Storm Clouds, Part 2

You're hunted like an animal, you're thrown to the mat, you're kicked to the ground, you're squeezed by the pressures of light, and we do not lose hope.

How? Because he answers in the next phrase for this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Oh, this is real, it's tough, it's difficult, but I'm going to compare this to the coming glory and this becomes light and that becomes him. Where are you facing pressure in your life today?

And have you ever thought about this? What's God's purpose in allowing you to go through that difficult time? Are there lessons for you to learn? Well, King David faced difficulty and there were certainly some lessons for him to learn. Since his example from the Old Testament can help us today, we'll look at his life together here on Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen Davey takes us back to 1 Samuel 19 and 20 where we'll see two positive results that can come from facing desperate times.

This lesson is called Storm Clouds. If you're keeping a list, there are at least four treasures that David will lose throughout these next verses. In fact, if you noticed, first of all, David just lost his position. With that, his standing before the people, his leadership over the army, his life in the king's palace, his financial future, and that's just the beginning. Secondly, let me point out that he's going to effectively lose his wife. Now, in the next paragraph, David races home.

He eludes Saul's spear. Michael, the king's daughter, now his wife, had been that long, warns him, verse 11, the latter part, if you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed. She knows her father well.

She's heard the promises. She's watched them broken time after time again, and she knows now that her father isn't going to stop until David is dead. Now, what she does is devise a scheme where verse 13 tells us she places an idol that's there in the house in bed, puts goat's hair around like a wig and clothing on it to make it look like a man, and then says David is effectively sick, and he can't get out of bed. Now, frankly, I read that, and the first question I have in my mind is, what's Michael doing with an idol in the house, an image, a statue? The Hebrew word is terra-feme.

It's a household idol believed to bring good luck. That just kind of made me go off on a little tangent of study, but think about the fact that David has only recently married Michael. It may have come as a surprise to find out that she isn't like him, entirely, wholeheartedly, given over to the worship of the one true and living God. We're not told, but more than likely, this is a grievous surprise for David to learn that when Michael moved in, she moved her idols in with her.

So she puts one of them out on the bed and covers it up. Saul orders in verse 13 or verse 15 his messengers to go get David, and if he can't get out of bed because he's sick, just bring the bed with you and him in it so I can kill him. It's only then that they discover Michael's deception. What happens next will be more devastating to David than Michael's good luck idol.

Notice how she responds to her father. Verse 17, Saul said to Michael, why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go so that he escaped? Remember, Jonathan said, look, David's not your enemy. He didn't sin against you.

Why are you going to sin against him? Michael says, well, he said to me, let me go. Why should I kill you?

In other words, what choice did I have, Daddy? He said he was going to kill me if I didn't go along with his plan and give him a head start. She effectively agrees that David is the enemy and now adds public slander to the reputation and integrity of her husband. She says he was going to kill me. He could be a murderer.

I'm glad you rescued me. If you track their relationship through the scripture, you'll learn that things never are the same between them again. David has effectively lost his role, his position, his job, and he's now lost his wife. Maybe for you, it's a different version, different names, different characters, but those same storm clouds have gathered. Maybe recently. The sky was clear and the sun was out and suddenly storm clouds rolled in out of nowhere and blotted out the sun. Maybe you've walked in here today in the dark. You can understand, perhaps, for you it's been a while but you're still haunted by the unfairness, the injustice, the dishonesty, the betrayal, the lies, the sin against your reputation.

Maybe you live in this town because you have effectively fled and you're starting over. You slip into this scene long enough to recognize that for David, here his heart would have been broken and I would see frustration and anger but I would also see tears splashing down on his duffel bag as he packs his stuff in a hurry and with no time to really give anybody a decent goodbye. He crawls out a window and he runs.

He's going to run for a dozen years for doing the right thing. Now in verses 18 through chapter 20 and verse 1, David first runs to the only person who understands him. He doesn't run home. He doesn't run to his father, his mother. He doesn't run to his brothers. You can just imagine Eliab saying, yeah, that's what I figured. I knew you'd be back. You can't run there. He runs to Samuel and when he meets him, can you just hear the pathos and agony in these words, verse 18?

Now David fled and escaped and he came to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him and he and Samuel went and lived in Niah. That old prophet will understand. Isn't that great?

Isn't it true? Have you perhaps with storm clouds overhead found somebody that you could tell the blessing of another believer, a friend, how sweet a spiritual mentor is, some older battle savvy, life experienced individual. I remember talking to an old saint on one occasion and asking him about the firefight that he'd been in and how he felt and he said, well, these are old holes.

It's actually a dangerous thing to open up, isn't it? Paul opened up to the Corinthians with transparency and some are going to turn around and use it against him later but Samuel was safe. What a blessing. I can imagine that when they connected, got back together, David, as the text indicates, poured out his heart and old Samuel listened and I'm sure they talked well into the night. In fact, they decided to share an apartment. It's easy to miss but look at verse 18. It tells us they went and lived at Niah.

One archeological dig has given us a little insight into Niah. They found ancient remnants there of what we would call condominiums, houses built back-to-back sharing a wall, side-to-side, top-to-bottom. Many believe that these condominiums housed a number of the prophets of God and the context here seems to indicate that, all under the leadership of Samuel. So what you have is David reuniting with a spiritual mentor, moving in together and they're living now in an area where other men who love God live.

You can just feel David begin to catch his breath and stand back up. Now if I could summarize again the next few verses, Saul finds out where Samuel and David are living and he sends his palace police guard to arrest David and bring him back. When they arrive, God's Spirit puts his word into their mouths and they begin to prophesy. It's almost comical but you have these palace guards going down there to arrest David and they cannot help the Spirit of God who overwhelms them and they become prophets. Saul sends three groups out like that.

The same thing happens. He sends out the palace guard and they come back ordained into the ministry. So Saul effectively says, you know if you want to get something done, you got to go do it yourself, right? So Saul heads down there. Verse 23 says he shows up and the Spirit of God overwhelms him and he preaches a sermon that will last for 24 hours. Isn't that great? Oh, never mind.

Okay, 24 hours. By the way, the text tells us he takes off his royal clothing. Old Testament scholars believe that that is the Spirit of God impelling him to do what is effectively a symbol that he has indeed lost his kingly role. Now while Saul was preaching away, it gives David time to run. Verse 1 of chapter 20, there you have it again, David fled from Nihoth to Ramah.

Don't miss this here. David had finally found a place to rest. He'd found the kindred Spirit.

He'd found people that loved God like he did. He's gotten back up on his feet and then wham! Kicked to the ground again. In fact, in this instance, David loses another treasure. He's lost his job, his wife and home, and now he loses his spiritual mentor and leader. Listen, if there was ever a time when David was perplexed at his wits end, it would be now because he is. Now we're not told how, but he finds Jonathan and as soon as he sees Jonathan, he just gushes out with his confusion and his frustration and his pain. He says in verse 1, what have I done?

What is my guilt? What is my sin before your father that he seeks my life? Verse 2, Jonathan basically says, David, you're misreading it. I don't think my dad would want to kill you without telling me.

Let's hold up to sort of a blind optimism here, and that doesn't help. In fact, the last line of verse 3, David, it's as if he says, come on, Jonathan, truly wake up. As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death. I'm like a hunted animal and one wrong step.

I'm dead and I'm just staying one step ahead. Now what takes place throughout the remainder of chapter 20? I'll dip in and summarize here to get through this chapter, but what takes place is really this elaborate plan to convince Jonathan that Saul really wants to kill David. Jonathan has been able to change his father's mind once.

He's not even going to try this time. His dad is openly now defiantly attempting to kill David with his own hand. What he's going to try to do is just make sure of his father's lasting intentions, and it's not going to take long. See, Saul evidently assumes that David has left Samuel to return to the palace. Maybe, you know, Saul was impressed with his 24-hour sermon and he thinks that David was too, and he's fooled him and everybody else and God is really on his side. So in verse 26, by the time David misses his second meal at the table there with the king, Saul begins to ask questions. Jonathan delays, he denies, he attempts to deceive his father. By the way, the Bible does not condone Jonathan's plan or response. As you study the Bible, you ought to keep in mind that just because the Bible records something doesn't mean the Bible recommends something.

It's just reporting what happened. Saul, in fact, knows better anyway. Verse 30, he erupts. Look, he says to Jonathan, you son of a perverse, rebellious woman, do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother's nakedness? In other words, all the trouble your mother went through to bring you into this world, that was one big waste. Can you imagine?

Maybe you've experienced something like that. Those words ring in your ears. Saul is basically telling Jonathan his life isn't worth a nickel and in verse 33, right there, Saul hurled his spirit, Jonathan, to strike him. So now Jonathan knows without any doubt that his father is determined to put David to death. Jonathan has been willing to give his father the benefit of the doubt, to believe the best. He's courageously stood up for his friend. He's challenged his father's behavior. He's actually called it sin.

He's done everything he could do to bring about resolution. Isn't it, if we stop for just a moment again, isn't it encouraging to know that in a home where a father hates what is right and hates God, that there can be a son who loves what is right and loves God? Like father, like son, is not written in stone. And maybe you're proof of that. The power of God's grace in your life is amazing. Perhaps you have fled your past, so to speak, and you are determined by the grace of God and for the glory of God, you will not imitate your past. I'm proud of you. That's Jonathan who can become for you a courageous example. I remember a number of years ago my wife and I traveling listening to a cassette tape. Well, that dates me.

Like a VH track, whatever those things were. We were listening to the testimony of Charles Stanley, still pastoring. He was raised in an abusive home. His father had died when he was young, a little boy. His only memories of a father came from his stepfather, a brutal man, given to violent fits of anger.

As we listened, we were surprised to learn of this. In fact, Stanley recalled being chased around the dining room table by his stepfather, who was holding a knife in his hand. As he grew older, he began to return his stepfather's anger and threats and their arguments would turn into fistfights until Charles finally left home and talks about the path God took him through to help him deal with that father. Jonathan isn't really going to live long enough to deal with it. His is a tragic tale.

He'll stay faithful and loyal to his father. They will eventually die together in battle. This last paragraph of chapter 20 finds Jonathan and David, they're weeping together over their heartbreaking misfortune.

Apart from one brief meeting that will take place a year or so or two later, they'll never see each other again. David has lost his job. He's lost his home, his wife. He's lost his spiritual mentor and now he loses his closest friend. The intensity of the pressure on David over the course of these two chapters is incredible and now he is on the run again as a fugitive and an outlaw and you'd think it's about now that God ought to reach in there and say enough is enough. You've been kicked down enough. It's time.

Oh no, it'll be another 12 or 13 years. He'll eventually be hiding out in a cave. Let me make a couple of observations from these two chapters that are true to this day. This is what God was doing in his life.

This is what God is doing in your life even though the names and the circumstances may be different. First, desperate times have a way of redefining our sources of strength. They have a way of redefining our sources of strength. The truth is we think horizontally.

We hope horizontally. We tend to lean on temporary things. We tend to find our support in the wrong thing, a shallow thing, a temporary thing, a person, a direction. One author wrote, there's nothing wrong with leaning if you lean ultimately on the Lord.

Nothing wrong with a spiritual mentor or a friend or a spouse but lean ultimately on your refuge, the Lord. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China more than 100 years ago would write, the issue at hand is never the pressure but that the pressure presses me closer to Christ. When the pressure's on, are we driven to the telephone?

Are we driven to our friends? Are we driven ultimately to the scriptures and to our Lord? He's redefining where we find our strength. David would write in Psalm 59, this song forged out of the fire of these events we've just looked at. He says, you, O God, have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress. Samuel would be wonderful.

Jonathan was, boy, that was great, gracious. My home, my position, but ultimately you, O God, are my refuge and my fortress. Secondly, desperate times have a way of rewriting our list of priorities. Desperate times have a way of rewriting our list of priorities. When all the things are stripped away, when all things good or bad, we discover what really matters. When life doesn't play fair, we discover what matters in life. In fact, Paul finishes his rather transparent personal testimony to the Corinthians by saying something surprising. He comes to the end of that list and he says, so, we do not lose hope. You think, wait, I wasn't expecting that. You're hunted like an animal, you're thrown to the mat, you're kicked to the ground, you're squeezed by the pressures of life, and we do not lose hope.

How? Because he answers in the next phrase for this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Oh, this is real, it's tough, it's difficult, but I'm going to compare this to the coming glory and this becomes light and that becomes heavy. He says, we're not going to look around at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are unseen are eternal. In other words, look around you. Yes, let's be realistic.

People throw spears. We've got scars to prove it. Life doesn't deal fairly.

You seem to lose more than you keep, but this isn't all there is. This isn't the end. All of this is temporary.

Just wait. God will one day make everything right. God will one day show us how it fits together. God will one day make everything brand new. In fact, David writes in Psalm 59 with this perspective of prophetic vision, which is really the only thing at times when the storm clouds are so thick you can't see your way through.

And he writes, by the way, without his circumstances changing. He's still haunted, he's still hounded, he's still accused, he's still threatened, but he's looking ahead because he writes in Psalm 59, but you, oh Lord, laugh at them, my enemies. You hold all the nations in derision. Oh my strength, I will watch for you. I'm going to watch for you. For you, oh God, are my fortress, and I get this, my God in his steadfast love will meet me.

He begins to sing to himself. My God in his steadfast love will eventually show himself and meet me. He will do what's right. I will eventually experience the scales of justice being brought to balance.

His purposes will finally and ultimately be carried out, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow as we can see it, maybe not next year, but one day. One pastor who pastors out west by the name of Ken Dodge wrote of something that happened, it may sound trivial at first, but the punchline is profound. A man in his church had promised his eight-year-old boy they'd go fishing, and Frankie, the little boy, had been looking forward to it for days, and there hadn't been any rain for days, but it's Saturday dawn, wouldn't you know it? It was raining heavily, and it looked like it was going to continue raining all day long. So Frankie wandered around the house, and he'd peer out the window, this guy wrote, he'd grumble, his parents heard him complain, seems like the Lord would know that it would have been better to have rain yesterday than today. It just isn't right. He muttered that over and over again. It just isn't right.

It isn't right. About three o'clock in the afternoon, the rain stopped, and the sun came out, and there was still a few hours for fishing. They loaded the gear up quickly and were off to the lake.

Whether it was the rain or something else, the fish were biting. When Frankie and his dad returned home, they had a full string to prepare for supper, and at supper they asked Frankie to pray. This eight-year-old agreed. He prayed and then concluded his prayer by making this profound admission, and Lord, I know I was upset earlier today. It was because I couldn't see far enough ahead. No matter how old you are, in life or in the faith, that just about sums up our trouble, doesn't it?

I couldn't see far enough ahead. The truth is, for some of you, it's easier than for others of you. Some of you are going to need to look all the way to that coming day.

There are things that will never be resolved. Here's this statement. Here's how to sing it. By the way, for all of us, the only way to be able to sing Psalm 59 is to totally surrender. Whether you're hiding out, fleeing, or catching your breath, only hiding in the fortress of God entirely allows you to be able to sing of his love and his protection in this coming day. To arrive where the apostle Paul did, who said, we are subjected to severe pressure, but we're not broken apart. We're at our wits end at times, but not entirely despondent. We feel like we're being hunted down like wild animals, but we know as we're running, we're not abandoned by God.

We've been thrown down to the mat, but we have not been pinned down permanently in defeat. So, we do not lose hope. We cling to the promises of God and we don't lose hope. If you joined us late, you've tuned in to Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. Visit our website, which you'll find at wisdomonline.org. While you're there, be sure and access this month's free resource. Stephen has written a booklet called Do Babies Really Go to Heaven When They Die?

That ebook is free this month and is available for you to download at wisdomonline.org. Thanks for tuning in today. We'll be back tomorrow at this same time. Be sure and tune in for more Wisdom for the Heart. We'll be back tomorrow at this same time. We'll be back tomorrow at this same time.