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Ziklag: When Smart People Make Foolish Decisions Chapter 17 I Sam Return To Lowell F. Johnson Master Menu Return To Lowell F. Johnson Sermons on David Menu Ziklag: When Smart People Make Foolish Decisions chapter 17 I Sam. 27:1-28:2; 29:1-30:30 One, of the reasons I know that the Bible is the Word of God, is because God shows us the Heroes of the Bible, warts and all. If the Bible were simply a human book, we would never see God's Heroes as weak or as failures or as making mistakes. -David is a man after God's own heart and, yet, in I Sam. 27-30, the Bible pictures David as a Doubter, a Deserter, a Butcher, a Liar, a Traitor, a Weeper and a Pray-er. -Here David leaves the will of God and he takes his 600 men and their families to live with God's enemies, the Philistines. And he stays there a year and four months, 16 months, until he goes to Judah to be crowned King. Several things I want to share with you: I. David's Disposition – 27:1-4 I want you to place yourself in David's sandals for just a moment. -You are told as a teenager that you were going to be the next king of Israel. Samuel, the old man of God, came and anointed you for that office. -The next thing you know, you are in the royal palace playing and singing for the King. -Then, like a whirlwind, one activity after another took place in your life that brought you to national prominence. You kill Goliath with a single stone thrown from your sling. You are promoted in the army and made the captain over a thousand men. You marry the King's daughter and are best friends with the King's son. Every event in your life seems to bring you ever closer to the day you will be crowned King. Then things begin to happen. Your life goes into a tailspin. You fall out of favor with the king and he even tries to kill you. You can no longer fellowship with the King's son, your best friend. You are demoted and loose your position in the army. Your wife is taken from you by the King and given to another man. You become a fugitive, running for your very life, from an insane King who is determined to take your life. -Yet, as you are on the run, for some 8 to 10 years, you try to do what is right, to stay close to the Lord and in His will. You still believe God's promise that one day you will be King. Then, one day, something changes. You awake as usual, but somehow the world seems different. You have feelings of defeat, discouragement, and depression. Things look hopeless. You begin to ask yourself, “What's the use? It's not worth it. I'm tired of running, I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of feeling like an enemy in my own country. I've had it! Enough is enough!” -David even feels that God has forsaken him and he expresses those feelings in some of the Psalms. His own countrymen have betrayed him as they tell Saul where he's hiding. -Ps. 10:1; 13:1; 22:1 While David is in that condition, he makes a foolish decision that will produce some very serious consequences in his life. He decides to give up on God's plan for his life and start living for himself as he wanted to live. When I think of this stage of David's life, I think of many believers I have met over the years. -Folks who have been saved by the grace of God and who began their walk with God very well, but, somewhere along the way, things didn't go as they envisioned and they became defeated, disillusioned, and discouraged. In their weakened spiritual condition, they made a terrible decision that had terrible consequences in their lives. -Instead of staying close to the Lord and following the Lord's will for their lives, they chose to walk away 61 from God and live lives of carnality and compromise. They made a tragic decision and paid a high price. -When we are away from God, our enemy appears bigger, we appear weaker, and our God appears smaller. II. David's Decision – 27:1 David is down in the dumps. Life for him is in the pits. He is in panic mode. -Why is he there? Because of his prayerlessness and his problems. Someone said that man is the only being that runs faster when he has lost his way. David's first mistake: He “Said in his heart”. He listens only to himself and to the sad song of self-pity. -Prov. 3:5-6 David chooses to focus on what MIGHT happen. “Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul”. How many times has God delivered David! How insulting that must have been to the Lord! “There is nothing better for me than going to the land of the Philistines.” -David has exchanged God for Gath! Did you notice which weapon Satan used against David? FEAR! -Courage was one of David's strong points and that's where the Devil got him. The reason : He lost confidence in God. III. David's Defection Philistia was made up of a federation of five city -states. King Achish was lord over Gath. -David asked Achish to give him a city for his own that he and his 600 men and their families may live and he gives him Ziklag. -When Joshua was dividing up the Promise Land, he gave Ziklag to Judah and they did not destroy the inhabitant so he later gave the land to the tribe of Simeon. They did not destroy the inhabitants either. Later the Philistines captured the land and left it deserted. We might think of it today as an old ghost town. But, I want you to see the defection of David. David is forced into a position of compromise. And he is not alone. How he has his 600 men and their families; some would say 2,000 to 3,000 people. -David is forced to compromise with the enemies of Israel and he knew it and he did it anyway. God had warned His people over and over not to mix with the surrounding nations. David literally aligned himself with the enemy. In 27:5 David calls himself the “servant” of Achish. We are told in I Chron. 29 that at this time many of Saul's soldiers defected to David in Ziklag. In 27:12, we are told that Achish is well pleased with David. David stayed there 16 months – 27:7 It is worth noting that David wrote no Psalms during this time. IV. David's Deception – 27:8-12 David played a little game. He told Achish, he was fighting Israel when he was really fighting the enemies of Israel but who was not connected to Philistines. But David became a murderer during this time. He didn't want word to get back to Achish about what he was really doing, so he lies to the king. -David was accountable to the King. The King wanted to know what David had been doing and where he had been. David wants to give the impression that he has attacked his own people and was loyal to the king. -David massacred men, women, and children so Achish would not detect his lie. Many of these were innocent people. 62 V. David's Dilemma -28:1-2 What are you going to do now David? Are you going to fight against your own people? What if run up on Saul? You've done all you could not to kill him. If you don't kill him if you run up on him, the Philistines will know you are a traitor. And what if you come face to face with your best friend, Jonathan? Will you kill him? -David is in a mess. How can he ask his 600 men to fight against Israel? -David has host his identity. He united himself with the Philistine to go against his own people, Israel. -It looks like David is finally about to reap his compromising wickedness that he has sown. -David, what are you going to do? There's no way out! When you come to I Sam. 29, God is going to step up and step in and rescue David...AGAIN! -Note 29:1-8 Can you imagine the relief of David and his men! They have dodged the bullet. David acts like he is disappointed, but he's happier than he's been in a long time. VI. David's Devastation David and his men turn to go back to Ziklag. It is 75 miles back, but they make it back in three days – not a bad pace for 600 men – 25 miles a day. -But when they reach Ziklag they can't believe their eyes. Everything there has been burned. Nothing is left. Not only that, every person is gone – every wife, every child, including David's two wives. -30:1-6a How would you feel if you had been away on a business trip for a few days and returned to find your home a smoking ruin and your family gone without a trace? -Shock, anger, rage. These men cried until they could cry no more. Everything they had been fighting for was gone.
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