All right, 1 Samuel 21. Now, firstly, we saw David. He is a believer, a saint. He's a holy man, born of God,
redeemed by Christ, his surety. But David was in unbelief. He
feared Saul. David is God's anointed king,
been anointed already. He knows that. God's promised
him he's going to be the king, and he knows that. Yet he acts
like he doesn't even believe God. He's a prophet of God, and
I mentioned to you how He looked past that ephod right here, later
when he wore that ephod, that's what only the priest could do.
David's an eminent type of our Lord Jesus, who was prophet,
he's prophet, priest, and king of his people. And David, he
held the office of prophet and king, but he, when he took that
ephod, that was what a priest would do, and the Lord didn't
rebuke David for doing that. So he's an eminent type of Christ,
but he's a man. a sinner saved by grace. And he began to fear Saul, and
he was on the run from Saul. He came there to Nob, he came
to the priest, and he asked for the shewbread, and he provided
the shewbread for his men. And then he asked about a weapon,
and Elimelech said, there's that sword of Goliath, the Philistine,
whom you slew. David believed God when he slew
Goliath. He trusted God. All he had was
that sling and a stone. David didn't have those extra
stones because he needed extra stones. He had those extra stones
for anybody else that came after. Any brothers or anybody else,
he was going to use them. He just needed one stone. He
believed God. But now he's in a totally different
state. He's in unbelief. And he just
doesn't even think about believing God. He wants that earthly sword
of Goliath's. Looks past the ephod, access
to God. Not looking to God, he looks
past that, he grabs this earthly sword. And then it says in verse
10, and David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul and
went to Achish the king of Gath. Now, we're going to see here
in a moment where David plays the madman. But really and truly,
in that, when we get to that, we're going to see David was
in his right mind. Right here, David is the madman. He is insane for what he's about
to do. He's fearing man. He feared Saul. And the scripture
says, the fear of man bringeth a snare. But whoso putteth his
trust in the Lord shall be safe. And we see what the fear of man
will cause a man to do right here. In his unbelief, David
does a very sinful, very foolish thing. He leaves the land of Israel.
And he goes into the land of the enemy. He goes to the land
of the Philistines. And he's fleeing into the very
land Goliath is from. the giant he slew, this is where
Goliath's from, and he's carrying Goliath's sword with him. That was unbelief, that was insanity,
that was the madman David right here. Now these falls of David
and these other saints we see in the scripture, they're not
to give you and me an excuse for our sins, not in any shape
or form, but they are to remind us that though we be saints,
holy, called of God, we're yet sinners. And these
falls show us what we will do if left to ourselves. These falls
show us we need the Lord to keep us, but they also show us God's
faithfulness and God's ability to preserve them that are His,
And also in these accounts we find pictures of Christ himself,
the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus never feared a
man. He never feared a man. He feared
and reverenced God his Father alone. But our Lord Jesus humbled
himself and he came in humility In humility, he came as the God-man
into this enemy land, into this world, just like David's going
into an enemy land. Our Lord Jesus came into this
enemy land. In humility, great humility,
trusting the Father, trusting the Father. Now verse 11 says,
And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the
king of the land? Did they not sing one to another
hymn and dances, saying Saul is slain as thousands and David
as ten thousands? The servants of Achish recognized
David. Maybe they brought David into
the king's court, I don't know, but the servants of Achish, the
king, they recognized David. They knew David was God's anointed
king of Israel. They knew it. They said, is not
this David the king of the land? Saul's wearing the crown, but
they knew who the king was. David. This song they mention
is what they sang when David slew Goliath. They were dancing
and singing and they said, Saul slew his thousands, David his
ten thousands. They knew that song. And they
were repeating both of these things right here in David's
ears. And so Achish had David arrested. And I'll tell you how we know
that. Psalm 51-1 is titled this. It's a golden Psalm of David
when the Philistines took him in Goth. Right here. They took
him. They arrested him. Now, let's
begin looking at what we can learn from this. First of all,
when God's saints are walking in our flesh in unbelief, the
Lord will renew our heart. That's so of God's people. When
we're walking in our flesh, when we're in unbelief, when we're
sinning and not believing God, he will renew his child in the
heart. The Lord used those words that the enemy spoke to renew
David's heart. A change takes place right here
in David. Verse 12, and David laid up these
words in his heart. He heard them say, this is the
king of the land. This is the one they sang songs
about. He heard that, and he laid these
words up in his heart and was sore afraid of, the word should
be before, not of, and I'll show you why. He was afraid before
Achish the king of Gath. The Lord made David's enemy speak
the truth of what God had made David. And they speak the truth
that God had made David the king. God blessed those words to David's
heart as they spoke those words. David laid up these words in
his heart. A change took place in David's
heart right then. The word afraid right there,
that means to reverence. It means to stand in awe. David
stood in awe, he stood in fear, he stood in reverence before
Achish. But it was not in fear of Achish. He had been in fear of a man,
that's why he ended up in this bad place. But right then, he
wasn't fearing Achish. He began to fear God. God renewed
his heart and he feared God. The Lord renewed him in reverence
for the Lord. David stopped fearing man and
he's fearing God again. And we know that because David
wrote some psalms from this very experience right here. Now in
Psalm 56, that's one of the psalms he wrote, and David wrote this. This is the golden Psalm of David,
that's what mictum means, the golden Psalm of David when the
Philistines took him in gulf. This is the moment in our text
while David's captured. And David begins to cry in his
heart, right here. This is what he began to cry
in his heart. That's what it said. This is when they took
him in goth. They got him right there and they said these things
about him. And this is what happened in David's heart right here.
He began to cry, be merciful unto me, oh God. For man would swallow me up.
He fighting daily oppresseth me. David knew his sin, he knew
his unbelief, he knew all that fearing of man was nothing but
basically just idolatry is all it was. And so he asked God,
be merciful to me. Be merciful to me. Mine enemies
would daily swallow me up, for they be many that fight against
me, O thou most high. Now watch this. What time I am
afraid, I will trust in thee. In God, I will praise his word. In God, I have put my trust.
I will not fear what flesh can do unto me." When David was trusting
himself, he was running from Saul. That's how he ended up
in this mess he ended up in. But God used his enemies, and
when he heard them speak of what God had made him, now he remembers. Now he remembers. Look down at
verse 8. He says, Lord, you tell my wanderings. You know, you
number my wanderings. You've numbered my steps. Put
thou my tears into thy bottle. Are they not in thy book? When
I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back. This I know,
for God is for me. That's not what David was saying
a while ago when he was going to Elimelech and asked for that
bread and he was on the run. This is a different David right
here. He said in verse 11, ìIn God have I put
my trust. I will not be afraid what man
can do unto me. Thy vows are upon me, O God.
I will render praises unto Thee, for Thou hast delivered my soul
from death. Wilt not Thou deliver my feet
from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the
living?î You see, the Lordís covenant vows. The Lord Jesus'
covenant vows to God His Father were upon David, just like they're
upon all God's elect. And the Lord Jesus delivered
the soul of His people from condemnation by laying down His life for His
people. And because He did that, He will
deliver our feet when we fall. That's what David said, you delivered
my soul from death, will you thou not deliver my feet from
falling that I may walk before God in the light of the living?
Oh, that's good news, brethren. If you ever find yourself where
David was, that's good news. Christ will deliver the feet
of his saints from falling because God's satisfied justice demands
it. He delivered our soul. He'll
deliver our feet from falling. So God's going to renew his child.
Now, if you don't need that, if you can do it all on your
own, that's not going to be good news to you. But if you're ever
a child of God and He puts you where He put David, you're going
to find out you cannot do that yourself. God can. And God did for David. Now here's
the second thing. What David does next was absolutely
humiliating. It was absolutely humiliating.
And it's a picture of being humbled by the grace of God to submit
to Christ. Watch this now, verse 13. And
he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad
in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and
let his spittle fall down upon his beard. David humiliated himself
before the Philistines by acting like a madman. When you, him
letting this spit fall down on his beard, this was especially
convincing to Akish and his people because in that culture, that's
only something a madman would do. This is what one of the commentaries
says, an indignity to the beard was considered an intolerable
insult and would not have been permitted by a normal person. Now, remember, Psalm 56 happened
before David has escaped. He hasn't been let, he's still
right there when he wrote Psalm 56. Now whether he, you know,
he probably wrote it later in hindsight, but it's about when
he was right there before Achish. David prayed to the Lord. We
just read it in Psalm 56, because the Lord had renewed him. And
the Lord guided David into the path of escape. That path, what it's picturing
here, is humility. It's humility. When God renews
the heart, he's going to break our heart. David's heart wasn't
broken before. David's running. He's trying
to save himself. He's trying to use a sword of
the flesh. He is not broken. But now, David's broken. His heart broke. That's the picture
of this humiliating thing David did right here. His heart's humbled
to trust God alone, to trust Christ alone to deliver him out
of this. He's humbled into submission
to Christ, trusting none but the Lord, not fearing man anymore,
fearing God to save him. Psalm 34 is another psalm David
wrote about this exact behavior. Look over at Psalm 34. It says, the title says, this
is the psalm of David when he changed his behavior before Abimelech
who drove him away and he departed. I thought Achish was the man
in our text. Abimelech is a title just like
Pharaoh's a title. It's a title for Achish. Now
look at what David says, I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall
make her boast in the Lord. The humble, that's the key to
this whole passage. David's been, he's humiliated
by this, what he's doing. But it's a picture of a broken
heart humbled. The humble shall hear and be
glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me
and let us exalt his name together. David was exalting himself and
magnifying himself, but trying to save himself from Saul. Now
he's humbled and he's magnifying the Lord because he's trusting
the Lord to save him. Are you with me? You see what
I'm showing you? Now read on. I sought the Lord
and he heard me. and delivered me from all my
fears." That's what that change of heart, that change of behavior,
that's what it's all picturing. He called on the Lord and the
Lord delivered him from all his fears right then. They looked
unto him, to Christ our light, and were lightened, and their
faces were not ashamed. That's what happened to David.
He's turned to Christ here. Look, this poor man cried, and
the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
Now here's the lesson. Verse 7, The angel of the Lord
encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in him. Oh, fear the Lord, ye his saints,
for there's no wont to them that fear him. Look down at verse
17. The righteous cry, and the Lord
heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. Here
it is. The Lord's nigh unto them that
are of a broken heart, and save of the such that be of a contrite
spirit. That's what we're seeing in David
being humiliated. A broken and a contrite heart. A broken and a contrite heart.
That's humiliation. And that's what happens when
God humbles the heart. Now you notice there, he said,
the Lord, the righteous cry and the Lord hears them. David didn't
appear righteous, did he? David was sinning. He's in a
foreign land, in an enemy land, running for his life. He's still
righteous though, because his righteousness is Christ. And
the Lord heard him. The steps of a good man are ordered
by the Lord. He delighteth in his way. Though
he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down. For the Lord upholdeth
him with his hand. That's what the Lord was doing.
He was guiding David's steps in giving him this wisdom to
play the madman. And he's doing it in fear of
the Lord. David purposely is pretending to be the madman.
David is purposely humiliating himself. And it's a picture of
being humbled under God's hand, believing and trusting Christ
to save and not our own hand. Now, thirdly, let's see this. When humbling ourselves under
God's mighty hand and casting all our care on Christ, always
appears like insanity to unbelievers. They think that's insanity. Now
what David was doing before when he took Goliath's sword and he's
running and he's trying to be smart and fleshly wise and he's
trying to save himself, the world looks at that and says, now that's
ingenious right there. And they would look at what David's
doing here when he's humiliated and say, that's insanity. And
it's not how you think it is. Spiritual discernment. What David
was doing before was insanity, trying to save himself. What
he's doing right now is trusting the Lord. And this is what the
world looks on and says, that's madness. That's utter madness.
Look here, verse 14. Then said Achish unto his servants,
Lo, you see the man is mad. Wherefore then have you brought
him to me? Have I need of madmen that you have brought this to
play the madman in my presence? Shall this come into my house? Agage was too, he was too dignified. He was too important to let this
madman come into his house. And we were too to let Christ
come into our house. It's exactly right. You behold
the Lord Jesus right here. Our Lord never pretended to be
insane. But his humility in serving his
people as a man brought about the exact same reaction from
this world and it brought it about for me and you too until
he gave us eyes to see. He was obedient to the death
of the cross. That was his humiliation which
was the equivalent of David here being humiliated like a madman.
Our Lord humbled himself. The Son of God came down and
took our flesh. That's humiliating for God. Worse
than David acting like a madman. He did it without sin, but he
became a servant to serve God for his people. And he served
God in perfect obedience and perfect submission to his Father. And it made his enemies say of
him, This is what his enemy said of him. They said just what Achish
servant said of David. Men looked at our Lord Jesus
Christ when he walked this earth and they said, Is this the king
of the land? Is this the king of the land?
Pilate entered the judgment hall and he called the Lord Jesus
and he said to him, Are thou the king of the Jews? He didn't
look like what they thought a king ought to look like. He was humiliating to look at. And what they thought a king
ought to be mighty and have his checks poked out and everybody
looking at him about how important he is. And Christ didn't come
that way. And they said, are you the king?
They said of David, he's a madman. You know what they said of the
Lord Jesus? Many of them said of Christ,
He hath a devil and is mad. Don't hear Him. They said the
same thing of our Lord. Do you see a picture of Christ
in David? Why? What's the likeness here? David's in humiliation. And Christ,
when He came in His humiliation, men said the same thing of the
Lord Jesus as they said of David. They said the same thing about
Paul. Bethesda said with a loud voice,
Paul, you're beside yourself. Much learning has made you mad. Achish didn't even call David
a man. He looks at this madness, this
mad one before him, and he said in verse 15, Have you brought
this? The word fella is added. He said,
Have you brought this? Shall this come into my house?" That's what the ruler said of
the Lord Jesus. In John 9, 29, they said, we know that God spake
unto Moses, as for this, pointing to Christ, as for this, we know
not from whence he is. the Pharisees heard and they
said, this does not cast out devils by Beelzebub, but by Beelzebub
the prince of devils. This, that's what they call Christ,
this. Then he called him a man. Now why did they say this about
David? Because he was in a humiliating
place. And they looked upon him as just
being beneath them. They said it of Christ because
our Lord Jesus humbled himself and became a man and served God
in perfect humility, even unto the death of the cross. And the
cross is still so humiliating to natural man that he looks
upon Christ crucified and says, I despise and reject that message. I don't want a bloody salvation. visage more than any other man. That was perfect humility, trust
in God, and that's the only way we're saved, by what Christ did. For that reason, what we're seeing pictured here,
and what they do to David, is what they did to the Lord Jesus.
It's what we did to Him too, till they gave us hearts to see
and believe. till he made us broken in heart. They cast out David, and they
cast out the Lord Jesus. Psalm 34 says, Achish drove David
away, and it says in David departed. Now brethren, that's a whole
lot different than David's relationship to Saul. David fled from Saul
in unbelief because he was terrified of Saul. He thought Saul was
going to kill him because he was a feared man. But before
Achish, he feared God. God works a change in David's
heart and he feared God. And by humbling himself, that's
the picture here, humbling himself and being humiliated in trusting
God alone. Akish cast David out of his presence. He said, I don't have anything
to do with such a lowly, despicable man. Believer, that's what the
world thinks of you for trusting Christ. They look at you in that
same way and think, wow, what a humiliating human being. to
believe God, to trust that that one who walked this earth is
actually God in human flesh and actually redeemed his people
and made them right. How humiliating! I'd never be caught dead trusting
him. That's the only way you'll trust him. He makes you see you
are dead. So he cast Achish out and David,
he didn't depart in fear. He wasn't running in fear. David
departed in faith, trusting God. He wasn't running. He wasn't
running. Our Lord Jesus, because He humbled
Himself so, because He was so humiliated before men and they
despised Him as being so lowly and not the mighty conquering
Savior they were looking for, they cast Him out. Men crucified
Him. crucified Him. And on the cross,
because the Lord put away all the sins of His people and made
us the righteousness of God in Him, by accomplishing our redemption,
brethren, our Lord Jesus became the captain of our salvation. What you see in David right here,
this humiliating act by which God restored him and brought
him back into faith to trust God. Just look at that as a picture
of the cross and the humiliation. The comparison is the humiliation
that David suffered playing the madman and the humiliation Christ
endured on the cross being made sin and being made a curse under
the wrath of God. That's the semblance of it. But by suffering that, Christ
became the captain of our salvation. because Christ is the captain
of our salvation. We come to him and we find our
refuge in him. That's the picture here in David.
Verse 1, David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave
of Dullam. And when his brethren in all
his father's house heard, they went down thither to him, and
everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt,
and everyone that was discontented, and gathered themselves unto
him. And he became a captain over them, and there were with
him about 400 men. Our Lord Jesus Christ humbled himself on that
cross and bore all the sin of his people to the point that
he died in place of his people, and he went down to the grave.
Just like David went to this cave, our Lord went to the grave,
but he didn't stay in that grave. He came out of that grave triumphant,
and he arose to the right hand of the Father. And just like
right here, his brethren That's who Christ is saving, his brethren.
That's who he died for, his brethren, God's elect. And they're going
to hear, just like all David's brethren heard what had happened
to David. And you know what they did? They
went up to mighty David. No, they didn't. They went down
to David. You want to get to Christ? You're
not going up to get to him. You're going to have to go down
to get to Christ. That's the whole point of this
whole passage. David was in his pride, and his sin, and his rebellion,
trying to save himself from Saul, and all it was was a fear of
man, and God brought him down into humiliation. And when he
did that, he delivered him out. And that's what Christ did for
his people. And when you hear the message of the gospel, God
breaks your heart and he brings you down, down, down to Christ
Jesus. What'd he say? It says here,
everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt,
and everyone that was discontented, gathered to Him. We're gathering
to Christ. And you know what Christ said?
He said, come unto me, all you that are weighted down, burdened,
and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest, because I'm meek and
what? Lowly, lowly in heart. You're going to have to come
down just like they did. What does that mean? What do
you mean come down? I mean, we're so proud by nature. I mean, we
built this. We built the house. We built
everything. We built it all ourselves. No, we didn't. We haven't built
a thing. We're going to have to come down
to Christ's feet and be saved by another entirely. We can't
look to these hands. These hands got us in the mess
we're in. We've got to look to Christ to save us and Christ
alone. That's humiliating to our proud flesh. But I'm telling
you that's the only time. What the world looks at is being
a madman. That's when you're in your right
mind. And what the world looks at is being mighty and strong
and being a king trying to save yourself and using Goliath's
mighty sword. That's utter insanity. That's
playing the madman. Christ is captain over his people.
Hebrews 2.10 says, it became him for whom are all things and
by whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. David became
a captain over all the remnant that went to him. and Christ
is the captain of his people. The Son of God humbled himself
and became a man and he served God. He was obedient in a room
instead of his people until that ignominious death of the cross,
humiliated on that cross, and he, let me tell you something,
he did that for his people while we were yet sinners. You know what he did right here
in saving David after he'd called David. He'd given David a fear
of God in his heart. But David wasn't fearing God
when he was running. He wasn't fearing God when he
was sinning. But you know what? Christ saved him again while
he was yet a sinner. That's what he's going to do
for you from the beginning to the end. What he did at the cross,
he's going to keep doing. He's going to save you while
you're yet a sinner. And he's going to humiliate you.
He's going to make you know you've got nothing to be proud about.
It's all of him. It's all of him. Here's the lesson. This is what David learned back
there in Psalm 34 and verse 17. This is what he wrote these Psalms
from what God taught him. And we don't have to go to commentary.
We just use David's commentary God gave, giving David these
words. Psalm 34, 17. The righteous cry. Boy, David
didn't look righteous, did he? He didn't look righteous, did
he? He looked like a sinner, running from God, trying to have
his own way. No, he was righteous. He was
righteous. The righteous cry, and the Lord
heareth and delivereth them out of all the troubles. The Lord's
nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. and save us such as be
of a contrite spirit." You know who that chiefly speaking about?
The Lord Jesus Christ. He had the most broken, contrite
heart of any man that ever walked this earth. And the Lord was
near Him all the time. He's going to keep wanting us,
for He is. Many are the afflictions of the
righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth
all his bones. Here are his bones. Not one of
them is broken. They won't be broken. Alright,
go over to 1 Peter 5. I know I've read this many times
lately. I'm going to keep doing it. Christ saves the humble. That's
what I titled this message. See, here's the problem with
you and me. Left to ourselves, we won't humble ourselves. He
gives grace to the humble, and most people who read that, they'll
say, well, if you just humble yourself way down, God will give
you grace. No, He gives you grace to humble you, and then He gives
grace to the humble. It's grace at the front, and
it's grace in the middle, and it's grace at the end. And it takes God to break our
hearts by grace, just like He did David, so that we humble
ourselves under God's mighty hand, casting all our care on
Christ, and He gives you more grace. Verse 5, He said, Be clothed
with humility. All of you be subject one to
another. Submit to one another. Be clothed
with humility. For God resisted the proud and
giveth grace to the humble. Did God resist David when he
was in his pride? Yes, he did. And he's always
gonna do that for you and me who are his. He won't resist
the proud who are not his until that day they come into judgment,
unless it's serving his people, he will, but he'll just let the
proud go on in their pride. But his people, he's gonna resist
you when you're proud, just like he did David. And he's gonna
give grace to the humble, he's gonna bring you down, he's gonna
give you grace to humble you, like he did David. So he says
to you, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God.
It's his hand, it's his hand. That's what David found out when
he was standing there and he heard them say that word and
God blessed it to his heart. David, you're the king. You're
God's anointing. And he heard that word and God
blessed it to his heart. That's when David humbled himself
under God's mighty hand. and did what this world looks
at and says, that's insanity, that's madness what he did. No,
that was a picture of humility, bowing to God. Trusting that God might exalt
you in due time, casting all your care on him for he cares
for you. I pray God will work that. He
has to work that, just like he did in David, and he will in
his people. Amen.