Show Notes
1 Samuel 27:1-28:2
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Let's continue this prayer now as we come to the reading and preaching of God's word.
[00:00:07] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that comes to us. It is indeed our desire to love you with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul, all of our strength. Lord, we want to give ourselves fully to you, to fully abide in you in every way.
[00:00:26] Again, we ask for your forgiveness and the various ways in which we do not hold fast to you, in which we wander, in which we put our trust in princes and powers of this world.
[00:00:38] Lord, we ask that you would teach us your way of truth, that you would teach us the word of Jesus Christ, not only his commandments, but the gospel that comes from him, the good news that we have salvation freely, not through obedience to the law, but through his obedience for us, for the forgiveness of our sins.
[00:01:03] Lord, this salvation is so great. You are working in us. Not only that you have given to us not only forgiveness, but you have given to us the work of sanctification where you are at work in our lives, helping us more and more to trust you, to obey you, to follow you.
[00:01:22] We are weak in this in many ways. We pray now that your word today would speak to our hearts and would help us in the life that you have called us to, in the life that we now desire to live. Do this all by the work of your grace and the power of your spirit. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:45] Let's remain standing and turn now to God's word. In 1 Samuel chapter 27, 1st Samuel 27. We'll read the whole chapter this morning. It's a short chapter, not too long.
[00:02:16] Here we see David fleeing to Gath, fleeing to the Philistines outside of Israel again.
[00:02:29] And this coming just after a great victory in which he, trusting in the Lord, spared Saul's life and Saul confessed that David indeed would be king.
[00:02:42] The last words in verse 26 are this. Then Saul said to David, blessed be you, my son, David, you will do many things and will succeed in them. So David went his way and Saul returned to his place.
[00:02:55] Here's what happens next. 1 Samuel 27.
[00:02:59] Then David said in his heart, now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.
[00:03:05] There's nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines. And then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.
[00:03:16] So David arose and went over, he and the 600 men who were with him to Achish, the son of Maach, the king of Gath.
[00:03:24] And David lived with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, and David with his two wives, Ahinom of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, Nabal's widow.
[00:03:35] And when it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, he no longer sought him.
[00:03:40] Then David said to Achish, if I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be given me in one of the country towns that I may dwell there, for why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?
[00:03:54] So that day, Achish gave him Ziklag. Therefore, ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day.
[00:04:01] And the number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months.
[00:04:07] Now David and his men went up and made raids against the Geshurites and the Gerazites and the Amalekites, for those were the inhabitants of the land from of old as far as Shur to the land of Egypt.
[00:04:22] And David would strike the land and would leave neither man nor woman alive, but would take away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels and the garments and come back to Achish. When Achish asked, where have you made a raid today? David would say, against the Negeb of Judah, or against the Negeb of the Jerameelites, or against the Negeb of the Kenites.
[00:04:43] And David would leave neither man nor woman alive to bring news to Gath, thinking lest they should tell about us and say, so David has done so. Such was his custom. All the while he lived in the country of the Philistines. And Achish trusted David, thinking he has made himself an utter stench to his people Israel. Therefore he shall always be my servant.
[00:05:06] This ends the reading of God's word. Please be seated.
[00:05:29] So David is in a difficult position.
[00:05:33] Should he trust Saul?
[00:05:35] Should he not trust Saul? He should probably not trust Saul.
[00:05:38] We've seen Saul turn over and over against David, even after saying great things like this.
[00:05:45] You shall be king. Blessed be your name, David.
[00:05:50] David hears those words and thinks to himself, I don't know.
[00:05:56] Maybe not.
[00:05:58] Actually, he feels more strongly than that, doesn't he? In verse one, he says this in his heart, now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul.
[00:06:10] Now, if Saul had all the power, if Saul had the ability to determine all things, this is probably the most likely scenario that is going to happen.
[00:06:21] Based on Saul's past actions, he's promised other things before. He's given opportunity. He's extended the olive branch, so to speak, before. This is not the first time that Saul has tried to reconcile or seems to have reconciled in some ways with David. If everything were up to Saul, David most certainly will perish. At least it seems like that based on Saul's behavior.
[00:06:44] But is everything up to Saul?
[00:06:48] No, of course it's not. Everything is up to God.
[00:06:52] And that's one of the things that David is being taught and Saul is being taught, and Israel is being taught, and you and I are being taught as we go through First Samuel. It's the Lord who rules all things.
[00:07:06] And there's this mistake that we and the people in this story tend to make, and that's forgetting this fact that it's God who rules all things, that it's God who provides us our salvation. And running, as Psalm 146 says, to chariots and princes and horses and things like this, the powers of this world.
[00:07:29] David makes a mistake here, doesn't he? He makes a theological error which has very practical consequences.
[00:07:38] Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. This, he should know, is not true. Because it's God who has promised that one day he would be on the throne, that he would give to him the throne of Israel.
[00:07:54] And even if the Lord had decided to take that away, or if David had misunderstood that promise in some way, surely those who trust in the Lord will live forever.
[00:08:05] And David confesses this in other places, and we know this is true as well. The Lord knows how to preserve his people even from death. And that's an amazing thing.
[00:08:19] David's mind is not in the right place, though, is it? His heart's not in the right place. One quick practical application, an observation. Notice that David, David is coming off of a great moment of success here. And this can happen in our lives, these times when we have, you know, these great moments where our faith is strong, right? David holds his men back. They don't take Saul's life. He works through this complicated situation where his life is preserved. Saul repents, that everybody goes away safe. This is a really outstanding moment. And it's the second time something like this has happened.
[00:08:59] It's after that that David says in his heart, I'm giving up.
[00:09:04] Right?
[00:09:05] There is a reminder for us in second Thessalonians 3:13.
[00:09:10] As for you, brothers, Paul writes, do not grow weary in doing good.
[00:09:16] Or you could say, do not grow weary in believing the truth.
[00:09:20] Do not grow weary in trusting the Lord.
[00:09:23] There's times, even when we are at our high points in our faith, high points in our Christian life, where we. Where our minds can wander, our hearts wander, our feet wander. And that's what happens with David here. He despairs when he should not be despairing.
[00:09:42] And as a result of that despair, as a result of maybe the exhaustion and other things of this difficult situation, he comes to this conclusion, continuing in verse one. There's no better for me than I should escape to the land of the Philistines.
[00:09:59] Now, this is not an unreasonable thing. It's wrong.
[00:10:04] It's a bad idea, and we'll see why. But it's not unreasonable. He, in fact, gives a reason. Notice what he says. His reason is, if I escape to the land of the Philistines, then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.
[00:10:22] That's his presupposition. This is what he thinks, right? And it turns out he's right.
[00:10:29] When we come to verse four, and it says, and when it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, he no longer sought him.
[00:10:37] So David was right. Right. He thought, if I leave Israel, if I escape out of Israel and flee to Gath, Saul's going to get tired, or Saul won't. Whatever the reason is, Saul won't seek me. And that's exactly what happens.
[00:10:51] But just because it's reasonable and just because he was right about anticipating Saul's actions doesn't mean he did the right thing before the Lord.
[00:11:03] Why is this the wrong action?
[00:11:06] If you remember back in the last chapter when David was speaking to Saul, do you remember how his. Where his head was at that point in time?
[00:11:16] If you look, for example, at verse 19 in chapter 26, he says this, David speaking to Saul. He says, now therefore, let the Lord, my king, hear the words of his servant. If it is the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah, if it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering. But if it's men, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day that I should have. Here's how he says it.
[00:11:43] No share in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, go serve other gods.
[00:11:49] In other words, he's saying, saul, there are people probably who are saying to you, saying to you, kick David out. Drive him out, so that he would have no heritage here in the land and would go serve other gods.
[00:12:06] In other words, there are people who are trying to kick me out of Israel into the land. Of the Philistines. But it's not just a land issue.
[00:12:15] It's a promise issue. It's a hope issue. It's a Abrahamic covenant issue. It's a Mosaic covenant issue. It's this hope of being in the land belonging to the Lord, being among his people, being close to the temple, eventually, all of these things.
[00:12:33] Israel is where God has placed his promises during this time, and that's where David needs to be.
[00:12:41] There was a previous time where David was outside of Israel. A prophet comes to him and tells him to go back in.
[00:12:50] So he is. These are these. This general theology which tells him he's supposed to be there. A prophet which tells him to be there. His own heart here, we see, is telling him to be there. But then in chapter 27, all that goes out the window because why? He's scared.
[00:13:09] And we can sympathize with that, right? We find ourselves in moments where we are afraid of certain things.
[00:13:16] And then we decide, I just have to do this thing.
[00:13:20] This phrase I've been using through our series here, these sinful shortcuts, right ways of transgressing God's will to either get away from something we're afraid of or to get to something we desire that goes against what the Lord has called us to do. And that's what David's doing here.
[00:13:39] Just because it's reasonable, just because it works, doesn't mean it's right.
[00:13:48] We know that it's not right. In part because of these reasons I've given, but also in part because of the results that come from this, because of what happens here, David ends up putting himself in a really tough situation.
[00:14:07] What ends up happening is he goes into the land of Gath. He is living there near Achish, and he realizes this is probably not a good idea. And very astutely, in a very sort of politically savvy way, he speaks to Achish and he says, why should I dwell with you here in the royal city?
[00:14:29] A little bit of flattery there makes Achish feel good, also distances himself from Achish, which is probably a smart thing to do. And he says, give me some country town or something like that. Achish also not putting his trust in his own power and the powers of this world, does these political moves to protect himself. What should he be doing?
[00:14:55] Bowing down to the Lord's anointed, giving himself over to the Lord and his people. But instead he says, I can control God. I can control his king.
[00:15:07] I'll do that by putting him in Ziklag. This border town, this buffer town between him and Israel.
[00:15:15] And so David goes there with quite a few people, 600 men, plus all their families, plus David's families. The numbers could be quite, quite large, into the thousands for sure.
[00:15:26] And for the year and four months that he's there, what happens?
[00:15:30] We come to verse eight and we read that he makes raids against these various Canaanite people that Israel was called to put out of the land.
[00:15:41] But David here is not following the Lord's heart in doing this work.
[00:15:48] His heart is again, not for the Lord, not for following the commands that the king has been called to do, but because of his fear, because of his fear of Achish and other motives. He says in verse 11 that he does the things that he does, lest the men and women, any left alive should tell about us and say, so David has done instead, what he does is he. He gives to Achish these very vague places that he's been to, to the Negeb of Judah, the Negeb of the Jeremy Lights against the Negeb of the Kenites. He makes it sound, without being specific in these various places. He makes it sound as though he's attacking within the region of Judah and her allies, which is not really the case.
[00:16:44] I mean, it's sort of the case. But what he's really doing is he's moving aside potential future enemies.
[00:16:53] There's a lot more to that we'll move on from now. But Achish believes him in all of this.
[00:16:58] Achish says in his mind, he has made himself an utter stench to his people, Israel. He shall always be my servant.
[00:17:07] Achish thinks he's got David under his control.
[00:17:11] Well, in chapter 29, which is, if we skip one, what will happen is the Philistine lords will go out for battle. And Achish says to David, you're coming with us because you're obviously on our side. We need the help. And you know who they're going to fight?
[00:17:26] Judah.
[00:17:28] So now all of a sudden David, who is an ally with the enemy, is in a position where he has to fight his kingdom, his family, the people of God, the sons of Abraham.
[00:17:43] And he's in this difficult predicament. We'll get there more later. Eventually the other Philistine lords say, are you crazy, Achish? Absolutely no way. Send him back. David goes back and you know what happens? The Amalekites have burned Ziklag and murdered people and taken away his wives and children. And it's a huge tragedy. It's so Bad that the people that have been following David under his command and all these things, they want to stone him.
[00:18:15] So David, in trying to protect these people and trying to protect his life, makes a series of decisions that ends up having them turn on him, trying to take his life.
[00:18:27] And so at that point, he's not safe either in Israel or outside of Israel.
[00:18:34] It's a big mess with all kinds of compromises and difficult things going on all over the place. David thinks he's got it locked in. David thinks, if I may say this and make this nice speech and go here and do this, I'll be safe.
[00:18:50] He tries to rely on worldly wisdom and worldly powers to bring him the protection that he wants.
[00:18:59] And it fails.
[00:19:01] And this is all really dangerous. We do the same thing, as I said before, what do we see here with David in relation to the Lord?
[00:19:12] Nothing.
[00:19:13] Do we hear him inquiring after God? Do we hear him praying? Do we hear him seeking the Lord and his will? Do we hear his heart expressing the heart of the Lord? No. We just hear fear.
[00:19:26] We just hear fear.
[00:19:28] When we're afraid, we have to be careful about these things.
[00:19:32] We have to notice these things in our hearts. And if we're only hearing fear, if we're only sensing fear, we have to ask ourselves, where's my faith?
[00:19:42] What am I trusting in? Whom am I trusting in?
[00:19:46] We have to remember the truth of God's promises. What has he told me?
[00:19:50] What has he promised?
[00:19:52] What do I need to put my faith in right now?
[00:20:00] And the answer, of course, is always in the Lord.
[00:20:05] The Lord who goes with us wherever we are, the Lord who can protect us both when we're on the top and when we're on the bottom.
[00:20:14] The Lord who can work in our hearts when times are good and when times are bad.
[00:20:21] We're to look to the Lord, and in particular we're look to look to him through His Son.
[00:20:29] We look to Jesus, the Messiah, the final Messiah, who comes, the Son of David, who ultimately fulfills all these things that David was promised in a kind of shadowy form.
[00:20:44] It's helpful to think about the contrast between David and Jesus here, mainly for this reason. It's helpful to think about the contrast because our hearts need to be encouraged and we need to remember who Jesus is so that we put our faith in Him. What's the contrast?
[00:21:02] Well, unlike David, Jesus never allied himself with the powers of this world to bring about the kingdom of God.
[00:21:11] Now think about this. Was he ever offered opportunities to do that?
[00:21:16] Absolutely.
[00:21:18] He was offered a Number of times, a number of ways.
[00:21:22] One particular one that comes to mind is Satan himself promising to give him the kingdoms of the world if he would submit himself, if Jesus would submit himself to him.
[00:21:33] You can imagine that there were times in which.
[00:21:39] Other times in which the Pharisees, as they press down, as the scribes, in which they press down, Jesus could have backed away and said something like, well, I'm not really the Son of God, or, I'm sorry, you thought I was blaspheming. I didn't really mean that.
[00:21:56] He could have toned back his language. He could have tried to move more in their circles.
[00:22:02] When Pilate says, do you not realize that I have the power to release you?
[00:22:07] Jesus could have said, yeah, actually, I do understand that, oh, great Pilate.
[00:22:14] These people have been against me from the beginning.
[00:22:17] I've been trying in so many ways to do the right thing, to bless your kingdom and the kingdom and the empire of Rome.
[00:22:25] What can I do to help you, Pilate? What can I do to make this situation better for you? How can we work this out so that you get what you want and my life can be spared?
[00:22:36] This is super common, right? This is why it's so easy to talk about it like this. This is how we work. This is what we do. But Jesus doesn't do that.
[00:22:45] Even though Pilate could have potentially maybe spared his life, humanly speaking, Jesus never allies himself with the powers of this world.
[00:22:57] He never gives into the fear of perishing.
[00:23:01] In fact, he embraces that perishing.
[00:23:05] He gives up his life according to the perfect plan of God so that we can live, so that we can be saved, so that he would overcome death.
[00:23:19] Jesus goes to the cross and he does so willingly.
[00:23:24] He does so willingly for you.
[00:23:27] He sacrifices his life. Instead of protecting his life and then putting us all in danger, which is what would have happened.
[00:23:36] He gives up his life and saves our souls.
[00:23:41] By giving up his life on the cross, he becomes a perfect sacrifice which turns away God's wrath.
[00:23:49] By giving up his life, he forgives our sins where we have the forgiveness of sins, he conquers the enemy, the devil, and death.
[00:24:00] He saves us from everything that we could ever be saved in. In love. He sacrifices himself so that we might live. Instead of putting us in danger, he rescues us from the dominion of darkness and brings us into his eternal kingdom.
[00:24:17] Hebrews 12:3 says, this, and this is what I want to end with this morning. Hebrews 12:3 says, Consider him, Jesus, who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not Grow weary or faint hearted?
[00:24:34] How do we not grow weary and fainthearted?
[00:24:37] Weary of doing good or faint hearted of all the trials that are coming against us?
[00:24:44] We do it by considering him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself and endured it for you.
[00:24:54] Galatians 6:9 says, Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap. If we do not give up, why will we reap?
[00:25:04] Because of Jesus.
[00:25:06] Because of the promises, because of the surety of his salvation.
[00:25:12] So what do you do when you're scared?
[00:25:15] Do you take a sinful shortcut?
[00:25:17] Do you deny the promises of God? Do you try to just figure things out on your own? Do you despair of your life and the things around you?
[00:25:27] Or do you put yourself in the arms of the Lord?
[00:25:32] That's what you do.
[00:25:34] You put your faith in him who rescued you from every enemy that you'll ever have and will one day bring you into a glorious, eternal life.
[00:25:44] You can trust Him. So trust Him.
[00:25:48] Let's pray.
[00:25:51] Our Heavenly Father, we ask that you would strengthen our faith in our Lord and Savior, whose heart did not falter, who did not give in to temptation as David did, and as we do, and as every other human being has ever done.
[00:26:07] We praise you, Lord, this morning. We lift up our hearts and praise you now. And we will praise you all of our days.
[00:26:16] Because you alone are forever. You alone are eternal.
[00:26:21] And the Son of Man who came to save us is himself, God.
[00:26:29] In him the fullness of Deity dwells bodily, and he is forever.
[00:26:36] Because of him we are established forever. Because of his life and his righteousness and his perfections, we are established forever.
[00:26:48] When we put ourselves in the hands of princes and powers and the things of this world, they turn into dust.
[00:26:56] They are quickly destroyed.
[00:26:58] But not so with you, O Great King Jesus.
[00:27:03] You are the great Messiah who has come to save us. You are our great King, in whom there is no beginning and end.
[00:27:12] In you there is. And for you there is all blessing and honor and glory and power forever and ever.
[00:27:21] And we are the citizens of your kingdom. We are your people.
[00:27:26] We are the sheep of your pasture. And so we ask that you would lead us when we wander. You would lead us when we are scared.
[00:27:35] Help us to hear your voice and to follow you all of our days.
[00:27:40] We pray this all in the name of the Son of God, our Savior.
[00:27:46] Amen.
