A matter of conscience

A matter of conscience 1Samuel 24 As Isobel and I, along with everyone else, patiently wait out the current lockdown I have to say that, when I think of the thousands of closed schools across Britain and the millions of children having to stay in, I’m pleased that our two are way past that stage of life. Perhaps it’s an age thing but the thought of trying to keep school age children happy at the same time as ensuring that they keep busy with school work posted on line by their teachers or on the television isn’t one that appeals to me. One’s thoughts are with the many parents for whom this is a daily reality at the moment. It’s been said somewhere that our school days are the best days of our lives. Although I must confess that I’ve not met with too many people who would agree with those sentiments. True, our school days can be happy times but they can also be times of uncertainty, of worry, of fear even.... fear of our situation, of what’s expected of us, fear of our teachers or of other children, as we go from what is a familiar home environment, to one where there’s uncertainty and where we don’t feel quite so comfortable. And yet our school years, whether we enjoy them or not, are without doubt years in which we gain so much. Not only in terms of our academic learning, but also in terms of how we can relate to others in right and positive ways, how we can live in the world and be a benefit to it and to those around us. And this need, that we all have for knowing how to behave, what’s expected of us, the rules to follow for living the right way, don’t come to an end when we walk through those school gates for the last time. So where do people continue to look for their directions in life? Well there are those trusted friends, for instance, those with experience and knowledge, those who we look up to and whose advice we seek out. There are also the circumstances that we find ourselves in and which we’re able to learn from. And then there’s our own common sense which at times tells us what the obvious thing to do is. So is that it, game set and match … as long as we remain sensible, as long as we listen to the good advice of others, so long as we’re tuned in to the ways that our circumstances are leading us, then we shouldn’t go far wrong? Is that all we need concern ourselves with? Well there are many who would say ‘yes’. However what happens when the advice that we’re getting isn’t clear, where it conflicts with other advice, or when it’s all bad advice that we’re getting? What about when the circumstances we find ourselves in just overwhelm us, or when our lack of experience of a particular situation means that we’ve no idea what to do? What happens then? Well, in our passage today, chapter 24 of 1 Samuel, we meet another directing force; one which David experiences. David, when he fled for his life from the court of King Saul leaving behind his best friend Jonathan, was a man very much in need of directions for his future. And as a result, in chapter 21 of 1 Samuel, we’re told that he went immediately to see Ahimelech the priest, in order to seek the Lord’s guidance. He knew that he’d been anointed by Samuel to be the next King of Israel but it wasn’t yet time and in the meantime Saul was doing his best to kill him to make sure it never happened. Next David went to the Philistine town of Gath, but he soon realised his mistake when the king of Gath became suspicious of his intentions. And so he hid for a time in a cave at the town of Adullam and there he built up a small force of those who were in debt, or oppressed, or were simply unhappy with the way things were going under Saul’s rule. However he was soon advised to move on again because of Saul’s attempts to find him. And so with his now, about 600, men, he kept moving from place to place, spending much of his time in various desert strongholds, regularly seeking God’s guidance from men of God. Though all the while those who remained faithful to Saul would keep the king advised as to where David was hiding, so that he was never safe for long. So that he was always running, never thinking of turning and fighting the man who David still considered to be the rightful king of Israel. Then eventually the net began to close in and we find David and his men resting at the back of a cave in the wilderness near Engedi when Saul came in to relieve himself, having no idea whatsoever that they were in there. What an opportunity had presented itself for David! Here was Saul at his mercy; all he needed do was to strike him down there and then and that would be it, all over. And surely it must have seemed the obvious thing to do. Saul would have killed him as soon as look at him. He’d been chasing David for months with the sole intention of killing him once he found him, whilst David for his part had been living in fear all this time, fear of being caught, fear of being betrayed. What’s more, who would have thought that Saul would have come alone into the very cave where David and his men were hiding? Surely this was a sign! Here at last, given to him on a plate, was the answer to all his problems! The circumstances couldn’t have been more perfect. It seemed so obvious what they were pointing him to do. What’s more his men could see very clearly what it was he had to do, and so they began to urge him to kill Saul, speaking of God, the one to whom David looked, as being the one who’d provided this opportunity. “Go on” they said, “It’s so obviously God’s will.” And so David crept up to Saul unnoticed, knife in hand. But then something stopped him; he couldn’t do it. Instead he merely cut off a corner of Saul’s robe and crept away again into the shadows. But why, when surely everything was telling him to kill Saul: circumstances, friends, probably even common sense? If he removed Saul, as he could have done so easily, then his and his men’s running would be over and the way would be clear for him to be crowned king without any more difficulties. So why didn’t David take his opportunity? Well verse 5 of our passage tells us ... it was because David’s conscience persuaded him otherwise. Even after cutting off the corner of Saul’s robe he was conscience stricken. He was angry with himself that he’d dared to do even that to Saul and, turning to his men who still wanted Saul dead, he berated them saying, verse 6: “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” When, in the heat of the moment, all pointed in one direction, when all his men would have applauded him if he’d done the deed, David listened to his conscience; that inner voice, that God given inner voice, which each one of us has, but which many simply don’t hear or else choose to ignore. Our conscience which gives to each of us those God ordained moral boundaries that are part of our, albeit fallen, nature. It’s that to which Paul points us in Romans 2:14 and following when he tells the Church in Rome, “When Gentiles, who do not have the law,” that is God’s moral code given to the Jews, “do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.” As for David he showed by his actions his closeness to God which had become possible when the Lord had given to him his Spirit in power at the time when he was anointed as the future king by Samuel. And so he now demonstrated his understanding that any right interpretation of God’s involvement in our circumstances must always be based upon an awareness of the true character of God and also upon his clearly revealed will for us. David knew, you see, that God had chosen him to be king, but he also knew, and perhaps with all his running from this man Saul he’d forgotten this for a time, that Saul was God’s chosen King at the moment. As a result he was David’s master, the one to whom he owed his allegiance, the one against whom he’d no right to lift a hand. David realised that the opportunity to take a particular course of action doesn’t necessarily mean that that action must automatically be supported by God. He may in fact have provided an opportunity for something completely different ... which he had in this case. You see if David had killed Saul then he’d have begun his reign with enemies who would have been justified in assassinating him when the opportunity arose ... because he himself had already set the standard. In fact such tit for tat political killings were to happen later on during the time of the kings of Israel. For example 1 Kings 15: 25 – 16:27 tells us that Baasha assassinated King Nadab destroying his whole family and that subsequently his Son Elah was also assassinated by Zimri who then wiped out his entire family. Such then might also have happened to David and his family if he’d lifted his hand to kill Saul. However, instead, God used the incident in the cave to bring about, not a rift in the relationship between David’s and Saul’s houses, but rather reconciliation. Because it was now time for Saul’s conscience to affect him when David revealed to him that he could have killed him but chose not to do so, demonstrating that all that Saul was saying against him was untrue. Saul had, until that point, deluded himself into thinking that the opportunity to get rid of David that was presenting itself was God-given. He now however acknowledged that that wasn’t the case, and that whilst David had acted righteously towards him, he had acted badly. There was however a huge difference between the two of them because, whilst David was to continue to heed his conscience regarding Saul, Saul himself soon forgot the lesson he’d learned and, as we read in chapter 26 of 1 Samuel, he once again began pursuing David in order to do away with him. What are our consciences like? Do we tend to ignore them? When we feel our consciences convicting us of the fact that some course of action that we intend to pursue, or that we’re currently carrying out, is wrong and against God’s will, do we listen to it or do we rather seek other opinions from our friends or others, until we get an answer that we prefer? Do we play down the importance of our conscience perhaps, claiming that we’ve no alternative other than to go along with the crowd? Do we react to the circumstances we face in the obvious ways, even though we aren’t really happy about doing so? As Christians, how do we discover God’s will for us? Well there are our Christian friends whose views we can seek; there are the circumstances that we find ourselves being led into which seem to point us in certain directions, and of course there is God’s word rightly handled. But then what about our God-given conscience, our conscience which is now being renewed? Do we, as Christians, listen to it? The New Testament writers talk about the conscience as having two functions. The first is that it is God’s means of judging us morally. Our conscience reveals to us God’s character and will and, in the light of his perfect holiness, our own fallen-ness, our own sinfulness, is shown up. So the first God ordained function of the conscience is to convict an individual of their sin and of their need of God’s forgiveness and to lead them to repentance. At which point our consciences are a source of pain suffered as a result of our wrong doing. To illustrate this aspect of our conscience the story’s told of a certain King who had a magic ring which he kept on his finger. Whenever an evil thought came into his mind, or he was tempted to do an evil thing, or he had done something wrong, the ring pressed painfully upon his finger causing him to cry out … such is the conscience. And it’s not surprising that we naturally want to be free of that pain. Which we might seek to achieve in different ways … placing ourselves in some form of alcohol or drug induced oblivion is one way of doing so, convincing ourselves that our way of life, though perhaps not the best, is perfectly acceptable is another. The only right response, though, is for the one who feels the pain of conscience to come with that pain to Him who died on the cross for them. So that, as we come in repentance and by faith, he might lift that pain off us replacing it with His peace and giving us the Holy Spirit so that our conscience, which was once a source of anguish, as it becomes properly educated and informed by the Spirit, will take on instead its second function … which is, to be a prompter for our God-enabled growth in holiness. For Christians then the conscience isn’t something to be feared or shied away from. Instead it’s something to praise our God for because through it we came to know our need of a saviour ... who we received in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now it’s a wonderful instrument for good in our lives as, through the Holy Spirit’s promptings, it convicts us and corrects us, guiding us in the type of life that will please our Lord, whilst protecting us from those paths that will take us away from his presence. So let’s follow David’s example. Let’s never try to stifle our conscience but rather let’s value it, let’s listen to it and act on it, because to do otherwise would be to fall in to error. Then, together with all the other God given guides available to us, it will surely direct us in the way that our Lord would have us go. The fact is that as followers of Jesus we’ve no reason to fear our current situation, as was the case with Saul whose conscience was seared, as was the case perhaps at times for us at school and since. Because we now have a guide who is teaching and nurturing us, who is renewing our consciences so that we might understand him more fully and more faithfully obey him and who, as we continually seek to serve him, is enabling us to experience ever more of God’s assurance and confidence.