God’s Work in the Wilderness Part One

Highlights from 1 Samuel

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

June 4, 2023

God’s Work in the Wilderness Part One

If you have your Bibles turn with me to 1 Samuel 21. We’ll have the passages on the screen for you to follow along with as well.

We’re going to be looking at God’s work in the wilderness. Up to chapter 20 David’s life has been a charmed life. Ever since the prophet Samuel anointed David to be the next king of Israel, every battle he fights he wins, every task he attempts succeeds, his name has become a household name (he’s more famous than King Saul) and everyone loves him.

David’s on a fast track to the throne… until Jonathan warns him that Saul is determined to kill him. God has an unexpected detour through the wilderness for David, a detour that will define the next ten years of David’s life.

God uses the wilderness to do a good work in His people.

Wilderness in the Bible refers to a desert place – a harsh, barren, and solitary place. We see the wilderness throughout the Bible: God led Moses into the wilderness; Elijah heard God speak to him in a still small voice in the wilderness; Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil; and Paul spent the first three years after believing in Jesus in the wilderness of Arabia.

And God is going to take David to the throne by route of the wilderness. Saul didn’t have a wilderness experience. From the moment he was anointed to be king he had a smooth and easy road straight to the throne. Success came easy, power came easy, fame came easy, applause came easy. And Saul became a bad king.

God is going to use the wilderness to do a work on David, making him a man after His own heart and a good king.

There are times when God’s road for our lives goes through the wilderness. Wilderness is a hard and harsh place. It’s a lonely and scary place. We feel like God’s abandoned us – where is He? The wilderness will feel like a wrong turn, a detour we don’t want to take, but the wilderness is an opportunity for us to learn to hear God better, know God more intimately, and trust God more deeply.

If Jesus is your Savior, the wilderness is not your home. Bountiful is your home. Abundant life is your home. Jesus went into the wilderness and overcame temptation then he went into the lonely garden of Gethsemane and suffered the crown of thorns and the spikes nailing him to the cross, enduring the barren wilderness that is the consequence of sin so we might receive his life, abundant and eternal resurrection life forever in His presence. If Jesus is your Savior than the wilderness is not your home.

But God leads His children into the wilderness for a time in order to teach us to depend on Him. Teach us to trust in Him. Teach us humility and lead us into deeper fellowship with Him.

Let’s consider the terrain in David’s wilderness and then how God met him there.

1. The wilderness is a lonely place

Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” ² And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. ³ Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 1 Sam 21:1-3

David needs food so he goes to an old friend and supporter, the priest Ahimelech. Ahimelech has no idea what’s going on, but it strikes him as odd that David is alone. He doesn’t have an army with him. He doesn’t have weaponry with him. He doesn’t have any of the usual evidence that he is the king’s man on the king’s mission. So David lies to Ahimelech and tells him he’s on a secret mission, called so hastily he brought no food or weapons. Ahimelech gives him bread and Goliath’s sword.

It was a stark reminder to David that he is alone. His old comrades in arms are now out to kill him! He is completely alone.

David then does something really crazy. My read on this is that this is all so new to him that he’s just making it up as he goes. He has no plan, no strategy, and no time to think things through. Out of desperation he goes to the Philistine city of Gath, the same city that Goliath was from. What could go wrong? Maybe he hoped that they wouldn’t recognize him, maybe he thought that since Saul was now his enemy too that they’d think “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

¹¹ And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” ¹² And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. ¹³ So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. 1 Sam 21:11-13

You know who those thousands Saul struck down and ten thousands David struck down were? They were Philistines! David the warrior was “much afraid of Achish the king of Gath” – so afraid that he humiliated himself by acting insane with spittle running down his beard and speaking gibberish and scratching away at the door. Maybe if they think he’s gone mad they won’t see him as a threat and sure enough they don’t kill him but they do kick him out of the city. Even the enemies of his enemy doesn’t want him.

We talked about loneliness last week. You don’t have to be alone to be lonely. It’s possible to be lonely in a crowd. Sometimes our wilderness is loneliness. Loneliness isn’t good – God said of Adam, it’s not good that man is alone – God doesn’t mean for us to live in the wilderness of loneliness, but God can do a good work in our heart in the lonely place.

2. The wilderness is a place where we have no home where we belong

22 David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his

father's house heard it, they went down there to him. ² And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men.

³ And David went from there to Mizpeh of Moab. And he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and my mother stay with you, till I know what God will do for me.” 1 Sam 22:1-3

David ran to the hill country and began hiding out in caves. He had no home. No one wanted him. He was uprooted from everything he knew. His family is in danger because Saul will likely kill them so they join him there and he arranges for his parents to stay in Moab – a people who are enemies of Israel. The best explanation for why he would do that and why would they accept his parents is that his great grandmother was Ruth the Moabite. We hear a humble faith in David when he tells the king of Moab, please let my parents stay with you til I know what God will do for me.

Then a band of distressed, disgruntled, deep in debt, bitter people start to gather around him. They are the ones no one wants. They are the ones when choosing sides for baseball that are picked the last: “I guess I’ll take Bill.” This is the beginning of his new “army” – and David will turn them into a fierce band of brothers.

But David has no home, no safe place, no refuge to call his own.

3. The wilderness is a merciless place

When David lied to Ahimelech, he figured it was a harmless lie, but what he didn’t count on was there was a man there named Doeg who heard everything and went and told Saul that Ahimelech helped David.

Saul summoned Ahimelech and all the priests and accused them of knowingly aiding and abetting his enemy. Ahimelech is shocked and points out David is Saul’s right hand man – he’s Saul’s son in law! He had helped David out a dozen times – he had no idea David was on the run but Saul is so deranged that he decides to murder all of them including men, women and children in the city of Nob. This is irrational – so much so that his guard refuses to do it but Doeg is a dog of a man and he’s more than happy to murder the eighty five priests and the citizens of the city.

But one of Ahimelech’s sons escapes and runs to David and tells him what happened.

And David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I have occasioned the death of all the persons of your father's house. ²³ Stay with me; do not be afraid, for he who seeks my life seeks your life. With me you shall be in safekeeping.” 1 Sam. 22:22-23

This is on Saul, not on David, but David can’t help but feel responsible. He knew Doeg heard and saw everything that day, but he couldn’t foresee how merciless Saul would be. The Bible says Saul had an evil spirit and we see that clearly here. They cried for mercy but Saul’s heart had no compassion, so full

of hatred, pride, and jealousy that he had no room in his heart for mercy.

The world can be a cruel place. It’s a beautiful place too, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Cruel is another word for merciless. People can be cruel, nature can be cruel, disease can be cruel, poverty and hunger can be cruel, prejudice can be cruel, depression can be cruel, loneliness can be cruel. I am on a prayer chain for a family whose son Wyatt drowned in a koi pond over their Easter visit with family. He has been on life support ever since. He is responding well to time in a hyperbaric chamber but has a long way to go. I get teared up every time I read their faith-filled, pain-filled updates. They are holding onto Jesus but it’s a cruel wilderness they are walking through.

David is shocked by Saul’s merciless cruelty and crushed at his part in it. There must have been times when he wanted to give up, but God is working on David in this wilderness and it’s while he was hiding out in the caves that he wrote Psalm 57.

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.

² I cry out to God Most High, to God, who vindicates me. ³ He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me—God sends forth his love and his faithfulness.

I am in the midst of lions; I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts—men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords…They spread a net for my feet— I was bowed down in distress. They dug a pit in my path— but they have fallen into it themselves. Ps 57:1-4, 6

Those chasing David are like lions ready to tear lives apart without mercy. David knows Saul will have no mercy on him if he catches him, but David calls upon God to show him mercy. Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me…

When someone calls out for God to show mercy they are learning the value of mercy. Jesus said blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. David is learning to be a merciful king. God is working for him and on him, making him the king God wants him to be.

If you are in a cruel time, call upon the God who loves to show mercy! And learn the value of mercy, the value of caring for others who are hurting. God will use your wilderness to make you the man or woman God means to be!

David says, for in you I take refuge. He’s alone, he’s in a cave with no home, but God is his home and his friend. Jesus said I go to prepare a place (a home) for you and I will come back to take you there. Jesus is our home, our safe place even when we’re uprooted here and have no home where we belong. We belong to Jesus and belong in Jesus.

It doesn’t compare to David’s uprootedness or loneliness but I remember at Bible school an incredibly lonely time and a different psalm of David met me there. The lovely young lady I had been dating felt like she needed space and we broke up to figure out what God was doing. I drove down to the beach and sat looking at the water and played Honeytree singing another psalm: “as the deer thirsts for the water, so longs o Lord my heart for you.” And God met me there. God will meet you in your wilderness too.

David’s in a harsh and unforgiving wilderness, but it’s not loneliness or cruelty or homelessness he’s most aware of. Listen to how he finishes this psalm written in a cave running from Saul:

My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music.
Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.

I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Psalm 57:1-4,6-10

God sometimes leads us into the wilderness, but not to destroy us but to teach us to trust Him, rely on Him, love Him, and know that we are never alone when Jesus is with us.