Sound Doctrine

Jeff Johnson: What's beautiful about this Word of God that we have here, it was Holy Spirit-inspired. God wrote this book. And what's beautiful about the Bible is it definitely doesn't flatter its heroes, does it? It tells everything, reveals it all.

In fact, some have said the Bible is a book that no man could write if he could, and no man would even write if he could.

Guest (Male): Great to be with you today. This is Sound Doctrine, brought to you each day by Calvary Chapel Downey. We're going chapter by chapter through 1 Samuel, and we'll meet up with Pastor Jeff Johnson in chapter 21 in just a moment.

Here's a scenario we're observing today: David is on the run, fleeing from Saul. It's interesting to note that the first place David went to was the house of God. Hopefully, that's an encouragement to us to turn to the Lord first and foremost when we're in a difficult spot. Let's join Pastor Jeff with more.

Jeff Johnson: 1 Samuel chapter 21, and this morning I've kind of titled this chapter as—and see if you can pick it up as we go through this chapter—as "Rejection Turns to Restoration." See if you can see it as we go through this chapter.

So far, David has had victory over his circumstances. We've been watching him go through some heavy trials, but we know this because we looked at the Psalm that was written during the times of these trials in chapter 19 and 20. Really, Psalm 59 reveals what God got him through those times, and we found out that it was his trust in his God.

Very important lesson to learn. He learned it. He trusted in God. God got him through it. But David's a man in transition, as all of us are. We're always going through changes, aren't we? And we're always in a transition period. Hopefully, it's from glory to glory and strength to strength.

So, David, like we are, is in change. David's real growth now would come because this is where we see him begin to enter into the wilderness. And it's true, but this wilderness has some way of getting good things out of us. It teaches us that trusting in the Lord has got to be the utmost.

It gets us to the place of really interceding. It gets us down on our knees to really pray. It causes us to learn that very important thing of patience. You've heard people say, "Well, don't pray for God to give you patience because He'll give you a trial," right?

Well, you don't even have to pray about it. You're going to get a trial. You can count on it. It's a precious promise from Jesus: "In the world, you shall have tribulation." So we're going to have them. But out of them, the Psalms are written, and we're seeing that in David's life—that beautiful things come as we go through hardships, as we go through hard times, and our God is with us. He makes something beautiful out of the situation.

1 Samuel chapter 21 reveals David's lapse of faith. Like I said, he's a man in transition. So, in doing that, he's now kind of getting away from the Lord in chapter 21. He begins to lean to his own understanding, which is—you don't do it because as you do, you start doing your own thing instead of God's thing.

He begins to backslide. You can see him beginning to drift away from his God. It really started in chapter 20, verse 1, if you remember. He started to question what was happening to him in his life. He started to lose that trust in God that he needed. He said, "What's going on? Why does your dad want to kill me? Why is this happening to me?" and he started to really panic.

And here we see him panicking even more. David, going his own way, forgets what God has done. And it's so easily done by all of us, isn't it? We forget what God has done already. And here another situation comes up, and we lose it.

Well, David is very much like us, a human being, and he loses it here and really begins to learn some heavy lessons as he does. Because really, what is he doing but trusting in his flesh now to direct his life? And he's really not doing what he was doing, and that is what we all need to do, and that is to trust and rely upon God and His Word.

Because God said to David, "I will make you king." No reason to panic. No reason to get excited. You're going to be king, David. Hang on to that truth. But he didn't. He just got in a hurry and he says, "Well, I've got to help God out. God's been taking too long on this, and I'm going to get involved."

Many times we do the same thing. What's beautiful about this Word of God that we have here, it was Holy Spirit-inspired. God wrote this book. And what's beautiful about the Bible is it definitely doesn't flatter its heroes. It tells everything, reveals it all.

In fact, some have said the Bible is a book that no man could write if he could, and no man would even write if he could. The reason is because it reveals so much. It reveals everything about everybody. It doesn't put anybody on a pedestal and try to cover up the lies and the deceit that he gets in. No, it reveals his lies, his heart, and it reveals everything, so we would learn.

This is a very interesting story as we get into it. We're going to see a king now living in exile. He is running for his life. He is begging bread. He is anointed by the Holy Spirit, and yet he is without his friends, without his family. He's alone. This is the true test of his faith. And this is where the lessons really are learned.

Chapter 21, verse 1: "Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech who was the high priest. And Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David and he said to David, 'Why art thou alone and no man with thee?'" David came to the sanctuary of the Lord. And when he went into the sanctuary of the Lord, the high priest immediately picked up on "there's something wrong here."

In other words, David was busted right at the front. He said, "What are you doing, David?" He knew right then that there's something wrong with David, there's something wrong going on here. And when I thought of this, I said, "Lord, may it be with us that every time we come to church, every time we come into this facility to gather together, that the Lord will bust us."

When we're getting off, the Lord by the Holy Spirit will nail us. And that we will be attentive to what He's saying, and that we will hear and we will do what He asks us to do. We will get it right. There's many stories in the Bible that talk about when Isaiah came into the presence of the Lord.

There's something about coming into His presence that is very revealing. We serve a God that there's nothing that cannot be seen. We are naked before our God this morning, every single one of us. He knows everything that's going on in your life.

He brings us into this place to do what? To get us to repent, to be restored, to be forgiven. And yet, Isaiah said as he was in the presence of the Lord, "Depart from me for I am a wicked man. I'm a man of unclean lips." He realized his own sin in his life, and he repented and he confessed his sin, and the Lord forgave him.

Peter, remember, as the Lord was doing a great miracle in front of Peter, Peter realized who he was hanging around with. And he said, "Lord, depart from me for I'm a sinful man." And he realized also his sin and repented. But I'll tell you something, David doesn't do that here.

He doesn't realize as he's in the sanctuary of the Lord that there is something wrong. He doesn't see it, and he moves along like there isn't anything wrong. I think the greatest sin is us being self-deceived, that everything's all right when it's not.

When the Lord's trying to knock on our door and say, "Wake up! You've got some areas in your life that you need to give to Me. I want to deliver you from these areas. I want you to go out of here today washed and cleansed and renewed in My Spirit."

But David, verse 2, "David said unto Ahimelech the priest, 'Well, you see, the king has commanded me a business and he has said to me, let no man know anything of the business whereabout I'm sent you and what I have commanded thee. I have appointed my servants to such and such a place.'"

In other words, Ahimelech is saying, "David, what's wrong? What is it? What's happening in your life?" See, he's running for his life. He's in fear. David doesn't want to face that. And so he turns around to the high priest and says, "Oh, let me share with you a little bit what's going on. You see, the king, he sent me on this secret business. And I'm just here on this secret business. Nobody knows really what I'm doing, and that's why I'm here."

But he's lying. The king never set him on secret business. He's running for his life. And yet here he goes, he goes off immediately and starts to lie. This started back in chapter 20, in verse 6. Remember when he lied the first time?

He said to Jonathan, "Go tell my father that when you go to the feast, the reason I'm not there is because I'm with my family in Bethlehem and we're having a little supper ourselves." He's lying. Oh, well you've got to understand it's a little white lie. I'm just trying to make things work. Jonathan, just go tell your dad that.

It wasn't the truth. You see, we begin to lie. A little lie, and then we get into a bit greater lie, and then we want to cover that lie with another lie. And oh what an evil web we weave when first we begin to deceive. We're wrapping ourselves up in it.

We're the ones that are going to get busted. Yes, and other people can get really hurt by it, too. In fact, we're going to see how this lie causes the loss of some lives later on. A lie could cause the loss of life? You bet. So David finds himself lying and in deceit.

Verse 3: "Now therefore what is under your hand?" David asks the high priest. "Give me five loaves of bread in my hand or what there is present." And the priest answered David and said, "There is no common bread under my hand, but there is holy bread. If the young men have kept themselves at least from women."

And David answered the priest and said, "Of a truth women have been kept from us for about three days now and since I came out and the vessels of the young men are holy and the bread is a manner common, yea though it were sanctified this day in the vessel."

So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the showbread that was taken from before the Lord to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away. They had traveled from Ramah to Nob and right at the top of the hill of the Mount of Scopus, looking over Jerusalem, about four miles from Jerusalem.

They're sitting there and they're very hungry. Somehow they get to the high priest and they ask the high priest—and really, you've got to get the picture here because according to the law, as you walked into the tabernacle, you would actually see on your right-hand side a table of showbread.

Then in front of you, in the holy place, you would see the altar of incense. And on the left-hand side, you would see the seven-stick candle menorah, the golden candlestick menorah standing there about five feet high. But this golden table of showbread had twelve loaves on it.

The twelve loaves speak of the twelve tribes of Israel, each loaf representing one of the tribes. These loaves needed to be changed every week to put fresh bread on. And the only ones who were allowed to partake of the holy showbread was the priest, according to the law.

Now David is here. He is hungry with his men. He goes to the priest and says, "We need something to eat." The priest says, "I don't have anything for you to eat. I only got holy bread." David says, "Give me the holy bread," knowing what was going on, the priest knowing what was going on.

And the priest simply says, "Well, if you haven't been with women, okay, here, you can have it." He gives it to him, and right there you think, "Wow, he blew it. He just broke the law." But something very interesting is here. It reveals that moral obligation supersedes ceremonial law.

That when someone is hungry, when someone is hurting, we're to meet that need. It supersedes the ritual, the ceremony. In fact, over in Romans chapter 8, Paul talking to those in Rome said this in verse 2: "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."

Two laws here: the law of Christ, of the Spirit of Christ, and the law of sin and death. But see, the law of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, supersedes the law of sin and death. When we were dead in our trespasses and sins, when we were dying without Christ, without God in this world, we received Christ.

We came and we said, "I need Jesus in my life." And as soon as we cried that prayer out, the Lord heard it. And the law of the Spirit of Christ came into our lives, superseded that law that was killing us and destroying us, and now we're going to live forever. We're Christians now. We're changed, we're saved because of a law greater than another law.

Let me explain to you this way. There is what is called the law of gravity in the physical, right? And we all respect that law, right? We wouldn't go up thirty stories and look out the window and say, "I'm going to check it out and test it and step off." Because you would find out that the law of gravity is a great law. You would descend very quickly, and the cement would crawl up to you very quickly, and it's over.

This is a law that we respect because we know it's powerful. But yet there is another law that supersedes the law of gravity, and that is the law of aerodynamics. And that jumbo 747 with 500 people on it, like a city, and you're sitting in there and you're going, "How in the world is this going to get off the ground?"

It just begins to roll down the runway, gets up to about 700 miles an hour, and it begins to take off. It's incredible. It's a different law, and it breaks the greater law—that you would think would be the greater law—gravity, and it supersedes that.

So God's law, the law of Spirit and of life, has superseded the law of sin and death in our lives. Many are in a spiritual famine. David, it says, was hungry. Man doesn't live by bread alone, though, does he? But by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

And so we see David here, hungering after physical bread, and yet we see him also departing from the living God, getting away. He's following afar off. He's going through some real trials. As we partake of the living bread, Jesus said, "I am the living bread. You'll never hunger or thirst again."

I'll never forget the day because I used to be one that hungered for one thing to another all the time. I'd bounce around from one cult to one religion to one this, one that, and I was always bouncing around until I met Jesus and I came to a screeching halt.

He is the only way, the only life, the only truth. There is no other way. I am satisfied. I'll never thirst again. I'll never hunger again because I've eaten of the living bread. Some of you this morning need to eat of that living bread to draw near to the Lord so He will draw near to you. But David was drifting.

There's a side note here. Jesus used this example in Luke's Gospel chapter 6. In Luke's Gospel chapter 6, it says that it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first, that He went through—Jesus went through the fields and His disciples. They began to pluck ears of corn, and they began to eat them and rubbing them in their hands.

So what you'd do is you'd strip the wheat itself, and you'd rub and get the chaff away from the wheat, and you'd end up with the kernels and you'd eat it. It's not that great. It's a little chewy and no taste. But if you're hungry, that's the thing to do. And so they're walking through there hungry, they start getting the wheat and eating the kernels.

All of a sudden, in the midst of all of this, the Pharisees pop up in the field. We caught you now! Those Pharisees are everywhere. Here they are in the midst of a field, nobody around, and then a Pharisee comes popping out.

In verse 2 of Luke 6, it says, "And certain Pharisees said to them, 'Why do you do that? It is unlawful for you to do this on the Sabbath day. Why have you broken the law?'" You've taken it and you've done this and you've broken the Sabbath.

Jesus said this, answering them, "Have you not read so much as this, what David did when he himself was hungry, and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God and did take and eat of the showbread and gave also to them that were with him, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone?"

See, Jesus knew that. What had happened here is that he is revealing how love will always precede over law. Law will always be put down by love. And what is He saying also? He is breaking the letter of the law, which we know the Bible says will kill, and He is fulfilling it with the spirit of the law.

Jesus answers them with this question. He answers their question with the Word of God. He says, "You guys, haven't you read your Bibles?" to the Pharisees. I love it. Jesus is always saying, "You guys, you're not really read up. Haven't you read 1 Samuel 21:6?"

See, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The laws didn't come to us that we would serve the laws, but the laws would serve us. And the law is good. For the law is a schoolmaster unto me. It drove me to Christ. It showed me that I can never obey the law.

And yet, I know there's certain brothers around, and I love them, called the Seventh-day Adventists. And I believe some of them are really saved. I really do. But they are actually carrying this a bit too far when they start to say, "Well, are you worshipping God on the Sabbath day, Saturday? If you're worshipping God on Sunday, you're going to hell."

And I go, I have to back off and say, "Well, that's weird. I mean, where's that in the scriptures? Because of the day you worship? Give me a break." I mean, you talk about being under the law. So Jesus says, "Haven't you read this? David's men were hungry, they went into the tabernacle, ate of the holy bread, that wasn't lawful."

Man's need supersedes the law always. And we just need to use common sense. Jesus again told another story. If you had your animal that was thrown into a pit, your little sheep and it's caught, it's going to die if it stays there overnight. Would you just go past it and say, "Well, it's the Sabbath day. I can't do anything for you. Bye. Sorry"?

No, you run over there and get your sheep out of there because that's money, man. And plus, just the poor sheep is going to die. How much more for this healing of this man? And he began to point out how ridiculous their reasoning was.

Jesus healed a guy and they said—instead of praising God for the healing of the man—they said, "You did this on the Sabbath day. You broke the Sabbath." I mean, they were twisted, man. They'd lost it. They lost mercy and judgment. They had hard, hard hearts. Very religious people, you got to see, but not loving people.

It's very sad. So what is Jesus saying? Mercy and humanity supersedes ritual. They were so much into their ritual, they forgot about love. Jesus said, "I came to fulfill the law." Thank God we live under the law of grace. It's a beautiful law of God's love, unmerited favor towards us. We're never going to work for it. We're never going to be able to earn it. God just gave it to us.

Verse 7: "Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day." This certain guy just happened to be there that very same day. It says he was detained before the Lord, and his name was Doeg. He's really a bad egg, but his name is Doeg, an Edomite, the chiefest of the herdmen that belonged to Saul.

This guy happened to be there the very same day David was there trying to get away, fearing for his life. And who does he run into but one of Saul's guys? David's going, "Oh, this is great. This is really great." Here I am trying to get away, and I'm lying and trying to deceive these guys, and then this guy pops up.

See, God doesn't make it easy for us to sin, does He? He's not going to make it easy for you. You know why? Because He loves you. He chastens those that He loves. He'll go after you. He's not going to make it easy for you to sin. He'll continue after you.

And He's after David here, and nothing's working out for David. Nothing seems to click, and he's trying to run, he's trying to hide, and boom, Doeg shows up. He knows he's going to tell. Doeg's like a Judas. "I'm going to tell my master I saw you," and that's exactly, later on, we're going to see that's exactly what this guy does.

Verse 8: "And David said unto Ahimelech, 'And is there not here under your hand spear or sword? For I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me because the king's business required haste.'"

And the priest said, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If thou will take that, take it, and there is no other save that here."

And David said, "There is none like that. Give it to me." David—can imagine—here is a guy, David, that warrior is without his weapon. He gives a lame excuse for it, but he's without the sword.

Guest (Male): We'll pause here for today. Pastor Jeff Johnson will bring the conclusion of this study in 1 Samuel 21 next time on Sound Doctrine. If you've enjoyed today's message from Pastor Jeff Johnson from the book of 1 Samuel, I'd like to remind you that you can hear it again on several different venues.

First, you can go online to SoundDoctrineRadio.org where you can hear today's study as well as make a donation to this radio outreach. That's SoundDoctrineRadio.org. You can also listen at OnePlace.com and through the Sound Doctrine Radio app.

I should also mention Sound Doctrine can be heard wherever you enjoy podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Be sure to join us again next time we meet for another encouraging and challenging study with Pastor Jeff in the book of 1 Samuel. That's here on Sound Doctrine, presented by Calvary Chapel Downey.