! Samuel 19:20-24

Then Saul sent messengers to take David, but when they saw the company of prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing and residing over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul; and they also prophesied.

1 Samuel 19:20

God’s ability to deliver us is not limited by our expectations or previous experience.

As David fled from Saul, he came to Ramah and took refuge with Samuel, the prophet. Samuel took David to Naioth (“the dwellings”), where the rest of the prophets resided. Now, it is quite likely that both Samuel and David were expecting that Saul would show some respect for his old mentor and accord David a measure of safety, as long as David was with Samuel. However, Saul is relentless, and once he knew where David was, he sent men to take him. It’s a very dangerous situation – full of stress and uncertainty. For if the king was willing to violate the sanctity of the school of the prophets and disrespect Samuel on his home ground, there would be no sanctuary for David there. It appears that Saul had reached the point where he no longer felt a need to maintain even the façade of righteousness. A man who shows no respect for God’s servants is a very dangerous man indeed.
So David faced another crisis: he had no resources of his own and the one place in Israel he expected to find safety was no longer safe. The situation appeared bleak and, evaluated from a purely human standpoint, it was exceedingly bleak. How often this is a part of our own experience! We exhaust our own resources and creativity trying to resolve a difficult circumstance but it remains unresolved. Then, we evaluate our situation, find it untenable and begin to wonder whether God is able to help us. In such circumstances it is easy to forget that God is not limited by our expectations. He is fully able to act on His own, and He delights to reveal His power and glory and creativity by delivering His people in unexpected ways. Whether He opens a path through the sea, causes food to rain down from heaven, blinds an entire army to protect His prophet or redeems His people through the death of His own Son, God loves to deliver by unexpected means. And when He does so, we ought to give Him all the glory.
In this situation, God unexpectedly caused His Spirit to fall upon the men sent after David and these men – warriors all – began to prophesy. There is a certain irony in this means of deliverance, since Saul was bent on following a path of vengeance that did not consider God at all, let along give Him glory. Yet, God delivered David by causing Saul’s minions to become so enraptured with the glory of God that they could do nothing but prophesy and speak His praise. It reminds me of an account I heard in Uganda: a demon-possessed man, loaded with magic fetishes, was sent into a church prayer meeting with the command to disrupt and, if possible, stop the meeting. But before he could destroy the work of God, this man was discovered, confronted and wonderfully delivered from his bondage.
Three times Saul sent men to capture David, and three times the Holy Spirit came upon them and kept them so busy prophesying that they were unable to accomplish their mission. Finally, in frustration, Saul went himself, and the same thing happened to him. In his ecstasy the king stripped off his robe, lay down before Samuel and prophesied for 24 hours straight. The rebellious king lay prostrate before God’s prophet – thereby demonstrating for all to see where the real power in Israel was. Only God could have done this. And it raises two issues, one theological and one practical.
Theologically, it is important for us to recognize that, while the Holy Spirit normally works in and through God’s people, He isn’t limited to that venue. Here we find a situation in which He “came upon” many people, some (perhaps most) of whom were not believers. The Spirit is able to work when and where He chooses – He is God, after all. And if He can choose to use a donkey to warn a rebellious prophet, He is certainly free to use a rebellious king to speak God’s praises. This account also ought to caution us about using miraculous experiences in a person’s life as a means of judging their spiritual condition. Saul was certainly no believer, yet he prophesied. Even the people of his time wondered at this and questioned Saul’s role as a prophet.
The practical issue requires us to recognize that God orchestrated this entire situation. It was not a matter of making do just to rescue David. God knew that David would need an unshakeable confidence in God’s ability to deliver him. He was teaching the future king of Israel to trust Him implicitly and to know that no situation is beyond God’s ability to deliver. He was teaching David to wait on God’s timing and to expect the unexpected where God was concerned. These themes abound in David’s Psalms, and they are truths that we need to hear regularly.
He is the same God still. And these lessons are ones that we also must learn if we hope to become men and women after God’s own heart. The God who spoke this wonderfully diverse creation into existence and who has given us many examples of His ability to deliver by the most unexpected means is not limited in His creativity toward us and our circumstances. The One who gave His own Son to redeem us will surely deliver His people as He sees best. Trust Him and wait in faith for Him to come. Troubles, sin – even death – cannot limit Him in the accomplishing of His will for us. God is a refuge for us.

1 Samuel 19:18,19

Now David fled and escaped and came to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in Naioth.

1 Samuel 19:18

God does not intend for his people to stand alone against adversity.

David was on the run from the wrath of Saul. He could have fled to any number of places, but he chose to seek out Samuel. Perhaps unconsciously, David’s heart led him to the one place in all Israel where he would be safe. Saul had been a student of Samuel and surely the king would respect the prophet. Why didn’t David go home? Well, it was the most obvious place for Saul to look and, most likely, David had no desire to bring trouble upon his family. Besides, his family wasn’t known for its spiritual maturity. Perhaps they still had a hard time with David’s rapid rise to prominence.

Some sources indicate that David had been instructed for a time by Samuel in Ramah. If so, it would have been natural for David to seek refuge there. We know that Samuel kept a school for the “prophets” in that town. This may have been a kind of educational institution, but more likely it was a group of men dedicated to the service of the Lord – something like a monastery. The “Naioth” were dwellings, perhaps dormitories for the students. So, after David had recounted all of Saul’s actions, Samuel and David went up to the “campus.” Samuel knew that David needed the company of God’s people, and so he brought him to the prophets.

The point here is that help and safety are found in the company of God’s people. God didn’t intend for us to stand alone against the world, the flesh and the devil. Rather, He “adds” His people to churches (Acts 2:47) because He knows we need the mutual support and accountability. We live in an excessively individualistic culture that sees little need for community. We try to hide our troubles and handle them on our own. And the superficial relationships that many people have with fellow Christians discourage transparency and hinder mutual ministry. David provides us with a valuable lesson because he was not afraid to admit he needed a refuge. With his heart for God, David instinctively knew that he needed godly support at this time. When in trouble, he ran to God’s people.

Where do you run when you’re in trouble – especially spiritual trouble? The common reaction is to run away from the church. Many believers don’t want God’s people to know that they’re having a difficult time with temptation or that they are struggling with sin. They fear that they will appear “unspiritual” and that other Christians will look down on them. Many struggling believers think they need to “get their act together” before they return to church. So often churches are viewed as places where people display their righteousness instead of being places where sinners (like you and me) can find help and safety. After all, who else should be your counselors and comforters? Even the Apostle Paul, with all his spiritual maturity, regularly asked for prayer from and sought out the ministry of God’s people. And wasn’t it one of the most difficult parts of Christ’s passion that He was left alone?

There was a time when a church building was considered a “refuge” – inviolate even for the civil authorities. There, the laws of Christ’s Kingdom prevailed, not the laws of the land. Often in those days, those unjustly accused would find refuge there. But it’s not the building; it’s the people of God who are to be the true refuge. They are your family, your support group. They are the ones to whom you can unburden yourself and from whom you ought to receive comfort and encouragement. (2 Cor. 1, Gal. 6:2) Whether in sin or adversity, the church ought to be our first resort, not our last.

May God give us hearts that are merciful and churches where we, as the people of God, provide a place of safety and encouragement for those in adversity. And in good times and bad, may Christ’s church be our refuge.

1 Samuel 19:11-17 & Psalm 59

“Deliver me from my enemies, O my God. Set me securely on high away from those who rise up against me.”
Psalm 59:1
“So Michal let David down through a window, and he went out and fled and escaped. And Michal took the household idol and laid it on the bed, and put a quilt of goats’ hair at its head, and covered it with clothes.”
1 Samuel 19:12,13

Times of severe stress and personal danger reveal where our trust lies.

Psalm 59 is one of those rare psalms that identifies the specific circumstances under which it was written. Despite his recent promise not to harm David (1 Sam. 19:6), when “the evil spirit from the Lord” came upon Saul again, he returned to his old ways and again attempted to pin David to the wall with a spear. When that didn’t work, Saul sent men to watch David’s house with instructions to kill him in the morning. In this circumstance, David chose to flee rather than fight and, with the help of his wife, he escaped. The account in 1 Samuel gives us no idea of David’s state of mind at this point. But the Holy Spirit wanted us to know how David felt as he ran for his life, and so He inspired David to write this psalm. When the two texts are compared, they provide us with a fascinating contrast between the faith of David and that of his wife, Michal.
Let’s consider the text in 1 Samuel first, since that is where we are told about Michal’s reaction in this stressful situation. Remember, she was Saul’s daughter and had been “given” to David as a reward for his killing of 200 Philistines. Whatever her feelings for David might have been, this account makes it quite clear that “the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.” Like her father, Michal reacted to stress not by turning to the Lord, but by resorting to subterfuge, deception and outright lies. It is quite likely that Michal wasn’t merely concerned about the safety of her husband, but also about her own. She had every right to be afraid of her father’s anger because Saul’s rage threatened even his own children. (See 20:32,33)
So Michal helped David out the window and then set her plan in motion. She took the large household idol, covered its head with goats’ hair, dressed it in David’s clothes and laid it in his place on the bed. There was no faith in Michal’s heart – her trust was in her own schemes. There was no loyalty in her either, for when she faced her father, she quickly accused David, the very one she was supposed to protect. She turned to her god in her time of need, but used it merely as a tool in working out her own plan. And, as the situation became more threatening, her fear only increased. In this, Michal was like many “fair weather” Christians – those who are fine with religion as long as things are going well. But once the stress mounts or danger closes in, they demonstrate by their behavior that their trust is in themselves and not in God. The result is that worry and fear are their only refuge.
In the 1 Samuel account, David appears to be almost passive, depending upon Michal for a plan of action. More than that, he seems to be complicit in her plan for deceiving Saul’s messengers. If we had only this history, we could easily imagine David stunned at the course of events and hoping that Michal’s plan would somehow delay his pursuers long enough for him to escape. But David’s psalm paints another picture entirely. Here we see the complaint of a godly man who has been falsely accused and betrayed. But we also see that same man consciously taking refuge in God alone. He tells the Lord about his circumstances and describes the insolent behavior of those who were sent to kill him. And then, in graphic detail, David prays for their destruction – calling upon God to exercise vengeance upon his enemies. Yet, underneath it all is the assurance that God is on His side, that God is his refuge and strength.
This psalm clearly shows us where David’s trust lay. He had not forgotten the Lord at all. In fact, he called upon the Lord to take note of his circumstances. The ESV has David crying out to God in Ps. 59:4 saying, “Awake, come to meet me, and see!” David’s reaction to this threat on his life is to turn to God – even as he fled from Saul’s men – and to take refuge in God as his “Strength” and his “Stronghold.” The psalm concludes with David’s fear removed and his vengeful spirit transformed into a song of praise. He had been reminded through prayer of God’s love for him and he promised that he would “sing aloud of God’s steadfast love in the morning.” (Ps. 59:16 ESV)
If David could find such strong consolation in God’s love with the relatively small amount of God’s Word that he possessed, surely we can do the same. When times of stress and danger confront us, we have the assurance of God’s eternal love for us manifested in the gift of His own Son. May God give us the grace to demonstrate by our words and actions that He is our refuge, especially in the most difficult situations of life.

March Newsletter

Since I'm still racing to catch up after returning from West Africa a week ago, I'm posting our monthly newsletter in lieu of the regular devotional on 1 Samuel. God willing, the devotionals will return next week.

Here's a picture of the Three Musketeers (Chuck, John and Dan) from Ghana.

- Dan

March 6, 2007

Dear Partners in Ministry,

How do you summarize a month as ministry-intensive and productive as February has been? Many of you have been receiving our email updates, so you know what happened while I was in West Africa. But even a weekly update can’t convey the sense of openness and opportunity that I experienced as I taught in Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia. The Lord is opening doors so that EPI can help meet the crying need for Biblically-trained church leaders in the developing world. And it is the leaders themselves who are crying out for more training! Repeatedly, in location after location, the comments and the conference evaluations centered on one consistent theme: “This is the kind of training we need; EPI must return.” Here are a few sample comments:

*“I would like to ask that such a conference be held twice, not even once, every year here in Bekwai. The notes you prepared [are] also a good material I can use to teach all types of people. Thank you!”

*“The Lord used this conference in my personal life to transform me. It has fortified me to preach to my congregation upon what I’ve learnt from this conference.”

*“It has been wonderful. You have opened our eyes. Please come back every year.”

*“The teachings are very good and effective, so we need extra next time.”

*“The time is too small. You have to extend it next time. We need you again.”

*“We have laid the foundation of the truth with little emphasis on the walls and roof. If we could have another time to build the house and furnish our building.”

During the four weeks of this trip, we ministered to nearly 500 church leaders, teaching them in public sessions and speaking with many of them individually. These leaders will, in turn, teach what they learned at the conferences to thousands more of God’s people. Thank God for providing these opportunities! And yet, we have only scratched the surface. Here is some of what God has set before us:

• In Ghana, I have taught in 5 venues, including the 2 new ones opened on this trip. There are 36 separate venues used by the Bible Training Centre for Pastors and all of them are open to EPI.
• The Shiloh Bible Training Centre in Kumasi, Ghana has asked us to bring an EPI team to this city of 1 ½ million to work with the 90+ pastoral students that pass through their doors every year. They have also offered EPI the use of their facility in this centrally-located city to provide seminary-level training for students from all over West Africa who want further training.
• We have also begun talking with the Presbyterian Church of Ghana – one of the larger denominations in the country – about providing training for their pastors and elders.
• The Servant Leadership Institute of Nigeria has asked EPI to return on a yearly basis (more frequently, if possible) to help teach and to mentor church leaders in Nigeria. In addition, they have contacts in Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast and would like to open doors for EPI into those French-speaking countries.
• I am corresponding with the head of the Bible Training Centre for Pastors in Liberia. They have some 150 pastors and church leaders in their program and are very interested in having EPI work with them.
• The newly-formed Presbyterian Church of Liberia has asked for EPI’s help as they seek to establish themselves as a Reformed, evangelical denomination that is committed to the authority of God’s Word. They will need regular training, mentoring, books, Sunday School curricula and financial help as they recover from the effects of a devastating civil war.
• There are two Christian schools in Liberia, one in Monrovia at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the other a Presbyterian boarding school in Todee, that need significant infusions of help and finances. They were given copies of our Christian Education curriculum and need help training their faculty.

This is truly “a large and effectual door that has been opened for us.” We could easily send 5 or 6 EPI teams to West Africa each year and still not fully meet the need. Thank the Lord, both John Herberich and Chuck Emerson are already planning to return to Ghana. They are both excellent teachers and were well-received by God’s people there.

Will you pray with us?

• Thank the Lord for safety and effective ministry during this past month.
• Praise for a brother who has been led to supply our need for a new laptop.
• Pray that, having opened these doors of opportunity, the Lord will supply the teachers to meet these needs.
• Thank the Lord for two new monthly supporting churches: Covenant Presbyterian in Chattanooga and Faith Presbyterian in Tacoma, WA.
• Ask the Lord to continue to provide our financial needs. He has done wonderful things and we are now close to 60% of full support.
• Pray for our Father’s blessing on a Missions Conference in Charleston, WV on March 24,25.

Thank you again for your prayers and for your enthusiastic support of this ministry. God is enabling us to bring Him glory as we labor together for Christ’s Kingdom.

Grace and peace,

Dan and Susan.