How He Works

The author of 1 Samuel could write for television. Seriously. He could be a writer on a drama series. He’s held our attention. He jumps from scene to scene. He leaves us in suspense (that is, if we read a section or chapter at a time).

The story we resume today was interrupted by 1 Samuel 28. The story began in 1 Samuel 27, was interrupted by 1 Samuel 28, and now, 1 Samuel 29 is interrupting the story started in 1 Samuel 28.

It’s David’s story interrupted by Saul’s story which is interrupted here by the continuation of David’s story.

It’s riveting writing. Just imagine if this was old-timey television, when you had to wait an entire week to see what happened next.

Kids these days have no idea what we went through. If you weren’t home, you missed it. There was no DVR, no streaming services, no way to watch an episode you missed. The advent of the VCR just got your hopes up; most of the time it wasn’t programmed correctly or you missed the first or last few minutes.

1 Samuel is kind of like that. If we were reading this straight through, we’d be following two different stories, longing for resolution. If it just came a chapter at a time, we’d be left hanging. Waiting. Wondering.

We’d talk about it during the week, wondering what was going to happen with David, how Saul was going to bite it (we know he’s going to die, we just don’t know how). We’d be placing bets on when and how the kingdom would transfer from Saul to David.

It’s a great story. And the storytelling just gets better and better.

What’s more, all along the way, the Lord is at work. He’s on the move. His purpose will not be thwarted.

The Lord is, once again, all but completely unmentioned in this chapter, but that doesn’t mean He’s absent. It doesn’t mean the Lord is on holiday or taking a nap. No, our God neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121).

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Samuel 29. If you are able and willing, please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word:

1 Samuel 29 NIV

1 The Philistines gathered all their forces at Aphek, and Israel camped by the spring in Jezreel. 2 As the Philistine rulers marched with their units of hundreds and thousands, David and his men were marching at the rear with Achish. 3 The commanders of the Philistines asked, “What about these Hebrews?” Achish replied, “Is this not David, who was an officer of Saul king of Israel? He has already been with me for over a year, and from the day he left Saul until now, I have found no fault in him.” 4 But the Philistine commanders were angry with Achish and said, “Send the man back, that he may return to the place you assigned him. He must not go with us into battle, or he will turn against us during the fighting. How better could he regain his master’s favor than by taking the heads of our own men? 5 Isn’t this the David they sang about in their dances: “ ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?” 6 So Achish called David and said to him, “As surely as the Lord lives, you have been reliable, and I would be pleased to have you serve with me in the army. From the day you came to me until today, I have found no fault in you, but the rulers don’t approve of you. 7 Now turn back and go in peace; do nothing to displease the Philistine rulers.” 8 “But what have I done?” asked David. “What have you found against your servant from the day I came to you until now? Why can’t I go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?” 9 Achish answered, “I know that you have been as pleasing in my eyes as an angel of God; nevertheless, the Philistine commanders have said, ‘He must not go up with us into battle.’ 10 Now get up early, along with your master’s servants who have come with you, and leave in the morning as soon as it is light.” 11 So David and his men got up early in the morning to go back to the land of the Philistines, and the Philistines went up to Jezreel.

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!

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I told you it was a great story! What an unexpected salvation!

In 1 Samuel 27:1 we read: 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’s decision to go to Philistia has brought him to this point in 1 Samuel 29. David and his men are stuck marching with the Philistines into battle against their own people, the Israelites.

The story was interrupted and we were left hanging.

As we come back and find David, we see David in a desperate situation. David has a little cover; he’s in back of all the Philistines marching with Achish. But this situation is no good; David has to know this is bad.

David’s been playing Achish for a fool. He doesn’t want to be found out by Achish; Achish would absolutely have David killed for his trickery and deceit, not to mention all the Philistines David killed and raided in the time he was there.

And David certainly doesn’t want to be seen by Saul or Israel to be marching with the Philistines.

David really needs to find a way out of this situation. I wonder if he’s wracking his brain, if he has some of his men helping him think about a way out of marching with the Philistines.

The text doesn’t tell us anything of the sort. David has to play this just right.

Rock…David…Hard place.

But then something strange happens. The commanders of the Philistines, (that is, the five Philistine leaders from the five different regions of Philistia) question Achish about these Hebrews.

“We’re getting ready to fight the Hebrews. What are you doing with these Hebrews?”

Achish defends David as faithful to him and helpful to him. “David and his men have been with me a long time (16 months now); they’re good. You’ll like them. David’s a great guy, really!”

One would think the insistence Achish shows would settle it; Achish goes to bat for David. But the Philistine commanders aren’t having it.

The Philistine commanders know what David is capable of and they can only imagine why David is there with Achish in the first place. They suspect that David is doing what David has actually been doing. Rather astute for some fellas just walking into this...

The Philistines recall the song they’ve heard playing on Top 40 radio:

1 Samuel 29:5 “Isn’t this the David they sang about in their dances: “ ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”

Achish wants David to stay. Achish is defending David. The Philistine commanders are angry with Achish and want David gone; they’re arguing against David. They tell Achish to “send the man back…he must not go with us into battle.”

This is precisely the out David needs. And it comes from…the Philistines?!?

Very, very strange.

And it gets even more strange.

Achish goes to deliver “the bad news” to David. The “bad news” is actually “good news”, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Achish gives in to the Philistine commanders and tells David, “Hey, man, I really like you, but the rulers don’t approve of you. It’s not me, it’s them. Turn back and go in peace.”

Whew!

But David plays like he’s hurt and insulted by all of this. “What have I done? Why can’t I go and fight?”

Strange, right?

“The deceived (Achish) defends his deceiver (David), and the relieved (David) disputes his relief!” - Dale Ralph Davis

Achish assures David that he’s pleased with David, as pleasing in my eyes as an angel of God. But he reiterates the decision of the Philistine commanders in releasing David from battle: “He must not go with us into battle.”

David is to leave the next morning and that’s just what David and his men do.

The Philistines go to battle and make sure David does not go with them.

We know, because we’re Bible people, that this chapter—1 Samuel 29—is not the story of a lucky break. We know this is divine deliverance, a merciful deliverance. The author doesn’t have to spell it out for us. We get it. We can read between the lines.

The Lord is Good, and Quiet

The most obvious mark of this story about the Lord’s goodness is that it says nothing about the Lord’s goodness.

The chapter says basically nothing about the Lord. Outside of Achish’s odd comment about David being as pleasing to him as an angel of God, there’s nothing explicitly mentioned about the Lord.

The Holy Spirit inspired author of this book doesn’t make everything so obvious for us. We’re meant to think, to ask questions, to depend upon our knowledge of who God is and how God operates.

I think it would cheapen the story to have a concluding comment: “Thus the Lord delivered David from the Philistine battle against Israel.”

We don’t need a statement like that to see the Lord in this story.

I would argue we don’t need overt and explanatory statements like this period.

It always cheapens a great movie when the screenwriter decides they have to give an overt explanation of what happened.

The truly great stories and story-writers trust that we’re smart enough to put the pieces together ourselves.

My favorite movie ends with the main character driving his car down highway. That’s it. The credits roll over that scene and an Elliot Smith song plays us out of the theatre.

We’re not told it’s all happily ever after. We’re not given a play-by-play summary— “He drove from Boston to California and got the girl. They got married, had 2.5 children, and moved to the suburbs.”

All we see at the end of the movie is a car driving down the road. Because they know we’re smart enough to connect the dots.

As we go back over our life and experience, it’s our task to document those moments when the Lord was clearly good to us and quietly present to save us and help us.

Ponder the ground you’ve covered.

All the murky stuff the Lord has carried you through.

The twists and turns of your life.

The silent mercy. The quiet care. The Lord was there, but He often wasn’t loud about it.

Why does the Lord work in such ways? Why didn’t He come swooping in with angel armies to decimate the Philistines and sweep David and his men off on a cloudy chariot ride?

I believe it’s because this is far more interesting, and more challenging.

God often doesn’t come sweeping through with trumpet blast pomp and circumstance.

The Lord doesn’t always declare his deliverance, but sometimes allows you to discover it, to be challenged to see the way in which He works, to think about what was actually going on at that moment of your life and who was behind it all.

To bring you, all on your own, to the point of worship.

The Ways of the Lord are Surprising

We might be amused by this, but the Philistines weren’t. They were ticked. Incredulous even. “What in the world is Achish thinking?!? That’s David, the Israelite, the slayer of his tens of thousands!”

It’s the Philistines who proclaim the good news of David’s deliverance from this dilemma. “He must not go down with us into battle.”

What instruments does the Lord use to rescue His servant from this situation? Who does the Lord use to save David?

The Philistine army officers!

You might remember, the Lord has done this before (1 Samuel 23).

When Saul and his men were hunting David and his men, they were playing ‘ring around the mountain’—David on one side, Saul on the other side closing in on David—when, all of a sudden, a messenger arrives and tells Saul that the Philistines were raiding the land.

Saul stops pursuing David and goes to deal with the Philistines. The Philistines were there, too, the unwitting tools of deliverance for David.

We can’t put the Lord to a test and assume that whenever we do something as foolish as David does here that the Lord is going to intervene in a similar way, that He’s somehow obligated to do so.

“What this does teach us is that even in our folly and stupid sinfulness, we are no match for God who has thousands of unguessable ways by which He rescues His people—even by the mouths of the Philistines. He can make the enemy serve us as a friend. He not only prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies, but also has the knack of making the enemies prepare the table!” -DRD

There is a story about a Christian woman, alone and out of food. She was recounting her situation to her Heavenly Father and asking for her daily bread.

Somehow a neighbor, who was an atheist, overheard the woman praying and decided it was an opportunity to mess with her a little bit.

He went and purchased two loaves of bread and left them at her door. Upon discovering them, the woman burst into a grateful prayer of praise.

But her neighbor pounced on the opportunity to demythologize the incident, telling her that he heard what she was praying and that he bought the bread and put the loaves on her doorstep. “Ha! It wasn’t your God who answered your prayer!”

But the lady was quick. “Oh, yes it was the Lord who answered my prayer—even though He used the devil to do it.”

The Lord’s ways are, if we think about it, often very surprising.

We could not write this story, or many of our stories, any better. God is far more clever, far more surprising than we give Him credit.

When He works in unexpected ways, it’s meant to lead us to worship and praise. There should be many moments when we say, along with Paul:

Romans 11:33 NIV

33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

The Lord’s Mercy is Relentless

When David heard from Achish that he needed to turn back and go in peace, what do you think he was thinking?

Some think David was actually upset at the thought of leaving. We, I think, know better than that. David had to pretend like this was upsetting to him without playing it too far.

David’s walking a tightrope here. Better to accept the help of the Philistines than to talk yourself back into battle position.

It all works out. Come morning, David and his men are headed back toward their “home” in Ziklag.

We can’t separate this chapter from 1 Samuel 27, David’s initial misadventure in going to Philistia.

David’s decision to go to Philistia in the first place was foolish and faithless. Remember him saying, “The best thing I can do is go to Philistia”??? Yeah, that’s dumb.

But now, at the end of 1 Samuel 29, can’t you see the character and mercy of God on full display?

The Lord’s mercy still pursuing His servants even in their foolishness.

David would write in his most famous song, “Surely your goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”

Or, as Peterson translates it: “Your goodness and mercy chase after me every day of my life.”

How true and beautiful that is!

How strong, how tenacious, how un-let-go-able the Lord’s mercy is! The Lord is not short-tempered with His people. His mercy and patience are not exhausted when we choose foolishly, like David choosing to go to Philistia.

Some of us—most of us!—have a tendency to fashion God in our own image and imagine God, like us, when one of His children has made a dumb choice, throws an angry fit, blows His top, and storms off in a huff.

That’s not how our God functions. This is not how the God of the Bible operates.

Here’s David, marching with the Philistines. David, caught in his own trap. Hoisted on his own petard.

The Lord, infinite in mercy, finds David even in Philistia. The God who saved David from Saul again and again and again can surely save David from himself.

It’s been said: “Inexhaustible mercy does not dry up.”

>The Goodness of God, the Ways of God, the Mercy of God are on display here in 1 Samuel 29, albeit silently. We have to look for them. They are there, behind the scenes, in David’s life and ours.

God is always good, even when we don’t see it. The way in which He operates is surprising and sometimes frustrating to us. But we know His mercy pursues us, dogging our tracks all the days of our lives.

In our lives, there are many instances of the Lord’s mercy and goodness. Take a minute this week to list the quiet mercies of God in your life. Think back. Think way back if you have to.

Think all the way back to the cross of Jesus, where the goodness and mercy of God was on display in the most surprising way.

That God, infinite in mercy to sinners like us, in a surprising and shocking move, handed over His own Son to die in our place, to take our sins from us in order to reconcile us to our Heavenly Father.

Think back to that beautiful, scandalous night when Jesus was crucified, hanged on a tree for you and for me.

And see how good, how merciful, how surprising are the Lord’s ways and works.