Trusting God in the Wilderness
The Original Game of Thrones

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Good morning! We’re continuing our series through the book of 1 Samuel. We did the first fifteen chapters last Spring. Now, we’re covering the last chapters of 1 Samuel. Today, we’ll be looking at chapters 21, 22 and 23, so get your seatbelts on. We’re reading another two and a half chapters today.

Today, we’ve entitled this message, “Trusting God in the Wilderness.” What do we mean by “the wilderness?” David is in the wilderness in these chapters. He’s running from King Saul, who’s trying to kill him. He is in the wilderness. What does that mean for us?

The wilderness is any place where you’re feeling like you’re on the run and you wonder, Where is God? You feel alone. You’ve got more questions than you do answers. Have you ever headed out on the interstate and the gas in your car is getting down to “E;” it’s about to get empty. You see a price at a service station at a certain exit and it’s a little higher than you want to spend. You think, I can hold off to the next exit; maybe there’ll be a better price. Then, there’s no exit for miles and miles. Have you ever had that happen? Man, what am I gonna do? That’s kind of how the wilderness feels. It feels like you are running out of gas. Maybe, it feels like you’re lost. Maybe it feels like, Where is God? Wilderness is like a season of doubt, despair and discouragement. It’s also a time when your faith gets tested. It’s a time where sometimes we feel like we’re going to lose our way or even lose our faith.

How many of you are going through a time of wilderness today? You are going through a wilderness season? Do you know what I mean? It’s a time where your faith is getting challenged and you feel alone. You feel like you’re carrying something all by yourself. Somebody might be here and you’ve been running from God so long that your whole life has looked like a wilderness. Maybe, it’s time to come home.

Some of you showed up today and are saying, Why are we talking about the wilderness? I’m feeling great. Follow with us anyway; there may be a wilderness somewhere around the corner and it’s important to know how to respond, by trusting God in the wilderness.

David is in the wilderness. David, the giant killer, the man of God is, all of a sudden, on the run. You can tell in chapter 21 that he’s kind of lost his way. Through the process of going through the wilderness, I believe that David’s faith begins to grow as he trusts God more and more; even in the wilderness, even when he’s on the run.

I believe that, at wilderness times, it doesn’t have to be times where we lose our faith. It can be the kind of times where faith grows. We grow closer to God as a result of wilderness experiences if we’ll just trust God in the wilderness.

As we look at the text today, we’ll see three ways we can learn to trust God In the wilderness. Let’s look at chapter 21 of 1 Samuel and then we’ll talk about it.

1 Samuel 21 (ESV) 1 “Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5 And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” 6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away. 7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the LORD. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen. 8 Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.” 9 And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.” 10 And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances,

(Gary Combs – commentary) Apparently, the “top 10 tune: that was popular in Israel was also popular here. “Saul has struck down his thousands and David, his ten thousands.”

‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” 12 And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13 So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. 14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the manis mad. Why then have you brought him to me? 15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?” This is God’s word. Amen.

We’re looking for three ways that we can learn to trust God in the wilderness. Here’s the first:

We can learn to trust God in the wilderness by… 1. Relying on His presence.

Reading with me in chapter 21, how would you preach this chapter? How would you look at it? I always look for God; I look for words where God is speaking. I would say that, as we look at this particular chapter, we would note that we don’t see God being quoted. However, it is God’s word. So, then I started to ask, What did the priests say? Maybe, they are speaking for God. I’m looking for how to unpack this so we can understand this chapter.

Here’s what I took note of; one is that the Lord is very rarely mentioned in this chapter because David is on the run. It often feels like, Where did God go? That’s the first thing.

The second thing I noticed was the first thing that the priest asked David. Look at verse one, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” That’s a very practical question. David usually was traveling with his soldiers, the guardsmen that belonged to Saul. But, on this day, he’s on the run. He’s running for his life. And so Ahimelech, the high priest is kind of worried about it. He comes, trembling, and asks David, “Why are you alone?” You shouldn’t be alone. You’re the champion of Israel.

If we look at it another way, through the lens of the Lord, he’s saying, Why are you all alone spiritually right now? He doesn’t have any support. And so David comes to him like a secret agent and he answers, I’m on a secret mission. The king sent me on a secret mission. I can’t tell anybody what it’s about. Now, some would suggest that he was talking about King Jehovah. Maybe David was just saying, God sent me on a mission. He had to know, though, that Ahimelech would believe that he was talking about King Saul. Either David is just slightly misleading the high priest or he’s telling a “fib.” Maybe it was for good motivation. Maybe it was to protect him; to keep him from getting in trouble with King Saul. But, as we’ll find out in the next chapter, that doesn’t work either. At any rate, we don’t see David praying to the Lord. We don’t see him asking the Lord for direction. We do see David on the run and desperately looking for some food and a weapon.

David stops off in this place called Nob, which is just south of Gibeah, where he had been living near Saul. Let’s look at the map. Right here is Gibeah of Saul. That’s where Saul’s throne was. David had been living there. He had married King Saul’s daughter, the princess Michal, and so, he had a house there in Libya. Now, he has to run away; the nearest place he runs is to Nob, which was the place where the priest had the Tabernacle, the tent of meeting. David runs to Ahimelech. If you remember, in the previous sermon, his wife had let him down out a window. Now, he doesn’t have any food; he doesn’t have any weapons. He’s on the run. David comes to the Tabernacle and says, Do you have any food?

If you go to the next slide, we believe that Nob is, in the present day, in Israel on Mount Scopus. Archaeologists believe that the city of Nob was just north of Jerusalem. WhenIwas visiting there a few years ago. you can see that I am on an overlook where I’m standing. Down here, you can see the Dome of the Rock, the golden dome of Jerusalem. This is where David’s is; he is at Nob, which is modern day Mount Scopus. We can see what would become Jerusalem, but not yet, because David is the one who wins it from the Jebusites.

Why do I show you maps and pictures of these places? Can I remind you, again, why I do it? It’s because the Bible is true. The Bible talks about real people in real places. This is not mythology, this stuff really happened. You can go there, you can go to these places.

This is where David goes. He flees to Nob and he tells Ahimelech that the king has charged him with a secret mission. But, where are your men? I told my young men to meet me down the road.

And then David asks Ahimelech if he has any bread. Then, we have this strange story where the priest says, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread.” What is this bread? He’s talking about the Bread of Presence. Can I show you another photo? Do you like my photos? Here comes another one. This is a model of what’s called Table of Showbread or the Table of the Bread of Presence.

At every Sabbath, right before Sabbath begins, bread is cooked fresh. Twelve loaves of bread are stacked in two stacks of six. Each was to be freshly put into the Tabernacle on the table of the Bread of Presence. Right over here would have been the lamp stand. And then right up here would have been the incense altar. Those are the three pieces of furnishings in the holy place. Every Sabbath, there wasfresh bread, pulling out last week’s bread that had been there for seven days. That’s what the priest is going to offer to David, or that’s what he’s going to give David. It probably is the Sabbath and he’s just pulled off last week’s bread.

There is a problem here. The problem is that, in the book of Leviticus 24, it says that bread can only be eaten by the sons of Aaron, the high priest. So, how in the world is Ahimelech going to be able to offer him that bread? The only stipulation that Ahimelech gives is he asks if any of David’s young men had been with women. If they hadn’t been with women, then he would give them the bread. In other words, they had to be holy and clean.

I don’t know if anybody here has watched the old “Rocky” movies, but it kind of reminds me when Mick tells Rocky, Hey, you know, you don’t need to be with Adrian before you go in the boxing ring. It makes your legs weak. It kind of reminds me of that a little bit.

If you look at Leviticus 15, it describes what it means to be clean; it’s kind of strange that it talks about bodily emissions. And so what it means to be clean. We’re getting real; we’re just going through the verses of the bible and talking about it. As long as his young men, probably his unmarried men have kept themselves pure. Then the priest will give them the bread. David says, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition.” Look, we are all good. So, they are given the bread right now. The problem, as I said, was he makes a stipulation that he’s not even allowed to make, according to Leviticus 24:9, it was only to be eaten by the Aaronic priests. But then, we have this in the new testament, where Jesus quotes this story in Matthew 12:1-8. Jesus uses it and says that there was a principle here that Ahimelech was following that was superior than just the written law.

There’s the spirit of the law and the Pharisees. We’re working out a problem here. The Pharisees saw Jesus’ disciples walking through a field on the Sabbath and gathering the heads of grain off the tops and eating it. They said to Jesus, Why do you let Your disciples eat bread on the sabbath? Don’t you know you’re not supposed to do that? They’re correcting Him about the sabbath. Jesus says to them, Don’t you remember that Ahimelech gave David the holy bread from the temple ? Jesus talks about a principle. He says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. Jesus is saying that Ahimelech did the right thing because he made the mercy that he gave David superior than that of the written law. Jesus affirms Ahimelech at any rate; those of you that are digging in deep will recognize that Jesus affirmed Ahimelech for giving David the bread.

In verse seven, David is getting ready to ask for a sword. Pretend that you’re watching this on Netflix; mysterious music would be playing and then this ugly dude would stick his head out of the shadows around the corner. He would be like spying on David; his name was Doeg the Edomite. You just know he’s a bad guy just by his name. He’s being detained before the Lord. What’s that about? He is detained before the Lord. It probably means that he has to wait for 24 hours before he can receive or offer a sacrifice because he is unclean. Maybe that’s it. It might be because he’s an Edomite; Saul might have won him as a captive when he defeated the Edomites in the previous chapter. Now, he works for Saul as the chief of his herdsmen. Maybe he’s trying to become a jew, At any rate, he’s hanging out at the Tabernacle. This can’t be good. Do you know what his name, Doeg, means in Hebrew? It means, “worry.” I’m worried about this Doeg the Edomite; we’ll see more about him later.

In chapter 21, verse 8, it says, “Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.” He came out without any bread and he, also, came out without a weapon. Now, if you were Ahimelech at this point, you must be thinking that this doesn’t seem right. But, Ahimelech goes along with him, because this is David, God’s anointed, the champion of Israel. He says to David, We don’t keep a lot of weapons at the Tabernacle, but we just so happen to have Goliath’s sword that you donated. That’s all we have. David agrees to take that sword because there’s not another one like it.

Can you imagine this sword? It might have been as tall as David. This is one wicked sword. And now, we can tell that David is not thinking clearly, because as soon as he gets the sword of Goliath of Gath, where does he go? He goes to the king of Gath. We don’t see him praying. We don’t see him talking to God about it. He just heads to Gath; maybe he’s thinking, it’s a good principle. It’s a wise principle. The enemy of my enemy must be my friend. And so, he heads to the king of Gath, to the king named Achish of Gath. Little did he know that the top ten song that was popular in Israel is also famous there too. So, he gets there and they say, Hey, wait a minute, that’s David. Isn’t he king of the land? He’s the one that the women are also playing tambourines for; it’s Jerusalem’s top ten song: “Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands.”

When David gets here, the servants are telling this to king Achish. David comes up with a plan B on how to get out of there; he will act the idiot. He will act the fool. He begins to let spittle run down his beard and to pretend he’s writing things on the walls and on the gates. King Achish tells them that he has enough crazy people; get him out of here.

What do we do with this as readers of this scripture? Here’s what it often looks like when we’re on the run in the wilderness and we’re not talking to God about what to do next. It kind of looks crazy; we come up with our own little things and our own little ideas. We kind of look like fools sometimes.

In spite of it all, God is still present with David. And even though he should have gotten killed, there he is, with the weapon that he took from Goliath of Gath. They released him strangely enough. The absence of God’s voice in this passage makes it even more prominent that God is preserving and protecting David. He is present with David, even though David is not talking to Him right now. This is an amazing time in David’s life. He’s got a sword, he’s got bread, but he doesn’t have a friend on planet Earth and so, he pretends to be insane.

Remember what God told Joshua as he prepared to lead Israel into the Promised Land? He said, Joshua 1:9 (ESV) “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Even when you’re in the wilderness, even when you’re acting the fool, the Lord is with you. Has anybody here ever done that? Please don’t lift your hands. Just keep it to yourself. Have you ever acted the fool and you knew it? You knew you were acting the fool and somehow you didn’t die. Who’s ever been out there and you should have died five times by now doing stuff you should have never been doing? Somehow God preserved your life. He’s got a purpose for us. You know, He’s got a purpose for you. You might not know where He’s at right now, but He’s present. All you have to do is call on Him.

Let’s keep reading; now we are in chapter 22; this is our longest chapter. We will talk about it after we read it.

1 Samuel 22 (ESV) 1 David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. 2 And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men. 3 And David went from there to Mizpeh of Moab. And he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and and my mother stay with you, till I know what God will do for me.” 4 And he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold. 5 Then the prophet Gad said to David, “Do not remain in the stronghold; depart, and go into the land of Judah.” So David departed and went into the forest of Hereth. 6 Now Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men who were with him. Saul was sitting at Gibeah under the tamarisk tree on the height with his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him. 7 And Saul said to his servants who stood about him, “Hear now, people of Benjamin; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, will he make you all commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, 8 that all of you have conspired against me? No one discloses to me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is sorry for me or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day.” 9 Then answered Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, “I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, 10 and he inquired of the LORD for him and gave him provisions and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.” 11 Then the king sent to summon Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and and all his father’s house, the priests who were at Nob, and all of them came to the king. 12 And Saul said, “Hear now, son of Ahitub.” And he answered, “Here I am, my lord.” 13 And Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword and have inquired of God for him, so that he has risen against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?” 14 Then Ahimelech answered the king, “And who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, and captain over your bodyguard, and honored in your house? 15 Is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? No! Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of all this, much or little.” 16 And the king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and allyour father’s house.” 17 And the king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because their hand also is with David, and they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord. 18 Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and strike the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod. 19 And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the sword. 20 But one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. 21 And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priests of the LORD. 22 And David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeb the Edomitewas there, that he would surely tell Saul. I have occasioned the death of all the persons of your father’s house. 23 Stay with me; do not be afraid, for he who seeks my life seeks your life. With me you shall be in safekeeping.”

We can trust God in the wilderness by relying on His presence. Here’s our second point:

We can learn to trust God in the wilderness by… 2. By depending on His provision.

David’s in a cave, the cave of Adullam. Let’s look at the map again. He goes from Gibeah to Nob to Gath. He acts the fool and he runs. Now, he is hiding in a cave in Adullam, not far from Bethlehem, where his parents and his brothers flee and hide with him there in Adullam. Men from all over the country, the misfits, the ones on the run, they find out that David is there. The Lord sends them there to the cave at Adullam. When all of these men get there, David starts acting differently. He starts acting more like the leader that God called him to be. You can see it kind of percolating.

The first thing he does is he takes care of his mom and dad. He heads to Moab, right? And he goes across the Jordan river to the enemy nation of Moab. He asks the king of Moab to take care of his parents. Now, why would the king of Moab (Moab is an enemy of Israel) take in David? It didn’t work at Gath, but as he goes to Moab, he’s got an “ace” in his hand. What’s the ace? His great grandmother was a Moabite; her name was Ruth. There’s a book about her in the bible; the book of Ruth. And so, he goes there. Maybe they know this already, that David is the great grandson of the Moabite woman named Ruth.

The king agrees to take care of David’s parents. They live there in Moab for a little while until a prophet named Gad comes to David and says, You can’t stay here; you need to get back to Judah where you belong because God has appointed you over Israel. And so, David moves with his 400 men and comes back. But he leaves his mom and dad in Moab for their safety. David comes back.

Do you notice what’s happening? David is no longer alone. His family is with him. He knows his parents are safe, which he had to be worried about. Now, he’s got 400 fighting men. They are a bunch of misfits, but by the time they go through the wilderness boot camp, they’ll become David’s mighty men. They change from misfits to mighty men. On top of that, he’s got a prophet named Gad in his camp now, telling him what God wants him to do. David does what God wants him to do. David is increasing in the wilderness.

Do you see what’s happening to David? Now, meantime, we’ve gotta “parentheses” in the story. I wish it weren’t here. I wish I didn’t have to talk about it. Can six through 19. Can we just skip verses six through nineteen? We just can’t skip it, because we’re going verse by verse, aren’t we? I have to talk about it. Saul, In 1 Samuel 15, refused to obey God and completely annihilated the Amalekite Kingdom. He let the king live and he kept the best of the sheep and the cattle.

This was “strike three” with God. Saul wouldn’t take on God’s enemies the way God commanded him to. Because of Saul’s jealousy and hatred for David, he completely annihilated the city; every one of the priests were killed along with women and children. Not only that, he killed every ox and donkey; he killed everything. He wouldn’t do it for God; he did it for himself. Saul was God’s anointed but he has become God’s anti anointed. He is the antichrist in the story; he’s the opposite of Christ. He represents the evil one. In this story, he’s gone down, down, down. He’s so far from God now that he’s doing things like killing priests and their families; he couldn’t get his own men to do it.

Can you imagine what it was like to be in Saul’s army? They couldn’t even obey him, so he asked Doeg the Edomite to do it. It’s strange that, when Jesus was born, the wise men came to King Herod the great who was not really Jewish, he was half Edomite. What did King Herod want to do? He wanted to kill the one born King. He killed all the babies under the age of two years old in Bethlehem. There’s kind of a threat here; we can see it here with Doeg.

Verse 20 and following, closes the chapter. All of the priests are dead. But one, whose name is Abiathar, runs to David because David has become the protector of the people of God. He runs to David and David is frank with him. He says, I saw Doeg there. It’s my fault that your whole family has died. But, come and stay with me; I will take care of you. Saul has killed God’s people and God’s priests. David escapes and so does the son of Ahimelech, whose name is Abiathar. Saul killed the priests, but David saves Abiathar. Now God has provided David with Gad the prophet, Abiathar the priest and 400 men

Do you see what’s happening? David is starting to walk in his identity. He’s starting to know, even in the wilderness, he doesn’t have a crown. He doesn’t have a throne. But, he’s starting to act like a king because he’s answering God’s call now. And he said, I’ll take care of you. David has Gad the prophet and Abiathar the priest who becomes his high priest all through his reign. David is becoming the king and he’s got 400 fighting men. God is his provision; He is providing for David, even in the wilderness.

Look what David wrote in Psalm 42; he wrote this when he was in the cave. It says, “O Lord, You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” Can you pray like that? Can you learn to trust God to provide for you? , God answered; He sent him his family, he sent him fighting men, he sent him a prophet and then he sends him a priest. God is providing.

When I think about God’s “misfits” here, the ones that God sent to David, I can’t help but think about Jesus. You know, Jesus didn’t select a bunch of top people, you know, CEO’s and leaders. He went and got some fishermen and a sinner that was a tax collector. He got a rough group because God just loves taking little people and doing great things. He likes doing that because He gets the glory.

Look what Paul wrote, in 1 Corinthians; he said to consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you are wise, according to worldly standards. Not many are powerful. Not many are of noble birth.God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, so that , as it is written, that the one who boasts will boast in the Lord. That’s what God wants when we’re in the wilderness. He wants us to learn that He is present even though we feel alone. He wants us to know that when we’re hungry and we’re afraid, He is our provision. He, Himself, is our bread. He is the one that provides for us.

Why does He do this? Because, if you get low, He will lift you up. But as long as you think highly of yourself, He’s waiting and He will humble you. If you’re going through a wilderness today, I want you to think about this. That’s right where God can use you. When you start thinking, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. But God can. That’s when God will work. Learn to do that when you’re in the wilderness and then God starts giving you other people.

Have you ever said, Why didn’t You give me some better people, God? When we first started the church, I used to pray, God, why don’t You send me somebody that would put money in the offering plate instead of taking it out every time we pass it. You know why you keep sending all these broken people, all these hurting people? Why do we have to be the hospital church? This is hard work. Do you know what I found out, after almost 30 years? Those are the very people that God always calls when He wants to do a thing where He gets the glory. This is who we’ve been. We’ve been the people who were 19 years portable. Did you know that about us? If you’re visiting for the first time. We were portable so long. We were on the move so long that we bought an old movie theater. It just seemed appropriate. God has brought us so far.

I can remember when we were first starting out in 1992. I thought God was just waiting for me to answer the call. I was an executive with a big corporation. I made a lot of money. I had a house at the lake up in Virginia. I had a house here. I am 30 years old and I’m on top of the world, but I was miserable with God. I was miserable in my spirit. And so I thought, Well, I’ll quit my job and I’ll go to seminary and plant a church and God’s just gonna be so happy with me. He’s just gonna blow me away, you know, because He’ll be so glad He has me. What happened was the wilderness: fourteen months without income. We burned through all of our savings. We went through everything. We almost lost our house. I remember driving to the seminary in my 1981 Subaru. When I pulled out of the driveway, my gas gauge was empty. I was crazy enough to try to get over there on empty. I would drive over there on empty and drive back on empty. I never ran out of gas, not one time in the 3.5 years I was going to seminary. Sometimes, I would get over there and somebody, (maybe a student, maybe a professor, because I was praying with different people over there and they knew about my need) had put an envelope under the windshield wiper. There would be a $10 bill or a $20 bill in the envelope. I could get gas in my Subaru. One time, I went to my locker where I kept my books at seminary and somebody had stuck an envelope in there. It was a Kroger gift certificate for $50. I came home whooping and hollering; I was so happy. I told Robin about it and the whole family, all five of us piled into that little Subaru and drove to the nearest Kroger, which was, at that time, in Greenville. We drove over there and went up and down the aisles. We were so happy to have a $50 gift certificate.

We started WCC with seven people in our living room. Look what God is doing! God is not finished; He loves taking people that would get low and lift them up. You have to get low. I don’t think He could have used me as a pastor the way that I was. He had to bring me low. I had to go through a wilderness and find out that when He was all I had then, He was enough.

Have you gotten there yet? Are you still running from God? When will you turn to Him? Let’s keep reading. We’ve got a few more verses and then we’ll unpack it. Chapter 23 is next; let’s take the first fourteen verses and talk about those.

1 Samuel 23:1-14 (ESV) 1 Now they told David, “Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah and are robbing the threshing floors.” 2 Therefore David inquired of the LORD, “Shall I go and attack these Philistines?” And the LORD said to David, “Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah.” 3 But David’s men said to him, “Behold, we are afraid here in Judah; how much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?” 4 Then David inquired of the LORD again. And the LORD answered him, “Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand.” 5 And David and his men went to Keilah and fought with thePhilistines Philistines and brought away their livestock and struck them with a great blow. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. 6 When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech had fled to David to Keilah, he had come down with an ephod in his hand. 7 Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keilah. And Saul said, “God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars.” 8 And Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men. 9 David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him. And he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.” 10 Then David said, “O LORD, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on my account. 11 Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD, the God of Israel, please tell your servant.” And the LORD said, “He will come down.” 12 Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And the LORD said, “They will surrender you.” 13 Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition. 14 And David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness, in the hill country of the wilderness of Ziph. and And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand.

We can learn to trust God in the wilderness by… 3. By looking to His protection.

We’ve said that He is present and He’s our provision. Finally, we can look to His protection. We can trust Him in the wilderness by looking to His protection.

Let’s look at the map again one more time. We’re tracking David. He left Gibeah to Nob. He tried Gath; He went a little crazy there. He’s been living in a cave in Adullam and he decided, I need to take my family across the Jordan over to the land of Moab. I’ve left my family there and I need to get back to Judah. He’s been hiding in the forest of Ziph, which is in the wilderness area here. It’s there that he hears that the Philistines have attacked the Jews in the Jewish City of Keilah. He goes in obedience to the Lord and he wins a great victory, a great blow. Hegets all the plunder and he needed it because he needed to feed those 400 men. Plus, he picks up 200 more here.

One of the things that we sometimes make a mistake doing is we read the Bible and we just skip over the names of the places. It’s very important, I think, to really think about how this looks in geography. In fact, you can go today to the Forest of Hebron. There are still woods in this forest; God is telling David to go back to Judah. Just think, he was hiding in the stronghold in Moab, which was a man made stronghold. Then, God says, No, I want you to come into my God made stronghold in the forest. It is superior. Here he is; he’s living in the forest and he’s going out toKeilah and fighting God’s battles. He wins a great blow and he gets enough plunder to feed that bunch of people he’s got with him.

Here’s the thing that I want you to notice in this chapter. He’s talking to God, in every other verse. Look what’s happening to David. He’s still in the wilderness, but God’s providing for him now. Now, he sees God as his protection. He’s talking to Him all of the time. Do you see what’s happening to David, how his faith is growing in the wilderness? He’s talking to God. David asks God, Should I go fight? God says, Go fight the Philistines. David is trying to protect the Israelites. He’s becoming the one who’s really the protector, the deliverer of Israel.

Then, we see this reference to an ephod. We heard about this earlier, but now in verse six, it’s talked about a little more because David has won the battle. He goes to Abiathar, the priest, and he says that he brought an ephod with him. Remember the last time we heard about that ephod? Goliath’s sword was behind it in the Tabernacle. He went to Abiathar in the Tabernacle, took the ephod and escaped with his life. The priestly garment of the high priest looks like this (picture on screen). On his breastplate was 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Just behind the breastplate, right here, right in front of his heart was a pouch that, according to the Bible, contained two items, the Urim and Thummim. Somehow, and it’s unclear exactly how God used this, this ephod was used as a way of communicating to His people. And so, not only does David have the high priest, but he has the high priest’s garments. He has his linen ephod with the breastplate.

Saul doesn’t have any of this. Saul doesn’t have the prophet Gad, he doesn’t have the priest Abiathar and he doesn’t have the ephod.

David says, Saul is coming after me. Will these people protect me or will they surrender me? They like David but he is afraid they will surrender him. So, David goes back to the forest for a season.

Maybe you’ve had this happen; you have been in the wilderness, and then, you think, Oh, this is a nice place. Maybe, God wants me to buy this house. Maybe He wants me here. Maybe He wants to be there. David thought this was going to be it because they had a fortress with gates and everything. But, God told him that they will give him up, so he’s back in the woods again. He’s back in the wilderness.

For many years, I became best friends with almost every realtor in Wilson County. I dreamed of buying everything. You could just about talk to me about any building or property in Wilson County and I had looked at it for the church. Every time, I would think, Oh, this is it, this is it. I remember, about 20 years ago, we thought we were going to buy the Fikewood Center across from 301. We spent a bunch of money; we were renting the place with a vision of buying it, but the whole thing fell apart. I was asking God, What are you doing? I thought that was our place. It wasn’t our place; He was saving this place for us. He had to close this place down so we could buy it .

It wasn’t David’s time to get his own city; he went back and lived in the woods. That was a hard pill to swallow.

We want it now. We want it now. We’re that “I want it now” generation, but God often says, I want you to wait. I’ve got something better.

What happens here with David is he gets something better. David wrote Psalm 18; the inscription read: “A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.” Psalm 18:2 (ESV) The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation , my stronghold.”

God is your stronghold. He’s your fortress. He’s your protector. That’s what he told David. David learned it in the wilderness. Saul presumed to know God’s will. Don’t miss this; three times in chapter 23, in these 14 verses, the Lord told him, I will give the Philistines into your hand. Then, Saul says that God will surely give them into his hand. He thought he knew God’s will. But the last sentence of verse 14 says that God did not give them into his hand.

You might presume to know what God’s will is, but you’ll never know until you ask Him and you’ll never really be able to hear the next thing He wants until you obey the last thing He told you.

God is keeping David. He’s protecting him. David learned to trust God more and more in every detail of his life, in the wilderness. That wilderness was like his boot camp. His “faith boot camp.”

That’s what it can be for you. You might be going through a hard time, but it might be that God is just trying to grow your faith. Stop trying to do it yourself, trying to get it now when it’s not time. I can tell you 100 stories about where I rushed it, but I’m so glad that God’s never left me. He stayed with me when I learned, and I’m still learning and I hope you are too. to trust him in the wilderness. It makes everything better. He’s our protector, our provider and He’s always present.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank You for Your word. Thank You that You take a bunch of misfits and You turn us into your mighty warriors of faith. But we have to go through the wilderness with you. We have to have our faith tested. I thank You, even for the wilderness, because it’s where I really learned and where we can all really learn who You are and how faithful You are. Lord, I pray for that person right now that’s been running from You. They’re here today; they’re present. Is that you, my friend? Have you been running from God and have you been trying to do life on your own? If you look up “crazy” in the dictionary, that’s you. You’ve been trying some crazy things. You probably shouldn’t even be alive. God’s kept you alive. Would you come to Him? You can pray right now, right in your seat. Pray like this, Dear Lord Jesus save me. I believe You died on the cross for me. I believe You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come into my life right now and save me, forgive me of my sins. I want You as my Savior and Lord. Make me a child of God . If you prayed that prayer, believing in your heart, He will save you. He’s ready and willing. Others are here this morning and you know Jesus, but you’ve been in the wilderness and you’ve started feeling like God is not present with you right now. You feel so alone. Would you look to Him right now? Say, God, I’m crying out to You right now. Make Your presence known to me. I trust You, even in the wilderness. Help me to learn what You want me to learn. Help me to learn to grow in my faith. Lord, I will not try to do it my way. I’ll patiently wait on You, Lord. We pray all these things now in Jesus’ name. Amen.