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Snapshot

David’s captainship and Christ’s compared

The kingdom of Christ the Lord is not yet here, but a Saul-type, Satan, is in power. Meanwhile, He had once come to call men distressed of the current state of the earth’s affairs into discipleship with Him. Like David, Jesus designated Himself as equally destitute when He said, “Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Jesus surpassed David by enlisting 100 more disciples than him. Satan and the Pharisees pursued Jesus like Saul, and His armies chased David. They inspected Jesus to the last, attempting to find faults in His statement just like Saul chased David down into caves and holes, dens and deserts. David was chased to the deserts; the Pharisees chased Jesus to corn fields to see find fualts with how He conducted Himself on Sabaths.

Nonetheless, Jesus caught the Pharisees in their own whims, thoughts and statements. Although He had questions, he could ask them whose wrong answer could lead to their coup de Grace by stoning. He somewhat mercifully refrained. David had many opportunities to kill Saul but refrained. Above all, David was a captain of 400, which later expanded. But Jesus is the Captain of salvation to all who believe – distress or debt, irrespective. This takes us to the second dimension of these men’s vision.

Dimension 2: Debt

These 400 men must have secured loans to start businesses that could fend for their immediate families. But how do you service debts in a dwindling economy? They owed tax in their incomes, interest accrued, and capital borrowed. In fact, roaming about the deserts, where they eventually met David, might have been an attempted escape from their creditors, perhaps in the daytime and then to return at bedtime. And since the 400 possibly owed bride price too, they sighed under the heavy burden of debt. Saul was not helping matters! So, David came to the rescue. It is noteworthy that scarcity of food was a real problem. The men in Saul’s army could not carter for Mr Jesse and his family but David, the man in distress. If they had enough, they should have before David did.

Are we not under the burden of sin? Is there any man who can say there is no sin in Himself? Only one relationship exists between sin and mankind: dominion. Sin cannot spare any man on earth as far as man cannot exercise control over it. Either man has authority over sin, or sin possesses and controls the man as a slave. In another contrast, we can either be slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. Likewise, by sinning, we are indebted to sin and owe our lives to it. And by liberation, we owe our life to righteousness. We are forever debtors: either debtor of gratitude for freedom from sin or debtors sighing under the heavy burden of sins.

The yoke of the Master Righteous is easy. In addition, He is meek and lowly at heart. But that of master sin is heavy, and he is mean and lofty at heart. Do you aspire to be free from sin, but all you see is indebtedness to it? I mean, do you try to avoid sinning and find yourself even getting worse per trial? Are you daring to be free from masturbation? But every time you are so determined, just a passer-by, partially naked girl plummets you into even longer hours of masturbation? Do you dare to stop lying, and you are like a returning smoker who smokes more when he returns from his non-smoking break with every attempt? Are you a cruel wife-beater who find offence whenever you dare to make things right with her and quit wife battery?

This is the irony of sin’s tyranny: whenever you try to be free, it shows you how weak you are into your future and lifetime; it shows you how if you quit, you would return a worse person in no time! Yet, there is hope! Probably, you are even in financial debt where interest has increased the amount owed to an unbearable sum? Or the amount is owed to an acquaintance, and the amount owed had increased your reputation loss? There is hope - the captain of our salvation can take care of that too.

Riddle

Dimension 3: Discontentment

They did not stop at being distressed; neither did they bury their head under the debt weight of debt. They got discontented. Only men with discontented can desire a change. Why? A dissatisfied one has acute discrimination of a current state and the average or desirable state. One discontented has content but knows there is a disconnection and that normalcy will return once the conditions for reconnection are met. Those who are content under the burden of sin have actually come to terms with the loss of discernment. Not that men who sin enjoy it, but seeing nothing better, humanity has learned to enjoy, better put, endure the tyranny of sin. We have come to an unequal yoking with sin. In seeing no ray of light, humanity has accepted gross darkness as normalcy. But I say to you are you discontented with your distress and debt to fellow men or to sin? There is hope for you. It is the Holy Spirit hovering over your circumstance. Shortly, the Lord will say let there be light. How will He say, “Let there be light,” you may ask? He has sent a captain of your salvation to you.

Nonetheless, several roads lead to the wilderness where David was camped. Several roads lead to Calvary, where our Captain calls all men with hands wide opened till date. Every action that leads you to Calvary’s man is as a command from God, saying, “Let there be light.” Every pain sin inflicts, every tiredness breeding a sigh, every unjustifiable success and failure, every prickling question in silent hours or moments of truth. These are all God’s means of commanding light to be.

There is, however, a leading “Let” in the statement. This asks permission from your reasoning since you are not a robot. Since you, a man, made of will and you are chiefly your will: not the physical make up. God respects the will and asks permission, just as voluntariness is required for enlistment in most armies. The Captain says, come to Me at Calvary - there I nail all burden of sin to the cross! Do not waste your discernment or discontentment; you can join a military camp where all the leading of the Cpatian is triumphant (2 Corinthians 2:14). He will not lose a battle against any lust in you. He will not lose the fight against the sons of Anak in you - be it pride, the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh. Neither will He ever leave you to battle alone, “Lo, I am with you till the end of time,” shall be His assurance to you! He is deserted at the hill of Calvary just as David was. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. While we bear in mind that His reproach is our shame He inflicted on Himself. In this shame is God also glorified the most, for here lies His power for the salvation of mankind (1 Corinthians 1:18). Do you care about God’s glory? Here is its foundation.

Do not hesitate to gun for this glory. A day is coming when the Book of Life will be read from which the Chronicles is excerpted. Minute-by-minute records of your exploits will be relayed. Shamefully, you may now be rating the acts of David’s men higher than yours. They fought giants, but you are fighting lusts; they overthrew cities, but your constant battle is in God’s temple (your body). But the Bible puts it to us all that God esteems a man who battles and wins anger and its likes, for example, more than one who conquers a city. The soldier in the army of Jesus is braver than the mightiest in David’s, if not David Himself. Why? “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city,” reads Proverbs 16:32.

Which do you think David would prefer after being accused of disloyalty by God for taking his soldier’s wife and killing him - to lose a battle or to defeat immorality? Do not waste the distress, debt and discontentment until you have been delivered! Deliverance is with Jesus - our destitute Captain!