A Servant Desperate for God January 31, Samuel 21:1-22:5 Matt Rawlings

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1 A Servant Desperate for God January 31, Samuel 21:1-22:5 Matt Rawlings 1 Samuel 21:1-22:5 Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David trembling and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no one with you?" 2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, 'Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.' I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here." 4 And the priest answered David, "I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread- if the young men have kept themselves from women." 5 And David answered the priest, "Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?" 6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away. 7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the LORD. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen. 8 Then David said to Ahimelech, "Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste." 9 And the priest said, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here." And David said, "There is none like that; give it to me." 10 And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said to him, "Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, 'Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands'?" 12 And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13 So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. 14 Then Achish said to his servants, "Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? 15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?" 1 David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. 2 And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became captain over them. And there were with him about four hundred men. 3 And David went from there to Mizpeh of Moab. And he said to the king of Moab, "Please let my father and my mother stay with you, till I know what God will do for me." 4 And he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold. 5 Then the prophet Gad said to David, "Do not remain in the stronghold; depart, and go into the land of Judah." So David departed and went into the forest of Hereth. Maybe today, you came to church feeling desperate. Maybe you are in a desperate financial situation. Maybe you are without work or maybe you re just buried under debt, either out of your control or maybe due to bad decisions. Perhaps you feel desperately unqualified and unable to carry out your responsibilities at work or in your family or in the home. You may be a husband who feels desperately unable to care for and love and lead his wife as God has called you to do. 1

2 You could be a mom who feels desperately unable to ever get ahead of the needs of her children or household and you feel buried under dishes and diapers and snotty noses. Maybe you are a desperate kid or teen, who is being harassed or made fun or and you don t feel like you can make it. Or maybe you are desperately struggling to survive in school or just get good grades so that you don t fail and so that maybe one day you can make it to college. Perhaps you are in a desperate relationship with a difficult family member or spouse or maybe you are desperate for your children to obey or desperate for your children to just know God. Perhaps you are desperate for companionship and you feel all alone. Maybe you have some addiction that you feel desperately ruled by. Maybe you feel desperately unable to change or maybe you desperately desire to stop some pattern of hidden sin. Or maybe you are in a conflict with someone else and you desperately are aware of your need for God to reconcile a difficult or even an otherwise hopeless situation. Or maybe you are desperate for some other reason. That is why we need to pay attention and read this account of David to see how God treats His desperate servant. The main idea I believe God wants us to see from this passage is that Main Idea: God is gracious, merciful, providential and personal to His desperate followers. The good news is that the Bible is chock full of stories of desperate people in desperate times, who God helps in their time of desperation. Noah and his wife and children clung to God in desperate faith in an evil time and God saved them through the storm and flood and brought them safely to the other side. Jacob, desperately fleeing his brother Esau after he had deceived him Desperate Naaman, who had leprosy and was healed Desperate Mordecai and Esther, who God used to deliver His people Desperate Naomi, whose husband and two sons died in a foreign land and yet, God brought a kinsman redeemer, Boaz, to her Moabite daughter-in-law, when they were destitute and could only pick up the leftovers of wheat in the field and God used Boaz to care The desperate woman at the well, whom Jesus sought out to give the water of life The desperate man whose son was possessed with a demon and used to throw himself into the fire. The desperate prostitute who faced stoning and Jesus rescued with a word and freed from sin The desperate man on the cross beside Jesus, who acknowledged who Jesus was in his dying hour and knew the salvation of God at the very end. In one sense or another, we are all desperate people aren t we? But right off the bat, the encouraging thing that we see in the first nine verses of this passage, is that 1. God graciously provides for His servant Nob was about two and a half miles southeast of Gibeah, where David had fled from, after Jonathan had told him that the Lord was sending him away from Saul his father, because Saul intended to kill David. It is thought by some scholars that perhaps Nob was the place of the tabernacle and the priesthood at that time, even though the Ark of the Covenant wasn t kept 2

3 there. So, David is fleeing from Saul in a hurry. He didn t take time to pack or get supplies or his weapons from his house, because his house was being watched. And as he ran away, he stopped by the only place where he probably thought he might find assistance or sanctuary he went to the priest in Nob. In the Middle Ages, churches were often a place of sanctuary, where one could rely on provisions, shelter and care. Perhaps David was thinking along the lines that surely the priests would behave in a godly way towards him. David couldn t trust anyone. If anyone knew that Saul was out to kill him, then they would be seen as aiding and abetting a criminal and he also ran the risk of being turned in by a citizen wanting to get on Saul s good side or maybe get a reward. But when David goes to Ahimelech, Ahimelech trembled in fear when he met David. He seemed to smell a rat so he asked, why was the once head of the king s armies here alone? And why isn t anyone with him, as normally would have been the case. Maybe Ahimilech was intimidated by David, the mighty warrior, or maybe Ahimilech knew that Saul wanted to kill David. So, perhaps when he saw David by himself, he knew it meant that David didn t have Saul s support and he was afraid that Saul would be angry with Ahimelech too. In any case, David came up with a cover story quickly. It doesn t seem like it was well-thought through though. He tells Ahimilech, Listen, the reason I am alone is because I wanted to tell you privately that the King has sent me on a secret mission and he told me that I can t tell anyone else about it. And the reason why I don t have anyone with me outside the tent, is because I am meeting them in a secret location. Then David asks, what do you have on hand? implying that he is in a hurry and doesn t have time to wait for Ahimelech to fix him something to eat. So, just give me five loaves or whatever you have here. Then, the priest says, David, I don t have anything to eat here at the tabernacle but there is holy bread, and you can have it as long as the men have kept themselves pure. David tells him, of course the men have kept themselves from being with women, just like we always do when my troops go out on expedition. This was something that we learn about in 2 Samuel must have been common, since later Uriah won t be with his wife while his men are at the battle. And David says, if we consecrate ourselves from being with women on normal missions, how much more today on this secret mission will we keep holy. So then we see that the priest gives him the holy bread which is described in verse 6 as the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord. This is the show-bread the twelve very large loaves that the priests were to prepare and present to God on behalf of the twelve tribes of Israel. And the bread would then be taken and given to provide for the needs of the priests and their families. This was unlike the offerings made to other pagan gods of the time, where the people of the city of Erech were to make daily sacrificial offerings, to feed and sustain and supply the needs of their temple god Anu. But it was not like this with the show bread God did not pretend to eat it but He ordered that it be given to the priests for their food. In a way, it was symbolic of God providing for His people from His own presence. God provides for us and feeds us Himself. He also gave David what he needed to defend himself. Next, David asks Ahimelech for a spear or a sword and then pretends that he forgot to bring his weapons with him because he was in such a hurry. And what are the chances, but the very sword of Goliath, whom David had killed 3

4 was right there, wrapped up in a cloth, hidden behind the ephod. So, Ahimelech offers David the sword of Goliath and David says, there is none like that one give it to me. God graciously provided for David and all His servants. Sometimes, He does this in big ways we can clearly see and other times, it is through the simple provision of our daily bread. Look and see how God is providing for you in the midst of desperation. You may have to really think about it, but He often provides in seemingly mundane ways and feeds us in ways we might take for granted. Next, we see in verses that God mercifully delivers His servant, even when he does something pretty foolish. 2. God mercifully delivers His servant How often have you done something foolish or made a mistake that you felt like you couldn t get out of? I know that I have done foolish things so many times I have lost count, but God has often, although not always, mercifully delivered me. We see David running and he is so desperate that he runs to a pretty foolish place. You see, he can t go to his wife, because Saul s men will catch him and kill him. He can t go to his hometown, where he would be expected to run. He is also probably so well recognized by all the chief soldiers in Israel that it would make fleeing to almost any city a dangerous proposition. He doesn t know where he can turn or where he can run, so, in desperation, he runs to Gath, the city where Goliath was from. And David goes straight to seek an audience with Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. Now, there is a good chance that David may have fought in battle against Achich or at least the men in his service. But, back in that day, there were no pictures or portraits, so maybe David was banking on them not recognizing him, so that he could get hired on as a mercenary. So, David walks into Gath, with the largest, and probably the most famous sword in all the land, that belonged to Goliath. We re not sure what David was thinking, but it wasn t too smart was it? Well, we read that the servants of Achish quickly recognized David and they said isn t this David, the king of the land, who they all sing about in dances saying, 'Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands? " Apparently the Hebrew songs were catchy and the tales of David spread all the way to the Philistines. But when David found out that they recognized him and that they knew that he was the one who had killed Goliath and many Philistines, to earn the reputation he had, he was rightly afraid. So, David improvised again, and he pretended to be insane. It says that he acted insane and started making marks on the doors of the gate, probably where he had gone to seek an audience with the King. On a few memorable occasions in my life, I have dealt with people who acted crazy like this. One of those times was when I was working for security, in reception out at the entrance to the government building I worked at. A man showed up with a crazy look in his eyes, wild hair and teeth rotting out of his head and he told me that the GBI was following him and he had evaded them all the way from Atlanta to Virginia. He told me that they had implanted listening devices into his mouth and he could hear them talking to him and making him crazy. He said he had to get in to let the government know what he found out about them. In the meanwhile, we had 4

5 given a sign to the uniformed guards and while I talked to him, the guards approached him from the sides and restrained him. There was no way we were letting him into see anyone there. Maybe Achish was a little exasperated with his servants thinking, are you kidding me you let this crazy guy in to see me? What kind of security are you? After all, here is this guy they claimed to be the great threat David, and he is crazily scrawling on the city gates, drooling and letting spit run down his beard and I can imagine him maybe muttering incoherent words, just loud enough to be heard. So, Achish tell his servants, don t you see this many is crazy? Why have you brought him to me? And he basically says, do you think that I am really lacking in madmen? Do you think that s what I need more of I already have enough madmen why did you bring me this guy to come and act crazy in front of me? Do you really want this guy to come into my house? So, they let David go. And reading the account, we can think, well, that was quick thinking of David, he really got himself out of a jam didn t he? But that is not the way that David looked at what happened. David was desperate and he prayed that God would deliver him and God did just that. That isn t in this account, but we know that is what happened and how David interpreted it. And you may ask, how do I know that if it isn t in this account? Well, we have some of David s journal entries Psalm 34:1-10 OF DAVID, WHEN HE CHANGED HIS BEHAVIOR BEFORE ABIMELECH, SO THAT HE DROVE HIM OUT, AND HE WENT AWAY. I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad. 3 Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together! 4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. 8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! 9 Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! 10 The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Psalm 56 was also written at the same time Psalm 56:3-4 hen I am afraid, I put my trust in you. 4 In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? Psalm 56:11-13 in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? 12 I must perform my vows to you, O God; I will render thank offerings to you. 13 For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life. God was the one who had delivered David and he went from there to the cave at Adullam. We don t know exactly where this is, but there were caves in the western foothills of Judah that would have been large enough for a few hundred men to hide. God is merciful and often, he doesn t give us what we deserve and instead He delivers us from our enemies. Where do you need deliverance? Maybe you ve done something foolish? Where has God delivered you? Trust that He is able to deliver you for your good. Even if it s due to your own mistakes. 5

6 And then, David s brothers and his whole family come to him there. They probably feared for their lives, knowing that Saul would probably kill all of David s relatives to get to David. Then, something else happens everyone who was in distress, in debt or the people who were bitter in soul came to him and he became captain over them something we will explore more next week. And David gathered about 400 men with him there. But things still weren t safe for David, so he leaves there and takes his mom and dad out of Israel, to Moab, probably so they will be out of Saul s reach and safe there. So, the third way we see God dealing with His servant is in verses 3-4 of chapter 22. God is providentially at work in David s life, orchestrating David s past and the difficult past of his family for David s good. 3. God providentially works in the life of His servant Verse 3 tells us that he asked the king of Moab to please let his parents stay there until he knew what God would do for him. You see, even then, David was still trusting in God. And apparently, the king of Moab agreed to keep David s parents, because they stayed with him the whole time David was in his stronghold. Now, before we just skip over this, think about it for a moment. Why in the world would the king of Moab allow David s parents to stay there? Well, do you remember the desperate daughter-inlaw of Naomi, Ruth, that I mentioned earlier? She was a Moabite woman and she just happened to have a child, who had a child named Jesse, who had a son named David. David was the grandson of a Moabite woman and although the Bible doesn t say why the Moabite king allowed his parents to stay there, it was most likely due to the fact that Jesse was part Moabite. So, we can see that God prepared long beforehand to move David s ancestors to Moab, and had the husbands die there, so that he could eventually use the desperate situation of Naomi and Ruth to work it out so that David could find a safe place for his parents to go. This is what we call the providence of God, where God works seemingly obscure details into a part of His plan and in ways that we often don t see right away. How has God worked in your life providentially? Maybe you just coincidentally bumped into someone who offered you a job that you went to high-school with. Or maybe you spilled your tray at the cafeteria on a fellow student who just happened to be a Christian and they invite you to the Bible study at school. The last way that we see God relating to His servant in this passage is that 4. God personally cares for His servant God sends His prophet to give His Word to David, to personally care for His servant. The last thing we see is that out of nowhere, this obscure prophet, Gad who would become the prophet attached to David, comes to David and God sent him to give David a specific and personal word of direction. This may seem small or insignificant, but I think we are meant to see something important in this single verse. In David s time of need, when he was desperate and seemingly bouncing around from place to place, desperately fleeing and looking for help wherever he could get it, from going to Samuel to begin with, then to Jonathan, then to Nob and the foolish choice of Gath to now Moab, in the midst of his desperation, God sends David His Word. 6

7 And although we don t know why God told him not to stay in the stronghold, God used His prophet to give David his word of direction and David responded to the word of God and went to the forest of Hareth in Judah. And in this seemingly little thing, I believe that God s people are to see that God preserves his servant through His Word. For us today, we don t have a living prophet by our sides. But we have something better, we have all of God s Word, the testimony of God s people over thousands of years, and the testimony of God s prophets and their equivalent, the New Testament Apostles, as well as the very words of God s own Son, the Word of God incarnate. And in our desperate hour, we rely on His Word for our hope, for our direction and for our protection. As we meditate on God s Word and read God s Word, the Holy Spirit brings His Word to our remembrance when we need it most, to lead us and guide us. There is a story that Ravi Zacharias shares, of when he was 25 and a student minister in Viet Nam in During my ministry in Vietnam in 1971, one of my interpreters who traveled with me was Hien Pham, an energetic, devoted young Christian who had worked very closely as a translator with the American military forces, purely as a civilian, with no official or military responsibilities. He just knew English so well that he was able to be of immense help to them in their linguistic struggles. By virtue of that same strength he also worked with the missionaries. He and I traveled the length of the country and became very close friends before I bade him good-bye when I left Vietnam to return home. We were both very young, and neither of us knew if our paths would cross again. Within four years, Vietnam fell, and Hien's fate was unknown. Seventeen years later, in 1988, I received a surprise telephone call than began with, "Brother Ravi?" Immediately I recognized Hien's voice. We got caught up with our pleasantries, then I asked him how he had managed to get out of Vietnam and come to the United States. I was not prepared for the story I was about to hear. Shortly after Vietnam fell to the Communists, Hien was arrested. Accused of aiding and abetting the Americans he was in and out of prison for several years. During one long jail term, the sole purpose of his jailers was to indoctrinate him against the West -- and especially against democratic ideals and the Christian faith. He was cut off from reading anything in English and restricted to communist propaganda in French or Vietnamese. This daily overdose of the writings of Marx and Engels began to take its toll on him. One of the books he was given to read pictured the communist man as a bird in the ironclad cage of capitalism, throwing itself against the bars of "capitalist oppression" and bloodying itself in the process. Yet still it continued to struggle in its quest for freedom. Hien began to buckle under the onslaught. Maybe, he thought, I have been lied to. Maybe God does not exist. Maybe my whole life has been governed by lies. Maybe the West has deceived me. The more he thought, the more he moved toward a decision. Finally, he made up his mind. He determined that when he awakened the next day, he would not pray anymore or ever think of his Christian faith again. The next morning, he was assigned to clean the latrines of the prison. It was the most dreaded chore, shunned by everyone, and so with much distress he began the awful task. As he cleaned out a tin can filled to overflowing with toilet paper, his eye caught what he thought was English 7

8 printed on one piece of paper. He hurriedly washed it off and slipped it into his hip pocket, planning to read it at night. Not having seen anything in English for such a long time, he anxiously waited for a free moment. Under the mosquito net that night after his roommates had fallen asleep, he pulled out a small flashlight and shinning it on the damp piece of paper he read at the top corner, "Romans, Chapter 8." Literally trembling with shock, he began to read: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose... What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?......who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:28, 31, 32, 35, 37-39) Hien wept. He knew his Bible, and he had not seen one for so long Not only that, he knew there was not a more relevant passage of conviction and strength for one on the verge of surrendering to the threat of evil. He cried out to God, asking for forgiveness, for this was to have been the first day in years that he had determined not to pray. Evidently the Lord had other plans. The next day, Hien asked the camp commander if he could clean the latrine again. He continued with this chore on a regular basis, because he had discovered that some official in the camp was using a Bible as toilet paper. Each day Hien picked up a portion of Scripture and cleaned it off, and added it to his nightly devotional reading. In this way he retrieved a significant portion of the Bible. God s Word was precious to Hien and it rekindled and sustained his faith in desperate times. How often have God s people been given faith and sustained and given direction through His Word? In our darkest, most desperate times, God feeds us, He provides for us, He shows us mercy, He providentially works our past and in the lives of others for our good and He gives us His Word. How has God shown you His Word to care for you? Maybe it was through a friend or a radio broadcast or just something you happened to read that God spoke to you through his Word. Maybe you listened to something and then read about it and heard someone at church say the same thing on the same day and it was just what you needed to hear. Don t take those things for granted, instead, let your faith be built and remember that God personally cares for you through His Word. Let s close with the words of David, that he wrote in this time. Psalm 34:1-22 I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad. 3 Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together! 4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall 8

9 never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. 8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! 9 Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! 10 The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. 11 Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. 12 What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? 13 Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. 14 Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. 18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. 19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. 20 He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. 21 Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. 22 The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Amen Redeeming Grace Church. This transcribed message has been lightly edited and formatted for the Website. No attempt has been made, however, to alter the basic extemporaneous delivery style, or to produce a grammatically accurate, publication-ready manuscript conforming to an established style template. 9