn’t just separate us from God, it begins to corrupt us until it distorts our very view of life. As Jesus taught:
22“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
There is no light other than God. And Jesus is here warning us that if we are not seeking first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness, like Saul, we are sure to be consumed by darkness. Though Saul at one time knew God intimately; he had a heart like that of the seeds that fell among the thorns. In Jesus’ famous parable of the sower he was like those “who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”
Where is your eye? What are you focusing on? Are you like those who see yourself as an outcasts of this world, seeking for a home with the coming King. He welcomes you to come and find shelter and rest.
The alternative is the illusion of control amongst those, apparently in power, but anxious, fearful and paranoid that they will lose it all. As Jesus warned:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth [man’s kingdom], where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven [God’s Kingdom], where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.