1 Samuel 21 - Fear, Failure, And A Way Back

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One more time, 1 Samuel 21. All right. Well, we are considering the life of David, which for the most part includes 1st and 2 Samuel. We won't hit every single verse, but we will probably hit a lot of it. But we're looking more specifically at the life of David. We're seeing his ascent to the throne currently. But even more than that, I think we're seeing a building of character because God is oftentimes more interested in working in us than through us. God's making David the person that he wanted him to be. And for the next, in our minds, 12 to 13 years, not literally here, but 12 to 13 years in David's life is going to be a time of building. As Saul, actually his father-in-law, King Saul, will be pursuing him throughout the wilderness. Now, today in chapter 21 is not a bright spot, a bit of a stain here in the life of David. It's, we could say, some failure. The main motivation of this character here is it's, well, it's negative. And here in chapter 21, we'll see that David is largely controlled by fear in his life. So we'll consider the ugly thing of fear. We'll consider slightly his failure, uh, but we're gonna understand that he's gonna figure it out by the end. And that's the bright spot, isn't it? We'll get to the end where he'll figure it out. Uh and we have the words of Psalm 34 to let us know how he figured that out. Um, the center of these three points, unfortunately, is his failure. And that's something I think that's interesting to notice when we look at the Bible's quote-unquote heroes, people like David and Abraham and Noah, these folks. Um, we look at them and they're flawed. They have failures, big failures. Uh, the Bible uniquely shows its heroes as flawed and real. And that comforts me. I hate to find comfort in other people's failures, but that comforts me because the lesson here is that since God uses people, God uses imperfect people, because that's the only kind of people there are in the world. Imperfect people. And I'm flawed as well. You're flawed also. We all mess up, we all have times of failure. So that's a great lesson here. That as flawed people, we're exactly the folks that God wants to use and work in our lives. Let's read chapter 21. We'll call it Act 1, verses 1 through 10. And uh let's read it. Now, David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. Now, Ahimelech was afraid when he met David and said to him, Why are you alone and no one is with you? So David said to Ahimelech the priest, the king has ordered me on some business and said to me, Do not let anyone know anything about the business which I send you, or what I have commanded you. It's top secret, and I have directed my young men to such a place. Now, therefore, what have you on hand? Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever can be found. And the priest answered and said, There is no common bread on hand. There is holy bread. If the young men have kept themselves from women, then David answered the priest and said to him, Truly, women have been kept from us about three days since I came out. And the vessels of the young man are holy, and the bread is in effect common, uh, even though it is consecrated in the vessel this day. So the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no bread but uh there, but the show bread, which had been taken from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place on the day when it was taken away. Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doed, the Edomite, the chief of the herdsman who belonged to Saul. And David said to Ahimelech, uh, Is there not here on hand a spear or a sword? For I have brought neither sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste. The priest said, The sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah, there it is, wrapped in a cloth behind the Ephon. If you will take it, take that, take it, for there is no other except that one here. And David said, There is none like it, give it to me. Notice verse 10. Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul. So here we we see David um he runs and he runs to um the people of God first, the priest. But the controlling verse here to look at is verse 10. Then David arose and fled that day before Saul. David is running away from Saul. We understand that. But something of interest is that Saul hasn't been mentioned since chapter 19. He hasn't physically been there on the scene since chapter 19 when he threw a spear at David. Um, Saul is not even in this chapter so much. Uh, he's definitely not there, and yet David is running away from Saul. And we see this driving fear in David's life. Um, it's the motivating emotion and it's powerful stuff. So, a definition, as if we didn't know what it was. What is fear? Fear is an unpleasant, pleasant emotion caused by belief something dangerous or harmful is near or likely to happen. It is fight or flight. So the emotion part, we get it. We understand it's an unpleasant emotion. Fear is it's that knot in your gut when something threatens you. Uh, the situation can be real, physical danger, or something less threatening, like giving a speech, right? That invokes some fear in most of us. Um, but the dictionary here mentions this idea of flight or fight. And that's something I think we all understand. It's an instinct response to that fear, right? It makes sense. It's, you know, when we're confronted with a snake, right? I think that's pretty common for most of us. A snake, right? We feel that involuntary fear. Your nose clears, your cheeks flush, your heart races, and there's this flashing red light in your mind that says, danger, danger, danger, right? And and sometimes more information is helpful. And that fear kind of dissipates when you realize it was just a rubber snake that the kids left on the floor, you know? Uh not real. Um, and we laugh at that point. But I think even that emotion of fear, that feeling of fear in itself is maybe some of God's grace, isn't it? When we get into a situation that's not good and we need to be aware, it's it's part of the instinct that God's put in us and created in us. But sometimes that fear hijacks our life and becomes the thing that keeps us from the things that God has: faith, peace, joy, rest. Uh, there's a time for fear to keep us from danger, and then there's a time like we learn here, where fear is not a good motivation um for life. Um, fear, unfortunately, has its fruit, and we'll see that here in chapter 21. But let's kind of run over this. What we talked, what we read there in chapter 21. David runs to the priest. Now that's a good place to go. He runs to the house of God, you could say. He runs to God's people. Uh, Psalm 73 is written by a guy named Asaph. And Asaph says in verse 17, I was stressed out and bothered and pained by what I saw in life until I went into the sanctuary of God. And then I understood. And really, this is a good choice by David to run to the house of God, the tabernacle, the place where the priests were, to get some clarity in his life, perhaps. Um, but here, even at the house of God, the voice of fear is too loud for David. We see it in the fruit. Notice verse one. David came and Ahimelech was afraid when he met David and said to him, Why are you alone and no one with you? So something about David, the way he was, maybe it was uh, you know, the nervousness in his eyes, the fact that he was looking back and forth as he was there at the house of God. Uh, maybe it was something like that. Something set Ahimelech off. And he said, Something's not right here. I don't know what it is. Why are you alone? Is something up? Are you here in peace? What's going on? And he sees it, perhaps on David's face. Well, David responds, notice verse 2. So David said to Ahimelech, the priest, the king has ordered me on some business and said to me, Don't let anyone know about the business on which I send you. Um, the whole thing is a lie, isn't it? When you really think about it, King Saul had not officially sent David on any business. Now, David was running away from Saul, so the motivation is Saul, but this is a full-on lie as he understands that Ahimelech is set off by something. David makes up this story. The king ordered me on secret business, I would tell you, but I can't tell you Ahimelech. It's secret business. And he adds to that as well. He says, There's men with me. Now, there were no men that we know of at this point with David. He's all by himself. But David lets him know hey, there's some guys down the road, we're doing this mission. I can't tell you, but I'm here. Um, now let's consider the fruit of this fear. It's a lie. Now, we've all lied, I'm sure of it. We've all made up stories, uh, dishonesty. Um, and it seems like lies are just contagious, aren't they? Lies, one lie builds to another lie, builds to another lie. We see that here in David. Um, but one of the ten commandments, in fact, we should remember is don't bear false witness, don't lie. One of the very commands that God wrote down on those tablets, uh, don't lie. Uh, so in every situation, lying is a sin. Now, he's guilty of it, just like we would be guilty of it, but can we blame him? Can we blame David for feeling unsafe and feeling like I need to cover this up? Can we blame someone like Corey Tenboom in World War II, who her family hid the Jews in her attic? Can we blame her for saying no? There are new no Jews here. No, we can't. And in fact, many people argue that to tell the truth would actually lead to murder. So perhaps it's justified, and I could see that, and I understand that. But lying always has some consequences nonetheless, because it is in fact uh a sin. Uh, now here we see that David's lying is based on this fear. Saul's gonna get me. Now, notice in verse three as we move along, he changes the subject, which is always a great tactic as well. He says, Hey, you have any food? We really could use some food. Do you have five loaves of bread? Now, why five? Nobody knows. But perhaps he's still building the story. If I ask for one loaf, he'll go, Well, what about the men with you? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the men with me. Who knows? Perhaps it's all part of the story, but he asked for food. And in verse 4, he says, Well, there's no common bread, there's only holy bread. Now, we can't get into it too much, but there in the tabernacle, there was an actual piece of furniture known as the table of show bread. And every day, fresh bread, imagine pita bread, right, was placed on that table in the Lord's presence. It in some way represented the 12 tribes, and and it was special though, holy to the Lord. Now, the only one that could eat that bread was the priests after the fact. It wasn't just something you could you could use for food, but here the priest realizing this says, you know what though, you starving or me using the holy bread to feed you, I think God would want me to keep you from starving. Greater good here than the religious law is helping keep you alive. Now, Jesus uses this illustration here, this account here, when his disciples are called by the religious leaders for harvesting wheat. You remember they're walking through the wheat fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples picked grain off of that wheat and they put it in their hands and they blew off the chaff and they were eating snacks of wheat. The religious leader said, Foul, that's breaking the Sabbath. You're not allowed to do work on the Sabbath. Why are your disciples doing what they shouldn't be doing? And there in several gospel accounts, Jesus says, Will you remember Ahimelech when David came needing bread? He gave them the sacred bread to keep them alive. Don't you think God is more interested in providing food to keep people alive than the religious law? Even the Sabbath law, God is into saving life. And Jesus uses this account to demonstrate that idea. Now, here in verse 5, though, um uh verse 6, the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no bread at the show bread, which was taken. Um, and verse 8. And David said to Ahimelech, Is there not here on hand a spear or a sword? I didn't bring bread, but I also didn't bring a weapon. He got a weapon. Now, perhaps David remembered Goliath's sword was there, perhaps he had that in mind, but he asked for a weapon, and Ahimelech draws him uh to it. Uh now notice though, David's still building this story for no good reason. For I brought neither my sword nor my weapons in verse eight with me because the king's business required haste. It's still this fake story about the king's business. It's it's a lie. Now, we want to notice one more thing before we move to Act 2. Look at verse 7. We are told that there's a certain man of the servants of Saul there named Doeg, an Edomite. He was the chief herdsman who belonged to Saul. We're told about him because later on in our account, 1 Samuel, he's gonna do some bad stuff. Doag is there, and he's gonna tell on David to Saul. It's gonna result in uh the murder of all the priests minus one. One priest will get away. Some 85, I believe, priests will die because Doag was there. And saw this, he's gonna kill off the entire town of Nog. So this guy, Doag, is bad news, but I want you to notice it's the consequence, and David's gonna feel for it. It's the consequence for David not trusting God. Uh, it's the consequence for what David did. Um, now notice as we move along, verse 10, he arose and fled before Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath. Now, you'll remember Gath, that's where Goliath was from. So these are Philistines that David's running to, the enemies of God. And the servants of Achish said to him in verse 11, Is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying, Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands? Uh now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath. So he changed his behavior before them, pretended madness in their hands, scratched on the doors of the gate, let saliva fall down on his beard. And Akish said to his servants, Look, you see, this man is insane. Why have you brought him to me? Have I need a madman that you have brought this fellow to play madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house? So David runs to the enemies of God, and things turn south pretty quick, right? Uh they start talking amongst themselves. Hey, isn't this David? I've heard, yeah. Hey, isn't this David? I've heard his song on the radio. David has killed his tens of thousands, and they start adding it up. David killed tens of thousands. Who'd he kill? He killed us, the Philistines, Goliath. He's he's he's he's not on our side. And David hears them talking and he says, Oh my goodness, what have I done? What am I doing here? Now, David has a pretty good tactic in some ways, right? He starts to play that he's crazy, scratching on the doors, clawing with his fingernails. He's letting just, you know, take this to note if you ever get in this situation. He's letting saliva drip down on his beard. He's acting like he's just nuts, right? Let's draw our attention away from that. And the king says, Do I need another madman? I got you guys, you know, and and and so David escapes. But notice it's very similar, right? In in fear, he's become a complete fake, right? He's faking that he's crazy. And we look and go, well, he made it through it, at least, sure. But this really bothered David as he saw this facade. This isn't who I am. I'm not, this is not the man after God's own heart playing crazy in front of Akish. Well, I think there's a lot of regret in it because David writes a song. Now, a lot of the psalms are written just in various times of life. Good psalms to read. But let's turn to Psalm 34 and we'll see how David figured it out. In Psalm 34, notice when you get there, Psalm 34. We're given a title on this song, if you could say. Probably added after the fact, but tradition gives it this title: A Psalm of David, when he pretended madness before Abimelech and drove him away, and he departed. So it's during this exact moment of life, David gets through it and he writes this song. Now you can skip down and we'll we'll we'll look at the beginning, but um notice I think it's verse 17. Um, no, I'm sorry, verse 13. Is that right? Oh pages. Oh sorry, I'm not used to pages. Oh, we're speaking of saliva. That would be helpful right now. My fans are so trying. Okay. All right. Verse 13. Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. Notice the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. Now, I picture this the moment when David understood that part. And he's acting crazy, clawing on the door, drool coming down his beard. And he goes, God, you gotta help me. What am I doing? Where am I? How did I get in this situation? He mentions their tongue that goes to evil, lips speaking deceit. And we can have him flash back to his time there with the priests, making up this story that he was sent by Saul. How did I get to this point where I'm not even telling the truth? I'm acting crazy. God, you're gonna have to help me. The righteous cry out in verse 17, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. Now, that's how David, I think, got to this point of Psalm 34. But what did he really figure out? And I think there's some great uh advice for combating fear. Look at verse 1. And we'll read it and just kind of soak in it a little bit. He says this I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. So he mentions praise and blessing the Lord. We could say worship. Now, worship, I think we have kind of a, you know, a shallow view of what worship is. For most of us, I think we think worship, I'm gonna sing some songs. It's that first part, and he sings those songs for the last 10 years. He's the same songs, but it's worship. We worshiped. Um, but yet worship does so much more. Now, I don't know why music is significant to worship. It's not just that, but but having a heart of worship, having that determination, look at verse one again. I will bless the Lord at all times. It really is a choice, isn't it? Uh, to in our life find times of just worship. Uh notice, making verse two, my soul will make its boast in the Lord. Look at verse three. Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I think this really is a way to combat fear in our life. Magnify the Lord. Now we think of magnifying this idea of taking a magnifying glass, making it bigger. Some of us depend on stuff like that more and more every day, right? To make things bigger so we can see them. You really can't make God any bigger. He's big, he's as big as he'll ever be. He's powerful and knowledgeable, he's everything. But we lose sight of that, don't we? We lose sight of how big God is, and then our fears uh get even bigger. Uh, Nehemiah, one of my life passages, I think, Nehemiah in chapter four of his book is dealing with fear in the people. They're scared, they want to give up, they don't want to build anymore because the people, the enemies are coming in their threatening attack and they're threatening to kill them. Real fear. And Nehemiah says very simply, he says, Don't be afraid. Remember the Lord great and awesome. And I think that that is just a huge thing that we need to remember the Lord great and awesome. And that's what this idea of magnifying is. It's not that we're making God any bigger, but we're putting our life in perspective, right? The things of our life that scare us, they are not as big as God. He's all powerful, he's all-knowing, he knows the problems of our life before we do. Uh, he's always with us, and he loves us unconditionally, no matter what we go through. And in David, I think, here says, This is what I needed to bless the Lord, make my boast in the Lord. I needed to magnify the Lord. Verse 4, I sought the Lord and He heard me, delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him and were radiant, their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his trouble. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man or woman who trusts in him. And and and there we see, taste and see that the Lord is good. It's a real experience. Um, he's all around us. And blessed. That word blessed there, an old testament word, means oh, how happy, filled with just peace and joy and everything that's good. Blessed is the one who trusts in him. And that's where David, I think, finally got uh after his the fiasco there with the people of Gath. He came to his senses and he's like, you know what? Not gonna change where I'm at, not gonna change the fact that Saul wants to kill me, that's real. But what I am gonna remember is the Lord. I gotta keep him in view. And something happened. Now, it was still years that he was running around the wilderness. He had hard days. I know he did. And trust went up and down and all that kind of stuff. But David had a perspective. I gotta put God as the biggest thing in this world, bigger than my fears, bigger than my troubles, bigger than Saul. He's gonna do what he said he was gonna do. One day I'll be king. I don't know how it's gonna happen, but I trust him. And it's so hard to determine to bless the Lord, magnify the Lord. Um, just put God where he ought to be in our hearts. God, I know it's not an amount of talking that we can do. We can convince ourselves necessarily to trust you, but God, you're so worth our trust. You're worth uh all of our faith just depending on you because you never let us down. God, there's a lot of things in our life that seem huge, a lot of real problems. And yet, God, we have to look to you. So, God, I pray that you would take these things and remind them of it this week. God, we would be reminded of how great you are and how good you are. In Jesus' name we pray.

unknown 30:04

Amen.