To Encourage You

2 Samuel 3:1 “There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. And David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker.”

The Bible tells us that there is a war going on in this world that every person is a part of.  It’s actually a war in the heavenlies, but it touches every single person that has ever lived on this earth.  Ephesians 6 puts it this way: “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  In other words, no matter what the conflicts are that we face each day, there is a spiritual reality that is behind them.  In this conflict we are following one of two masters.  The choices we make, the desires of our heart, and our actions and reactions to the circumstances of life, all reveal who that master is. We see a shadow of this conflict in the verse above from 2 Samuel 3. 

This is excerpted from the account of the time immediately after Saul’s death. Saul, who was Israel’s first king, had turned from following the Lord and gone his own way.  In so doing, Saul’s master was not the God of Israel. He was serving himself, regardless of what he might have thought.  While he was alive, he persecuted David, the man anointed by Samuel to replace Saul, and in contrast to Saul, David was described as “a man after God’s heart” (1 Samuel 13:14).  As such, David was following the King of kings, despite his fits and starts in doing so. 

We are told that after Saul died, David didn’t immediately come to rule all of Israel. He started by being anointed king of just the tribe of Judah while most of the rest of the nation swore allegiance to Saul’s son Ish-bosheth.  It was a time of turmoil as the “house of David” and the “house of Saul” warred against each other.  However, it was inevitable that David would one day win control, for this had been God’s sovereign decree. In the meantime, we are told that “David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker.”  It is in this shadow that we see a picture of the war that is going on right now in each person’s soul. 

You see, we are either in the camp of Jesus, the Son of David, or the camp of those who are warring against Him.  And while it may often look like the camp of the enemy is winning, the truth is that its strength is doomed to fail.  It is inevitable, for that’s what God has decreed.  Read the book of Revelation if you want to know how things will ultimately turn out.  Look at the lives of believers who are living victoriously in the midst of the storms of life. Those who are following the Savior have their eyes fixed on the sure victory that is coming to them in the end.  They know that the way of the enemy is a dead end – it is doomed to fail, and they know that the end of their life is certain victory, and so they endure the troubles of this life, come what may. 

So, what about you? Whose camp are you in? Are you a part of the house of Saul as it grows weaker and weaker still, or are you in the camp of the Son of David, as it grows stronger which each passing day?  Again, take a look at the Revelation, where we are told that there is coming a great day of victory when “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). It is at that time that those who are in the “house” of the Prince of Peace will find that they’ve built their house on a rock that will eternally stand.  On the other hand, the Bible likens those who have been deceived into following the devil as those who have “built their house upon the sand” (Matthew 7:27).  It’s the house that will fall when the inevitable storms come.  It’s a house that just gets weaker and weaker as it waits for its final crash. 

So, again, which Master are you following? In whose house are you taking your stand?  Why not follow the One of Whom it will inevitably be said, “the Lord God Omnipotent reigns” (Revelation 19:6)? Why follow the ultimately impotent one unto his tragic end, this one whom “the God of peace will (soon) crush . . . under (the believers’) feet” (Romans 16:20)?