Dear Brethren and Friends,
Do you want to be more like King David of Israel—the “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22)? Through most of my Christian life, King David and the Apostle Paul were my main biblical “heroes”—apart from Jesus Christ Himself. As I have grown older, I have added Abraham and the beloved Apostle John to this list. But that is another story. Over the years, I have studied King David’s life, and have preached several sermons on why he was a man “after God’s own heart.” We have published a couple of fine articles on this as well.
Now, however, in this “Dear Brethren” letter, I want to zero in on just one often-neglected aspect of David’s relationship with God. We in the very Church of God should earnestly be trying to grow closer and closer to God in every way. Through fervent prayer, and through God’s Holy Spirit, we should all strive to achieve a deep closeness to God and to our Savior, Jesus Christ. We should try to obey fully what the Son of God Himself stated was the “great commandment of the Law.” For Jesus said: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’” (Matthew 22:36–37).
There were two primary ways by which King David obeyed this fundamental command. First, as we all know, David sincerely loved God’s Law and meditated on it constantly. We read David’s words on this in Psalm 119:97–99: “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation.” And again: “I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes forever, to the very end” (v. 112).
No wonder David will once again be “king over all Israel” under Jesus Christ in Tomorrow’s World! No one has had more direct experience in administering God’s Law and His form of government over an entire nation than has King David. Christ’s soon-coming government will be fundamentally based on God’s commandments, and on the “statutes,” as they are spiritually understood and administered under the New Covenant. Christ’s government will also be hierarchical—with those in authority appointed to their offices. There will be no voting and no politics, but rather a deep faith that Christ will install the right people in each office. That is why it is vitally important that we in God’s Church today learn to teach and practice God’s form of government in the Church—looking in faith to our living Head, Jesus Christ, to guide and orchestrate the government in His Church. For if we do not even have the faith now to trust Christ to lead His Church, how can we expect to have any significant responsibility in His soon-coming government?
The other “key” manner in which David expressed his profound love for God was in his attitude of being deeply thankful, appreciative and worshipful before God in a manner beyond what most men in human history have ever exhibited. The Psalms of David reveal, in a remarkable way, what David was thinking and feeling—while he was literally “fleeing for his life” from King Saul, while he was desperately sick or emotionally distraught, or when he realized the awfulness of his sin in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba. These are the thoughts and feelings of one of the greatest men of God ever. They are worthy of our deep and prayerful study and consideration.
When David had to flee from his rebellious son, Absalom, he wrote: “Lord, how they have increased who trouble me! Many are they who rise up against me. Many are they who say of me, ‘There is no help for him in God.’ Selah. But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head. I cried to the Lord with my voice, and He heard me from His holy hill. Selah” (Psalm 3:1–4). When David was finally delivered from Saul, he wrote this prayer of exultation: “I will love You, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies” (Psalm 18:1–3).
Later in this magnificent psalm of praise, David described the glory and the power of the God he served. “Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, because He was angry. Smoke went up from His nostrils, and devouring fire from His mouth; coals were kindled by it.… The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. He sent out His arrows and scattered the foe, lightnings in abundance, and He vanquished them. Then the channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were uncovered at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils” (vv. 7–8; 13–15). Here, David pictured his God as literally shaking the earth, and pictured God’s voice as rolling thunder. Those of you who have lived in parts of the earth where violent lightning and thunderstorms literally shake the earth can grasp the awesome power of God that David portrayed in his psalms.
His absolute worship of the great God, and his deep awe of God’s power, gave David great faith and courage. When Goliath, the giant, came powerfully striding toward David, “cursed David by his gods” (1 Samuel 17:43), and threatened to destroy him, the valiant young man was imbued with remarkable faith and courage. For David’s mind was not on himself—that is the “key”—but on the awesome power and majesty of God. So David cried out, with a great confidence, toward the giant Philistine: “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied… that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel” (vv. 45–46).
David’s absolute faith that the wonderful God he served would “take care of things” helped prevent him from executing King Saul while Saul was still “God’s anointed.” Even when Saul was absolutely helpless before David—fast asleep—David did not permit the warrior Abishai to kill him. “But David said to Abishai, ‘Do not destroy him; for who can stretch out his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be guiltless?’ David said furthermore, ‘As the Lord lives, the Lord shall strike him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall go out to battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed. But please, take now the spear and the jug of water that are by his head, and let us go’” (1 Samuel 26:9–11). David would not have had this attitude toward a man who had tried, again and again, to kill him—unless he constantly pictured his God, the “Rock” of Israel, as being very real, totally fair and a God who would always “make things right” in the end!
For David worshiped and adored God.
Out under the stars at night, David exclaimed: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor.… O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:3–5, 9).
When David was deeply troubled by sickness and infection, he cried out: “O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath, nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure! For Your arrows pierce me deeply, and Your hand presses me down. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger, nor any health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are foul and festering because of my foolishness” (Psalm 38:1–5). Yet even in the depths of his despondency and pain, David fixed his mind on God’s faithfulness. “For in You, O Lord, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God” (v. 15).
When David began to profoundly repent of his vile sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah, once again he fixed his mind on God and His mercy, and on God’s purpose in all our lives: “Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:14–17).
Certainly, David continually focused his thoughts on the love, the mercy and the greatness of God. The entirety of Psalm 103 is a magnificent expression of the love and worship David constantly expressed toward his Creator: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies.… The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.… For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (vv. 1–4, 8, 11–14).
Dear brethren, in our confused and utterly materialistic society—where we are daily and almost hourly bombarded with the sounds and images of the television, telephone, computer, radio, traffic outside and perhaps even helicopters whirling overhead—it is often difficult for us to concentrate on the beauty, the mercy, the profound wisdom and the awesome power of the great God who made us in His image. Yet, if we are to be like David—the man “after God’s own heart”—we will have to so organize our lives that we also quietly, slowly and thoughtfully drink in of God’s Word and “meditate on God’s Law” as David did. We must find time to go outside and look at the trees, flowers and plants, and the sun, moon and stars that our God and Creator has made. Then, as David did, we must take time to pour out our hearts to God in sincere thanks, worship and adoration. We should all be able to say with David: “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55:17).
God our Father, and Jesus Christ our Savior, should both be at the very center of our being. They are truly “one”—as Jesus said: “‘I and My Father are one’” (John 10:30). Our hopes, dreams, thoughts and plans should all revolve around God and what He wants us to do and to be. As David profoundly understood, and as the Apostle Paul expressed: “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
In Psalm 104, David described the beauty and the wisdom in God’s creation. He described how God stretches out the heavens “like a curtain.” He described how God’s voice sounds like “thunder.” He described how “He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man’s heart” (vv. 14–15). David exulted: “O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions—this great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great” (vv. 24–25).
Then King David of Israel cried out from the depths of his being: “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. May my meditation be sweet to Him; I will be glad in the Lord. May sinners be consumed from the earth, and the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord!” (vv. 33–35).
Will you and I “sing to the Lord” as long as we have our lives? Will we “sing praises to God” while we have our being? Are our heavenly Father, and our personal Lord who died for us—Jesus Christ, “the Lord God of the armies of Israel”—the real focus of our lives, our plans and all that we hope for?
Brethren, let us sincerely pray to our God that we—and all our brethren in God’s Church—may learn to “seek” God with all our hearts, walk with Him, love Him and constantly praise and thank and worship Him like King David did! Then, truly, we will become a people “after God’s own heart.” Then, God will bless us, deliver us, heal us and in every way “cause His face to shine upon us” as never before.
