How To Survive A Spear Attack
Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. —1 Samuel 18:11 
What do you do when you are the target of a spear thrower (spears of verbal abuse perhaps?). Here are a few lessons from David when he was the target of Saul’s spear of jealousy.
First, Don’t retaliate. Most people would pick the spear up and throw it back at the one who threw it. NOT DAVID! David let the spear lay. Don’t become spear focused or become a spear-thrower yourself. If you throw spears back at your attacker, you prove you are no better than the one who attacked you.
Second, what did David do when Saul wanted to use him as target practice and hurled a spear in his direction? Simple: He ducked! He learned how to dodge spears. He learned to stay out of the way of spear-throwers. If someone is known to be a spear-chucker, keep away from them.
Third, David put a watch at the door of his mouth (Ps. 141:3). David never voiced a single criticism towards Saul. Button your lips when attacked.
You don’t have to answer every unkind word that’s said about you or respond to every mean thing that is done to you. It is wise to just let it lay and move on.
If you do happen to get hit by a spear, there will be a tendency to turn a bright shade of “bitter.” Then you must apply the antidote for the poison of bitterness. It is called forgiveness.
[For further details on this subject, read “The Tale of Three Kings” by Gene Edwards.]
3 Replies to “How To Survive A Spear Attack”
God bless you Dewey! Thank you for the kind comments. We thank God for you and Karen.
Preacher,
I just finished reading your devotional “HOW TO SURVIVE A SPEAR ATTACK”. To say that it was timely for me today would be an understatement. Praise God that I took the time to read the devotional instead of doing what my flesh would like to do.
The air is so full of spears around my office that I can hardly breathe for fear of inhaling one. You know what though, it is alright, I have trouble but I am not troubled. I have called on the Lord who inspired our brother Paul to write in II Corinthians 9:8; And God is ABLE to make all grace abound toward you; that ye always having all sufficiency in ALL things, may abound to every good work. If you are still taking favorite verses this one is mine. God’s grace is so awesome. If you ever hear my testimony (the long version) you would have yet another affirmation of that fact.
The spears will come and they will go but God will remain always. Preacher I so enjoyed your message on Sunday morning. I believe that is the best message that I have heard you preach to this point.
Might I just take a moment to tell you how much Karen and I are enjoying our fellowship with the congregation at Bible Baptist Church. I am beginning to feel like I am home when I walk through the doors. FBI has been a wonderful experience for us and I truly commend who ever came up with the idea for the Life Groups. We have been so blessed to be able to attend them.
As we become more familiar with the congregation and the church we will become active in service. We are talking about what we could do to help out. We are still in the process of grieving over the loss of our last church home. We put 11 years of blood, sweat, tithes and offerings into a great church that was ripped out of our hands. We are healing but it is difficult.
Preacher, I am praying for you. You have asked for prayer on several occasions and so Karen and I are praying for you. It has been our habit to pray for God’s man in whatever church we have attended.
I won’t take up any more of your time. I know that you are busy.
My Love to you in Christ Jesus
Brother Dewey
Dear Pastor Hughes. Thank you so much for your message, “How to survive a Spear attack.” I will be sending that out to my 21,215 subscribers.
I learned what you wrote about in that article several years ago. It helped me so much. It removed every bit of frustration from my life and I began to experience the peace of the Lord. The Lord has blessed our family so much. Our youngest son his wife and their children have been missionaries for 4 1/2 years now. About 11 years ago my oldest son Kirk asked if he could shoot some bottle rockets off in the road on the 4th of July. He was always such and honest and dependable young fellow that I told him, “Go ahead but be careful not to upset any of our neighbors. He did it and no one said a word. Later that summer we moved to a house a whole block away with a big back yard so for the next four years we did real firework shows in our back yard.The second year I was shocked, You couldn’t have found a place to park in our neighborhood to save your life. In 2000 we invited our Pastoral Staff to the gathering. After the show my son and I were walking back up to the house when our neighbor walked over and said “I love the fireworks but they make me nervous for my house so I wish that you won’t do them anymore here. I was a bit frustrated but I don’t want to argue with a neighbor about explosive. We walked the rest of the way up to the house and our new Pastor, Michael Jackson walked over to us and asked “What would you think about doing these at Church next year. That was the start of Freedom Fest. Two years ago the city told us that we had 30,000 people watching the fireworks. That is half of the cities population have a global email ministry now. I have 10,506 prayer partners. You can send your prayer requests to [email protected]. If you are interested you can visit the website listed above to subscribe. Thanks again for that message!
Name withheld by request
Janesville, Wisconsin