Been There, Done That!

1 Samuel 26:1-27:12

RD V.1-4

The last time that Saul was out looking for David – he happened upon him by surprise –

A) God brought Saul into David’s Cave

B) David tries to avoid that this time – He hears that Saul is after him – so he sends out spies

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE:

A) We have an adversary on the Prowl hunting us

We need to be on Guard – on the look out

B) AWARE of how he might seek to attack –

C) The Holy Spirit is our Spy

1) If we are tuned into his voice he will notify us of what the enemy is up to.

D) Example: Discerned at times – that someone was wanting to get close to me for the wrong reasons.

1) There was an agenda to hurt me

E) Times when the HS – impresses on your heart that something is not right { Attitude in my heart

1) More you respond – the more that VOICE STAYS loud and clear - Resist grows faint

F) David listened to his spies

RD v.5-12

So the Lord was in this plan – Causes a deep sleep to fall upon Saul and his men – so that David can show

Saul grace once again.

A) I need to pray and ask the Lord to do that for me

B) Not a deep sleeper at all. { Can never sleep on Planes – Howard / Rob Nash – mouth open

C) Africa and the Pill – exit door

1) Came home – Sat straight up screaming

D) This was not a pill – this was the Lord

David – holds back Abishai – from touching the Lord’s anointed

A) Recall earlier study – Every Believer is the Lord’s anointed – Called by the Lord –

B) Indwelt with the HS –

1) Practice what David is doing here – There are a lot of Abishai’s in the body of Christ

C) Those who’s tendency is to come down on others in the body – { Critical – Gossip

1) Need to heed David’s words v.9

who can stretch out his hand against the LORD’s anointed, and be guiltless

RD V.13-25

Now I am blessed by the Grace and Humility that I see here in David

A) V. 18 – David refers to Saul as his lord and himself as Saul’s Servant

B) Don’t you want to be like David, don’t you want his heart,

1) don’t you want his perspective? I do!

C) And we can have them. David’s heart, David’s perspective can be ours,

1) that is what the story of his life is all about.

D) It’s a picture of who we can be in Christ.

1) We too can be people after God’s own heart.

There is another example here that we are to avoid at all cost, and that is the example of Saul.

A) Saul makes a very interesting assessment of his own life here, v.21 "I have sinned - I have played the fool and erred exceedingly."

B) That was the Sad assessment of his life, I have sinned, I have played the fool……. exceedingly.

C) That is what was going to go on Saul’s tombstone, that was the story of his life,

Morgan on I have played the fool: “In these words we have a perfect autobiography. In them the complete life-story of this man is told . . . There had been given to him the Spirit of God, the friendship of Samuel, and the devotion of men whose hearts God had touched. He had so acted poorly that the Spirit of God departed from him; Samuel had been unable to help him; and the hearts of the people had been turned away from him. The whole secret was that he had leaned to his own understanding, had failed to obey, and so had become the evil-tempered man he was, mastered by hatred, and fighting against God.”

Jesus says that there are two roads that you can walk down in this life

A) There is a Broad Road that is fueled by self

Centeredness, pride, self promotion, & Sin

B) That road promises you the world but leads to destruction.

C) Then there is a Narrow Road, which is difficult and hard, it’s the road of “not my will, but Thy will be done”

1) but it’s the road that leads to life.

D) At the end of the Broad Road it will be “I have played the fool, I have erred exceedingly”

1) At the end of the Narrow Road it is “as you have valued life so your life will be valued in God’s eyes

Which one do want, which statement is going to be written above your life, “ I have played the fool” or “Well done, good and faithful servant”

A) Note v.24 Is a Key to David’s strength & Character

B) David wasn’t so concerned about being Valued in the eyes of Saul / his own soldiers or the people

1) David wanted to be Valued in the eyes of the Lord

C) It was that which motivated him to behalf wisely in these matters

D) So Ch.26 ends with David showing Grace & mercy to Saul Yet again –

1) David is once again seen as a Hero and great example

As we move into Chapter 27 we see a new side of David –

A) Now we are not sure how much time elapsed between these two Chapters –

B) But there seems to be some amount of time –

1) The David we see in Chapter 27 is a different David

C) Not David the Hero – but David the Depressed

1) David who is struggling – Acting in a way that is unbecoming – unflattering – NOT GOOD!

D) Now we don’t like to see these Chapters – where our hero’s falter – and fail

But thank God that these kinds of chapters are in the Bible because if they weren’t, we would have all packed it up and thrown in the towel a long time ago. A) It’s chapters like this, as hard as they are to take, that give us hope.

B) After a chapter like this you and I will be able to say, “if David can be a man after God’s own heart, then so can I”

And David said in his heart, “Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines; and Saul will despair of me, to seek me anymore in any part of Israel. So I shall escape out of his hand.”

Things have gotten so bad for the Sweet Shepherd of Israel, that he is forsaking his calling,

A) He is forsaking his country, he is basically forsaking his God, and he is going to go and live with the enemy. That’s depression

B) Depression is something that we know a lot about isn’t it?

1) Time Magazine in a front page story a couple of years back called Depression a National Epidemic.

C) If that was true back then, it’s even worse now.

1) depression touches every segment of our society.

D) Old people are depressed, young people are depressed, poor people are depressed, rich people

Here was one that really surprised me, there is this wave of depression that is hitting women in college, ages 18-25.

A)Now you are probably thinking, what so surprising about that, college is hard and those who aren’t doing well are going to be depressed.

B) Oh but you see it’s not those who are doing poorly who were depressed, it’s the super achievers,

1) it’s the gals who are in the top percentile of their classes, who are jumping out of windows and off of bridges and off of parking structures.

C) They have no explanation for it expect that the pressure is so intense to stay on top that they can’t take it.

1) People get depressed if they fail, and they get even more depressed if they succeed.

No doubt that David was under a ton of pressure here.

A) He now had 600 men and their families to support and take care of, this could have been upwards to 3000 people.

B) It would have been really hard to take care of three thousand people out in the wilderness.

1) And then he had Saul breathing down his neck.

C) David is at the end of his rope and what does he do he runs to the World – back to the Philistines

For some reason that can be a common Practice when we are depressed – Run to the world

A) A quart of Ice Cream and a Soap Opera – even more depressed & sick to my Stomach

B) Where did David go wrong ? Where did it start

1) V.1 again – I said in my heart

C) David’s problem’s began – when he started listening to his heart – { Song

Jer. 17: ⁹ “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

Mark 7: ²¹For out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²²adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, eagerness for lustful pleasure, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness

A)That is what is in the heart – that is what the heart is capable of !

B) I can get into so much trouble when I am being ruled by my heart – or my emotions

1) Play tricks on me – blow things out of proportion

2) Take my focus off of the Lord and on to the wrong things –

C) I don’t trust my heart one bit !

1) David listens to his heart / follows his heart – result is disastrous!

Nothing better?

A) Was there nothing better for David in Israel among God’s people than among the ungodly?

B) Is not the love of the LORD, and His kindness, goodness, and mercy something better?

1) But David doubted God’s care for him.

“To doubt the loving-kindness of God is thought by some

to be a very small sin; but it is my firm conviction, that to doubt the kindness, the faithfulness, and the love of God, is a very heinous offense.” (Spurgeon)

C) Leads to a host of others problems -

Now lets consider the results of David’s Failure

1) He leads others into Compromise ! V 2-3

Then David arose and went over with the six hundred men who were with him to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath. So David dwelt with Achish at Gath, he and his men, each man with his household, and David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal’s widow.

That is one of the things about Compromise – It affects you but it also affects those around you

A) A person might say I know this isn’t what the Lord wants me to do / but I am willing to take my lumps –

B) I am willing to run the risk - Willing to deal w/ the affects it will have on my life

C) Problem is most of the time it doesn’t just involve or affect you –

1) It affects your Spouse if you are married – It affects your kids

D) It affects your Family members – Mother father / Friends – Bros & sisters in the Lord –

2) Saul ends his pursuit V.4

4 And it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath; so he sought him no more.

Saul had been seeking after David everyday – for over 3 yrs–

1) If you are a Committed Christian/ (Stress Committed ) The Enemy is after you

C) Your Life is under constant attack – We are in a Spiritual battle – we wrestle not w/ Flesh & Blood ….. Principalities Powers rulers of darkness

Redpath- The Committed man of God is against sin & all the powers of evil are against him. In such a warfare there is no intermission at all. The devil never takes a vacation.

For 3 yrs Saul has not been letting up – but the minute that David – goes to the Philistines –

A)That is what happens when we Compromise – turn to the world – the devil lets up the attack –

B) Isn’t that the goal isn’t that what David wanted ?

1) It might have been what David wanted but it was not the Goal – The Goal was King

C) To get there thru the means and along the road that God was paving for David –

1) This was part of it.

This departure of David into the world – might have gave him some relief from his depression

A) It probably created a false sense of security!

But at what Cost !

B) We will read in a few more Chapters that – David and his men lose everything

1) Their city is burned and their families are cared away captive –

C) This all occurred when they were in the land of the philistines

D) Creates this false sense of Security Look I am not Depressed anymore – Experiencing Peace

1) The Peace that comes from compromise is deceiving – it is like taking drugs it has a stupefying affect – Masks the pain

C) It allows you to forget the pain & Problems for a Short period –

1) The Devil lets up because he’s got you right where he wants you

So first David leads others into compromise

2) Saul lets up the Chase

3) David tries to find favor in the eyes of the world. V.5-7

5 Then David said to Achish, "If I have now found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?"6 So Achish gave him Ziklag that day. Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day.7 Now the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was one full year and four months.

So here we see David wanting to find favor in the eyes of King Achish and he calls himself his servant

A) David’s reward? – He is given a City

B) David ends up dwelling in the land of the philistines for 16 months

C) This was a dark time in the life of David.

We have no record of any Psalms that David wrote during this time.

A) This was not a high point in his spiritual life; he

wasn’t writing sweet Psalms unto the LORD.

B) “The sweet singer was mute.” (Meyer)

C) I have found w/ people – that go back into the world – 2 yrs can go by before they realize – How far they have FALLEN.

D) During this period these 16months of David’s life –

1) He is virtually out of Fellowship w/ God.

4) David is leading a double life. Rd v.8-12

A) David is pretending to be a friend of the Philistines –

B) But in reality he is attacking the enemies of Israel and the friends of the Philistines

C) But in order to cover up his sin – He has to kill all the men women and children.

For 16 months David is deceiving and murdering and killing and living a lie.

A) This is about as far into sin as a person can get.

B)He wasn’t listening to God, He wasn’t hearing from God, he wasn’t seeking God,

1) and there was no way that he was doing God’s will.

C) Although in some weird way it wouldn’t surprise me if David was some how trying to rationalize his

Position because he was killing Israel’s enemies

David’s depression had now delivered him over to sin, and sin had him firmly in it’s grasp.

A)That was the enemies goal, and it was accomplished.

RD CH. 28 V.1-2 – David fight against Israel?

B)The good news is that David is going to come out of this, the bad news, is that it’s going to take something really radical to wake him up.

C) But God is not above that, God started the work in David, and He is going to finish it.

D) All this is coming up in the next few chapters so we have some exciting times ahead.

I want us to close tonight by thinking about some the lessons from this chapter 27

1. The first lesson is that none of us are above depression,

A) All of us are susceptible to come under it’s cloud.

B) Some will fall harder then others, but we will all get there.

1) And you need to remember that the depression in and of it self is not sin.

C) It’s what we do in our depressed state that will make it sin or not.

1) The scary thing about depression is how fast it can lead us to sin,

2. What this means is that when we get depressed, there will always be a choice that we have to make, there will be a fork in the road.

A) This is the one thing that I want you to walk out of here with TONIGHT , there is always a choice.

B) They are, we will either grab a hold of the Lord, we will trust in the Lord with all of our hearts.

1) Or we will take matters into our own hands, we will lean to our own understanding.

David could have grabbed a hold of the Lord, He could have gone back and thought about the Promises that God had given him,

A) He could have gone back and remembered the counsel that had come from Samuel and Jonathan and his wife Abigail.

B) He could have thought back to all of the times that God had delivered him from the hands of Saul.

C) He could have grabbed a hold of all the great lessons that God had taught him up to this point.

1) In other words, David could have encouraged himself in the Lord.

D) That is what David could of and Should have done

1) Same thing holds true for us !!!!

If David had gone down that road, think of what that would have been eliminated from David’s life,

A) think of lives that would have been saved and the sorrow that would have been avoided.

B) Things would have been so different, if David would have trusted the Lord and allowed Him to walk him through this depression.

3. I think that one of the keys to handling depression, we have to confess our depression to God.

A) we have to be willing to invite Him into the midst of our depression.

B) Sometimes we are so embarrassed by our depression.

1) we are so ashamed because we live in a place that in some ways is so easy to be a Christian.

C) We are not persecuted – we live in a beautiful part of the country and yet we still struggle at times

1) Easy to think- what is wrong with us!

D)So we try to hide it from God, we try to conceal it from Him, thinking that He will condemn us for it.

1) But He never will, now He won’t leave us in it, but He won’t condemn us for it.

E)God’s goal is to walk us out of the pit of despair,

1) We just have to give Him the chance to do it, we just have to invite God into our depression.

It is only when we invite God into our depression that He can do something about it.

A)And of course what God will do is to point us to His goodness and His plan for our lives,

B) He will remind us that all things, all things, work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

B) He will remind us that nothing can separate us from His love, not even depression.

1) And He will remind us that what He started in us, He is going to finish.

C) He will tell us ever so firmly that He has given us everything that we need for life and godliness.

1) A new nature, His divine power, and His great and precious promises.

D) And He will tell us “lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

1) And if I be for you, who can be against you?”

Leave us hanging David lining up with the armies of Israel – to be continued ……..

The rest of Ch. 28 deals with Saul’s detour with the witch of Endor –

Ch. 29 – Picks up this story - Few weeks from now !