When David’s bad decisions started to burn him, he didn’t try to control things. He didn’t despair, and he didn’t get angry or blame others. Instead, he accepted his own part in the mess, turned to the Lord, and clung to Him in obstinate, persistent faith. The life of faith isn’t about performing perfectly, or even performing well. It is about grabbing hold of the Lord in trust, even when you might not understand what he is doing, and holding on for dear life, through good and bad, through the evil brought about by others and the messes brought about by yourself. This, and this alone, is what made David such a great man.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 30

1 Samuel #30. 1 Samuel Chapter 29:1-30:8. David in Jeopardy (again).

A few weeks ago we observed that though David went to live among the Philistines without consulting God, things seemed to go well for him. But starting this chapter, and culminating in the next two, we will learn why it was a mistake. Remember, even though David made this mistake, God was gracious and continued to work for David and through him.

At the beginning of chapter 28, David was put in a very difficult position. He had deceived king Achish of Gath into believing that he had been attacking Israelites. So when all the Philistines together began a campaign against the Israelites, Achish invited David along to fight against his fellow Israelites. In fact, it sounds almost like a test of loyalty. He essentially said to David, “you know of course, you and your men must come along with me.” David answered: “Good. You will find out what I can do.” Notice, he doesn’t say who he is going to do it to. I think David secretly meant, “Good, you’ll find out what kind of warrior I am when I have to fight you.” Achish, believing as he did that David had truly defected to the Philistines, did not catch the possible double meaning. Instead, he felt that David passed the test of loyalty, and he even wanted David to become his lifetime bodyguard. So David was on his way to the war between the Philistines and Israelites – but he was on the wrong side.

I need to briefly set out the strategic situation, because it will be important later on. The Philistines decided on a new tactic in the war against Israel. Rather than attack directly east into the mountainous region of Israel, the Philistines marched north along the Mediterranean coast to one of the flattest places in Israel, known as the Jezreel Valley. This valley is a kind of lowland gap that bisects mountainous Israel roughly from the Mediterranean coast at the northwestern of Jezreel, all the way to the Jordan River valley at the southeast end of the Jezreel gap. If the Philistines were able to fight through here, they would separate large chunks of Israel from each other, and they would have access to the fertile Jordan Valley. To get there, David and his men (along with the king of Gath and his men) would have to march about 130 miles to the north.

Now, I want you to picture how it was for David and his men. In the past, David consistently refused to hurt Saul. He, and his men have never attacked fellow Israelites. But now, suddenly, they are marching to war against Saul and the people of Israel, allied with their long-time hated enemies, the Philistines. I can’t imagine that David’s men were happy about this.

They had two choices. First, they could do what they appeared to be doing, which was, to remain allies with the Philistines, and fight on their side during the battle. This choice could create considerable emotional and spiritual turmoil. They might find themselves facing friends and relatives, and truthfully, I doubt they would have believed in the righteousness of the Philistine cause for war. If they did this, they would be true traitors, and Saul, for all his unfair suspicions in the past, would be proved right in the end. If they won, they would have destroyed their country, and no one in Israel would ever accept David as king again. If they lost, of course, many of them would be dead, but those who weren’t killed in battle would be executed as traitors by the victorious Israelites.

Their second choice was to betray the Philistines in the middle of the battle. But that would be problematic for several reasons. First, it would show them as faithless to the Philistines who have treated them fairly for more than a year. Also, if they did that, they would be immediately fighting behind enemy lines, surrounded by the enemy army. Casualties would be very heavy. Another thing is that the other Israelites might not understand what David’s men were doing, and if they were able to fight through and link up with Saul’s army, the Israelites might start fighting them anyway. Remember there were no cell phones or radios for them to communicate their intentions to the Israelite army. Finally, Saul’s history shows that even extreme demonstrations of loyalty do not convince him for long. There is no guarantee that turning on the Philistines would actually win Saul’s favor. Saul might even take the battle as an opportunity to kill David, even if he knows that David is helping him.

We don’t know what David would have done – it is not clear in the text. I suspect that he had some vague thought of turning on the Philistines, and rallying the Israelites. We’ll never know, however, because some of the other Philistines interfered. David was allied with king Achish of Gath. But there were five Philistine kings altogether. Each Philistine King ruled over a city and some surrounding territory. When the other four kings saw that Achish had David and 600 Hebrew warriors with him, they objected strenuously. They felt they couldn’t trust him, and so reluctantly, Achish sent David back to the town he had given him, Ziklag. David objected to Achish, and I’m not sure if the objection was genuine, or merely to maintain the deception that he was truly loyal.

In any case, it seems to me that the Lord arranged things to get David out of a very difficult position. David had placed himself there by deceiving Achish about who he was raiding over the past year. It was his own fault that he was between a rock and a hard place. But the Lord extricated him anyway. This is more evidence of God’s incredible, undeserved grace. So David and his men did not take part in the battle, but traveled home to Ziklag. We don’t know if they went all the way to the Jezreel valley, but they must have gone some distance, because it took them three days to get back.

When they arrived they received a horrible shock – their homes were burned to the ground, and all their wives, children and possessions were gone.

The Amalekites had been very wily. They had seen that the Philistines and Israelites were focusing all their attention on one another. So when the armies were gone, they raided all through the southern territories of both peoples, finding only defenseless towns and villages, because all the men had gone off to war.

This was as horrible as it sounds. Imagine your own home burned to the ground and your family kidnapped. David and his men were naturally devastated at the loss of their families. It says:

Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. (1Sam 30:4, ESV)

When the grief was over, anger kicked in. But it was chiefly anger against David. His men had fairly good reasons to complain. David had led them to settle with the Philistines  in the first place. David had not let them be at peace in Ziklag, but had insisted on raiding the Amalekites, arousing their ire. David had decided to deceive the Philistines into thinking they were allies. Therefore it was David’s fault that they had marched away with the Philistine armies, leaving their families defenseless. The men talked not just of mutiny, but of stoning David to death. Stoning wasn’t considered murder – it was considered a righteous punishment for gross wrongdoing.

Try and get inside the mind of David for a minute. There is no doubt that he himself had made a mess of things. He didn’t have many good options to start with, with Saul chasing him, and people betraying him, but even so, all his choices of the past 18 months had led to this mess. He had lost his own family. He had lost the families of his faithful men, and all the possessions they had finally been able to accumulate after years of homelessness. Now his men were turning on him.

There were several options for David at that point. He could have said, “Yes, go ahead and stone me.” That would have been the response of despair and giving up. Or, he could have gotten angry. War leaders in those days had a great deal of authority over their men. He was, after all, God’s anointed. He could have rebuked his men, and blamed them for some of what happened. After all, there is no doubt that they had been happier in Ziklag than wandering homeless in the desert. He would have been within his rights to execute the ringleaders of the rebellion. He could have tried to fix the problem himself immediately, trusting in his own strength and wisdom to pull off some kind of miracle.

Instead, it says:

But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God. (1 Samuel 30:6)

The word “strengthened himself” is the Hebrew word transliterated “chazaq.” It means to seize upon, to lay hold of with obstinate persistence. The sense it gives us is that David focused and fastened his heart, mind, soul and strength on God and God alone, and held on for dear life. He did not immediately try to fix anything or even to defend himself. He just held on to the Lord.

David almost certainly wrote Psalm 62. We don’t know when in his life he did so, but this moment would certainly fit. Hear him strengthen himself in the Lord:

1 For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.
3 How long will all of you attack a man
to batter him,
like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
4 They only plan to thrust him down from his high position.
They take pleasure in falsehood.
They bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse.
5 For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
6 He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
7 On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. (Psalms 62:1-8, ESV)

Once more, we see evidence of David’s faith-filled heart. There is no doubt that he had already made some very bad decisions in his life. He was in a mess created by some of those unfortunate choices right now. But his instinct was always to turn back to the Lord.

That is the life of faith. Make sure you understand this. The life of faith isn’t about performing perfectly, or even performing well. It is about grabbing hold of the Lord in trust, even when you might not understand what he is doing, and holding on for dear life, through good and bad, through the evil brought about by others and the messes brought about by yourself. This, and this alone, is what made David such a great man.

We can see how David’s focus on the Lord brought him back on track. He already knew that the Amalekites were God’s enemies. Clearly, they had already attacked, and this was war. In the views of that time and culture, it was certainly David’s right to pursue them and bring them to battle if he could. In addition, it was probably also the natural response to be angry and seek revenge; it would feel right. So, it would be easy to assume that they should pursue the Amalekites. But David, after strengthening himself in the Lord, also humbled himself, assuming nothing, wanting earnestly to hear from God. Therefore before doing anything else, he inquired of the Lord.

As I’ve mentioned before, “inquiring of the Lord” most likely involved a sacrifice and a worship service, and possibly even a fellowship meal. It wasn’t a quick thing. You had to sings songs and say some liturgy. You had to butcher the animal, and then cook it, along with other food, and then serve it out to everyone and eat. Going from killing to eating an animal the size of a sheep or goat is a matter of some hours. But David took the time to worship the Lord, and to lead his men to do the same before anything else was done. All this time, it would be natural to think: The Amalekites are getting further and further away. But David did it anyway, because he thought that getting right with the Lord was even more important than the tactical advantage of a quick pursuit.

Think for a moment about your typical response when you are in difficulties. Do you tend to trust yourself to come up with a solution? Do you want to control the situation and work it out, essentially save yourself? If you are in a situation where time is short, do you begrudge any time to pray and listen to God?

Or maybe your response is depression and despair. You might tend to think the worst will happen to you, so you may as well get resigned to your fate. Perhaps you even blame yourself and accept that you deserve the disaster because you brought it on yourself.

Possibly, you take another approach – you blame others, and get angry at them when things don’t go well. It helps you feel better, or more righteous, to say it is someone else’s fault.

I think we all tend toward one or more of these things when trouble comes. I want to encourage us, however, to be more like David. He didn’t do any of these. Instead, he fastened his hope and trust on the Lord. Like a bulldog latching on and not letting go, he focused on God with all his soul, heart and strength. All the energy that he might have put into controlling the situation, or blaming others or blaming himself, he instead put into holding on to the Lord.

Don’t put your energy into blame, or self-abuse. Don’t even put your energy into fixing things. Put all your focus into obstinate faith. This is just as important when you know your problems are mostly your own fault.

What is the Lord saying to you through this part of scripture today?

What are you going to do about it?

Who are you going to tell about it?