Desperate Times
Notes
Transcript
Claim - God allows desperate times for his saviour and his followers
Focus - Keep going, The Lord is with you.
Function - Perserver in trust of the Lord in the greatest of trials and depsoeration
This chapter is the stuff of epic hollywood films.
The hero, David, is running for his life - literally. He’s an inside man, close to the king,
but the king, Saul, becomes envious and suspicious and wants to take the heros life!
David flees from one bad place to another, making very questionable decsiions as he goes!
In our modern films we might see the hero lie, and steal, and even kill to keep himself alive in a bid to proove himself innocent, or find freedom.
David is found to be lying and deciving as he does the same.
Life is messy and that’s just for the heros!
For you and me, there will be less killing and car chases, but life is certainly messy.
We find ourselevs in desperate situations.
Perhaps failing relationships,
failing health,
worries about our children, or elderly parents,
financial desperation.
Aside from death, all of us face or have faced or will face desperate times.
Dark and lonely, fearful and cold,
But I thought I was a good person - why is this happening?
Why is life so unfair?
Why is God letting this happen to me? or even
Why has God done this too me!
And then of course begins an even worse cycle,
as in our desperation we make things worse through desperate and unthought out actions.
Through urgent situations casueing us to make mistakes,
In our sadness we blanme God and sin against him!
Well now I’m even more of a sinner,
more of a lost cause,
I am certyainly not worthy of God’s help now,
perhaps I’m not even worthy of his salavtion at all.
David may be our hero,
he may even be the king who points us to the ulimate hero Jesus.
But he is not perfect like Jesus.
and he is not expempt from desperation.
And yet - he will lead and save his people,
He will prepare tyhe eway for Jessu the ulimate saviour to come.
So, those of us deep in a black whole of desperation today,
we can learn something wonderful about this messy life of desperation from this chapter:
God allows desperate times for his saviour and his followers
But through it all, The Lord is with you. - Even when we sin and fail - he remains with you.
We can trust of the Lord in the greatest of trials and desperation.
1 - Desperations Daily Bread v1-9
1 - Desperations Daily Bread v1-9
As David flees King Saul who desires to kill him, he leaves behind those who love him.
His wife, , family, his close friend Jonathan, the people who honour him.
He literally looses eveything he has that almost makes life worthwhile.
He flees initialy to see Ahimelek the preist - who is clearly suspicious of what’s going on as David arrives:
David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembled when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
David, perhaps wanting to protect the preist from being part of David’s escape plan starts his deception:
(incidentally - whatever David’s intentions - the next chapter will confrim that he far from protects the preists)
David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place.
If Ahimalek is suspcious of David’s story already, he certainly will be in minute as David spots one fo Saul’s yes men in v7, and fearing he may know of the orders to kill David, or atleast report back to Saul that David is on the run,
He asks Ahimalek for sword!
Why would you go on a secret mission without any men, and without even picking up your sword!
It is all very odd,
And David is very desperate.
And he is also hungry and fearful of not having ht energy to keep running.
So he asks Ahimelek for some bread.
Ahimelek has none,
but there are the 12 consecrated loaves dedicated to the Lord.
They would be put out each sabath on the table on the north side of the holy place in the temple.
and then the levite preist would be permitted to eat them as a stipned for their services.
Not really ment for anyone else,
But Ahimalek is not a jobsworth,
and he knows the OT law well,
But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.”
I have, we have confirms David,
and so David in his hunger,
his desperation,
recieves Daily bread - quite literally from the Lord’s table.
God sustains David in his fear and desperation.
The holy bread literally becomes David’s daily bread.
Some may object -
But David surely didn’t seserve the bread.
Perhaps he’d kept himslef from women,
but he was far from blameless,
He’s lying to a preist,
he doesn’t deserve God’s daily bread.
But what is new under the sun?
If our daily bread from God relied on our daily perfection before God then we would all be wasting away!
The Lord’s prayer would not be worth praying, for we’d know the answer.
But our daily bread - even in our desperation (wheter that’s literal bread, or breath to live, or the tiniest reminder of grace) is just that - a grace from God that we do not deserve,
but most certainly reminds us that God does provide.
In our desperation,
The lord provides some daliy bread -however small, and however far from what ‘we’d really desire,
But his small provisionin our big problems reminds us that God has not cast us off.
He is for us.
Desperations Prayer and Praise - v10-15
Desperations Prayer and Praise - v10-15
David - now sustained by His daily bread,
moves on,
he’s not safe in his own country.
Where he goes next tells us just how desperate he is!
He leaves Ahimelk and the city of Nob, with the only sword Ahimalek has (preists don’t normally have need for swords).
But as God had ordained it, the Sword of Goliath (who Daivd killed a couple fo chapters ago) was being kept safe there!
Atleast Daivd is now armed.
Perhpas it is the sight of the sword mixed with David’s utter desperation that casues him to make his next move.
That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.
Gath, incase you don’t remmeber is the home town of, yes, you’ve guessed it, the Giant of a man, the snake man, Goliath!
So fearful was Daivd that he had managed to convince himself he’d be safer in the enemy Philisten territory,
showing up in Goliath’s home town, with goliaths own sword!
Perhaps he thought he’d get in unrecognised,
but needless to say,
the Philistines were not neive to who came and went to their towns.
But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances:
“ ‘Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands’?”
David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath.
David realises he’s in real trouble now.
He’s been identified.
The King isn’t going to treat him lighty,
not to mention the hundreds of widows following David’s campaings against the Phiistine armies!
He’s gone from bad to worse!
in hi sutter desperation - he acts as if he’s lost his mind,
So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.
What a desperate situation.
How humiliating,
how tiering,
how desperate.
And while his oscar winning performance works, he’s released from custody, the king apparently has enough of his own madmen to deal with.
What is facinating is that David does not see his escape from Gath as his own work, despite his own efforts.
2 of the Psalms in the bible are written by David as a result of this episode in Gath.
The New International Version Psalm 34
Psalm 34,
Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.
and
The New International Version Psalm 56
Psalm 56
For the director of music. To the tune of “A Dove on Distant Oaks.” Of David. A miktam. When the Philistines had seized him in Gath.
1 Be merciful to me, my God,
for my enemies are in hot pursuit;
all day long they press their attack.
2 My adversaries pursue me all day long;
in their pride many are attacking me.
Listen to the misery Daivd is in.
All day long they twist my words;
all their schemes are for my ruin.
They conspire, they lurk,
they watch my steps,
hoping to take my life.
Record my misery;
list my tears on your scroll—
are they not in your record?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of David’s actions here,
one thing is clear.
He was praying for help.
The New International Version Psalm 56
1 Be merciful to me, my God,
The New International Version Psalm 56
3 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
The New International Version Psalm 56
4 In God, whose word I praise—
in God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
The New International Version Psalm 56
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the LORD, whose word I praise—
11 in God I trust and am not afraid.
What can man do to me?
When deep in desperation,
we must pray.
But note too, that desperation also leads to praise so long as we aknowdlege God is the one who delivered us, not ourselevse!
Perhpas a doctor heals you,
perhaps you find a new job to pay the bills,
perhaps a friends advises you how to imporve your situation,
Regardless of the tool used - it is God who is to be glorified!
David did not credit his rescue from Gath to his acting skills as a madman!
He crdiitied it to God - For he alone rescues.
I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
I will glory in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
Glorify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.
I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
One comentator puts this account like this:
1 Samuel: Looking on the Heart Desperation and Praise (21:10–15)
Here is David—foolish, desperate, confused. Ah, but it’s the stuff psalms are made of.
God has not cast us of,
Let us trun our desperation into prayer and praise.
Next
22v1-4 - Desperations Providence
22v1-4 - Desperations Providence
David having now escaped Gath, returns to his own territory, but goes into hiding in the cave of Adullam. A relatively secluded area, 30 miles or so (as the crow flies) south west of Jeruslamn.
David’s father and household get news of his location and probbaly now in fear of their own lives,
as it’s first place Sula ould be looking for Daivd,
they all come a join him.
But it is not just his family that come...
It seems that others who are weak, perhaps desperate are also quite prepared to believe that a man as desperate and suffering as Daivd,
does not disqualify him from being their future king and saviour!
All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander. About four hundred men were with him.
Our desperation is an oppertunity to be reminded that we need a suffering commander ourselevs!
This world brings about and causes our pain - and the Lord Jesus expericend it more so than any of us!
But these last few verses today show us another wonderful, if still painful, truth to our desperation.
And that is that our desperation is not pointless.
David’s parents are old and cannot live on the run as part of David’s slowly assembling malitia.
And so David, now thinking more carefully takes them to another forign king and asks Him to take care of his elderly parents until it is safe for them to return.
From there David went to Mizpah in Moab and said to the king of Moab, “Would you let my father and mother come and stay with you until I learn what God will do for me?” So he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him as long as David was in the stronghold.
It seems an unlikely request, tnat is unlikely to be accepted.
Why would Moab help?
Why would David think they might?
Why did Moab agree?
The answer is in seeing another desperate situation recorded in the bible that leads to now a soverign providence that provides for god’s people in another time.
You may recall the desperate story of Naomi, in the book of Ruth, who fled famine to the land of Moab, where her sons married moabite women,
Her husband died,
her son’s died,
she had nothing left.
And yet the faithful moabite woman Ruth returned with her to Israel after the famine to serve the one true God.
So much suffering and pain, desperation and sadness.
And yet how does the book of Ruth end?
With a genealogy.
David is the great grandson of Ruth.
The desperation of Ruth and Naomie,
in God’s great providence provides for God’s people in ways they could have never imagined.
Having a little moabite blood in your family cannot fail to have helped this request for help,
and David’s parents are cared for and spared certain death at the hands of Saul.
You may never know why you suffer and are desperate.
But in God’s providence there will be very good reason.
Perhpas it is to support and care for others who go through similar.
Perhpas it’s to be realised decades after your own death.
Perhaps it’s to testify to the greatest grace of salvation through Jesus (another decendant of Ruth)
by hoilding firm to your faith in desperation.
The greatest desperation in all of history stands as the ulitmate example.
As Jesus takes our sin and judgement from God His Fatehr upon himself.
“My God, My God, Why have you foresaken me?” quotes Jesus from a Pslam as he dies on the cross.
what a desperate event.
But one used in God’s provididence to secure victory and safe refuge for ALL his people under a King who is not of this world.
The Lord Jesus.
His blood shed for us - so that as we approach the throne of God aliomighty in desperation, and plead for our lives,
He will know, that one with alittle of His own blood, has come for refuge.
God has not cast us off.
Our sins forgiven By Jesus on the cross, if no other example can, be found - but no other need be found!
22v5 - Desperations Voice
22v5 - Desperations Voice
Desperation is no fun.
The knowledge and aknowdlegment of God’s daily bread, His call to prayer and praise in desperation, and His loving providence fro you and through you in desperation all help us,
but there is one last reminder in our passage to help us.
But the prophet Gad said to David, “Do not stay in the stronghold. Go into the land of Judah.” So David left and went to the forest of Hereth.
IN His desperation Daivd still hears from God. God speaks to him.
Another man is desperate in this section of 1 Samuel and that is Saul.
But God has stopped speaking to him.
Saul is a man on his own, stuck with his own wits and wisdom, a man without direction from God.
He has no light in his misery.
But daivd, in his desperation still listens to God’s voice.
God’s voice shones forth to him in the darkness - and so without hesitiaion he obeys and trusts.
We no longer have prophets who speak God’s infalliable word to us,
becasue accroding to hebrews 1 and 2 Peter 1 we have something better, something more reliable.
We have God’s voice secured and perfectly presented to us in His word the bible.
In our desperation, he has not cast us off.
He is speaking to us.
We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
In our desperation, God still speaks reliably and fully in his word,
we need not doubt or distrust, for it is God himself speaking to us.
Open you bibles in your desperation.
Read David’s Pslams 34 and 56.
Read of the suffering servant Jesus who loves you enough to die.
God has not cast you off,
he is for you,
providing daily bread
asking for our prayer and praise,
providentially preparing his grace
and speaking into our darkness with light.
Let’s pray.