Members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas have made quite a name for themselves in the past several years. The church is led by Pastor Fred Phelps, and though it has “Baptist” in the name of the church, it is not associated with any Baptist denomination. The church is focused on the idea that homosexuality is a sin, but they have carried their hatred to an extreme. They have created websites like “GodHatesAmerica.com” and a few others with names I wouldn’t even begin to share with you this morning.
This church believes that nearly every disaster and tragedy in the world is God’s punishment on the world for rampant homosexuality. According to their teaching, the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the 9/11 attacks, and the recent devastating hurricanes are all God’s judgment on our country. Recently they have even begun attending the funerals of soldiers from Iraq and holding signs that read “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “Thank God for IED’s [Improvised Explosive Devices]”. In fact this picture from one of their websites refers to the deaths of our service men and women in Iraq with this “prayer”:
2,443 - WBC Prays for it to be 244,443!!!
While I agree that the Bible very clearly teaches that homosexuality is a sin, it seems that only an extreme perversion of Christianity would result in the kind of behavior exhibited by these people, supposedly in the name of God. Unfortunately, while the Westboro Baptist Church may be one of the most extreme cases, this isn’t an isolated case.
This morning, as we continue our study of the life of David, we’re going to read about a man named Doeg who also carried out some pretty perverted plans in the name of God. We’ll compare how he and David approached their relationship with God quite differently and as a result, how the conduct of their lives contrasted so drastically.
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel 21. Due to time constraints, we’re only going to read a portion of Chapters 21 and 22, but you might want to take some time later this week to read both chapters in their entirety. In fact, we’ll come back and look at the first part of Chapter 22 again next week.
Read 1 Samuel 21:1-9; 1 Samuel 22:6-23.
Before we take a look at this passage in a little more detail, let me give you a warning. As I said the very first week, when we began our study of the life of David, David is not always a very good role model. He does quite a few things that are clearly wrong, just like we do. And the first part of this account is clearly one of those situations. David is afraid for his life and he lies and deceives. In the last part of Chapter 21, which we didn’t read just now, he does the same thing again. But just because the Bible records an action, unless it’s the action of Jesus, who we know is without sin, we can’t assume that God condones that action. We have to look at the entire context of the passage to determine if the action is just being reported, like I believe it is in this case, or if the action is an example we are to follow. I don’t believe that this passage in any way gives us justification to lie and deceive, even when we’re in trouble and afraid.
But in spite of his sin, at the end of this event, we still observe a man who is a man after God’s heart. And that ought to be our goal, too. Because we’re human, we’re going to be afraid and sometimes fear leads us to do things that are clearly sinful. But the important issue is how we deal with that sin, whether or not we can recover from our actions and get right with God again. And that’s where David’s life can really help us.
On the other hand, Doeg goes to the sanctuary, too. From all accounts, he was a religious man. But as we can see from his actions, he was certainly not a man after God’s heart. In fact, we never hear from him again in the rest of Scripture. It seems to me that Doeg was one of those people who used his religion to serve his own agenda and that, as a result, his religion got in the way of being a man after God’s own heart.
So what was it about David and Doeg that was so different? How is it that they both went to the same sanctuary, yet came away poles apart? Or to put it in more personal terms, how is it that every Sunday people come into this church and other churches all around the world and some of them leave with a heart to serve God and others leave and go out and pray for our soldiers to die?
Let’s look at this passage together this morning and see if we can determine…
How to keep religion from getting in the way of God:
1. Focus on relationship, not religion
When David went to meet Ahimelech at the tabernacle at Nob that day, it obviously wasn’t the first time that he had been there to seek God’s help. That’s clear from Ahimelech’s response to King Saul, after Saul accused him of siding with David:
Was that day the first time I inquired of God for him? Of course not!
1 Samuel 22: 15 (NIV)
Although we don’t have a lot to go on, it appears that David was in the habit of coming to Nob and asking Ahimelech to inquire of God on his behalf. He probably did that before he went out to battle. It’s not hard to imagine David wanting to know from God when and where to fight, how many men he needed, and other information that would make him successful in battle.
So when David is in trouble and Saul is after him, trying to kill him, David goes to the place he always goes – the sanctuary of God – because he has developed a relationship with God.
Doeg was also at the sanctuary that day, but for a completely different reason:
Now Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s chief herdsman, was there that day for ceremonial purification.
1 Samuel 21:7 (NLT)
The literal translation is that Doeg was “detained before the Lord”. In other words, he was there not because he wanted to be there, not because he had any kind of relationship with God, but out of a sense of duty. Although Doeg is described as Saul’s “chief herdsman”, more recent textual studies have found evidence that he was probably something more like the chief of Saul’s secret police. Since he was an Edomite, and not a Jew, he was apparently a convert who was at the sanctuary that day not to meet with God, but to carry out some religious ritual that would help him carry out his duties for King Saul.
That becomes obvious later when Doeg is able to tell Saul everything he had seen when David entered the sanctuary that day. Doeg obviously knew David previously. He had seen him come before Saul to play his harp and Doeg had to have known that Saul was after David. But since he was only carrying out a religious ritual and didn’t care a bit about a relationship with God, when he saw David enter the sanctuary it wasn’t hard to shift his focus to what David was doing and forget all about God.
If we’re not careful every one of us can become like Doeg, entering into the sanctuary out of a sense of duty or to fulfill some religious ritual. But God desires something much better for us – He wants to have a personal, intimate relationship with Him. He wants us to get to know Him and come to Him because it is our habit of coming to Him with our fears and needs. The words of the prophet Hosea make that very clear:
I want you to be merciful; I don’t want your sacrifices. I want you to know God; that’s more important than burnt offerings.
Hosea 6:6 (NLT)
Many times when I talk to someone about Jesus or about becoming His follower, they will say something like, “Well that may be good for you, but I’m just not a very religious person.” My response to them is, “That’s great, because neither was Jesus.” If you look at the life of Jesus, He was constantly rebuking the religious leaders because they had allowed their religion to get in the way of their relationships – with God and with others.
I’m convinced that when groups like the Westboro Baptist Church think the way they think and do the things they do, it’s a result of that same kind of viewpoint. They have substituted religion and ritual for a real, intimate, personal relationship with God. And as a result, their religion gets perverted and they do some pretty evil things in the name of God.
It’s pretty easy to recognize that groups like the Westboro Baptist Church have allowed religion to get in the way of God’s work in their lives, but before we’re too quick to condemn them, we need to guard against that same mindset. Our actions might not be quite so blatant, but if we’re not careful, we’ll come up with our own lists of rules that we expect others to follow. We’ll start deciding which sins are worse than others. And then, instead of focusing on God, we come to the sanctuary not to meet God, but to catch others who are violating our standards of conduct.
2. Focus on God’s person, not my plans
I think the reason that David went to the sanctuary when he was in trouble is because he had come to understand the nature of God. He knew that God was interested in him as a person and that God delighted in meeting his needs. That understanding of God had grown out of his relationship with God.
Unfortunately, however, when David got to the sanctuary that day, it seems that he temporarily forgot everything he knew about God. And so, instead of trusting God to provide for his needs, he chose to use lies and deceit to get what he needed. And yet, God still remained true to his nature. As we’ll see in a few minutes, there were some dire consequences that resulted from David’s sin, but in spite of David’s deception, God still provided food and a weapon for David.
The bread that Ahimelech gave to David that day was the consecrated bread known as the “bread of the presence”. Each week on the Sabbath, twelve loaves were baked to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. They were placed on a table in the Holy Place in the tabernacle and then the priests were allowed to eat the old bread.
In the first part of Matthew 12, Jesus referred to this event and He made it clear that God never intended the ceremonial laws to interfere with the meeting of genuine human needs. I think that David knew that about God and I believe that if he had just come and honestly explained his situation to Ahimelech, that Ahimelech would have still given David the bread. But instead, David lied. And God obviously knew He lied, but He still provided for David’s needs out of His mercy. And as a result, we know that once again David got His focus back on the person of God. How do we know?
The title of Psalm 52 tells us that David wrote that Psalm after this event. The first part of the Psalm is an indictment of Doeg for his actions that day and a promise of God’s punishment for his actions. But then at the end of the Psalm we read these words:
But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. I will praise you forever for what you have done; in your name I will hope, for your name is good. I will praise you in the presence of your saints.
Psalm 52: 8, 9 (NIV)
As we’ll see in a moment, David recognized his sin, but he also recognized the person of God. He knew that God was good and loving. And we know that, too. In fact, let’s read those two verses out loud together right now. (Read verses).
On the other hand, Doeg didn’t really care at all about the nature of God. He was just at the sanctuary that day to carry out his religious duties so that he could get on with his work. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Doeg came to the sanctuary that day and asked God to bless the work he planned to do. If we’re real honest, we’ll have to admit that we do that in our lives, too. We make our own plans, independent of God, ignoring the person of God and then we come to God and ask Him to bless our plans. But that’s a dangerous road to take. Here’s what the writer of the Proverbs writes about that kind of approach:
Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.
Proverbs 19:21 (NIV)
When Christianity gets perverted by people like those in the Westboro Baptist Church, it is almost always a result of focusing on man’s own plans instead of the nature of God. How could anyone who really understands the nature of God believe that God wants to kill innocent people as punishment for one specific sin that these victims don’t even participate in?
I don’t for a second want to give the impression that God doesn’t punish sin. God is a holy God and He must punish sin. In fact, everyone who does not accept Jesus as Forgiver and Master will one day face a horrible punishment for their sins. And because we live in a world that is full of sin, innocent people do often get hurt and killed. But the idea that God is this angry God who delights in punishing people is just not what my Bible teaches.
So we need to be careful of coming up with our own plans in the name of God and then asking God to bless those plans that He never had a part in creating.
These words from the prophet Jeremiah do a great job of summarizing this principle:
This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 9:23, 24 (NIV)
3. Focus on repentance, not rationalizing
As David watches this whole incident unfold, he recognizes his sin. He also realizes that his lies and deceit were responsible for the deaths of Ahimlelech, 84 other priests and almost every man, woman and child in the town of Nob. Here are the words of David recorded at the end of 1 Samuel 22:
Then David said to Abiathar: "That day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your father’s whole family.
1 Samuel 22:22 (NIV)
When David was faced with his sin, he had several choices, but ultimately there were really two options: He could either rationalize his sin or he could repent. He could have thought to himself, “Even if I had told Ahimelech the truth, Saul still would have ordered him and the others to be killed. So it’s not that big of deal. It’s not really my fault.”
I’ll be real honest with you. I’ve done that before in my life. I’m not proud of it and I know it wasn’t right, but I’ve done it. And my guess is that you have done that, too. Even David is not totally immune from doing that in his life at times. But David’s heart when he came face-to-face with his own sin was to repent.
Doeg, on the other hand had no problem rationalizing his actions. He had to know that God was not behind Saul’s order to kill the priests. And not even Saul had ordered him to kill the rest of the inhabitants of Nob. I don’t know exactly what Doeg was thinking. Perhaps he thought he was justified in his actions because in his eyes David had betrayed God’s anointed king and therefore anyone who helped David do that deserved death. Perhaps he thought that he would endear himself to Saul even more and that he’d get a raise and a promotion.
But I do know this. David’s response pulled him closer to God and Doeg’s response pushed him further away from God. As I mentioned earlier, Doeg is never again mentioned in the Bible.
I don’t know a whole lot about the history of Westboro Baptist Church, but my guess is that they began with good intentions. They probably wanted to live holy lives and heed Paul’s warning not to conform to the pattern of this world. But as they began to take action that clearly violated Scriptural principles, I’m would also venture to guess that they began to rationalize those actions. They probably began to think that the ends justify the means.
Because we are human beings, we are going to continue to sin as long as we live here on this earth. And when we sin, it is our response that will either draw us closer to God or push us away further from Him. We can repent like David and admit our sin and our guilt and then turn our lives around and learn from those mistakes. That will bring us closer to God. Or, like Doeg, we can try to rationalize our actions and just keep on sinning. That will push us away from God. Paul described that very process in his second letter to the church at Corinth:
I know I distressed you greatly with my letter. Although I felt awful at the time, I don’t feel at all bad now that I see how it turned out. The letter upset you, but only for a while. Now I’m glad - not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss. Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.
2 Corinthians 2:8-10 (Message)
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to end up on a deathbed of regrets. And that requires repentance, not rationalization.
Do you want to keep religion from getting in the way of God?
1. Focus on relationship, not religion
2. Focus on God’s person, not my plans
3. Focus on repentance, not rationalizing
Looking Back
1. Is my Christianity more of a religion or a relationship? What practical steps can I take to develop my relationship with God?
2. When I spend time with God, do I ask Him to bless my plans or do I try to get to know Him better so I can follow His plans?
3. When God reveals sin in my life, do I try to rationalize it, or do I repent and seek God’s help in turning away from that sin?
Looking Ahead
1. Read 1 Samuel Chapters 22 and 27. Think about both the blessings and challenges of living together in community with other beli
