Scripture: 1 Samuel 30:1-31
Sermon Series: 1 Samuel: God of Reversals – Sermon 31
A Christian writer spent three days on a Barrier Island where those huge logger head turtles (picture) lay their eggs. One night while the tide was out she watched a female turtle make its way up the beach to the sand dunes to bury her eggs. She followed this turtle up into the sand dunes to see where she went but didn’t want to disturb the turtle, so she left that night. The next morning she came back to see if she could locate where the turtle had laid her eggs. She found the site but then she found that this turtle had gotten confused and had gone the wrong direction after laying her legs.
Instead of turning back to the ocean, the turtle had gone deeper up into the sand dunes. So she followed the trail of this mother turtle and eventually found her. In the blazing heat the turtle was exhausted and wasn’t moving. It was so hot that the sand was hotter than burning asphalt. The turtle had lost all of its strength and was covered in sand, far away from the lifegiving ocean water. This woman took some seaweed and saltwater and poured it on the turtle to help it survive. She covered it up the best that she could and then went to find a park ranger.
This ranger grabbed some chains, threw them in his jeep and headed off to retrieve the turtle. She followed him in her jeep. When he found it, the ranger immediately flipped the turtle over on its back, hooked the chains around its feet, and hooked them to his jeep. Then, he starts heading off through the sand. This turtle’s shell is filling up with sand. It’s head disappears. He’s just hauling this turtle through the sand. This woman follows the trail until they get to the water’s edge. Eventually, the ranger drags the huge turtle into the water, unhooks its legs and flips her over, and the water begins to come in on her with the tide. The turtle finally raises its head and after a little while longer, the turtle swims off into the ocean.
Watching her swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the hot sand dunes, the writer made this observation: It is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down but God’s hands are lifegiving in the end.
I have to think that David felt that way. Chapter 30 picks up at the end of his 60 mile march after being dismissed by Achish. During their three day journey home his men’s hearts must have looked forward to relaxation after being on the verge of a battle against their fellow Israelites. They anticipated joyful reunions with their wives and children. Yet as their band drew near to Ziklag, they were alarmed at the sight of smoke on the horizon. We can easily imagine soldiers breaking ranks and racing toward their homes, but the sight that greeted them was the stuff of nightmares. “Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they had crushed Ziklag and burned it to the ground. They had carried off the women and children and everyone else but without killing anyone (vs. 1-2).
Attacking defenseless cities was typical Amalekite behavior. Amalekites were known for their cruelty. It’s why God had commanded Saul to annihilate them years before but Saul disobeyed God’s command.
Have you ever lost a home in a fire? Two of my sisters lost their homes in fires. But it’s God that’s behind this fire. When life goes up in smoke is God is bringing David to the end of his rope. God is seeking to motivate David to leave enemy territory and go home. It is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down but God’s hands are lifegiving in the end. God is saving David from David.
Before we dig into this passage, let me ask you a question: Is God trying to get you to come Home to Him today? Are you living in enemy territory?
John R. Rice (picture), a preacher from another generation asks some penetrating questions that help us face where we’re at spiritually: “Was there ever a time when you were nearer to God than you are now? Was there ever a time when you read the Bible more or enjoyed it more than now? Was there ever a time when you prayed more, when you had your prayers answered more frequently? Was there ever a day when you shared your faith more than you do today? If there was ever a time when you were nearer the Lord than today, you have slid back from that close intimacy with God, from that high place of blessing which you once had.”
David needs to repent and go home. Do you need to repent and go Home. “Repent” means a change of mind that leads to a change of heart that leads to a change of behavior that leads to a change of life. It means you’re going in one direction but you turn around and go in the opposite direction. The right day for repentance is always today. “If we put off repentance another day, we have one day more to repent of, and one less day to repent in.”
God loved David too much to let him stay in enemy territory. God loves you and me too much to let us stay in enemy territory. If you’re taking notes.
1.Our loving Heavenly Father uses crises to motivate us to return to Him, vs. 1-6. The Amalekites have again acted ruthlessly. They’ve attacked and kidnapped all of the women and children. It was probably retaliation for David and his men attacking their villages in one of their raids.
The verb “carried off” is literally “drove them off.” It paints the picture of animals driven by herdsmen. It’s a scene right out of Liam Neeson’s movie, Taken (picture). They were going to sell them as slaves.
David’s men are devastated. They’ve suffered a tragic loss, including David with the loss of his wives. “They wept until they could weep no more” (vs. 4). But as often happens when there’s a tragedy, after you’ve cried and cried, you get angry. Anger is a normal phase of grief. In a tragedy you often look for someone to blame. Facing this horrible loss for the first time, David’s men question his leadership. They look for a scapegoat. Bitterness over losing their families is so severe they talk of stoning David. David is at his lowest point.
One of the high costs of leadership is that when things go bad, people look for a scapegoat. If you’re a leader, you know what I’m talking about. People want someone to blame. For some God is the scapegoat. In fact, all bitterness is ultimately toward God.
Let’s say that you’re bitter at a hospital because they misdiagnosed a loved one’s cancer prognosis. You brim with bitterness. While there’s nothing wrong with holding someone accountable, particularly if it was malicious or careless. Yet, we need to realize that God is in control. If you’re bitter at someone who you believe has wronged you, in reality you’re making God your scapegoat. He’s the one you’re bitter at. Please know that if you play the “blame game,” the one who ultimately loses is YOU.
David is the scapegoat. They accuse him of failure. He should have known the Amalekites would attack. He shouldn’t have marched with the Philistines. Of course, he’d have had to have been psychic to know all this.
But David has a choice on how he’ll respond. We all have that choice. He could become angry and defend himself. He could lie and blame others. Politicians choose that option all the time. He could become depressed and try to evade it. But David had a wake-up call. He becomes our model on how to handle trials. “David found strength in the Lord his God” (vs. 6).
For the first time since he’d run from Saul and doubted God, David turns back to God. He has no strength but where his strength fails, God’s strength takes over. He remembers who God is, what God has done and what God can do. Fear turns to faith and pain turns to praise. Before mastering his men, David first masters himself.
What does it mean to find our strength in the Lord? Scottish pastor, Andrew Bonar (picture) noted in his diary on October 15, 1864 that he had been meditating on Nahum 1:7, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him.” Later that same day his beloved wife, Isabella, died and Bonar remembered that verse that he’d meditated on earlier that day. He commented, “Little did I think how I would need it half an hour after.” For years Bonar recorded in his diary on October 15th Nahum 1:7. Why? Because in his grief and the memory of his loss, he’d strengthen himself in the Lord with the Word of God.
Before you can ever strengthen yourself in God, you must belong to God. The narrator emphasizes David’s personal faith, “his God.” Faith in God must be personal. You can’t borrow your parent’s or your spouse’s faith.
It’s easy to claim to be a Christian but not really know Jesus. You may think you’re a Christian because you’re a good person. It’s not what the Bible says makes you a Christian. Being “good” won’t get you into heaven.
Being a Christian begins with knowing how bad you are, that you’re a sinner. It means trusting in Christ alone and His death on the cross for your salvation. We can only know God in a personal way through personal faith in His Son, Jesus, who died for our sins.
Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). To know God means to know Him personally. You can know a lot about God but not know God.
To strengthen ourselves in the Lord means that we remind ourselves of what the Bible says about God and His promises and then we claim those promises even in the crisis that we’re facing. Every trial, every struggle screams at us to doubt God’s Word, telling us that our situation is hopeless. The voice of faith tells us that God is enough, His grace is sufficient.
David knew that God was trying to get his attention. Sometimes God uses a crisis to get our attention. It’s what He does with David. David looks up rather than within to the only One who can save Him. For the first time in 16 months David cries out, “Oh God, help me!”
The writer again contrasts Saul and David. When Saul faced a crisis, he sought out a witch but David seeks out God. It says a lot about who we are when we face a crises and where we turn. Warren Wiersbe (picture), “A crisis doesn’t make a person rather it shows what a person is made of.”
God brought David to the end of his rope so that he’d cast himself into the hands of His heavenly Father. He does the same with us. Has God been bringing you to your end so that you’ll turn to Him?
2. Our loving Heavenly Father wants to guide us, vs. 7-10. When we confess our sin and repent, God immediately restores us. God is always in a hurry to forgive. No probation, no waiting period – just restoration.
From the moment of David’s return to faith, he’s a transformed man. In the rest of the chapter David shows us what to do when we’ve turned our heart to God, whether for the first or hundredth time. Having renewed his faith in the Lord, David immediately consulted God’s Word for guidance. It’s the first time that we read of David seeking God’s Word since he entered the land of the Philistines. It marks a turning point in his life.
The emphasis is not on prayer. It’s on God’s Word. We can convince ourselves that we’re following the Lord because “we’ve prayed about it.” Following God always begins with His Word. Scripture is our true north. When we pray we’re talking to God and often at God. But when we open our Bibles, God talks to us. God was only willing to talk to David when David was willing to listen. After he returned to God, the Lord assured David he’d overtake the Amalekites and recover all that had been lost.
David uses the means of that time by which he must approach God by calling for the priest and the ephod. As New Testament believers we have something so much better. We don’t need a priest. We have Jesus. We have God’s complete revelation in our Bibles. The Lord Jesus prays for us, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession” (Hebrews 4:14).
Terrorists don’t leave cell phone numbers, but surely they’d left a trail. David and his men travel 16 miles to a brook where some 200 of them must stop because they’re exhausted. These 200 are wiped out from traveling to Aphek, back to Ziklag and now in hot pursuit of the Amalekites, so David leaves them by the Brook Besor (map). With the 400 others he continues his pursuit. But which way should David go? He needs direction. And…
3. Our loving Heavenly Father providentially provides for us, vs, 11-20. What are the chances in such a huge territory of stumbling across one abandoned, dying Egyptian slave? Though on a rescue mission David still stops to help the man because he obviously needs help. Only after he’s begun to recover do they learn he has the goods on where to find the Amalekites.
It’s God’s providence. David would never have found his enemies if God hadn’t provided this Egyptian to lead them. By trusting God’s Word, we learn the truth of Philippians 4:19: “My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
The word Providence is made up of two words. “Pro” means “before” and “video” means “to see. Providence means “to see before.” When we talk about the providence of God, we mean God “sees before” and plans accordingly. The same God who had brought David to the end of his rope to restore his heart is fully capable of restoring to David all he’d lost. God had planned how He was going to provide the solution. The Egyptian’s master left him to die but God kept him alive so David could rescue his people.
Theologian J. I. Packer (picture) defines providence as “God’s constant care for, and absolute rule over all His creation for His glory and the good of His people.” God’s providence is essential to David’s success and to ours.
I wonder if David saw himself in the Egyptian? The Egyptian was left behind three days before. It took David and his men three days to journey from Aphek. The Egyptian was alone in the wilderness. David had found himself alone in the wilderness (1 Samuel 22:1). The Egyptian is worried David will deliver him “into the hands of my master.” David was worried that the men of Keilah would deliver him into the “hand” of Saul, and they would have if the Lord had not warned David. After his three-day journey, David, on the verge of death at the hands of his angry men, strengthened himself in the Lord. Now David strengthens the Egyptian, who reminds him of himself. The Lord has been merciful to David and David is merciful to the Egyptian. Now this Egyptian, having been revived by David, promises to lead him to the Amalekites. It’s all God’s providence.
This Egyptian is no dummy. He makes David swear that he won’t kill him or return him to his master. If he’s going to be saved, he wants to be sure that he’s saved, so he leads David and his men to the Amalekite camp.
The Amalekites are on a pagan binge. Scholars think that it was a type of drunken religious celebration. They’ve been partying all night so David catches them in a drunken stupor. With the way the text unfolds, we’re to get a picture of carefree indulgence. There they were, “eating and drinking and dancing.” They’re scattered over a wide area. All of the spoil they’d taken was the source of the party. They’re totally unaware of their vulnerability.
While David’s men were smaller in number, they’re able to strike them and catch them off guard. That David and his four hundred found the strength to fight from “twilight until the evening of the next day” is remarkable in what they’d already been through before attacking the Amalekites.
David defeats a superior force. While 400 Amalekites escape, David fought with just four hundred men. But David and his men fought with passion. They were fighting for the lives of their wives and children.
David’s rescue operation was complete. Everyone and everything taken was recovered. What the Lord promised is fulfilled. David defeats his enemies and rescues his people. He not only recovered everything the Amalekites had taken he also captured all of their loot, the flocks and herds. David’s men who earlier wanted to stone him, now hail him as a conquering hero and declare the livestock to be David’s spoil.
Nothing silences critics like success. Isn’t it fascinating when you think about leadership how quickly things can turn? Earlier David is a zero, the scapegoat and nearly stoned by his own men. Now he’s no longer the one who should be stoned; he’s the one who should be praised. He’s the hero.
Be very wary of popularity. It’s fickle. Those who praise you today may pummel you tomorrow. It takes little to go from hero to zero.
4. Our loving Heavenly Father’s generosity tempts us to be greedy, 21-25. Verses 21-22. “Then David returned to the brook Besor and met up with the 200 men who had been left behind because they were too exhausted to go with him. They went out to meet David and his men, and David greeted them joyfully. But some evil troublemakers among David’s men said, ‘They didn’t go with us, so they can’t have any of the plunder we recovered. Give them their wives and children, and tell them to be gone’.”
God had blessed them. He’d given them a great victory. They’d recovered everything plus the plunder of the Amalekites. This is shocking! A few guys get greedy. Mignon McLaughlin (picture) said, “We’re all born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.”
Greed is born when we forget that everything we have is a gift from God. We foolishly think we earned it or our own ability got it for us. These greedy men thought it was their skill rather than God’s blessing.
More narrative space is devoted to the aftermath of the battle than to the battle itself. The Amalekites may be the enemy, but the bigger enemy is disunity among the people of God. The same is true of the church today.
You know how families can be when an inheritance is divided. People get very grabby. It causes divisions. Some worthless men are among David’s soldiers who don’t think the 200 who stayed behind should get any of the spoil. The word for worthless is the same word used for Eli’s sons and for Nabal. But David has learned a few things since his encounter with Nabal.
David begins by calling these worthless men brothers. He could’ve given them an earful, but he appeals to the relationship they all have with one another as children of God. Then, he reminds them that the spoil was a gift from the Lord. They didn’t earn it. When we see that all we have comes from God, we don’t have to fight to get ours. We can share.
The key to peace and unity is the reminder that all we have is because of God’s grace. Grace isn’t about fairness. It’s about generosity.
Finally, David reminds them that everybody had a part to play in the mission, both the strong and weak. Those who were on the frontlines and those who stayed back with the baggage.
It reminds us of Paul who points out that every part of the body is essential in 1 Corinthians 12. The eye and toe are all vital. We can’t disdain any part.
David appeals to brotherhood, to grace, and to the equality we have in the family of God. He’s a leader who brings people together when they’re trying to tear each other apart. David is focused on God’s glory, not on who gets what That must be our focus too.
But let’s be very honest, after all, it’s Sunday. How many of us would have agreed with these greedy men who believed they were being generous by letting the 200 have their wives and children back? How many business bosses think of the administrative assistants and clerks who made their businesses grow when they hand out bonuses? How many husbands give stay-at-home wives equal credit for providing for the family? How many of us honor the nursery workers and janitors and the ones at the AV desk as much as we honor the musicians on the platform? Have you ever sat near a screaming baby on a plane? Aren’t you thankful for our nursery workers?
Let me challenge you to think of someone in your life who has stayed with the supplies, either because of exhaustion or giftedness or personality, and make sure that they feel honored and receive their share of the credit.
5. Our loving Heavenly Father is pleased when we’re generous, vs. 26-31. Generosity is one of the greatest evidences we’ve accepted God’s grace. When you realize how unworthy you are of God’s grace, you’re overwhelmed by His love. Generosity is a normal outcome of experiencing grace. Your greatest struggle is that you wish that you could just give more.
Verse 26, “David sent part of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were his friends. ‘Here is a present for you, taken from the Lord’s enemies.’” These were some of the same communities the Amalekites had ransacked. David in his generosity is an ancient kind of Samaritan’s Purse.
Samuel warned the Israelites that a king would take and take and take. But David is a future king who gives and gives and gives. And he points us to his future son, King Jesus. Jesus is the King who gives and gives and gives. He paid the highest price. He gave His life for us, His enemies so that we could be forgiven and live with Him forever. If Jesus is your Savior, then you want to give because you know that you’ve already been given so much.
Last week I had a conversation with someone from our church family. They’re not rolling in it. In fact, they’re tight but they were trying to figure out a way they could give a substantial amount so that one more kid could go to camp this summer. That’s someone who’s experienced God’s grace.
Robert Bergen (picture) comments: “As would be expected of the Lord’s anointed, David had fought the Lord’s enemies. As would be expected of the Lord’s anointed, he was now bringing blessing to the Lord’s people.”
Conclusion: So where does this find you today? Is God trying to get you to come Home to Him today? Are you living in enemy territory? Is your life going up in smoke because God is trying to get your attention?
Three lessons from this account:
God saves us from ourselves. Just as God saved David from the Philistines and Saul, God in His grace saved David from the mess he had made of his own life. Many times God does that for us, even when we don’t ask Him to save us. God in His love often saves us from the consequences of our own stupidity as we live in sin and rebellion against him. All of us can think of times when God saved us from stupid choices even when we weren’t looking for it and certainly didn’t deserve it.
God’s grace may ruin our life to save our life. That’s what God did to David in Ziklag. He lost everything. He’s almost stoned by his own men. God ruined David’s life to save it. It was only when David finally hit rock bottom that he finally stopped living for himself and came back to God. This didn’t just happen with David, it’s the way God still works. When we walk away from God, He may ruin our life, but it’s because He loves us and wants to save our life.
God’s grace is quick to use us when He restores us. When David turned back to God, God quickly began using him. God didn’t make David sit in the penalty box for a few years. He immediately charged him with pursuing the Amalekites and rescuing His people. God immediately began helping him.
God will treat us the same way. Today you may have backslidden and walked away from God. Return to God with all of your heart and you’ll be shocked at how quickly He’ll begin using you for His good purposes in ways you never thought possible, just like He did with David.
So where is the grace of God in this story? To paraphrase a famous hymn, this story is all about the “love that will not let us go.” God loves us too much to let us stay in our sin. The Lord knows His own, He puts his seal upon us. He watches every move we make.
When we decide to live in our own strength, God lets us go our own way in order that when we fail (and we will fail), but then we’ll turn to Him with a new resolve and a firm commitment to walk in the light. Because we’re like little children, we have to fall to learn how to walk.
There’s a warning here and also great hope based on a God whose love is so strong that even when we sin, that same love keeps calling us back home. It is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down but God’s hands are lifegiving in the end.
Some of us have done run from God like David did. Maybe that’s you. There’s a lesson to be learned and a warning to be taken. The good news is that whenever we’re ready, we can turn things around. That’s what the grace of God is all about. But How far will we have to go before that moment comes? Will God have to burn down our Ziklag to get us to come Home?
My friend, come Home. The Father is waiting at the door, ready to forgive and longing to restore. It’s time to return…to strengthen yourself again, in the Lord your God.