How To Pray In A Cave - 1 Samuel 22:1-5 Series

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1 Samuel 22:1 David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father's household heard about it, they went down to him there. 2 All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him. 3 From there David went to Mizpah in Moab and said to the king of Moab, "Would you let my father and mother come and stay with you until I learn what God will do for me?" 4 So he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him as long as David was in the stronghold. 5 But the prophet Gad said to David, "Do not stay in the stronghold. Go into the land of Judah." So David left and went to the forest of Hereth.

Introduction

Already but not yet

David is anointed as king of Israel in chapter 15 of 1 Samuel, which is the midpoint of the book. Pop quiz – in which chapter of 1 Samuel does David actually take the throne? No chapter. It does not happen in 1 Samuel. It is not going to happen until many years later when Saul finally dies. God said, “OK – I am going to take the throne from Saul and give it to David,” and yet, Saul remained on the throne until he died. He ended up reigning 40 years!

So the entire second half of this book – from chapter 15 all the way to the end of the book (chapter 31), is this in-between period where David was God’s anointed king, but did not have the throne yet. We could call this the “already but not yet” stage of David’s reign. He is already king, but not yet on the actual throne.

That is interesting because the great Son of David, the Messiah, who will reign on the throne of David forever, also begins his reign with an already but not yet stage. When does the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne of David as Messiah begin? In Luke 11:20 Jesus said His kingdom had already started – 2000 years ago.

But on the other hand Jesus also spoke of His kingdom coming in the future at His Second Coming. Jesus is reigning as King right now, but not in as full and great a way as He will after His Second Coming. Right now there are still those who do not bow the knee. Right now He is mocked, despised or ignored by most. But one day He will be enthroned in the sight of every creature, and on that day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, and His full glory will be revealed. At that time He will finally eliminate all rebellion against His authority and rule a perfect Kingdom forever.

We are living in the “already but not yet” stage of the Kingdom of King Jesus. And we enjoy the benefits of that Kingdom already in some measure, but not yet in the fullest sense. So we are not really surprised to see that the most important picture of the Messiah, King David, also had an already but not yet stage in his reign. He is anointed, Saul is rejected, but he does not take the throne for probably another 10 years at least. We do not know the exact dates, so we cannot say for sure how much time goes by between chapter 15 and chapter 31, but it is probably at least a decade.

To teach us that God is the true King

I believe one of the purposes of this already but not yet period is to drive home to us the main message of 1 Samuel – that God is still the King. Humanly speaking, if you have a guy like Saul, who was crowned with massive popular support, who has been established in his office as king for probably 30 years, and who has control of all the resources of the kingdom, and then on the other hand you have a young kid, quite possibly still a teenager, who has no resources at all, is an outlaw, a fugitive, running around hiding in caves - from a human standpoint you would expect the first guy to be a lot better off than the second guy. And yet, throughout this entire time David has nothing but success and Saul has nothing but failure. David is honored time after time and Saul is humiliated time after time. How can that be? Humanly speaking it cannot be explained. But if you see the whole picture, and you understand that God is the true King, and you see that David honors God and Saul does not, then it is no mystery at all.