McNeil, William: The Life Of David 05 ~ 1 Samuel 22;

And now, as we continue with our studies in the life of David, I turn your attention today to a particular incident in his life, as is recorded in the first book of Samuel, chapter twenty two, David in the cave of Adullam. First Samuel, chapter twenty two, reading at verse one: David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave Adullam. And when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them. There were with him about four hundred men. And David went thence to Mizpah of Moab. He said unto the king of Moab, Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth and be with you till I know what God will do for me. And he brought them before the king of Moab, and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the hold. And the prophet Gad said unto David, Abide not in the hold, depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. Then David departed and came into the forest of Harith. Now, further down the chapter at verse twenty, and one of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David, and Abiathar showed David that Saul had slain the Lord's priests. David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house. Abide thou with me, fear not, for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life, but with me thou shalt be in safeguard. I'm sure the Lord will bless to us the reading of these verses, and I trust you'll find time to read the whole of the chapter, First Samuel chapter twenty two. Let us bow for a moment of prayer. Again, our Father, we come to thee because we need thee. There's not a time that we read the Holy Scriptures, but thou dost make us conscious of the fact that apart from the help of thy Holy Spirit, we would never be able to understand what we read. But we thank thee for the promise that is made in thy word, that the Holy Spirit would come and guide us into all truth. We thank thee for his coming. We thank thee for his presence and for his power. Now we pray for his help in the understanding of the sacred word, and may thy blessing rest upon every listener at this time, for the Lord Jesus' sake. Amen. Now, it has often been said that you find the people of God in strange places. For example, now, how strange it is when you read of a man like Joseph, and you find him being put down a pit by his brethren. You find him being cast into a prison. Strange places for good people to be. But how often has it happened that people of God have been found in strange places? Go through the Old Testament and see how God's prophets were treated. When Moses tried to do something on behalf of his people, he had to run for his life, and he had to spend forty years in the backside of the desert, an unknown quantity. How often, then, have God's people, even up to the present time, been found in strange places? Why, of course, even in our day and generation, missionaries who were laboring for God for the benefit of other people in Tibet and in China and in other places found themselves arrested and cast into prison, not knowing what another day would bring forth. These were men of God. If you don't believe me, just get hold of a missionary book called A Thousand Miles of Miracle in China, and see what happened to missionaries there under the Boxer Rising movement. But throughout the word of God, you find many of God's people in strange places. Now, here we're faced here with a thing concerning David. Remember, David had been anointed by Samuel, was God's chosen man to be the king. David was to sit on the throne someday and rule over that special nation. But now we find him, while he has been anointed to be king, here we find him in exile. David under persecution. David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave Adullam. It seems to be that no matter what David did, no matter where he went, things seem to turn against him. Saul was after him. Saul was determined to bring David down and to destroy him. It seems to be that Saul was completely out of touch with the mind of God. Saul was afraid of David away. He thought that David was going to take his place, and so therefore he had to get rid of David. So David is being persecuted. He's being chased from place to place. He's in rejection, you might say, at this time. Yet he's David, the man after God's own heart. He's not sitting on a throne in a palace. Here he is, he's down in a cave, hiding from those that were persecuting him. A strange place for God's anointed to be, yet there he is. But you know, when you bring the lesson over to our present time, and you think of what has happened in this world, when you think of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he came unto his own, his own received him not. They rejected him. There was no place found where for him when he was born. He couldn't get a room in the inn, and Mary and Joseph had to go down to the place where they normally looked after the cattle or the sheep. And there he was born and cradled in a manger. No room for him in the inn, in his own city of Nazareth, at thirty years of age, when he preached his first sermon, the very people that knew him, those that had lived beside him, those who had grown up beside him, they chased him out of his own town, and if they had been able, they would have pushed him over the brow of the hill. He was unwanted in his own town. The time came when the leaders of the nation rejected him, handed him over to the Gentile powers to see him crucified on that center cross on Calvary's lone and rugged steep. Yes, he was rejected, all right, and we sometimes sing, our Lord is now rejected and by the world disowned, by the many still neglected and by the few enthroned. But soon he'll come in power, the hour is drawing nigh, for the crowning day is coming by and by. And that seems to express some great truths relative to the Lord Jesus Christ that are pictured for us here in the life of David as portrayed in first Samuel twenty two. Here we find God's anointed one, but instead of being accepted, instead of being hailed as their king, instead of being acknowledged as the man that God has provided for him, he's rejected, he's persecuted, he's cast out, and he's down in the cave of Adullam. Might I say this at this point? It would be far better to be with David in the cave of Adullam than to be with Saul in the royal palace. There were those who remained with Saul while Saul was rejected by God. You see, David in the cave of Adum was rejected by men, but was anointed by God. But Saul, on the other hand, was the one who was still ruling and reigning over men, but had been rejected by God. It's better to be with God's man in rejection than to be with the world's man in the place of authority. And so, therefore, the truth comes home to all our hearts and causes us to question ourselves as to where our allegiance really is. And so we find the man who's going to be the king in a state of rejection, hiding in the cave of Adullam, in a place of obscurity. However, I like to read the latter part of verse one when it says, when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. Now, it's delightful to think then that there comes a moment when his brethren accepted him, when his brethren recognized that he was God's anointed. Now, I cast your mind back to the time when we dealt with that incident, when Samuel went down to anoint one of the sons of Jesse, and they came out starting with the oldest, of course, and coming down, and seven of them had come, and Samuel says, no, it's not him, it's not him, and so on. He says, have you got another? His father said, oh yes, there's David, he's the youngest, but he's out looking after the sheep, he's of no consequence. But that was the one that was to be anointed. And then the day when he went up and took the bread and the cheeses to his brother, his brother Eliab, he said, what are you doing here? What, what have you done with the few sheep? He despised him. You see, his brethren looked down on him. He was just a little fellow, but now there's a change has taken place. David is now down in the cave of Adullam, and when his father's house heard of it, they went down thither to him. And so at last, his brethren have recognized him as God's anointed. I suggest to all my listeners today that the day will come when the very nation who rejected him and put him on a cross, who said, we have no king but Caesar, the day will come, and perhaps it's not very far away, when they shall look upon him whom they pierced, when they shall look into the face of the man they rejected, the man that was put on the center cross, and when they look upon him, they'll recognize him, and they'll bow to him. They'll acknowledge him as their king. Oh, my friend, he may have been rejected, he may have been cast out, but he'll come again. But in the time of rejection here, his brethren went down to him and all his father's house. Now, might I ask all who are listening, have you associated yourself with the man who has been rejected? Now note the personnel who identified themselves with David in the time of his rejection. It is most interesting, not only in verse one do we learn that his brethren went down in all his father's house, but when we come to verse two, we learn of three classes of people. It says that everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him, and he became a captain over them. There were with him about four hundred men. Most interesting to notice this, the personnel who associated or identified themselves with David during the time of his rejection. Those who were in distress. Now, if people are in distress, there's one thing they want, one thing they're looking for, and that is security. Now, where can they find security? Even today, you'll find that a great number of people are in a state of distress. When the Lord Jesus Christ was here on earth, he found a lot of people then who were distressed. That's the reason he said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Ye shall find rest unto your souls. So therefore, when the Lord was here on earth, he found people who were in a state of distress. And of course, his yoke was easy, his burden was light, and he called for people to come to him, and he guaranteed to give them rest or security. When David was down in the cave of Adullam, these people were in distress. Have you ever asked yourself, why were they in distress? Because of King Saul. King Saul had rebelled against God. Saul, who was supposed to be the leader, had turned away from divine principles, and it left the nation in a state of distress. It had reached the heart and touched the consciences, no doubt, of the people, and brought them down into a state of distress. They didn't know which way to turn, but when they heard that David was down in the cave of Adullam, they decided to throw in the lot with David. And those who suffered with him in the time of his rejection were those who were trained and ultimately were identified with him in the time of his glory and his reign. It's the same today. The Lord Jesus Christ may be in rejection, but those who are identified with him now and are prepared to accept him as savior and bow to him and take his leadership, the day will come that they who suffer with him shall also reign with him. It wasn't easy to go down and identify with David, the rejected one, when he was in the cave of Adullam, but they did, and many of them became his mighty men. Then again, there were those who were in debt. People in debt are seeking for a settlement. If a man is in debt and cannot meet his obligations, then he looks for someone who can help him, help him to come to a proper settlement and get the thing cleared. These men were in debt. Perhaps they had been overburdened with taxation from Saul, and they go down to David, the rejected king, and they would get a settlement with him. Do you realize that the Lord Jesus Christ is able to settle all your spiritual debts? We're all in debt to God. The great Apostle Paul said, I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, but as much as lieth in me, I am prepared, as it were, to discharge my responsibilities. But as sinners, we're not able to discharge our responsibilities. We're in debt to God. We cannot meet our liabilities, but if we cast ourselves upon the Lord Jesus Christ, he is unlimited with his supply. He can meet all our needs. He can meet all our spiritual needs. My friend, those who were in debt, they came to David. And then those who were discontented, that is, they were bitter of soul. Things had gone against them. They couldn't turn to the king. They couldn't turn to King Saul. He had been rejected by God. But now, those who were discontented went down. What does a discontented person need? That person is seeking for satisfaction. And those that were discontented went down and joined themselves to David. I ask you, my friend, can you find yourself in any of these three groups? Could you be classified, as it were, with those in distress, or those in debt, or those who are discontented, and you've tried everything you can, but you haven't turned to Christ yet? Why don't you, my friend, turn to him? The world rejected him, but he's ready to receive you. So therefore, we have the personnel who went down and joined themselves to David, the rejected one, while he was God's anointed, he was rejected by men. This little point comes out here and shows us the piety of David. At that time, when everything seemed to be against him, David had thoughts for the care of his parents. Remember, he was the youngest in the family, not the oldest, but while he was the youngest in the family, he had great thoughts and great concern for his parents, for their safety and for their welfare. And he went down, uh, to the king of Moab, and he says, let my father, my mother, I pray thee, come forth and be with you till I know what God will do for me. So he was anxious to do something for his parents. You know, that tells me that when I come over to the New Testament, there's a similar principle. Oh, that each of us would realize this today, that children have a responsibility to other parents. All we hear of today is the responsibility of parents to the children. But when the children grow up, what then? It's the children's turn to take a responsibility for the parents. But then again, I want you to notice not only his piety, I want you to notice his patience. At the end of verse three, he says, till I know what God will do for me. David was anxious to know what God would do for him, and David was willing to wait God's time, till I know what God will do for me. Now, some might have said, now, David, why don't you go and do something for yourself? But David knew that he had been anointed by Samuel the prophet. David knew that he was destined to take the throne, but he didn't know when. And so it seems that David is prepared just to exercise patience and cast everything upon God and wait till he would know, until he would see what God would do for him. Do you realize that the Lord Jesus Christ was rejected by this world, yet he had the power at that time. He could have overthrown his enemies. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, when they came to arrest him, he says, whom seek ye? And when they told him, he said, I am he. And they all fell backward to the ground, not forward. If they'd fallen forward, that would have been in adoration and in worship. They fell backward in absolute weakness. He could have overthrown all his enemies. He could have called for ten legions of angels. He could have called for thousands of angels to have come forth from heaven, to have overthrown all his enemies. He didn't do that. He committed himself to his father. He committed the whole case into the hand of God, his father, and even now he's seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty on high, patiently waiting until the time comes when his enemies shall be made his footstool. David also showed patience, till I know what God will do for me. That's a good lesson for all of us. You can place your case in God's hands and wait for God to do what you cannot do. Now remember, God will never do for you what you can do for yourself, but there are certain things we cannot do for ourselves, and in these respects we've got to wait to see what God will do. And he brought them before the king of Moab, and they dwelt with him all that while that David was in the hold. Now then, David was a rejected king, but when you come to verse five, you'll find that there's a prophet with them there. And the prophet came down, the prophet Gad said unto David, Abide not in the hold. And then when you come over to verse twenty one, you find that there's a priest with them there. See the combination down in the cave of Adullam. There's the king in rejection, there's the prophet that's with them, and there's the priest that's with them. It was far better to be with David in the cave of Adullam than to be with King Saul, the failure who was still in the palace and on the throne. Now, at this time, it's very interesting to notice that we have certain prayers of David that come to light, especially in Psalm fifty seven. Now, Psalm fifty seven is a psalm which was written while David was in this condition of rejection, when he fled from Saul and was in the cave. And here's what he says in his prayer: Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in thee. Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge until these calamities be overpassed. Oh, what a prayer. And then further down in that same psalm, here's what he says. My soul is among lions, and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword. Then he turns and says, be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, let thy glory be above all the earth. And then he says, my heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise. And he finishes the psalm by saying, be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, let thy glory be above the earth. David in the cave of Adullam, the rejected one who was destined to take the throne.