Last week we started a new series looking at David in the Old Testament.
I made two very simple points. First, David is a huge figure in the Bible. There is loads about him in the Old Testament. That alone means that David must be really important. But even more significant is the way the New Testament regards him. Jesus is referred to as ‘Son of David’ at the beginning of the New Testament and at the end and all the way through. There is a connection between David and Jesus.
That connection between David and Jesus gives us a clue as to WHY David is so important. As the second king of Israel, David transformed Israel as a nation. He was an extraordinary warrior. He was an amazing poet. Humanly speaking, those things make David important. But the BIG reason why David is so important is the connection between David and Jesus. David is a ‘type’ for Jesus. He modelled what Jesus would be like. What makes this even more significant and exciting is that there are aspects of Jesus which we have so far only glimpsed. 2,000 years ago, Jesus entered our world in the role of suffering servant. He IS king, but so far, he hasn’t taken up his rule. In David, however, we see someone with the heart of God ruling over God’s people. I believe that in David, we can see something of what Jesus WILL be like when he comes again and takes up his kingship.
That was where we reached last week.
This week, we’re going to start to look at David’s story. I’ve got a couple of books about David. One of them is a set of 12 Bible studies. There are 60 or more chapters in the Bible about David so the person who put this set of studies had to make a choice about which bits to look at. His first study is about Samuel anointing David king. That’s 1 Samuel 16. His second study is about David defeating Goliath. That’s 1 Samuel 17. His third study is about David’s friendship with Jonathan. That’s 1 Samuel 20. The studies skip 1 Samuel 18 and 19. But those are exactly the chapters I’m going to focus on today.
Let me give some context. God tells the prophet Samuel to go to Jesse’s house and anoint one of Jesse’s sons as king. Samuel goes and asks Jesse to call his sons. Jesse somehow omits to call David. Samuel doesn’t sense God directing him towards any of the sons he’s seen so far. He asks Jesse if he has any more. Jesse says, ‘Oh, yes. There’s David. He’s looking after the sheep.’ David comes and God tells Samuel, ‘Arise, anoint him, for this is he.’ After Samuel anoints David we read, ‘And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.’ What an amazing experience for David!
Later, but in the same chapter, we find that David has gone to work for Saul. And it says, ‘And Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armour bearer’ [1 Samuel 16:21].
In the next chapter, David faces off against Goliath – and defeats him! David, a teenager, defeats the Philistine champion! What an achievement! Saul puts David in charge of the men of war.
David must have felt on top of the world.
But suddenly, everything changes.
David comes home from a campaign. The women come out, singing, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.’ Then it says, ‘And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?”’ [1 Samuel 18:7-8]. Saul is envious of David and sees him as a threat.
The following chapters detail successive stages of David fleeing from Saul. In 1 Samuel 18, Saul twice hurls a spear at David. For quite a few chapters, every time Saul is mentioned, he seems to have a spear in his hand!
In the next chapter Saul tries again to spear David. David flees and goes home. Later that night, his wife Michal warns him, and he flees from his house. Later, Jonathan asks his father, Saul, about David. He finds out that Saul definitely intends to kill David. David flees once again. This time, he goes to Philistine territory. The Philistines see him as a threat, and he pretends to be insane. Now, he flees to the wilderness, to ‘The Cave of Adullam.’
David goes from hero to zero.
He has gone from being on top of the world to being in the pits. He’s in a cave! And it all happened so fast.
What’s going on? David was God’s anointed! And now, he’s a fugitive! How can the person God chose be a fugitive? It doesn’t make sense!
What can we learn from David? Much!
DAVID TOLD GOD WHAT HE WAS THINKING!
We don’t have to guess what David was feeling at that time. David tells us. Psalm 142 has an inscription: ‘A Maskil of David, when he was in the cave.’
This is how David starts:
With my voice I cry out to the Lord;
with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.
I pour out my complaint before him;
I tell my trouble before him [Psalm 142:1,2]
You may be thinking, That’s not very exciting! But it’s very basic. You’re in a metaphorical cave. You’re in a dark, cold, smelly place. Then do what David did! CRY OUT TO THE LORD! Life isn’t fair? Someone is treating you badly? TELL JESUS! You don’t need to bottle it up. Jesus is your friend. He can take it. And he can help!
David definitely DIDN’T feel it was fair. He asked his friend Jonathan, ‘What have I done? What is my guilt? And what is my sin before your father, that he seeks my life?’ [1 Samuel 20:1]. David hadn’t done anything wrong – and Saul was trying to kill him.
Is that a normal situation? I went to a boarding school. I was a Christian and I didn’t try to hide it. There were times when other boys – the school was almost exclusively boys – made things really hard for me. The housemaster of my house was a Christian. I remember going and talking to him about it. I’m pretty sure I thought it was really unfair. But that is the nature of the Christian life. Listen to this verse:
‘More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause’ [Psalm 69:4]. That’s a psalm of David, speaking prophetically about Jesus. There are several other verses that have the same idea of persecution without cause. The point is that being persecuted is part of Christian life. People do persecute Christians WITHOUT CAUSE. It’s painful, but regrettably, it’s normal.
It’s also completely normal for a Christian who is right in the centre of God’s purposes to be surrounded with problems! Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia beckoning him and his friends to go over to Macedonia. They go. One of the first places they come to is Philippi. When they get there, they are severely beaten and thrown into prison. Did they misread God’s leading? Not at all.
When we’re in a situation like David, when people are persecuting us without cause, let’s do what David did! CRY OUT TO THE LORD! That’s Lesson 1.
What else can we learn from David?
DAVID DEPENDED ON GOD
As Christians, God wants us to learn to depend on him. He has a capacity far beyond our own. In his strength we can do a huge amount. But we have to learn to depend on him.
There’s an old Indiana Jones movie called The Last Crusade. Indiana Jones comes to a great chasm. He can’t see any way over it. But he believes there must be a way. He says, ‘It’s a leap of faith.’ Indiana Jones steps out and discovers there’s an invisible bridge he can walk on. That’s a bit like the Christian life. God is invisible but he’s absolutely dependable. But depending on God doesn’t come naturally. Left to ourselves we put our trust in our friends or our money or our good jobs or our intelligence. Often, we only learn to trust in God when everything else we might depend on has disappeared. God may place us in a situation where, humanly speaking, we have nothing, so we learn to depend on him.
How did that work out for David?
David had a good position in the army. He lost that. He was married, but he had to say goodbye to his wife. He went to stay with Samuel but had to leave him. He had to say goodbye to his friend Jonathan. He had to feign insanity and in doing that, he said goodbye to his self-respect. By the time David reached the cave of Adullam, David had no one left to depend on. That’s what he wrote. Let’s go back Psalm 142. This is verse 4:
Look to the right and see:
there is none who takes notice of me;
no refuge remains to me;
no one cares for my soul [Psalm 142:4].
None. No refuge. No one. David is on his own. But read what David says next:
I cry to you, O Lord;
I say, ‘You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living’ [Psalm 142:5].
There may be times in our lives when we feel like David. We’ve hit rock bottom. We’re in the cave, alone. No one takes notice of us. No one cares for our soul. But at that point, David looked to God. He reminded himself of who God is. ‘You are my refuge’, he said. Does it matter if every other means of support has been removed? Not if God is still there. God is his true refuge.
David wrote another psalm when he was in the cave. It's Psalm 57. It starts as follows:
Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,
for in you I take refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.
First, David says, 'In you I take refuge.' It sounds like that's his practice. Then he says, 'I WILL take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.' It sounds like that's his commitment.
Lesson 1 is, Do what David did. Call out to God.
Lesson 2 is, Do what David did. Remind yourself that God is your refuge. But don't just remind yourself that God is your refuge. Commit yourself to taking refuge in God. Remain in him. Trust in him. Pray to him. Seek his guidance.
What else can we learn from David?
DAVID WAS WARY
David expected to have to flee. But he and his friend Jonathan wanted to know what Saul really intended to do. They come up with a plan to find out. Jonathan thinks that Saul, his father, will tell him what he intends to do. But David tells Jonathan that isn’t so. He tells Jonathan, “Your father knows well that I have found favour in your eyes, and he thinks, ‘DO NOT LET JONATHAN KNOW THIS, lest he be grieved’” [1 Samuel 20:3].
Saul was trying to kill David. David expects that he will act and speak deceitfully. What Saul said could not be trusted. The lesson for us is that there’s a place to NOT trust people. One day, David would be king. He would meet people who would tell him all sorts of things, truths and untruths. David learned to be wary, to not be quick to trust what people told him.
Lesson 3 is, Do what David did. Don’t be in a hurry to trust people. That doesn't mean we should never trust people. We just should be in a hurry to.
We’ve reached the end of our reflection on David: the anointed fugitive. Let me repeat the three main lessons I’ve suggested we can take from these chapters.
First: If people are persecuting us and being mean to us, if we’re metaphorically in a dark cave, do what David did. Cry out to the Lord!
Second: If we feel insecure, if we feel that everyone has abandoned us, do what David did. Remember that God is our refuge.
And third: Don’t be in a hurry to trust people.
TALK GIVEN AT ROSEBERY PARK BAPTIST CHURCH, BOURNEMOUTH, UK, 25TH AUGUST 2024, 10.30 A.M. SERVICE
