The first chapter speaks of David's problem, the second, Saul's problem, and the third, God's salvation.
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| David feins lunacy before Achish king of Gath |
David was in great distress and his faith weakened. We could sense David's doubt in 1 Samuel 27:1 when he said, “Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.” The problem is that he resolved his distress without consulting God. In fact, God is not mentioned once in this chapter, we call this a God-less text. Another evidence of David's weakening faith is the fact that he left Israel and fled to a Gentile country. This action is significant in the ancient time, for the Israelites could not worship YAHWEH without living in the land of the chosen people. Those who do not live among the chosen people were often exiled by God. But David fled the land without God's instruction nor consultation. David weighed his own options, had a debate in his own heart and won the debate for himself. DA Carson once said that after we lose a debate with a person, we would then have another debate in our heart. Just if I said this or that point to him, I would have won the debate. And at the end of the day, we would consider ourselves winners in our hearts.
David fled to the Philistines to find safety, and unfortunately, his plan was successful, for Saul had stopped chasing after him. It was unfortunate because there could be success even in perversion or sin. Proverbs 16:25 says that "[t]here is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." In this situation, we are faced with a trial of whether we choose to love God or success, and we often use God to achieve our success. From a human point of view, David was incredibly successful in his battle plan. He eliminated many cities for the sake of fooling Achish. To put that into perspective, Saul only managed to eliminate one city.
CHAPTER 27
This chapter shows the readers the dark and rotten side of David because he justified any means to fulfill his heart's desire by fooling Achish, the king of Philistine. By doing so, he raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, and left neither men nor women alive, looting all their belongings and livestock, all without God's instruction.
What happened next, was David being trapped in his own snare: Achish then asked David to too eliminate the Israelites. Yet David was still confident in his game as he accepted Achish that he was capable of eliminating the Israelites.
The narrator then stops here, as the Scripture is continued to chapter 28, which brings us to Saul's problem. The story of David leaving God is not finished yet, the narrator will continue the story on. But for now, we will read about how God left Saul in chapter 28.
CHAPTER 28
People’s common first reaction to reading this passage is asking whether the spirit was really Samuel’s. Yet the Bible is not interested in that matter, but in Saul’s state of being left by God. It is important to seek understanding to what the Scripture wants us to understand, and not lose our focus in inconsequential matters. However, just for sake of answering your curiosity, many commentators consider the spirit as being Samuel.
The book of Deuteronomy 18 clearly says that it is a detestable thing to perform sorcery and witchcraft in Israel, yet it never says that sorcery and witchcraft do not work.
Furthermore, the narrator also refers to the spirit as Samuel. One of the many ways to decide whether an event is true or not is to consider the narrator’s perspective, we always consider the narrator’s words as the words of God.
However, some might argue that the spirit could not possibly be Samuel, because it is written that He came from Sheol (“out of the earth” in verse 13), while we believe that Samuel should be in heaven. The word sheol should not be confused with hell. Sheol merely means Hades in Greek or the underworld. Both believers and nonbelievers go to sheol after they die, as a waiting room before the last judgment. Hizkia and Jesus also held the same belief. In Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, both Lazarus and the rich man went into the same location after their death, hades, regardless their faith.
Alike, after Jesus died, he went into sheol, and not hell.
Lastly, we could assume that the spirit was Samuel, reading the medium’s reaction to seeing the spirit: she cried out with a loud voice. Some commentators analyze this as a cry of surprise because the medium would usually lie to her customers about her ability to call the spirits, but to her surprise, this time, it worked.
What we would like to discuss into further depth are the seven ironies found in this chapter:
- Saul has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land (verse 9), yet he went to a medium himself.
- All access to God’s words were unavailable to Saul, because Saul previously eliminated all the prophets, except for Nathan, and he was with David.
- He instructed to cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land, yet his men left one in En-Dor. His men rebelled and were not obedient to their king’s instruction.
- Like chapter 27, chapter 28 is also a God-less text. Yet, the only time the word God is mentioned is when Saul swore to the medium by the LORD, “As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing” (verse 10).
- Samuel’s response to Saul’s question was God’s refusal to answer Saul due to Saul’s refusal to listen to God.
- Saul’s seeking for God only proves that he did not seek for God. He sought other things other than God: God’s will, God’s direction, God’s blessing, through God. We often seek God when we face intersections and doubts, the thought of Him never crossed our mind on a daily basis, when everything goes well. Those who truly seek God would ever seek God and consider themselves needing more of God. They are the ones who are close to His presence. Those who claim that they are seeking God’s will, do not necessarily seek God for who He is.
- Samuel mentioned David as the one who would sit at Saul’s throne. “Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, David” (verse 17). Here, Samuel actually gave Saul the answers to his questions, which was God’s plan for Saul to be in sheol, and David’s future enthronement. God’s plan and will were being proclaimed, yet without God.
The passage then ended tragically with “[t]hen they rose and went away that night” (verse 25b). The word night ends this already dreadful passage. It was the ancient way of literature writing to show doubt, death and destruction, through night. Saul went into the destroying darkness the same way Judas went at night to betray Jesus (John 13:30).
All these should bring us to holy fear / reverence: lest us be forgotten and left out by God.
The Word of God is not the only thing that could arise a holy fear within us, tragedies might as well do the work. Reading the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, we might say, “those two people were destroyers of a perfect and peaceful church”, yet remember that Ananias and Sapphira did not destroy the church through their sinful actions, quite the contrary, a holy fear arose within the church: “[a]nd great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things” (Acts 5:11).
CHAPTER 29
I would like to address one background information before we dive into this chapter: verse 2 of chapter 29 refers to Achish as a commander, while in fact, Achish was one of the five kings of Philistine.
I mentioned earlier that chapter 27 and 28 were both God-less texts, which to recall means that God was absent in both chapters. Yet in chapter 29, God’s “absence” is finally filled in, by the Philistines. The other four kings of Philistine smelled something fishy and warned Achish that David might act as a double agent in their land. And so, the four kings hindered Achish from recruiting David to fight the Israelites. The four kings responded this way when Achish proclaimed in his arrogance that David was Saul’s servant and is now his (verse 3).
Do you now see how God used Achish arrogance to initiate the four kings’ warning against David? God often works in silence, through hidden, natural and logical matters.
God is finally mentioned through the mouth of a Philistine, Achish, when he said to David, “As the Lord lives, you have been honest, and to me it seems right that you should march out and in with me in the campaign. For I have found nothing wrong in you from the day of your coming to me to this day. Nevertheless, the lords do not approve of you. So go back now; and go peaceably, that you may not displease the lords of the Philistines” (verse 6-7).
This is how God often works in our lives. He does not come physically in a bleak midday to intercede, but He works silently and in a hidden way, which should bring us to awe.
Here’s a short analogy to make this point clearer: one day, a poor woman prayed loudly to God so He would send her something to eat. Her atheist neighbor eavesdropped her loud prayer and brought the poor woman a piece of bread on her doorstep, hoping for the poor lady to thank God for the bread, so he would correct the lady because it was him (and not God) who placed the bread there. Shortly after, the woman went to find the bread on her doorstep. As expected, the woman cried loudly to God in thanksgiving. Her neighbor emerged out and immediately corrected her, saying, “Aha! You’re wrong! God did not send you that bread, I did. Your faith in God is stupid!” The woman responded, “No, it can’t be. This bread must have come from God my Father. But sometimes He uses the devil”.
Our God is not a God who play merely with the black or white of the chessboard only. He moves and works freely on both the black and the white. He controls the whole chessboard.
Furthermore, God works in silence just as a man courts for the first time. He is deeply in love with his woman, and he wants to hold her hand and hug her. But of course, he wouldn’t do so immediately, for the woman of his life would flee in his suppression. And it would be a stupid idea to make his woman sit in front of him, so he could discuss the details on how and when the hand-holding would begin. So, the man chooses none of those. But one day, the man and the woman go out together and walk down a street, their hands accidentally touched, and the man reached for the woman’s hand, and the woman responded with a grasp. Is it not beautiful?
Similarly, God wants us to see the things invisible. He wants us to be observant and sensitive to His movements. If you have been married for more than 50 years, you would not need to tell your spouse how you like your toast served. Your spouse would bring you the exact toast you want without you having to tell her how to prepare it. This is a beautiful relationship.
It’s funny to watch American advertisements on televisions and how they deliver it. It usually goes like this, “buy this product, and get unlimited benefits such as cars, housings, etc… purchase is limited, terms and conditions applied, and so on”. These ads deliver truths, facts, data, all visible things, “forcing” us to purchase their products. While a successful ad should deliver its message in a silent and hidden manner, while the consumers unaware that they have been lured into purchasing the product.
At this point, we might be relieved to hear that David’s tension between David wanting to be the king of Israel, and wanting to fool Achish to believing that he would fight against his own people is resolved. But David did not immediately respond by saying, “horray, I don’t have to fight in the battle”, but he still played along with his lies, “But what have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day I entered your service until now, that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?” (verse 8). Our hope for resolution suddenly crushed, fearing Achish approval to David’s persuasion.
It is here where we see God’s grace and providence towards David. God continued to protect David, despite David’s stupid decisions. God’s protection is silent, yet assertive, sure and forcing. We so often doubt, yet God draws us near Him again. David was saved and protected, not because of his obedience and faith. We have seen how David plainly fled from his land, lied and doubted his faith. This is why the Bible is not a story about David nor Saul, but is a story about God. Both David and Saul were disobedient towards God. Yet this is God’s grace towards those who do not seek his grace, do not seek Him.
The passage ends with verses 10-11, which tell us that David and his men went not into the night like Saul did, but into the day, “Now then rise early in the morning with the servants of your lord who came with you, and start early in the morning, and depart as soon as you have light.” So David set out with his men early in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines. But the Philistines went up to Jezreel”. God chose to be gracious towards David, and not Saul.
CLOSING
Now we know how David could have written such a beautiful Psalm, “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6). The authentic translation of the word follow here is actually to pursue or to chase, just like how Pharaoh and his men chased after the Israelites at the Red Sea. David wrote Psalm 23 knowing that despite his failure to be faithful, his God is ever faithful and would pursue and draw him back to God again.
Jesus was born into a dark night in a manger. He too died on the cross in darkness as he cried, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” (My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?).
He, who is the source of light had to die in darkness, so us, the children of darkness may be the children of light.
By Vik. Jethro Rachmadi B.Mus., M.Th., GRII Kelapa Gading
Written by Alicia Angie Wiranata
This sermon note has not been revised by the preacher.Written by Alicia Angie Wiranata
Alice
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