Faith is the Victory

The Hand of Power in 1 Samuel 23

There's a curiosity that kind of starts in this section of 1 Samuel and this is the running away section. David's in the part of the story where he's eluding Saul and we start to get this idea of the word hand.

It's in this passage over and over. It's in the next chapter over and over. It's used eight times in 1 Samuel 23 and the idea is not just your hand. The idea is it's figurative for power and for authority and for dominion.

What we see when we look at this chapter is what our eyes would show us is that David, to use a colloquialism, he has no hand. He's hiding in the wilderness. He's betrayed by his own countrymen and Saul grows in power.

Saul grows in his armies and is chasing all over the place. These two kings, the one who assumes the throne and the one who has been said to be the anointed one of the throne, they vie for this power, but David vies for it in a way that's very different from what most earthly kings would do.

He trusts in the Lord. In the commentaries this week, I saw in this chapter that one commentator called it a betrayal sandwich. I don't think that's right because when we call a sandwich, we call it by what's in the middle, right?

We don't eat rye sandwiches. We eat ham sandwiches. Or if we're more sanctified, we eat roast beef sandwiches. That sort of thing. This is not a betrayal sandwich. What it is is an encouragement and strengthening of faith sandwich.

It's a trust in God sandwich in the midst of all kinds of betrayal on both sides. So a general outline of the chapter, and then we'll get into it, is the first section of the chapter sees David seeking God repeatedly.

Seeking the voice of the Lord to tell him what to do. He's waiting on the Lord and he's listening to the Lord and then he does what the Lord says. And then he gets betrayed. Or he would have been betrayed.

And then in the middle, there's the visit that I just read where Saul's own son, Jonathan, comes back to David, risked danger. It's a dangerous situation to go see David at this time. If you don't believe me, ask Abie Athar, the priest, who is the only priest who escaped the massacre that we learned about last week.

And then we have the other piece of the bread, which is the betrayal of the Ziphites, which are Judahites. They are David's countrymen and they act abominably. And so as we look and we always try to come back to what is the scripture saying to its original audience?

What did God want the people to get out of this? And then today, understanding, as Solomon said, that there's nothing new under the sun, that we take the same kinds of applications from this type of scripture.

David Seeks the Lord for Keilah

I want to look first at the people of Keilah. They are a people who are under distress. The Philistine army has come in and is oppressing them. And I've entitled this first section, The Terrible Conditions of Tyranny.

Because Saul is a tyrant, as we have seen. If you didn't believe me, and the commentators really were slow on the uptake, but last week we saw Saul in his full glory as a tyrant. And that's where he went into the men of God and slaughtered all of them.

And in Saul's rashness and in Saul's insanity, what he did was he delivered David the physical manifestation of the voice of God through Abie Athar, the priest who has the ephod. So the more the tyrant squeezes, the more he loses.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself. So the people of Keilah are being attacked. And look, I don't think I have to draw a sharp line to the parallels that we see in the way tyrants work through history.

But tyrants don't protect their own people. Tyrants extort their own people. Tyrants put their own people in uncomfortable situations so that they won't rise up. The thing that a tyrant is most afraid of is his own people.

He's not afraid of foreign invasion. He's afraid of his own people rising up and delegitimizing his rule. And that's what Saul is doing. And so we see that Saul turns a blind eye to the people of Keilah that are his own people.

And the Philistines are in the middle of his own country besieging this city. And Saul does nothing. And so the bad guy in Israel, the insurgent leader who's David, with his band of deplorables that's growing every week, he looks on Keilah and his heart burns.

And he's upset. Because David is the true king of Israel. And David looks at the Philistines making war and besieging this city that's in his own homeland. And he seeks the Lord to see if he can go take out the Philistines and Keilah.

This is a really bad decision from a strategy standpoint for David. He's on the run from Saul who has all the military resources. And so he's going to take the side tour to both alert Saul where he is but to also potentially weaken his forces.

But David doesn't care. Because David sees the plight of his people and his heart burns and he's grieved for his people. And so I want to look here at the thought process of the bad guy. Because the powers that be at the time in Israel would have said David is a usurper.

Or as Michael Scott would say, he's a usurper. So here he comes. He's surrounding the city. And he's looking down there and he's like, what am I going to do? And we pick it up in verse 2. David asks of Yahweh and he says, shall I go and strike these Philistines?

And Yahweh said to David, go and strike the Philistines and save Keilah. So right, good.

Good answer.

Okay.

David's ready. He gets what he wants. But his men are not so convinced. His men in verse 3 say, behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more then if we go to Keilah against the battle lines of the Philistines?

See, his men, if we were looking on the scene, we would go, hey David, you probably all listen to your men. They're smart.

Okay.

There's only a few hundred of you. Saul's conscripted his thousands again. He's conscripted the whole army just like Samuel said that the king was going to do. Raising up his sons. And what a noble war it is that Saul's trying to fight.

Trying to kill his own countrymen in a civil war to stop this usurper. And David's men say, man, we're afraid. Saul's chasing us all over the place and now we're going to go work on this village against the Philistines?

That doesn't sound smart. So what does David do? As a leader, as a king, as a man of God, he listens to his men. But he goes back to Yahweh and he asks again. And he says, once more, what do we do? And Yahweh answered him and said, arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand.

So David has a decision to make. Do I do what seems smart to my own eyes or do I obey the voice of the Lord and he's told me twice? And do I go take out these people? And I think we all know what David was going to do because David has slain his ten thousands, right?

And this is the reason. This is the thought process that leads to David having these songs sung about him. And so he acts according to the Lord's plan. Verse 5. So David's army is successful. The Philistines are destroyed.

Keilah is saved. The foreign invaders are let out and David steals all their livestock. To the victor go the spoils. So his hand is strengthened. He has greater riches and he has saved this people. And you would think now, right?

See, the Philistines revered David. We saw it in 21. They were afraid of him. They were singing the song, the proverb, David has slain his ten thousands. But Keilah doesn't think that way because we have a problem.

And this is the powers that be that have the military look like they are dominating the whole political reality. Saul looks like he's still firmly in control. And if we looked at the thought process of David, which could be summed up this way.

Listen to God. Seek counsel. Ask God again. And then act with faith. That's what David does. What is Saul doing? Well, in this passage we see that he's letting his own people be oppressed by foreign invaders.

He's doing nothing. He's already killed off the priesthood at Nob last week. And he will constantly try to seek a word from the Lord while actively disregarding the word that he's already been given. This is the story of Saul from this section, right?

As Saul's been told what's going to happen. And what Saul tries to do is in a very Romans one way. His idea is to suppress the truth that God has given him. And so over and over again Saul tries to oppress.

And we get this reminder in verse 6. Verse 6 says, This is a big deal. So what happened is the priest who escaped the slaughter, he had the ephod and he came. And the urim and the thummin were in this ephod.

This was the God prescribed way to seek Yahweh's voice and direction. Because what they would do is they would cast these lots. And it was ordained by God that he would speak this way to his priests. And so what Saul does is he rounds into complete madness in this last third of 1 Samuel.

Saul is going to repeatedly try to hear the voice of God. And he's going to use the name of God. But he doesn't listen to God. And he's driven away the only means by which he could have heard the voice of God.

But you see, you have to see in the text that Saul doesn't care about the voice of God. Saul cares about himself. He does move to action in this chapter. He does. But his action is not to protect his own countrymen.

His action is to crush the righteous man in order to prop himself up. Saul's response to hearing about the events of Kelah. Wouldn't you think, oh man, David's really on my side. He's fighting the Philistines.

He's making my people stronger. Israel undoubtedly becomes stronger because of the actions of David at Kelah. But Saul can't see that. What he says is, God has delivered him into my hand, speaking of David.

For he shut himself in by entering a city with double gates and bars. Saul sees the liberation of his people from a foreign invader. And all that he can think about is, aha, David by acting righteously has fallen directly into a trap.

Do you see how twisted he is? Do you see how he's lost sight of his whole anointment to rule the people? He is using the power only to enrich himself and only to hold on to it for himself. And so he oppresses his people by ruling through fear and intimidation.

Lest they be slaughtered for doing righteousness. And what's going to happen to Saul is this results in a swelling of his enemy's ranks. Because he keeps piling up grievances and low trust within the people of Israel.

This is what the tyrant does. The tyrant tries to deny reality. The tyrant tries to rule through fear and oppression. And so it is that David, he liberates the people of Kelah. And he asks the Lord again as he starts to seek the Lord again.

He says, will the people of Kelah turn me in? Will they give me up to Saul? And God answers him bountifully. And God tells David, Saul knows that you're here. And the people of Kelah will give you up.

They will betray you. That had to be a devastating blow to David. You understand that he just risked his survival to save this people. And something strikes me about the king coming into his own and his own people not knowing him.

And not regarding him. And I want you to see that, that David is a shadow in a way. But David is also a great man. But he gives way to a greater man that's in his loins as we speak here in this text. Because the King Jesus is going to come and he's going to take off all the shackles of the oppressors.

And David, what he does at Kelah is a small picture of what the King Jesus, the Lord of Lords, did in saving us all from sin and Satan and death. We can see all of the dictates of a tyrant as we see in our own day.

And so what the tyrant does, and I really want to put it simply, is the tyrant calls good evil and calls evil good. And they will oppress the righteous. And they will gaslight the righteous. And they will say that that's insane.

You're never going to be able to pull that off. It's just lies. That's conspiracy theories. That's misinformation. You're going to hear all of that stuff. And what God's people do repeatedly is they call on the name of the Lord.

But when we call on the name of the Lord, we have to act when he answers. And I think that's the difference between what we see with David and what we see with many pious sounding Christians today. Where we're glad to call on the name of the Lord, but we're not glad to act whenever we have clear answers.

You have to understand that David, that the results of his obedience would seem really frustrating to us.

Wouldn't they?

God says, go do this. David does it, and he has a brief victory. But then God assures David that the people that he just liberated are going to betray him. And give him up to a man who wants to kill him.

But in the midst of this, we have to not miss the point that what God has done is God has saved David through his word. Through revelation. That God is not silent when it comes to David. And we're going to see that silence when it comes to Saul as the chapters unfold.

The Lord does not speak to Saul anymore. Saul is seeking a different kind of word. So the question for us is, where are we storing up our treasure? And how are we using our treasure in trying to follow the Lord?

Does it run you into any enemies? Does our faith lead us into situations where we make war with the enemy and where there are victories given? Does our faith lead us to the place where we confront people in their sin and where we fight the enemies of God with our words and with the gospel?

I'm not telling us to take up swords. But what I am telling us to do is that we have to go in and we have to give the word of hope to those who are oppressed. David knows that. And David knows his enemy, unlike many Christians today.

David is under no misconceptions now because he's seen what happened at Nob. And he understands that Saul is bloodthirsty and cruel and that Saul will surely kill anyone that he finds. And so that's why he asks, is this going to happen?

Will they surrender me? God says, yes, they will. So enough on Keilah. They had a lot of potential, didn't they? They were saved by David. What they could have become was the first great enclave of David's kingdom.

But instead, because of their fear, because of what their eyes could see, God revealed to David that they were going to turn him in because they were more afraid of Saul than of doing what was right. How often do we fall into that camp where we can see the cost of our behavior, the cost of our words, and yet we fear the enemy more?

It's a common theme, I think, with the church in America. I think it's been a common theme with Christians in my circle and with myself is that there's this burning sensation in your mail and you know you're about to pay the cost when we speak.

You know you're about to pay the cost if you engage with the enemy. And we're more afraid of them than we are of God. And I'm just going to tell you, friends, that is absolute foolishness. The people of Keilah acted foolishly in this chapter.

They should have been the first great fortress of David making his foothold in Judah. Instead, they lose the opportunity. So now Jonathan comes. And I think the Lord sees. David had to be down, right?

You pray to God. He's delivered his people. You're going to get sold out. That had to have been a real kick in the teeth. And what David does is I think he's down and God uses means. And I think this is the point.

I think this is the high point and the key to this chapter is that God strengthens his people through encouragement and he uses means to do it. In Christianity, I think what we believe too often is that God is beaming thoughts into our head and beaming feelings into our heart or guts or whatever it is.

Or we start feeling all warm and tingling and think, oh, yay, I feel great now. We sang that song and it made me feel elated and tears were streaming down my eyes. Now I'm renewed. And, look, God can use means by that.

But I think more often when we're in battle, when we are fighting an enemy who wants to destroy us, and we were engaged in the ministry of the gospel, I think more often what God does is he uses the means of people around us to strengthen and encourage us so that we would redouble our efforts, not fear death, and fear the Lord only because there are people with us.

Did you know that? Look around in this room. There are people with us. And the future generation that's sitting in our pews, the future generation that's chattering right now, they're watching you. And you're building a legacy even as we speak.

And so God sees David in his lowest state and he sends Jonathan. And there's means. This kind of goes into what Bart was talking about yesterday. God is orchestrating these steps and yet all the players in these steps are making their own willful decisions.

Both of those things are true. God sent Jonathan and Jonathan wanted to go. And Jonathan going at this point, boy, it is an act of unbelievable courage. Because his father has made his plans plain. And his father knows about the covenant between him and David.

And I think the Lord directs Jonathan's steps and takes him to where David's men see him. Because David's hiding out at this point. He's left again and he's gone into this desert. It's Zith. And there's nothing there.

It's a barren wasteland. And he's hiding in these hill countries and mountains. And I imagine that he had spies and he had scouts that were set out around the perimeter. And they see Jonathan walking alone.

And they bring Jonathan into the camp. And what Jonathan says is truly astounding. It's truly astounding. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. The hand of Saul, my father, will not find you. It sounds like prophecy to me.

Doesn't it to you? God has raised up this man. It makes no sense. It makes no sense that Jonathan would give up his throne this way. But the sense that it makes is Jonathan has faith in God. We saw it from his first entry into the scene is that Jonathan believes what the Lord tells him.

And so Jonathan goes to David and he gives him a word. And he strengthens him. And he edifies him. And he tells him, my father's not going to find you. And there's not a greater blow that could have been dealt to Saul than this blow.

Do you understand that? This man, Jonathan, is known of all the people. In fact, the people intervened against Saul to save Jonathan's life a few chapters ago. And so Jonathan, that man, who is chief in the court of Saul, goes and he makes covenant with a guy who Saul himself has raised up to this level.

You understand, David's done nothing to be raised up to be in the greatest enemy of Saul. Saul, through his insanity, has lifted David up to this position. Saul has made David his adversary. And Saul has made David the legitimate successor to him.

And God orchestrated that too. Through Saul's insanity and evil, he's played right into what God prophetically said was going to happen. What do you do with that? What do you do with that? God uses the people in this room to strengthen.

But did you know he also uses a lot of people that are not in this room to strengthen? Because God's church and God's army is not confined to this building and to this body. Because he has bodies all over the place.

He has bodies across this country. He has bodies in Africa, in Europe, in Asia, in Australia. I imagine there's probably some in Antarctica too. They're all over the place. And when we run into them, we start to see.

I talked to a man yesterday. He's brilliant. And he's a Calvinist who's in a missionary Baptist church. And if you know anything about missionary Baptists, you know that they are not very fond of Calvinists.

But this man loves his church. And he loves the people so much there that he told me. He said, Josh, I don't make that a big emphasis there. What I want to do is I want to reach people with the gospel.

And I'm in a body that loves me. And I was really taken aback. Because what we often miss in our Americanism, I think in our competition, is what we often miss is that God gives local expressions everywhere.

And that's the strength of Christianity. And every one of these churches, every one of them that calls on the name of Christ, that lives by faith, that's been given faith through grace by the Holy Spirit, every one of them has their own task and their own mission.

And we have to faithfully accomplish it. And we're far stronger knowing that we're not in a cave by ourself, but that God has his men everywhere. Every time I start to despair, it seems like God brings another person into my life that says, yeah, we're doing okay up here on the northern line.

Okay?

That's what he's doing. But there's a call on us. There's a call on us. And I think the church today, I think we can be characterized by people who are consuming a lot of content but who aren't really doing anything.

And we rightly or wrongly feel disconnected from the means of encouragement that God gives. And it's people, not podcasts. Did you know that? Podcasts, look, I listen to a lot of them. They can edify.

They can strengthen your theology. They can sharpen your mind. But what they can't do is give you connectedness. And what they can't do is encourage your heart and soul when you think that there's no one else around.

And God sees you, and God sees when we are despairing, and God sees when we need encouragement, and he brings someone. And I think it's fitting to look at a year of this church being around, and it would be, as Bart would say, it would be weepy to try to start to get into talking about the vast amount of people who have encouraged, people who are in here, mostly people in here, but people who are outside too, that have spoken into this, who have encouraged when things get difficult and encouraged when things are good too.

Praise the Lord for that. Did you know that all of us have betrayed people at times? And we look at the people of Keilah and we go, how in the world can you possibly do that? Have we ever kept our mouth shut?

You know, you're in good company if you have. The apostle Peter did. He denied Christ three times, and he betrayed, and God showed him kindness. God didn't sweep it under the rug. Jesus brought confession.

He brought it to the point of conflict, and he asked Peter three times, do you love me? Peter started, he was thick, right, like all of us, and he only understood on the third time, I think, what Christ was doing with him.

And it's important for us to not look out there and be like, look what they're doing to us, God, but instead to look to heaven and say, God, why have you put me here? How are you strengthening me in this trial?

Would you make me true? Would you make me true? I think of the movie Braveheart where Robert the Bruce, he betrays and his dad is telling him, hey, you need to be worm-tongued again and take the money, and Robert Bruce says, I don't want to lose heart.

Isn't that the call to men? We don't want to betray, but we do anyway. But when we cry out to God and say, I don't want to lose heart, do you know what he'll do? He'll give you courage. And he gave courage to David by his friend Jonathan coming and saying this one message, and it's the most important message, I think, for a Christian to hear.

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Why do we not have to be afraid? Because we don't fear death because death has no sting for us. We do not fear other men because every one of their knees will bow and every one of their tongues will confess that Christ is Lord.

We do not fear our government because we know that it is a stream of water in the master's hand that's being directed to accomplish his purposes right now. And I feel, I hear a lot of fear and trepidation about what's going to happen in November, and what we know is this, the Lord is sovereign.

The Lord is sovereign. And do you know what he's going to do in November? He is going to put a leader in the White House in this country that is going to further his purposes for the good of his people.

And we might be chastised, and we might be disciplined, but we know that the Lord loves the one who he disciplines. And we know the Lord chastises the one that he wants to grow because through trial comes perseverance, and through perseverance comes godliness, and through godliness comes the very real means of faith.

And without faith, it's impossible to please God. And is there anything else that we want to do here besides please God? Without faith, it's impossible. What does it mean to have faith? To believe that he is.

To believe that he is, because that carries a lot of weight with it. What does it mean that he is? That means that he is the creator. That means that he is the sustainer. It means that he is the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God who holds everything in his hands, and who surely knows how many sparrows are in the air, and he cares more about a hair that falls off of your head than you care about anything in a given day because you didn't create it, he did.

And he came and he died for it. And then he rose again so that we would have hope. Difficult times strengthen and galvanize friendships. That's one of the things that I've seen most gloriously in the last year, is that through difficulty, through backbiting, through betrayal, friendships are galvanized, and they're made stronger, and they build trust.

And so, friends, I urge you, I urge you that we would sustain God-honoring relationships that are based on love and based on real stuff. We can't have friendships based on common enemies. That's what we try to do in the reform camp too much.

We try to have common enemies and all rally around and put our shirt on that's red or blue and decide that's what we're going to do. We're going to unite about enemies. Look, there's some pragmatic stuff that I can't go down this road.

There's some good political urges that are done that way because we have to live in the world. But inside the church, where we're dispensing grace and where we're taking the sacraments together, we're not bound by our enemies.

Saul's Tyranny and the Meaning of the Lord's Name

We're not united by our common enemies. We're united by Christ. Let's look further at Saul. It doesn't stop with Keilah. He's a loathsome, covenant-breaking tyrant. Can I be any more plain about Saul?

I have disdain for him. I can't stand him. And do you know what? I'm in good company because the Lord had disdain for him also. So David flees, and he goes to the Ziphites. And the Ziphites are, boy, they see their opportunity.

Just like Doeg, and they say, you know what? This is the opportunity for us to get in good with the king and for us to raise our status from being these desert dwellers to being awesome courtiers of King Saul.

This is the chance. God's delivered it into our hand. And so what they do is they come up to Saul at Gibeah. They make the voyage, right? They go into Saul's country, and they say, is David not hiding with us in the strongholds at Horesh on the hill of Hekelah, which is on the south of Jeshimon?

We know exactly where he is, and we're telling you, Saul. So now, O king, according to all the desire of your soul, to come down, come down here, and our part shall be to surrender him into the king's hand, said Judas.

Oh, wait, no. And Saul said, this might be the most abominable part of the whole chapter. Saul said, may you be blessed of Yahweh, for you have had compassion on me. I can't hardly read that without Bart's commentary last week.

It's so great that somebody finally had compassion on me. Does anybody care about me? So what is Saul's court based on? Saul has a court that's based on political advancement, deep state bureaucracy, through the herdmaster last week, Doeg, and a bunch of power-grubbing, corrupt losers.

That's who's in Saul's court. They look at David, and they betray their own countrymen, and they tell Saul where he is.

Why?

To get favor. To get scraps from the table of the king, because they're tired of living in the desert, and they see the nice tamarisk tree over there at Gibeah, and they want to be around Saul, being a yes man to him, having nothing to say for themselves.

So what does tyranny do? You can see right here the fruits of it. What Saul's ministry is is that Saul's ministry has viciously turned brother against brother, and it combs the land. He combs the land in search of his enemy, who's not really his enemy.

And we're going to see that in clarity next week. Did you know David's not Saul's enemy? Saul's elevated him. Saul, through his stupidity and his madness and his godlessness, has elevated an enemy that he cannot defeat.

He didn't have to try to defeat him. And God's ordained David, so we know that Saul's errand is completely foolish. This piece of the chapter, after we get past Jonathan, starting in verse 19 through the end of the chapter, we only have one mention of God again.

Through the first part of that chapter, through verses 1 through 18, we see God being sought time and time again. David is asking, he's asking, he's asking. Jonathan comes with a message that David's about to strengthen, that the Lord is with him.

And then we get nothing. As David flees through the hill country from mountain to mountain, Saul brazenly takes the Lord's name in vain here.

Why?

Why does he do that? Well, why does anybody take the Lord's name in vain? Here's what Saul had in mind. He's blessing the Ziphites. What's he blessing them for? For what? What did they do? They betrayed an innocent man.

Their mouths are open graves. What did they do? They sought violence. Their feet are swift to shed blood. And they strengthened the tyrant above God's own anointed. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

We have to learn the seriousness. I think in many ways, this one with the Sabbath is kind of the lost commandment. I think a lot of us don't really understand what it means to take the Lord's name in vain.

And so I decided to try to take this side, Eddie, and try to explain the commandment because when it comes up, so we are commanded, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. And we have distilled it and packaged it down to a commandment that's primarily about cussing.

That's not what it's about. It's about something far more serious and sinister than cussing. It's about turning the name of the Lord into an empty platitude or worse. It's invoking the name of the Lord to give credence to evil.

And we see both of these breaking of this commandment. We see both of them on full display in the church in our country today, all over the place. Why is the name of the Lord not to be empty of its power?

Because the name of the Lord is very powerful. Look, I could have picked dozens of verses here. I'm going to read you just a couple. What does the Bible say about the name of God? Proverbs 18 .10, the name of Yahweh is a strong tower.

The righteous run into it and it sets securely on high. Joel 2 .32, I love this one. And it will be that everyone who calls on the name of Yahweh will be delivered. Acts 4 .12, and there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which he must be saved.

Philippians 2 .9, therefore God also highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. John 14 .14, if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. What is the name of God? The name of God is the power of salvation.

The name of God is a refuge. The name of God is a deliverer. And when we call on the name of the Lord to lend credence to evil or to empty it of its meaning, to make it a buzzword or a magical incantation that makes us unassailable in our argument or that makes someone else feel good, we've emptied the name of its power and we are messing with holy things.

And people have been killed for less. How do we do this with platitudes? We say things all the time. We'll have the most evil people imaginable who try to progress evil on the stage all the time and they will end their speeches by saying what?