1 Samuel 16:19

Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep.

Life of David

The formal induction of David into the office for which he was selected, was not devoid of its appointed influence. The ceremony was a sacred one, by special direction of God, performed by a sacred band in the days of miraculous agency, days long since passed away. Consequently a marked alteration occurred in the whole character of this lowly shepherd boy. It was not conversion, for David, you remember, before this ceremony, was conversant with godliness, and replete with spiritual and legitimate piety. We may call this alteration or improvement, devotedness; he was warned of the purposes of Providence concerning his future life, and hence became, by a noble ambition, as well as by supernatural gifts, devoted to the destiny, the high appointment to which he was ordained. After the interview with Samuel, David resumed his former position and avocation, but with new thoughts, new hopes, and new practices. His life was still a private one, but the virtues of an exalted mind, and of increased piety, displayed themselves with such fulness that the respect of all men was tendered to him in tributary homage.

1. Here is a volume of wisdom opened to us. We have a double calling--one to future dignity in God’s set time, another to present duty in our earthly state. Our wisdom, then, our duty, our religion, is to realise, by sober contemplation, the heaven that awaits us. We have not here to follow the guidance of mere fancy; we have not here the deceitful rule of passion, to observe which will paint a paradise, according to each man’s peculiar lust. We have the solemn and copious narrative of revelation; the history of successive periods yet to come; of gradation above gradation in eternal glory for the saints; of resurrection joy, millennial glory with Christ, abiding favour with the Father; of physical happiness, as well as filial consolations; of a promised land, a better country, a heavenly city, of many mansions. Our other calling is to glorify God in that station where His Providence has placed us. The description of David, while be remained a commoner, signifies that he had given himself, with every diligence as a man in ordinary life, to discharge his office, to the very best of his ability, religiously. The devices of the enemy are innumerable, to prevent our success in piety, our utility to man, and our honourableness to God. We must understand thoroughly that in spite of all contrary exhibitions and persuasions, suggested by our infirmities, that the post we occupy is exactly that in which we are placed, stand fast and quit ourselves like men. That our ages, callings, situations, fortunes, are just the very ordinances of Jehovah, and that in these things, and no others, we are required to show forth His glory, and magnify His name. Thus did David.

2. We must thus conclude our considerations about his private life, and follow him out upon the great stage of the world. But ere we view him on that stage we must observe that his exaltation occurred in exact accordance with his private virtues. These spread abroad his fame, sent it to the king’s palace, and led him from obscurity. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men.” “Godliness hath the promise of this life, as well as of that which is to come.” The command for David’s separation from the humble lot in which he had enjoyed so much of a happy converse with heaven, has arrived--“Send me David thy son, who is with the sheep.” Thus were the unsolicited promises of Samuel hastening to fulfilment. David had not sought greatness, and we may conclude that this call to another mode of life, so dissimilar to all his early habits, was obeyed, not with the alacrity of ambition, but the integrity of religion. He obeyed, because he felt it to be his duty. He must henceforth find his interviews with God diminished, and his intimacy with an evil world a source of continual danger, and cause of continual self-restraint and watchfulness. In the life of the believer, all things have their appointed use, according to the words--“All things work together for good, to them who love God.” Solitude, or retirement rather, had witnessed the first dawn of piety in this servant of God, and confirmed it in every principle, up to the full blaze of faith, and courage, and devotedness. Now society, and society in the most dangerous form, in the very circle of the court, must train the future monarch for his onerous responsibilities.

(1) It was a more difficult task by far to combat the influence of flattery, now heaped on David. He was an accomplished youth, of goodly appearance, graced, too, with all the freshness of innocence and piety, and the prime favourite of the king; it is said here, “he loved him greatly.” These things were so many attractions to flattery, so many inlets to the poison of pride, which kills the soul of the unconverted, and which, when it gains admission to the hearts of the children of God, requires for them a discipline of misery, to expel the moral pestilence.

(2) Another risk must now be encountered, the power of prevailing levity. Man in solitude is serious, in society is often a mocker. Whether it be the courage Which springs from fellowship, or the poor ambition of obtaining notoriety amongst his fellows, that stirs a man to levity; it is always true that the society of ordinary men is ruled by levity--a reckless disregard for things Divine, or a wild and boisterous exuberance of mirth, where piety dare not appear. Courts are composed of men, not always of the best men, and so he, whose infancy and early youth had been imbued with the deepest reverence for the mysteries and truth of revelation, had now to brook the wild scorn of the infidel, or the injurious babble and enervating levity of the gay and thoughtless sycophants of greatness. We must watch here, against the influence of the world’s irreligion upon ourselves, it is our hour of temptation.

(3) Lastly, David had to encounter worldliness--that is, the predominant vice in the vicinity of kings. A spiritual man may loathe all this; but repetition blunts his first feelings of abhorrence. Far from the precincts of the court we may pass the residue of our earthly period, but there are agencies abroad to raise within us the love of this evil world, and increase it, too, as that world is fading from our grasp. (C. M. Fleury, A. M.)