Now in chapter 21 we pick up the story of course where David is fleeing from Saul.
If you remember in chapter 20 he found out from Jonathan that Saul is just determined
to kill him even though he hasn't done anything wrong.
Saul's jealous of him and Saul's afraid that he's going to be the next king which of course
he is going to.
So he's on the run and he flees from his presence and he doesn't have any weapons with him or
anything as you saw in the story.
And he doesn't have any of his normal following with him because if you remember he was a
captain in Saul's army so he had a lot of soldiers under him.
But when he shows up in verse 1 of chapter 21 the Bible reads,
Then came David to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest.
And Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David and said unto him, Why art thou alone
and no man with thee?
Now think about this, if someone who is as famous as David, because David is well known
he's the top captain, the top general in the king's army, it would be kind of strange
if he just shows up by himself somewhere.
You know obviously somebody that important he's going to have all his troops with him
and everything like that.
He just shows up by himself as it were.
Now it does say that he has a few young men with him like a few servants or whatever that
are attending to him but he doesn't have his normal entourage with him.
And so Ahimelech asks him, Why are you here alone?
What are you doing?
And David basically lies, he makes up a story here that isn't true.
He says in verse 2, And David said unto him, Ahimelech the priest, The king hath commanded
me a business, and it said unto me, Let no man know any thing 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.
So that's of course totally not true.
He's trying to get away from the king because the king is trying to kill him, unjustly as
it were.
It says in verse 3, Now therefore, what is under thine hand?
Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or what there is present.
So he's saying, I'd really love to have five loaves of bread, otherwise just whatever you
got, just give it to me.
And the priest answered David, verse 4, and said, There is no common bread under my hand,
but there is hallowed bread, 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 of the young men are holy,
and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the
vessel.
So the priest gave him hallowed bread, for there was no bread there but the showbread
that was taken from before the Lord to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.
Now let me explain what's going on here.
He asked him for bread, he didn't have any food ready, there wasn't anything prepared
except for the showbread.
Now if you remember the showbread was something that they would bake in the Old Testament
and the book of Leviticus, it describes it, how they would lay out this bread and it was
hallowed bread and it was symbolic and we could go into that.
But turn if you would to Matthew chapter 12, because Jesus actually refers back to this
exact story in Matthew 12 and I want to show you what Jesus is using it to illustrate.
And while you're turning there I'll explain what's going on.
So this bread was not supposed to be eaten, this bread was supposed to just be set out
as a memorial before God, as just a symbolic ritual that they would put out the showbread
and it was holy, sanctified bread that they weren't really supposed to eat, it was just
supposed to be set out on a table.
And so David asks for it and he says well just give it to me anyway because we need
something to eat here, we're hungry and so if that's all you've got just give it to us.
Well look what it says in Matthew chapter 12 because Jesus uses this story when he's
talking to the Philistines, or I'm sorry the Philistines, wrong book of the Bible here.
Now it's the Pharisees but in chapter 12 verse 1 of Matthew it says at that time Jesus went
on the Sabbath day through the corn and his disciples weren't hungered and began to pluck
the ears of corn and to eat.
But when the Pharisees saw it they said unto him behold thy disciples do that which is
not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day.
So if you remember in the Old Testament they had the Sabbath where one in seven days they
were supposed to rest, they were supposed to work for six days and rest on the seventh
day.
Well they're on that day of rest, the Sabbath, and they're walking through the fields of
corn and they're hungry so they just start plucking the ears of corn and eating.
Now there's nothing in the Bible that said that that was wrong in the first place but
the Pharisees had made their own rules.
God said not to do any servile work on the Sabbath.
He didn't say you can't pluck a piece of corn and eat it.
I mean that's not exactly work, that's not exactly going to your job.
Now here's what's interesting about it.
You say well that's kind of weird that they're just walking through somebody's field eating
the corn.
Did that belong to them?
But see God had ordained in the Bible, and this ought to exist today, in the Bible God
had it set up to where if you were a farmer, if you had a field or if you had orchards
with fruit trees or you were growing crops that if anybody who walked by was hungry or
the poor people needed something to eat, you were allowed to just eat off of someone
else's field.
He said well wait a minute, how's their field?
Well the rules were, and God lays out the rules very clearly, that you know you weren't
allowed to put it in a vessel.
Like you can't bring a backpack and start filling it with stuff in somebody else's field.
You know you can't fill a wheelbarrow up with some of their crops.
But he said whatever you can carry in your hand, you were allowed to just take and eat
it.
And the reason why this is so good is because you know today we have all this programs where
the government takes all our money and redistributes it to people and you know they say that that's
how they're going to feed everybody is through food stamps and welfare and everything and
you know what are you just going to let these people starve?
But see back in those days and even just until recent times, 90% of the people who have lived
on this planet have been farmers historically.
And so there were all kinds of crops being grown, all kinds of people have gardens and
fruit trees.
And a fruit tree produces a ton of fruit and if somebody walks up and just picks whatever
they can hold in their hands, it's not going to destroy your crop, you know it's not going
to make or break you.
And that was a way that God had designed to feed the poor and to take care of people that
were down on their luck so that they wouldn't just starve or die, you know they could just
walk through the field and just glean whatever was left over from the harvesting or whatever
was still on the vine and they could just pick the fruit and eat it.
And so it's a great system, it's better than anything that we have of course and so that's
what they were doing.
I mean they're just walking around with Jesus, they're hungry, they just begin to pluck the
ears of corn and eat.
They just take it off the stock, peel it back, it wasn't GMO so they could actually eat it
you know so they peel it back and eat it.
And so the Pharisees rebuke them and say hey that's not lawful you know you're breaking
the law because you're doing that on the Sabbath day.
So here's what Jesus answers, he refers back to the story we just read in 1 Samuel.
But he said unto them have you not read, and by the way that's usually people's problem
when they are wrong about the Bible or wrong about doctrine, they don't read the Bible
they don't know what it says.
And so Jesus rebukes them for not having read the Bible, he says have you not read what
David did when he was in hunger and they that were with him, how he entered into the house
of God and did eat the showbread, that's the story we just read, which was not lawful
for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests, only the
priests were supposed to eat that bread.
Or have you not read in the law how that on the Sabbath days the priests in 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.
So what's going on here is that Jesus is saying look, back in that story, you know, if somebody
was hungry and they needed to eat, obviously it's okay to give them that bread in that
situation even if it was supposed to be for the priests to eat.
And then he also brings up the example, he says have you not read in the law how that
on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless?
You see the work that took place in the temple, okay, the work that the priests did in the
temple, they did that seven days a week, including the Sabbath.
They would offer the sacrifices seven days a week.
They would circumcise the child on the eighth day, no matter what day that fell on, even
if it fell upon the seventh day.
So he's explaining to them that their understanding of the Sabbath and their rules about the
Sabbath did not even line up with what the Bible was teaching here and that what they
were doing was completely okay to pluck the ears of corn to eat them.
Now look if you would at John chapter number, I'm sorry, go to Luke first, Luke chapter
6.
Luke chapter number 6, because this is a big theme that you'll find.
I want to just talk a little bit about the Sabbath just because it has to do with this
story where Jesus is tying it in with the story of 1 Samuel.
A lot of people misunderstand the Sabbath day and a big theme in Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John is Jesus constantly getting in disputes with the Pharisees and the Sadducees over
the Sabbath.
This is a thing that they're constantly trying to approach him with and he's constantly arguing
with them about it over and over again.
I'm just going to turn to a few places, but look at Luke 6.
We see pretty much the same thing, verse 1, and it came to pass on the second Sabbath
after the first that he went through the corn fields and his disciples plucked the ears
of corn and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.
And certain of the Pharisees said to them, why do you do that which is not lawful to
do on the Sabbath days?
And Jesus answering them said, have you not read so much as this?
Like you didn't even read the Bible that much, he's saying.
What David did when he was in hungered and they which were with him, how he went into
the house of God and did take and eat the showbread and gave also to them which were
that were with him, which it is not lawful to eat, but for the priests alone.
And he said to them, the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.
Look at verse 6.
And it came to pass also on another Sabbath that he entered into the synagogue and taught.
And there was a man whose right hand was withered and the scribes and Pharisees watched him
whether he would heal on the Sabbath day that they might find an accusation against him.
But he knew their thoughts and said to the man which had the withered hand, rise up and
stand forth in the midst.
And he rose and stood forth, then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing, is it
lawful on the Sabbath days to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?
And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, stretch forth thy hand.
And he did so.
And his hand was restored whole as the other.
And they were filled with madness and communed with one with another what they might do to
Jesus.
Go to what John chapter five, John chapter number five.
So they're just infuriated with this story is ridiculous.
Here's a guy whose hand is withered, he has a disease in his hand.
Jesus miraculously heals them just by speaking a word.
And then they're just mad.
He's breaking the law.
He broke the rules, you know, it just shows us some people can become so obsessed with
man made laws and man made rules that they don't even see the big picture of what's right
and wrong.
What is good and evil?
I mean, he's healing a guy who has a disease.
That's not what God intended when he told him not to work on the Sabbath day.
It has nothing to do with it.
But it goes even further than that.
Look at John five.
I want to show you one more thing about the Sabbath says in John five verse eight.
Jesus saith unto him, rise, take up thy bed and walk.
This is where Jesus heals a man who is crippled.
And in verse nine it says immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and
walked and on the same day was the Sabbath.
Look at verse 10.
The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, it is the Sabbath day, it is not lawful
for thee to carry thy bed.
You know, where are they coming up with these rules?
But it's the same today.
The religion of Judaism is not a biblical religion, obviously, it rejects the Lord Jesus
Christ.
But they have these encyclopedias of man made rules.
You know, if you look at God's rules, if you look at the Mosaic law, you know, it's just
this first part right here.
This is God's rules for them.
But instead, they've added encyclopedias of rules called the Talmud, which just goes into
great detail of just dictating every part of their life and what they can and can't
do.
More than what God had just said, some basic rules.
They just made it into this total just controlling system where, you know, they have these specific,
you can't pluck that corn on the, you can't carry that bed.
But that's not the Bible that said that.
That's what man had taught them.
And so they tell them, you know, you can't carry your bed.
And then they say, it says in verse 11, he answered them, he that made me whole, the
same said unto me, take up thy bed and walk.
So if you're crippled and you can't walk and somebody heals you and they tell you, pick
up your bed and walk, you know, you're not going to say like, well, no, I better not
do that.
You know, you're going to do it.
Obviously, whatever he tells you to do, you're going to do it.
And so they asked him, what man is that which said unto thee, take up thy bed and walk?
You know, because he's telling you to break the law.
He that was healed was not who it was.
He didn't know who it was and it says, he was not who, let me find my place here.
He was not who it was for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place.
Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple and said unto him, behold, thou art made whole,
sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee.
The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole.
And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him because he had done
these things on the Sabbath day.
But Jesus answered them, my father worketh hitherto and I work.
Verse 18, therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him because he had not only broken
the Sabbath, but said also that God was his father, making himself equal with God.
Then answered Jesus and said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, the son can do nothing
of himself, but what he seeth the father do for what things soever he doeth, these also
doeth the son likewise.
Now turn to Hebrews 4, this is the last place we're going to turn on the subject.
You see Jesus broke the Sabbath first of all.
Now Jesus' disciples were not breaking the Sabbath when they plucked that corn and ate.
That was no big deal.
When that guy was carrying the bed, he wasn't breaking the Sabbath.
But Jesus did break the Sabbath because the Bible even tells us, the narrator of the book
of John tells us that Jesus had broken the Sabbath.
They say, well wait a minute, I thought Jesus was without sin, you know, he wouldn't have
broken the Sabbath.
Well it was not a sin for Jesus to break the Sabbath and here's what.
Jesus explained to them in John chapter 5, he said, my father worketh hitherto and I
work also.
The things that I see him do, that's the same things that I do.
He said, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath.
They break the Sabbath and the temple every Saturday and are blameless and that's why
I can work on the Sabbath.
And they didn't understand that he said, in this place is one greater than the temple.
You see, what is the Sabbath all about?
Well in Hebrews chapter 4, he explains to us a little bit about what the Sabbath is
about.
Look at verse 4.
For he spake at a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, and God did rest the seventh
day from all his works.
And in this place again, if they shall enter into my rest, seeing therefore it remaineth
that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in
because of unbelief, again he limited the certain day saying in David, today after so
long a time as it is said, today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
Here's the key verse, verse 10.
For he that has entered into his rest, he also had ceased from his own works as God
did from his.
Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall after the same example
of unbelief.
So the seventh day was a picture in the Old Testament of salvation because the Bible says
that God worked for seven days and then he rested on the seventh day and he ordained
the seventh day as a day of rest for man.
Why?
Because the Bible says that for us to be saved, and he talks about believing on Christ there,
for us to believe on Jesus Christ, the Bible makes it clear.
We can't work our way into heaven.
We can't earn our way into heaven.
We have to totally rest upon what Jesus Christ has already done for us.
When he died on the cross, was buried and rose again.
We can't earn our way to heaven.
And so what the Bible is teaching here is that he that has entered into his rest, and
he's talking about salvation in the chapter.
He says he that has entered into his rest, he also had ceased from his own works as God
did from his.
To be saved, we have to rest on what he has already done and cease from our own works.
Not try to earn our own way to heaven, not try to work our way to heaven, but to accept
the free gift of eternal life because the Bible says for by grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man suppose.
See everything in the Old Testament, all these rules that they were given under the Mosaic
law were symbolic of pointing them to Jesus Christ.
Like for example when they do the sacrifice, they sacrifice the animal and the blood would
be springing on the altar.
That was a picture of Jesus Christ who was the lamb of God who was sacrificed for our
sins when they observed the Sabbath.
Because keep in mind, the Sabbath day was not something that they observed all the way
back from creation.
It dates back to creation because God created it in six days, rests on the seventh day.
But the Sabbath was not instituted as a commandment until Moses.
The same time that all the other carnal ordinances were imposed such as the animal sacrifices
that were specific to the tabernacle, the washings, the priesthood and so forth.
That was all instituted with Moses and the Sabbath was part of that, a picture pointing
towards salvation representing the fact that you can't do any works to be saved.
Now when Jesus died on the cross, he was crucified on what we would consider Wednesday
night at 6pm is when he died.
So he spent three days and three nights dead and then he rose again.
Now the days that he spent dead were basically Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
And then of course on the first day of the week he rose again.
Well if you read the Bible, Thursday when Jesus died on the cross, the Thursday that
he was dead after he died on the cross was the Passover, was the fourteenth day of the
month Abib.
That was a Sabbath the Bible called it because they were not supposed to do any work on the
Passover.
The second day that he was dead was Friday which was actually the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, the fifteenth day of the month.
They weren't supposed to do any work on that day.
And then Saturday was the normal Sabbath day.
So all three days that Jesus was dead, from the time he died on the cross to when he rose
again, when his soul was in hell and his body was in the grave, for those three days nobody
was supposed to do any work.
And it's symbolic of the fact that he was doing everything to save us.
We don't have to do our own work.
We don't get saved by going to church or getting baptized or helping people or doing good things
or repenting of our sins or turning over a new leaf and serving God and reading our
Bible every day can't earn us to heaven.
He did all the work.
They were supposed to just rest during that time.
Well he did all the work.
And God worked it out that way where Jesus died on a year where it just worked out that
the Passover was on a Thursday.
That way it would be Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
No works being done.
That's what the Sabbath represents.
Now Jesus Christ, of course he's doing the works.
He was God in the flesh.
And he said, look, I'm the Lord of the, of course I'm doing the works.
He didn't have to rest.
He didn't need to be saved.
He's the savior.
So he's the one who does the work for us to be saved.
That's why he was not in sin by not observing the Sabbath day.
He tried to explain that to them.
They didn't understand that.
Now his disciples and the others around him observed the Sabbath.
We don't observe the Sabbath today.
This is one of those things that God has specifically told us in Colossians chapter
two, for example, and in other places that, at Romans 14, that we don't have to observe
the Sabbath.
He said we can take a day off a week if we want, but he says we don't have to.
In the New Testament, if we want to work seven days a week, we can.
Now here's what's funny.
Some people are obsessed with this thing of the Sabbath.
Now there's a whole religion called the seventh day Adventists.
And I mean, they built their whole religion on this thing of the Sabbath.
And they say, you know, we, you must go to church on Saturday and you must rest on Saturday.
Now here's a couple of things about that that are so silly.
First of all, the word Saturday is never found in the Bible one time.
Okay.
You say, well, wait a minute, you know, Saturday is the seventh day, not Sunday.
Well, that's not what the Bible means even when it says the seventh day.
Because what day did Jesus Christ rise from the dead on?
The first day of the week.
But doesn't the Bible say over and over that Jesus rose again the third day?
So when the Bible says that Jesus rose again the third day, is it saying he rose on Tuesday?
No, it's saying he rose three days from when he died.
Okay.
So if you rest on the seventh day, it doesn't, it wouldn't necessarily have to be Saturday
because as long as you're working six days and then resting the seventh day, would it
really matter whether that's on the calendar as Saturday or Sunday?
For example, if you're in Europe, I spent several months in Germany.
My wife was born and raised in Germany.
Every calendar that I've ever seen in Europe and every calendar that she saw when she was
in Germany had the day start or the week started with Monday.
And went Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Because it's all just in your mind of what you consider to be the first day or the last
day.
If you really think we're on the same calendar that they were on back then, thousands and
thousands of years ago, then it's just Saturday, the same Saturday from when God created the
earth or whatever.
It's dumb, but they're just obsessed with that.
It's gotta be that right day of the week, you know, it makes no sense.
But so first of all, so what Sunday, Saturday, that's not what the commandments even say.
He says six days shalt thou labor.
And then on the seventh day, it's a Sabbath of rest unto you.
It doesn't matter what day of the week that would fall on.
It could be Saturday or Sunday, it's meaningless, number one.
But number two, God specifically told us in Colossians chapter two and in Romans fourteen
that that's not something that we even need to observe today.
He said one man esteemeth one mid-day above another, another esteemeth every day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded as no man and his almighty said, you know, don't let
anybody trouble you in respect of Sabbath days.
That was just a shadow of things to come.
That was just figurative.
That was a picture of Jesus Christ that's already been fulfilled when Jesus paid for
our sins over the course of three consecutive Sabbaths, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
And so go back to first Samuel twenty-one.
I just wanted to go into that and explain that to you because it's just interesting
that Jesus would refer back to this story and show us that, you know what, OK, it was
unlawful for him to eat that bread.
But if somebody's starving and they don't have any food to eat, OK, then, you know,
give them the food.
It'd be like, for example, you know, the offering plate, OK, like the offering plate, the money
that we give, you know, that's supposed to go toward the church and everything.
But if somebody's starving and we reach the offering plate and say, hey, let's buy this
person some food and the IRS or something, oh, you can't do that, you know, obviously,
you know, you just you're going to do it.
And Jesus said, I don't have time to turn to them all, but Jesus said, like, you know,
if your ox or your ass falls into a pit on the Sabbath day, you're going to pull it out.
You're not going to say, well, it's the Sabbath, so I'm just going to let it die.
It doesn't make any sense.
And, you know, just because this guy is sick or whatever, you know, well, we're not going
to give him any medicine because it's the Sabbath day.
These people have just lost all sight of what the purpose of the Sabbath even was, what
it was even instituted for.
They don't even understand the rule of why God's and then the Bible said elsewhere that
the Sabbath was not he said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
He's explaining, I was doing you a favor by instituting the Sabbath.
I mean, look, do you want to work seven days a week or you want to take a day off?
I mean, is it that hard to do?
And again, you know, a lot of us these days work seven days a week and I'm not against that at all.
You got to do what it takes to get by.
You know, if God commanded us not to do it, I wouldn't do it.
I'd work six days and rest on the seventh day.
Sometimes I wish he did command us that.
Sometimes I wish I believed that just to get a day off every week.
You know, it'd be nice to sit around for one day and take it easy.
He's saying, look, I did that for your benefit.
You don't even understand the rule and you're using it to oppress somebody and stop them from eating on the Sabbath.
It's OK to eat.
It's OK to carry your bed.
It's OK to you know where it's just it was ridiculous the way they come up with this stuff.
So it's the same thing we see going on in First Samuel 21.
You know, he gives him the bread.
It's no big deal.
Now, one thing I wanted to point out here that a himalak says at the end of verse four.
He says, if the young men have kept themselves, at least from women.
So he basically says like, OK, well, you know, this is hallowed, sanctified bread that's supposed to be only eaten by the priests.
OK, it's supposed to just be on display.
OK, really?
But then, you know, it could be eaten afterward.
And he said, you know, at least if they just kept themselves from eating.
Now, there's false teaching on this, most notably with the Roman Catholic Church, that basically teaches that there's something wrong with,
you know, basically having relations with your own wife.
Now, obviously, the Bible's clear.
You don't have to turn there, but I'm going to Leviticus 15.
But the Bible's clear that fornication is a sin.
You know, people that are not married, going to bed together is obviously a sin.
And that's an adultery is a sin, you know, and that's clear.
No question.
And God says that those are wicked sins and he condemns them in the harshest term.
But when it comes to being married, the Bible says marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled.
But, hormongous and adulterous God will judge.
So when you're married, there's nothing at all wrong or shameful.
And the Catholics will teach that it's something that, you know, it's just kind of a necessary evil for having children or something, which is a warped doctrine.
And that's why their priests have to remain celibate and single.
Even though the Bible says that a bishop must be married, he must be the husband and wife.
They say, well, he can't be married, which is the exact opposite of what the Bible says.
OK, so there's nothing wrong with being with a woman if she's your wife.
OK, but the reason that he's saying that is because of uncleanness.
Now, the Bible talked about a lot in Leviticus, you know, being clean versus unclean.
And the Bible explains in Leviticus chapter 15 that, you know, when a man lies with his wife, goes to bed with his wife,
then basically both of them were to, afterward, bathe themselves in water and to be unclean until even or to be considered unclean until even.
Not because there's anything wrong with what they did, but just as a sanitary practice of just after they're finished to basically bathe themselves with water.
And for the sake of time, I'm not going to read over, but it's in Leviticus 15, 16 through 18 that that's explained.
And so it says that they're just supposed to bathe themselves and be unclean until the evening.
That's it.
So it's not that they've committed sin.
There are a lot of things in the Old Testament that are not sinful, where you'd just be unclean, and it just had to do with hygiene and sanitation and stuff like that.
So when the Bible uses the word clean or unclean, it's not always talking about spiritually or morally clean.
It's not just talking about being clean, you know, just washing up and being clean in certain situations.
And that was one of them.
So let's keep reading here.
He says in verse number, let me find my place here.
He says in verse seven, now, a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day.
So this guy's kind of there seeing what's going on, kind of a spy, as it were.
David shows up.
Does the Himalek know that David's on the run from the law here, running from King Saul?
He has no idea.
David told him a bogus story.
So is it really a Himalek?
Could Saul really get mad at the Himalek here?
No, because David is telling a Himalek.
And obviously, David should not have lied here.
But David lies to him and says, look, I'm on an errand for the king.
He commanded me to be here.
So a Himalek just thinks, oh, OK, well, yeah, I'll help him out.
Well, this guy, Deoeg the Edomite, he's one of Saul's closest advisors.
He's there seeing this whole thing take place.
He's a witness to this whole thing.
And it says his name was Deoeg and Edomite, the cheapest of the herdmen that belonged to Saul.
And David said unto him, Amalek, is there not here under thine hands, spear or sword?
For I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste.
And the priest said, the sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah.
Behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod.
If thou wilt take that, take it, for there is none other save that here.
Now, this guy doesn't have much, does he?
He doesn't have any food, doesn't have any weapons.
But anyway, the sword of Goliath, remember, they're in God's house.
OK, they're at the tabernacle.
OK, the sword of Goliath is there basically as a monument, because this was when God delivered them
from the Philistines and performed that miracle where David slew Goliath, who was huge.
And he was just a young boy, a young man.
And so they had basically kept it on display in the house of God as like a trophy, Goliath's sword.
But, you know, Ahimelech can't really tell David, hey, you can't take that.
You know, it's like, well, hey, I'm the one who killed him, you know what I mean?
Like, you wouldn't have that if it wasn't for me.
So Ahimelech says, well, if you want to take it, you can't.
So now David is armed with the sword of Goliath.
It's probably a pretty big sword.
So he takes that with him and 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, Gath is in the land of the Philistines.
There are five major cities in the land of the Philistines, which modern day is called like the Gaza Strip
is what they call that area.
But it's that zone along the Mediterranean Sea there in the land of Israel.
And he goes to Gath.
Now, remember, what is he most famous for?
Killing Goliath, the Gittite and Gittite comes from the word Gath, Gittite, Gath.
So he's trying to get away from Saul.
So he crosses the border into the land of the Philistines.
But he's kind of going into the lion's den here out of the frying pan into the fire.
He's fleeing from Saul, but he flees into the country of his enemies.
I guess he just didn't know where else to go because everybody knows him in Israel.
So he's trying to cross the border and get out of there.
So he goes down there and he goes to Achish, the king of Gath.
And remember, he's only got a couple of guys with him, just a couple of young men, like probably teenagers
or just servants and young guys with them helping him.
And it says David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath.
And the servants of Achish, verse 11, said to him, Is not this David, the king of the land?
Did they not sing one another of him in dances, saying, Saul has slain his thousands and David is ten thousands?
And David laid up these words in his heart and was sore afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.
So he goes down there and figures he's going to escape and so forth.
Well, everybody starts recognizing him.
He probably didn't expect that.
He gets down there and he starts hearing people say, hey, isn't this David?
Isn't this the king of the land where they even put him above Saul when they sang those songs?
So he lays up these words in his heart and he's thinking to himself, this isn't good.
And he was sore afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.
He's thinking, they're going to kill me down here.
So it says in verse 13, when he gets to his appointment with seeing Achish, king of Gath, it says he changed his behavior before them
and feigned himself mad in their hands, mad as in insane.
So he pretends to be crazy because he doesn't want to be killed.
So I don't know why he thought to do this,
but he feigned himself mad in the hands and scrabbled on the doors of the gate and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
So he's literally drooling on himself and just acting like a crazy person.
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 mad men that you have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence?
Shall this fellow come into my house?
I get this guy out of here.
So he basically wants to be sent away because at first he's showing up defecting, as it were, under the Philistines.
Like he's going to them saying, hey, my own country is trying to kill me, so I'm going to be your servant.
That was his original plan because later he's going to do that.
Later on in the book of 1 Samuel, once he's got 600 men in his in his basic band or gang or whatever you want to call it, of troops.
When he's got 600 men following him, he eventually goes back to Gath and this time, you know, all of a sudden he's not crazy and he shows up and he offers to just, you know, defect unto the Philistines and to join up with them.
Now, this is something that people have done throughout history.
You know, a great general or a powerful man will, you know, switch sides, as it were, and defect unto the other side.
That's what David was attempting to do here.
But at this point, he didn't feel comfortable doing it.
Maybe when he had 600 troops behind him, he felt a little more comfortable.
OK, but at this point, he decides instead he changes his mind, changes his behavior, starts slobbering and acting like a crazy person in order to be kicked out and sent away.
And, you know, it worked.
So then he basically flees and then look at verse one of the next chapter.
It says, David, therefore, departed thence and escaped to the cave of Adullam.
And when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him.
So he realized that was a bad idea.
He goes back into the land of Israel.
Now, what's going to happen later in the book, of course, is that really in the next chapter, Saul is going to end up killing Ahimelech, killing everybody in that whole town that had helped David.
And Ahimelech tells him, I didn't even know he said he was on an errand for you.
And he's like, Saul's like, you're giving him weapons, you know, you're sending them away, you helped him escape.
And Ahimelech is like, I thought he was your faithful servant.
I didn't even know there was anything wrong.
And Saul ends up finding out from that guy, Doeg the Edomite.
Yeah, he gave him a sword.
He did this. And Doeg even lies and basically exaggerates Ahimelech's role in the thing.
And then Doeg ends up slaughtering a bunch of innocent people in the town when Saul orders him to do so.
Saul orders them to kill the priests and Saul's troops refused to obey that order.
They say, we're not going to kill the priests of the Lord.
You know, these guys didn't do anything wrong.
But then this guy, Doeg the Edomite, is all too happy to comply.
You know, the foreigner, the foreign troop is there to kill all these innocent people or whatever and so forth.
That's in chapter 22.
So in chapter 21, we pretty much just see David just beginning to be on the run.
He's pretty much going to be on the run for the whole rest of the book here of 1 Samuel.
He's going to keep getting more people following him, though, and a lot of people are going to defect to him.
And he's going to fight a lot of battles against some of their enemies.
And he's going to keep escaping from Saul and so forth.
But this is where we just see him first on the run.
He's just got a couple of guys with him.
He eats the showbread at the temple.
You know, that happened for a reason.
So that Jesus could use that later to explain to the Pharisees and to us about the Sabbath day.
And then, of course, the story about him slobbering on himself and all that kind of stuff.
But let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, dear God, and thank you that we can rest on what Jesus has already done to save us.
We don't have to work our way to heaven or earn our way to heaven.
And that's the most important thing we could learn tonight if anyone here doesn't already know that.
That Jesus did everything for us to be saved.
Thank you so much for the gift of eternal life that you worked and paid for.
And, Father, I just pray that you would help us to honor you and serve you and read your word, dear God,
and not be caught like the Pharisees were where Jesus had to keep rebuking them, saying, have you not read?
Help us to have read and to know what we believe and why so that we'll not condemn the guiltless.
And in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Alright, we're going to sing one more song.