Our text tonight will be in 1
Samuel chapter 21, but I want you to first turn with me to
Matthew chapter 12, if you would please. Matthew chapter 12. Here in Matthew chapter 12, the
Lord gives His personal account and explanation of our text in
1 Samuel chapter 21. And the Lord uses these words to answer those who accused his
disciples of being lawbreakers by breaking the Sabbath. I titled
this message, The Lord, Our Sabbath. Matthew 12, verse one. At that
time, Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn. They're
out in the fields. And his disciples were hungered
and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. But when the
Pharisees saw it, they were always looking, they were always trying to find something, even
out in the cornfield, wheat field. And his disciples were hungry,
began to pluck the ears of the corn to eat. And when the Pharisees
saw it, they said unto him, the Lord Jesus, behold, thy disciples
do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. But
he said unto them, have you not read what David did? And he's
referring right here to our text tonight in 1 Samuel 21. Have you not read what David
did when he was a hungered? and they that were with him,
how he entered into the house of God and did eat the showbread,
which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which
were with him, but only for the priest. Or have you not read
in the law how that on the Sabbath days, the priest and the temple
profane the Sabbath and are blameless? But I say unto you, that in this
place is one greater than the temple. But if you had known
what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, you
would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man
is Lord even of the Sabbath day." Now turn with me to 1 Samuel
chapter 21. Verse one. Then came David to Nob, to Ahimelech
the priest, who was a high priest. Now remember, David is now on
the run from Saul. And Ahimelech was afraid at the
meeting of David. And said unto him, why art thou
alone and no man with thee? Now here we see that Himelech,
the high priest, was afraid, it says, at the meeting of David.
What was he, why was he afraid? What was he afraid of? Well,
perhaps he knew that Saul was after David. After all, David's
sudden presence was suspicious. He was by himself, shows up unannounced. Himalaya didn't want to be in
a political conflict, and that could have very well brought
that about, knowing the conflict between Saul and David, and I'm
sure he did. And he obviously, as a high priest,
knew Samuel the prophet, and that Samuel had anointed David
to be king, though he was not yet king. Saul still was. He
knew Saul's time was short as king. He was afraid of Saul who
was now an unstable king. Don't you know that that word
had passed through the land. And he was afraid of David as
future king, as God's king. And he questioned David as to
why he was alone and why he was out without his royal entourage. And it all seemed very suspicious. And he was afraid, he was fearful. And then verse two makes Himalek
even more skeptical. It says, and David said unto
Himalek, the priest, The king hath commanded me a business,
and hath said unto me, let no man know anything of the business
whereabout I send thee, and what I have commanded thee, and I
have appointed my servants to such and such a place. Now this
claim that David makes here is obviously not true. You know,
Saul hadn't sent him on a mission, he's fleeing from Saul. David
asked his presence to remain secret, made this all the more
suspect to eliminate. And this was a lot for the high
priest to take in. And it was a lie. And getting
in the middle of this could get him killed. And tragically, it
did in the end. We'll look at that in detail
next study, Lord willing. Now, under these circumstances,
I want to ask you a question. Was it okay for David to lie?
You know, we, we justify a lot of things. No, a lie is a lie. Matter of fact, God hates a lying
tongue. That's what Proverbs 6, 16 and
17 says. These six things that the Lord
hate, yea, seven, are an abomination unto him. A proud look and the
second thing mentioned is a lying tongue. It's high on the list of the
things that God hates. And it says that a lying tongue
is an abomination to God. That means, abomination means
detestable and morally disgusting to God. It's against everything
he stands for, against his holy character. It violates God's
truthfulness. Titus 1, 2 tells us that God
cannot lie. Lying reflects the nature of
Satan, who is called a liar and the father of lies. So scripture's
clear, God hates a lying tongue, and he hates the unrepentant
heart behind that lie. Most people that tell lies, myself included, and you know,
it becomes very easy for us, and very easy for us to justify
our lies at times, but no excuse for it. But I will say this about
David's lying, It's here that we see the one whom David represents
in an opposite way. You know, we can see pictures
of Christ as being the opposite of the Lord Jesus too, that being
the Lord Jesus who cannot lie. The King of heaven truly did
sin and command the Lord Jesus to take care of some business.
And in that, David's lie even pictures Christ. His first words
recorded, that being the Lord, was, I must be about my father's
business. You remember that? As a 12-year-old
in the temple. His parents found him after a
day and a half journey. And they said, why have you put
me and your father through this? He said, didn't you know? I must
be about my father's business. The Lord Jesus was always about
His Father's business. That's why He came. He finished
His Father's business. His last words, His first words
are, I must be about my Father's business. And His last words
were, it's finished. He's talking about His Father's
business. This speaks of the business of
saving His people from their sin. Thou shalt call His name
Jesus. Why? for he shall save his people
from their sin. Now in verse three, we see that
David here being on the run, he's hungry. And he says to Elimelech,
now therefore, what is under thine hand? Undoubtedly, Elimelech
has the showbread with him. He says, give me five loaves
of bread in my hand. or what there is present, or
what there's found. And the limeleck is in the process
of changing out the bread in the tabernacle, which was done
every Sabbath. So I assume from that that this
is a Sabbath. And the bread was changed out
and then eaten by the priest, but only in a holy place, for
they themselves were sanctified and purified. But I would have
you to notice here that David doesn't ask. He doesn't say,
hey, Limelech, could you spare some bread? He says, give me
five loaves of bread. And many would say, well, that
wasn't polite. And they're the same folks that
say that God isn't fair when He has mercy on whom He'll have
mercy. A king does not have to be polite
or fair. I wish folks would realize that.
God is not required to be polite or fair. He's merciful and gracious
and loving and all that because He wants to be. But He doesn't
have to be. It's not something we deserve. Well, Lord, that wasn't polite.
You ought to be more polite to me. Well, that's nuts. He'd be fair, as I say all the
time, if he sent us all to hell. David is the king. He's the king in God's eyes,
and Elimelech knows it. He's God's king. The king need
not ask. Jesus Christ is the king of kings. He does not make requests. He commands his subjects as to
what to do. And remember, this is who David
pictures in these verses. And then I got to thinking about
the significance of five loaves of bread. The Lord fed, as you
remember, the multitude with five loaves. Five is the number
of grace. There were five offerings in
Leviticus, burnt offering, grain offering, peace offering, sin
offering, guilt, trespass offering, the tabernacle's measurements.
If you remember our study in numbers, We're in multiples of
five, five pillars and five sockets and five curtains grouped together.
The tabernacle is a symbol of God dwelling with man by grace. There are five books of Moses,
they're called The law of Moses, the foundational law was given
by grace to instruct and guide God's chosen people. By grace,
by grace. The name Jesus in the Greek and
even in English is five letters. His grace is personified in him. Paul's teaching on grace is found
in Romans chapter five. The phrase much more referring
to God's grace appears five times in Romans chapter five, verses
15 through 20. And those verses emphasize the
overflowing grace that comes from Christ alone. Now, let me
say this. Numerology is not a doctrine
taught in the scriptures, but it can be very interpretive,
an interpretive lens, so to speak, to many truths. Numbers do carry
symbolic meaning in the Bible, but we don't build doctrine solely
on that. Now, verse four, and the priest
answered David and said, there's no common bread under mine hand,
but there's hallowed bread. And then he says, if the young
men have kept themselves at least from women, And David answered
the priest and said unto him of a truth, women have been kept
from us about these three days since I came out, and the vessels,
the garments of the young men are holy. They haven't been defiled
with any unclean activities, what he's talking about. They
haven't laid with a woman, and the bread is in a manner common,
yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel." Now,
there's a great deal for us to consider in these two verses,
so let's look at them. First, David's assurance here
of ceremonial cleanliness. David declares that the young
men with him are holy to obtain these provisions of bread. Though
his men are not with him, when he receives the shelled bread,
the Lord Himself, as we read in Matthew 12, verse 3, confirms
that they were with Him, just not there at the tabernacle,
when He says, David hungered, and they were with Him. This three days was likely a
requirement before receiving or eating holy things. you know,
have relationship with a woman according to Exodus 19 and Leviticus
15. But David here is justifying
why they can eat the showbread. Now, stay with me on this because
this is a beautiful revelation of the Lord Jesus. Now, here
in Numerology also comes into consideration with the significance
of three days. When I say three days, what do
you immediately think of? Well, throughout the scriptures,
three days often marks a time of transition, time of preparation,
a time of divine intervention, a period after which something
new or significant happened. Abraham traveled for three days
before offering up Isaac. Jonah was in the fish three days
before he was delivered. The Lord Jesus was in the tomb
three days before the resurrection. And in David's case, three days
marks the beginning of his exile and flight from Saul. And it's the start of a long
journey. And it's a long journey of suffering
before he rises to be king. It's a transition from his old
position as a warrior and as a court musician to being God's
anointed king and ruling and reigning in Jerusalem. And again,
in these things, we see David as a type of Christ. David is
on the run, he's rejected, he's suffering, yet he's the anointed
king. And as we've already mentioned
several times in the studies of 1 Samuel, what a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ that is. He comes to the house of God
hungry, seeking bread. I wrote down here in my notes,
have you and I, have we come into God's house tonight seeking
bread because we're hungry? I sure hope so. After three days
of purification, David partakes of the holy bread and our Lord
Jesus likewise, as I said, was rejected while all along he was
the anointed one. They hated him without a cause.
They sought to kill him from the day that he was born. After
three days in the grave, he rose again. So three days in our text
foreshadow the pattern of suffering and separation and then restoration. After three days in the tomb,
the believer, having been crucified with Christ, You know, the scripture
talks about us being crucified with Christ. Now, I know we weren't
hung on the cross, but because of our union with Him, we were.
We've been crucified with Christ, we were buried with Him, and
risen with Him in the resurrection, and we are made pure and holy. That's the hardest thing for
us to fathom about ourselves. But we really are in the sight
of God, holy, pure, undefiled, and without sin. So, we were
in the tomb with the Lord for three days. And when He resurrected,
we rose with Him. And when He ascended, we ascended
with Him. And He's at the right hand of
God making intercession for us. He sits at God's right hand on
our behalf and on our account. Isn't that something? It's amazing. And these are the things that
qualified David's men to partake of the holy bread, just as we
are qualified now by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ to partake
of Christ, who is the holy bread from heaven. That finished work
was to make His people holy and accepted in Him. That's what
Paul was saying in Ephesians 1-6, to the praise and the glory
of His grace, wherein, this is why, He hath made us accepted
in the Beloved. I'll never take lightly those
words, made us. He literally made us. He took
our sin upon Himself and He gave us His perfect righteousness.
He made us holy without blame before Him in love. Remember
what the Lord told Cain? The Lord told Cain, He said,
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? Friends, in
the Lord Jesus Christ, we're perfect and therefore accepted
in the One who made us so. Secondly, David notes the bread
is common in manner. The high priest said, no, this
is holy bread. Though it had been sanctified for holy use,
it's now being replaced with the new bread, which took place,
as I said, every Sabbath. And so the removed bread, though
previously holy, is now in a lack of a better way to say it, a
transitional state, common, which adds to why it can be given for
non-priestly use. So here we're taught something. God holiness is not to be treated
casually. May we never treat the holiness
of God casually. Today, in religion, you know,
people talk first and foremost about the love of God. The thing
we need to be talking about is the holiness of God. God's holy
we're not. A holy God can have nothing to
do with unholiness. That's the sinner's dilemma.
How can I, an unholy sinner, an ungodly sinner, be made holy
so that I might have fellowship with a holy God? You answer that,
you've preached the gospel. Only one way, in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Ahimelech, the high priest, is
being cautious here with the law and the commandments specifically
concerning the showbread. Yet at the same time, he shows
compassion by making an exception of hunger, since the men are
ceremonial clean. He brought that up, not David.
He said, now, if y'all haven't laid with a woman in three days,
I suppose I can give you the bread. And that's what the Lord
pointed out in Matthew chapter 12, when one of his elect is
in need. Now listen, mercy overrides ceremonial law. Mercy and compassion
are not opposed in the least to God's holiness or God's law. They often fulfill the holiness
of God's deeper purpose. If these young men were pure,
if they were clean, they, though hungry and needy, were showing
respect for God's law even in their desperation. And David
assures the priests that his men were clean. God's holiness
was respected by them. They hadn't defiled themselves.
Compassion, compassion does not negate the law. It reveals the
heart of God's law. And the teaching here is simply
Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath. It reveals the heart of God's
law. Mercy is greater than sacrifice. How many times did the Lord say
that? God provides for the needy through a greater high priest,
that being the Lord Jesus Christ. David and his men, they're desperate,
they're hungry, they're famished, they're starving. And the holy
bread typically reserved for priests becomes now their sustenance. Is that not true of Christ, the
bread of heaven? Is he not our sustenance? That's
why we come to hear the preaching of the gospel, to be fed, to
be nourished, to be given strength and life. And this points to
the gospel reality. The Lord Jesus is our true high
priest, gives sacred bread to sinners in need. Are you in need? He's the bread of life. John
6, 35. We receive life, we receive forgiveness,
fellowship with God. Not by the law, but by grace.
Who's grace for? The needy. Those that need it. Those that are well have no need
of a position. Who does? The sick, the lame,
the deaf, the blind. Christ is greater than the law.
Christ will have mercy, not sacrifice. He came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repent. Yes, David broke a rule. Yet
God didn't condemn him. Why? Because his need was more
important than ritual. More important than keeping a list of rules Christ didn't come
to uphold empty ceremonialism. That's how a lot of people preach
today. You know, oh, you've got to do
this, you've got to straighten up and fly right, you've got
to turn right and go straight, and you can't do this and you
can't do that. Christ came to fulfill the law.
He came to fulfill the law's intent, which was to bring life
and peace and rest. Now, I don't know about you,
but I need rest because I constantly find things to worry about. I
do. I'll wake up four o'clock in
the morning and think about something just stupid to worry about. Why? Why do we do that? It's
just part of our nature, isn't it? Ought not be. So, verse six. So the priest
gave him hallowed bread For there was no bread there but the shewbread
that was taken from before the Lord to put hot bread in the
day when it was taken away." The Himalaya allows David to
take the bread if his men kept themselves clean. And in the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're made clean and we're not
made clean by ritual purity. How are we made clean? by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way we can be
washed clean. The Lord Jesus said, now you
are clean, spiritually purified through the Word which I've spoken
unto you. And what was the Word the Lord
spoken of? That He shed His blood that we
might be cleansed. David is claiming cleanliness. In Christ we're declared clean
once for all. We're invited to partake in what
was once off limits to us. David is acting like a priest
king here, and he's not an official priest, yet he intercedes and
he receives holy bread for others. And this foreshadows our Lord
Jesus, the true priest king, who gave his body as the bread
of life for his people. The law gives way to mercy. Ritual gives way to relationship. Christ fulfills the law and shows
the law's deeper intention, which is mercy, life, eternal compassion. The law wasn't given, friends,
for us to keep in order to be saved. The law was given to show
us our inability to keep it in our need of Christ. May we never
forget that. Verse seven, now a certain man
of the servants of Saul was there that day. Notice these next words,
detained before the Lord. And his name was Doeg, an Edomite,
the cheapest of the herdmen that belonged to Saul. Now there's
some lessons to be learned from this man, Doeg, and as we'll
see in the next chapter, chapter 22, he betrays and brutally slaughters
God's priest, 82 or 83, I can't remember. He was an Edomite. An Edomite was a descendant of
Esau. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Historically, the Edomites were
hostile toward Israel. They were always causing them
problem. However, in verse seven, we see
first and foremost, God's sovereign hand in every detail of life.
I alluded to that before the message. I'm so glad that God
is involved in every detail of our life. whatever comes our
way. If I find out tomorrow I have
stage four cancer, I can be assured that it was the Lord's will and
that he's gonna somehow work it for my good. Doeg's presence
here that day was not an accident. Doeg's mention shows that God
knows everything that's going on. He knows everything's going
on. He knows who's present, what they see, He knows what they'll
do. Nothing escapes God's knowledge. We see that wicked men are often
among religious activity. That's something else we see
here. Doeg was said to be detained before the Lord. The Lord had
him here. The Lord had him here for a reason.
You say, well, how could that be? Because he's gonna wind up
slaughtering all these priests. Well, I can't explain it. It's hard for us to explain things
like that. But in the providence of God,
it was so. And besides that, these priests
of God, Where'd they go after they were slaughtered? So it
was in one sense a great mercy, wasn't it? And if the Lord takes
you or I tomorrow as a believer, it was a great mercy because
of where we'll be. He said, I've gone to prepare
a place for you that where I am, you shall be also. I wish that
we could truly see our death as a promotion and as a departure. Because that's exactly what it
is. Doeg was detained before the
Lord. He was no true worshiper. You
see, proximity to holy things doesn't make one holy. Doeg was physically in the house
of God. Yet spiritually, he was an instrument
of Satan. I immediately think of Judas.
I think he very well pictures Judas here. Doeg foreshadows
betrayal at the cost of righteousness. Now, what I mean by that? Well,
this first warns us of the terrible cost of David receiving help
here. David comes here to receive help, and because of it, in the
divine providence of God, he has Doeg there, And then Doeg
goes back and tells Saul, and Saul orders Doeg to kill all
the priests, and they literally destroy the town of Nod. And you think, what? And we think
to ourselves, that's just horrible. It was the will and purpose of
God, as all things are. A limilex, a himilex, excuse
me, act of kindness eventually leads to the slaughter of those
innocent priests. And we see there that righteousness
often comes at a price. It teaches us that evil watches
silently. As I said, the Pharisees, they
are always watching to accuse. And it teaches us that's what
evil does. It silently watches to afflict
and exploit the righteous. God sees things that we don't. Religious activity is not the
same as a righteous heart. Evil hides in the shadows, even
in God's churches. Why, Satan himself is able to
disguise himself as an angel of light. That interpreted means
messenger of the gospel. There are men standing in pulpits
today that are servants of Satan. Well, let's finish where we started. Turn back with me to Matthew
chapter 12 and I'll wrap this up. Matthew chapter 12. What is the teaching of both
of these stories? In Matthew chapter 12, Christ
and His disciples are walking through a grain field on the
Sabbath. And His hungry disciples begin
to pluck heads of grain and eat. And the Pharisees are watching
and they accuse them of breaking the law, the Sabbath. And the
Lord responds by pointing to Scripture, pointing to Scripture. He reminds them of our story
here in 1 Samuel chapter 21, the story of David eating the
consecrated bread. And the gospel that is seen here
is, first, Christ is greater than the law and the temple.
Verse six, he said, but I say unto you that in this place is
one greater than the temple. He was talking about himself.
Look at verse eight, for the Son of Man is Lord even of the
Sabbath day. Now the Lord Jesus wasn't just
a teacher of the law, though he was that, but he was and is
the fulfillment of the law. He's greater than the temple
where God's presence dwells. He is the child of God's true
Sabbath rest. He is God. Salvation is not found
in keeping rules or religious rituals. Salvation is found in
the person of Jesus Christ. And rest for the soul is found
in Christ alone. Look back a few verses to Matthew
chapter 11, verse 28. The last verse is in Matthew
11. In verse 28, the Lord Jesus says,
come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. What are
they heavy laden about? What are you heavy laden about?
Sin. He said, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I'm meek and lowly in heart. and you shall find
rest under your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden
is light. Next here we see that mercy is
better than sacrifice. Isn't that what the Lord says
in verse seven? But if you had known what this meaneth, I will
have mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned
the guiltless. And here's another thing, we'll
read right over if we're not careful. Christ calls his disciples
here guiltless. Well, weren't they men just like
we're men and women? Sinful men and women? Yes, they
were. But Christ calls them guiltless even though the Pharisees saw
them as lawbreakers. Why? Because Christ justifies
the ungodly. He declares sinners righteous. If He declares us righteous,
we're righteous. Because He died to give us His
perfect righteousness. Christ's righteousness is our
standing before God. When I stand before God, I stand
as holy and righteous as God, because I have Christ, who is
God, righteousness upon me. Now you chew on that, and you
keep chewing on it, because that's our only hope of standing before
our Christ, holy God. And because of that, we're guiltless,
perfect, holy. We live in a world obsessed with
performance. Even religion tries to earn God's
approval. What must I do to be saved? Haven't
we done this? Haven't we done that? Haven't
we done many wonderful work? It's not about what you've done.
It's not about your performance. They keep rules, they follow
rituals, they try to measure up. And the Lord confronts religious
legalism here, and He points to Himself as the only true source
of mercy and rest. What good news this is for weary sinners like
David and like David this day. and for you who know and trust
Him. Many today still endeavor to
worship God through rules and rituals and performance. That's
not the gospel, friend. That's religion. That's works
religion. And it won't get you anywhere.
Verse 8 is a declaration that Christ Jesus is Lord, for the
Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was created by God. Why? You remember? As a day of
rest. He created the heavens and the
earth in six days, and on the seventh day, He rested. Now,
was He tired? No, He's gone. But He rested. In Exodus, this became a law. But here Christ says that He's
Lord of the Sabbath. That means something. The Lord
is telling those looking to the law that the rest that they're
looking for is not found in a day. You know, we've got certain religions
today where you can't, you can't do certain things on Sunday because
it's breaking the Sabbath and no rest found in that. I would
constantly, if I believed that, I don't know what I'd do, because
everything I do is breaking God's law. Everything I do is sin. That rest that we all desire
is found in one place, in Christ. We don't rest in the law, we
rest in Christ's finished work. He frees us from trying to earn
God's love and favor. He's greater than the temple.
He's greater than David. He's greater than the showbread.
He's the holy bread from heaven in whom we partake and in whom
we rest. Are we still endeavoring to earn
God's favor? Religion just wears me out. It
wore me out when I was in it, and it still wears me out. I
always struggle with being good enough. I can never rest from
lack of measuring up. But the Lord Jesus, my Savior,
my Redeemer, becomes my rest by saying, come to me. Come to me and I'll give you
rest. Are you heavy laden with sin?
Come to Me. I will. I will give you rest. And this is the Lord's command.
Come to the Lord of the Sabbath for rest. Come to the Lord of
rest. Lay down your works. Lay down
your righteousness. Lay down your own goodness. You
don't have any. You know, compared to one another,
you know, we could maybe say, well, Everybody's pretty well
good compared to me. At least that's the way I see
it. But compared to God, there's none good. No, not one. Lay down
your works. Rest in the one who fulfilled
the law for you, the one that made you perfect and righteous
and holy. You know, the Lord Jesus is not
just a way to rest. He is our rest. He's not just a way for us to
rest. He is our rest. May God enable
us to rest in Him.