"The Grave"

"He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made." (Psalms 7:15) My mom always had a saying that goes along with this, it was, You've made your bed, now lay in it! This she would say to the deceit that us kids would conjure up to cover up something that we had done; things were always worse and more complicated to deal with, the more people that were involved in a lie or cover up. You have most likely heard the term, Digging his own grave; well that is the image that David is putting forth. Isn't odd how someone will reject something that can save them, and replace it with something that will literally drag them to Hell. Can a heart of rebellion really be that stubborn? Well, we really don't have to go that far from David to find that out; however, David's sin with Bathsheba, and his plotting to cover it up, is not what I am talking about. His name was Saul, the first king of Israel; chosen by God to rule His people, and to be an example to the people of one who served God. Reading the accounts of Saul's final few years, I wondered why he was so bitter against David, and how he could even begin to justify some of the things that he did. At one point, Saul commanded that the Priests be killed who helped David and feed him and his men the hallowed bread. He could not get his footmen to kill them, so he had Doeg the Edomite do it, who was chiefest herdsman in Saul's court; a servant in his court was instructed to do his dirty work, that his own foot soldiers refused to do. That is really hard to imagine, how he could have continued to call for the death of these Priests, after his own loyal military servants would not perform the task. These guys that surrounded Saul were like the Secret Service to the President, loyal to surround him and protect him at all times as he traveled about; however, they were still men that feared God, and would have no part in killing the Priest of God; therefore, you would think that Saul would have gotten the hint that this was not a good thing to do. Could he have hated David that much? Or was his heart made hard by the fact that he could not except God's forgiveness, nor could he even see the forgiveness that was available for his very soul; instead, he had established himself to be king, even after Samuel had told him that God had chosen someone else to rule in his place, he continued as if he were the king that God had anointed. It is hard to count the number of times that Saul tried to kill David; and when ever Saul would make an oath that he was not going to pursue David any longer, as soon as he heard something that was glorifying to David, he would set out to kill him again. If ever there could be an example of someone who was not governed by God, Saul's last years were the perfect picture. So, what could have made Saul not accept or even receive God's forgiveness? Maybe it was his kingdom being taken from him and given to another? or maybe it was that he never asked for God's forgiveness? But yet he did repent; he just did not like the terms of his repentance; which were to suffer the loss of his kingdom, and all the glory that came with being King of Israel. The one thing that I remember the most about Boot Camp, when I joined the Navy, was how they first took you to your lowest state, to then build you back up again. This is much the same thing that we must do, as we humble ourselves to receive God's forgiveness for our sins; we must become lower than dirt; we must be dead to ourselves, in order to be alive unto God! Would Saul have stepped aside for David to take the throne? Probably not! Should he have? Only if he was interested in God's forgiveness...