March 13, 2022 . . . .
II Samuel chapters 21 and 22 make for some interesting reading. Our hero David is on the run from King Saul. Saul wants to smite David upon his head, shoulders and various and sundry other body parts until David is no longer among the living. David is hungry and he goes to the priest and cons (that’s a nice way of saying lied) his way into getting some “holy” bread that he wasn’t supposed to have. While he is running his con, David spots one of Saul’s servants. The servant’s name is Doeg. While I know that the name Doeg sounds like a character from the old comic strip, ‘B.C’ Doeg is not only Saul’s servant but scripture points out that he is also an Edomite. It you know your Old Testament history, you know that the Edomites were descended from Esau, Jacob’s brother and the Edomites and the Israelites had been squabbling ever since the day Esau and Jacob got into it over a bowl of soup. ANYWAY, David realizes that Doeg might want to do him bodily harm or at the very least would run and tell Saul about David’s whereabouts. Not only was David hungry, turns out he was also unarmed. He takes his con a step farther and convinces Ahimelech to give him, of all things, Goliath’s sword. While David takes the bread and the sword and goes on his way, Doeg does indeed tell Saul all about David, Ahimelech, the bread, and the sword. Saul proceeds to march his army to Ahimelech and orders his men to kill Ahimelech and all the priests. When his men refuse, Doeg steps up and kills not only Ahimelech and the priests, but also the men, women, children, and livestock who lived in the village of the priests. With that lovely backdrop, let’s jump to 2022. It doesn’t take long to look around and see a lot of people making a lot of bad decisions. People hide behind the anonymity of social media and say whatever they want to, no matter how harmful it might be to others. Others are rude, uncaring, and just downright awful to their fellow human beings and then get upset when someone tries to hold them accountable. “Oh, I have freedom of speech,” they say. While there are many lessons taught in this little adventure of David and Doeg, one of the biggest ones is that while we might have freedom of speech and the freedom to make our own choices, we do NOT have freedom from consequences. Even though David was desperate and did what he did to save his own skin, the blood of all those people was still on his hands and David would have to live with that for the rest of his life (See I Samuel 22:20-22). Let’s live our lives intentionally as we realize there are consequences for all we do and say. Let’s teach our kids and grandkids this truth and then let’s get busy doing Kingdom work because the consequences of NOT doing Kingdom work is on our hands!
Be blessed and be a blessing . . . Bro. Andy
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