Run to God or Run to the Enemy
Tom Shrader traces David's desperate flight from Saul in 1 Samuel 21–22, showing how fear displaced faith and drove Israel's greatest king to lie to a priest, seek refuge among the Philistines, and feign madness before the king of Gath. Drawing on Psalm 34, which David wrote in reflection on this episode, Shrader demonstrates that genuine desperation before God — honest, humble, and clinging to His character rather than a desired outcome — is the very posture that opens the door to divine deliverance. The practical application calls believers to bless God at all times, guard the tongue, pursue peace, and cry out to the Lord who draws near to the brokenhearted.
“Sin always takes you further than you want to go, always keeps you longer than you want to stay, and always costs you more than you want to pay.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: So You Really Want a King?
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 49 min
Themes: fear, faith, desperation, prayer, deliverance, honesty, trust, running from God, struggling with fear, feeling abandoned, making desperate choices, new believer, going through crisis, young adult, feeling distant from God, navigating failure
Scripture: 1 Samuel 20, 1 Samuel 21:1-22:2, 1 Samuel 17:4, Psalm 34, Psalm 139, Hebrews 10:23, Hebrews 11, James 1:2-8, Matthew 12:1-8, Isaiah 41:10, Proverbs 6:16-19, Matthew 5:3, Matthew 11:28
Theological Themes: divine providence, lament, psalms, soteriology, repentance, God's nearness, brokenhearted, sanctification
Full Transcript
Setting the Scene: Where We Left David
If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand so the team can bring you one. It's around page 217 or 218. If you have your Bible, open it to the book of 1 Samuel.
If this were one of those old-time radio broadcasts, the announcer would come on at this point and say, "When last we saw our hero..." That is essentially what we are doing. Our hero is a man named David. We saw him last week in Chapter 20 at a point of real confusion. He was asking Jonathan, "What have I done? What is it I've done to set your father against me? Why is he trying to kill me?" Jonathan said he really wasn't, and David said he thought he was. The two of them devised a test, and Saul failed it.
Jonathan came and provided a prearranged signal indicating that David's life was in jeopardy. When last we saw our hero, he had just come out of hiding in verse 41. He fell on the ground face first, bowed three times, and he and Jonathan kissed and wept together — David, interestingly enough, wept more. Then Jonathan said to him, "Go in safety, and as much as we have sworn to each other in the name of the Lord, saying the Lord is between you and me, between my descendants and your descendants" — there was this oath, this covenant, this special relationship.
We noted that these two men have become something of an icon of friendship, though the word "friend" or "friendship" never actually appears in any of these passages, nor does the Bible describe them as friends. It seems to me that "friend" is perhaps too superficial a word to describe their relationship. A friend is one who falls a bit short of what Jonathan said to David in verse four of chapter 20: "Whatever you say, I will do for you."
I spent a great deal of time studying this leading up to today. Women's ministry was simultaneously going through a study on friendship, and I spent time listening to those recordings and talking with Colleen as she was preparing her material. I have really immersed myself in this subject, and I am convinced that the word that best captures what is being communicated here is love. I don't mean that the word appears in the text — I mean that is the picture being communicated. We ended last week by saying that a real, deep, true friendship bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. That is what these two men have. Last week ended with Jonathan heading into the city and David rising and departing.
From Confusion to Darkness
We are going to pick up with David today, and he is in a very deep place. If last week in chapter 20 he was confused and bewildered, trying to sort it all out, he has now moved from confusion to a deep, dark place. He has nearly bottomed out. He has lost his job, his wife, his home, his counselors, and his best friend. Today he is going to lose any remaining semblance of self-respect, any semblance of what he might have been holding onto within himself.
It is probably a good place to be — and this point is crucial to everything we are about to study. It is not just that David is alone. It is that he has decided to be alone and to live alone. By that I mean not only without human contact, but without contact with God Himself. He is not just running from Saul, who is trying to kill him — that pursuit is really what the balance of 1 Samuel is now about. Jonathan essentially disappears; there are only three verses in the remainder of the book that deal with him, and then he dies. The real focus from here is Saul pursuing David and David trying to run from him.
David's fundamental mistake is that he has decided not just to run from Saul, but to run from God. Here is what I have tried to capture as our central thought for today: David has had fear replace his faith. When that happens, we are in deep trouble. What I want to do is not just point that out, but give you some things — things that even David himself, as a seasoned veteran looking back on this — would recommend we can apply in those moments when fear replaces faith in our own lives. This is highly practical.
David's Own Words: A Psalm of Darkness
If you want to get a sense of what is happening in David's heart right now, let me read from one of the Psalms. I believe this speaks to what David is feeling and sensing at this moment:
"I cry aloud with my voice to the Lord. I poured out my complaint before Him. I declare my trouble before Him. My spirit is overwhelmed within me. There is no escape for me. No one cares for my soul."
Those are heavy, dark words written by the greatest king Israel ever had — a man who was after God's own heart, one of the key figures in the Hall of Fame of Faith found in Hebrews 11. My point is that what David experiences here is part of the human condition, part of the life of faith. It is not necessarily the right response, but it is a deeply human one.
Here is something important for those of you who are here today and know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You know the test, you know the questions, you know the answers, and you have passed. Jesus is indeed your Lord. You are as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there. And yet what David goes through here — this dark, fearful place — can happen to any of us.
Running in Fear
If someone came down this aisle and said, "Deny Christ or I'll blow your brains out," I really believe with all my heart that I would say, "Get it with one shot." Now, if you say we're going to waterboard you, I don't know. But let's keep it where it is for now. I really believe this. Though I haven't been tested, so it's theoretical, I think it would be much easier to die for Christ than to live for Him.
Living a life driven by and inspired by the Lord, while it's the most joyous and exhilarating existence possible, I find myself so often like the apostle — not doing the things I want to do and doing the things I don't want to do. I find myself crying out, "There's no escape for me and no one cares for my soul. I pour out my complaint to You and I cry aloud with a voice to You." I love this story because it's so real. There's no fakery here.
The Bible doesn't try in any way, shape, or form to gloss over or touch up the photograph it gives us of David. We see him, as the expression goes, warts and all. We see him today in just a terrible setting. If you are not familiar with the story, you are going to be stunned when you see where he falls.
I really do believe it flows from a basic, fundamental error. His faith at this moment in time has been overshadowed by fear. His trust in God has been overshadowed by his trust in his own abilities, or in man, and certainly by his inability to trust the one true God.
David at Nob
Verse one of chapter 21: David came to Nob, a few miles north of Israel. Ahimelech the priest came trembling to meet him and said, "Why are you alone? Why is nobody with you?" Ahimelech senses something is wrong. He comes trembling, and he has an interesting question that may lead us right into some great insights into this man's mind. He is essentially asking: where is the Secret Service? Where is the entourage? It seems highly suspect that David would be traveling alone.
And David, at this moment, as he runs in fear, lies. He says, "The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, 'Let no one know anything about the matter on which I'm sending you and with which I've commissioned you,' and I have directed the young men to a certain place." In other words: I'm on a top-secret mission. Nobody can know about it — that's why I'm alone. This thing is so important that no one can be trusted.
The reality is he's running. He's afraid. He's scared. He's motivated by selfishness rather than selflessness. But he's on the move and he's in need of even the simplest things. He says, "What do you have on hand? Do you have any bread?" And later, in verse eight, he will say, "I don't have a spear or sword." If Ahimelech is truly insightful, he has to be thinking: this may be a secret mission, but it was surely poorly planned. No food, no weapons, no provisions — that alone ought to raise suspicion.
The Consecrated Bread
Ahimelech says, "We have no ordinary bread, just this consecrated bread." David says, "Fine, we will take it." Verse six: "So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence" — the bread of the Presence, symbolizing the presence within the Holy of Holies. It was bread consecrated for use by the priests.
I don't want to go too far down this road, and all of the commentators I read did not seem very comfortable making any large points here. But it is worth noting that if you want to turn to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus Himself actually makes reference to this very incident and seems to indicate that what took place was acceptable. I'm not going to build any large strategy around it, but it is worth observing.
In Matthew chapter 12, verse one: "At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, 'Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath.' And He said to them, 'Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions — how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, "I desire compassion, and not a sacrifice," you would not have condemned the innocent.'"
God Hates Empty Religion
Jesus certainly has an ongoing battle with these Pharisees. And this is the key point I want to draw out: God hates religion. God hates a formalized, meaningless, ritualistic interaction with Him. What the Pharisees had done is made plain all through Matthew 23, when Jesus addresses them directly. He says, "Woe to you, woe to you, woe to you." He tells them: you win a convert and rather than bringing him closer to God, you put him further away, because you place the law between him and God.
The Pharisees did follow the law meticulously. They prayed, they fasted, they gave, they did all these things. But Jesus uses them as an example not of what practices to avoid — because Jesus Himself said we are to give, fast, and pray. He said, don't do it like they do. And how did they do it? It was all about them. Jesus comes and dies so that we can have not a formalized, distant religion with God, but an intimate relationship with Him.
When Jesus heals the man who has been blind from birth and the Pharisees begin to unpack what happened, all of a sudden they realize —
Running to the Enemy
There is a servant in verse seven, a servant of Saul. His name was Doeg, the Edomite. If this were one of those radio shows, they would say he's an Edomite and you would hear booing. These were the bad guys, but apparently this is one who was working for Saul. At this point, that is all we know about him.
David said, "Is there not a spear or a sword in my hand? I have nothing. I brought neither." And the priest said, "What we have is the sword used to slay Goliath." David said, "I'll take that." So that is the interaction David has. He moves from Jerusalem to Nob, he encounters the priest, he lies to him, and he is on the move.
Beyond Belief
What happens in verse 10 is literally beyond belief. It is almost unimaginable. Verse 10: "David arose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish, king of Gath."
Do you remember anything about Gath? If you were to flip back to chapter 17, verse four, you would find that David faced a champion who came out of the armies of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath. What David has done here is run to where Goliath played high school ball. He has gone to his home. The man of God has fled not just from God, but to the home of the enemy.
Faith Replaced by Fear
I want to build the case here a little bit deeper. David has replaced faith with fear. What do I mean when I say faith? I mean believing God for who He is. When we talk about the name of the Lord, we are talking about His attributes — who He really is.
I remember when Clarence Thomas went through his hearing, and at the end of it his biggest concern was not confirmation. He said, "My biggest concern is my name." He did not mean that Clarence was an odd name. He meant his reputation. His name, Clarence Thomas, was now associated with the whole event. We understand that our name speaks of all that we are — our good name, our reputation. When we talk about the name of the Lord, we are talking about His attributes, who He really is, the essence of it. When we say the name of God, we mean all that He is and all that it represents.
Faith is trust in that name. It is faith in who He is. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23 says, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." When I talk about faith here, I am talking about believing God for who He is — trusting Him, placing my faith and trust in Him, banking on Him and Him alone.
Trials and Wisdom
I am currently teaching through the book of James, so I have three or four references today that dovetail wonderfully into that study. In James chapter one, James says, "Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, because the testing of your faith produces endurance." Clearly, David is in the midst of a trial. Clearly, he is in a dark place, as we saw last week, and it keeps getting darker and darker. He has a choice as the man of God: he can flee and run to the King of kings, or he can run from Him — and he has chosen to run from Him.
James also tells us that in the midst of trials, if we lack wisdom, all we have to do is ask. Wisdom is the insight to begin to understand and be reminded of who God is in the midst of difficulty. We can bank on and trust in this: everything that comes into our life is either caused by or allowed by God. One thing we know for sure is that God has not lost track of David at this moment.
The same is true for you right now, in whatever hurt or pain you are in. It is not that God has forgotten you. It is not that He has amnesia or is very busy elsewhere. He knows who you are. James chapter one, verse five says, "If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask, and He gives generously without reproach. Let him ask in faith without doubting, for the one who doubts is like the one who is blown through, and he is double-minded in all his ways."
Faith in God's Person, Not the Outcome
Here is what James is not saying. James is not saying that when we ask, our faith is in the outcome. You fill in the blank — the test, the trial, the difficulty, whatever it is. When I am asking in faith, I am not saying that whatever happens, God will take care of it in the way I expect. If I am praying for healing, my faith is not simply that God will heal me. That is not the faith he is talking about.
The faith he is talking about is that God certainly can — God can heal, God can close the deal, He can sell the house, He can do all of these things. My faith is in His ability and in the person of who He is, not that my faith obligates Him to act in a certain way. That is why it is so troubling when certain teachers run around saying that God wants you healthy and wealthy and never wants you sick or struggling. That is simply not biblical.
We understand that God either allows or places David right in these spots — and you and me too. Why would He do that? James tells us: to test our faith, not tempt us, but test our faith to prove what is really there. And David is not passing this test. He has traded his faith in God for fear.
Fear Replaces Faith
It is fear of some sort — fear of men, fear for his own life, or fear that God won't respond. Whatever the reason, David has exchanged his faith for his fear. God didn't leave him, but David has chosen, at least in a sense, to try to move away from the presence of God. This is deeply ironic for the man who would write a psalm telling us it is impossible to ever be outside the presence of God — that if he goes to the heights or to the depths or any place else, he cannot get away from Him. One of the richest thoughts in all of Scripture, and David is the one who writes it.
It is possible to be in the will of God and at the same time out of His will. When God is preparing us for His service — and that is what He is doing with David — He often gives us a lot of rope so we can see what it is like to cope without Him. Perhaps you are challenging God, saying, "I'm going to go my own way and see if You do anything about it." Be careful. You will be surprised just how far God allows you to go before He steps in.
What is happening to David at this moment is unimaginable. We see something similar to what happened to Moses. Moses, at forty years old, said, "I'm ready to go — I'm God's man, I have God's job, I have the whole thing." But God said, "You are not ready right now. There is testing that needs to be done." And here is David: no security, no food, no weapons, no one to talk to. He has decided not to cling to the promises of God, and at this point he is entirely on his own.
When you are on your own, you are not only helpless — you are hopeless. There is no hope in any of the resources you have: not your cleverness, not your intelligence. At very best, for a very short period of time, those things may provide some temporary relief, nothing more. David, having substituted fear for trust in God, now has a focus that is completely horizontal, and the only relief he can find is momentary. It is like those commercials where a man has a headache, a product is sold, and the fine print at the bottom reads "offers temporary relief." That may be better than no relief at all, but I am looking for permanent relief. That is how I spell relief. The moment David moves into fear and begins to devise his own plan, he is clearly not moving in the Spirit of God. The Spirit did not tell him to go to Gath.
Running Into the Enemy Camp
Isaiah offers this insight: "Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be anxious, looking about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and I will help you and I will uphold you with My righteousness." But David has foregone all of that. He says, "No, I'll go on my own," and he heads straight into the enemy camp. One can only assume — and think of how extraordinary this is — that he believed he was going to find sanctuary or peace there.
We often see the same thing in our own lives. When we flee from what God prescribes and run to our own prescription of what we would like, we think we are somehow going to find joy in sin or disobedience. And you may find it, for a moment. But certainly not long term.
The servants of Achish said to him, "Is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing of this one as they danced? Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." What is interesting here is that these enemies at least understood each other's culture — they knew the songs, they knew the popular figures. But when David hears those words, his plan begins to unravel. His legend has spread. Perhaps some of the soldiers he had fought against were now on the other side recalling what had happened. Maybe the widows of slain soldiers were there, or their fatherless children. They were beginning to say, "Wait — do you remember who this is?"
Drool on the Beard
Achish may have been willing to accept David, but the people around him are not. In verse 12, David takes these words to heart and greatly fears Achish. He does not fear the one true God. He has replaced faith with fear. And so he becomes extraordinarily creative: he disguised his sanity before them and acted insanely in their hands. While in their custody he scribbled on the doors and the gates, and let saliva run down his beard. He pretends to be insane — tagging the walls of the room he is in, frothing at the mouth, drool running into his beard.
Let me remind you who this is. This is the greatest king Israel ever had. This is a man after God's own heart. This is someone in the Hall of Fame of Faith. I don't take joy in his misery, but I love understanding that there are moments in most lives where we reach a point comparable to this. And we don't have to reach that point. We do reach it for the same reason David did — because at moments in life we will let fear replace our faith.
How Many Times Do We Need to See This?
I remember being in a small group studying the life of David, and it was just one thing after another. One of the men in the group finally said, "I don't understand why he doesn't get this. What is it going to take for David to get it?" And at that point in the study, we had not even reached Bathsheba yet. What struck me as I studied David was this: I am more like David than I would like to admit.
How many times do you need to see this? How many times does this have to play out in your own life? How many times do you think you are going to be able to go into sin and have a different outcome than the one He told you it would have?
The World's Promises Never Deliver
How many times are you going to play around with the world's value system and put your faith, trust, comfort, security, and significance in the things of the world rather than the things of God? How many times are you going to go down that road before you understand that it never pans out? The world never produces the comfort it promises. It never gives you true security.
I was talking to somebody this morning from Intel, and he said they just laid off another 3,000 people. This man had been there a long time, and I asked if it could be him. He said it could be him at any time. Take all your tenure, all your 401ks, all your assets — none of it is guaranteed.
I was talking to a couple the other day, a great godly couple, and they said that in the last nine months they had lost twenty-seven million dollars. They said, "We're broke. We've lost everything." Some of it was taken from them by fraud; the rest just disappeared. And I'm sure I'm not immune — I know I've done the same thing.
Susan and I were walking down the beach at Cannon Beach about four and a half years ago, and I was reviewing our situation as we looked to the future. I said, "Susan, there's only one thing I can see that could screw this up — if one of us got sick, or if the markets crashed." I was wrong, by the way. But in that moment, I had placed my comfort, my security, and maybe even some of my significance in those things. The minute you do that, it never works.
You know what? God must feel the way I feel with one of my kids, or the way you feel with yours. How many times have I told you? When are you going to get it? And then they could turn right around, hold up a mirror, and say, "Dad, how many times have you trusted in the world's system? When are you going to get it?"
David's Lowest Point: Running to the Enemy
He pretends to be insane. He claws at the walls. And finally, Akish intervenes. I love how this chapter ends. Akish said to his servants, "Behold, you see the man behaving like a madman. Why did you bring him to me? Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to me?" What he is saying is: I have crazy people all around me already. I don't need another one. Get him out of here.
So David leaves. Now, I'll share something I just learned — verse 23 of chapter 22. David departed from there and escaped to a cave. Here is David, who has drool on his beard, who has been scratching at the walls, who has acted like a madman, who is as far down as he can possibly go, who tried to seek refuge in the very city of the enemy.
400 Broken Men Find Their Captain
Then his brothers and all his father's household heard of it and went to him. And look at this — everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontent gathered to him, and he became captain over them. There were now 400 men with him.
Here is David — whatever you thought of him sixty seconds ago — and now 400 people are looking to him saying, "Lead us. You are our captain." What is really remarkable is that if we fast-forward, these men become the ones known as David's army of mighty men.
I absolutely believe this is true of everyone: we all have something in our lives that, when we deal with it, makes us feel stupid, makes us mad, and makes us sad. Look at this motley crew. They are distressed — under pressure and stress. They are in debt — the word means to lend at interest, to have many creditors, to be unable to pay their bills. And they are discontent — it means to be bitter in the soul, to have been wronged and mistreated.
These people are under enormous stress. They have bills they cannot pay. They have been overtaxed, overworked, and mistreated, led by a man named Saul who was out of his mind. Consequences surround them on every side, and they run. At this moment, David looks like their hero.
Here is the key: they look to him as their captain. He is the captain who converts them into an army of mighty men — but only because he leads them to the one true God. That is the power. That is the leader. That is where strength is found. And even as a leader, it is never for me to lead the charge on my own. It is for us to be led by the one true God.
Who Does Not Come to David
Notice who does not come to David. They are the same people who never come to Christ: the self-sufficient, the self-satisfied, the comfortable, and the self-secure. The Statue of Liberty bears these words: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me."
I wish we would get this settled in our minds: God is not looking for a group of winners by the world's standards. He is looking for the beaten-up, the broken — the distressed, the indebted, and the discontent.
The Choice Before Every Believer
These men had a choice, and so do we. For those of you who are Christians, you have a choice in how you respond to every one of these pressures. You can follow the world and the world's system, or you can follow God and His system. The problem for me is that I go back and forth all day long — and I cannot serve two masters.
There is no question about the big issue. I am absolutely confident that I am a child of the King. But I also know that I must choose where I place my trust.
Running to God in Desperation
For whatever reason, this life has in it great struggles. I am prone, periodically, when I wander away from the cross — not just for the forgiveness of my sin, but for the power to live day by day. The power to get through this day is in the cross, the power is in the gospel. The power is not in me pulling myself up by my bootstraps.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who are spiritually bankrupt. Blessed are those who reach a point where they, like David, can begin to cry out and say, "I'm so hurting. I'm so overwhelmed by my need." So often accompanying distress is this idea of sorrow — being surrounded not just by adversaries, but by adversity. It is all around us.
To be honest enough to cry out our hurt, to be honest before God — one of the great freeing things in my life, a few years ago, was that I gave up trying to fool God. I gave up trying to hide something from Him. I am so brutally honest with Him, and I have not yet caught Him by surprise. I am honest about what I'm feeling, even the feelings I'm not very happy about, even the ones I know aren't necessarily sinful but that I'm just not very proud of. I tell Him. I even tell Him when I don't like Him.
And here is what is so remarkable: He loves me. In spite of those things, He has never said, "That's it, Tom, I'm done with you." When things are going well, He doesn't love me more; when things are falling apart, He doesn't love me less. He simply loves me.
David cries out with that same honesty and humility. He understands that anything we begin to substitute for God — whatever it is — provides us at best momentary, temporary relief, and never what we hoped it would.
Psalm 34: What David Learned
Turn to Psalm 34. Some Bibles include a heading, and mine reads: "The Lord, a Provider and Deliverer — a Psalm of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed." This is a psalm David wrote as he sits and looks back on that event.
"I will bless the Lord at all times." Here is what he learned. Here is what he can teach us. Here is what you can do today, in the midst of a situation where your fear has replaced your faith. David makes a determination, a choice: I will bless the Lord. When the deal closes — yes. When the deal falls apart — yes. When the person lives — yes. When they die — yes. When the relationship is strong and when it is strained. When everything is smooth and when everything seems turned upside down. "I will bless Him at all times."
"My praise will continually be on my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and rejoice. Oh, magnify the Lord — let us exalt His name together."
He Delivered David, and He Will Deliver You
Here is the key. This is what happened to David, and this is what will happen to you if you seek God in the midst of fear, in the midst of fright, in the midst of sin and uncertainty, in the midst of the moment when you want to captain the ship and yet know it is wrong. Verse four: "I sought the Lord and He answered me, and He delivered me from all my fears."
As certain as He delivered David is as certain as He will deliver you. This does not necessarily mean He takes the circumstances away — David is still on the run from Saul. But now he begins to run with a completely different perspective. He no longer runs with fear driving things. Fear has been replaced by faith.
"They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed." Who cries to God? Only the poor in spirit — the one who is truly needy, the one who is desperate. This incredible experience that David has with God is born out of desperation. And desperation is an acceptable place to be. To be down and out, hurting and desperate, is all right — if, in the midst of it, you are not filled with despair, but instead you cling to Him.
All of a sudden, faith comes in. Not faith in the outcome, but faith in the Giver of the gifts rather than the gifts themselves. "The poor man cried, the Lord heard him, and He saved him out of all his troubles."
God Draws Near to Those Who Draw Near to Him
Look at what happens in the following verses: "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him." All of a sudden, God puts a hedge around David. He protects him. This is what James tells us — if I draw near to God, He will draw near to me. Like Moses, like David, like Paul, like the nation of Israel, I will come out of that desert experience and find a vibrant, vigorous relationship with God.
Out of misery and desperation, I come to see Him more clearly. I don't think I will ever experience Him to the fullest until I experience the hurt, the pain, the sorrow, and the suffering of life — whether it happens to me or is self-inflicted. He encamps around His people. "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge" — not in his own strength, not in his own wisdom, but in Him.
"Oh, fear Him, you His saints, for those who fear Him there is no want — those needs are met." Young lions, the strong, they ultimately lack and suffer hunger. We trust in our own wisdom, and ultimately it fails. But those who trust in Him will have no want of any good thing. What I wrote in my Bible next to that verse is simply: rest.
The Burden of Fear, Sorrow, and Weariness
Fear, sorrow, worry, and affliction are joined together. They make us tired and weary. That is why Jesus said, "Come to Me, all who are weary"—all who are beat up, tired of trying to please God on their own, tired of playing some sort of religious game. Give up. Run up the white flag. Surrender. Say, "God, it's Yours. You can have it all. You tell me what to do, I'll do it." And He gives us His rest.
Guarding the Tongue and Pursuing Peace
In verse 11, He says, "I'll teach you," and He gives us practical things for everyday life. In verse 13 He says, "Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit." Do not be engaged in evil gossip or slander. Proverbs chapter six, verse sixteen lists six—yes, seven—things the Lord hates, and three of them deal with the tongue: a lying tongue, a false witness, and one who spreads strife. If there is strife all around you and you are in the middle of it with your tongue wagging away, the destruction is huge. Do not expect to find the peace of the Lord in the midst of that.
Here is what He says: stop. Depart from evil. But that is not enough—do good. Seek peace and pursue it. He says hunt it down, chase after it. It is a legitimate goal and target. Go after this peace—first vertical peace with God, and then the peace of God, and then peace with others. There ought to be peace in your life, and yet where there is fear, there seems to be turmoil as well. He ties all of those together.
If you are one of those people whose tongue is yapping away—and you do not want to call it gossip, but you are spreading slander—you will find no peace around you, only turmoil. It is as if everyone with a complaint finds you. You know why? You are putting off the vibe that it is acceptable to come to you and gossip, to slander, to yap. That is the only reason they all find their way to you. You are not being helpful. If you were truly helping them, you would be correcting them, and word would get out. Instead, they come to practice evil together. Rather than that, seek God.
God Hears the Cry of the Righteous
"The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are open to their cry." Think of a mother in a room filled with constant noise—a whole cavalcade of sound—and in the middle of it all, one little cry rises up, and the mother from across the room knows immediately: that is my child. You cry out and He hears your voice. You are His child. "The face of the Lord is against evildoers." He is not neutral. He will destroy them, ultimately wipe them out, and cut off the memory of them from the earth.
"The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and He delivers them." You see the word "cry"—cry, pray—it is all bound together. I cry out to Him, He hears my voice, and He delivers me. "He is near the brokenhearted." That is you. "He saves those who are crushed in spirit"—not crushed by circumstances, but crushed under the weight of their own sin. There is such a heaviness to it all, a longing for relief, and He brings it. He does not sugarcoat it.
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, and none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned." There is no condemnation for those of us who have trusted Him. He is our ransom. He is our Redeemer. He is your Deliverer. He will not forsake you. He will never desert you. You will never have to go it alone.
Honesty, Humility, and the Danger of Running to the Enemy
If you come to Him and say, "I am hurting, I am honest, I am humble"—that is the spirit God wants from His people. That is what He is going to do in your life, because He loves you. There will be afflictions, trials, tests, and difficulty, and they are there to show you who you really are.
David decided to replace faith in the one true God with fear, and fear governed him. Where does fear take you? It takes you to a cell, writing on the wall, drooling on your beard. It takes you to dark, sinful places you do not want to go. There is that old saying: sin always takes you further than you want to go, always keeps you longer than you want to stay, and always costs you more than you want to pay.
Look at this poor man—look at David—running to the enemy for relief. Oh, David, you are so foolish. And oh, Tom, I am just as foolish every time I run to the world or the things of the world and think I am going to find refuge there, because I am not. Run to Him. Trust in Him. Present your body to Him. We will pick up the story right there next week.
Closing Prayer
Father, take these truths and ingrain them in our lives. They seem so real to us sitting here—I can say amen and amen. But the reality is that when we go and try to live it, sometimes it breaks down, sometimes it gets so tough. God, I know there are those here today who are hurting and those who have praises. I pray that You would move them so we would have the privilege of joining them in prayer, and remind everyone here that our pastors and staff are at the front of these rooms to pray with Your people.
God, thank You that on this day when men and women died for freedom—and how grateful we are for that—that freedom pales in comparison to the freedom we find at the cross, the freedom we find in Your Son, Jesus. Thank You for the redemption we find in Him. Thank You that You are our Captain, the One who will lead us, the One who will guide us. Father, we pray to You in Christ's name. Amen.