1 Samuel Lesson 45
Politics by Grace – 1 Samuel 27-28:2
Turn to the last chapter of this section, 1 Samuel 27. This is the last chapter of this long
passage, David’s persecution phase. We’ve
learned many principles from watching David perform and we want to go back and
tie up a few loose ends. If you look
through the overall book of Samuel you find something like this: chapters 1-7
are devoted to God’s preparation for the nation, we find the office
established, and now we find the right king, Saul decreases and David
increases. We’ve been studying chapters
21-27, the time of the great persecution, the time during which Saul is
persecuting David. And during this
persecution phase you have most of those great Psalms written, the Psalms that
mean so much to you in your spiritual struggle.
The reason they mean so much to you in your spiritual struggles is that
David was going through very similar struggles.
He was suffering very intensely, he was being persecuted in, so to
speak, Satan’s world though at that time it was mostly Saul’s world. Therefore David ran into considerable
trials.
Tonight we reach the end of that section, and to blow up that section a
little bit more, from chapter 21-27 we found an alternating theme through these
chapters; a theme on the one hand of David’s trials caused by himself. And then a theme on the other hand of David’s
trials that have no bearing on what he has done. In both cases we have politics by grace. David errs, he errs in chapter 21 and 22 by
the sins of hastiness, of moving out without considering God’s will, making
decisions without careful study of the Word, without time in prayer. And then in chapter 25 we find David doing
the same thing, moving out to kill Nabal, justifiably yet wrongly, and stopped
by a woman, one of the greatest women of Scripture, Abigail. And then chapter 27 will see him do exactly
the same thing. He is again hasty, he
again makes the decision to move without careful consultation with the Lord,
and winds up in a mess.
Now in between these chapters, in 23-24 we find David in trouble with
various people who are traitors, people who “rat” on him to Saul. In chapter 26 we find the same thing. In every one of these trials, however, and
this is the principle, whether that trial comes about by David or whether that
trial comes about by circumstances beyond his control, God, in grace, always
delivers him, every time. Whether David
gets into the trouble himself, God delivers him. If David gets into trouble not by virtue of
himself, God delivers him. You say why
does God operate that way? Because God
is a gracious God, which introduces us to the principle for chapter 27, a
review, really, of sovereign grace. What
do we mean by sovereign grace.
Let’s look at God’s character.
God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is love, God is
omniscient, omnipotent, omniscient. The
first attribute is God is sovereign; that means that he rules over every
area. Sovereignty means that God is the
final cause of everything. Now watch
out, there’s a heresy abroad in fundamentalism; the technical name is
synergism; synergism holds that God is sovereign and man has volition and they
are two independent principles; man’s volition and God’s sovereignty are two
independent principles. No great
Christian theologian has ever held to this at all, this is just a corruption of
the truth. God is sovereign, He has
created the history within which there is responsibility or volition. But the final cause of the history is God’s
sovereignty. If you actually have two
parallel lines you’d have two gods, both God and man, but that is not the case,
we have only one God, the sovereign God.
Now that God chooses to love whom He will and chooses not to love whom
He doesn’t. God chooses to love; His act
of love toward the sinner, after the fall you have a situation that when love
is expressed it’s undeserved and therefore we call it grace. So a sovereign God who is gracious obviously
has sovereign grace.
The story of David’s rise to power is the story of sovereign grace in
the area of politics. And this man’s
rise to his political office is a demonstration of the fact that God’s perfect
plan excludes every piece of human merit.
God has a plan and this plan is to move David from the sheepfold by a
certain path over to the throne. God has
sovereignly said this is going to happen, the reason for it being that when he
gets through he wants this to be a picture of Jesus Christ. So we have 1 Samuel with all the chapters,
all the way to 2 Samuel. That’s the path by which David rises to political
power. Now during this rise to political
power God’s grace plays a fantastic role.
Every time David sins David is rendered unworthy of the office that God
called him to, but God continues to call him to the office. God continues to lead David into the
office. David doesn’t earn it; David
doesn’t deserve it, David gets it anyway.
Grace.
This is something that you have to constantly guard against, and the
more religious you are the more in danger you are of violating the grace
principle because the more religious you are the more tendency you have to
become self-righteous; you fight so hard for what is right and what is wrong
and all of us do, but we fight so hard for what is right and what is wrong we
tend to resent that which tears it down; we tend to resent other people that
don’t adhere to these rights and wrongs, forgetting that whose rights are
they? Did we originate the rights and
the wrongs or did God? Are they ours for
which we’re fighting. No, they came from
God originally anyway. We’re not
fighting for our standards, we’re fighting for God’s standards. And therefore since we are fighting for God’s
standards we shouldn’t be upset with those who violate these standards. We violate then left and right. You’ll see a beautiful illustration tonight.
Now if God has designed this perfect plan to exclude all human merit, it
means first that when David sins he is not worthy. It means that he is not worthy of the goal.
Every sin that David commits along this path, every sin, makes it that much
clearer that when he gets on the throne it’s by grace. Every sin exposes more grace. Now be careful about drawing false
conclusions. Paul warns against that,
but the truth, whether you draw the false unauthorized conclusion or not is the
truth, and that is that every one of our sins simply demonstrates God’s grace
even more.
Now in addition to that we have all these other problems; we’ll just
call them trials that David has. The
trials that are not due to his personal sins, the pressures in life, all of
these things that he did not bring on himself, and yet in the middle of all
these trials what do we have. We have
God’s sovereignly working; God is going to get him where God promised him all
through this thing. So therefore we come
to an understanding that grace is never earned.
Furthermore, grace by definition means we have no claim; don’t ever get
used to grace; we have no claim on grace.
Those of you who are studying Hebrews are going to see this come out
real good; I discovered Hebrews has more grace it than any other passage I’ve
seen in the New Testament. It amazes me
that grace is in that book, of all books.
But Hebrews points out that on a moment by moment basis the only thing
that keeps you saved is Christ’s intercessory work and if Christ stopped
interceding tonight, in spite of all the promises, you would lose your
salvation. Your salvation hangs on Jesus
Christ maintaining intercession for you.
That was the great theme of the Reformation, it was this reason the
Protestants said no to the Catholics over the mass. The mass said that we must continue Christ’s
sacrifice and the Reformers said no, Christ continues the effect of His once
for all sacrifice in heaven by intercession.
And so the Reformation emphasized over and over the doctrine of Christ’s
intercession, no saints, no mass, Christ’s intercession alone. Now if that’s the case it means that we hang
by a thread; we hang by the thread supplied to us by grace. Don’t get too comfortable; you can never
maintain eternal security out of your own soul.
Eternal security is given by God’s continuing grace. We have the promise it will continue if we’re
born again, but the reason why it continues is because He chooses moment by
moment so supply grace. Don’t look upon
it as some hard and fast thing, it’s an active moment by moment hanging, God is
holding us, present tense, tonight, by His grace; He is supporting us by His
grace.
Now let’s watch this principle work in chapter 27. “And David said in his heart, I shall now
perish one day by the hand of Saul; there is nothing better for me than that I
should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines, and Saul shall despair
of me, to seek me any more in any border of
Let’s look at Saul’s soul again.
He’s on negative volition, he’s in habitual rejection of God’s will for
his life; he has been for years, and next chapter you’ll going to see what
eventually results in compound carnality, but in this chapter you’re going to
see enough, David is fed up, completely, with this kind of thing. Saul has had a darkening of his heart; Saul
is out of it. Saul can no longer
perceive issues, Saul as a result is taking in human viewpoint by the
carloads. Saul becomes a victim of
people who are other compound carnality Christians, who gossip, who malign, who
spread messages around about David. And
all these compound carnal believers can get him going any time. Saul, deep in his heart hates God. How is that shown? Because he recognizes he’s wrong and he never
confesses it. He says “O David, David my
son,” I’ve done this wrong to you, I’ve really faked you out, I’m wrong, I’m
wrong, I’m wrong, but not one time, not ONE time does Saul ever turn to look up;
not once. It’s always apologizing to people, and at times very emotional, very
sorry for his sin, before men, but no repentance before God. That’s Saul, and he’s going, and has been
going for some time, into the state of frustration. And you’ll see his encounter with the witch
of Endor next week, when he deals with necromancy.
But Saul is in a bad, bad state.
And “David said in his heart,” he recognizes you can’t trust a compound
carnal believer, he is right so far. He
is right in the sense the only safe thing you’ve got to do is insulate yourself
from somebody that this is this bad, somebody who is so hostile, who gets so
deeply rebellious against the authority of God’s Word, who may be very nice on
the outside, who may be an officer in a church, may be a pastor, may be some
other religious person that impresses you, but always remember, this kind of a
person has rottenness in his heart, regardless of the external coating, just
rotten to the core. And David is a good
enough judge of men to see this.
So he says, “I will perish one day by the hand of Saul,” now here he
begins to slide. Now nothing is said in
this text. Do you know why? This is a book of history, and when you get
in a book of history in the Word of God you have to use other books to
interpret books of history. Books of history
are not self-interpreting like the epistles.
This is what is wrong with certain individuals who try to build a
theology out of the book of Acts. Acts
is an historical book that is not self-interpreting. To interpret Acts properly you must know your
epistles, and you must know the Gospels.
It’s wrong to interpret Acts by itself and it’s wrong to interpret this
book by itself.
We’ve got to decide what is happening in David’s heart now. “…because I will perish one day by the hand
of Saul,” you could argue well David, you can’t, unless the Lord lets you. Now what is the principle that David is
ignoring. Turn to 1 Corinthians 10:13,
this is the principle that controls every time in your life, whether you agree
with it or not. “There has no temptation
taken you, but such as is common to man,” now most people in deep trouble
always hit grease right there, oh, but you don’t know my trouble, I’m
absolutely unique, I have troubles you can’t believe, nobody has the kind of
troubles I’ve got, I’ve got bigger troubles than anybody else, they’re more
difficult, they’re impossible, nobody else can empathize, sympathize, or do
anything else for me. You know what, all
that garbage is translated simply and bluntly: excuse me for sinning because
I’m unique. That’s all it is, just an
excuse, God the trial is not common and therefore I’ve got an excuse to sin
here. So please get me off the hook and
have a good time in the toulies trip some place. That is a denial of verse 13, “There has no
temptation taken you, but such as is common to man, do you really believe that,
next time you hit pressure, that there is not a trial that you will ever face
that somebody else hasn’t faced. The men
who wrote the Apostles Creed, don’t you think they had trials and
pressures. Do you think some of the
things that you think are new to the 20th century were new to the
700 AD crowd, or the 100 AD crowd. Do
you really think those people never had the kind of trials you have? Sorry, when you line up in heaven there’ll be
a whole group on your table and you can share and you’ll all find as you sit
together you had the same thing. And
guess what, the solution was the same too.
“…but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested above that
which you are able,” an inevitably in a crisis situation God slipped in my
case, somehow He turned His back and He let this trial come in and boy, I can’t
take it, I’m at the end of my rope.
There’s no solution for me, I’m utterly hopeless, there’s no hope for
me. What does the verse say? God “will not allow you to be tested above
that which you are able.” Now what else,
“but will, with the temptation make a way of escape that ye may be able to bear
it.” He “will make a way of escape that
you may be able to bear it.” A way of
escape that’s honoring to Christ should be put in fine print, that’s the way of
escape. He’ll always make a way of
escape, so don’t you see, when we react to the kind of trial like David’s
reacting to here, immediately you’ve denied the faith. Immediately you’re a heretic. Immediately you’ve rejected sovereign
grace. You have said grace is not
sufficient, even sovereign omnipotent grace is not sufficient in my case. You are a heretic.
Turn back to 1 Samuel 27:1; David at this point is a heretic. He analyzes his trouble all wrongly,
completely wrong. “I shall now perish by
the hand of Saul,” he can only perish at the hand of Saul if God permits under
the principle in the New Testament of 1 Corinthians 10:13. “…there is nothing better for me than that I
should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines,” so watch how he gets
out of it. You’ll see something very
familiar, what happens all the time. You
first start out denying 1 Corinthians 10:13, that’s the first step. This is how to screw up in three easy
lessons. The first thing, all you have
to do is deny 1 Corinthians 10:13, that starts you, that sets you up real
good. That gets you going good. Now once you get going, after you’ve flushed
that one down the drain, you come to the next one and then you come up with a
real brilliant human viewpoint solution to your problems. And here’s a typically brilliant one, I’m
going to escape to the land of the Philistines, the friends of Israel, I’m going to go there because it’s safe for me
there. See, I have lots of friends in
Gath where I killed Goliath, I have all sorts of things going for me with the
Philistines. So this is really a
brilliant solution.
But I said there was a third step and it doesn’t seem to be here; the
third step is the step that is missed in between the first and the second, and
that’s David’s problem. Actually it
should be first, David doesn’t stop to consult the Lord. Notice if you turn to 23:2, notice what he
used to do, we haven’t seen him do this recently. I wonder what happened. “Therefore David inquired of the LORD,
saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines?
And the LORD said unto David, God, and smite the Philistines.” Verse 4, “Then David inquired of the LORD yet
again. And the LORD answered him and
said, Arise, go down to Keilah.” Look at
verse 10, “Then said David, O LORD God of Israel, thy servant has certainly
heard that Saul seeks … to destroy me. [11] Will the men of Keilah deliver me
up into his hand? … O LORD God of
Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant.”
And what does the Lord say, “He will come down.”
So immediately we see something wrong with David. We see the fact that he has no diving
guidance. He hasn’t taken the time to
consult the Lord; it’s very simple. But
have you ever noticed in your own life how easy it is to blow it right there;
you blow it and you don’t even know it.
And the first thing you do, you’re in Gath. How did I get down here? I don’t know, I just got of my car and here I
was; somehow I just happened to drive up to Gath. Now how did I get here, I don’t even remember
the road I took getting here. It all
starts out with a failure to come to the Lord.
It’s very easy to do, that’s the easiest thing. And then you deny 1 Corinthians 10:13 and
then you come up with a real brilliant solution.
Now this shows you one argument that David is carnal. He has broken his pattern of consulting the
Lord. We can observe this from the text,
we don’t need a commentator to tell us, the history tells us that, David hasn’t
consulted the Lord. We know this is a
feature of his life, this is SOP with David, Standing Operating Procedure is
always to go consult the Lord. In 2
Samuel he’s doing it before he goes out and leads his army he consults the
Lord. In 1 Samuel 23 he consults the
Lord, why not here. Something’s wrong.
But we have another evidence that David is making a bad mistake and that
is he doesn’t follow the continuity principle.
Here’s another little tip to tell whether you’re really out of it or
not, God will not lead you in your life like this, you may have some turns in
your path but it has a continuity to it.
God is not erratic. Did you ever
hear these people, oh God led me to do this, and three months later they’re
doing something else. How can you do
this, I thought God led you to do that; well God changed His mind and now He’s
leading me over here. And six months
later God changed His mind again. What
kind of a God is this? God doesn’t
change His mind like that.
God does not lead erratically. He
leads with continuity. Let’s watch some
of the continuity. Turn to 22:5, what
was the last word he got from a prophet?
The very last direct guidance he got from a prophet. “Abide not in the stronghold; depart, and get
thee into the land of Judah.” So the
last divine guidance he got from a prophet was to get in Judah and that’s where
you manifest yourself. You’re not king
of the Philistines, stop trying to be a hero in Gath; be a hero in Judah,
that’s your backyard, not Philistia. So
David breaks the continuity principle.
Now let’s look and see what happens when he breaks the continuity
principle. 27:1, it’s “nothing better for me that I should speedily escape,”
now that was the King James way of translating a particular kind of Hebrew
construction. In Hebrew when you have a
verb and an infinitive of the same root together, “escape, escape,” you have
the infinitive tacked on to the verb, actually it prefixes the verb. What does this construction mean? Whenever you have this it intensifies the
mood of the main verb. What is the mood
of this verb? Look at the context,
“there’s nothing better for me than I should escape,” that’s the mood of
potential, a potential mood, I ought to do this, I ought to escape. Add the infinitive intensifying the “ought-ness”
to it, “I must escape” is the thrust here, “I must escape into the land of the
Philistines.” By this time this
brilliant human viewpoint solution has blossomed into a wholesale strategy, he
has to escape into the land of the Philistines.
And then he says, here’s his reasoning, “Saul shall despair of me, to
seek me any more in the border,” that is within the border “of Israel. So I’ll escape out of his hand.” Great David, there’s only one problem, now
you’re in another mess, otherwise known as jumping from the frying pan into the
fire. He’s out of the borders of
Israel.
So in verse 2 we read, “And David arose, and he passed over with the six
hundred men that were with him, unto Achish,” now does that name ring a
bell. Let’s see the last time we
mentioned Achish, turn back to chapter 21, remember what happened the last time
they met; David went down to Achish’s hometown of Gath, happening to just trot
along with Goliath’s sword while he was doing it, which was not calculated to
impress the citizens of Gath. And
therefore these people put him in jail, and to get out of jail David had to
pray Psalm 56 when he was down there, and when he prayed Psalm 56 the Lord
Jesus Christ came up with a scheme to get him out. And the scheme was to feign mental illness,
and you remember the last thing in verse 14-15, “ Then Achish said unto his
servants, Lo, you see this man is mad; why, then, have you brought him to me?
[15] Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow” to me. In other words, David had spit drooling off
the end of his beard, if you want the literal translation, and that is how
David appeared to Achish. So this is the
guy who is going to back to visit; this is his brilliant solution.
Let’s watch what happens. Don’t
knock David, everyone of us could come up with equally brilliant solutions that
we’ve tried, but let’s just see where it leads.
Just relax and be thankful David is coming up with it this time and not
you. Verse 3, “And David dwelt with
Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David with
his two wives,” polygamy in the Old Testament is permitted, God didn’t make an
issue out of it. And God doesn’t make
an issue out of it now because essentially a lot of divorce and remarriage is
nothing but polygamy either, so if you’re going to argue against polygamy
you’ve got to do something about modern divorce. You say well divorce is different because you
have one at a time. Well how many women
can you have at one time.
Verse 4, “And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath, and he
sought no more again for him.”
And that ended Saul, so now we go beyond the boundaries. Here’s Judah and here’s Philistia. David was in Judah, he moved across the
border, and now obviously Saul isn’t going to tail him into Philistia; and this
is the last time David has anything to do with Saul in the book; it’s the last
time. Last time, in chapter 26 he met
him, this is the last time he has any policy to do with him.
Now David said in verse 5, he comes up with a scheme. Now David has something on his mind when he
went to Gath this time, he wasn’t totally crazy; he was going to try a little
power politics. Now let’s see why he
goes to Gath. Let’s look at the
scoreboard. Let’s sit down to a little
discussion between Achish and David.
These two men are going to make a political deal. That’s what it amounts to, a political deal,
and a lot of people are going to get hurt because of this political deal that’s
being made. Achish and David—what does
David have that Achish needs politically.
First of all he has a fantastic group of soldiers. These guys are well trained now, six hundred;
six hundred fantastic soldiers.
What is something else that David has that Achish needs? He needs to secure his southern border.
Achish is part king of what amounts to a pentapolis, the Philistines
cities. And Gath is located to the east,
it’s protruding out beyond the perimeter of the Philistine defense. He is always susceptible to raids coming up
from the southeast, it’s just part of the geography. His city was on lowland, there are highlands
here. Who is it that now controls the
southeast part? David and his men. So militarily Achish is interested in
performing a little deal with David, because if he can make a little deal he
can secure his southeastern flank from attack.
So David has some bargaining now, he doesn’t come as just the insane
maniac. David comes as the trained leader of a guerilla force, well equipped by
the way, and quite wealth by this point.
So this is a very admirable addition to the army of the
Philistines. That’s what David has.
Now what did Achish have that David wants on this bargaining table for
discussion. Achish can provide
protection, in the sense that Saul is
not going to bother Achish. So the heat
will be off David in this situation.
What is something else that Achish has that David needs for the moment,
besides protection for his army? Achish
has what we’ll call supplies. David
needs more supplies. This is simply a
political deal that’s being pulled off in this chapter; watch how it proceeds.
Verse 5, “And David said unto Achish, If I have now found grace in thine
eyes,” in other words, we’ve negotiated, do you agree or disagree with this
deal, “let them,” now what’s “them?” “Them”
are the other Philistine lords, there were four other cities involved, there’s
a confederacy of five cities, the pentapolis.
“Let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may dwell
there,” now the country just happens to be this geographical area to the
southwest of Gath, that’s the country that David has in mind. Now it’s diplomatically to ask for this
because after all, how did he come to Achish in the first place to secure that
vital southeastern flank? So it’s only
normal that he could bargain, perhaps, to get his army in an occupying position
of the southeast of the city. He had
something on his mind he’s going to pull off here in a moment. So he secures the town, “that I may dwell
there,” and then he adds a very pious phrase that is sheer bologna, “for why
should thy servant dwell in the royal city with you?” In other words, I don’t want to be of any
hindrance to you Achish, I’d just prefer to be out by myself, I’m just a humble
little guerilla leader and I don’t’ want to bother you here in town and so
forth. The real reason he doesn’t want to is he’s going to start a little
operation of his own and he doesn’t want Achish to be around to see what he’s
going to do. So there are two reasons
for saying this; one it’s just a diplomatic deal, the other is to set up the
motions for another little episode that David has planned.
Verse 6, “Then Achish gave him Ziglag that day,” so apparently it shows
you that the bargaining went on for a day, and that’s very interesting because
Ziglag happens to be the city that was given to the Israelites, in Joshua 19:5
so he is actually giving back a city of Judah that was given at one time by God
to Israel, but since apparently has been reconquered by the Philistines and
Achish gives this back. So now look what
David has; he’s got six hundred men, he’s got a town of Judah, and now he’s got
a base of operations.
Now verse 7 is a summary verse before we get to the incident. Verse 7 actually chronologically is a
summary, all the way down to 28:3. In
other words, it just summarizes the total thing, it’s a notation put in there
by the man who wrote the book. “And the
time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was a full your and
four months.” So you have a sixteen
month operation; sixteen months this goes on.
Why is this note put in here in this verse? To prepare you for something that’s going to
come up. Sixteen months long David
conducts an operation of espionage, sabotage and murder. For sixteen months he’s going to destroy the
enemies of Israel and he’s going to falsify every military doctrine he sends
back to Achish. David is going to
falsify every military record.
Verse 8, “And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and
the Girzites, and the Amalekites; for those nations were of old the inhabitants
of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt.” Now again a little geography helps. Here’s the southern end of the Dead Sea. About here is located the city of Gath. Ziglag is about here; that performs a base of
operation for extensive raids, all down here in the northern part of the Sinai,
and that is where David conducts raid after raid after raid. The people he’s hitting are the people that
are bothering Israel from the south.
David’s raids are being made to the south of Israel’s border, not to the
north of it. Remember, south of the
border is where he’s making his raids.
Verse 9, “And David smote the land,” this describes his raids. “And David smote the land, and left neither
man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and
the camels, and the apparel, and returned, and came to Achish. ]10] And Achish
said, Where have you made a raid today?
And David said, Against the south of Judah, and against the south of the
Jerah-meelites, and against the south of the Kenites.” In other words, David will make a raid, he’ll
bring back spoil, and he says I hit the southern boundary of Israel, which is
just a few miles off the target, he wasn’t hitting the southern boundary of
Israel, he was driving far south of that boundary and attacking enemy
installations in this area, and coming back and telling Achish all about
it.
[tape turns] … takes a little precaution that nobody that nobody’s going
to rat on him this time. And so in verse
11, “And David saved neither man nor woman alive,” why did David slaughter men,
women and children? Because there would
be no evidence that I have falsified my military reports, I will destroy the
evidence. And this is in a dusty sandy area,
he didn’t have to worry ever about anyone finding out what he did, for the wind
blows and the sand drifts, and the battles left in the soil would just be
buried in a matter of hours, nobody would discover the bodies until long after
they’d decayed. There’s no necessity… if
you kill someone leave him in the sand, the sand will take care of him. So David simply annihilated the
evidence. This is one tremendous
concerted attempt to murder his way into Philistia. This shows you what a strong man David is
when he wants to be. He’s a strong man
for the Lord and he can be a tough soldier any time, any where. This shows you his character, not let’s see
what he’s worried about.
This shows you more about how he’s thinking in verse 11. he “saved neither man nor woman alive, to
bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us, saying,” (quote)
“So did David,” (end quote) those of you that have the King James, the quote
should be closed after the word David.
Thus said David. “…and so will be
his manner all the while he dwells in the country of the Philistines.” Now that last sentence in verse 11, combined
with verse 7 shows you this raiding went on for sixteen months. For sixteen months David slaughtered and
murdered; for sixteen months he destroyed the enemies of Israel; for sixteen
months he falsified military records. And for sixteen months God protected him
from ever being found out. For sixteen
months the families of these soldiers were left in jeopardy at Ziglag while he
conducted unauthorized raids.
But there’s something more to this phrase than this. When it says in
verse 11, he “saved neither man nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath,” if
David had been operating in fellowship what’s his attitude toward people he
killed when he’s in fellowship. They’re
enemies of the Lord. So it would read
“he would save none alive because they were the enemies of Yahweh,” but you
don’t read that here, do you? He’s
killing for only one thing; he’s destroying the enemies of Israel and he must
hide the evidence; one sin leads to another.
And David is playing a very, very dangerous political game.
Now in verse 12, the results of the game, “And Achish believed David,
saying, He has made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore he shall
be my servant forever.” In other words,
Achish believes the falsified military reports, he really thinks David is
striking to the north of that boundary instead of to the south of the boundary,
and he believes him.
But David is playing with fire, because we have to go back to chapter
26:19, the last part of verse 19 to understand the fire that David is playing
with. Remember when we covered this
verse, we pointed out that if you have two nations, in this case you have Judah
and Philistia, you have the gods ruling over these nations. So here you have
Yahweh, He rules, He’s the God of Judah. Dagon is the God of Philistia. And these gods were seen in the ancient world
to rule in terms of geographical boundaries.
Let me show you this. Last week I
gave you 2 Kings 5:17 but turn to Deuteronomy 4:19. David may be able to fool
Achish, but David isn’t fooling the demonic powers that control Philistia. And they have a little plan for David. God says, I don’t want you to make any idol,
“lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the
moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven,” and you “shouldest be driven
to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God has divided unto all
nations under the whole of heaven. [20] But the LORD has taken you….”
Now what does that verse teach. Verses 19-20 is teaching the fact that,
take Philistia for example, God respects the negative volition of
Gentiles. That’s not that He respects
the positive volition of the Jews, Abraham was a Gentile. But here He allows the negative volition to
take this natural course, which is to come into servitude to the demonic powers
that control the darkness of this world.
And the demonic powers show up historically as gods, and so Dagon
actually is nothing but a demonic projection to root the peoples attention away
from Christ onto something less than God, and Dagon becomes the god. Now who is really controlling the
Philistines? Dagon, Achish or the demon
powers. It really, in all the back of it
is the demon powers. Do they control it autonomously? No, because verse 19 says “the LORD thy God
has divided” them. In other words, their
reign is circumscribed by God’s sovereignty.
God is sovereign over them; He permits them certain reigns over this
whole area. God permits this reign.
Now let’s look at this again. You
say that’s archaic, that’s something out of the Old Testament, that’s centuries
old, certainly you can’t argue that there’s any relevance to it today. Oh you can’t?
Culture of a nation is always the outgrowth of the creed of that
country. This is what made the reformers
great men, great Christians. Take the
USA, the culture that was rooted in early America came out of what creed? It came out of the Christian creed. The fact that a number of sizeable portion of
our early founders were believers forced the culture of the United States to
take a certain course. How do we know
this? Look at the institutions of law;
look at the institutions of government, particularly government and law because
that’s where you find the codification of belief.
For example, if the United States wants to form a law on abortion, why
does it formulate it one way or another way?
Because of the beliefs of the people,
So laws of the country, a government of a country simplify codifies the
religious faith of the people. People
get the government they deserve. Corrupt
people get a corrupt government.
Righteous people get a righteous government. And so the culture reflects the religion of
the people. Today if you have in the
United States a mass amount of negative volition, you have an opening up to the
demonic powers, it’s going to be reflected in the culture, isn’t it. It’s the same principle.
The principle, going back now to 1 Samuel 26:19, the principle is
exactly the same, what is David saying.
He’s saying if I leave Judah and go to Philistia, the entire culture of
Philistia, that begins at the boundary, that entire culture is dominated by the
demonic power; there are other gods down there that control the culture. If I stay in Judah then Yahweh is the God who
shapes the culture.
Now what is going to happen.
Let’s turn to chapter 28:1-2. I
want to set you up to the way it leaves it and then next time we’ll show you
what happens. Actually it’s going to be a few nights because we have a lot of
material before the final answer is given. David is in a big jam. It looks very cute to have his cute little
political gimmick; it looks cute for David to make his little raids that he’s
doing. While that looks like old David really outsmarted him, David’s playing a
funny game and everybody believes him.
And chapter 27 in the Hebrew doesn’t end with verse 12, it ends that way
in our English Bible. The Hebrew doesn’t
end chapter 27 till verse 2 of chapter 28.
What about those two verses?
28:1, “And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered
their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. And Achish said unto David, Know thou
assuredly, that thou shalt go out with me to battle, thou and thy men. [2] And
David said to Achish, Surely thou shalt know what thy servant can do. And Achish said to David, Therefore will I
make thee keeper of mine head forever.”
Now look at the jam he’s in.
How’s David going to get out of this one. Brilliant!
What did he do? He got trapped by
the thing that he thought he was so cute in.
What was the whole objective of falsifying everything and operating
under cover? Of smashing and destroying
and saving his soul, so to speak, by human good, by human works, by human
merit. He thought he really accomplished
something at verse 12, Achish believed him.
But it was the very thing that he thought was success that was his
downfall. If Achish hadn’t have believed
him, he wouldn’t have asked him to come on the raid to Israel.
The fact that now David’s in a jam is because of David’s politics. Now there’s no way David can get out of this
because the Philistines have about 30,000 men at this point in their army, and
David has 600. There’s not too much you
can do David. You’re coming with
me. Can you imagine the expression on
David’s face. Okay, you get your six
hundred men, David, and line up and we’ll get all the men marching and we’re
going to go clobber those Jews. What’s
David’s going to do. David can’t do anything right at this point.
So David once again is in an impossible situation. Once again God is going to deliver him, but
once again you’re going to see the most astounding way of God’s deliverance,
the greatest testimony to how God carries on in His sovereignty all of these
things. History looks like a mess, looks
impossible, total chaos, God is sovereign, God has sovereign grace, and God
will deliver.
We’ll study that in chapter 28 and through the end of the book. Beginning
with chapter 28:3 on to the last of 1 Samuel is an amazing story of how God
delivers David from the jam, and David never has to kill one Hebrew. Does he deserve it? Does he deserve to be extracted. Imagine if you were God, boy David, you got
yourself into this I’m going to let you sit in it.
With out heads bowed….