Our passage today describes one of David’s great failures as a leader as he flees from Saul, takes shelter with the enemy, settles down to live in the enemy camp, and ultimately earns the trust of one of Israel’s greatest enemies.

As we have followed the story of David’s life, we have witnessed David accomplishing great things and generally becoming the man we hoped he would be. David has proven – for the most part – to be a man who is sensitive to the Spirit of God, courageous in the face of his enemies, skilled and strategic in warfare, and he seems to listen to reason when he is about to go off the straight and narrow path of honoring the Lord.

But we have also witnessed some of David’s sinful impulses when he tried to take shelter with the enemy and narrowly escaped (1 Sam. 21:10 – 15), when he failed to deal with Doeg in the city of the priests, leading to the mass murder of the entire city (1 Sam. 22:22), and when he entered into an unholy threesome with two wives (1 Sam. 25:42 – 44).

The fact that God would choose to place his affections (his heart) on a man like David with so many gross failings and then use him in the process of building the Kingdom of Israel here on earth, should shock and humble us all at the same time. With Saul, he chose to use him as an instrument of correction and discipline for rebellious Israel. 

But with David, he placed his affection on him, confronted him from time to time for his sinfulness, used him to build the Kingdom of Israel, and ultimately positioned his family tree to be the very bloodline that our future crucified, risen, and returning King would come from. Again, this should be shocking and humbling for us as we think about our own relationship with God.

Speaking of our relationship with God, I am sure we can all identify with David’s ups and downs, right? One day we are doing just fine and it seems like we are walking with God really well. Maybe we have a great rhythm of devotional and prayer time and it feels like we are really close to God; our sin patterns may even seem to be barely visible in our rearview mirrors.

But then something happens – some difficulty or some catastrophe or some lapse in judgement, and suddenly, we feel miles away from God – as though he is now barely visible in the rearview mirror. I think this is where we find David today as he finds safety from Saul with the enemy.

1Then David said in his heart, “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.” 2So David arose and went over, he and the six hundred men who were with him, to Achish the son of Maoch, king of Gath. 3And David lived with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, and David with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail of Carmel, Nabal’s widow. 4And when it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, he no longer sought him.

5Then David said to Achish, “If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be given me in one of the country towns, that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?” 6So that day Achish gave him Ziklag. Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. 7And the number of the days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months.

8Now David and his men went up and made raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as far as Shur, to the land of Egypt. 9And David would strike the land and would leave neither man nor woman alive, but would take away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the garments, and come back to Achish. 10When Achish asked, “Where have you made a raid today?” David would say, “Against the Negeb of Judah,” or, “Against the Negeb of the Jerahmeelites,” or, “Against the Negeb of the Kenites.” 11And David would leave neither man nor woman alive to bring news to Gath, thinking “lest they should tell about us and say, ‘So David has done.’” Such was his custom all while he lived in the country of the Philistines. 12And Achish trusted David, thinking, “He has made himself an utter stench to his people Israel; therefore he shall always be my servant.”

#1: SAFETY WITH THE ENEMY (VV. 1 – 4)

In verses 1 – 4, on the back side of yet one more attempted murder on David’s life from king Saul, David runs for his life and finds safety and shelter with the Philistines, Israel’s mortal enemy. Verse one is critical for understanding the condition of David’s heart and what motivated him to make such a mind-boggling decision. The author of First Samuel actually begins by saying that “David said in his heart” (v. 1). The clearest indicator of whether our decisions are holy or unholy is based upon the content of our hearts.

In David’s case, the author tells us that his heart was filled with the content of fear because in his heart he said, “I shall perish [be utterly destroyed] one day by the hand of Saul” (v. 1). Despite the fact that God had preserved and rescued David time and time again from the hand of Saul, David allowed the presence of fear to consume his hope in God. David was literally overwhelmed with a bout of crushing doubt that derailed his faith in God for a season.2

So, with a heart filled with fear, and crushed by overwhelming doubt, David decides that that it would be better for him to find shelter among the enemy, rather than remaining steadfastly anchored and dependent upon the invisible hand of God (v. 1).

Something has happened in the heart of this great king. He has become more focused on the deadly hand of Saul rather than the invisible, unshakeable hand of God. His words in his heart give him away when he says at the end of verse one, “Then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand”. This reminds me that the things we see will often act like rudders on the ships of our hearts – steering our hearts in this direction or that direction.

Once David’s heart is set, as soon as his heart is overcome with fear and crushing doubt and the promise of something better on the other side with the enemy, our author tells us in verse two that, “David arose and went over” to the enemy side. One commentator referred to this as “something sinister” as “David crossed a boundary that day, and not just a geographical one” because it appears that David “offered the services of his men to the Philistine king” (a point that becomes painfully obvious towards the end of this chapter as well as in chapter 29).3

The bottom line here is that our failure to live in right relationship with God is deeply connected to the boundaries we are willing to cross to satisfy the content of our hearts. That being said, we should also be reminded that sin infects everything it touches. In this case, David’s sin affects more than just him, since he takes his entire entourage with him this time (vv. 2 – 3). Misery loves company! But sin does not typically feel miserable at first. Sin typically gives us a sense of momentary relief or immediate gratification.

We can see how sin gives immediate gratification in verse four where we learn that David’s decision did give him some immediate relief as Saul learned of David’s whereabouts – hiding in the city of the giant Goliath whom David had killed years earlier – which led Saul to stop pursuing David.

So, David finds safety and shelter with the enemy. He finds shelter in a place that God would have presumably forbid since he had marked the Philistines as public enemy number one for Israel. David makes this mind-boggling move because he is overwhelmed with fear.

His hope and faith in the invisible hand of God were being crushed by doubt because all his eyes could see was the murderous hand of Saul. It seemed better to David to cross the boundary, to take refuge among the enemy, and find immediate gratification and relief from his fears. This is not a great place for anyone to live!

#2: LIVING WITH THE ENEMY (VV. 5 – 7)

But live in this place is exactly what David does for sixteen months (v. 7)! David does not just live in the royal city of Gath as a guest of king Achish, he literally asks the king to give him a city so that he may “dwell there” (v. 5) as the enemy king’s “servant” (v. 5).

So, David, the man who would later agree that it is better to dwell [to live] in the house of the Lord than to live in the comfort of the tents of the enemy (Ps. 84:10), decides to make his home, to lie down among the enemy as the enemy’s servant or slave for a prolonged period of time.

Is not this what sin produces in our lives? Do we not make our bed in the graveyard of sin every time we find satisfaction in her arms? Is not this exactly what sin wants – to make us her willing servant – slave?

Fear dangles the worm. Crushed hope sets the hook. God-honoring boundaries become a hinderance. The dark side looks delicious. We cross over for a taste. Our appetite is immediately satisfied. The trap snaps. We fall in love with the greener grass. We willingly seek to become enslaved to that which God has forbidden, and we make our dwelling there, in a graveyard among the stench of rotting death with the enemy.

And yet, sin is still no match for the invisible hand of God. Behind the scenes, God is still working, despite our sinfulness, to establish his visible kingdom on this earth. While David is running off the reservation, God is still at work, even through the enemy’s hand! This is clear when we read in verse 6 that “Achish gave him Ziklag” and that “Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day”.

We must remember that Jesus, the King of the Universe (Col. 1:15 – 23), is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and “Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day” (v. 6). Our crucified, risen, and returning king, though never falling into sin, and never becoming a slave to sin, and never finding refuge with the enemy, did step into the enemy’s camp as a suffering Savior at the cross of Calvary.

The enemy – Satan, Sin, Death – thought they had won at that bloody cross. But the Lion of the Tribe of Judah rose in victory over the enemy, sealing his dominion over every corner of the earth and its inhabitants! This is the King we are called to trust in my friends!

Sadly though, despite knowing and believing the message of the gospel for salvation, despite our experience of a blessed relationship with God, our sin-induced-stupor takes us to places we should never be. In David’s case, just finding shelter and safety with the enemy, and just becoming the enemy’s servant-slave for a prolonged period of time, was not enough. David runs headlong into earning the trust of the enemy.

#3: TRUSTED BY THE ENEMY (VV. 8 – 12)

In the last chunk of our passage, verses 8 – 12, David and his men wage war against other tribes in the region that were enemies of Israel and the Philistines alike, while leaving no one alive to tell the terrible tale of their slaughter. Why did David do this? Is it because he and his men were built for war and could not stop living their lives of violence? Maybe it was because they wanted to continue doing the Lord’s work against Israel’s enemies despite the fact that they were living in the shelter of the enemy.

While those explanations could be part of the story – possibly – the motivation seems to be far more sinister, far more gut wrenching. The end of verse nine indicates that David took the spoils of war back to the Philistine king and in verse ten the Philistine king asks David where he was making raids and David’s answer is a bold-faced lie, even to the extent that he names some of the tribes of his own people in Israel.

Yes, you heard that right, David flat out lied and told the king that he was waging war against his own people and bringing the loot back to the king. Why did David do this? It seems that he did this to further earn the trust of the Philistine king, as verse twelve tells us that, “Achish trusted David, thinking, ‘He has made himself an utter stench to his people Israel; therefore he shall always be my servant.’”

Did you catch those last words? The enemy king trusts David so much that he believes he will be his servant-slave forever! This is something that will have some really dark consequences in the very near future as the King tries to take David with him into war with the Israelites – to David’s shame – and then, once rejected by the king’s military commanders, David and his men return to Ziklag to find their women and children captured by another enemy tribe and the city burned to the ground (CHS. 29 – 30).

I do not think it is a stretch to say that none of these upcoming horrific and humiliating circumstances would have happened if David had not deceptively made himself out to be an utter stench in the nostrils of his own people. One would not be far off in saying that David was becoming an utter stench in the nostrils of the Lord during this season of sin and rebellion. One would also have to say that the Lord in his kindness and patience, withdrew his hand of protection over David so that he could taste the consequences of his sin and return to the Lord in repentance.

What a sad place for any man, woman, or child to be. Chosen by the Lord for greatness. Accomplishing great and awesome things for the Lord in the Lord’s strength. A vision of strength and reliance and faithfulness and righteousness. Until one day, one dark day, and the course of your future gets settled into some sinful pattern that you cannot seem to break free from – trusting God goes by the wayside, comfort and security and prosperity take over, deceit and lies become your language.

The years took their toll, fear set in, things looked dismal at best, the heart got hooked, sinful decisions were made, 16 months of wandering pass by, and you find yourself so entrenched with the enemy that the enemy believes he has an eternal hold on your life, while God is a speck in your rearview mirror. The enemy trusts you now because you have worked hard to form that relationship with him. Sad place to be!

KEY TAKE AWAYS…

As I survey the story we have just studied, with David finding safety with the enemy, making his living with the enemy, and earning the trust of the enemy, I am taken back to verse one of our passage. You may remember that in verse one, we learn that David, motivated by fear, said in his heart that “there is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines”.

What really bothers me about this story is that we do not see David consulting with the Lord in prayer at all. He listens to the fear stirring in his heart and fails to trust the Lord in prayer before moving forward. Fear motivates us to think that “there is nothing better for me” than this thing that God has condemned, rejected, or marked as unholy. In relationship with God, we should all be saying “there is nothing better for me” than to dwell in the presence of the Lord.

But the problem for us – just like David – is that there are times in our lives when we begin to think that “there is something better for me over there where God has commanded me not to go.” This sin pattern is as old as the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve saw the fruit, wanted the fruit, and ate the tasty fruit, even though God had told them not to (Gen. 3).

CONCLUSION…

I have two questions for us as I conclude our time together: What are you afraid of? And what do you believe is better than obedient trust in the Lord? Every time we sin, it is because we have failed to believe that there is nowhere better than to be in the presence of the Lord. Every time we sin, it is because we have bought the lie that fear tells us.

Every little white lie or bold-faced lie, every little lustful thought or full blown relapse into pornography, every pride-filled boast, every slip into laziness, every mismanaged dollar, every word of gossip or slander, every sinful impulse indulged, originates with a seed of fear that flourishes into the belief that there is something better than to be in the presence of a loving and trustworthy God.

But thanks be to God that we have an eternal King who can be trusted to never fail us. The invisible hand of Christ over our lives, if we have trusted him for salvation, is more powerful than sin itself. This truth is not a license to remain in sin like Saul did.

This truth is an invitation to return in repentance to the One and Only, True, Eternal, Crucified, Risen, and Returning, King who will wash you white as snow and set your feet back in a firm place, in the presence of a Good, Loving, Kind, Gracious, and Merciful Father – just as he does with David in the near future.

If you are not dead, you are not too far gone for the nail scarred, risen hands of Jesus to redeem and rebuild. Turn to him. Trust in him. Confess your sin. Taste and see that He alone is good… and that in Christ, there is nothing better for you than to be in his presence forever! – Amen!

1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).

2 John, Woodhouse, 1 Samuel: Looking for a Leader, Preaching the Word Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2008), 499 – 500.

3 Ibid., 500.