Sermon Tone Analysis

March 2, 2012

By John Barnett

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Open with me to I Samuel 18 as walk through a few chapters to get to our passage for today.

These chapters remind us that:

*Our Struggles Frame God’s Faithfulness*

The context of these dark and lonely days in David’s life, makes an incredibly beautiful frame around some of the most precious of all of David’s Psalms .

His prayers, cries for help, and affirmations of God’s faithfulness: seem even clearer, dearer, and more memorable from those dark and lonely hours in David’s life.

David repeats in as many ways as possible that:

*All the Time (God is good)*

*God is good (All the time).*

What a meteoric rise, and equally meteoric fall, David experiences in First Samuel 18-20.

David suffers painful loneliness as he faces family conflict, big life changes, and great danger.

Think of everything happening here.

David moves away from home (18:2), joins the army and becomes an officer leading troops (18:5), becomes a national celebrity (18:7), draws the jealous rage of King Saul (18:8-9), faces life threatening situations (18:11), meets and marries the King’s daughter (18:17-28); then sees Saul send soldiers to kill David as he slept in his bed at home (I Samuel 19:11).

During these days of danger and turmoil David writes *Psalm 59, 11, and 64*—how to overcome the feelings of loneliness when we are in danger.

First Samuel 21:1-9: as David flees for his life again, he suffers intense loneliness as he loses his job, and is separated from his family.

David writes *Psalm 52*—how to overcome the feelings of loneliness when we are away from our work, home, and family.

1 Sam.

21:10-15: David goes from fear, to terror, to nearly a complete breakdown in the time surrounding his capture by the Philistine army at Gath.

He writes about this in *Psalm 34 and 56*.

After he gets away from the Philistines, David is so alone that feels abandoned and wrote* Psalm 13, 40, and 70* about life in the pits of despair.

First Samuel 22:1-4: After a period of life alone in the cave, David was joined by an incredibly difficult group of criminals and societal rejects.

This was a turning point in David’s life because God refined his character through his cave troubles more than at any other time.

David suffers intense loneliness as he lives and works with this tough crowd.

David wrote more Psalms in this period than at any other time in his life.

These *cave Psalms are 4, 57, 141-142*—how to overcome the feelings of loneliness when we are far from home and feel exiled.

1 Samuel 22:5-24:16: David suffers the intense loneliness of unemployment, unsettled home life, and betrayal by friends.

David takes time to look back at those events and write *Psalms: 17, 63* (after I Samuel 22:5-23); *31,54* (after I Sam 23:10-25); *35-36 *(after I Sam 23:29 from En Gedi); and 7 (after I Sam 24:1-16 when he spares Saul’s life).

In each of these Psalms God inspires David to record his lessons on how to overcome the feelings of despair and bitterness when we are betrayed by those we trusted as friends.

I Samuel 25: *David suffers the intense loneliness when wronged in a business deal*.

David writes *Psalm 53*—how to overcome the feelings of loneliness when we are in danger of bitterness over being hurt in a business deal.

*David has Survived*

As we open to I Samuel 29, David has survived all that, and even one last commando raid by Saul on David’s hideaway in I Samuel 27.

David survived: like a cancer victim that has finally finished the surgery, chemo, and radiation; and finally is declared cancer free.

David was weak, but David had made it out of the woods, and life has returned to what it was like before all these months and years of fear, turmoil and struggle.

What a pathway those days had been.

Do you remember what David had gone through?

After being captured and held by the Philistines, betrayed and nearly hunted to death by traitors from his own tribe, surviving month after month of murderous commando raids led against him by his own father-in-law, and enduring all the emotional damage that job loss, anxiety and frustration could exact from him: the Lord allows David’s life to even out.

With his new wife Abigail, plus his family from his other wives, David has gotten established and on his feet.

David had become accepted, admired and even trusted by the Lord of the Philistine city of Gath.

As a way of showing appreciation, Achish gave David a place to settle down.

He has a small town, a band of raiders, and houses, wives, children, and livestock.

Work is going well, he has made peace with his former enemies the Philistines, and things seem better than they have ever been.

Saul is no longer on his trail, the Philistines are no longer a danger, and the time has come to make a living and focus on family life and financial stability.

But only the Lord knew that this was just:

*The Calm before The Storm*

So one day, when life seemed to have returned to regularity, David gets a one-two punch that must have totally set him off course.

Like getting the news that the cancer was back stronger than ever, David gets hit with a one-two, knockout pair of punches.

In rapid succession: David is rejected by the Philistines, and then everything is taken away by the Amalekites.

First, watch the events of I Samuel 29:

1 Samuel 29:1-11 /"Then the Philistines gathered together all their armies at Aphek, and the Israelites encamped by a fountain which is in Jezreel. 2 And the lords of the Philistines passed in review by hundreds and by thousands, but David and his men passed in review at the rear with Achish.

3 Then the princes of the Philistines said, “What are these Hebrews doing here?”

And Achish said to the princes of the Philistines, “Is this not David, the servant of Saul king of Israel, who has been with me these days, or these years?

And to this day I have found no fault in him since he defected to me.

"/

• V. 1-3 David had won the confidence and friendship of his former enemies.

Just think what a public relations coup that was; and think how amazing that must have felt to David

4 But the princes of the Philistines were angry with him; so the princes of the Philistines said to him, “Make this fellow return, that he may go back to the place which you have appointed for him, and do not let him go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become our adversary.

For with what could he reconcile himself to his master, if not with the heads of these men? /"5 Is this not David, of whom they sang to one another in dances, saying: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands’?” 6 Then Achish called David and said to him, “Surely, as the LORD lives, you have been upright, and your going out and your coming in with me in the army is good in my sight.

For to this day I have not found evil in you since the day of your coming to me.

Nevertheless the lords do not favor you.

7 Therefore return now, and go in peace, that you may not displease the lords of the Philistines.”

8 So David said to Achish, “But what have I done?

And to this day what have you found in your servant as long as I have been with you, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?” 9 Then Achish answered and said to David, “I know that you are as good in my sight as an angel of God; nevertheless the princes of the Philistines have said, ‘He shall not go up with us to the battle.’

10 Now therefore, rise early in the morning with your master’s servants who have come with you.

And as soon as you are up early in the morning and have light, depart.”

11 So David and his men rose early to depart in the morning, to return to the land of the Philistines.

And the Philistines went up to Jezreel."/

• V. 4-11 How quickly things change.

David is once again rejected, but this time he has a place to go, a family to comfort and cheer him, and something to live for.

This is the moment of truth.

God allows David to face a totally unexpected disaster.

And in the moment of deepest pain, fear, and hopeless: David has learned his lesson.

He does not go back to the pits of Psalm 40, he does not go back to the feelings that God has abandoned him of Psalm 13.

Instead, he clings to the Lord!

*David’s Acid Test*

After all that David has gone through, now this.

Total Loss is what David faces next.

As we read these inspired words note the insight that only God could give us as we read verse 6.

It was God who could see David’s heart, his motivation

1 Samuel 30:1-31 /"Now it happened, when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the South and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire, 2 and had taken captive the women and those who were there, from small to great; they did not kill anyone, but carried them away and went their way.

3 So David and his men came to the city, and there it was, burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters had been taken captive.

4 Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept, until they had no more power to weep. 5 And David’s two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite, had been taken captive.

6 Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters.

But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

7 Then David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, “Please bring the ephod here to me.”

And Abiathar brought the ephod to David.

8 So David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop?

Shall I overtake them?”

And He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.” 9 So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and came to the Brook Besor, where those stayed who were left behind.

10 But David pursued, he and four hundred men; for two hundred stayed behind, who were so weary that they could not cross the Brook Besor.

11 Then they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David; and they gave him bread and he ate, and they let him drink water.

12 And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs and two clusters of raisins.

So when he had eaten, his strength came back to him; for he had eaten no bread nor drunk water for three days and three nights.

13 Then David said to him, “To whom do you belong, and where are you from?”

And he said, “I am a young man from Egypt, servant of an Amalekite; and my master left me behind, because three days ago I fell sick.

14 We made an invasion of the southern area of the Cherethites, in the territory which belongs to Judah, and of the southern area of Caleb; and we burned Ziklag with fire.” 15 And David said to him, “Can you take me down to this troop?

So he said, “Swear to me by God that you will neither kill me nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will take you down to this troop.”

16 And when he had brought him down, there they were, spread out over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing, because of all the great spoil which they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah.

17 Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day.