1Samuel 19:1-10
David Loses All
We noticed in our last studies how that David got a new life. He became a
soldier, a leader, and a husband. However, David did not get to keep those
things. As God gave them all to David, so the Lord allowed Saul to take them
all away.
That sounds very hard. God allowed all the precious things in David’s life
to be taken away. Someone might ask, "Why?" I cannot explain God’s plans.
Anyone who thinks he can is likely self-deluded. However, I have learned
some things.
1. I have learned that God is always in control.
2. I have learned that God’s plan contains many hardships.
3. I have learned that sometimes, we must just hang on.
This was one of those hang-on times for David. From David’s prospective, I don’t
see one good thing happening during this time period in his life.
I mentioned several times already that David’s journey to kingship would not be
instantaneous. It will be years before David would receive what God had
promised him. That was probably to keep David humble. Saul went from a farm
hand to a king and we know how that turned out. David’s journey will be through
persecution, abandonment, and discouragement.
Yet, that is the path God made for David. Let’s see what happens.
I. \\#1Sam 19:1-11\\ David loses his king.
A. David loved Saul, his king, and it appears that he would have been
happy to have served Saul all of his life.
1. Sadly, this was not to be.
2. This event will be the last time David will ever trust Saul enough
to turn his back on him!
B. His king, Saul, had already tried to kill David several times.
1. \\#1Sam 18:11\\ Twice Saul threw a javelin at him, twice.
2. \\#1Sam 18:13\\ Saul moved him to be captain over a thousand,
perhaps hoping David would be killed in battle.
3. \\#1Sam 18:25\\ Saul required 100 foreskins of the Philistines
as a dowry. The Bible tells us that Saul did this hoping David
would be killed.
C. \\#1Sam 19:1\\ All of these attempts had failed so Saul simply commands
his servants to kill David.
1. Obviously, Saul’s jealousy and demons have the better of him.
a. We all hear of abuses of authority. Because some people can,
they think its all right.
b. It is never right for an authority to abuse its power.
c. Every authority will have to answer to God for how they used
their authority. (That is a thought that makes me tremble.)
d. However, that does not make living under an abusive authority
any easier.
e. I would think that these days of living under an abusive
authority made King David a more compassionate leader.
2. \\#1Sam 19:2-7\\ Jonathan "pleads," perhaps the better terms is
reasons, for David’s life.
a. \\#1Sam 19:5\\ Jonathan lays out the arguments as to why
killing David would be a bad idea.
b. \\#1Sam 19:6-7\\ And Saul agrees and restores David for a
time.
c. \\#1Sam 19:8-10\\ However, it does not last.
(1) Once the battles are underway, David defeats the enemy and
Saul’s jealousy returns.
(2) Saul again tries to kill David with a javelin.
3. Important lesson - Reason cannot stop sin. Only righteousness can.
a. That is why sin is always gaining ground.
(1) Sin is immune to reason.
(2) If you defeat the liquor, gambling, prostitution,
pornography, and drug crowd today, they will be back
tomorrow.
(3) They will keep coming until they win.
b. Why?
(1) Reason cannot hold sin in check.
(2) Education, the birth place of reason, cannot hold sin
back.
(3) Even the truth, the bedrock of reason, cannot stop sin.
c. It takes a touch from God.
(1) Conviction must set in.
(2) Repentance must follow.
(3) These two can move God to recreate the heart, mind, and
soul.
(4) Only then can sin be stopped.
4. Jonathan did what a godly man should have done.
a. He stood for right and a friend.
b. He will do it again in the next chapter, with even less
results.
c. Without a change within the heart of Saul, Saul’s external
change could not last.
D. To us, it may seem like a small thing to lose your king. I do not
believe it was to David.
II. \\#1Sam 19:11-17\\ David loses his wife.
A. Saul decides to have David slain at home.
1. \\#1Sam 19:11\\ Here is another case where a woman seems to have
awareness of things the husband does not.
a. David had to know his life was in some kind of danger.
(1) He just fled from a javelin.
(2) However, Saul had never come after David before. Saul had
hurled his javelin, missed, and moved on. On this
occasion, he did not move on.
b. It is Michal who warns David and prepares a ruse to delay Saul,
her father.
2. At this point, it appears that Michal loves David.
a. We do not know very much about Michal.
b. She does help David over her own father.
c. However, whatever Michal felt for David will expire.
B. King Saul will give Michal to another man for a wife. \\#1Sam 25:44\\
1. Apparently, Michal will love him.
2. David will reclaim her several years after that. \\#2Sam 3:13-16\\
3. However, she will never love David and, eventually, David will set
her aside. \\#2Sam 6:16-23\\
C. David will never have the love of this woman again.
1. Remember, God allowed David’s wife to be taken from him.
2. This was not the result of misunderstandings, quarreling, or
unfaithfulness.
3. David’s wife was stolen from him.
4. No man is going to take that without his pride rising in him.
III. \\#1Sam 20:27-42\\ David literally loses everything.
A. At this point, David basically loses everything.
1. He has lost his position.
2. He has lost his wife.
3. He is losing his home.
4. He is leaving the remainder of his family.
5. To some, David even loses his reputation.
a. The Bible doesn’t tell us what lie King Saul spread about
David, but he had to give some reason as to why the national
hero had suddenly become one of the most wanted men in the
kingdom.
b. And we have Scriptural records of some believing the lie.
(i.e. Nabal \\#1Sam 25:10\\)
c. Of all the things that David lost, he seemsed to respond the
most violently when his name was slandered
\\# 1Sam 25:21-22\\.
B. Jonathan is not finished trying to help David.
1. This entire chapter is the record of Jonathan first trying to
defend Saul to David then trying to defend David to Saul.
2. Ultimately, Jonathan and David decide to test Saul.
3. The next day is the New Moon feast. Everyone was supposed to eat
with the king on that day. Jonathan and David made an excuse for
David to be gone to see how Saul would react. If he had no plans
to kill David, they supposed Saul would excuse him. If Saul had
planed to kill David at that feast, they believed he would somehow
reveal it.
3. \\#1Sam 20:30-34\\ Saul did!
C. Saul shows several things in this section.
1. Saul reveals what he thinks.
a. \\#1Sam 20:30-31\\ Saul knew who the next king of Israel
would be.
b. Saul was unstable but he was not stupid.
2. Saul shows how unstable he had become.
a. \\#1Sam 20:33\\ He tried to kill his own son!
b. Saul must have carried javelins with him everywhere he went.
c. Either he was much good with a javelin or else God was
protecting Saul’s intended targets.
D. \\#1Sam 20:32\\ This also reveals something about Jonathan.
1. Even when confronted with a painful truth (that he would not be
the next king of Israel), Jonathan still stood for righteousness.
2. Are there any like this man alive today? those more interested in
living for God than personal gain?
3. David may have become king on earth, but I wonder what reward
Jonathan got in heaven?
E. \\#1Sam 20:38, 42\\ After learning the truth, David was forced to
flee for his life.
1. We do not have dates concerning David’s life.
a. How old was David when he killed Goliath?
b. How long after Goliath slaying did David became a soldier?
c. How long did David serve Saul?
d. How long did David flee from Saul?
2. However, this marks the start of several discouraging years for
David.
a. God will give David a loyal army, but he will be alone,
separated from his family and home.
b. David will be blessed by God, but he will be hunted by Saul.
c. David will be revered by some and hated by others.
F. David will lose everything he had to be hunted as a criminal. This
will be a discouraging time in David’s life.
IV. \\#1Sam 19:18-24\\ It is important to notice, that David did not lose God,
and that God did not lose David.
A. What takes place on this day is strange.
1. \\#1Sam 19:18\\ David was on the run and fled to Samuel.
a. Samuel was very old by this time.
(1) He had grown sons before Saul became king.
(2) By now, Saul had been the king for twenty, thirty, or more
years.
b. There is no record of the conversation between the two.
c. It appears Samuel took David with him to Naioth.
d. It also appears that Naioth housed a school of prophets.
2. \\#1Sam 19:19-21\\ Saul, hearing that David was in Naioth, sent
men to take him.
a. However, they could not.
b. The men Saul sent were overcome with the Holy Spirit.
c. So much so that three different times, three different group
of men fell down under the influence of the Holy Spirit and
became to prophesy!
d. This is the most amazing display of the Holy Spirit's presence
in the Old Testament.
e. I believe God is showing David that all deliverance is not by
the sword and death. God is demonstrating that He can save
by the power of the Holy Ghost alone!
Zechariah 4:6 Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of
the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit,
saith the LORD of hosts.
f. I think we greatly under estimate what God can and will do.
(1) If this account was not in the Scripture, most would say
it is fictitious.
(2) We just need to remember that God does not need our
permission or understanding to do whatever He wants.
3. \\#1Sam 19:22-24\\ Saul decides to go get David himself.
a. Not only does Saul get overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit and
begin to prophesy, but he strips down naked to do it.
b. I imagine the place was for men only, but still, this is
strange!
c. The only thing I would add is that the text does not tell us
it was the Holy Spirit who stripped Saul.
d. There were demons working on him too.
4. This moving of the Holy Spirit allowed David to escape Saul at
that time.
B. What takes place on this day is not a permanent deliverance.
1. David’s escape is short lived. Saul keeps looking for him.
2. It will take some time, but David will rightly conclude that the
only way to escape from Saul is either death or leaving the land
of Israel. \\#1Sam 27:1\\
3. Why did God not deliver David?
a. We do not know.
b. The best we can do is to guess that it was because God was
honing him through trials.
4. However, we should note that God did not leave David in this
dilemma because of sin.
a. In fact, concerning David’s righteousness, the Scriptures keep
telling us that David was behaving wisely.
b. If anyone was guilty of sin, it was Saul. Yet, Saul seemed to
have life’s upper hand.
c. Friend, you cannot always judge a book by its cover!
C. What takes place on this day is an encouragement.
1. If God was not delivering David, what was He doing?
2. God was encouraging David.
3. David, like us, had some tough valleys to go through, however, he
did not have to go through them alone.
D. What takes place on this day is a warning.
1. God is not only encouraging David. He is also warning Saul.
2. Saul is fighting against the Almighty, and God wanted Saul to
know it.
3. The measurement of whether something is right or wrong is not what
God does, but what God says.
a. In this case, God did not deliver David.
b. However, what Saul was doing was still wrong.
c. If God had never delivered David, Saul was have still been
wrong and David would have still been right.
d. Sometimes, we just have to wait until we get to heaven to see
God’s justice, but we never have to wait to know what that
judgment is going to be.
e. God has told us what is right, and God has told us what is
wrong.
God sometimes has difficult plans for us. Like David, we don't always get the
play book that explains them. Sometimes, we just have to hang on until God sends
relief; however, no matter how bad the circumstances get, God has not forsaken us.
Just hang on. God is at work.
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