PRESERVATION OF THE TESTIMONY
Robert Trotter
Since our reading on Lord’s Day, beloved brethren, I have been thinking a little about what was in the scripture as to rendering to God what is God’s. Our brother has mentioned the testimony and it is wonderful that we, through God’s ordering and God’s mercy and grace, can have a part in that testimony. We also sang in our hymn that we should fulfil what He has given us to do. No doubt, that relates to service, but I think it relates also to our part in the testimony. What we find in this chapter is that that is what David represents, and that there are elements, as our brother has been speaking of through which he is protected. It is a wonderful matter to protect what is of the testimony and to continue it. It would be the wish, I would say, or the desire, of every true believer to see the testimony continued in a place.
What I have in mind is how David shines in this chapter and what a spirit marks him. Saul, who is always against him, as we see also in this chapter, would have slain David. He would have finished David, that line of things, but through one and another David was preserved. There is Jonathan especially, who vowed love for David – how he could speak of it, his love for David, and what he gave up for David too. The testimony involves, I think, that we have to surrender what is our own, and what we would cling to as our own, for the interests of Christ. It says, “Jonathan Saul’s son delighted much in David”. David, as we know, is very often a type of Christ and how right it would be to delight in Christ, God’s Man, the One who has come into manhood, who has trodden this scene and who left it by way of the cross and death but who was raised from the dead. We had a touch of that again on Lord’s Day as to the great matter of resurrection. These are wonderful truths, dear young ones, truths that we have to embrace and protect and see that they are preserved amongst us. So it says, “Jonathan Saul’s son delighted much in David. And Jonathan told David saying, Saul my father seeks to kill thee”. He was warning David although David would know, I suppose, like our Lord Himself, what was in man. Then, in a sense, Jonathan intercedes for David. He takes that place. He speaks to Saul and then it says, “Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as previously”. I cannot say much more as to that but I suppose in one sense Jonathan took his life in his hands. There was a time when Saul would have slain Jonathan, his son. That is the kind of man he was. He would have slain Jonathan, but there again there was protection.
Then there was war again, “and David went forth and fought with the Philistines, and smote them with a great slaughter; and they fled before him” (v.8). How successful David was, how he succeeded! One line was becoming continually stronger; the other line, the line of Saul, was going on to weakness, it was going to be terminated. God had decreed that. But it goes on to says that an evil spirit returned upon Saul and “he sat in his house with his spear in his hand; and David played with his hand”. How fine that is! What a spirit we see marking David! He “played with his hand”. Saul having in his hand what he would use to slaughter David, but it says, that “David played with his hand”. He is spoken of elsewhere, as we know, as “the sweet psalmist of Israel”, 2 Sam. 23: 1. What a spirit marks him! It says, “Saul sought to smite David and the wall with the spear; but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and he smote the spear into the wall”. I am reminded – I think another has said somewhere – how like Christ he was. It says of the Lord in the gospels that He just slipped away. Think of the opposition there was, what men would have done to Him! And it goes on to say, “And David fled, and escaped that night”.
Then Michal comes on the scene and how positive her way is too! We often bring out the end of Michal having no seed or no continuance, but I did not have that in mind. She is useful, she is used, in the preserving of the testimony. How I would encourage each one, younger ones, too, to seek the Lord’s help to have part in protecting what is of testimony to Him down here. Think of the world in which we live, a terrible, terrible world, and what it is going on to, going on to judgment. Think of the way that things are going! You can see it. It is a downward way. Oh to be preserved from the world! Scripture says, not just of the world, but the things that are in it, “the things in the world”, that which the enemy, dear young friend, would have you occupied with, the things of the world. It speaks elsewhere of your own things: “all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ”, Phil. 2: 21. That is a challenge to each one of us. I think most of us would have to say what a small part we have had in the testimony, but still there is the time that is left. So it says of Michal here that she “let David down through a window; and he went, and fled and escaped”.
There is a certain source of Jonathan’s and Michal’s attitude and the way that they helped David – I think that is love. What affection! David could speak of Jonathan’s love “passing women’s love”, 2 Sam. 1: 26. How he appreciated it! How favourable too things were for Jonathan! It says of David in a later chapter in relation to the arrows – it is all very interesting to read and to think over – that he “arose from the side of the south”, 1 Sam. 20: 41. Oh how favourable things are and I would say that, dear young one, God is favourable. How favourable things are, all for our benefit and help and our fulfilling our part in the testimony!
It goes on to say, “And Saul sent messengers to take David”, and again Michal comes in. I would like to speak of it positively. I know there is the other side and it has its use, but I am not speaking of that at the moment, just the fact that these two persons are used in this chapter to preserve David. David goes on – a wonderful matter, of course, that is, God’s hand too, how His hand was in this, and then it says, “Then Saul said to Michal, Why has thou deceived me so, and sent away mine enemy …?” Saul treated David as an enemy. How we are tested in that! Do we treat someone as an enemy? David never treated Saul as an enemy. Apart from anything else he had respect for the anointing.
Well, I did not read the end of the chapter but what comes in is the prophetic word, and I think that is something else that is used in the preserving of the testimony, what is prophetic. We have this meeting each week and we trust something of a prophetic line comes into it and that is preservative, preservative of the testimony in a place.
Maybe I have said enough, but I would just like to bring out the privilege that is ours to have part in this. Not everyone is privileged. I think it all relates to God’s sovereignty, persons who have been redeemed, persons who have been bought at great cost, but what a privilege it is to have part in these things. Well, may we go in for it! Surely if we have the desire God will help us. We will be helped in it. As I have said, things are favourable, especially in relation to younger persons. That is brought out in relation to the children of Israel as our brother was saying, the way that God took them that they might not see war and be discouraged. May each one of us be encouraged as to these things! We want, beloved brethren, things to continue in life in a place and I believe that is God’s thought for us. Well, may He bless what has been said for His Name’s sake!
EDINBURGH
8 July 2003