Becoming a Man After God’s Own Heart | 1 Samuel 29-31

INTRODUCTION

Let me begin with a question:What kind of books or stories do you think sells better?
Is it the story of a successful, charismatic, and powerful leader who inspires crowds and achieves greatness? Or is it the story of a fugitive; someone on the run, confused, making mistakes, and desperately trying to find a way forward?

According to surveys and publishing trends, people are more likely to buy the book with the story of a confident, victorious leader.

Today I am going to speak to you about a character who has both these sides – A fugitive and a king. They belong to the same person, David.

The story of the successful king is in the first 11 Chapters of 2 Samuel. The story of the fugitive who is on the run with his human emotions on display is the David we find in the last 13 chapters of 1 Samuel, chapter 19-31. It is in this section we find an unglamourous but deeply human and spiritual David who is going to show us what it means to be ‘a man after God’s own heart.’ That particular phrase ‘a man after God’s own heart’ is a very unique. God only says it once and he only says it about one person. He only says it in 1 Samuel 13:14 but it is illustrated over and over again in these chapters 19-31.

We have been hearing from 1 Samuel for some time now and today I will conclude 1 Samuel, even though both 1 & 2 Samuel are one book. The last time we looked until 1 Samuel 28. All our sermons on 1 Samuel are on the website and YouTube.

Today’s sermon: We will quickly look at:
1 Samuel 29: When even the enemy rejects you
1 Samuel 30: When you hit bottom and cry out to God
1 Samuel 31: The Death of Saul & his Sons.
Recap: Then we will go back and look at David as a fugitive from Ch. 19-31 and see how David is a man after God’s own heart, whereby we can see how we can be people of God’s own heart.

1 Samuel 29 – David is rejected by Achish and his commanders.

In 1 Samuel 29, the focus is back on David. The last five chapters aren’t necessarily in chronological order, where it’s like: this happened, then this happened, then this happened. But rather, it’s the authors way of selecting and arranging the narrative to communicate his message.

Context:
Ch. 27, David flees the land, decides to go and live among the Philistines. He passes himself off as a loyal subject of Achish, king of Gath. He is so successful at this that Achish wants David and his men to join him in battle against Israel.
David has spent the last year and a half living among the Philistines. David made those plans without prayer, and it doesn’t seem like he has been communicating with God since he made those plans.
The Philistines are gathered against Israel; 1 Sam. 28:1.
Then the focus shifts to Saul. Saul is desperate for a word from the Lord but the Lord is not speaking to him, so Saul in violation of the Mosaic Law goes to a medium of Endor. She brings up the spirit of Samuel and deceives Saul to go into the battle where eventually Saul and his sons will be killed in Ch. 31.

1 Samuel 29:1a

The Philistines gathered all their forces at Aphek….

Note: The Philistines are gathering their forces at Aphek. The only other time in 1 & 2 Samuel where the Philistines are gathering their forces at Aphek is in 1 Samuel 4:1, just prior to Israel’s tragic defeat and the capture of the ark. Remember what happened that day? Eli’s sons died, because they took the ark out in the battle with them. The rejected priest Eli when he heard the news, fell over and he died. In the upcoming battle (which will be described in Ch. 31), the rejected King Saul and his sons would die. We see Saul who could have had a dynasty but forfeited it as a parallel to that earlier event when Eli who could have had a priestly dynasty but forfeited it died as well. There are narrative typology here.

1 Samuel 29 starts as the Philistines are positioning themselves to go to war. The commanders of Achish, the leader, they’re angry with him because he’s allowing Hebrews to be among their fighting men. This made no sense and was an unacceptable risk. And they were even recalling what Israel used to say about David years ago.

1 Samuel 29:4-5

4But the Philistine commanders were angry with Achish and said, “Send the man back, that he may return to the place you assigned him. He must not go with us into battle, or he will turn against us during the fighting. How better could he regain his master’s favor than by taking the heads of our own men?
5Isn’t this the David they sang about in their dances:
“‘Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands’?”

They don’t trust David. David is rejected by Achish and his commanders.

1 Samuel 29:6-7

6So Achish called David and said to him, “As surely as the Lord lives, you have been reliable, and I would be pleased to have you serve with me in the army. From the day you came to me until today, I have found no fault in you, but the rulers don’t approve of you. 7Now turn back and go in peace; do nothing to displease the Philistine rulers.”

David is protesting. He could have just said, “Thank you Achish. As a Hebrew I cannot fight against my own people. Instead of doing that, he says to Achish…

1 Samuel 29:8

“But what have I done?” asked David. “What have you found against your servant from the day I came to you until now? Why can’t I go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?”

David’s words are ambiguous. Saul is his king as well. David is deceptive here, there other times he has called Saul, my lord (1 Sam. 24 & 26).

1 Samuel 29:11

So David and his men got up early in the morning to go back to the land of the Philistines, and the Philistines went up to Jezreel.

Despite all his planning and deception, David needs the Lord’s providence to get him out of this. Once again God used the Philistine commanders to get David out of a difficult situation.

1 Samuel 30 – When You Hit Bottom

1 Samuel 30:1, 3-4 6

1David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it,
3When David and his men reached Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. 4So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. 6David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters.

Have you come to such a situation in life? I am sure many of us can identify with such a time.

Now, all of David’s fighting men are putting the blame of David for this mess.

So, in a span of a few verses here, David is hitting rock-bottom:
David has a larger enemy in Saul & his men.
King Akish & commanders reject him.
David was stripped of everything he possessed, family, wife, and possessions burnt.
Everything he found comfort in, everything that he cherished in life is gone.
His own men are accusing him and talking of stoning David to death.

This is the worst day of his life. We call it hitting bottom or a wake-up call. Maybe you’ve had a similar situation in life.

I think the next thing that David did was the most important of his pre-king life.
The man who made plans without prayer.
The man who stopped talking to God.
The man who went to live in the world.
Now makes a complete turnaround as he realizes—God’s all he has left.

And look at the end of verse 6: 1 Samuel 30:6b
But David found strength in the Lord his God.

1 Samuel 30:7-8

7Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelek, “Bring me the ephod.” Abiathar brought it to him, 8and David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I pursue this raiding party? Will I overtake them?”
“Pursue them,” he answered. “You will certainly overtake them and succeed in the rescue.”

David found strength in the Lord.
David inquired of the Lord.
The Lord answered him. The Lord gave him a victory and gave back all people.

1 Samuel 30:9-10

9David and the six hundred men with him came to the Besor Valley, where some stayed behind. 10Two hundred of them were too exhausted to cross the valley, but David and the other four hundred continued the pursuit. (He is not even having his full force, they are exhausted, tired).

David has a provision of the Lord: An Egyptian who would lead David to his family.

1 Samuel 30:11

11They found an Egyptian in a field and brought him to David. They gave him water to drink and food to eat—12part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins. He ate and was revived, for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three days and three nights.
13David asked him, “Who do you belong to? Where do you come from?”
He said, “I am an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned me when I became ill three days ago. 14We raided the Negev of the Kerethites, some territory belonging to Judah and the Negev of Caleb. And we burned Ziklag.”
(Can you imagine? This man doesn’t know who he’s talking to—he’s talking to David, whose city they just burned.)
15David asked him, “Can you lead me down to this raiding party?”
He answered, “Swear to me before God that you will not kill me or hand me over to my master, and I will take you down to them.”
16He led David down, and there they were, scattered over the countryside, eating, drinking and reveling because of the great amount of plunder they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from Judah. 17David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day, and none of them got away, except four hundred young men who rode off on camels and fled. (David and his men were a minority but God gave David a great vicotry..)
18David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives. 19Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back. 20He took all the flocks and herds, and his men drove them ahead of the other livestock, saying, “This is David’s plunder.”

I guess that the people saying “This is David’s spoil” were the same ones who, a few verses ago, wanted to stone him. But this moment opens up a temptation for David just like Saul faced in his early days. Would David retaliate? They just wanted him dead, and now he’s returning their wives and children to them. Here, David shows self-control. He shows composure and mercy.

David’s Generosity to the Weary and the Faithful

1 Samuel 30:21-25

21Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow him and who were left behind at the Besor Valley. They came out to meet David and the men with him. As David and his men approached, he asked them how they were. 22But all the evil men and troublemakers among David’s followers said, “Because they did not go out with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered. However, each man may take his wife and children and go.”
23David replied, “No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He has protected us and delivered into our hands the raiding party that came against us. (David gives credit to the Lord. He’s not going to be stingy with what God has given. The Lord has given us the victory. The Lord has delivered us. We need to be generous.) 24Who will listen to what you say? The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.” 25David made this a statute and ordinance for Israel from that day to this. (Everyone shares in the victory, there is not going to be any favouritism).

First, David is generous to those who didn’t have the strength to fight.
Then, he extends that generosity to the elders of Judah.

1 Samuel 30:26

When David reached Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were his friends, saying, “Here is a gift for you from the plunder of the Lord’s enemies.”

The chapter ends with a list of the towns in Judah that received part of the spoil. David was strengthening alliances and building bridges, he was acting like a true king.

What do you do when you hit rock bottom?

Find strength in the Lord.
Inquire of the Lord.
God will strengthen you despite your limited resources.
The Lord will answer you and give you the victory.

The Death of Saul

1 Samuel 31

1Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell dead on Mount Gilboa. 2The Philistines were in hot pursuit of Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. 3The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
4Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.”
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. 5When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. 6So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.

Israel is humiliated.
They lost the battle and Saul and his sons are dead. It reminds us of earlier times, when they put the ark in the temple of Dagon, again claiming the victory for their gods.
David laments for Saul and Jonathan, 2 Samuel 1.
David is anointed king over Judah, 2 Samuel 2.
David’s fugitive days are over.

Recap of his fugitive days:

21:1-9, Ahimelech helps David.
21:10-15, David escapes from Achish, King of Gath
22:1-9, Cave at Adullam & Moab
22:6-23, Saul kills 85 priests
23:1-14, David rescues Israelites from Keilah, escapes Saul
23:19-29, David escapes Saul in Ziph
24, David spares Saul at Engedi, David in the Cave and Saul goes in and he cuts the robe.
25, David spares Nabal, marries Abigail
26, David spares Saul again in Ziph
27, David serves Achish, marches to Saul
28, Saul resorts to a witch of Endor
29, David spared from the fight with Saul
30, David destroys Amalekites in the south
31, Saul and his sons die in the north
2 Samuel 1, David grieves Saul’s death.

Closing Reflections

WHAT DO WE LEARN ABOUT GOD?

1. God Develops Leaders Through Adversity & Suffering.
God tests David with sometimes life-threatening and sometimes temptingly easy choices, which both show and develop his commitment to God. David found the experience challenging and exhausting and at times he despaired of life but he never would have been prepared to be king without passing these tests first.

Let me show you the times when he is in despair here: This time is marked by deep spiritual reflection and reliance of God, but it is only made possible by these hard times

Saul tries to kill him over 15 times. That is enough to make anybody afraid.

1 Samuel 21:10
That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.
Imagine going to your enemy. He is so desperate in Ch 27 and he says these words:

1 Samuel 27:1
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.”

In Ch. 30, the Amalekites burn his town and kidnap all the woman and all the rest of men are ready to kill him until he strengthens himself in the Lord.

But here is the point, in all these desperate situations, he goes to God.

Let me show you a chart of the Psalms that are written during this period. These are not all the Psalms of David, but these are the Psalms that tell us the period of David’s time on the run.

Psalm 59:1-2

For the director of music. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” Of David. A miktam. When Saul had sent men to watch David’s house in order to kill him.

1Deliver me from my enemies, O God;
be my fortress against those who are attacking me.
2Deliver me from evildoers
and save me from those who are after my blood.

Psalm 34:6

Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.
This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.

Let me show in in context to his Psalms as a fugitive and Psalms written as king. This is not all the Psalms that David wrote, but all the Psalms which connected to a point in time to David.

40 Years as King = 3 Psalms
Ps. 51, Psalm of repentance over Uriah & Bathsheba.
Ps. 3, A Psalm of lament when Absalom is chasing him.

Look at the other Psalms during this 3-year period. Where do you think David was more spiritually fruitful? During the times of ease or during the time of suffering?

God develops leaders through adversity & suffering. If you want to develop spiritual depth, you got to embrace God during the hard times. This is easy to say, but hard to live.

Illustration: We as a family have gone through many times, trials where we feel everyday as a month and a long, long time. I have told the Lord, “Can we be over with this, please take this trial away as soon as you can.” But as we read the story of David, we begin to realize that the wiser prayer is to say, “God don’t take this away a minute before I’ve learnt everything you want me to learn. God use these hard times to draw me deeper into a relationship with you.”

If you want to develop spiritual depth, you got to embrace God during the hard times.

2. God’s Plans Does not Fit a Formula, God’s Ways are Wonderfully Varied. God’s ways comes in a thousand different ways, and sometimes without our knowledge.

See the various ways God helped David:

All these things cannot be predicted and they are all different. In fact, David did not recognize any of them. All of God’s are different. So, David is riding on the supportive wing of the Spirit, over all the landmarks that Saul has laid against him.

Have you have a time where the enemy whisper, “God does not exist, God does not care for you because you do not see him work?” Can I just tell you, God has probably worked a thousand different ways on your behalf, supporting you, protecting you, covering you in ways that you did not even know of and he is giving you everything that you need. This is the God that we see in these chapters.

3. The Lord is Able to Deliver his People from any Precarious Situation.

David could have avoided all this if he had stayed home, but he did not. When the faith of his chosen servants wavers and when they find themselves in a precarious position of their own making, the Lord is able to come in and deliver from danger. Therefore, God’s servants should look to him for security at all times.

WHAT IS IT THAT WE LEARN ABOUT DAVID?

We learn that David is a man after God’s own heart.
First, we will see David as a Man. Second, David as a man after God’s own heart. These chapters define this perfectly.

DAVID AS A MAN

a. David is a man. David is a finite man, limited man who does not know the future and makes very some bad choices like us, but God is with him.

b. David is not omniscient and he does not make the smartest decisions. They are often made in desperation. They are mistakes and he would wish that he had do over. We can find comfort in this. As we move from one situation to another and we wonder, we think if we did the right thing, made the right decision, speak the right thing.

David and others often gets it wrong. He said in 1 Samuel 27:1, one of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul.
Jonathan gets it wrong; 1 Samuel 23:17 “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you.”

Jonathan is not right. He is going to die.

c. David is not self-sufficient, he often requires rescue by others. Others like: Abigail, Jonathan, Ahimelech, Abishai and others.

We like to lift up our heroes and we want to believe that they never make mistakes and they have extraordinary skills. We like to idolise our spiritual heroes. Even David’s culture was quick to elevate him to star status. “Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands.” The Israelites loved it, Saul hated it, the Philistines feared it. But this story is not true. He is running like a fugitive, afraid, down. God did not say this. This is what the people said. This is what social media is all about, trumpeting one’s achievements and making others share for one’s fame. The good news is David did not believe it, he knew this was not true.

The truth is: David is imperfect, he is vulnerable, he is weak, he is dependent, and honestly there is no great evidence that David had great skill. The only thing scripture tells us that God was with him. What David understands is that he is human and his only superpower is that God is with him.

DAVID AS A MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

David though he is a man like us, he is called a man after God’s own heart. This is seen in his behaviour in the wilderness. In Ch. 24 & 26, in his repeated refusal to harm Saul. In Ch. 25 the whole principle is stated where he is intervened by Abigail in not taking Nabal’s life. Ch. 26, 3000 soldiers are asleep and he does not kill Saul. He wants everyone to see what it looks like to be a man after God’s own heart. This is what it means for a human to be in a right relationship with God’s heart: You don’t reach out and take what seems good to you. You let God decide what is good and you wait for him to provide it. God wants us to see that in David’s life.

This is the error of Adam and Eve where they saw and took the fruit. This is our error every day. But this is not David’s error. What God has done here for David is divinely make them sleep so that God can prove here is a man after God’s own heart. In another divinely made up scene, there was yet another anointed, but yet not seated King of Israel, who was driven into the wilderness by the Spirit. The enemy in the 3rd temptation in the Gospel of Mathew looked at Jesus and said, “If you just bow down, you can have the kingdom.” Instead of Abishai, it is the tempter himself who says the same thing. Abishai said, “Let me just stab Saul one time, it will be over and you can be King.”

A 1000 years later, the enemy comes and says to the Son of God, “I will make it easy for you to be King. You don’t have to bow down twice, just bow down once and you can be King and you won’t have to die.” Jesus says no. I will get it in my Father’s way and in my Father’s due time, I will become the King of Israel.” See the comparison between David and Jesus. There is no one in scripture who perfectly show us the heart of David and the heart of Jesus. This is why David is a man after God’s own heart.

So how do we become men and women after God’s own heart?
How do we prepare for spiritual warfare when powerful temptation comes?

Before Eve ever reached for the fruit, she had already decided in her heart that she was independent of God. She already decided God was not in control anymore, she took the fruit. But David did not feel that way. David knew that Saul was the Lord’s anointed, God was in-charge and he is not going to do it. Jesus knew that the Father was in-charge and would not take matters into His own hands but let the Father provide it.

If you want to become a man or woman after God’s own heart, ask yourself these questions:
a. Who is in-charge? Who is in-charge of the universe? Look at your life, look at your behaviour, your thoughts and actions and how you behave and based upon that, who is it that you think is in-charge of the universe? Are you careful about God’s laws? Are you following his laws or are you making up your own? If you are I would encourage you to repent and say, “No God. I am not in-charge. You are in-charge of everything. It’s not me.”

b. Is he Good? Does God know what is good and what I really need? Of course, he knows what is good. If I know God is good, can I wait for him for the good in my life? He knows the number of hairs in your head. He has far more intimate knowledge about you thank you do and he knows exactly what you need.

c. Can I trust him? Will I trust him to provide that?

Who is in-charge? Is he good? Can I trust him? If you can answer those three questions, yes. Then you can say “no” to any temptation that comes along. We need to ask ourselves these questions every day because in our fallen state we think we are in charge.

We have looked at David from 1st Samuel, we saw the last 13 chapters of this book. But if you see 2 Samuel 1-11, David is going to forget those wonderful lessons that he exemplified so perfectly here. There is going to be another woman and a husband in between, it is not going to be Abigail and Nabal, it is going to be Bathsheba and Uriah and David is going to take matters into his own hands. The writer of Samuel lays it all out there. He frames David’s sin in 2 Samuel 11 with Bathsheba in the very same words as Eve in Genesis 3, saw and took. Image the warning of Abigail how it would have hit David when he sinned with Bathsheba, “You don’t take matters into your own hands.” I Samuel 25 and Genesis 3,

Becoming a woman or man after God’s own heart is our goal. It is not that once you get it, you are there. Becoming a woman or man after God’s own heart is our daily pursuit.