Life of David – 1 Samuel 30

“David, My Heart His Throne”

1 Samuel 30:1-15

Vs. 1-6a All alone with God

Vs. 6b-15 Stones of remembrance

Intro.

In Rom. 8:28 we read that familiar verse, “we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Hey Christian this is true even when we are outside the will of God resisting the work of God.

Even if we are seeking to escape the loving discipline of the Lord
Even when we have painted ourselves into the corner of compromise
Even if we are forsaken of our worldly friends that we sought at the expense of the promises of God
Even when our families have been the casualty of our flesh
Even if the closest of our friends now seek our destruction because they have tired of reaping the wages of our self centered pity

Even if there is no one left on earth to stand by us there is One we are told in Prov. 18:24 “a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Though all the earth seeks to repay me and rightly so “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1) Who can resist a God like Him? Hey Christian in our lives we know that we can neither save ourselves nor sanctify our lives. But as true as that is, God will not give us good habits or a good character. He will not force us to walk rightly with Him; no we must do that by reckoning the old man dead and the new man alive in Christ.

All alone with God

Vs. 1-2 “On the third day” indicates that David and his men covered about twenty-five miles a day on the march south from Aphek to Ziklag, where they would have arrived tired, hungry and expecting all the comforts of home. But there was to be no homecoming celebration for David and his men who had been trying to join the Philistine army to fight against God’s people. The Amalekites knew that David was preoccupied with the battle between the Philistines and Israel in which he was on the wrong side. It was at this time that they picked for their raid, taking advantage of a defenseless city and burned it to the ground.

In a touch of irony David was reaping exactly what he had done in other cities (27:8-11).During his 16 months living among the Philistines, David made his living as a bandit, robbing cities and whenever David attacked the land, he left neither man nor woman alive. The truth is the Amalekites were being more merciful than David had been to them! God, who is rich in mercy, does not discipline us as much as we deserve. Like a compassionate father, He tempers the stroke of His hand with kindness and love. How so pastor? Well consider this:

Had the Philistine’s princes waited any longer or caved into their king’s wishes and allowed David to stay and fight it may have been weeks or months until he got back to Ziklag.
Had there not been one of David’s soldiers left to defend the women and children offering resistance then the Amalekites might have killed all instead they were celebrating their easily won victory (verse 16).

Sometimes we wonder why the Lord allows certain things in our lives, the Lord has allowed this to happen to get David out of the world that he sought friendship with. God was sending up “smoke signals” to let him know that it was time to get his heart right. David had finally come to the end of the road and what he found was the burned ruins of the city of compromise where he sought refuge from the situations of life lived in faith. He can not blame Saul, the Philistines or anyone else; this is made up of his own doing. So often we seek to avoid trusting the Lord during a season of discouragement and we run to the world desiring a rest from the things of God in the shelter of the world’s walls. And in our compromise the situation leads us back to faith as the comforts of the world are far more disastrous than the trials of faith that we sought to avoid.

Vs. 3 There is an interesting study of the Amalekites as we are told in Exodus 17 that these people came out and attacked the children of Israel, right after they came out of Egypt (a typology of the world). Israel had come through the Red Sea, and was journeying through the area of Rephidim towards Sinai, when Amalek and his forces attacked them from the rear, killing the stragglers and old feeble people who couldn’t keep up with the rest of the people on their march.

In Deut. 25:17-19 God said to Moses, “Look Moses, you’ve got a score to settle with Amalek, and when you come into the land, and you’ve subdued the nation, and you’re strong, then I want you to go down and utterly wipe them out, because there’s gonna be war with Amalek with every generation”. The Amalekites were cave dwellers who dwell in the recesses of the earth and in scripture they are seen as a typology of the old flesh which seeks to pull us down in our weakest areas.

In a further twist in 1 Sam. 15 the Lord told Saul through Samuel to settle this ancient score with Amalek to go down and utterly wipe them out. So Saul went down, and God delivered Amalek into his hands but Saul kept the finest of the cattle and the sheep, and brought them back with him. But that’s not all, Saul left alive as we see here the Amalekites have attacked David thus Saul did not destroy them all otherwise they wouldn’t be there to fight. In a twist of fate it will be an Amalekite that ultimately kills Saul. In the 31st chapter Saul is hit by one of the Philistine archers and he turns to his armor bearer, and he said, “Kill me; I don’t want those uncircumcised Philistines to catch me in this wounded condition and to kill me.”

His armor bearer wouldn’t do so, and so Saul set out his spear, and he fell on his own spear, but he didn’t die. Then came this Amalekite and Saul said, “Hey guy, come over here and kill me!”, and the guy went over and killed him. So what’s the moral of the story? Well Moses, Joshua,and Saul none of them had taken out the Amalekites and here they are ripping up God’s people. Hey saint you can always count on a battle with the flesh (Amalekites) the moment you are about to leave wondering in the world behind.

So what can we do about it? Well we need to heed the words of Paul in Rom. 13:14 “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” God’s remedy for the flesh is daily destruction, crucify it, mortify it, by the Spirit, and put to death the deeds of the flesh.

Vs. 4-5 David and his men had never lost a battle; they were undefeated; they had been on the other side of raids during their 16 months in Ziklag, never seeing what it was like to come into a town after a raid seeing everything you owned and everybody you loved gone. David has become what he had hated so in Saul a double minded man, a man of no integrity.

Mark this servant of the Lord, if we run to the world from tyrants we will in turn become the tyrants we ran from! Any time we run to the flesh and the world from the things we hate we will in time become to others that which we hated. Their first reaction was to wear themselves out in grief, to weep until they couldn’t weep any longer! David had not been immunized from his rebellion, he too had his family taken and his house burned, and he knew why his men were upset as he was acquainted with the same grief.

Furthermore David’s weeping was not only because of this but because he knew that he was responsible for it. He, like the prodigal son, now sat in the pigpen of his own backslidden state. Hey saint at times we too must stand among the ruins of our self willed lives amongst the smoldering ashes of our compromise before we can see that He alone can make beauty from our ashes, remember if God can create life and order from dust then He can create beauty from the ashes we have made of our lives.

This is not a bad place to be as Spurgeon wrote, “May you see your self-righteousness burned like Ziklag, and all your carnal hopes carried away captive, and may you then encourage yourselves in Christ, for he will recover all for you, and give you spoil besides, and there shall be joy and rejoicing.”

Vs. 6a The same men who said in 1 Chron 12:18 “We are yours, O David; We are on your side, O son of Jesse! Peace, peace to you, And peace to your helpers! For your God helps you”, are now ready to stone him for his wanderings into the world. You can take people through the same set of circumstances and people will react differently. All that life’s circumstances will reveal is what is truly in us. David’s men were so angry that they wanted to kill him, now that’s a response that shows that they were looking for someone to attach blame more than they were wanting to get their families back.

“Well it was David’s fault after all, I mean if he hadn’t wandered into the world without seeking the Lord and if he hadn’t raided the Amalekites while in Ziklag they wouldn’t be in the situation right?” Wrong, who made them follow David? Who caused them to leave the Lord for the world and raid cities? Hey, Christian when you and I chose to do what we do we can’t all the sudden play the victim and say it’s not our fault. Killing anyone but ourselves for our sin is a big waste of time, yes they should have been grieved but not only at David’s sin but at their own for following a man who chose to go to the world instead of the word.

Here is yet another thing that drove David to the Lord. You see David had rejected his own people and sided with the world, then the worldly friends rejected him but at least he still had his family but now his family is gone, “Ah I still have my “home boys” they won’t turn on me.” Now he has nobody left but the One who promises to never leave us or forsake us and the tragedy is that David could have been here 16 months earlier! It’s interesting how so many times God has to take me to the bottom, before I’ll turn back to Him. God doesn’t delight in that, He would rather that I listen and deal with me without a painful process. I believe strongly that God will always use the least means possible in His leading us but if we fail to listen to Him He loves us so much that He will use even painful processes.

Stones of remembrance

Vs. 6b David had said in his heart in 1 Samuel 27:1 “There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines”, now He again has a talk with his heart and this time he takes his heart to the Lord which strengthens himself in the LORD. “The best talks we can have are the ones that we have about ourselves to the Lord. It is a foolish thing to talk to others to ourselves and not talk to the Lord and allow Him to speak to our hearts.”

Now “David strengthened himself in the Lord his God”, but why would God strengthen him? Because God is rich in mercy and grace (Eph 2:4)! and David is now completely broken and ready to be filled. Sometimes we think we have to achieve or earn God’s blessing or strength, but all we can do is receive them in spite of ourselves. Oh blessed circumstances, as prior to this, David didn’t see himself as weak, but after coming home to a burned-out ghost town because of his wanderings, he now knew he was weak and needed God’s strength. God’s strength was there for David all the time, but now he appropriates it for himself and strengthens himself in the Lord his God.

In 2 Cor. 12:10 Paul wrote “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” This wasn’t some kind of rah-rah cheerleader kind of positive thinking. No this was strength for brokenness, strength for repentance, strength to win back what the enemy had ripped off in his life, it was resurrection strength!

God doesn’t say, “Hey David I’ve been calling your number for 16 months and you didn’t pick up your phone so now you think you can call me and get an answer?” Hey Christian there is no working our way back into grace for if we did then it would not be grace, it is works. The question is not whether or not grace is available for it surely is, the question for us is have we truly repented? In 1 John 1:9 we are told, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The word “confess” means to “say the same thing”, or if you will “agreeing with the conviction of the Holy Spirit”. This is not some outward sobbing to show it is surrender without any self justification. True confession is only after restoration of the relationship with God that sin cost and isn’t concerned with the restoration of things lost beside the relationship with the Lord. If in our heart we seek to restore the things lost along with the relationship with God, then we are placing the things lost on the same level as the relationship with the Lord! If that is the case then we have no true repentance as we are not turning from sin just merely hoping to divert its effects.

How did David strengthen himself in the LORD? I suggest to you three things stones of remembrance:

By remembering God’s love: If the Philistine leaders had not rejected him and sent him away, the Amalekites fires would not have still been burning and the situation would have been far worse. God had sent David home through rejection and that which was bitter had now become a sweet expression of the LORD’s love.
By remembering God’s promise and calling: He had been living a defeated and discouraged life but the enemy’s destruction caused David in desperation to realize that he was a man anointed by God, called by God, and promised by God to be the next king of Israel. “Hey wait a minute I’m a king called by God I have promises from God, and He hasn’t taken it away. I need to start living according to that destiny.” David could thank God and see the glory of His power in this high calling, Rom. 11:19 tells us that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
By remembering God’s past deliverances: David could recall all the past troubles and God’s faithfulness to deliver him in spite of his doubt and failures. Since God has done this before then He will do it again as the Lord didn’t deliver me then to watch me perish now.

Vs. 7-8 Hey Christian did you note something here in the life of David that was missing during those 16 months while David and his men made their home in the world? Well brother, sister this is the first time we read of him seeking God in any way. Oh saint we could avoid the road of discouragement and our stay in the world altogether if we would simply inquire of the LORD in this way.

James would write in 4:8 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” When David should have called on the Lord he didn’t and instead spoke “within himself”, but what David didn’t do in discouragement, “seek the Lord” he won’t do without seeking the Lord. What are you saying pastor? Simply this, “We are at our best when we are facing our worst.”

David sought the Lord through Abiathar the priest who “brought the ephod to David.” The ephod was a special apron that the High Priest would wear, to cover over their clothing, so the sacrificial blood and gore would splash on the ephod, not on their clothing. And in a pouch was the Urim and Thummim which today we have the Word of God. Hey, do you see a picture of how we are to seek the Lord? Well we go through our “High Priest Jesus” whose robe of righteousness has His blood stained sacrifice upon it seeking His word as our guidance.

The Lord’s answer contained two things:

Something to do: “Pursue”
A promise in the doing: “you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.”

Hey that’s cool as God never gives us something to do that He does not also promise that in so doing He will accomplish His purpose. As David comes back in true brokenness the Lord did not give him a lecture, probation or punishment. No he said I’ll give you victory. Saul may have eaten the fatted calf from the witch at Endor but it was David that returned from the pigpen to his loving Father’s arms.

Vs. 9 David’s men were in the place of mutiny even speaking of “stoning him” (verse 6). But then David “strengthened himself in the LORD his God” and “inquired of the LORD” (verse 8) now they are ready to follow him because he is back following the Lord. Hey Christian never underestimate the importance of obeying the Lord and personal integrity as it relates to leading others. You can not lead others any farther than you yourself are willing to go and if you try, all you will have on your hand is a mutiny! Hear now the words of Paul in Rom. 2: 21-22 “You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?”

Note the words, “So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him”, which implies that David said, “Men, I’m going. I have a promise from God for victory, and I’m going to believe it. It doesn’t matter if you come with me or not”. What a great sight this was especially in light of the fact that only a few days earlier David and his army were about to fight against God’s people, now they are off on a mission from God. Hey believer there isn’t an army on earth that could defeat us when we walk in obedience to God’s will even if this comes right on the heels of our failure.

Vs. 10 After a three day ride David and his men travel another 16 miles to the brook of Besor where 200 soldiers couldn’t go any further as in the Hebrew it says that they were “dead tired”. Hey saint just because we start obeying the Lord does not mean that we will not again face our enemy “discouragement”. He sets the one-third to work guarding the supplies, lightening the load of the 400 who continue, and he sets out again, and full of faith. “Many a believer would have given up when one out of three of his troops can’t continue, but David continued on.

Oft times when God wants to bless us, he takes away a part of the little strength we thought we had. We didn’t think our strength equal to the task when we had all, then the Lord in His wisdom takes even more of the little power we thought we had. Listen up Christian God does not fill till he has emptied. Two hundred men must be taken away before God could give him victory .God blesses by subtraction more than by addition. So then saint, you can expect that your discouragement may deepen but that will only increase your joy in the end.

Vs. 11-13 They didn’t even know where the Amalekites were and David was trusting the Lord to guide him and it was then that they ran into a sick Egyptian who had been a part of the raiding party in a field. The fellow should have died in the wilderness but God had kept him alive and David and his men could have taken out their frustration on him but instead they reached out to this fellow who knew the plans of the Amalekites.

The Egyptian was near death; he had eaten no bread nor drunk any water for three days and three nights. It would have been easy to ignore him, and pass him by. They could have said, “Hey look, this is very sad but this man is near death anyway and we can’t do much to save him, so let’s be on our way.” “We are on a mission from God and our delay is risking our family’s life”. What this shows is that David was really walking in the heart of God as he puts others’ concerns above his own.

“To whom do you belong, and where are you from?” What a great question to ask someone who has been discarded and left to die by the enemy in the world. “Has the person who has control over your life been doing a good job with you?” “Is all well with you? Do you want to stay in the state you are in?” That is always the best place to start when you are speaking with someone. Yet with that said it is not enough to ask these things without offering them Bread to eat and Water to drink.

And who is this bread and water? Well it is Jesus the bread of life of whom will give you living water which will quench every thirst. And notice as well that there was “cake of figs and two clusters of raisins.” There was that which was sweet to eat and pleasant to the pallet as the Lord always is to those that partake of Him.

Vs. 14-15 The ‘we’ at the beginning of verse 14 suggests that the slave participated personally in the Amalekites’ raids and in saying this he risked his own life as this was a confession of his wrong doing. Ah, truly it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. In 2 Samuel 15:18 we find that the Cherethites formed a part of David’s guards.”

Dear saint we will only recover what we have lost when we come to the Lord as our friend that we have forsaken! There are four things that allowed David to recover what he had lost:

Vs. 6b “David strengthened himself in the LORD his God”: He came to the only One who could wipe away his tears.
Vs. 7-8 “David was willing to hear and obey the Lord”: That’s the 2nd thing that we need to do, be willing to hear and obey.
Vs. 9-10a “David took a step of faith”: He didn’t just sit back and say, “If you want my family back you just bring them to my burned down door step”. Instead David pursued and even when 1/3 of his army couldn’t keep going he still did. In fact verse 9 tells us that “David went with him and the six hundred men who were with him”. In other words David was going with the Lord and it didn’t matter who or who wasn’t going.
Vs. 10b-15 “David put others needs and wants before his own”: And in so doing God used this guy who had been part of the raid as the very instrument in finding where the enemy had taken his family. So often we will find that as we are self sacrificing that the Lord bless through our surrender of our needs and wants.

If we desire victory over self to step into the purposes to which the Lord has for you then you must be willing to walk into brokenness through the burned rubble of the flesh life. Stop fighting against God and return to Him. Then you will see God put to flight the enemy of our faith. Paul wrote of himself in Rom. 7:18 “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells”, do you believe this about yourself yet? The moment we humble ourselves and stop our fighting against the Lord and instead inquire of Him we will find He is there.

David, “To the victor go the spoils”

Vs. 16-20 Recovering all

Vs. 21-31 Finders keepers?

Intro.

This chapter serves as a wonderful picture of what Jesus has done for us by His death and resurrection, “He has recovered all that was lost by the rebellion of the human race”. David was manifesting three visible signs of his spiritual decline and we only need to retrace his words to see this:

Trust 27:1a “Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul.” Discouragement had dislodged David from a man who took God at His word to a person who used the circumstances and situations he faced to interpret who God is. “An upward look”
Truth 27:1b “There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines”: The 2nd thing to go for David was that truth went out the window. It is a fact of our fallen nature, Christian, that when we fail to trust God’s word then it is certain that the truth of the Word will depart from us as well. The Word of God must be believed and applied, not just acknowledged. “An inward hunger”
Target Vs. 27:2 “Then David arose and went over”: Clearly David leaving the land of promise for the temporary comforts of the world demonstrated that he was way off target but let us not forget this began with a lack of trust which escalated into a deviation from truth and those two things caused David and his men to miss the target. “An outward action”

Alan Redpath rightly said, “Many a Christian stands at a crossroads facing a revival or a funeral” and the steps of David can serve as an indicator of which road we are heading down. So just what does revival entail? An upward look, An inward hunger, An outward action. Hey saint, there is a difference between being people who know the Word of God and people who know the God of the Word! If we are people who know the Word of God we will be knowledgeable, ah but if we are people who know the God of the Word will be more than knowledgeable we will be constantly transformed. Remember this, a man who sins stops applying God’s word and praying but the man who applies God’s Word and prays will stop sinning as well!

How did David recover what became casualties on the road of discouragement, while in the walled city of compromise? Ah, verse 6 holds the key, “strengthened himself in the LORD his God.” And in his return to God he was transformed by an “upward look”, “inward hunger” and by “an outward action” David recovered far more in a day than it took him 16 months to lose and such is the case when we like David turn to the Lord in trust applying the truth, He will make sure we stay on His target.

Recovering all

Vs. 16-17 David and his men caught the Amalekites off guard in the midst of their celebration as the Amalekites had figured that all the Philistine and Israelite armies were far to the north, preparing to fight each other.

The word “twilight” in verse 17 is better rendered “Dawn” as it appears that David and his men took some rest and attacked at first light, when the Amalekites would have been suffering from a hangover. All went well for David and his men except that 400 Amalekites escaped on camels. In as much as the Amalekites are a typology of the flesh it causes us to realize the desperation that our old nature will go through to make an escape and ride off.

Vs. 18 Twice in two verses we are told that “David recovered all” but how did he do so? Well in verse 6 we were told that David strengthened himself in the LORD his God then inverse 8 we were told that David inquired of the LORD. Thus God gave David a complete victory and he recovered all the enemy had ripped off because David in obedience did what God had told him to do but let’s not forget how God got David to this place of recovering all:

The Lord first encouraged David to trust by taking away every one and everything he had trusted in prior.
The Lord gave David wisdom to what to do and His power to accomplish what he promised.
Finally the Lord directed David and his men through discouragement to find out where the enemy had taken captive their loved ones.

Simply put God used negatives to accomplish positives! Ah well did David say in Ps. 37:5 “Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.”

Then we see David didn’t just sit back and say, “Great God, I’ll just kick back and wait here until you return what my flesh lost.” Yes the Lord fulfilled His promise, but He used David’s obedience to do so. Hey, Christian most often God’s promises to us don’t exclude our cooperation; rather they are an invitation to participation with Him as He empowers us and equips us to fulfill what He has promised. How does this work? Well, we trust God to secure His promises and then march off and serve as if it all depended upon us.

David didn’t just recover “some, most or 99%” but all that was carried away. In this we see that the Lord’s heart is that He wants to have back all that our sin and flesh has taken from us but that won’t be for our use, no it will be to bless others (verse 23-31). God desires to bless us but can only do so when we desire to be a blessing! Remember that the Lord did this during a season of doubt and discouragement; this ought to serve as well as the Lord desires to do the same for you and me.

Vs. 19-20 Imagine what joy at recovering “all” that was lost was for these men. Your wife, sons and daughters all you owned and anything else that was lost to you. Hey Christian such is the promise of God to you and me as we turn to Him that He will according to Joel 2:25 “restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten”. Did you notice that? God will restore not only the produce but the years, which the locusts ate. You see, locusts not only destroy the produce of one year, but they so completely eat all buds that the crop will not recover for some years. So God’s promises are that He will not only return the damaged year but give you even more fruitful years in the future as well.

So God gave David much more than what He promised as David received the spoil from the battle but also spoil beyond that which had been taken from Ziklag. Ah the grace of God which goes beyond “not getting what we deserve” (MERCY) beyond “recovering what we have lost to our own rebellion” (GRACE). No Jesus has according to Eph. 1:3 “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ”. Everything from “not getting what we deserve” to “every spiritual blessing” has come to us by our Lord Jesus as He is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph 3:20). Hey Christian the Son of God is never content with just reconciliation and restoration, No He wants to turn our losses into gains.

Why was David allowed to keep the spoils of the Amalekites when Saul was commanded not to? (1 Samuel 15:1-3)

David had no specific command from God to destroy all the spoils from the Amalekites, as Saul did.
David was recovering what the Amalekites had taken from others, though he recovered far beyond what was taken from his city.
David was not acting as the king of Israel, representing God’s people, as Saul was. So in this case, simply put, the rules were different for David.

The words “This is David’s spoil”, was not claiming personal wealth for himself but rather that David would see to its distribution. In other words this phrase suggests the response we should have to God as we come to Jesus without any compulsion and give Him everything we have, everything we are you see we are all His spoil. Again notice that David is bringing back not only what he lost but what others had lost as well thus we see him in verses 26-31 returning to those things ripped off by the flesh (Amalekites) as well. Hey Christian such is our joy and privilege to be doing according to 2 Cor. 5:19-20 “the ministry of reconciliation” by being “committed to the word of reconciliation”.

Finders’ keepers?

Vs. 21-22 Based upon verses 9-10 when David was in swift pursuit of the Amalekites, 200 men, 1/3 of his army, could not continue on. So at the brook Besor they made camp and lightened the supply load from the 400 soldiers who would continue with David. So as David and the 400 soldiers returned to the 200 men who stayed by the supply camp there arose a dispute over the division of spoils. These 200 men apparently saw some of their own possessions among the spoils of battle, and they requested it back. But some of those 400 men who went to battle hadn’t a problem returning the 200 men’s families but their property was “finder’s keeper’s loser’s weepers” kind of a deal.

The text calls those fellows “wicked and worthless men” (sons of the devil) and the fact that they were some among David’s men raises some questions.

Was it David’s own self centered actions 16 months earlier that caused them to repeat what they have learned?
Those fellows who protested this had lost all as did those 200 who had crashed by the brook Besor, so where is the empathy and compassion. Where is the love of the brethren?

It is an awful thing to watch how we who profess to have experienced God’s love for us demonstrate it to others. It has appeared to me that oftentimes the Lord allows me to go through some difficult circumstance so that I might be tender hearted towards the Lord as well as those poor souls who have suffered.

Vs. 23-24 The generosity of David bothered some of the fighting men who wanted to keep what rightfully belonged to others. Some of the 400 men mistakenly saw the victory as theirs but David rightfully concluded that it was the Lord’s victory, verse 23. In Matt. 10:8 Jesus said, “Freely you have received, freely give.”

There is an important spiritual principle here: The supply lines are just as vital as the soldiers and God will reward both “soldiers” and “supporters” equally. God insists that all who serve no matter in what capacity share equally in His abundant blessings. God’s heart for us is as Jesus shared in Luke 6:38 “Give and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.”

Isn’t it cool to realize that God will reward the hidden servant with the same reward as the visible servant? Hey Christian there are far more folks in the Church that serve invisibly, behind-the-scenes, choosing to support the more visible aspect of God’s work. So what’s the difference between the “wicked and worthless men” and David?

The wicked and worthless men: Look at the spoil and say, “We fought for this spoil and it is ours.”
David (a man after God’s heart): Looks at the spoil and says, “Look at what the Lord has given us” verse 23. You see when we look at our time, talent and treasure as belonging to the Lord will have no problem in wanting to share it. This wasn’t David’s victory, it was the Lord’s victory.

It’s just as important that we have men staying back and guarding the stuff, as it is to have men out on the front line fighting. Those that are out on the front line fighting need the logistical support from those that are back keeping the stuff. There are those in missions today that serve as senders that stay by the stuff at home, and support those that go to the mission field. And in God’s economy, when we get to heaven, we will discover that we will be rewarded for our support of those missionaries that are out in the front lines. How cool is that when we get to heaven and people will come up to you and say, “Hey, I’m one of your kids!” “I’m here because you stayed by the stuff, and supported those who went out!”

Vs. 25 David realized that God had done to them what they had not deserved and to take it as such would be grievous. Paul said in 1 Cor. 4:7 “what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” David say’s who is going to listen to you in this matter? So the principle became a “statute and an ordinance for Israel to this day” (verse 25) thus it becomes something that you and I ought to practice today. What an encouragement this is for us who at times think that what they have and give to the Lord is of little value.

Vs. 26-31 David also sent presents from the spoils to every leader in the places that he and his men had hid during his wanderings. David went back to his burned out city to await the outcome of the battle between the Philistines and Israel and based upon 2 Sam 1: 1-2 he had only stayed three days until he got word that Saul was dead. He no doubt realized that his time among the Philistines had caused some bad feelings towards him among God’s people so he knows he must do whatever he can to put things right again, so he shares the spoils with Judah and sends spoils from the battle to more than 13 cities.

Based upon Vs. 20 David took all of the cattle that were driven in front of them, not those that had belonged to them, but all the extra spoil called it “David’s spoil” making this spoil restitution. David’s diplomacy will pay off in the future as at first his reign is only over the tribe of Judah and he makes his home in Hebron but in the 5th chapter of 2nd Samuel the rest of the tribes of Israel will come to him and we are told that he was 30 when he started as king over Judah and 37 ½ when all of Israel accepted him as “shepherd over God’s people Israel”. (2 Sam. 5:1-5)

Ah but this is a great picture of the Son of David as Jesus said of himself in Matt. 20:28 “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” The Son of David, Jesus Christ, when He triumphed on the cross shared His spoil with us as we are told in Eph 4:7-8: But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.” We are to be like Jesus has been to us; we are not greater than our Master. He has blessed us to be a blessing so let’s get in the habit of doing what Rev 4:10-11 says we will be doing “casting our crowns before His throne, saying You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power”.