Let's open our Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 18. This is one of the momentous events in the life of David that many of us can either relate to or already haven't gone through or, if you wait long enough, it's going to happen. Kind of like when you think the worst is over. Maybe you've gone through cancer surgery, chemo radiation, and finally all the updates, and finally they say you're cancer free. And then it comes back with a vengeance. That's kind of what's going on in David's life, only it's not cancer. It's endless troubles. Starting in 1 Samuel chapter 18, I want to walk through the chapters to kind of frame the passage we're going to get to, which is the 29th, and I'm going to walk fast. Basically, the idea from chapter 18 through 29 is our struggles always frame God's faithfulness when we look back. When we're in them, we can't see it. It's just kind of like sawdust or dust dust. But when we are through the struggle and look back, The struggle puts a frame around how God was faithful in that area. Let me show you what I mean. Starting in chapter 18, these are the dark and lonely days beginning. Remember chapter 17, which we're not going to go back to, is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. That's David and Goliath. But David meteorically, in chapter 18, began to rise. He becomes the most well-known warrior. He's the giant killer. He's the musician to the king. Then he becomes a lieutenant to the king. Then he becomes the son-in-law to the king. And that's chapter 18 and 19. And by the time we get to chapter 20, David receives a notice from the king. Remember he throws the spear in chapter 19 and verse 11, and in chapter 20 King Saul is just livid and murderous and threatening. So David sees the Lord spare him, sees the Lord provide for him, sees the Lord meet all of his struggles. that he goes through, being away from home, having this new family, having the family problems with the father-in-law and all these things. But by the time we get to chapter 21, the first nine verses, David is actually under a death threat. And David is struggling. He had already written Psalm 59, Psalm 11, and Psalm 64 with all the shenanigans that Saul had put him through. But when we get to the first nine verses of chapter 21, David is going through Such hard times. If you remember, he runs for his life unarmed, with no food, and goes to the tent of the Lord and that whole situation with the murder by Saul of all of the priests in Nab, which comes in a later portion, but it's precipitated in these nine verses. But from that, David writes another psalm, Psalm 52. Then as we get to chapter 21, verse 10, David hits the first low point of all. David, if you remember, goes and tries to hide, as if you could hide being David, the most famous person in the country, more famous than the king. He goes back to Goliath's hometown. He thought that would be a great place to lay low for a while. He's captured in verse 10. He went to Achish, king of Gath. The servants, verse 11, see him. And you know the whole situation. David actually just kind of comes unglued. He starts scratching the doorposts and spitting up and acting crazy. And the king, of course, releases him. And from that terrible time he writes Psalm 34 and 56. But when he flees from Gath, He's already fled his family, his home, his wife, his people, and he went to the enemy, and he got in trouble there. And so now he just goes totally alone. And in that time, he writes, and we studied them, Psalm 13 and Psalm 40. And in 13 he says, I'm abandoned by God, and in Psalm 40 he says, I'm in the pits. That's where, down in the pits, you know, this is a pit situation. David is at the bottom. Well, when you get to chapter 22, things don't get any better. He leaves the pits and the abandonment and he moves into a cave. He becomes a caveman. And if you remember, he has hundreds of incredibly difficult criminals and societal rejects that move in with him. Kind of like, you know, you rent your house to one sweet little old lady and she brings in four generations of unsweet, not little and not old, you know, and they just tear the place up. And that's what's going on with David, with all this. And this becomes a defining time in his life. His cave troubles in 1 Samuel 22, the first four verses, this is the single most refining time that David has experienced. It becomes a defining moment for him. He writes more Psalms in that cave time than any other time in his life. It's actually inspirational for him to be under Constant pressure and constant stress. He writes Psalm 457, Psalm 141, and Psalm 142. And all of them are about how you deal with loneliness, how you deal with unrealized expectations, dashed hopes, and all that. that he went through. Well, from chapter 22 verse 5 all the way through, if you flip the page to chapter 24 and verse 16, and we took a long time to go through all this, but David in that passage suffers the loneliness of unemployment, I mean, he not only lost his job way back in chapter 19 when Saul threw the spear at him, that was kind of his pink slip, but he hasn't been working since then. He has an unsettled home life. That's an understatement. I mean, he doesn't know where he's going to sleep. He's sleeping in caves. He's sleeping outdoors. He's sleeping in jail cells when the Philistines have him. In fact, he doesn't sleep very well because he kind of dreams of being killed by Saul and Saul's troops. But from that time comes an even lower point. I mean, if you can get lower than death threats and abandonment and unemployment and being in the pits, For the first time, David's own people betray him for their gain. And that is a part of this where his own Judeans betray him. And from that, we saw David wrote Psalm 17, Psalm 63, one of the most beautiful psalms about David out in the desert, Psalm 31, Psalm 54. Then he moves on from that area to En Gedi, and recently we were looking at Psalm 35 and 36. Then when you look at chapter 25, and you remember that's where we were last time, in chapter 25 David now gets the short end of a deal. I mean, he made a business deal, he made a contract, he did the job, he didn't get paid. And you remember the whole Nabal and Abigail situation, and from that David writes Psalm 53. So, David has one more run-in with Saul in chapter 26, and in chapter 27, look what David does. David says in his heart, now I'm going to perish someday by the hand of Saul, so there's nothing better that I should do. I'm just going to leave. He actually got to a point where he said, I'm going back to the Philistines. Even though he went crazy the last time, he says going crazy is better. than thinking you're going to die at every moment. So David moves in with the Philistines in chapter 27. And then, I don't know if you realize, that's the very last time he sees his nemesis Saul. When in chapter 26 he says, I'm like a dead flea on a dead dog, leave me alone Saul. He never sees him again. When Saul said, I'm sorry my son, forgive me. Because Saul in chapter 28 consorts with the witch at Endor and you all know the terrible last supper he had with her and then he goes out into the night and dies from his wounds from the Philistines and the Amalekites. But let's get to chapter 29 because this is when David thought it couldn't get any worse. He thought that the worst was behind him. David had survived all that I just read from chapter 18 through chapter 28. Even Saul's last commando raid on him in chapter 26, so that by chapter 27 he's on his own. He's not chased anymore by Saul. David survived like a cancer victim that is finally finished at all. The surgery, the chemo, the radiation, and now declared cancer-free. David walks out into life weak, but he had made it out of the woods. And so life slowly began to return back to normal. David is able to regroup his family. He's able to get his new wife Abigail and all of his past wives and all their kids and all of his countless relatives and the group and the hundreds that chased around with him and they all got together. And it was Like before all those months and years of fear and turmoil and struggle, it was like the old days when life wasn't so horrible. And so David David thought about what a pathway those days had been. He had been captured and held by the Philistines. He'd been betrayed and nearly hunted to death by traitors from his own tribe. He'd survived month after month of murderous commando raids against him by his own father-in-law. He'd endured the emotional damage of job loss, the anxiety and frustration of not knowing what was next. And the Lord allowed David's life, after this kind of dive, to even out. And he goes into a period of time that must have been the sweetest days of his life. He's surrounded by friends. He's surrounded by allies. He's surrounded by his family. He comes home every night to the kids. It's just wonderful. With his new wife Abigail, plus all of his family from the other wives, David has gotten established. David is on his feet. David has been accepted. He's admired. He's even trusted now by his former enemies, the Philistines. Remember, he just says, I'm going to go back and risk my life with them. And now they accept him. And as a way of showing appreciation, Achish, who he had acted crazy in front of, now gives him his own city, Ziklag. And that's where he is in chapter 29. He is living in Ziklag. But there's one more little disaster that's going to come. He has a small town. He has a band of raiders. He has houses. He has wives. He has children. He has livestock. And work is going well. He's made peace with his former enemies, the Philistines. Things seem better than they've ever been for David. Saul is no longer on his trail. The Philistines are no longer a danger. And the time has come for him to make a living, focus on his family life, get some financial stability. That's what David thought was happening. But that exact moment was the calm just before the storm. That's why I said this is such an important passage and the psalm that flows out of it. Because there's almost this theme you see in people's lives. You see them just get to the point where they've got the disaster behind them, or the disease behind them, or the immense whatever they went through behind them, and it looks like everything's going well. Something worse happens. That's exactly where David is. One day, when life seemed to have returned to regularity, David gets a one-two punch. That must have seemed like the end of the world to him, because he wasn't expecting any kind of horrific thing to come in his life. It was a knockout pair of punches. In rapid succession, in chapter 29, David gets rejected by the Philistines. And he had worked so hard to have a place to live. And then, in chapter 30, he loses everything. Wives, children, houses, livestock, possessions. Boom. Gone. Just like that. Bang, bang. And from that, at the very bottom, he didn't think he could have gotten any lower, but at the very bottom of life, he writes perhaps one of the most beautiful of all of his Psalms. Let's look at chapter 29. You just follow along. Start in 1 Samuel 29. It says, The Philistines gathered together all their armies at Aphek. Remember, everything happened somewhere. Did you know that? Maybe we should repeat that, okay? Say that with me. Everything happened somewhere. That's one of the lessons of history. A lot of us, you know, people say, I don't like history. You know what history is about? The fact that everything happened somewhere. The light bulb that's lighting us tonight was invented somewhere. Electricity was understood, first, somewhere. And Aphek is where this event happened. And most of us never take the time to look on a map. But what you find with all of these events is that the Philistines lived down on the coastal plain. They lived in the sandy ground by the beach. They were kind of Californians. They were beach lovers. The Israelites were mountain people. And they loved to be up cultivating their vines and doing all of their olive trees and all their stuff up on the hills. They were hill people. And all the main cities you read about in the Bible are hills, you know, like Jerusalem and Bethel and all the way up. All the Israelite main cities are in the hill country. And so whenever you read one of these words, The Philistines would always come up the plains, through the valleys, to these tops of the valleys. And those would be places they would start massing their armies to make these invasions up into the hill country. So what this is saying is they've gathered at the top of the pass. And so they're up at Aphek. And the Israelites encamp by a fountain which is in Jezreel. And this is right over by Megiddo. If you know anything about biblical, it's in the biblical heartland. and the Lords of the Philistines pass by and review by hundreds and by thousands. So we're talking about, this is kind of like a World War II event where all five of the Lords of the Philistines had brought all of their troops, and there are thousands and thousands and thousands, and they're all marching in these nice little squares, you know, and they were Greek background, they're from Crete, and so they're really decked out and they have the most modern armor, they have iron, which the Israelites did not possess, and so any weapon the Israelites had, if they struck their weapon against the Philistines, the Israelite weapon broke, the Philistine weapon did not. So this must have been an amazing sight to see all these hundreds and thousands of troops. But David and his men, continuing in verse 2, pass by and review at the rear with Achish. Remember, there are five lords of the Philistines, one of each of the pentopolis of cities, and David was with the king of Gath, which was Achish. Verse 3, And the princes of Philistine said, What are those Hebrews doing here? And Achish said to the princes of Philistine, This is David, the servant of Saul, king of Israel, who has been with me all these days of these years. And to this day I've found no fault in him since he defected to me. Now, I read all that just to tell you this, David had won the confidence of his former enemy. Achish was the king of the city that had boasted the greatest warrior in history, Goliath. And David, as a little guy, had killed the biggest warrior of history. And Achish had lost his fighting machine, but what did he gain? Something better. He got the one that killed Goliath. Do you see how the wheels were running? He just said, wow. And I'll just get David. I get all these hundreds of men with him. They're all as good as he is. I want him on my side. And David wanted to be on his side. So David had won the confidence and the friendship of his former enemies. Just think what a public relations coup that was and how amazing it must have felt to David. that he was accepted. I mean, he was rejected everywhere else. He was rejected at home by his father-in-law. He was rejected by his brothers growing up. He was rejected by his own people that betrayed him. He was rejected by his nation who didn't follow him. He was rejected everywhere. And now someone loved him. You know, that happens to people all the time. And now, look what happens in verse 4. But the princes of the Philistines were angry with him. That's Achish. So the princes of the Philistines said to him, make this fellow return, that he may go back to the place which you have appointed for him. You know, that's a.k.a. Ziklag, you know, which was way, hundred and some miles away from where they were. I mean, get him as far away from this battle as possible is what they're saying. Go back to Ziklag. and do not let him go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he become our adversary. For with what could he reconcile himself to his master, if not with the heads of these men?" Verse 5, Is this not David, of whom they sang to one another in dances, saying, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands? And Achish called David and said to him, Surely as the Lord lives, you have been upright, and your going out and your coming in with me in the army is good in my sight. For to this day I have not found evil in you since the day of your coming to me. Nevertheless, the lords do not favor you, therefore return now, go in peace, that you may not displease the lords of the Philistines." Verse 8, so David said to Achish, but what have I done? And to this day, what have you found in your servant as long as I have been with you that I may not go and fight against the enemies of my Lord the King? And Achish answered and said to David, I know you're as good in my sight as an angel of God. Nevertheless, the princes of the Philistines have said, he shall not go to battle. with us to the battle. Now therefore rise early in the morning with your master's servants whom you have come with you and as soon as you're up early in the morning and have light depart. Verse 11, so David and his men rose early to depart in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines and the Philistines went up to Jezreel. You know what the lesson of verses 4 to 11 is? How quickly things change. I mean, David thought, finally, I have safety, I've got a harbor, I've got a refuge, I've got my city, the Philistines are like a great big wall around me, Saul will never get to me. See, David didn't know what was happening. He didn't know that God had planned for Saul's end in that battle. And God did not want David in that battle lest it be said that David took the kingdom. not God gave him the kingdom. But how quickly things change and David is once again rejected, but this time he has a place to go. He has a family to comfort and cheer him and something to live for. Did you think about that? See, he doesn't know what's happening yet. And so David leaves Jezreel far in the north, walks a hundred miles back to the desert, and it was hard, but it's okay. He's got a family. He's got wives. He's got children. He's got houses. He's got everything to look forward to. It's so good. This is the moment of truth. God allows David to face a totally unexpected disaster. And in the moment of deepest pain and hopelessness, David has learned his lesson. David does not go back to the pits of Psalm 40. He does not go back to the feeling God has abandoned him in Psalm 13. Instead, David clings to the Lord, so he walks back. Now, look at chapter 30, because this is David's acid test. The Lord, the Lord is preparing him because the kingdom is coming his way. David was promised as a little fellow by Samuel the prophet when he anointed his head and brought him in from the sheep fields. God had told David through the prophet that he would be the next king. And David needed one last preparation. And that's chapter 30. So in 1 Samuel 30, total loss is what God next offers to David. As we read these inspired words, Note an insight only God could give us, because there's an editorial note as I'm reading along, it's in verse 6, it's the last line of it. Only God could reveal that, because he wants us to see what's going on. Follow along in chapter 30. Now it happened when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day. So see David, it took three days to walk. about a hundred miles for David. He's a pretty good hiker. With all of his men, all his armaments, and all their accoutrements, they go for three days and go back to the desert. They came to Ziklag on the third day and the Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag, attacked Ziklag, burned it with fire, had taken captive the women and those who were with them from small to great. They did not kill anyone but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came into the city and there it was, burned with fire." So number one, He didn't know the little comment you just read. He didn't know anybody was alive. He came and every man, woman, child, every male servant, every child, and every wife, and every animal, and every building. It was just like a blitzkrieg. They were burned. But David and his men came to the city, verse 3, and there it was burned with fire, with their wives and sons and their daughters had been taken captive, which they didn't know at that moment. And David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep. That is one of the most moving verses. Can you, I mean, we can all feel that. They'd just been rejected. They came back to their only secure place. And it's gone. Amazing. verse 5 and David's two wives Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite had been taken captive now David was greatly distressed you see you can be a man after God's own heart and still have every emotion in the gamut I mean he that was the ultimate he probably got shingles or something you know from it just he just completely was distressed for the people spoke I mean he wasn't just emotionally distraught look at this the people spoke of stoning Him. Him. He's the one that got them the city. He's the one that protected him. He's the one that kept him from Saul. I mean, can you believe that? They thought of stoning him because the soul, verse 6, of all the people was grieves. It was like a collective horror movie. Every man for his sons and his daughters. But here is the most beautiful insight in this whole passage. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. What did he strengthen? Well, David's mind, his emotions, every fiber of his being, he had wept until he couldn't weep anymore. He was distraught. He was frazzled to the ultimate. But he learned something in Psalm 13, Psalm 40, Psalm 70, Psalm 56, Psalm 141, Psalm 142, Psalm 35, all those Psalms. You know what he learned? Look what it says in verse 6. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. Then David said to Abithar the priest, now starts coming the actions that were produced in the crucible, in the forge of adversity he'd gone through. He had learned his lesson in the pits. And what he learned is you grab the Lord and you start communicating with Him. As soon as there's disaster, grab the Lord. Get him and say, what do I do? What do I do? I'm not going to do this on my own. So verse 7, David said to Abiathar the priest, a Himalayan son, please bring the ephod here to me. And Abiathar brought the ephod to David, and David inquired of the Lord. His first response was to grab the Lord. And he said, shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, and the Lord said, pursue. You'll surely overtake them. And without fail, recover all. So see, David in that instant knew that everything was not lost. that they were still all alive and that God promised they'd get everything back. Just because he reached out to the Lord first. Verse 9, so David went, he and the 600 men who were with him, they came to the brook Besor. Where those stayed who were left behind, but David pursued he and four hundred men, for two hundred stayed behind. They were so weary they could not cross the brook Besor. By the way, you think the brook Besor, we're not talking about a little drainage ditch out here between our lawn and the bus stop? If you've ever been out in the Holy Land, we're talking about ravines that are as deep as from the ceiling down to here, and we're talking about steep like that. And we're talking about a wadi that has flash floods that go through that just carve out these intensely steep. And so they were up on one side, and there's this Grand Canyon kind of thing, and they had to clamber down like this, go through the water, and clamber back up the other side and go on. And 200 of them said, I will die. I will fall down. I will drown. I can't go." with the stuff. And they found an Egyptian when they went down through this brook, you know, this massive tank trap thing. They found the Egyptian in the field and they brought him to David and they gave him bread and he ate and they let him drink water. Verse 12, they gave him a piece of cake of figs and two clusters of raisins. So when he had eaten, his strength came back to him for he had eaten no bread, no drunk water for three days and three nights. And David said to him, to whom you belong and where are you from? And he said, I'm a young man from Egypt, servant of an Amalekite. First clue what's going on. David is starting to put this together. My master left me behind because three days ago I fell sick.