Show Notes
1 Samuel 23:1-14
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Amen. Let's pray.
[00:00:06] Our Heavenly Father, we praise you for the forgiveness of our sins.
[00:00:09] We thank you that we can stand boldly before your throne of grace, not terrified or fearful that maybe our sins will come back to bite us, but confident, knowing that all has been paid in Jesus.
[00:00:24] We do confess, Lord, that there is parts of us that doubt, parts of us that wonder, parts of us that give over to the lies of the evil one that would seek to trap us and cause us not to believe the steadfast promises that you have been you have made.
[00:00:41] Lord, we confess this and we ask that you would give us more grace, that you would strengthen our faith in you, that you would strengthen our confidence in the work of Jesus Christ, who is interceding for us, Lord. And as we have the confidence in him, we ask that you would help us to seek you more and more in times of difficulty and trouble.
[00:01:04] Help us not to lean on our own understanding, but in all our ways to acknowledge you, to follow you, and to bring others along with us.
[00:01:17] We pray this particularly now as we come to the reading and preaching of your word from first Samuel.
[00:01:23] We ask that you would bless us in understanding it, that you would build our confidence in Jesus, your anointed Messiah.
[00:01:31] We also pray for our brothers and sisters around the world and the sheep that you have yet to bring in.
[00:01:37] We pray for our mission works in our presbytery and in our denomination this morning, particularly for the work in Hawaii. We ask that you would be with the Herzl's and that you would help that work to be strong and to grow more and more established, that there might be a new church there I'm worshiping for many, many years, Lord. We also pray for the hops and ask that you would bless them as they continue to transition into this huge field encompassing such a large area. Give Pastor Hop wisdom and where to devote his time.
[00:02:17] Give him encouragement and an assurance of your work through him.
[00:02:24] Lord, there are many others that are on our minds this morning.
[00:02:28] We pray for ourselves and our own needs. Help us to be a bright light to your truth, that many might come to your throne of grace and find peace and rest and hope. We pray this in Jesus name, our only Savior. Amen.
[00:02:46] Let's remain standing and turn to God's word. In 1st Samuel 23. It Here we have the continuing epic story of two kings of David and of Saul and really three. The Lord who's ruler of them both, didn't want to rhyme there.
[00:03:36] All right. First Samuel 23.
[00:03:40] Now they told David, behold the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are robbing the threshing floors.
[00:03:47] Therefore David inquired of the Lord, shall I go and attack these Philistines? And the Lord said to David, go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah.
[00:03:57] But David's men said to him, behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more if we go to Keilah and against the armies of the Philistines?
[00:04:06] Then David inquired of the Lord again. And the Lord answered him, arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand.
[00:04:15] And David and his men went down to Keilah and fought with the Philistines and brought away their livestock and struck them with a great blow.
[00:04:23] So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.
[00:04:27] When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech, had fled to David, to Keilah, he had come down with an ephod in his hand.
[00:04:35] Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah. And Saul said, God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars.
[00:04:46] And Saul summoned all the people to war to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men.
[00:04:53] David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him. And he said to Abiathar the priest, bring the ephod here.
[00:05:00] Then David said, o Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah to destroy the city on my account.
[00:05:09] Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard?
[00:05:16] O Lord, the God of Israel, please tell your servant.
[00:05:20] And the Lord said, he will come down.
[00:05:23] Then David said, will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, they will surrender you.
[00:05:32] Then David and his men, who were about 600, arose and departed from Keilah. And they went wherever they could go.
[00:05:39] When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he. He gave up the expedition.
[00:05:44] And David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness, in the hill country of the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand.
[00:05:56] May God bless his word to us. You may be seated.
[00:06:21] Well, in our passage today, David and his men faced not one, but two opposing forces, the Philistines and Saul and his army.
[00:06:34] On top of that, David is surrounded not only by danger, but doubt. He has uncertainty. He doesn't know what he's going to do.
[00:06:42] He doesn't know where he's going to go. He doesn't know what's going to happen. He doesn't know the right thing to do. And so what does he do?
[00:06:49] He inquires of the Lord, we could stop right there. Just take that home with you. So you can underline that. And remember that in times of danger and in doubt, we inquire of the Lord.
[00:07:03] And what we see here in our passage is that the Lord answers David's prayers. He gives him instructions, he gives him protection as David seeks the Lord. Now, does the Lord take away all of his difficulties?
[00:07:16] Does the Lord take away his calling? Does the Lord take away his command? Does the Lord take away his anointing and his mission that he has given to David? No.
[00:07:26] God does not create a path of total ease. David must go. He must fight. He must strike a great blow. Later he will run, later he will hide.
[00:07:38] He is. There's a lot of hard work and difficult things involved here. But, but, but, but God is in the midst of it all.
[00:07:47] God is leading him, guiding him, protecting him.
[00:07:53] So let's begin. We'll get to thinking about these things even more and some of the application in our lives.
[00:07:59] But let's begin by making sure that we understand what David and his men are going through and then think about those applications.
[00:08:06] So what is going on here? Let's review the passage.
[00:08:11] First of all, there's this presenting problem, right? There's this presenting problem. David receives this information that the Philistines are going to this Israelite town, Tequila, and are robbing the threshing floors.
[00:08:25] Remember, this is a bad thing, right? The Philistines are the enemies of Israel.
[00:08:31] Israel in various ways, is part of David's temporal physical, genealogical family. But Israel is also a spiritual family, a covenantal family, a people of God set aside for special purposes. And the Philistines are enemies of the Lord, attacking the people of the Lord.
[00:08:55] In some ways, this passage is similar to that very first instance we see of David on the battlefield with Goliath. Right? The Philistines are coming against God's people. God's people are having a difficult time about it. David seeks the Lord. The Lord gives him strength, and he defeats. And he. He wins.
[00:09:18] But before that happens, David's in this difficult situation. Have you ever been in a situation where there was danger, serious risks, but uncertainty about what the right thing to do was?
[00:09:31] Is David supposed to take these 600 men? That's a lot of people take these men and put them into a battle, a battle that Saul really should be fighting anyway.
[00:09:44] And what of the fact that Saul would Hurt him, right? They're already afraid to be there. They're already on the run. And now they're going to go into the midst of a battle where their presence will be obvious and they'll be under threat. Is that the right thing to do?
[00:09:59] David wants to know, does he have the resources? Is it his job?
[00:10:04] Should he go about doing this? And so he asks of the Lord, and the Lord says, yes, go. Go and attack the Philistines. Why? To save.
[00:10:15] To save that city, to save that people.
[00:10:18] Now, David's men, we see in verse three, are afraid. They say, behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more when we go Tequilah against the armies of the Philistines? And God says, go. And they go.
[00:10:34] Notice how simple this is here. In a way, the Lord says to go. Then in verse five, we read, they go, they fought, they struck, and they saved. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We're here. You know, there's other scenes where we get all the camera, so to speak, sort of zooms in and you see that stone flying through the air, right? And then this is a bigger picture perspective, right? A kind of flash through moment where we see just David's successful. It's almost easy the way it reads. Of course, it wasn't easy. There was a lot of work, a lot of bloodshed, a lot of work, a lot of the judgment of the Lord against the enemies of his people.
[00:11:15] But there's a kind of simplicity to it. And the reason is, is we are meant to see that in contrast with what Saul does, which is what's coming up next. How does Saul view the city?
[00:11:28] How does Saul see it? Is Saul concerned about the people that are there?
[00:11:33] Does Saul think. Is Saul asking the question, should I go save Keilah?
[00:11:38] Should I protect these people? Should I protect our resources? Should I be a king? No, he doesn't think any of that.
[00:11:45] Instead, what happens when he waits and when he hears that David has gone to Keilah? So this is all after the fact. He says this in verse 7.
[00:11:56] God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars.
[00:12:04] So presumably this is a fairly protected city. David has made his way. David and his men have made his way inside. They've saved the city. And Saul sees this as an opportunity to shoot fish in a barrel. Right? There they are, they're trapped. This is going to be easy.
[00:12:22] Should we reward Saul for his theological understanding?
[00:12:27] He says, God has given him into my hand.
[00:12:31] That's really interesting.
[00:12:33] There's a number of ways throughout 1 Samuel in which Saul is constantly. We see distance between him and the Lord, not only through his actions, but also in the way that he speaks.
[00:12:45] The words he says reveal the things that are in his heart.
[00:12:50] We read, for example, that David inquired of Yahweh, sought Yahweh.
[00:12:56] Here we read that God has given him into my hand.
[00:13:05] Saul doesn't go inquire of the Lord.
[00:13:08] Saul assumes he does something that I like to call overreading Providence.
[00:13:15] Right?
[00:13:16] He sees some unusual circumstances that align with his desire, and he sees it as confirmation.
[00:13:25] I run into people all the time who are very guilty of this, of doing this kind of thing. They want such and such a thing to happen. Then some unusual thing that aligns with their desires falls into place or happens, and then they assume that that's God's will, that then they should go do the thing that they want to do.
[00:13:45] Now, the Lord might be leading them in that direction, but that presumes that the thing you want in the first place is a good thing.
[00:13:53] And that's really where it has to start when we think about discerning the will of God.
[00:13:59] If we determine ahead of time what we are going to do, especially when it is against the explicit will of God, no amount of providence is going to overturn what God has said.
[00:14:16] So to perhaps put it more simply, what is Saul supposed to think about David?
[00:14:22] Has God commanded Saul to go after David?
[00:14:26] Has God commanded Saul to pursue this chosen one, to destroy him, to capture him, to put him out?
[00:14:35] Just the opposite.
[00:14:37] God has told Saul that he is taking the kingdom from him and he's giving it to another.
[00:14:44] And even if he doesn't know that that's David, which I'm not sure if he does or not at this point, but even if he doesn't, clearly David is honorable, righteous, helping Israel, helping Saul. There's no reason on Saul's sort of radar in which David should be targeted.
[00:15:04] There's nothing.
[00:15:05] There's nothing that God has said or asked, nothing God has required that should make David a target of Saul's kingly power.
[00:15:15] Why is David a target then? Greed, fear, frustration, jealousy, discontentment, embarrassment, all of these kinds of things. So Saul is going after David. He overreads this providence of God, which is a kind of blasphemy.
[00:15:38] And he says God has given him my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars.
[00:15:45] Saul makes it worse. Then by bringing in all of these accomplices, he leads the people something he's supposed to do, but in a bad way, something he's not supposed to do. He calls all the people to go to war, to go down to Keilah, not to save Keilah, but to besiege David and his men.
[00:16:06] This is yet another instance in which we see the great power of the king using all of the resources and power of this world, coming against someone who is weaker, smaller, and in a. In a tactically bad situation.
[00:16:29] What's going to happen?
[00:16:31] Well, what's going to happen is what always happens, which is the Lord does what he wants.
[00:16:36] It doesn't matter whether this person's weak or this person's strong. The Lord is supreme over everything.
[00:16:44] And what the Lord wants has already been made clear. The Lord wants to rule and reign through his righteous Messiah.
[00:16:54] He is going to rule and reign and protect his people through his anointed one, through his Christ.
[00:17:03] Ultimately, that's Jesus. Of course, David foreshadowing our Savior here as the Lord protects him in this moment of weakness.
[00:17:13] Verse 10.
[00:17:15] David says, O Lord, God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah to destroy the city on my account.
[00:17:27] Remember, we're just on the heels of Saul annihilating all the priests of Nob and their families, other people in Israel, right? We're just on the heels of that. Remember what David said? He said, I have occasioned this, probably because he feels like he spoke at the wrong time in front of Doeg the Edomite.
[00:17:50] And he's looking at that and he's saying, why did I do that? And now, Saul, I have occasioned this thing. And now here he's in this city and that he's supposed to be in. God has told him to be there. But he sees in his mind, right? He hears of Saul coming down, down on them to destroy and notice his heart.
[00:18:11] He doesn't say, he's not just concerned about himself. He says, to destroy the city on my account.
[00:18:19] This is the kind of king we want, right? Even though David is weak and suffering, though he's in the wilderness, it seems like everything he's doing makes our hearts long him to be the king.
[00:18:33] A similar thing happens with Jesus as the powers of this world barrel down on him. Pontius Pilate, the council in Jerusalem, all the leaders, the mobs, the people, violence, money coming down on him. And then we see his righteousness in the middle of all of that. We see his faithfulness in the middle of all that. We see his love and his concern for every us in the middle of all of that, and it just makes our hearts long for the true king to be on his throne.
[00:19:08] The answer to our hearts, though, is in this passage and in the whole of scripture, and that God does that.
[00:19:15] This is not an unfulfilled longing.
[00:19:18] This is not a desire that we want. That just not going to work out. You got to just deal with it, deal with it. This is one of those things that we long for. And God says, yes, I will give it to you. I will establish my righteous king on my throne, even through weakness. And more than that, I will save you, and I will make you part of his mission in your weakness, in your suffering, in your danger as you follow him. I will use you, I will bless you, and I will protect you.
[00:19:51] And that's what happens here.
[00:19:53] Saul seeks to come down. David inquires of the Lord, and he says this amazing thing. He says, are the men of Keilah going to give me up into the hands of Saul?
[00:20:06] These are the people he just saved.
[00:20:10] The people he just saved turning on him.
[00:20:14] Can you imagine it?
[00:20:16] Of course you can. We do that all the time, right? The Lord saves us. He comes, he rescues us. He takes us out of our sin and misery and then, you know, turn on him.
[00:20:27] And not in small ways, either.
[00:20:30] There's all kinds of ways in which we give ourselves over to the lies of the evil one. We give ourselves over to temptation. We wander from his path. We don't believe his promises.
[00:20:41] Oh, Lord, have mercy on our souls.
[00:20:44] Lord, we are sorry for the ways in which we do not thank you and are loyal to you, but betray you who have saved us.
[00:20:57] Help us not to be like Keilah here.
[00:21:02] The Lord responds and says, yes, they will surrender you.
[00:21:07] And so David and the men get out of Dodge and they go wherever they could.
[00:21:13] They are on the run.
[00:21:15] They quickly move into the hill country.
[00:21:20] You know, I kind of imagine, you know, not far from here as you go, you know, to Wilcox and throughout southeastern Arizona. All that, that hill country where Geronimo and his warriors and other people hid, right hard life from cave to cave, rock to rock.
[00:21:43] But the lord protected David.
[00:21:46] 600 people.
[00:21:48] I think Geronimo's force was like 50, maybe 100.
[00:21:53] This is a lot of people.
[00:21:56] And they're on the run.
[00:21:58] And the Lord keeps them safe.
[00:22:00] Saul gives up his expedition to Keilah.
[00:22:04] David remains in the strongholds of the wilderness.
[00:22:07] But then we read this crazy thing at the end. Saul sought him every day, but did not give him into his hand.
[00:22:17] Just a side note, I wonder what would have happened if Saul had taken a Sabbath rest.
[00:22:22] What if Saul had just stopped one of those Lord's days and read some of the Word, reminded himself of his calling, reminded himself of the steadfast love of God and the promises? How might have this story turned out differently?
[00:22:43] We often get ourselves into so much trouble by pursuing relentlessly the desires of our heart without ever stopping and listening.
[00:22:56] Well, this last line, God did not give David into.
[00:23:00] God did not give David into Saul's hand is such a comfort.
[00:23:04] And ultimately that happened with Jesus, right? Even though Jesus died, even though Jesus willingly went to the cross, this was not the end of the story.
[00:23:17] As you know, Jesus bore our sins there and he rose again from the dead, victorious forever to be ruler of heaven and and earth. God is using beloved. God is using David in this passage to show us how Jesus's faithfulness gets us through.
[00:23:36] David's men are right to follow him even into these scary situations, to go fight the Philistines, to be surrounded by or to be under the threat of Saul.
[00:23:49] All of these things, they are right to follow him. Why?
[00:23:54] Because David is the Lord's anointed one.
[00:23:59] The Lord's anointing, His blessing is on David.
[00:24:03] And we see that in David's righteousness. We see that in David's actions, and we see it in David's submission as he inquires of the Lord and seeks to follow the Lord above all things.
[00:24:17] Jesus is just like this, to infinity, so much more.
[00:24:25] David, as we will see, does stray, makes mistakes, goofs things up, nearly blunders his way into disaster, all these kinds of things. Not so with Jesus.
[00:24:38] All the righteousness and faithfulness you see in David, all the things you see in David, he's like, go get him.
[00:24:44] Stay the course a thousand times more with Jesus, who of course did stay the course all the way to death so that he would come under the judgment of God for the forgiveness of our sins.
[00:25:02] On top of that, not only does he pursue this mission and calling with faithfulness, consider his fellowship with the Lord.
[00:25:09] If David is close with the Lord, can you imagine how close Jesus is to the Son of God with the Father of God, as we confessed earlier, God of God, light of God, light very God of very God, eternally God, one substance with the Father forever.
[00:25:34] The fellowship between the Father and the Son, which includes both his pre incarnate state and his incarnate state.
[00:25:44] The fellowship between the Father and the Son is the most glorious, beautiful, wonderful, perfect thing there ever is.
[00:25:57] Because to talk about the fellowship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit as well is simply to talk about God in His unity, in his essence, in his perfect, perfect simplicity.
[00:26:15] This eternal fellowship doesn't stop when the Lord becomes incarnate.
[00:26:23] In fact, as our representative, as he becomes man, he represents us not only well, he represents us in the kind of fellowship that man can have with God, not only the fellowship that comes has within himself.
[00:26:41] That's an amazing thing to think of the fellowship that Adam and Eve had in the garden, walking with God, in perfect communion with God. Jesus has this fellowship not only as the one true living God, as the divine Second Person of the Trinity, but He also has this perfect fellowship with God as man.
[00:27:04] In fact, the same kind of fellowship that you and I will have with God as we commune with him through our Savior.
[00:27:13] For he's our head, we are knit together, part of his body abiding in him as he abides in the Father.
[00:27:23] All that to say, if David is close with God and they are right to follow him, how much more so we who follow the Lord Jesus, even in seasons of weakness, in darkness and despair, in doubt.
[00:27:42] If you are feeling weak today, if you are feeling in danger today, uncertain about what to do, you'll want to think very carefully and deeply about what God is doing here through His Messiah and what God ultimately does in Jesus.
[00:28:02] What do we see?
[00:28:04] We see the ability of God. We see his omniscience.
[00:28:08] We see his revelation, his power to reveal things that are going to happen in the future. We see his power over of Providence, over all things, governing all his creatures and all their actions.
[00:28:21] We see his power to subdue us to Himself as He subdues David's heart, subdues the men's heart and keeps them in obedience.
[00:28:32] We see his power to subdue his enemies, no matter how strong they are.
[00:28:37] We see the ability of God. That's who we are putting our faith in.
[00:28:42] Not only is it the ability of God, but it's the ability of God, who works through His Anointed One, His Christ.
[00:28:51] God provides a Messiah for us and we find success Him.
[00:28:57] We need to learn to look to Jesus, the Author and perfecter of our faith. We need to learn to throw away every sin, every doubt that clings closely to us. Yes, but to remember who the Lord is and what he does.
[00:29:14] And finally, we need to remember the assurances of God, not only by reason of his power and his abilities, these parts of his nature, but by reason of his promises.
[00:29:28] And what does God promise?
[00:29:30] As we put our faith in the Messiah, in Jesus Christ, as I said earlier. He doesn't promise us a perfectly easy life.
[00:29:39] He doesn't promise us that nothing bad is ever going to happen to us. But he does promise us that he will guide us, that we will eventually win under his command, and that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
[00:29:58] That God will never give you up.
[00:30:02] You are in his hand. He will not hand you over to his enemies.
[00:30:08] When we follow Jesus, then what do we do?
[00:30:11] We listen to his words.
[00:30:14] We read them, we hear them. We. Even this morning, as you're hearing God's word, you're paying attention to them. You're taking them in.
[00:30:22] We hear of who he is and what he's done. We learn more and more about him, so our faith in him would grow, so our worship of him would grow, so our service for him would grow.
[00:30:34] We hear about his calling and his commands for us, and we obediently follow them even into death. And we can do that without fear, because God is faithful.
[00:30:48] So to conclude, we of course do face many dangers in this life. Doubts, uncertainty, things we don't know, aren't sure about.
[00:30:58] But when we are following the Lord Jesus, we're never following them outside of God's blessing.
[00:31:05] We're never facing these things, rather outside of his plan for us.
[00:31:11] That's why he says, for those who are in Christ Jesus, all things work together for good.
[00:31:16] Even running around in the wilderness, even being pursued by enemies, even being hungry, even being uncertain, even being afraid.
[00:31:28] So we have to ask ourselves, as we prepare ourselves for difficult moments or as we find ourselves in a difficult moment, who. What will we do?
[00:31:38] Will we panic and run away without seeking the Lord?
[00:31:41] Will we presume on God's providence and put our trust in our own plans?
[00:31:47] Or will we consider God's ability?
[00:31:50] Will we consider his anointed One Jesus?
[00:31:54] And will we consider his assuring promises to put our trust in him who promises to lead us and promises to deliver us from evil and even the evil one?
[00:32:05] That's what we should do.
[00:32:07] That's what we must do. And God will help us do it.
[00:32:11] Let's pray.
[00:32:13] Our Heavenly Father, we give you all praise and honor and glory. We thank you for the salvation that we have in Jesus.
[00:32:20] We ask that you would bless us with a deeper assurance of this, that we might take every step of our lives looking to you just like a dog looks to its master, especially as it's eating for that food. Help us to look to you, to be attentive to your every movement, your every action, to your every Word so that we might not go on our own paths and follow our own sinful desires and wander off into all kinds of darkness and death.
[00:32:55] But Lord, help us to keep our eyes fixed on you through Jesus our Savior.
[00:33:01] Help us to know more about him and even today Lord, we ask that you would bless as we already prayed the reading and preaching of your word in 1st Samuel 23 as we think about David's ministry and the work that you are doing through him help us to understand more and more the kingship of Jesus how he is our great shepherd, our great guide, protector, provider and Lord as we follow him we ask that you would make us useful that you would help us to spread and to share the word of God that you would help us to live lives that witness your faithfulness that you would help us to be a people who are always seeking after you.
[00:33:52] We ask that you would lead us Lord as you have promised to do. We pray this in Jesus name Amen.
