Sermon Tone Analysis
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If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Samuel 27. We’re going to read this entire chapter and a couple extra verses (don’t worry, it’s short).
As I’m reading, as you follow along, I want for you to see if you notice anything strange about this chapter.
Keep an eye out for odd details or strange omissions.
If you are able and willing, please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word:
May God add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
This is, admittedly, a very odd dozen or so verses.
What did you notice?
What’s missing?
If you noticed, this is a godless text.
God is not mentioned.
The name of the Lord isn’t invoked.
Not once.
This isn’t altogether unheard of in the Bible.
There’s an entire book of the Bible where God is never mentioned, God’s name never shows up.
The book of Esther is, in that sense, a “godless” book.
But there’s much to be gained from the book of Esther; it’s one of the greatest stories in the history of God’s people.
Likewise, there’s much to be learned from this part of 1 Samuel.
It’s not a complete story, you might have noticed.
The writer of the book leaves us hanging.
He interrupts the flow of the story.
He deliberately chops the story off where we stopped reading today.
But this is how it was intended for us to read.
Here we have it.
So we need to work with it, or rather, let the text and the Holy Spirit work on us.
Dale Ralph Davis breaks down the story like this:
David’s Plan (27:1-4)
David’s Town (27:5-7)
David’s Practice (27:8-12)
David’s Dilemma (28:1-2)
You might remember when David went to Gath before.
It was 1 Samuel 21.
That was when he acted insane among them so they would let him go.
This time, however, David was welcomed in Gath, Goliath’s hometown.
David comes with 600 men.
This would make a good, strong extra army division that Achish could use however he felt.
What David does while in Philistia is very interesting.
I had to read it a few times before I understood what was going on.
At first blush, I thought David was a traitor, fighting for the enemy.
What he was actually doing was rather crafty.
He’s a little sneaky-sneak.
From the town the Philistine king gave to David, David and his men would attack.
They were “desert raiders who raided desert raiders.”
David would attack bands of Geshurites, Girzites, and Amalekites (1 Samuel 27:8), killing the men and women, plundering what they had, taking the livestock with them.
David would take back to Achish his share, the king’s share, of the spoil.
And then David would lie about where it came from, telling the Philistines it came from attacks on Judah or clans associated with Judah.
So Achish would think David was working for him, attacking Israelites, but David was really working against the Philistines, helping Israel, and killing whoever might rat David out.
I told you.
Sneaky-sneak.
Achish believed David, appreciated what David was doing (or what he thought David was doing).
David has Achish fooled into thinking David is actually fighting for Philistia and against Israel.
David so successfully fooled Achish that Achish wants David and his men to join the Philistines in battle against Israel.
Well, shoot.
Plan’s backfired a little.
What’s going to happen?
David’s response is just ambiguous enough.
“Well, Achish, you’re about to see what I can do.”
David has a moment to figure out exactly what to do.
>In all of this, says Richard Pratt, “the text does not mention God, does not say precisely or directly what the Lord is doing in this episode, does not even inform us of the Lord’s point of view.”
There is, for all we can’t know about what’s going on here, some direction for the Lord’s people in these verses.
First,
Think about your Thinking
What struck me first as I read these verses was what David was thinking.
1 Samuel 27:1 “But David thought to himself, “One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul.
The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines.
Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.”
David thought, possibly correctly, that Saul was going to destroy him, strike him down.
That’s a decent thought; he’s probably correct.
But then David thinks “the best thing” he can do is to go to the land of the Philistines.
“Really?! That’s the best thing you can do?
That?!?
To go to Philistia?”
David’s thinking is broken.
But, of course, it would be.
David has faced a lot of trauma.
He’s been chased around the country by a murderous madman.
He’s been living in caves and in the wilderness.
It’s a lot.
His decision-making is a bit foolish.
It’s bound to be.
David needed to think about his thinking.
As the proverb goes, “there is a way that seems right to man...”
It’s not that David wasn’t thinking at all; David thought about this move to Philistia.
The problem is David’s thinking.
What David thought about being safe from Saul in Philistia ended up to be true.
David reasons: 1 Samuel 27:1 “Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.”
A few verses later, that’s proven true: 1 Samuel 27:4 “When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer searched for him.”
David’s thinking isn’t all wrong.
David escapes Saul.
David is given some land, the town of Ziklag.
From Ziklag, David can do what he wants, attacking Israel’s enemies under the guise of fighting against Israel.
What David thought about and carried out worked.
For a while, even.
But then, Achish says David and all his men are going to join Philistia in a battle against Israel.
David could be risking his kingship.
If David marches with the Philistines against Israel, well, that’s that.
David’s thinking has placed him in quite a pickle.
This is a major dilemma.
David need to think about his thinking.
David’s thinking isn’t God’s thinking.
Now, it’s easy to be a spectator, removed a few thousand years from the issue at hand, commenting with all our our hindsight, but anyone should be able to see this isn’t great.
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