On the Road

       An insurance agent was writing a policy for a cowboy. The agent asked, "Have you ever had any accidents?"  "No, not really," replied the cowboy. "A horse kicked in a few of my ribs once. I got bit a couple of times by a rattlesnake, but that's about it."

       "Don't you call those accidents?”

       "Oh, no, they did that on purpose.”          

       Accidents are one thing.  But it’s harder when it’s on purpose – like having someone throw a spear at you and then do it a second time. 

       A couple of weeks ago we saw how King Saul becomes angry and suspicious when he hears the people singing David's praises.  Saul sees David as a threat.  So Saul wants David dead.  David is playing the harp when Saul suddenly picks up his spear and tries to pin David to the wall like a cricket in a collection.  He does that on purpose. 

       Here’s David, doing what he can to lighten the king’s dark spirits, when all of a sudden a sharp spear flies right toward his head.  Only David’s lightning Ninja reflexes -- trained in long hours at Mr. Miajistein’s dojo in Bethlehem -- save his life.  In the immortal words of Napoleon Dynamite, David has skills.

       But the next verse after the spear throwing is very interesting.  1 Samuel 18:12 says that "Saul is afraid of David."  Isn't that intriguing? The very people who are out to get us are often the ones who are afraid of us.  That was certainly the case with Saul and David.

      Now remember that David hasn’t done anything to deserve Saul’s hatred or fear.  He has been a model of humility, dependability and integrity.  He has done the right thing – and everything is blowing up around him anyway. 

      What we will see in these chapters is that God is removing the crutches from under David – including the confidence that virtue will always be rewarded I this evil world.  That ties in with the sermon last Sunday on Psalm 73.  God is teaching David to really trust Him – and that means that it’s time for a road trip.  It’s time for David to get out of town. 

        This morning I am covering material from several chapters. We’re going to hit a few of the high points.  But these high points make a great point about our lives as the people of God.  We see that God works in our real lives – not just in our lives the way they should be. 

       Now we readers of the Bible know that Saul isn’t fighting against David.  Saul is fighting against God.  So we know how this comes out.  Who is Saul compared to God?  

       But David’s not a reader. David’s not the story teller.  David’s a participant.  So David is left to make decisions based on what he sees and experiences – just as we do in our stories.  To David, Saul looks very powerful.  His future seems very unclear.  That’s how he makes his choices.

       One of the first thing David does after escaping the hand of Saul is to head for the religious center of Nob for food and a weapon.   The priests give David some bread.  The weapon he finds is the sword of Goliath that has been placed in the shrine as a battle trophy. 

       So far, so good.  But then David does something that shows how the terrifying experience of innocent suffering has left him off balance. David takes the sword of Goliath and walks with it strapped to his belt into the city of Gath . 

       What’s so strange about that?  Well Gath is one of the five cities of the Philistines.  In fact, it is Goliath’s home town.  1 Samuel 21:11 says, “Then David arose and fled that day from Saul, and went to Achish king of Gath .  But 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 singing, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?’”   It’s like Osama Ben Laden walking into the Pentagon waving photos from 9/11.  You know he’s gonna’ be grabbed.  It may be that David is so terribly desperate that he tries to hide from Saul in the last place Saul would expect him to be.  It’s a bad move but understandable.

        Or it may be more complex.  David has taken a shock. He places of security have been taken away.  When that happens to David or to us, things begin to erode. As the erosion continues, we may begin to think differently. And then we may begin to replace those thoughts with strange thoughts. And then we begin to lose sight of the truth. Then we hit bottom.  David’s at the bottom.  He is so down that it looks like he trying to commit suicide by Philistine. 

       In any case, David’s capable of making a bad move.  That’s what makes him like us.  The story of David isn't set before us as a model to copy. David isn't a person whose actions we're always inspired to imitate.  This is instead a record of the way God works in one very imperfect life to bring about His holy purpose.

        As Eugene Petersen observes: “In the company of David we don't feel inadequate because we know we could never do it that well. Just the opposite: in the company of David we find someone who does it as badly as, or worse than, we do, but who in the process doesn't quit, doesn't withdraw from God. David’s isn't an ideal life but an actual life. We imaginatively enter the company of David not to improve our morals but to deepen our sense of human reality: this is what happens in the grand enterprise of being human. Reentering through my believing imagination the world of David, I'm more myself—free to be myself and able to find God in the middle of what's going on right now.”

        Finding God in the middle of what’s going on right now is the theme.    

        David walks into Gath and is immediately recognized.  In fact, he is called the king of the land.  The Philistines know who they’re dealing with.

       From the Goliath story we’d expect David to strike up a psalm or maybe a ringing declaration like, “My God will protect me!”  But that’s not what he does.  Instead he takes a page out of Saul’s book and acts crazy.  1 Samuel 21 tells us: “David took these words to heart, and greatly feared Achish king of Gath .  So he disguised his sanity before them, and acted insanely in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva run down into his beard.”

       Here’s David our great hero foaming at the mouth, scratching on the gate, looking like a madman as the foam dribbles into his beard.

       Achish screams, “I've got enough nuts in this court already!  Don't bring me another one!"

"Get rid of him!"  

       The joke here is actually on Achish.  He claims to be surrounded by idiots and then he lets public enemy number escape by just a bit of dribbling and scratching.  Achish shows himself to be the top idiot in the whole place.  They should have killed David while they had him.  They’ll pay for that. 

        David is simply kicked out of town. “So David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam .”

        This is the lowest moment of David's life to date, and if you want to know how he really feels, think of  the song he composed about it, Psalm 142 – our first scripture reading.  Psalm 142 is David’s song from the cave.

       David has no security, he has no food, he has no one to talk to, he has no promise to cling to, and he has no hope that anything will ever change. He is alone in a dark cave, away from everything and everybody he loves -- everybody except God and David’s not sure about God.

       No wonder he wrote this song of sorrow:

I cry aloud with my voice to the Lord;

I make supplication with my voice to the Lord.

I pour out my complaint before Him;

I declare my trouble before -Him.

When my spirit was overwhelmed within me,

You did know my path.

In the way where I walk

They have hidden a trap for me.

Look to the right and see;

For there is no one who regards me;

There is no escape for me;

No one cares for my soul.”

       That's the way David feels as a cave dweller. "I don't know of a soul on earth who cares for my soul. I am brought very low. Deliver me, Lord."

       Can you feel the loneliness of that desolate spot? The dampness of that cave? Can you feel David's despair? The depths to which his life has sunk? There is no escape. There is nothing left. Nothing.

        Then it gets worse – or at least it seems to.  1 Samuel 22:2 tells us that “everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered to David and he became captain over them.  Now there were about four hundred men with him.”

        In the Psalm, verse 7, David expresses his hope that “the righteous will gather around me.”  But that’s not what he gets. He gets the distressed, the debtors and the discontented.   That’s a hard group to work with.  I know a pastor who tried to start a new church out of people who were unhappy with their old church.  All the unhappiness came with them and it blew up. It’s hard to build a cohesive team out of a group that comes in angry.

        David wants the righteous but he ends up with a cave full of malcontents.  It’s bad enough for David to be in there alone feeling like a worm.  But then he has over four hundred more worms crawl in the cave with him.  That’s a mess!

       But God knows what He is doing.  The cave is no longer David’s escape hatch.  It becomes the training ground for the guys who will come to be called David’s mighty men of valor.  These guys will become the core of the army. They will become the cabinet when David takes office. David turns their lives around and turns his own life around at the same time. 

        This is a crucial turning point in David’s life.   It happens when he simply makes the crucial decision not to walk away.  He accepts the situation and makes the best of it.  If it’s a cave, it’s a cave.  If those around him need leadership he will lead.   David learns that half of the secret of life and half the secret of your Christian walk is simply to show up.  Often if you just show up God will do the rest. 

        David stashes his family for safety across the Dead Sea in the country of Moab .  Then he takes his new army to a place called the Fortress.  That is probably the great rock of Masada in the western side of the Dead Sea .

        Masada is known to us as the place of the great last stand of the Jewish freedom fighters in the revolt against Rome .  Recruits to the Israeli armored forces are still sworn in on top of Masada .  Their promise is “ Masada will not fall again.”  Masada has always been a fortress.  It is easily defended and has cisterns for water. So that’s where David heads with his small army.   He has finally made a good move. He’s safe on top of that great rock.

       But then look at what God does.  He sends a prophet named Gad to tell David to leave this place of safety and head back to a place of danger.  Saul immediately hears that David is within reach and goes after him. 

      The next scene is from chapter 23.  A town called Keliah is threatened by the Philistines.  David asks God several times, “Should I go help them.” God says, “Go help them.”  David saves the town.  Immediately Saul comes after David.  David then asks God, “Will the people I just saved turn me over to Saul?” God says, “O yeah, they’ll betray you.  I had you save them anyway.”

       So where are we?  Let’s take inventory.

       We have a messy leader – able to make bad decisions, act nuts and drool in his beard.

       We have a messy team.  It’s not the all-stars.  It’s “everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented.”

        We have messy events.  In fact, the priests at Nob are killed by Saul for having helped David.  There is never a victory without cost to the innocent.  A later crazy king named Herod kills the infants of Bethlehem in order to try and destroy David’s descendant Jesus.    There are always consequences. 

       We have a messy strategy.  It’s made even messier by God.  God undoes the first smart thing David does in holing up at Masada .  He pries David off the rock and sends him back into danger.

       We have messy results.  Even the people David helps aren’t grateful.  “Go save Keliah – but they’ll stab you in the back.”

      What a mess – some of it orchestrated by God. 

       Sometimes it’s the same in our lives and in our church – messy leaders, messy team, messy events, messy strategy, messy results – and God somehow working through it all.  And as we cease looking for perfection and embrace the mess, we strangely find that God will embrace us in the mess.   That’s what David finds.

        Like David we learn that Masada isn’t our rock. God is our rock.  The Lord is our stronghold.  David celebrates this in Psalm 18 written when God delivered him from the hand of Saul: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior, my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold.” 

       This is true despite the drool in his beard, the weakness of his team, the tragedy of events, the shambles of his strategy, the messiness of results.  God is still God and God is still for him – not despite the mess but in the mess. 

       But why is God so determined to remove all of David’s crutches?  There are several reasons.

       First, crutches become substitutes for God. Deuteronomy 33:27 says, "The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Isaiah 41:10 says, "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."

       I will hold you up, God says. But as long as you lean on someone else, you can't lean on Me. As long as you lean on some other thing, you won't lean on Me. They become substitutes for Me, so that you are not being upheld by My hand.

       Second, crutches keep our focus horizontal. When we lean on another person or another thing, our focus is sideways, not vertical. We find ourselves constantly looking to that other person, or relying on that thing, that nice, secure bank account. Those things keep our focus horizontal. Human crutches can paralyze the walk of faith.

       Third, crutches offer only temporary relief.  I sound like an ad for headache medicine, don't I? But that's actually what we do. We turn to some remedy that will soothe us or comfort us or dull our pain. People take millions of tablets and drink millions of drinks each year to find a tranquilizing experience in order to endure the storms of life.

       I'm not against taking medicine or accepting help when it's necessary. Medicine can be used by God to give us a level playing field so we can deal with the real issues.  I'm saying when we fall back on those as a regular habit rather than on the Lord, that's when the problem gets worse.

       As C. S. Lewis noted in his essay, The World’s last Night, “Perfect love, we know casteth out fear. But so do several others things – ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity. It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out our fear.”

       “Ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity.”   Here Lewis is talking about crutches that can keep us away from the total healing that is only in Jesus.  Jesus doesn't give temporary relief. He offers a permanent solution.

       Some of you are in the process of having every crutch removed from your life. This creates enormous pain and instability. Support you have counted on is torn away. 

       For some, it is represented by your health.  You’ve always assumed you’d be well.  Now you aren’t. 

      For some it’s a broken romance. The man or woman you felt was God's choice has now vanished, and it hurts deeply.

       For some it’s a threat to a family member or a person you love.  Our lives aren’t just impacted by our own pain but by the pain of those we care for. 

       Some of you have witnessed or are witnessing the demise of your marriage. The last possible thing on earth you thought would ever happen has happened. 

       For some it’s the death of a dream. Everything you hoped and planned for has gone up in smoke.  You’ve plateaued in your career or you can’t even seem to start a career. 

       All those issues are real – just like David’s issues were real. 

       Now, you have a choice. You can look around for some other something, or someone to lean on.  Or, like David, you can lean on God as you live in the mess.  That’s the best choice.  For you’ll learn to sing like David, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my Savior, my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold.”    Lose the crutches and you’ll learn to trust.  Lose the crutches and you will have a refuge and you will have strength. You will have a rock to stand on.  You are not alone.