The children of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines, and they plundered their camp.
 There was another way we have to notice in which David was tried, and I believe still more difficult to the spiritual judgment, and of greater price with God that delicacy of consideration in which his heart was formed in the presence of his worst foe in one who was still the king of Israel, whom he of all men respected most, not even excepting Jonathan; for as there was more love in David's heart than in Jonathan's, so, I doubt not, he had even a keener sense of allegiance, and a deeper consideration of what was due to the king; and yet all the while Saul was a doomed man, and, as we have seen, before David was called he had been proved and found wanting. It will be made evident, as indeed scripture furnishes ample proofs, that, after the call of David and his designation to the throne on God's part, Saul did not remain the same man as before. We shall find that he comes under the power of Satan from the moment that God had set apart David to Himself. We must not confound as a rule or principle the fact of man's corrupt nature on the one side with Satan's power on the other. They are distinct. At the same time, what is of man corrupted always paves the way for Satan to enter in. Here, nevertheless, we may see the working of the principle plainly enough. We shall find also that it is not only that Satan enters from this point, but that he acquires increasing power over Saul. Just as God on the one hand brings out His servant David, and shows his fitness for the great and honourable task to which he was called, making him to be very specially before Himself, and in the eyes of those who love Him, to be the witness of Christ as sufferer as well as king; so on the other hand Saul falls more and more deeply under the power of the adversary. This then we shall look at a little in the present lecture.
