that I am an inferior preacher to my dad. And so what you're used to, your diet, this will be good, but it won't be as good. The good news is that I don't have 79 handwritten pages. This is going to be a 45-ish minute sermon, not an hour and five-ish minute sermon. And so I will get you guys out before evening service. No. I am excited and honored to bring the word. You know this probably, but you're one of the warmest, most joyful churches on planet earth. And every time I come back, I'm reminded of that. I love being greeted with a holy kiss. I love the hugs. I love the smiles. I love you. And I love that you have a hunger for the meat of the word of God. And so it's an honor to take a few moments to spend time in 1 Samuel chapter 29. So turn in your copy of God's Word to 1 Samuel 29. There's a lot to unpack in our text, and it's a text I would venture to say many of us would be unfamiliar with. And so here's our game plan. It's not a very long text, so I'm going to read through it in its entirety. And as I read, I'm going to stop and I'm going to give us some context clues. I'm going to make some connections in the book of First Samuel, and I just want to get a real meat and potatoes handle on what exactly occurs in this chapter in First Samuel 29. And then briefly, we're going to tackle two interpretive questions. or dilemmas in this text, and then we're going to conclude with some theological application and implication from this text. So we're going to read and try to understand the facts, and then we're going to ask some hermeneutical interpretive questions, and then we're going to conclude with some theological application, and we're going to do all of that after we go to the Lord right now in a brief word of prayer. Lord, we are so prone to find our happiness in everything other than Jesus and what He has done for us. We are so prone to stand in our own strength. Lord, we are so prone to think too highly of ourselves. And Lord, would just all of those things be false of us right now? That we would not stand in our own strength? that we would not think too highly of ourselves, and that we would run to Jesus as the only source of joy and happiness. Lord, help your word to come alive to the hearers, and Lord, help me to stand not in my own strength, but in the strength that you provide. In Jesus' name, amen. 1 Samuel 29 and verse 1 follow along in the copy of God's word. Now the Philistines had gathered all their forces at Aphek, and the Israelites were encamped by the spring that is in Jezreel. Now we're a verse in, and we have to already stop for some context. It is not uncommon in Old Testament historical books, especially the book of 1 Samuel, almost like a modern day movie, for the author to pause a narrative, dip under it, develop a subplot, or develop the narrative from a different angle, pause on that and then jump back to the original part from whence they left off. And that's what's happening here, right? First Samuel 29 chronologically gets us back to the end and first few verses, end of first Samuel 27 and first few verses of first Samuel 28. And then there's a pause. There's a break in the story where 28 takes us to Endor to summon Samuel from the dead to meet a witch with Saul and Jonathan. And now, again, 29 picks up right on the heels of where 27 ended. And so we have to ask, what is 1 Samuel 27 about? Because really, again, the story goes from 27 to 29 is one continuous story. Well, in 1 Samuel 27, I'll try to summarize that for you. Saul and David's relationship had reached a boiling point such that David actually flees to the land of the Philistines. And going all the way back to Judges and to Joshua, the Philistines were the sworn enemy of the people of God, right? There's animosity and hatred and battling that's happening between the Philistines and the people of Israel. And David, the king to be in Israel, leaves Israel because he's been on the run from Saul for so long. He leaves the cave life, running from Saul, and he finds haven in a territory in the land of the Philistines called Gath. And he finds haven specifically with a Philistine lord in Gath named Achish, okay? And in 27, he says, Achish, can we huddle down here for a little bit? And Achish says, yes. And David uses this time on Akish's land in Gath, in the Philistines' territory, as a launching point for these daily military raids. It says that he would go out and he would leave no one alive. He would go into villages and he would kill everyone. And he was attacking other enemies of Israel. He was attacking Canaanite. You know all the iths, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites. He was attacking these people. And then when he would come home, he would tell Akish, the Philistine, we've been out attacking tribes and villages in the land of Judah. We've been attacking the people of God. Israelites, right? And so he convinces Achish of this narrative that he's not going to be able to reconcile with Israel, right? The break with Saul has decidedly launched David into another camp. He has taken off the jersey of Israel and he has put on the jersey of the Philistines. He's made an himself an enemy of Israel and he convinces this, he convinces Achish of this narrative so much so that Achish comes to him and says, hey David, I've given you respite, I've given you a safe haven, now I need to call in a favor. We're going to battle against the Israelites and I need you to march into battle with me against Israel. And David does not balk. David says, okay, I'm in. You're going to have the chance to see what I can do in battle up close and personal. And Achish says to David, very well, I make you my bodyguard for life. Look at 28 verse 2. David says, very well, you shall know what your servant can do. And Achish said to David, very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life. So that's their agreement. And that's where we find ourselves in 29 verse 1. David physically lining up for battle with Achish, positioning himself against Saul and Jonathan and Israel. Let's continue reading in verse 2. As the lords of the Philistines were passing on by hundreds and by thousands, and David and his men were passing on in the rear with Achish, the commanders of the Philistines said, what are these Hebrews doing here? And Achish said to the commanders of the Philistines, is this not David? the servant of Saul, king of Israel, who has been with me now for days and years. And I think Akish is exaggerating a little bit here because the text says David's been with Akish for about a year and four months. But he says, who's now been with me for days and years. And since he deserted to me, I have found no fault in him to this day. Verse four, but the commanders of the Philistines were angry with him. And the commanders of the Philistines said to him, Send the man back, that he may return to the place to which you have assigned him. He shall not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become an adversary to us. For how could this fellow reconcile himself to his lord, would it not be with the heads of the men here? is not this David of whom they sing to one another in dances. Saul has struck down his thousands and David his ten thousands. So these lords are passing by and they see David and to put it mildly, they are stupefied. There is not a fraction of a chance that they are letting David march down into battle with them. One thing I've learned being in small business, owning a small business, is that brand is everything. Brand is so important. And your brand is simply what do people think of when they hear your name, when they hear your business? David, maybe more so than anyone in the Old Testament, has branded himself successfully. His reputation goes before him. He is not to be messed with, and his name, his brand, is all but synonymous with dead Philistines, and these guys know it. Now, I'm not usually one to embellish the biblical text. You know, I don't really like when, you know, authors go off and kind of, and pastors go off and do a lot of guesswork as to what this might have looked like. Allow me to briefly break my own rule, extend some grace, and allow me to break my own rule because I think that we have enough biblical data to take a pretty good guess at what this pre-battle powwow might have sounded like amongst these Philistine lords. Like, I genuinely got a chuckle at the mental image of these noble pagan lords valiantly riding their horses into battle, preparing for battle. You can hear the horns. And then you can hear the disc scratch, because they see David and his men. And the horse comes to a screeching halt, and the guy says, oh, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Come here, is that David? I thought so, too. Hey, Akish, Akish, come here. Akish, buddy, come here. Hey, listen. I like you. You know I like you. You're a good guy. We go way back. Um, are you crazy? Like riddle me this. How short is your memory? I thought it was a little weird that you let David post up in gas, but it definitely wasn't expecting him here this morning going into battle with us. And then different people start to chime in and they say, I lost my cousin to David. And then one guy said, Hey, you remember when David wanted to marry Michael and Saul required the four skins of 200 Philistines? Well, someone told me it was only 100. He could have killed 100 of us, and he chose to circumcise 200 of us. This guy has branded himself. And another guy yells, I used to shoot dice with Goliath on Thursdays. He was a nice enough guy. And they say, guys, they literally have a song about him where he kills his Philistines by the 10,000s. Plus, what's more, Are you going to babysit him? Who's to say that he wouldn't make Saul real happy, real fast, with the heads of some of the men in this circle on a nice silver platter? He's at odds with Saul. You realize that, Akish? He could turn on us. My men are stressed enough as is. They don't need to babysit David and 600 fierce warriors, not knowing that they could turn on us on a dime. You are crazy. This is not happening. They know David's brand. David's brand never ends well for Philistines. And so they make a motion and someone seconds, all in favor of kicking David out of this battle. I, all opposed, and Achish is like, No, I still think he should come. And Akish is outvoted and they say, send David packing. Look at verse six. Then Akish called David and said to him, as the Lord lives, you have been honest. And to me it seems right that you should march out and in with me in the campaign, for I have found nothing wrong in you from the day of your coming to me to this day. Nevertheless, the lords do not approve of you. So go back now and go peaceably. so that you may not displease the Lord of the Philistines." And so Achish delivers this news to David. He says, you're out. The guys don't want you here. You must leave. And David, rather than saying, okay, I'll go, David actually pleads his case again. And David says in verse 8, But what have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day I entered your service until now that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my Lord the King? And Achish answered David and said, I know that you are as blameless in my sight as an angel of God. Nevertheless, the commanders of the Philistines have said, he shall not go up with us to the battle. So Achish is like, hey, if it's up to me, you're like an angel to me. I love you, man. But these guys, Put it mildly, they're not super thrilled, so you're out. Now then, verse 10, rise early in the morning with the servants of your Lord who came with you and start early in the morning and depart as soon as you have light. So David set out with his men early in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines. But the Philistines went up to Jezreel. Now, the plot is thickening. Do you remember 29.1? Look back at the beginning of chapter 29. Where are the Israelites? Say it out loud. They're camped by Jezreel. Now the Philistines are moving closer to battle. And where's David? David is leaving. David is set free. His obligations to go down into battle with the Philistines are gone. So the Philistines move closer to Israel and David leaves. So here's the question. What are we supposed to do with this text? Like, I feel like I know the narrative of David pretty well, and not just David and Goliath or David and Bathsheba, but like, I know the deep tracks on David's life. Like, I love studying the life of David. But the first time I read this text in preparation to preach the sermon, I was like, I think the ESV publishers might have slipped this in in the latest edition. Like, my dad was faithful to read through the Bible every year with us. I don't know that I've ever heard this story. If I had done a quiz, a true and false quiz on the life of David, and one of the statements was, David lined up with the Philistines to raise a sword against Saul and Jonathan in Israel, true or false? How many of you would have gotten that question right? I know I wouldn't have, right? Unfamiliar as it may be, I have loved living in this text and I hope I can convey a little bit of the joy and the excitement that the Lord has given me as I have waded around in this unique text. Two points, 1 Samuel 29 as dilemma and 1 Samuel 29 as providential mercy. First of all, 1 Samuel 29 as a dilemma. As I see it, There are two dilemmas at play here. On the one hand, there's David's dilemma, his own internal angst, the politics, the weighing of options, what's actually at stake for David and those persons for whom he is responsible in the land of Gath, and commentators and the text tell us It was about 600 fighting men and about 2,000 people in total that are with David, and he's responsible for them. And then closely related, but I think still a distinct dilemma, is what do we do with this text interpretively? How are we to read this text? Were any of you, when you first read this text, thinking, is David going to go? Yes, he got off the hook. And yes, Achish sent him away. But would he, at the end of the day, ultimately have gone down and fought against the Israelites? I wrestled with that for so long. So there's the historical dilemma, real time, real space, David making decisions, saving his hide. And then there's our interpretive hermeneutical dilemma. What's going on? in the mind of David, in the heart of David. What are his motives here? And I'm going to seek to paint a picture that is both balanced and faithful to the text. So first of all, David's dilemma. As backwards as it sounds, This pagan lord, Akish, has provided a much needed safe haven for David. David is slapped out of caves to live in, right? Saul has gone mad and employed everything at his disposal to make sure that David is dead, right? All resources thrown at killing David. Commentators guess that this section of David's life lasted at least 10 years, where he was at odds and on the run from Saul. And now finally, in Gath, of all places, the town that Goliath is from, David is for the first time not constantly looking over his shoulder, fearing for his life. David has successfully sold Achish on his version of events, that he and Israel are now enemies and there can be no reconciliation. David is fully on the other team and now he's faced with this choice. He can either make himself the sworn enemy of the one place in Gath, where he has finally felt some form of safety, or he can make himself an enemy of the elect people of God, the Israelites. He's got too many people to up and move in the middle of the night. He doesn't know if Saul is still searching for him. Is Saul well? What are the risks associated with going back to Israel? This is the very definition of having one's back squarely against the wall. He cannot confidently turn to the right or the left without the potential for a lot of bloodshed. You see, at least for me and maybe for you, a knee-jerk reaction to the face value reading of a text like this kind of makes you feel like, David, how could you let it get to this point? How could you do this? The dilemma feels self-imposed. We know David is a man of bloodshed. We know that he is prone to sin, right? And we're thinking he's made his bed and now he is laying in it. One commentator even says of David in this chapter that he was duplicitous, gross, and double-minded. But brothers and sisters, I think that may be a little hasty. And I think that we need to extend a little more grace to David. Zoom out. Put yourself in the hot air balloon. Get to the 30,000 foot view. David did not enjoy the luxury of sitting in an air-conditioned room with a sound system, with commentaries, thousands of years removed, knowing the end of the story. He didn't even know the luxury of a life where no one wanted him dead. Have any of you known one day where someone actively wanted you dead, much less 10 consecutive years where someone wants you dead? Up until this moment, lots of effort had gone into making sure that he felt at home precisely nowhere, right? And then there's just the reality of wartime ethics. They're not black and white, it's gray. And you don't know what you would do in any given Situation. Think about wartime ethics that Rahab employed with the spies on her roof, right? Or think about the Hebrew midwives. or think about a few chapters ago, David foaming at the mouth and pretending to be a crazy man. These things are never black and white. They're never straightforward. So I'm not offering David as this moral exemplar. I don't know that he should have been going out and committing these daily military raids. I don't know that he should have gone to Gath. I don't know, right? I'm not saying we should emulate him in all ways. I am saying none of us have any idea what he's going through. I truly think out of all the dilemmas of David life, you got the Joab and the Abner and the Absalom, and you have so many tight situations. This ranks up there as one of the most tense. You can cut the air with a knife. What is the man David to do? So that's David's dilemma. What about our dilemma? What's David going to do? It's not uncommon in First Samuel that the author will withhold the motives of the various players in the drama. The author is mainly concerned with what is happening. What are the historical facts? And he doesn't venture too often into why it happened or the internal thought processes of each character in the narrative. So some of this is going to admittedly be educated deduction. But I think we still have to ask, Is David really prepared to fight Israel or is he playing Achish like a fiddle? Here are the two ways of reading this briefly. One, David fully intended to fight for the enemy against the people of God and they would say David at face value in verse 2 of chapter 29 and in verse 8 of 29 says that he will, right? There's no clear mention otherwise. There's no explicit mention of deception. David shows up when he's sent away. He tries to stay even longer. And so just the face value reading of the text, David is going to fight against Israel. David refers in verse 8 to Achish as his Lord. People who read the text this way would say David's in a bad place spiritually. Survival mode has fully taken over, okay? It's like equivalent to a mother with starving children who goes out and prostitutes herself. She's not condoning her behavior. She's ashamed. She understands it's wrong, but like, My children are dying. I have to do what I have to do." You're in a spiritually dull and numb place and so you make compromises. The end justifies the means. I'm just in survival mode. Some people would say, David's not going to actively fight against Israel. He's going to go down there as a bodyguard for Achish. I don't find that compelling. I am a big Lord of the Rings fan, and I did think about the scene where Pippin is standing before Denethor in Gondor, and the forces of darkness are there, like they're coming against Gondor, and Pippin is fearing for his life. And so what does he do? He offers himself as a bodyguard to Denethor in a rash vow, and Gandalf is just standing there rolling his eyes like, are you kidding me? Why? Because when we fear for our life, we make rash vows. We do stupid things. And that's what they would say David is doing in this text. Now there's another way of reading this text which says David had no intention of fighting for the enemy against God's people. There's a consistent commitment on the part of David to never raise a hand against the Lord's anointed. David could have killed Saul on so many occasions before this, and he consistently chooses not to. At the beginning of 2 Samuel, David's going to kill the guy who says that he killed Saul, and then he's going to call a mourning for the death of Jonathan. And so we're to believe that he temporarily suspends that and that 1st Samuel 29 is just one text in which David's position on this has totally changed and he's totally willing to go fight against Saul and Jonathan. We know that David is misleading Achish saying we're going and we're killing towns and clans in Judah when in reality he's going and killing Canaanite clans, right? And we know, David knows, he's going to be king one day. And there are even many Psalms that commentators believe were written during this period of David's life. So we're to believe that he's writing inspired scripture, and the Lord is with him in this, and yet he is ready to fight against the people of God. Where do I land? I think David certainly makes some questionable decisions at best, right? But I think the second option is by far more compelling. At the end of the day, I don't see a world in which David is lifting a hand against his best friend, Jonathan. There's not a world in which he is compromising his principles and lifting a hand against the anointed one, Saul, right? It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense with what we know to be true of David from the rest of 1 Samuel. I think the noblemen, ironically, of the Philistines are spot on. I think Achish is the ancient equivalent of the aloof father in the sitcom who thinks that his kids are just swell while they're getting off with all kinds of horrible things behind his back. And not only does he not know, but he thinks that they're awesome. And Achish is just this aloof, silly guy who thinks that David is great. and the noblemen are barking up the right tree, right? I think that David is playing the double agent. That's as best I can tell in studying this text. Ultimately, the author doesn't let us in on every detail, every motive, but I think scripture is clear enough on its portrayal of David that he would not have lifted a hand against Israel. So it's in this dire strait that we begin to see a picture of who God is and how God operates when our backs are up against the wall. How God operates when we have nowhere to turn, when we are at the end of our rope. Which leads us to our second point, 1 Samuel 29, as a providential mercy. Assume with me. Put your thinking cap on. Assume with me we are on the right track on our David hypothesis. He was indeed deceiving Achish. That's actually really bad news. We should be afraid right now that he is deceiving Achish going into battle against Israel. Why? Because, remember, The two narratives? Because in 28, the previous chapter, we see a desperate unraveling Saul journey to a witch at Endor and conjure Samuel up from the dead and essentially sing to him the equivalent of Samuel, tell me something good. Like I need some good news, Samuel. I need some nugget of hope to grab onto. Please tell me some good news. And Samuel says, not only Do I not have good news for you? I have some very seriously grim news for you. Look at 1 Samuel 28 verse 19. Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. Remember, Israel's encamped right at Jezreel. and the Philistines are getting closer. The plot is thickening, and now you, the reader, have been tipped off to the fact that Israel's going down. It's like you're watching the movie, and you know that the police officer, who thinks he's driving to an innocent meetup for some intel, there's an ambush waiting for him. And as the movie watcher, you've been tipped off. The police officer doesn't know he's driving into an ambush, but 28 tells us Israel is going down. So there is this imminent threat to God's people, and God's man, the Anointed One, David, is caught in the literal crosshairs. How is he going to make it out? He is about to go down into battle against Israel. How does God intervene? Or, really, initially against Israel, but then against the Philistines, when Israel will be defeated. How does God intervene? Does He send a prophet? Does God do some miracle? Does He send an army of angels? Does He lead David to preach a sermon where all the Philistines go home and they repent? No. God intervenes by a council held by pagan noblemen. David's rescue comes through the military prowess and self-preservation of godless men. Matthew Henry said, thus their enmity befriended him when no friend he had was capable of doing him such a kindness. God quite literally turned their hatred of David into the very kindness that saved him. with enemies like this who needs friends. This isn't unique to 1 Samuel 29 either. This is how God operates. This is what He does. He employs some of the most vile, self-serving people with twisted motives to bring about His divinely appointed end. And we could look at a dozen of these quickly. Think about the story of Joseph. It's through the petty jealousy of his brothers. It's through the hatred of his brothers that God rescues his people and preserves the messianic line, right? Think about Judah and Tamar in this fit of licentious sensuality, right? self-indulgent lust, Judah impregnates his deceased son's daughter and then wants to put her to death for her promiscuity and God intervenes, right? And the line is preserved through Judah's sin. The line of Christ is, it continues through the self-preservation and self-indulgence of these wicked men. And I think that is what we have here. David's life is in the balance, and what is God doing? Like the Joseph narrative, like the Judah and Tamar narrative, like the Ruth and Boaz narrative, God is protecting and preserving the line of Christ. He is getting his man to the throne in David, and he's getting great David's greater son to the throne in Christ. And he does it by the hand of wicked men. And it's not just an Old Testament thing, right? Because Peter says as much In Acts 2, at Pentecost, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. So, providence, right? The providential mercy of God, this Jesus delivered up according to whose plan, whose foreknowledge? God's, right? Then Peter turns it and says, you crucified by the hands of lawless men. Whose plan? God's plan. Who crucified him? You and the hands of lawless men. The lawless men had a hand in the crucifixion. Simultaneously, the author of all things is working through these circumstances to bring about his divine appointment. And here in 1 Samuel 29, through the hands of lawless men, God rescues David from the snare. Amen? But what I would like to consider in our final minutes together is not merely the providence of God, because in and of itself, The providence of God isn't good news. If God's maniacal, if God's anything other than perfectly loving and perfectly holy, the providence of God standing alone is not good news for you and me. But we serve a God who is merciful in his providence. We serve a God that engages with his people in a particular and precious mercy in their time of need. You see, the place we find David in this text is sketchy at best, and unfaithful at worst. So are we reading in 1 Samuel 29 of David's sinning or of David's suffering? Do we interact with him as David the sinner or David the sufferer? Yes, and both. What was going to happen if David went down in the battle? Think about it. What was going to happen if David went down in a battle? And, second question, whose fault would it have been had it ended poorly? And I want to say, there is a level at which it doesn't matter. Because God purposed to show mercy before it ever got to that point. And God does all that He purposes. You see, regardless of your exact hermeneutic on the text and where you land on every decision and every nuance and every motive of David leading up to this point, I think your take-home pay is the same. What I can offer you out the door with no question, equivocation, qualification, or backpedaling is this. God is merciful and loves to rescue his people. Maybe it's David's foolishness. Maybe it's the sin of others. It's probably a mixture of both. But regardless of where you draw the fault lines, it doesn't matter all that much because God wanted to show mercy and he will have mercy on whom he wills. And when God intends to show mercy, he simply cannot be thwarted. And it's not just true of David, this is true of my life and it's true of your life. Maybe you've woken up in a scenario this morning, this week, so dark and daunting that you throw your hands on your head and you say, how in God's good green earth did I find myself here? How did I wake up with 2,000 people depending on me in gas, lining up for battle against the people of God. Maybe you're there right now and maybe like we're looking at David saying, is it unwise or is it ungodly or is it just unfortunate? You're having similar thoughts about your own circumstances, right? Where do I lay the blame? Did I do something wrong or is there just a bloodthirsty Saul that has backed me into this corner? Am I a sinner or a sufferer or just an idiot? Yes, you are all of those things. We are all all of those things at once. And it's this unholy intersection, this confluence of our sin and our suffering and our foolishness, where our God loves to do his best work. He loves to break in for sinning, suffering fools. This is where he comes. I'm not talking about a financial breakthrough. I'm not talking about being the best version of yourself. I'm not talking about living up to your full potential. I'm not talking about all your bad circumstances becoming good circumstances. I'm talking about a God who in Christ, mercifully, radically intervenes for his people when we are at our absolute lowest. You want some fantastic news? There is a gracious God who doesn't have to factor in all the stupid things you've done to get to this point in life. How freeing is that? Not that there's never any consequence for sin, there often is, but when God purposes to show you mercy, there is a very real sense in which what has happened up to that point doesn't matter because the creator of the universe is drawing near to you and he wants to give you the opposite of what you deserve and he's going to do just that. In a crowd this size, there's a strong likelihood that someone showed up in survival mode today. That someone showed up with their back against the wall, praying desperate prayers. Lord, help that paycheck to hit my bank account before rent is due. And you're refreshing and refreshing and refreshing. Where is the money? Lord, help my kids to text me back. Why don't they want a relationship with me? Lord, I didn't think I would still be addicted to alcohol. And I go home, and I drink more than I should, and no one knows the real me. Lord, I'm lonely. Everyone seems to have friends except for me. I'm dying. Lord, help me with this soul-crushing loneliness. Whatever it is, Listen to me. There is a sovereign God whose disposition is not to draw away, but whose disposition is to come in near to you in that moment. There's a sovereign God whose disposition is to get his people out of a jam and be with them in their lowest, most hopeless situations. You have mixed motives. God has mercy for that. Are you in survival mode? God desires to show you mercy. Have you made questionable decisions and fallen in with a bad crowd? God loves to show mercy to you. Listen to this. Are you simply overwhelmed by the weight of your sin? You are the exact candidate that God loves to show mercy to. We must be overwhelmed by the weight of our sin and throw ourselves at the mercy of Christ. So that's ultimately what we have in this text. God sovereignly intervenes to rescue David and that same God is alive today. That same God is in the business of rescuing. And if you've not experienced his rescue, let me tell you about it for just a moment. 2,000 years ago, God came to this earth. His name was Jesus the Christ, and he lived a perfect life. He lived a life that you could never live. and he intervened in a decisive way to save you from the penalty and power of your sin. What he did was he took the wrath of God. There was a debt, a legal debt that had been stacked up against you in your sin. You sinning, suffering idiot, you had racked up all this debt against the Lord and Christ Jesus himself bore the penalty for your sins on the cross some 2,000 years ago. That is divine intervention. That is the mercy of God at its finest. That is God delivering a people when they had nowhere to turn. Christian, let me give you one piece of practical advice that we could do, take away from a story like 1 Samuel 29. This is important for me. It's a huge reminder in my own walk. When you are talking with other Christians about their problems, think to yourself, I'm talking to a sinner and to a sufferer. And if all you're ever talking to in your mind is a sufferer, and you just offer a hug and a word of encouragement, but they really need a word of rebuke, you're doing some damage. Right? And if in your mind they're sharing with you about their marriage, about their parenting, about their finances, whatever it is, about their anxiety, and all you're just loading up with Bible verses like, oh, I know what this person's struggling with. They're a sinner and they need to take this verse and call me in the morning. You know, that's problematic. You're going to exacerbate the issue. So when you come to each other and when you're talking about the messy problems of life, We are all mixed bags, right? And there's secular psychology that says you're just a product of your environment, right? You are just your parents and your school system and your socioeconomic status and your race and yada yada. And so you really can't help the way you turned out, right? And you're just a sufferer. You're just a product of your environment. And then there's an equally unhelpful thing. where it treats everything as sin, right? And you never offer a shoulder to cry on, and you never lift someone up with a word of encouragement. And so as we're talking to one another about the sins and struggles of life, just ask yourself, what's my knee jerk? Where am I always going? And just say, what are the odds that I'm always talking to a sinner? What are the odds that I'm always talking to a sufferer? And treat people with discernment and pray for discernment because life is messy and we are such a mixed bag. Amen. Let me summarize this succinctly with two texts, where Paul and then David say it better than I could. 2 Timothy 2.13, if we are faithless, he remains what? Faithful. We're faithless, he's faithful. And then David himself draws our attention to the reality of God's providential mercy in a psalm that's already been read this morning. And I'm going to read it again, Psalm 124. And many commentators believe David writes this on the heels of 1 Samuel 29. And if you know 1 Samuel 30, it gets wilder. We don't have time for that this morning. But after 1 Samuel 29 and 1 Samuel 30, David writes this. Think about everything we've just talked about. Back up against the wall. How am I going to get out of this and listen to the words of this Psalm? If it had not been for the Lord who was on our side, Let Israel now say, if it had not been for the Lord who was on our side, when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive. When their anger was kindled against us, then the flood would have swept us away. The torrent would have gone over us. Then over us would have gone the raging waters. Blessed be the Lord who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. If you don't know the Lord, throw yourself at his mercy. Believer, if you do know the Lord, ask yourself the question, if it had not been for the Lord who was on your side, where would you be right now? Let's pray. Lord, use the foolishness of what is preached to bring about your divinely appointed ends. Help anything that was untrue or unhelpful to be quickly forgotten, and help anything that would make us happy in Jesus and happy in the gospel to take deep root. In Jesus' name, Amen.