1 SAMUEL 30
Read 1 Samuel 30:1-31
The prophet Amos has a sermon illustration (Amos 5:19) in which a man encounters a lion; upon running away from the lion he runs straight into a bear. Out of the frying pan and into the fire we might say. David must have felt like the man in Amos’ story. Having managed to get out of a battle against his fellow countrymen, he heads for home and runs into another fight, this time with the Amalekites.
While David and his small group of troops were serving with the Philistines another group of God’s enemies, the Amalekites, raided their base and took off the women and children. And if the despair of the situation wasn’t bad enough already, some of his men started to turn against him. Things looked bleak for David until we read the end of verse 6, ‘But David found strength in the Lord his God’. It is the strength of the Lord that sees us through difficult times, we ourselves do not have the strength – but God’s strength is sufficient. The Psalms remind us of this time and time again; Psalm 46, for example, ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in times of trouble’.
What to do next? Pursue the raiding party and try to overtake them or accept that they have gone? David did the sensible thing and asked God. He did so using the services of a priest and the ephod, a device that God gave to the Israelite priesthood to enable them to determine God’s will. Through God’s providence David learned the whereabouts of the Amalekites and managed to rescue the kidnapped wives and children. We don’t have a priesthood or an ephod; we have something better. We have a priest greater than Abiathar in this story, ‘we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God’ (Hebrews 4:14). Because we have such a priest, we can ‘confidently draw near to the throne of grace, receive mercy and find grace in times of need’ (Hebrews 4:16). We may not always get precise answers to our questions but we will receive grace – which often will extend beyond our immediate situation.
At the end of the story we see David reflecting God’s grace in how he dealt with his men. Some of the troops were so exhausted that they were unable to join in the pursuit of the Amalekites. When those that did take part in rescuing the captive women and children and getting some plunder as well returned, they were not inclined to share it with those who were too exhausted to join them. ‘Because they did not come with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered’, they said (v22) – they were happy to return the children and wives, just not to allow them a share of the profits. David rejected this attitude, saying that what was gained was what God had given them. There is a difference in attitude here. For the greedy troops the gain was what they had plundered. In David’s eyes it was a gift from God, not what they had done, but the result of God’s grace. And as such it should be shared amongst all, regardless of contribution – that is what grace is all about.