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If you have your Bibles (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Samuel 23. Keep your Bibles open here as we work our way through the chapter this morning.
In some ways, not much has changed in the last few chapters of 1 Samuel.
The main setting is the same.
David is running from Saul.
Saul is hunting David.
1 Samuel 23 is more of the same.
Ideally, we could read these chapters all together (our time would not be wasted if we simply read these chapters in God’s Word.
There is so much in these chapters for God’s people today.
Now, we aren’t David.
We aren’t being chased by Saul.
We can’t really insert ourselves into the story.
Putting ourselves in David’s sandals isn’t quite the point.
What’s here in God’s Word for God’s people (us) today is much to be learned about the God we serve—He who was, who is, and who is to come.
He is the Almighty, the Faithful One, the One who is present in the details of our life.
Our Helper He.
What David receives from the Lord, we, too receive from the Lord, albeit in different measure.
Thankfully, what’s true about the Lord Yahweh then is true about the Lord Yahweh now.
>David is on the run.
David has escaped Saul and, by the grace of God, stayed one step ahead of him (or several steps ahead, but you know what I mean).
Saul is ordering that people who have helped David be killed.
His paid informant, Doeg, just killed 85 priests and their families—the entire city of Nob.
One of the priests escaped the killing and made his way to David.
1 Samuel 23 picks up at that point.
David, on the run for his life, is still seeking the Lord.
And the Lord is still helping David.
Our Helper is Guiding and Assuring
A town about 3 miles from where David is located is in trouble.
And someone told David about the trouble.
Someone is always telling David something.
Someone is always telling Saul something.
Both men must have had effective intelligence networks, something, I imagine like the gossipy old men at the cafe every morning.
The beauty shop has nothing on them.
David’s and Saul’s intelligence networks might be more sophisticated than that, but every bit as informed.
The trouble at Keilah was at the hands of the Philistines, the common enemy of all the people in that time and region.
It’s always the Philistines, it seems.
The Philistines are robbing the Keilahites of their grain.
This is frustrating and life-threatening.
No grain = no bread.
No bread = hungry.
When David’s told of the trouble, instead of rushing into action, he inquired of the Lord.
He seeks direction from the Lord.
That’s a really good idea, a good practice.
It’s no small thing that the Lord answered him.
We read this throughout the Bible and might get used to it or numb to it.
We might even come to expect it.
Let’s not miss the miracle, the wonder of this.
The LORD—the Almighty Creator of all things—hears and answers!
How amazing is that?
I’m convinced this is all David needs.
He’s heard about the trouble, he’s inquired of the Lord, the Lord has answered him.
“Let’s do this; let’s kick this pig!”
But the men with David hesitate.
They’ve been afraid of much less, certainly they’re afraid of this.
So David turns to the One who helps—who guides and assures.
1 Samuel 23:4-5 “Once again David inquired of the Lord, and the Lord answered him, “Go down to Keilah, for I am going to give the Philistines into your hand.”
So David and his men went to Keilah, fought the Philistines and carried off their livestock.
He inflicted heavy losses on the Philistines and saved the people of Keilah.”
For the sake of his men, David asks the Lord again.
It’s assurance they were after, and a gracious assurance they were given.
It was more than the direction the Lord gave in verse 2; it was guidance and assurance.
You probably noticed the parentheses around verse 6; it’s an explanatory note detailing how David could get such clear guidance.
Abiathar came to David and brought the ephod down with him.
Verse 6 is the hinge of the entire section, parenthetical or not.
Verse 6 explains how the town of Keilah was saved and how David and his men were saved.
Through Abiathar’s ephod (the special garment worn by the priest when inquiring of God), the Lord guided David both to go to Keilah and then to get out of Keilah.
The guidance the Lord gives in verses 10-12 is probably as close a look at how the ephod works that we’ll see.
David asks the Lord two specific questions and received two affirmative answers.
In contrast to Saul, David has access to the Lord and the Lord’s guidance through the appointed priest.
Saul, on the other hand, has to do without.
The Lord isn’t guiding him.
What’s more, Saul has had all the priests of the Lord murdered.
In verses 22-23, verses we haven’t read yet, Saul is inquiring of all his human sources.
David has God as helper; Saul has to ask the Ziphites for more information.
He has to demand definite information.
David has all the information he needs, and his is from the Almighty Himself.
We need to remember that we don’t receive the kind of precise, direct guidance the David did.
And that’s okay.
We don’t need it.
I’m not the chosen king.
It’s not essential for me to hear from the Lord in this way.
But in principle, there is no difference between David and us.
How was the Lord’s guidance given to David?
Was it not access to God through the appointed priest, Abiathar?
Isn’t this the privilege you and I enjoy?
Through a Priest greater than Abiathar?
We have a Helper who will help us in our time of need.
It doesn’t get any better than that.
Jesus is our Helper, guiding and assuring us in ways no one else could.
These few verses are a summary of sorts and a sweet story between friends.
[MAP]
David’s hiding out in the wilderness strongholds in the desert hills of Ziph (about 4 miles east of Hebron).
David is pretty deep in the territory of Judah, but he never escapes the shelter of the Most High.
Hertzberg comments:
“David knows that Saul is constantly on his tracks.
Hence the remark in verse 14 that God did not give David into [Saul’s] hands is an important one.
It gives a title to the whole section.
Saul may pursue David and and David maybe pursued, but it is firmly fixed in the divine plan that David will remain safe.
No man can alter anything in this long-arranged course of events.”
The Lord is protecting David, helping David in ways we can’t begin to fathom.
The Lord even offers to David some much-needed encouragement.
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