1 Samuel 27:1-28:7

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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March 30, 2023

1 Samuel 27:1-28:7

00:15: Good morning, Gary.
00:19: You don't mind open this? You mind open this up with word of prayer? Your father, we come to you this morning.
00:29: We thank you so much for the time that you allow us to listen to your word.
00:32: Lord God, help us to listen to your word, understand your word, apply your word, and move forward and stand firm on your word.
00:40: In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
00:42: Amen.
00:42: All right, 1 Samuel.
01:00: We're going to read chapter 27, part of 28.
01:09: I'm going to go into 28.2.
01:14: In my opinion, the chapter distinction break is not the best.
01:20: Then David said to himself, now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul.
01:26: There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines.
01:30: Saul then will despair of searching for me anymore in all the territory of Israel, and I will escape from his hand.
01:37: So David arose and he crossed over, he and the 600 men who were with him, to Achish, the son of Maok, king of Gath.
01:46: And David lived with Achish at Gath, he and his men, each with his household, even David with his two wives, Ohinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal's widow.
02:00: Now Saul saw that David had fled to Gath, so no longer he would search for him.
02:06: Then David said to Achish, if now I found favor in your sight, let them give me a place in one of the cities in the country that I may live there.
02:16: For why should your servant live in a royal city with you? So Achish gave him Ziklag that day, therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day.
02:28: The number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months.
02:34: Now David and his men went up, they raided the Gersharites, the Gersharites, the Amalekites, they were the inhabitants of the land from ancient times.
02:48: As you came to shore, even as far as to Egypt, David attacked the land and did not leave a man or woman alive.
02:56: He took away the sheep, the cattle, the donkeys, the camels, and all of the garments and clothing.
03:02: Then he returned to Achish, and now Achish would say to him, where have you made a raid today? And David said, against the Negev of Judah, against the Negev of the Jeremalites, against the Negev of the Kenites.
03:16: And David did not leave a man or woman alive to bring word back to Gath, saying, otherwise they will tell about us, saying, so has David done, and so has it been his practice all the time he had lived in the country of the Philistines.
03:31: So Achish believed David, saying, he shall surely be to himself odious among his people, and therefore he shall be my servant forever.
03:45: I'm sorry, that's what I hear.
03:49: Now, it came about in those days that the Philistines gathered their army, their camp for war, and then they were to fight against Israel, and Achish said to David, now surely that you will go out with me to the camp, and you and your men.
04:05: And David said to Achish, very well, you shall know what your servant can do.
04:10: So Achish said to David, very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life.
04:17: Well, what do we know about David since his anointing as a young teenage boy? What do we know? He went out and he fought the Philistine, and who did he say the Philistine, who gave the Philistine into his hand? God.
04:37: Then he was immediately put into whose court? What did he do for Saul? He played music for him.
04:45: What else did he do? Carried his armor.
04:49: What else did he do? Made good friends with his son.
04:53: He went out and he fought the battles of the Lord, and he destroyed the Philistines wherever he went.
04:57: It actually says that he went out and he was smarter than all the other commanders that Saul had, and that God had blessed him.
05:04: And why? Remember, there was a specific phrase that says why Saul had hatred towards David.
05:14: What was it? We've said it time and time again, because God was with him, because God was with him.
05:20: Then he was, he married Michael, or McCall, however you want to say it, Meshel, okay.
05:30: Saul chased him there.
05:31: He was let down.
05:32: He fled.
05:33: He fled from there.
05:35: He went and sought refuge at Nahoth with Samuel.
05:39: And what did God do to deliver, when Saul sent messengers to him then, what did God do to deliver him? The first wave of messengers, what did God do? Fill those men they prophesied, or empowered them, however you want to say that.
05:55: Then what happened to the next group of men that came? Same thing.
05:59: What happened to the next ones? Same thing.
06:02: And then Saul said, you know what, y'all can't handle that.
06:05: I'll do it myself.
06:06: And then what happened when Saul went? He just stripped naked, and he prophesied till David could escape.
06:15: David then went to Jonathan and Gibeah, which is where Saul's kingship and his throne would have been.
06:23: God has protected David all of this time, has he not? What does Jonathan do? And one specific thing that Jonathan does when they meet this time, they renew the covenant to one another's family, but it says that Jonathan strengthened him in the Lord.
06:39: Jonathan strengthened him in the Lord.
06:42: Then he leaves from there, he goes to Nob.
06:45: Nob.
06:46: What does he do at Nob? He's hungry.
06:57: He entreats Ahimelech the priest, but how does he do it? Deceitfully.
07:05: He deceitfully did it.
07:07: He lied.
07:09: And if we follow it back just a little bit more before he fled, who did he tell Jonathan to lie to about his whereabouts? Saul.
07:20: So we do see a pattern in the anointed king, the one that was chosen by God's own choosing, that there is a pattern of deception.
07:31: But God, because it was God's choosing of this man, because God set his affection on this man, God continually has protected him.
07:43: He goes to Nob.
07:44: He lies.
07:45: He takes a sword and food, and he leaves.
07:48: And because of his deceitful acts, what happens? Eighty-five priests are killed in Gibeah, but then what happens to a whole city because of his deception? They're all slaughtered.
08:00: Then he goes, he flees, where? Achish.
08:08: What does he do with Achish? He deceives him.
08:13: He acts like a rabid man, doing graffiti on the gate, slobbering all over his beautiful beard.
08:19: And he says, hey man, I don't need no more crazy people in my court.
08:23: I'm going to kick rocks.
08:26: Once again, an act of deception, but God still preserved his man.
08:33: An act of deception, but God still preserved his man.
08:37: Then he leaves there.
08:40: He goes to the cave of Wadulum, and it's where he is alone, and he writes several psalms in here, praising the Lord for his protection.
08:49: But then he leaves here.
08:50: You ever watch a little cartoon where they show the horse and buggy or whatever in the carriage that had all the little black dots on the old cartoons? I wish I could do that, because you would see that he was a wandering dude, man.
09:04: He was all over here.
09:05: He would come over here, and then he comes back here.
09:08: Now he's back over here.
09:09: So he's wandering around all this time, and God has protected him.
09:13: Matter of fact, they're hiding in a cave, another cave, not a Wadulum, but another cave in En Gidi, and who walks in? Saul.
09:24: God protected David then.
09:27: Now, again, he is pursued by Saul.
09:32: God then, instead of Saul walking into his camp, he walks into Saul's camp, and both times God put his enemy into his hand to deliver him into David's hand.
09:44: Now, I don't know any other most inconvenient places to die other than sitting on the toilet or lying on the ground asleep.
09:52: You're pretty vulnerable, okay? And God gave him into his hand, and what did David not do? He would not do it, and then God protected him from his people.
10:04: I mean, imagine tiptoeing.
10:05: Remember, we looked at the little round thing, tiptoeing through all those, and what not one of them woke up because who had put him asleep? The Lord did.
10:13: So once again, the Lord protected him.
10:15: Then he hollers across.
10:20: Abner wakes up.
10:22: Who are you to call to the king the way that you are? And he says, hey, we were there.
10:26: You didn't protect the king.
10:27: You should be put to death.
10:29: Then what does Saul say to David? You shall surely be the king.
10:35: He had already said that once.
10:37: You shall surely not die.
10:41: Now, we ended with that.
10:47: They went their own way, did their own thing, and then here we are.
10:51: It says here that David said to himself.
10:54: Do we see the pattern of David trusting in himself? Trusting in God.
10:59: Trusting in himself? Trusting in God.
11:02: Trusting in himself? Trusting in God.
11:05: It says that David said to himself, now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul, and there's nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines.
11:17: Is he going to die by the hand of Saul? How many times has he been confirmed? I want you to tell me, how many people through this study so far have confirmed him that he was not going to die? Samuel's the first.
11:36: Samuel was the first.
11:38: If he anointed him king by the commission of God, what is he going to safely ascent to? He's going to safely ascent to the throne.
11:48: Then what did Jonathan tell him after he fled? Hey, I know my dad's mad at you, hates you, don't like you, whatever, but hey, you know what? You're safe.
11:57: My dad's not going to kill you.
11:59: Then Jonathan says to him what? You will.
12:07: I'll be by your side.
12:08: You're not going to die.
12:10: He affirmed it again.
12:11: Then not only that, then Saul does, after he comes out and he cuts his robe, then who again someone affirms him that he's going to be the king? And who was that? Abigail.
12:26: Abigail.
12:28: She affirmed, hey, you know, you really shouldn't kill Nabal.
12:31: I know he's a fool, just like his name.
12:34: Don't kill him because when you ascend to the throne, do you want this on your conscience? And she appealed to righteousness.
12:41: And what did he do? God used her as an intercessor to then point him back on the way.
12:47: But hey, once again, we had David in a point of unbelief to go do what? Take justice into his own hands to defend himself, to defend his character, to go and kill Nabal.
13:03: And I'm gonna make that point because here, well, you already said that we'll start.
13:08: He goes, he goes here.
13:11: Remember, if he went here the first time, okay, he goes over here the first time, he shows up there acting like a rabid fool, right? I guess he's just like, man, I don't know what this guy was.
13:22: You know, this guy's a fool.
13:24: You know, he did cut off the head of our champion.
13:28: Just get him on down the road.
13:30: At that point, chronologically, it was not made known publicly that David was, that Saul was trying to kill David, okay? Now, 10, 15 years later, however you want to say your time frame is, it's known that David's on the run, and he is, he is being chased by the king.
13:53: So, when he goes to, his easiest place to get Saul not to chase him is to go where? Yeah, he's not gonna chase into the Philistines.
14:02: Saul was always, even in, you know, remember, he was a deliverer.
14:08: So, as they would come in and get too close, what would Saul do? He'd push him back, but he was always forced, his hand would be forced into this.
14:16: He was a great deliverer.
14:18: The Scripture says that.
14:19: He had a successful delivery of God's people, but it was all done self-motivated.
14:26: It says, Saul then will despair of searching for me anymore in all the territory of Israel, and I will escape from his hand.
14:35: Now, from a humanistic speaking, that's a smart idea, right? So, David's had a conversation with himself to do what? Save his own neck by running to, hey, we know Saul's not gonna chase me into enemy territory, but what's David's problem here? What did he do? He basically asked himself.
15:01: Remember when the priests at Nob were slaughtered, and they were, the Philistines were raging the floors and the place at Keilah? Who did he call? Do you remember? Bring Abiathar and the ephod.
15:20: Let me ask God what to do.
15:23: What do we see David here? Is he asking God anything? Nothing.
15:26: Hey, I just want you to know, this is the only chapter, and y'all can check.
15:30: I read through 1st and 2nd Samuel mostly every week, okay? So, I'm open for correction.
15:37: This is the only chapter that I can find out of both those where God's name's not mentioned, is in this chapter, because David's trusting in himself.
15:49: David has left to go to the land of the Philistines, and he's trusting in his own cunningness.
15:55: What did Saul say when he was on the run? Hey, go find out where he is.
15:58: Remember in the wilderness of Ziph and the Ziphites, his own tribe turned him over, and he said, hey, y'all go find out where he is and where he's hiding and what he's doing, but just remember, he's crafty.
16:09: Some of y'all's translations said crafty.
16:10: Some say cunning, but he's slick.
16:13: Yeah, David was slick, so we could add he was ruddy.
16:17: He was good looking.
16:18: He was good with his speech.
16:20: He was crafty, and what could we add to it from what we've learned so far about David when he's in a predicament? Most deceitful.
16:28: David's deceitful, and it will bring its full bore on him when we get into 2nd Samuel with Bathsheba, and he kills Uriah.
16:38: He is learning how to be deceitful and how to try to cover up his own transgressions, but it says here, so David arose.
16:46: He crossed over he and his 600 men who were with him, and they went to Achish, the son of Mayot, the king of Gath.
16:53: There is some some small debate.
16:58: Was this the same Achish that was many years ago before this? Hey, maybe this was not.
17:02: Maybe this was a name for this guy.
17:05: Yeah, or Himalek.
17:07: Yeah, sometimes I mean Abimelech was a kind of like a name or like you said Pharaoh or something like that.
17:12: Herod's kind of was a name, but I have no reason to believe that.
17:17: I believe this is the same guy at the same time, and my inference to this is David said, you know what? I deceived that fool last time.
17:27: I think I'll do it better this time, so I'll go back to the same place where I was deceptive and see if I can't deceive this guy again, and he'll let me in, and David is very good at deceiving him, and we'll see.
17:41: He says, and David lived with Achish in Gath, he and his men, each with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail Nabal's widow.
17:53: Now, it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, and he no longer searched for him, so David's calculations were correct.
18:00: When I get to Gath, I get to the land of the Philistines, Saul will quit searching for me, but listen to what David says in verse 5.
18:08: He says, David said to Achish, if now I have found favor in your sight, let them give me a place in one of the cities in the country that I may live there, for why should your servant live in the royal city with you? Great thing for him to do.
18:24: Look, we don't even really associate with y'all.
18:27: We're not royalty.
18:28: Why don't you let us go to another place, and that way we can kind of do our own thing.
18:32: Let's just, if there's 600 men there, most likely all of them have a wife, we would agree, and I mean, probably, ma'am? You're fixing to find out that they're not.
18:47: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all right.
18:51: That's why they need this city, and then this city gets besieged, so they says, hey, let's take our households.
18:58: We're going to do our own thing.
19:00: We don't need to be here, so I would say probably anywhere between 2,000 and 3,000 people are traveling with David, and all of their junk.
19:08: I mean, camels and donkeys and whatever, all their belongings, and if they're doing raids as they've been going through this, and they've been collecting things as they go, there's a lot of stuff, so he gives them Ziklag.
19:23: That's a key city you need to remember, and you remember that in the next couple of chapters.
19:29: So, Akish gives him Ziklag, and Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah even to this day.
19:36: The number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months, so 16 months that David lived in Ziklag, all of his household and those people that were with him that he was entrusted to for him to care for, 16 months.
19:52: So, we actually do have a time frame in which David's deception continued on before then David actually hits rock bottom, and he cries out to God, and we won't get that far, I think, today, but so David and his men went up.
20:08: They raided the the Gershites, Amalekites, and they were the inhabitants of the land from ancient times as you come to sure, even as far as Egypt.
20:21: So, David attacked the land and did not leave a man or woman alive.
20:26: He took away all, basically, all the booty, whatever he wanted.
20:30: He looted the place.
20:31: Now, commentators in the past, I don't know who some of y'all read, are very inconsistent here.
20:44: Were the Amalekites, the Gershites, the Gersharites, and all the other ites of the land, were they enemies of God? Were they? Yeah, they were.
20:55: What was the job of the leaders of the armies when they came in? What was their job to do? Kill everything.
21:04: Wipe them out.
21:06: That was their job.
21:07: Now, David, and many commentators, tries to sanitize David's actions here.
21:18: Hey, David was commissioned to do this.
21:21: I want you to know that David was not.
21:25: David was not commissioned.
21:26: You back up here.
21:27: This sets the context for the whole thing.
21:30: Who did David consult? Himself.
21:34: Himself.
21:36: Hey, it even says that he went out and he was successful.
21:41: Him going out there and slaughtering these people was successful.
21:46: Was Saul not a successful king? Is David not acting like Saul at this point? Right? He is.
21:55: Everything done outside of faith is what? Sin.
22:01: Sin.
22:02: What David's doing is not by faith to God.
22:07: Now, how do we know that? Because David didn't consult God.
22:09: He consulted himself.
22:11: He's trusting in his own actions, his own cunning.
22:13: Hey, and just because David was successful doesn't mean he was faithful.
22:18: Who do we know all through the story until we get to the rise of David who was successful but unfaithful? Saul.
22:27: Saul.
22:29: Hey, optical success.
22:31: Is that faithfulness to God? No.
22:36: Okay, and I'll say this.
22:37: If anybody here wants to disagree with me on my conclusion on David, that's fine.
22:43: But you still have to deal with David's lying and deception.
22:48: Right? So, you say, okay, Mike, I disagree with your conclusion on him going out and slaughtering those people and it wasn't done by faith and it wasn't done.
22:56: He had the right to do that.
22:58: Well, what are you going to do about David's lying and deception? Is that granted by God to do? Was it? No.
23:06: Because who did he consult to do it? Himself.
23:11: Himself.
23:13: It says he went out, they took all the booty, and then when he would return to Achish, this is in verse 10, now Achish would say to him, where have you made a raid today? And what does David say? Somebody read it.
23:31: David said against the south of Judah and against the south of the Jeremiahites and against the south of the Kenites.
23:39: David saved neither man nor woman to line up to bring tidings to Gath saying lest they should tell on us saying so did David and so will be his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of the Philistines.
23:52: All right, so here it is.
23:53: David reports back to Achish.
23:56: Achish says, what did you do? Where does he say he went? He went to King, he said he went to Achish's enemies.
24:07: He went, he went and killed basically Saul's people and Achish saying, oh, well, this is good.
24:15: Now I got this guy who's a traitor.
24:18: I got him.
24:20: He's out there killing his own people.
24:22: Oh, man, he's going to be a stench to his own people.
24:26: I'll have him forever.
24:28: Okay.
24:29: Now, would he have gone? Nagiv means the desert area, the arid areas.
24:36: Okay.
24:38: He wouldn't have been killing his own people.
24:42: He wouldn't have been killing the Jeremiahites.
24:44: He could have the Jeremiahites, maybe, but the Kenites who were saved even by wicked Saul who were saved when he went down here to raid the city and actually made it disobedient.
24:57: Who did he have leave? The Kenites.
25:00: Why did they have the Kenites leave? Who were the Kenites? Anybody remember? Come on, it's only been 21 weeks ago.
25:08: I'm kidding.
25:09: No, really, who were the Kenites? Jethro.
25:13: Remember Jethro? Jethro, that would have been the father-in-law of Moses.
25:19: So, when they came across the Red Sea, they went into the land before they got the covenant and all that.
25:27: It was Jethro that told Moses, dude, you got to get some help.
25:33: You can't lead these people by yourself.
25:35: And it was Zipporah's dad, which was his wife.
25:39: I mean, Zipporah was Moses' wife, which was her.
25:43: Zipporah's dad was Jethro.
25:44: He was a Kenite.
25:45: So, that's why he said spare those people.
25:48: They were actually beneficial and helpful to Moses.
25:53: And why were they going to kill the Amalekites at that time? Because they had come from behind and got the men, the boys, the children, the weak, and you're going to see their method of operation has not changed.
26:07: You're going to see that in the chapters coming ahead.
26:12: So, he lies to Achish.
26:15: Hey, can we understand why he would say this to him? Really? Do we? Yeah.
26:21: But does it make it right? No.
26:23: That's when we get into, once again, situational ethics.
26:26: We do not believe in situational ethics.
26:29: We are always bound by God to tell the truth.
26:34: Always.
26:36: Why? Because God's character and nature is truthful.
26:41: Could David have found somewhere else to go knowing that God was going to protect him other than go to Gath? Dude, man, he had been all over this, and God had used supernatural means at times to protect him.
26:56: A whole 3,000 fighters God made fall asleep so that David was safe.
27:02: He made him strip down naked and prophesy, and God kept him.
27:09: God kept him on the run.
27:10: God provided for him, even in his cyclical belief and unbelief.
27:15: That is us, is it not? Has God not continually provided for those who are believers he has set his affection on? Do we continually have the blessings of God despite our unbelief? You better believe it, and if you don't think so, take a deep breath and see if that's not a gift from God.
27:36: Man, when you deserve to be incinerated.
27:42: It says here that he didn't leave man, woman alive to bring back to Gath, so his cleanup efforts was to make sure that nobody could talk.
27:52: Smart, okay? If one of these people escapes, and they get back to Achish, and they tell him, hey man, he's really not killing the Judahites.
28:02: He's not killing his own people.
28:03: He's actually killing maybe some of us and some of the other enemies, but he's not killing the Judahites.
28:13: So, despite David's unfaithfulness to God here in the sense of trusting in his own wit, trusting in his own success, trusting in his own cunningness, is he not still being faithful to the nation of Israel to protect them and not attack the king? Certainly, he's not attacking his own people.
28:41: Why would David attack his own people? Matter of fact, we see David get invigorated when the enemies of God touch God's people.
28:50: What made David, after the slaughter at Nob, when he was in fear for his life, on the run, thought he had to try to protect himself, he was running, what invigorated David to then stand up and to basically pull himself up by his bootstraps and go, man, I got to start protecting somebody? When Abiathar comes to him and says, hey dude, I'm the last one, I'm it, and he says, don't you worry about it.
29:18: From here on out, your life will be safe because you'll be with me, and he began to protect God's people.
29:24: And then what happened at Keilah? He wasn't out raiding the Philistines, but what happened when they attacked God's people? David comes guns blazing, and it said here, so this was David's practice the whole time he was there when he lived in the country of the Philistines.
29:42: So, David's practice was, contextually, was consulting himself for his own ideas and how he wanted to make things go about, and how long did he do it? 16 months.
29:58: And in verse 12, so Achish believed David and said, he surely made himself odious to his own people or a stench to his own people, therefore he will be my servant forever.
30:10: Now, Achish was either very gullible, okay, or he was just like, man, I got a group of 600 fighting brutal men that are going to go out, and they're extinguishing my enemies for me, and I don't even have to waste my own men.
30:30: Man, me and my guys can sit back and live it up, because what does it say? He's bringing back some of those things to Achish.
30:37: He brings back garments.
30:38: He brings back cattle and all of those things.
30:41: So, Achish is like, man, well, you know, he might be a stench to his own people, but he's actually pretty beneficial for me.
30:47: So, was Achish looking out for his own good? Yeah, he was.
30:53: It says in verse 1 of 28, now it came about in those days that the Philistines gathered their armed camps for war to fight against Israel.
31:04: Ding, ding, ding, ding.
31:06: This should be a reminder that anytime they come up in battle array that the Philistines don't plan on backing down.
31:13: This is actually an attempt to do some type of evasion, and Achish said to David, know surely that you will go out with me in the camp, you and your men.
31:25: So, what is Achish saying? What's Achish hoping is going to happen in the morning or whenever they decide to do this? That David's going to kill his own people.
31:41: Yeah, he's going to kill his own people, and why would Achish think that? Because he's already told him, I've been out there killing the Judahites.
31:49: So, he thinks that David's killing his own tribe.
31:52: So, he says, very well, and this is funny to me.
31:56: David's got himself in a predicament, does he not? David's lying put the priest of Nob in a predicament.
32:07: Now, David's got him and his own fighting force in a predicament.
32:12: He's going, all right, Achish, we're going to supposed to go out and fight with you in the morning against our own people, and he says, very well, you shall know what your servant can do.
32:23: I do wonder.
32:24: David's probably going, I don't even know what I'm going to do yet.
32:28: You know, it does somewhat seem that David just flies by the seat of his pants sometimes, doesn't it? Just, hey, man, I'll just go from one place to the next, and I'll just figure it out as I get there.
32:40: Well, he doesn't know what he's going to do because he says, well, you know what your servant can do.
32:46: Now, you can take this two ways.
32:49: He says, okay, Achish can say, well, I know what you can do.
32:53: You're bloodthirsty.
32:54: Even God, when he goes and wants to build his own, his house for him to house the tabernacle, why could David not build the temple? Anybody remember? Because he was a dude.
33:08: He was blood.
33:09: He was a man of blood.
33:10: He said, no, no, no, no.
33:10: I'll let somebody else do that, but you can get everything else together for your son who will build it.
33:17: So, from Achish's standpoint, man, this guy's bloodthirsty.
33:20: I know what he can do, but man, in my mind, I'm going, David's going, man, it would be awesome to throw the head of Achish at Saul.
33:31: Here, despite you've been trying to kill me, take that.
33:35: I mean, he's already took the head of Goliath.
33:38: I mean, and it says here, so Achish said to David, very well, I will make you my body guard for life.
33:48: That actually could be, you will be the keeper of my head.
33:52: And if you do a play on words, as your says that, okay, if you do a play on words, he just, your only champion y'all have ever had who stood out and cried out and cried out, he actually used his own sword to cut off their champion, champion meaning one who stands in between, not champion as in a world champion built for boxing.
34:15: No, the one that would stand in between.
34:17: He took his head, took it all the way to Jerusalem, threw it over the wall as a precursor of we're coming.
34:24: And then he says, I'll let this guy guard my head.
34:28: No way.
34:30: Ain't no way I'd advise Achish.
34:31: I'd be like, yeah, let me get this guy a little closer to me every day.
34:35: Because David, man, he's, he's crafty.
34:38: He's slick.
34:40: And we got 10 minutes or so.
34:45: We'll go ahead and read to Burns to end of seven, the next paragraph.
34:54: Now Samuel is interesting.
34:56: This comes out of nowhere.
34:57: This is almost like if you're watching TV, or you're listening to something on your phone or on the radio, and you hear that silver alert or amber alert, that's to remember you're reading this and just out of nowhere.
35:10: Now Samuel was dead.
35:12: No kidding.
35:13: He told us that.
35:14: He told us that a chapter or two ago.
35:17: Now Samuel was dead and all Israel had lamented him and buried him in Ramah in his own city.
35:24: Interesting about Samuel is when he died, his obituary that we have in scripture is a 20 words in the English text.
35:36: 20, 18 in the Greek, 10 in the Hebrew.
35:40: Was he not the most revered man in all of Israel? And that's all we get about him is 20 words.
35:51: But when King Saul dies, man, they write, David writes a song about him.
35:57: Yeah, he writes a song about him and how great he was.
36:00: It's like, why didn't Samuel get that? And why? I have no idea.
36:07: No idea.
36:11: And then it says that, and Saul had removed the mediums.
36:14: Like I said, this just comes out of nowhere.
36:17: So Saul had removed from the land those who were mediums and spiritist or necromancers.
36:24: Anybody say necromancers? Wizards.
36:26: Does everyone say wizards? Does it? Spiritists.
36:30: So the Philistines gathered together, came and they encamped themselves at Shunum.
36:36: And Saul gathered all of Israel together and they encamped at Gilboa.
36:41: When Saul saw the camp of the Philistines, he was afraid and his heart trembled greatly.
36:49: When Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, neither by dreams or by the Urim or by prophets.
36:56: Then Saul said to his servant, seek for me a woman who is a medium that I may go to her and inquire of her.
37:03: And his servant said to him, behold, there's a woman who is a medium in Endor.
37:12: What was Saul? It says here that Saul had removed all of them from the land.
37:18: Well, there was at least one left.
37:21: Yeah, all in this case.
37:23: Yeah, it's not all.
37:24: So there was one left.
37:26: Who were the, what were the reasons for the spiritist and the mediums? What was their job? That they were fortune tellers and we got them.
37:37: We got palm readers and all that nonsense.
37:40: Yeah.
37:41: So basically they were seances is what they would do.
37:47: Try to bring up the dead, fortune tell, tell what was kind of, you know, prophesy something that would come ahead.
37:52: It is full of nonsense.
37:56: And it says that Saul had all of them removed from the land.
38:00: Well, why did Saul have them removed from the land? Was it a valiant and honorable thing for him to have them removed from the land when he did? Yeah.
38:10: What was the Mosaic law? Anybody that seeks any spirit or that's idolatry.
38:16: What was this supposed to happen to them? Supposed to be put to death.
38:20: Yeah, it was idolatry.
38:22: You don't seek the dead.
38:25: So the Philistines gathered together and they encamped at Chinoo and Saul gathered all of Israel together at the camp of Gilboa.
38:32: All right.
38:32: So here it is.
38:33: They, you got the two battles.
38:34: They're coming up.
38:35: He's seeing this massive army of the Philistines in battle array.
38:41: When's the last time we saw Saul tremble? Goliath.
38:50: Yeah, Goliath.
38:52: I tried to make the argument that maybe it's because at his younger age he was a fighter.
38:59: He was head and shoulders above everyone else that did he look across the way and say, hey, this is the guy that could be the one that would tear the kingdom from me.
39:08: Could he? Could be.
39:11: Don't know.
39:12: But we know that he was not cowardness in the sense of he was not afraid to go to battle.
39:18: In this case, the overwhelming amount of men that are gathered and the fact that he does not have the honor of the Lord with him.
39:32: His fear has come about.
39:34: When, hey, when David was running the show as a commander, did he have any fear that David wasn't going to take care of what was going on? No, not at all because it says that David was better than all of them.
39:47: It says that his heart trembled greatly.
39:49: Yeah.
39:50: So I do believe that we're seeing a man in his aged state who is fearful of the unknown, fearful of, man, I'm getting too old for this.
40:05: Maybe I need to, to try something different.
40:09: And he says, well, I will entreat of the Lord.
40:13: He said, when he saw inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him.
40:18: Now that could be taken a couple of ways.
40:22: Could Saul have really at that point inquired of the Lord? Could he have made an audible cry to Yahweh? What should I do? Or how do I get out of this? Yeah, sure he could have.
40:38: But normally, how did they inquire of the Lord? Through the prophets or the priest or the Urim and Thurim.
40:46: And this is where I believe that he, when the Lord no longer spoke to him, look, the times that he had inquired of the Lord, the Lord didn't respond to him.
40:57: If you remember back when Ahitab came and he brought, I know some translations say ark.
41:02: I think it was the ephod because he says, remove your hand from it.
41:05: That means he was probably had the device by which the Urim and the Thurim, whether it was casting lots or what, however it told you what it was doing, he'd no longer to do it because he had been inquired of the Lord and he was, no one was telling him.
41:19: Well, in this case, this is pretty retarded if you ask me, because he says the Lord did not answer him either by Urim or by prophets.
41:27: Well, why wouldn't God answer him by the Urim? Dude, there ain't no priest.
41:36: He killed every one of them.
41:38: Does he know that Abiathar is alive? No.
41:41: Who's Abiathar with? David.
41:44: Think about this.
41:46: Could David have inquired of Abiathar before he before he went to Gath? But who did he ask? Himself.
41:55: Himself.
41:55: He asked himself.
41:57: It says that then he didn't, or by prophets.
42:02: Okay.
42:02: Well, why couldn't he talk to the prophets? We're at the beginning of the first, that first sentence in that paragraph tells us Samuel's dead.
42:15: Samuel's dead.
42:18: Then Saul said to his servant, seek for me a woman, a medium, that I may go and inquire of her.
42:22: And his servant said, hey, look, man, this is crazy.
42:23: This is like rapid succession.
42:25: Hey, can somebody maybe go out there in the land to see if you can't find me? You know, I know I ran them all off and put some of them to death probably.
42:33: Can you go find me a spirit? Oh, yeah.
42:35: I mean, it was like, bam.
42:37: Yeah.
42:38: Yeah.
42:38: Here, we'll take you right to her.
42:41: And it goes to the witch of Endor, or medium, witch of Endor.
42:45: Every time I hear witch of Endor, I think of, and we got to close.
42:49: Wasn't it Endor was the name of the thing in Star Wars? Yeah, gonna go to the witch of Endor.
42:56: And we'll stop at that and say, all right.
43:02: 16 months, David is doing his own thing, trying to save his own skin by his own cunningness.
43:12: Did God bless and did God protect David? Yes, he did.
43:21: Was David successful in his campaigns to leave no man or woman alive? Yep.
43:28: But does that mean that David was faithful? David was not faithful.
43:33: This is a low point in his life, once again, of unbelief.
43:39: Trusting in his own self when you should have been trusting God.
43:42: No, hey, and all the affirmations that had come across in his time.
43:48: How many times have God said, through someone, you're going to make it to the king, you're going to be king, you're going to make it, you're going to make it, you're going to make it, you're this, you're that, you're fine.
43:58: And what does David do? He tries to do his own thing.
44:02: All right, you close this out, Mike, with a word of prayer.
44:06: Heavenly Father, we thank you that even in David's failures, we can see that you were faithful when we are not.
44:18: He was not.
44:19: You were faithful to him.
44:21: And we do not seek a cyclical life of ups and downs, and yet we see, as we look at ourselves, this very thing.
44:32: And we pray, Lord, that you would help us to seek a life that is right before you daily.
44:43: Not born down with failure after failure, with success thrown in there, but that we would be on an even keel of righteousness, and that we would do it not only for our good, but we would do it for your glory.
45:08: We pray that you'd be with us now as we go into the worship service.
45:13: We pray that you'd be pleased with our worship.
45:15: We pray that you'd be pleased with the preaching of your word.
45:18: And we pray, Lord, that we as your people would be strengthened in our faith, and that the lost would be saved, and that when we leave this place, we'd say it's been good to have been in the house of the Lord.
45:29: For it's in Christ's name we pray, amen.
45:31: Amen.