What are we doing in Ziklag? (part 3)

As David and his men begin their march back to Ziklag, I’m sure they were feeling pretty lucky. They have dodged a major bullet. Only a last-minute intervention saved them from joining the attack on Israel. They are almost home now, only one more hill to cross. Suddenly one of the men says, “I smell smoke.” Another says, “I do, too.” Someone shouts, “It’s Ziklag.” In a moment, 600 men break ranks and run for the village. Their eyes are not prepared for what they see. While they were gone, the Amalekites came and took their wives, took their children, took all their possessions, and burned the village to the ground. There is nothing is left.

You see, the Amalekites were among the villages David used to raid when he was playing his little game of pretending to attack Judah. But, look back at the story. Remember that David not only raided those villages, he also killed the people to keep them from talking. Now his tab with the Amalekites has come due.

David has been flirting with disaster for a long, long time. What started out as a simple case of discouragement has now led to something totally unthinkable. When he first came to the Philistines, he only meant to relieve the pressure on himself. He never meant for anything like this to happen. And all this time, God has been trying to get his attention, but David has been too busy and self-absorbed to listen. Finally, disaster strikes and David is totally unprepared.

The text says that David and his men wept until they could not weep anymore. It also says David’s men were so bitter that they talked about stoning David. And who could blame them? Ziklag is burning, their families are gone and it’s all David’s fault. What started with discouragement led to desperation, and this led to defection which led to disobedience and ended in disaster.

Now God is finally beginning to get David’s attention. Sometimes the Lord has to slow us down, let us fall in order to get through to us. Disaster comes and we stand in the blackened and smoking ruins of a part of our life. And at last we come to our senses. After 16 months of compromise and disobedience, David finally begins to look up. The tragedy is that it took so long and hurt so many people.

We have finally reached the turning point of this story, but it comes so quickly that we almost miss it. First Samuel 30:6 says that “David found strength in the LORD his God.” David found strength. That means he is no longer relying on his own strength, but God’s strength.

David’s number one problem from the beginning was that he was so gifted that he could operate very effectively, even apart from God. What do we know about David? We know he was handsome and strong. We know he was a gifted musician and a mighty warrior. We know that women were attracted to him. We know he was a born leader. David had everything. He was every woman’s dream and every man’s hero. In later years, those qualities would make him Israel’s greatest king. But, I think that one of the reasons God allowed David to go through ten years of obscurity in the desert was to teach him not to rely on his own abilities, but on the Lord alone. That’s a hard lesson for all of us to learn and doubly hard for those who possess great natural gifts.

As long as David leaned on the Lord, those enormous gifts could be used to accomplish great things. We have seen it already and we will see it again as he leads his people to the greatest era of prosperity they will ever know. But every time David leaned on his own strength to get a job done, he got in trouble. And he hurt a lot of people in the process.

What lesson should we take from this story?

1. Discouragement is inevitable when we attempt to face the problems of life in our own strength.
2. Compromise with the world offers only a temporary solution to our problems.
3. God’s punishment is usually to let us face the consequence s of our own wrong decisions.
4. Discouragement is not meant to throw us on our back, but to bring us to our knees.

Where is God's grace in this story? God loves us too much to let us stay forever in our sin. The Lord knows His own. He has put his seal upon us, and he watches every move we make. When we decide to live in our own strength, and exercise our own free will, God lets us go our own way. But, when we fail, and we will fail eventually, we will turn to him with a new resolve and a firm commitment to walk in the light. Because we are as little children, we have to fall in order to learn how to walk. There is a warning here and also great hope based on a God whose love is so strong that even when we sin, that same love keeps calling us back home.

Some of us have done exactly what David did. Some of us are still doing it. There’s a lesson to be learned and a warning to be taken. But there is good news is this—whenever we’re ready, truly ready, we can turn things around. That’s what the grace of God is all about. The question is, how far will we have to go before we make that choice?

Amen...

What are we doing in Ziklag? (part 2)

If we keep reading, we stumble across a surprising fact about this episode of David's life. David’s compromise actually seemed to usher in a period of temporary peace and prosperity. Verse 4 tells us that Saul did indeed stop searching for David. Verses 5-6 record that David and his people were given the village of Ziklag to live in. I Chronicles 12 informs us that during this period many of Saul’s soldiers defected to David in Ziklag. Finally, verse 12 says that Achish king of Gath was very pleased with David.

On the surface, things look great. It looks like David has made a wise decision. One could argue that God is blessing David for going to the Philistines. For a period of weeks or maybe months I’m sure he felt justified.

But, there is a clear biblical principle at work here. Disobedience often results in a temporary lessening of pressure. Hebrews 11 speaks of “the pleasures of sin for a season.” Sure, David felt better for a little while. And, don’t ever let anyone tell you that sin isn’t fun. We all know from experience that the exact opposite is true. Sin is lots of fun and compromise is exciting. That’s why so many of us do it.

• There’s a third result of David’s compromise. It led him into further sin. Here’s the other side of the coin. First there was discouragement, then there was desperation, then defection, and now further disobedience that leads to deceit and needless death.

Verses 8-11 describe the raiding parties that David would undertake while he was living at Ziklag. Ziklag was a tiny village off in the wilderness between Gaza and Beersheba. David would take his men and raid the villages to the south and southwest of Ziklag. But when Achish asked, “Where did you go raiding today?” David would answer, “I’ve been to the Negev of Judah,” which was south and east. The implication of David’s answer was that he had been raiding his own people Israel. Actually he had been going the opposite direction. But the purpose of the deception was to convince Achish of his loyalty, and it worked.

This doesn’t seem like such a big deal until you get to verse 11 where it says, “He did not leave a man or woman alive to be brought to Gath, for he thought, ‘They might inform on us and say, ‘This is what David did.’” So what started out as a plundering party ended in a bloody massacre.

But, why should we be surprised? This is what happens to all of us when discouragement leads us down the slippery slope to compromise. When David attacked those villages, he did it without God’s permission, without provocation, under false pretenses, and with unnecessary cruelty. David’s live is spiraling downward and out of control, and the worst is yet to come.

There is one final result of compromise. For David and his men, everything seems to be going great. In fact, it seems like God is blessing him more than ever before. Life is beautiful until the day David gets his notice that he and his men have been called up for duty. First Samuel 28:1 puts it this way: “In those days the Philistines gathered their forces to fight against Israel. Achish said to David, ‘You must understand that you and your men will accompany me in the army.’” Now we have a problem. Why do you think Achish had been so magnanimous in welcoming David’s defection all those months ago? He was collecting an IOU and now he is calling. To make matters worse, he names David as his personal bodyguard. That means that if the Philistines win the battle, it will be David’s duty, as the bodyguard, to kill the defeated king. This means that David will now be forced to do the one thing he has steadfastly refused to do—kill King Saul.

This is not what David signed up for. He never intended to get into this mess. In his little mind, going to live with the Philistines was just a temporary plan to buy some time and space. But now he is faced with the full results of his compromise. Unless God intervenes, he will be forced to fight against his own people. But that’s what happens whenever we live our life apart from God. One little step leads to another, one tiny compromise opens the door to another, and before long we find ourselves in too deep to get out. When that happens, we think, “It’s okay. I’ll make it.” But we know in our heart of hearts that we won’t!

By now, David owes too much to Achish to even think about backing out. He is the perfect picture of the carnal man trying to operate using his own resources.

So now the scene is set. The Philistines gather to war against the men of Israel. The soldiers gather in small groups, check their weapons, discuss strategy, and wonder when the battle will begin. Men are here from all the Philistine cities—Gath, Ekron, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gaza. They number in the thousands. This is no small skirmish. This is all-out war, and David and his men are bringing up the rear.

All goes well until one of the Philistines says, “What are those Jews doing here?” Then someone else says, “Get those guys out of here.” As the word of their presence spreads through the camp something like a small riot breaks out. The generals come to Achish and say, “What’s this man David doing here?” And they quote that little song that used to make Saul so mad, “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands.” They object to David being so close to them because they are afraid that he will turn against them in the heat of battle in order to regain Saul’s favor.

So Achish has to go back to David and say, “I’m sorry, but you can’t fight with us today. My men don’t trust you. Go back to Ziklag. We’ll let you fight in the next battle.”

There is an important lesson for us to consider at this point. David, a child of God, temporarily defects to the other side and then he discovers that the other side doesn’t want him because they don’t trust him either. Why? Because a child of God is always a child of God. The new nature within cannot be taken away even though it can be covered up and camouflaged by compromise. The believer who cuts himself off from the people of God soon discovers the people of the world don’t want him around either. So he is fated to spend his years in a kind of no-man’s land, half in the world, and half in the church. A man without a country.

The end is almost upon David and he doesn’t even realize it...

[conclusion tomorrow...]

What are we doing in Ziklag? (part 1)

Text: I Samuel 27-30

What happens when we are discouraged? The simplest answer is that we become easy targets for the forces of darkness. When things aren't coming together for us, or we start to feel that we've misunderstood God's promises, we start to make mistakes. Out of frustration, we start to shoot from the hip; we may even start acting out in anger. We disengage our brains and stop using the common sense that God gave us. We take our eyes off the prize, away from the goal. We want to move away from the pain, maybe take some time off from the struggle. Maybe we should go visit our old friends, visit some of the habits we have put away...

David gives us a good example of what not to do when we are worried, discouraged or discontented with God's slowness. And, anyone who has spent time looking into David’s life, knows that even though he was a man after God’s heart, he was still a man. The story is told in I Samuel 27-30, which is not a place where many people spend a great deal of time, but one which is perfectly relevant to our discussion.

The story begins this way: “But David thought to himself, ‘One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand’” (I Samuel 27:1). In those few words we have an x-ray of a discouraged soul. So, what happened to David in his state of discouragement?

• First, discouragement destroyed his perspective.

It all begins when David starts to think about his situation. For nearly ten years he’s been running from Saul. Ten years is a big chunk out of a man’s life. Maybe he was tired on this particular day. No one could blame him for feeling a little down. We’ve all been in the same place. But this time his mind leaps from one negative thought to another until at last he reaches the expected hopeless conclusion: “One of these days Saul is going to get me. I don’t know where or when or how but I can’t run like this forever. It may not come for a year or it may happen tomorrow but I am positive that it’s going to happen.” The future looks depressing because he has decided to focus on the negative instead of the positive.

We can make excuses and even understand his thinking except for two key facts:

1. First, God had promised that David would be the next king. This wasn’t just a dream he had, or a hope for the future. No, it was a rock-solid promise that David could count on. Meaning that Saul would never get the opportunity kill him no matter how awful the circumstances might appear.
2. Second, David had just overcome a series of three remarkable spiritual victories. He had spared Saul’s life once in the cave at En Gedi (I Samuel 24). Then he had spared Nabal’s life when Abigail interceded (I Samuel 25). Then he had very recently spared Saul’s life again when he crept into the camp and found Saul sleeping (I Samuel 26). Perhaps it isn’t surprising that discouragement came hard on the heels of such remarkable victories. It is often this way for the children of God. We could almost say that when things are going well, watch out because you are being set up to be blindsided by temptation of some kind.

In any case, David chooses to focus on what might happen instead of what has happened, and on his own resources instead of God’s promises. As a result, he completely loses his perspective on life. He loses sight of the promise.

• Second, it led him to a reckless decision.

If you remember the story of David slaying the Philistine giant, Goliath, you would have to say that the decision to go live with the Philistines was impulsive. You can also say it was just plain dumb. Again, David thought he had good reasons. The most important reason was that if he went to live with the Philistines, Saul quit chasing him. The other reason is a bit more subtle. Again, you may recall this isn’t the first time David has lived with Goliath’s people. He did it before, back in chapter 21, when he lied to Ahimelech to get bread for his men. That episode ended in humiliation with David drooling into his beard to make Achish think he had gone crazy. So now David turns around and makes the same foolish decision all over again.

There is a great warning for all of us in this. One act of spiritual compromise, no matter how insignificant it may seem at the time, makes it easier to compromise the next time. Even a tiny step in the wrong direction sets us up to take the next step sooner or later.

• Third, it forced him into a position of compromise.

God’s word had been crystal clear: The children of Israel were not to mix with the surrounding nations. Over and over this warning was given and every time somebody tried it, disaster resulted. David knew all that well, and he did it anyway. I’m sure if you had asked David as he led his band toward Gath, “Are you abandoning God?” he would have said no. He probably would have been insulted by the very question. “Me, desert God? Are you kidding? I believe everything I always believed.” “But David, these are not God’s people.” “It makes no difference. I’m going to go live there for a while until the pressure lets up. It’s no big deal. I can have my quiet time with God in Gath just as easily as I can in Israel.”

We always have a ready excuse when we are on our way to compromise. It all seems perfectly logical at the time. Some of us are doing it right now. We are involved in shady deals, compromising relationships, and business arrangements that we know aren’t quite right. We’re going along with some things that would embarrass us if anyone else knew. We’re still in church on Sunday morning or Saturday night, still singing the songs of Zion, but in our hearts, we know we’ve taken the low road, the crooked path, the wide gate. Discouragement does that. It leads us slowly downward until we end up doing things we would never dreamed we would do. What starts as a fleeting thought becomes a plan, a plan becomes a commitment, and eventually a commitment becomes a lifestyle.

As we read on, we find things rapidly go from bad to worse for David. His compromise involved innocent people in his wrong decision. First Samuel 27:2 says that “David and the six hundred men with him left and went over to Achish son of Maoch king of Gath.” Each man brought his family with him. So that means there were at least 600 men, 600 women, and who knows how many children involved in this; all now living with the enemy because of David’s choice.

The same thing happens to us. Whenever we begin to compromise, we take other people along with us. Naturally, we don’t think about it at the time, but soon enough we discover that our impulsiveness has hurt a lot of innocent people.

[more...]