When Faith Goes Quiet: David In Philistine Country Series

When Faith Goes Quiet: David in Philistine Country

September 23, 2025

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

1 Samuel 27:1-28:2

There are moments in the Christian life when we stop listening to God and start listening to ourselves. Sometimes that inner voice is not a voice of faith but of fear. We call it “being realistic” or “practical,” but often it’s just fear baptizing itself as wisdom.

David, the man after God’s own heart, shows us in 1 Samuel 27 what happens when fear takes the microphone in our hearts. After two chapters of incredible faith—sparing Saul’s life twice, honoring God’s timing—David suddenly shifts gears. He stops inquiring of the LORD, and instead he starts talking to himself. And the results are sobering.

On January 28, 1986, the world watched in horror as the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after liftoff. Seven astronauts perished, including Christa McAuliffe, the schoolteacher chosen to inspire millions of children.

The cause? A tiny rubber O-ring on the rocket booster—compromised by cold weather. Engineers had warned leadership it wasn’t safe. But under pressure to stay on schedule, the warnings were brushed aside. The launch went ahead anyway. The result: catastrophic failure on live television.

Compromise doesn’t always happen in a single dramatic decision. Often, it happens like the frog in the kettle. Drop a frog in boiling water, and it will leap out immediately. But place it in cool water and slowly raise the heat, and it will stay until it dies. That’s compromise. You don’t feel the danger until it’s too late.

And beloved, that is exactly where much of the church finds itself today. The water is warming. The warnings are ignored. The compromises seem small—until suddenly we realize we are neck-deep in the doctrine of demons, false gospels, and a Christless Christianity.

This is the clarion call of 1 Samuel 27–28. David didn’t leap off a cliff in one day. He said in his heart, “I shall perish by Saul’s hand.” One compromise of fear led to a year and four months of silence, deception, and almost fighting against God’s own people.

And it’s happening in the church right now. We didn’t get here by one leap; we got here by a slow boil:

• Questioning everything from the Creation to the Prophetic return of Christ

• Trading biblical preaching for entertainment.

• Redefining sin instead of repenting of it.

• Replacing the sufficiency of Christ with self-help slogans.

• Ignoring prophecy because it makes us uncomfortable.

This is the frog in the kettle. This is the Challenger O-ring. This is the church of compromise. So tonight, we’re going to let David’s Ziklag season expose where we have settled into compromise, so that we can hear the Spirit’s call: Wake up, repent, strengthen what remains, and return to the Lord.

When we stop seeking the LORD and start listening to fear, we drift into compromise. Yet even in those detours, God’s providence preserves His people—but His mercy is never permission to remain in the land of compromise

Then David said in his heart, “Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.” 2 So David arose and went over, he and the six hundred men who were with him, to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath. 3 And David lived with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, and David with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail of Carmel, Nabal’s widow. 4 And when it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, he no longer sought him. 5 Then David said to Achish, “If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be given me in one of the country towns, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?” 6 So that day Achish gave him Ziklag. Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day.

7 And the number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months. 8 Now David and his men went up and made raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as far as Shur, to the land of Egypt. 9 And David would strike the land and would leave neither man nor woman alive, but would take away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the garments, and come back to Achish.

10 When Achish asked, “Where have you made a raid today?” David would say, “Against the Negeb of Judah,” or, “Against the Negeb of the Jerahmeelites,” or, “Against the Negeb of the Kenites.” 11 And David would leave neither man nor woman alive to bring news to Gath, thinking, “lest they should tell about us and say, ‘So David has done.’ ” Such was his custom all the while he lived in the country of the Philistines. 12 And Achish trusted David, thinking, “He has made himself an utter stench to his people Israel; therefore he shall always be my servant.”