Introduction:
A. The story is told of a woman who went to the police station with her friend to report that her husband was missing.
1. The police officer asked for a description of her husband.
2. The wife said, “He’s 45 years old, six foot three, has blue eyes, blond hair, an athletic build, is soft spoken, and is good to the children.”
3. Her friend protested, “Your husband does not fit that description. He is 5 foot 3, chubby, bald, has a big mouth, and is mean to your children.”
4. The wife replied, “Well, who wants him back!”
B. As the story in 1 Samuel turns back to David in chapters 27, 29 and 30 we notice that there is a very important person missing and that person is God.
1. Isn’t that strange, here is David, the man after God’s own heart, and God is missing from this entire episode. How can that be?
2. But when you think about it, God is often a missing person in a lot of folks’ lives, right?
3. For some, God is missing because they have forgotten Him.
4. For others, God is missing because God has forgotten them, or at least moved away from them, like in the instance of King Saul.
5. At times, people don’t mind God’s absence, because they can go about doing whatever they want to be doing, without God’s restrictions.
6. But for others, God’s absence eventually brings a lonely aching and emptiness.
7. That is what is going to happen with David.
8. We will see in our story today that David makes some poor choices that will lead to some difficult days, amounting to sixteen long months of disobedience and distance from God.
The Story:
A. The story begins in 1 Samuel 27:1, “But David thought to himself, ‘One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.’”
1. How is it that David, our hero, ends up in a place like this?
B. First, it begins with a humanistic viewpoint.
1. Notice that the text says that “David thought to himself…”
2. It is so important that when we talk to ourselves that we tell ourselves the truth.
3. David looked at his situation from a humanistic point of view – a horizontal viewpoint rather than a vertical viewpoint, and came to the wrong conclusion.
4. Tragically, we don’t find David praying even once in this chapter!
5. David is coming off an emotional high, in some respects.
6. You remember how he could have killed Saul twice, but he didn’t.
7. Then he was about to kill Nabal, but Abigail talked him out of that, thankfully.
8. So he’s been walking in victory, but as all of us know, that’s often a very vulnerable spot.
C. The second thing that took David in a wrong direction was his pessimistic reasoning.
1. Look at what David said to himself, “One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul.”
2. David should have known better than that!
3. Samuel had anointed him with oil assuring him that he would one day be the king.
4. God spoke to him through Abigail and said that he would be king.
5. God spoke to him more than once through Jonathan, assuring him, “You’ll be the next king.”
6. Even Saul, his enemy, had said, “I know that you will surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hand.” (24:20)
7. But now David ignores all of those promises given by God and convinces himself “I’ll perish. There’s no way I will be king.”
8. Whenever we take our eyes off of God and His promises, and place them on ourselves and our circumstances, then we become pessimistic.
D. The final thing that took David in the wrong direction was similar to the first, he rationalized and came to the wrong conclusion.
1. He said, “There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines.”
2. He’s thinking, “Times are hard. I’m going to die if I stay this close to Saul’s army. I have to escape and the best solution is to go to the Philistines.”
3. It is noteworthy that in all of this David never once took God into consideration.
4. He does not remind himself of God’s faithfulness in preserving his life up to this point.
5. He does not seek God’s guidance for the next move.
E. So what does David do next?
1. The Bible says, “So David and the six hundred men with him left and went over to Achish son of Maoch king of Gath. David and his men settled in Gath with Achish. Each man had his family with him, and David had his two wives: Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, the widow of Nabal. When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him. (You might remember that David did the same thing earlier – Gath was the home of Goliath. Last time David had to act like a madman with drool running down his beard.)
Then David said to Achish, ‘If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be assigned to me in one of the country towns, that I may live there. Why should your servant live in the royal city with you?’
So on that day Achish gave him Ziklag, and it has belonged to the kings of Judah ever since. David lived in Philistine territory a year and four months.” (1 Samuel 27:2-7)
2. Wow! David abandoned his confidence in Jehovah, and then deliberately, in direct disobedience to the ancient commands of the Almighty, sough asylum with Achish.
3. He literally joined forces with the enemy of Israel.
4. And consider this, David isn’t just compromising himself, he is compromising his men and all of their families.
5. When we choose a course that is not God’s plan, it affects those who trust us and depend on us, those who look up to us and believe in us.
6. That’s why all of us must weigh our steps so carefully and always put them before the Lord before taking them.
F. Look at the results of David’s poor choices.
1. A first consequence was that it gave him a false sense of security.
a. Saul did stop pursing him, and that was a welcomed relief, but that didn’t make him secure.
b. The only thing that could make David secure, or us for that matter, is the Lord Himself.
2. A second consequence of his poor choice was submission to the adversary’s cause.
a. Can you believe that David actually called himself the “servant” of Achish?
3. A third consequence was a lengthy period of compromise.
a. We might say to ourselves, “Oh, it won’t hurt. A day or two here, and I then I’ll get back on the right path.”
b. The old saying is so true, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, Cost you more than you want to pay, And keep you longer than you want to stay.”
c. David moves away from God and wanders into Gath, and ends up staying there for 16 months.
G. These poor choices of David then lead to some very dark and difficult days.
1. We see that duplicity begins to mark David’s steps.
a. Webster says that duplicity is “deception by pretending.”
b. Deep inside himself, David is an Israelite and he will always be an Israelite.
c. But he is trying to make the Philistines think that he is on their side.
2. This duplicity causes David to begin to act out in a cruel and savage fashion.
a. The Bible says, “Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites. (From ancient times these peoples had lived in the land extending to Shur and Egypt.) Whenever David attacked an area, he did not leave a man or woman alive, but took sheep and cattle, donkeys and camels, and clothes. Then he returned to Achish.” (1 Sam. 27:8-9)
b. The Geshurites and Girzites and Amalekites were the enemies of Israel, but they were not enemies of the Philistines.
c. David, no doubt, used these terrorist attacks not only to demoralize Israel’s enemies, but to add enormous wealth to himself and his men.
d. By the end of these 16 months in Ziklag, David had become a wealthy robber baron, rich with the plunder seized from his hapless victims.
e. He left no living victim to report the truth about his activities.
f. Not only did the desert sands lay stained red with human blood, so too, were David’s hands.
g. That’s why in the twilight of David’s life, God would not allow him to erect a temple to honor the Lord, because David’s hands had shed so much needless blood.
3. One final slide we see as David continues down his road of poor choices is his dishonesty.
a. The Bible says, “When Achish asked, ‘Where did you go raiding today?’ David would say, ‘Against the Negev of Judah’ or ‘Against the Negev of Jerahmeel’ or ‘Against the Negev of the Kenites.’” (1 Sam. 27:10)
b. The “Negev” was a broad Hebrew word meaning “south.”
c. So David was saying, “Oh, I was fighting in the southern part of Judah,” implying that he was killing the people of Judah, who were Israelities.
d. And when he said he had been fighting against the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites, that was just a lie. He didn’t fight those people.
e. But as we noticed, David didn’t leave any witnesses, and he was a good liar, because Achish believed him.
f. The Bible says, “Achish trusted David and said to himself, ‘He has become so odious to his people, the Israelites, that he will be my servant forever.’” (1 Sam. 27:12)
g. So convinced was Achish that David had turned traitor to his own people, he even counted on David to go with him into battle against Israel.
h. The Bible says, “In those days the Philistines gathered their forces to fight against Israel. Achish said to David, ‘You must understand that you and your men will accompany me in the army.’ David said, ‘Then you will see for yourself what your servant can do.’ Achish replied, ‘Very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life.’” (1 Sam. 28:1-2)
i. David had sunk to such a low point that he agreed to be the private bodyguard to the Philistine King who was about to fight against Israel!
j. The wages of sin are indeed desperate and deadly.
k. David had become a slave shackled by his own submission to evil.
l. How in the world is David going to get out of this one and get back on the right track?
H. The good news is that even when we may have abandoned God, he won’t abandon us.
1. God knows what is going on, and in spite of the distancing of himself from God, God still intends to give David a way out. Let’s see how God accomplishes that.
2. The Bible says, “The Philistines gathered all their forces at Aphek, and Israel camped by the spring in Jezreel. As the Philistine rulers marched with their units of hundreds and thousands, David and his men were marching at the rear with Achish. The commanders of the Philistines asked, ‘What about these Hebrews?’
Achish replied, ‘Is this not David, who was an officer of Saul king of Israel? He has already been with me for over a year, and from the day he left Saul until now, I have found no fault in him.’
But the Philistine commanders were angry with him and said, ‘Send the man back, that he may return to the place you assigned him. He must not go with us into battle, or he will turn against us during the fighting. How better could he regain his master’s favor than by taking the heads of our own men? Isn’t this the David they sang about in their dances: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”’
So Achish called David and said to him, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, you have been reliable, and I would be pleased to have you serve with me in the army. From the day you came to me until now, I have found no fault in you, but the rulers don’t approve of you. Turn back and go in peace; do nothing to displease the Philistine rulers.’” (1 Sam. 29:1-7)
3. Achish’s leaders had every reason to challenge Achish and question David.
4. They were afraid that David would be like a Trojan Horse, and would fight against them rather than for them during the battle.
5. The majority opinion prevailed and Achish sent home David and his men.
6. David is actually hurt by the rejection and says, “‘But what have I done?’ asked David. ‘What have you found against your servant from the day I came to you until now? Why can’t I go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?’”
7. David finds himself in a bit of a fog – he’s truly a displaced person.
8. At the moment, he’s neither Philistine nor Israelite – he isn’t welcome in either camp.
9. He’s kind of like the sinful Christian who doesn’t feel comfortable in the things of God, but has lost interest in the path of sin –stuck in the middle.
I. So David and his men headed home only to really hit rock bottom.
1. The Bible says, “David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it, and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on their way.
When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep…David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters.” (1 Sam. 30:1-6)
2. Just try to imagine the shock when David and his men came over the hill and saw that the city that had been their home for the last year and a half was burned to the ground.
3. Worse than the physical destruction was the personal cost – all of their wives and children were gone.
4. This group of big, strong warriors wept until they had no more tears.
5. The pain is so great that the group turns on the one whom they have loved and followed, they talked of stoning David.
6. David has finally arrived at the bottom of the ladder of despair.
7. There are only two choices when a person reaches that spot, they either jump off into oblivion, or they look up and cry out to God.
J. Can you guess what David, our hero did?
1. The Bible says, “But David found strength in the LORD his God. Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, ‘Bring me the ephod.’ Abiathar brought it to him, and David inquired of the LORD, ‘Shall I pursue this raiding party? Will I overtake them?’ ‘Pursue them,’ he answered. ‘You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue.’” (30:6b-8)
2. Now you’re talking, David!
3. For the first time in 16 months, David looks up and says, “Oh God, please help me.”
4. And guess what? God did, and He always will.
5. David and his men are able to recover everything and everyone.
6. The Bible says, “David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives. Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back.” (1 Sam. 30:18-19)
K. We also get a glimpse of the generosity of David.
1. It was standard military convention that those who fought the battles got to enjoy the booty from the battle.
2. 200 of David’s 600 men were just too exhausted to go against the Amalekites and recover what had been lost.
3. When the 400 returned from the battle with the plunder, some of the troublemakers in the group refused to share the booty with those who had not gone into battle.
4. The Bible says, “David replied, ‘No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the LORD has given us. He has protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us. Who will listen to what you say? The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.’ David made this a statute and ordinance for Israel from that day to this.” (1 Sam. 30:23-25)
5. The Bible continues, David “sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were his friends, saying, ‘Here is a present for you from the plunder of the LORD’s enemies.’”(30:26)
6. It’s likely that David’s generosity toward the elders of Judah was likely intended to create political options and possibilities for himself in the future – and that was a wise thing to do.
II. The Application
A. The one lesson that I want to encourage us to consider and practice is this – turning to the Lord and trusting in Him is always the most important thing.
1. David had made some bad choices which led to some difficult days and some distance from the Lord.
2. But God was not far from him and was waiting for David to make that first step – to look toward the Lord.
3. Whenever we find ourselves in difficult circumstances, or deep in a sinful pit, or just distant from the Lord, all we have to do it reach out to God.
4. All we have to do is come home. God, our Father, is waiting at the door, ready to forgive and willing to restore.
5. It was time for David to return to the Lord. To get himself straightened out and be strengthened by the Lord.
6. How about you? Is that your need today?
B. For our Scripture Reading today we read from Psalm 25. We didn’t do so because it was written by David during this time – actually, David didn’t write any Psalms during this 16 month period.
1. No, I had us read this Psalm because the truths of the Psalm are appropriate for the situation that we find ourselves in when we have made poor choices and are experiencing difficult days.
2. Let’s look at the first 7 verses of that Psalm:
“To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.
No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame,
but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.
Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD.”
C. What a great prescription for those times when we are distant from God.
1. First of all, we should look to the Lord, lifting up our soul to Him, putting our trust in Him.
2. Second, we should ask the Lord to show us the right way, and guide us in that way.
3. Finally, we should ask God to forgive our sinful and rebellious ways, knowing God’s great mercy and love for us.
4. For we know that the Lord is good.
Resources:
David – A Man of Passion and Destiny, by Charles R. Swindoll, Word Publishing, 1997.
David I, by W. Phillip Keller, Word Books, 1985.
The Making of a Man of God, by Alan Redpath, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1962.
I and II Samuel, David F. Payne, The Daily Study Bible Series, Westminster Press, 1982
First and Second Samuel, J. Carl Laney, Everyman’s Bible Commentary, Moody Bible Institute, 1982.
First and Second Samuel, Eugene Peterson, Westminster Bible Companion, Westminster John Knox Press, 1999.
First and Second Samuel, Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation, John Knox Press, 1990.
“A Missing Person Report.” Sermon by T. Michael Crews
