Deuteronomy 6: 1-9 (NKJV)
“Now it happened, when Saul had returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, “Take note! David is in the Wilderness of En Gedi.” Then Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel, and went to seek David and his men on the Rocks of the Wild Goats. So he came to the sheepfolds by the road, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to attend to his needs. (David and his men were staying in the recesses of the cave.) Then the men of David said to him, “This is the day of which the LORD said to you, ‘Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand, that you may do to him as it seems good to you.’” And David arose and secretly cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. Now it happened afterward that David’s heart troubled him because he had cut Saul’s robe. And he said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.” So David restrained his servants with these words, and did not allow them to rise against Saul. And Saul got up from the cave and went on his way."
Here in these verses of scripture we see the story of David hiding from King Saul. King Saul was after his life and pursuing him to kill him for no reason other than jealousy. David now had the opportunity to actually kill King Saul and deal with this matter once and for all. His men pointed out this opportunity to him and encouraged him to deal with Saul even quoting the “word of God” back to him.
David’s first reaction was to go ahead and take the first step “and secretly cut off a corner of Saul’s robe”, but something happened afterwards. His heart troubled him. The King James’ version describes it like this, “David's heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul's skirt”. In other words, he was convicted in his heart that what he had just done was wrong. His God given conscience rang an alarm bell to say, “David this is not right, this is sin”. His heart was tender enough, soft enough, open enough to realise he was toying with sin. Immediately he spoke to his men and brought them back to reality. He recognised that if he went ahead and continued in what they were encouraging him to do, he will be sinning against God most importantly, and also sinning against King Saul. He understood that vengeance belonged to God and if he went ahead and followed his men’s instructions, he will be taking the law into his own hands.
Dear sister, we can learn from this story. Do you still get convicted for what the word calls “little sins”? Do you get convicted at all anymore when you disobey God’s word or resist the voice of the Holy Spirit? Or have our consciences become so dull and immune to sin, that we no longer are convicted. The problem with this is that the Holy Spirit will not contend with our hearts forever. He will step aside if we persist in resisting him and we will get to a place where our consciences no longer respond to sin but become numb to sin in our lives. This is a dangerous place to be. It is the place that King Saul ended. My prayer is that we will stay tender hearted, humble, open the Word and Spirit of God daily and our consciences will not become seared (de-sensitised). God’s Grace to you...